Ut Humiliter Opinor

Two things jumped out at me today: one good, one not:

1) Texas Governor Rick Perry announced that evacuees from Hurricane Katrina staying in the Astrodome will be able to attend Texas schools for the duration of their stay. Perry’s never been much of a governor, but this was a class act.

2) Gas prices. What can I say? Yesterday, the Chevron by my office was $2.62. This morning, it was $2.69. This evening it was $2.89. Virtually every station on my commute home had the same price as well. Ten percent in 24 hours. That’s just obscene. I know there’s a loss of capacity from the hurricane, but I have a hard time believing we lost that much. We keep hearing about China, cars, refineries, formulations, etc. but it’s hard to justify a 200% price hike in five years.

Tonight I saw this really fun commercial for IBM on their biometric Thinkpad. The commercial was really creative and got a chuckle from me - and should from anyone who grew up in the 70s. Click on this link and watch the one called “Biometrically secured wireless”.

The Idiot Test

Results Your points: 8 Congratulations, your points are above the average! Average grade: 4.4 ( 611970 Tests answered) Average grade Female: 4.2 ( 327040 Tests answered) Average grade Male: 4.7 ( 285076 Tests answered)

Careful reading is a must here.

Details are confidential in this case, but I find it ironic that a doctor is being disciplined for trying to save someone from themselves. If you don’t want help from a doctor, don’t go. If you don’t like what he says, don’t listen. If he’s got no bedside manner go to another practice.

In the meantime, expend your energy on exercising, not filing lawsuits.

Woman Offended by Doc’s Obesity Advice

Dr. Terry Bennett says he tells obese patients their weight is bad for their health and their love lives, but the lecture drove one patient to complain to the state. “I told a fat woman she was obese,” Bennett says. “I tried to get her attention. I told her, ‘You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.’ ” He says he wrote a letter of apology to the woman when he found out she was offended.

I wonder what the ACLU would say if we did this here.

Never mind, I think I can imagine the outrage.

Crackdown On Hate Peachers

The type of conduct to be outlawed includes inflammatory preaching and publishing views which foster hatred or foment terrorism. Mr Clarke said the new powers would be used in a “measured and targeted” way. “They are not intended to stifle free speech or legitimate debate about religions or other issues,” he said.

Bottom line, any deportation for political views is scary, but when web site owners are positively portraying suicide bombers it doesn’t take a lot of effort to realize they have moved beyond legitimate policital dissent.

Ramzy Baroud (editor of The Palestinian Chronicle and researcher for Aljazeera.net English has written a piece on Cindy Sheehan entitled She speaks for all of us:

While the clichéd understanding of the media’s role in the US is that it is an open, unhindered and evenly representative forum, the sad, albeit unsurprising truth is that the US mainstream media has always been a one-sided, drum-beating, chest-pounding, war-mongering medium

Somehow, I don’t think he’s ever read the New York Times.

What’s also remarkable is his attitude towards Sheehan - the “ordinary woman”:

while some champions of the anti-war movement are incapable of articulating a decisive and uncompromising agenda on ending the war in Iraq, Sheehan, this ordinary woman with a small tent, a few sandwiches and a cell phone has proven more unshakable than anti-war groups who claim tens of thousands of members. “We’re over there and we need to come home,” she told reporters on August 16. She contested the claim that ‘leaving Iraq in chaos’ is a non-option. “We need to let the Iraqi people handle their own business,” she said, arguing, according to Salon.com that “the US presence is the source of all violence there.”

Sheehan has been part of the anti-war movement for quite some time - a fact that is easily verified with a simple Google search. While she may have been “ordinary” a couple of years ago, she is now a part of a political movement.

My heart goes out to Sheehan for her loss, however, she does not speak for all Americans, nor all parents of those killed in action. For Baroud to portray her as such is just as biased as the media he tries to paint with broad strokes.

Here’s a neat story from today’s USA Today: Japanese-Americans interned in WW2 get diplomas. I particularly like the first quote. In my own experience, high school graduation was a much bigger deal to me than college graduation. Graduating in a class of a few hundred versus a few thousand makes a big difference. Also, the demographics are a lot closer, and the school experiences are much more common than college. I love my university and still have good friends from there, but high school graduation seems to live up to its billing: it’s the beginning of adulthood. Not everyone chooses college, so it’s not a cultural milestone the way high school graduation is.

I’m glad these men and women received their dimplomas from their original schools. It’s a dark chapter of our history and one I hope we never repeat, but at least this shows that we can try to correct ourselves.

“Some may consider a high school diploma just a piece of paper, but it’s a symbol to me,” Hoshizaki told the audience of several hundred. The diploma project is the result of legislation sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Sally Lieber allowing school districts to bestow diplomas to students interned by the government during World War II. Some 120,000 Japanese-Americans, most of them from California, were forced into camps. Since Lieber’s legislation passed last year, more than 400 people have received diplomas, some posthumously. In 1988, the U.S. government officially apologized for the internments and offered $20,000 to eligible survivors, but the diplomas have helped survivors make their experience relevant to the younger generations.

Here’s some more fuel to the fire for the abortion/stem cell debate. Fourteen weeks is before viability, but the harvested cells are apparently good for a medical procedure.

I can see a day coming where perhaps women will be offered money for the cells of an aborted fetus for medical purposes, which is a really scary proposition.

I am an admitted waffler on abortion. I find it personally repugnant, but have a hard time telling someone what to do in regards to personal health and moral issues. Stories like this give me pause because the end game - where we trade one potential life for another - just seems terrifying to contemplate.

Fetal skin cells help heal burn wounds in children

The research team, based at University Hospital of Lausanne, obtained a 4-cm skin donation from a 14-week aborted male fetus. Cells were expanded in culture and used to seed collagen sheets, and then grown for two more days before the sheets were applied to the burn wounds. The fetal cells were used to treat eight children considered to be candidates for traditional skin grafting, approximately 10 days after their injury. As the cells biodegraded, they were replaced every three to four days. “These cells stimulate spontaneous healing of the wound through secretion of multiple growth factors,” Hohlfeld said. The average time to healing was 15.3 days after the first cell application. The cosmetic and functional results “were excellent in all eight children,” who had little degradation of the new skin with no retraction or breakdown of the healed surfaces, the research team reports. The one patient who had dark skin had recovery of skin pigmentation. The researchers estimate that the one fetal skin donation could yield “several million” skin constructs. “We only need one very small biopsy once, giving us the potential to treat thousands of people,” Hohlfeld pointed out. He considers it possible to obtain effective skin cells from miscarriages of second trimester fetuses.

Apparently, I’m turning into a cranky old goat: How Cranky Are You?:

Your score is: 44 26-49. Suggests some indications of IMS. You may want to take the quiz again to see if things improve or get worse.

This is a quiz for “male menopause” or a midlife crisis. Supposedly, as testosterone drops, grumpiness increases. Is this really a surprise? Come on! Now, instead of feeling like sex seven days a week like I did in my twenties and early 30s, it’s more like 4-5 days. I’ve lost two days of desire - why wouldn’t I be grumpy about that?

Except, now it’s a “syndrome” - meaning that there’s treatment and counseling available. Oh, boy, I can’t wait. To replace my lost sex drive, I get to go pay a psychiatrist to tell them I don’t like being grumpy and that I wish I wanted more sex (I hope she’s pretty - maybe that will help).

What a joke this quiz is. I don’t think there’s many people out there who don’t feel tired, tense or unappreciated (or most of these categories) “sometimes”.

Now, I am feeling grumpy. I guess I better go get some therapy. Better yet, I’m going to go to bed with my wife. That’s real therapy, if you ask me.

The Right Coast ponders the question of bloggers and professors citing articles:

You can always tell yourself, maybe someday, someone will cite me. Maybe, but don’t count on it. After four years or so, your odds of getting cited are less and less. But it never hurts to hope.

Smalltime bloggers everywhere feel the same way. One day, perhaps Instapundit will notice me and then I’ll get the recoginition I deserve! Remember Sally Field: “You really LIKE me!”

(BTW, I suppose I should credit Instapundit for pointing me to the article.)