Molt Be Blog

Friday, July 21, 2006

Good blog find

everyday Issa seems like a good idea

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Stem Cell Bill Gets Bush's First Veto. Oh well, at least it made a great photo-op. If only every embryo could be adopted. If only every lab created embryo could be inserted into a surrogate mother and born into the world. If only these embryos could be frozen for a later time. All this makes me think that instead of embryos using for research to save Michael J. Fox (save him!), they're going to end up in the trash.

Bush and his allies say that frozen embryos are tantamount to humans, and therefore are no more appropriate for medical research than are death row inmates. "If this bill were to become law," Bush said yesterday, "American taxpayers would for the first time in our history be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos."

Others reject that analysis, saying it would make killers of every couple that produces an unused embryo, and every employee and official who allows fertility clinics to produce and store such embryos.

"If that's murder, how come the president allows that to continue?" asked Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). "Where is his outrage?" Harkin called the veto "a shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy and ignorance."

Free advice through music

Was just listening to this song, whose lryics' come from an essay which you can learn about here.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering
experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with
people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes
you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with
yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe
you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever
own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for
good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

Thursday, July 13, 2006

In-tur-esting

So a little bit earlier I read an article about how Israel had bombed the airport in Beirut and thought that it was pretty screwed up. I posted the link automatically from CNN via Blogger's "Blog This" button. The button grabs the title of the HTML page for the title of the blog post and the text of the hyperlink. You can see the post just below and the title is "Rockets hit Israel after airport attack - Jul 13, 2006", but the actual headline of the article on CNN is: "Israel attacks airports, major highway after Hezbollah lobs rockets"
For one thing, their timing seems to be in reverse for the article headline and title. For another thing, they appear to have used the title for a pro-Israel statment and the headline for the opposite. Now that I link to the article again I can see that they've changed the page title to match the headline... I'm pretty sure that Hezbollah attacked first, but it's surprising that they got it wrong in the first place.
Either way, I'm very anti-Israel in these latest actions. Capturing soldiers is wrong. It's terrible. But launching missles isnt' the solution and neither is bombing airports. If the last few decades of Israeli action have taught us anything, it's that heavy artillery isn't very good at stopping terrorism... or even stemming the tide. How can governments be this stupid and desperate?

Rockets hit Israel after airport attack - Jul 13, 2006

This is no good: Rockets hit Israel after airport attack.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Another picture from India

It was 100 degrees at midnight in New Delhi on July 2. If you don't have AC, pulling your bed into the alley outside is a more comfortable way to go. Even if you have AC, 8 hour blackouts have been plaguing the poorer (and less often the wealthier) sections of the city for more than a month.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

India Photos

R and I got back from India on Sunday afternoon. Here are some pictures. Captions/descriptions can be found on the Flickr site, if I haven't taken the time to enter them here.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Troop Withdrawal Just Before the November Mid-Term Elections?!?

Oh Course! That's why they're stalling in congress! The neo-cons will look like heros when they start evacuation troops from the shit-storm that they've put them in! It's all starting to make sense now! And it's allowing me to use as many exclamation points as I want! Hooray!
WashPost Story: Democrats Cite Report on Troop Cuts in Iraq
All the Google News hits.
Every article also seem to point to the fact that "a timetable for troop withdrawal could prove decisive in the November elections." The newspapers are on board to broadcast the headlines right before people go to the polls. And the neo-cons are ready to knockdown any timetable vote that doesn't come along at a politically opportune moment. It all makes sense in a sick, war-mongering, no-care-for-humanity kind of way.

And what great news to hear that Warren Buffet is giving $44 billion to charity. $44 BILLION. I mean, they say you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it, but this could test that theory... and definitely make a significant dent.

Friday, June 23, 2006

BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype

Watch it on You Tube
Probably useless, but nifty and nerdy.

Living Will

R and I were discussing living wills the other night. She explained that if she was ever predicted to remain in a vegetative state, she wanted the plug pulled (I can only imagine by me). Either because I'm not sure or because I felt like playing devil's advocate, I said I wouldn't want the plug pulled at all. I think that if someone else wants the plug pulled, more power to them.
As far as I'm concerned there are plenty of good reasons to want an not want the plug pulled. What if people in vegetative states really can comprehend everything that's going on around them? If you don't believe in an afterlife, I'd imagine that every waking moment on this earth should be pretty important to you. If you're even the tiniest bit cognizant, you'll probably want to hang around rather than suffocating for lack of respirator or starving for lack of feeding tube. For all we know, living without brain activity might be a state of ethereal being about which most of us can only dream. Then again, being that happy and not being able to actually think about how great it was or tell anyone about it probably would be a downer.
The disadvantages of a prolonged vegetative state run a bit long. There's are the no-talking, no-eating, no-doing-anything-without-help, no-thinking cons. R also brought up the stress-on-your-loved-ones con. Even worse that all of that would be the inability-to-scratch-itch-or-inform-anyone-of-itch-location con.
It's important too to draw a distinction between complete and total paralysis and being in a prolonged vegetative state, the main difference being that, in the latter case, Doctors don't believe that we're capable of thinking.
Hence the purpose of the living will. Best to do your thinking ahead of time rather than trying to do it with zero brain activity.
I've been successfully turned around by the whole itch-you-can't-scratch argument and hereby declare that I'd like to have that plug pulled.