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There was an article in the LA Time Magazine called West that talked about Raw Milk. That is it talked about milk that was not pasteurized. It mentions that there are enzymes naturally occurring in milk that allow people to digest milk. That means that the ability to tolerate Lactose is not a very big deal since people thousands of years ago presumably were not pasteurizing milk.

Our problem is cultural, there's such an anti-intellectual problem in schools and the rest of society, actively encourage exploration (you know, the heart of science) throughout the development of today's youth, and within one generation we'll be sorted.

Google. Microsoft. Apple. Yahoo. Amazon. Ebay. Biotech.

Automatically, most of these, if you mention them to some random person off the street, will bring up an image of smart nerds doing super smart nerdy things and getting rich. I think we've already forgotten the 90s. Being geek was ultimate chic. Being smart and having a good education was seen as the fast track to an early retirement into a life of luxury.

I just don't believe that our culture has been totally upended since that time. I do think that people have become disillusioned by the fact that now you can be brilliant and hard working, yet still priced out of the market by someone willing and able to do the same work for an order of magnitude less pay.

So no, I do not believe for a second it's a cultural problem. It is a broadly recognized problem that globalization helps the desperately poor and makes the rich ultra-richer, but screws the middle class. Americans would love to return to those heady, long ago days of the late 20th century where it seemed like being smart, curious, innovative and hard working was likely to be rewarded with a modicum of prosperity.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

As long as they keep putting out new shiny toys, what geek wouldn't want to work there?

From the LA Times, Oct. 6 -- "Google Puts Lid on New Products":

In another sign of Google Inc.'s growth from start-up to corporate behemoth, the company's top executives said Thursday that they had begun telling engineers to stop launching so many new services and instead focus on making existing ones work together better.

The shift is a major departure from Google's previous strategy of launching new services rapid-fire and highlights the 8-year-old company's struggle to stay focused during swift growth...

Google admitted this year that its internal audits discovered that the company had been spending too much time on new services to the detriment of its core search engine.

(Emphasis mine)

So it would appear that the days of "putting out new shiny toys" are coming to an end, to be replaced by days of consolidation and integration. That's a good decision from a business perspective, IMO (Google's product line is a mess), but it does mean that engineers' jobs at Google are going to start being less like academia-with-stock-options and more like a real job.

But of course, most people are well aware that Nintendo profits very nicely off each of their consoles sold, and that Sony probably profits pretty well too in the last few years on the PS2. This means that Apple will still profit even if its market share is someday similar to the PS2 and Gamecube and that Microsoft will continue selling Zunes for a loss even with the market lead. But this will obviously lead to the inevitable Iipod where you can change songs with the flick of a tiny remote.

The UCLA police officer videotaped last week using a Taser gun on a student also shot a homeless man at a campus study hall room three years ago and was earlier recommended for dismissal in connection with an alleged assault on fraternity row, authorities said.

In May 1990, he was accused of using his nightstick to choke someone who was hanging out on a Saturday in front of a UCLA fraternity. Kente S. Scott alleged that Duren confronted him while he was walking on the street outside the Theta Xi fraternity house. Scott sued the university, and according to court records, UCLA officials moved to have Duren dismissed from the police force. But after an independent administrative hearing, officials overturned the dismissal, suspending him for 90 days.

The cop was also "brown," by the way.

This punk was just trying to play the race card without justification, which only makes it harder for people with legitimate complaints to be taken seriously.

Not that the rest of the interaction was justified, or that racism doesn't exist -- of course it does, everywhere, and on both sides -- but this guy was singled out because he was actively refusing to comply with the policy, not because he was brown.

First, these "police officers" are already using excessive force on someone who is not a threat to anyone. If someone suddenly becomes an actual threat, how do you think the cops will react?

The LA Times is reporting that this is the third "excessive use of force" incident on that police officer's record. Also, anyone who is concerned about this type of police conduct can/should contact Chancellor Abrams and ask when the independent investigation is going to be completed.

I already contacted Chancellor Abrams' office, the FBI, and my members of Congress to request they investigate, and prosecute the officers responsible.

The UCLA police officer videotaped last week using a Taser gun on a student also shot a homeless man at a campus study hall room three years ago and was earlier recommended for dismissal in connection with an alleged assault on fraternity row, authorities said.

The employers seem to have an overly relaxed attitude towards their staff. I wonder how much they let their employees get away with before taking appropriate action.

UCLA Police Chief Karl Ross said the officers decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad after he went limp while they were escorting him out and urged other library patrons to join his resistance.

Mavrick Goodrich, a chemical engineering major who observed the incident, said Tabatabainejad shouted, "Am I the only martyr?"

The officers used the device in stun mode which affects only the part of the body being touched

We have new machines (from Seqoia) which do this. They will kick back any "wrong" ballot that cannot be counted. For instance, if you vote for two presidents it will tell you, and ask if you want to recast your vote. You always have the option of saying that you wanted to vote for two and not get counted. Here's a link about it in the LA Times... http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la- 110706glitches,0,2932115.story?coll=la-home-headli nes ...interesting.

"I've never heard of a university library that turned away the public."
UCLA will do more than turn you away, they'll taze your ass!!!
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cellcamera 16nov16,0,4794591.story?coll=la-home-headlines

You are correct, but it is only the perception of risk which has increased, not the actual risks. There are now 6 billion of us on this rock, and we hear about every bus accident and anal rape and then we fantasize about many more in our fiction on TV and in film.

In real life, the number of "horrible-things-that-happen per person per day" has decreased dramatically... our fertility hasn't changed much (we didn't all of a sudden start having triplets) except to decrease in some places, so how is it we are attaining such high population densities? (yes, I understand exponential growth... But this doesn't happen to all life (else we'd be drowning in bacteria), something normally limits populations. Could it be that, on average, we are safer than before (from all risks, famine & disease to murder at the hands of highway robbers)?

People who've never even spoken to someone on one of these sites are all obsessing about how many bad people there are in the world... We keep focusing on serial killers and terrorists--sheesh, enough! Time to get our risk evaluations straight, and maybe live a little on the side. Time to read "If only gay sex caused global warming" again...

Last I checked, in the last decade(decades?), just taking a ride in a stranger's car (and vice versa) was pretty much out of the question if you valued your ass.

You are correct, but it is only the perception of risk which has increased, not the actual risks. There are now 6 billion of us on this rock, and we hear about every bus accident and anal rape and then we fantasize about many more in our fiction on TV and in film.

In real life, the number of "horrible-things-that-happen per person per day" has decreased dramatically... our fertility hasn't changed much (we didn't all of a sudden start having triplets) except to decrease in some places, so how is it we are attaining such high population densities? (yes, I understand exponential growth... But this doesn't happen to all life (else we'd be drowning in bacteria), something normally limits populations. Could it be that, on average, we are safer than before (from all risks, famine & disease to murder at the hands of highway robbers)?

People who've never even spoken to someone on one of these sites are all obsessing about how many bad people there are in the world... We keep focusing on serial killers and terrorists--sheesh, enough! Time to get our risk evaluations straight, and maybe live a little on the side. Time to read "If only gay sex caused global warming" again...

Traywick [one-time heavy meth user] was diagnosed 21 years ago and has been healthy ever since, despite never having taken anti-HIV medications. Antibody tests demonstrate conclusively that he harbors the virus. But his immune system has controlled it so effectively that repeated blood assays have never shown a detectable level of the invader, even though Traywick still occasionally uses speed and engages in unprotected sex.

-HIV-Positive Group May Hold the Key to Defeating AIDS: Infected but not ill, 'elite controllers' make up less than 1% of those with the virus. They may hold the key to its cure. (emphasis added)

Happy to help:

• A study by the NAACP shows a consistent pattern of voter intimidation efforts by GOP campaigns. Dozens of instances of misinformation and intimidation in several states, and every one of them by Republican organizations.
• Republican Congressional candidate Tan Nguyen sent fraudulent letters to registered voters with latino last names claiming that naturalized citizens who attempted to vote would be jailed or deported.
• Kathleen Harris, the Republican Secretary of State of Florida instituted a "voter-cleansing" program which falsely listed at least eight thousand voters as felons, and thus ineligible. The disenfranchised resided almost exlusively in Democrat-leaning districts.

This is just a few minutes of asking google, and specifically looking for items reported by reputable national news sources, not just random political blogs. I'm quite certain that far more documentation of similar incidents is readily available.

He's referring to the fraudulent letters distributed by Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen.

The letters were sent to 14,000 registered voters, and claimed (completely falsely) that naturalized citizens are not only ineligible to vote, but would be jailed or deported if they showed up at the polls. They were printed in letterhead that looked deceptively like that of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and were signed by the completely fictional "Sergio Ramirez".

So I'm afraid that you're mistaken; these were naturalized citizens, registered voters, and the tactic was specifically designed to deceive them into forgoing their right to vote.

Gannett is also the owner/publisher of the various Military Times newspapers.

Tomorrow, the day before the US Congressional election, all the Military Times individual papers will publish a rare joint editorial calling for the immediate resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary. I don't know that those military papers have ever called for a Defense Sect'y to resign before, and surely not the day before an election. That editorial is aligned with its military readers, rather than its Pentagon and military contractor "suppliers" who both support Rumsfeld, and often report to him.

It looks like Gannett is choosing to plug in directly to its consumers to survive the ongoing shakeout of plummeting newspaper circulation. The real question about the "revolution" at major newspapers is not whether these Gannett moves are the beginning, but rather whether they're an exit strategy, and whether to victory.

This is an industry-wide battle between creatives and network/studio execs that goes way beyond this one show. Most of the unions completely messed up years ago negotiating residuals for the home markets (VHS and DVDs especially), so there's a LOT of resistence to giving away the farm this time. (Many writers, for example, in movie animation get zero residuals.) Unfortunately, there's a lot of momentum and precedents that resulted from the previous mistakes, so it's kind of an uphill battle for the writers, directors, actors guilds. The future gets even more complicated when writers, actors, and other artists work directly for the Internet, for phones, for games, etc. and when "reality" shows claim to not have writers at all or won't allow their writers to organize. Plus there's the issue of residuals for older content that wasn't even imagined when the shows were produced in the first place.

So yeah, it's a mess, and there's gonna be conflict in this arena for a while.

What do all of you think? Think it will cool the heels of these asshats?

"We're going to push this game at Christian kids to let them know there's a cool shooter game out there," said attorney Jack Thompson, an author and outspoken critic of video game violence. "Because of the Christian context, somehow it's OK? It's not OK. The context is irrelevant. It's a mass-killing game."

I believe this is competitive fallout. Google Eclipses Rivals With YouTube What Effect has the purchase had on Yahoo? Is Yahoo in Pain?

The big problem with this is that the SAT is not meant to be an example of a student's writing par excellence, but rather, given a difficult topic and a limited time, what can be produced. It's more of an analysis of the thought process and one's writing without the extra time allocated for editing and general "cleaning up" -- you're going to do well as long as you can make a convincing argument that is developed enough to actually stand on its own. It doesn't have to be perfect.

What does worry me is that, in 25 minutes, most bloggers could barely pull a coherent basis for an essay out of their ass. A 3?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/comment ary/la-op-sat3apr03,1,3742834.story

"There's a trick to this. The three bottom scores were easy to assign. A "1" was little more than a dribble of ungrammatical English, and a "2" was hardly more than that. A "3" was a well-meaning attempt to cobble three paragraphs together.

A "3" is the top rung of the bottom. If someone who writes daily online can't do better than "cobbling", regardless of the time limit, that really makes me wonder: given the time to develop, how would these essays have turned out? Maybe it's that a lot of bloggers are one-trick ponies and that the reason someone can write about some obscure subject each day is something akin to a suggestion.

Well aware that their findings were "explosive," the Singers sent their survey results to the heads of America's most prestigious cancer organizations and institutes. None responded. Like the cancer business, the bra business is huge. Multiply how many worldwide women buy several $25 bras every year and you end up with a multiple of the $6 billion-a-year US bra business.

Syd Singer says that establishment censorship of the bra-breast cancer connection is killing women. Pointing to the biggest commonality among breast cancer patients, he's emphatic that it's bra-squeezed lymphatics.

Going bra-less for all occasions, Soma began dressing to de-emphasize her breasts. She also began regular breast massage and bicycle riding, vitamin and herbal supplementation, and drinking only purified water.

Two months later, her lump disappeared.

At the first frightening sign of a lump, an angry Syd Singer says, "women should take their bras off before they take their breasts off." Why wait, when you can liberate your lymphatics now.

IF YOU MUST WEAR A BRA:

Push-up and sports bras are out. Choose loose-fitting cotton bras. Make sure you can slip two fingers under the shoulder-straps and side-panels. The higher the side-panels, the more severe the restriction of major lymph nodes. Don't wear this disastrous device to sleep. Take it off at home. Massage your breasts every time you remove your bra. Sing your lymphatics into health -- or at least breathe deeply.

According to this article , the Republicans in congress attached a measure to install radiation detectors in U.S. Ports and pushed it through early this morning. It is now awaiting Bush's signature.

Hopefully, this will backfire in November.

--
Last Minute Games On Capital Hill

Some people watch 5 or 6 hours of TV each day...

It may be worse than you think. According to this article I just read today, the average person watches 4 hours and 35 minutes of TV a day. If watching that much TV qualifies as addictive, then TV would have to qualify as most prevalent addiction out there.

Somali gunmen treat Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant better when confronted with Common Article 3.

This should not even be a discussion. Look who's lined up against the pro-torture legislation: generals, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, people who know what war is like better than we ever will.

This shouldn't be a discussion, not in this country. Here's the letter my wife wrote to our President and Congressmen:

I strongly oppose any legislation that would authorize indefinite detention, unfair trials and immunity for torture and cruel treatment. This is a nation of laws - keep it that way.

I support the Constitution of the U.S., which outlaws torture and guarantees due process of law to all accused. It says what our country may and may not do.

As the daughter, granddaughter, niece and sister-in-law of combat veterans, I support the Geneva Convention as it has been interpreted in the body of international law to date.

When I was an employee of the Defense Department I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the U.S. As a citizen, I take that obligation seriously. Do you?

My solution? Well, if I was self-employed, I'd go with a catastrophic health insurance plan- one were the yearly deductable is a hard $3000-5000. Until I reach that limit, I would pay everything. Over it, insurance pays.

Things that increase the cost of (rather than the demand for) health care:

4) Lack of preventative care. Due to high prices for health care, people put off visits to the doctor until the condition gets much worse, and therefore more expensive to treat.

5) Health insurance companies. A large part of their costs, as well as the costs of doctors and hospitals, are used arguing over what will and what will not be covered, and at what cost (if the company will continue to insure the patient: this story suggests that sometimes they just drop people when they get sick.)

Like the ABC movie "The Path To 9/11"?? Yeah, threatening to revoke a network's broadcast license because you disagree with the content of their programming isn't censorship.

Since when did "opposing censorship" imply supporting slanderous lies and partisan political porn? The movie blamed the Clinton administration for not authorizing strikes agaisnt bin Laden and blamed Clinton for not keeping his eye on the ball due to being distracted by the Monica Lewinsky affair. This is despite the fact that the 9/11 Commission report found exactly the opposite was true. You know: the fact finding, bipartisan organization.

Clinton was very focused on the hunt for bin Laden. No one would have refused a kill shot on him. In fact, I distinctly remember the uproar and cry that Clinton was trying to distract the nation from Lewinsky trial when he ordered two terrorist camps destroyed with a cruise missile strike.

That's slander and a deliberate, partisan distortion of the truth intended to affect the upcoming elections by blaming the a Democratic president for 9/11 written by a close friend of Rush Limbaugh. Good Lord! What is wrong with you, where you think that lies and distortions are just valid views that crazies "disagree with the content" of?

We wants licenses pulled for their blatant attempts to muddy the waters of history to shift blame for the benefit of the right wing. Besides, the right-wing threatened CBS with the same thing over their unaired documentary The Reagans and 2003, and CBS had the decency to fold it up. Apparently, though, what's good enough for the goose isn't good enough for the gander.

Condoleeza Rice: "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons." [responding to Kean]
FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport." [Sources: Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01; White House release, 7/22/01]

Rhetoric? You cite Rice's reassurance that her gang won't postpone elections as reason to "cool the rhetoric"? Why wouldn't she lie, especially if it got people off our guard?

FYI -- this has turned into a he said/she said at this point. It's not clear in the crappy CNET article, but the LA TImes (which broke the story and received the files from the Angiledes group) has a slightly better article that has the Governator's staff claiming it was password protected: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la- me-audio13sep13,1,1414498.story?coll=la-center-pol itics-cal&ctrack=1&cset=true The CHP (state police in CA) are currently investigating. I'm not geek enough to know if any password protection was required by simply looking at the google cache, and of course the Angiledes group didn't share the link with anyone until after they gave the data to the Times (and the link was killed). If it wasn't password protected (on an otherwise semi-public site -- it was for reporters) I'd agree that there is no issue, and this is simply a counter stunt by the Ahnold camp to make Angiledes look bad.

Interestingly if you actually read the article in the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-meeting8se p08,0,5945392.story?coll=la-home-headlines

This is the entire statement out of the times:

"I mean, they are all very hot," the governor says. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it." He goes on to recall a former weightlifter and competitor, Cuban-born Sergio Oliva. "He was like that," Schwarzenegger says.

So obviously the original quote was being taken out of context. When he said "Hot" he meant passionate, unless he's also into Cuban Male weight lifters...

before the outrage ensues, let me just point out that this is the exact same sort of thing that the United States Government is doing with regards to the internet.

The HD market is big and getting bigger:

The transition from analog to digital broadcasting has triggered a surge in demand for TVs capable of providing the highest-quality picture. Sales of HDTV sets are expected to reach $37 billion in 2010, up from an estimated $24 billion this year, according to DisplaySearch, an industry research firm based in Texas. Maker of HDTVs Aims for Big Time

In June, an NPD survey of major retailers found that 41 percent of all TVs sold in the United States were HDTVs, compared with 25 percent a year ago. (NPD, a research firm that tracks sales of technology products, owns DisplaySearch, a research company specializing in all aspects of the display industry.) The HDTV Juggernaut Gathers Steam

Well, there is some room for optimism... there's a movement afoot amongst various states to agree to allocate all their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote tally. The agreement would be legally binding and go into effect as soon as enough states are parties to it represent 270 votes (i.e. enough to be the sole determiners of the election winner). The bill has been passed in California and is awaiting the Governor's signature.

The beauty of this scheme is that it delivers the result we want (presidential election by popular vote) without having to change the electoral college system (and thus not having to modify the Constitution, which is a very difficult thing to do).

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans -series,0,7842752.special

There is an excellent series on LAtimes about this and other problems with the oceans, such as neurotoxic algae, permanent floating garbage zones, etc.. read it and weep

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans -series,0,7842752.special

The 2nd link of this post takes me to here:

The 2nd link in this post

What the hell does this link have to do with the topic? Its some garbage about some violent video game ban. I think this is a conspiracy or somthing.. :(

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans -series,0,7842752.special

I am so sick of the 'protect the children' arguments. If people do want to protect the children, they would ensure the world they are growing up in is clean -- http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans -series,0,7842752.special

So, let's say someone actually shells out 100K/year for sex.biz and puts a porn site up. How will that 'protect the children,' then? It's nothing more than a flimsy argument that makes a person/company/entity sound like they actually care.

This is almost true.Films generally drop of a huge amount after the first weekend.

"That's because moviegoers often use box-office performance as a filter in deciding which movies to watch... For studios, releasing a movie that has fallen short of expectations spells trouble, especially in an era in which the media are obsessed with handicapping and analyzing the box office... Studio executives may talk up the prospects for their rivals' upcoming releases while downplaying their own films, hoping to create the impression of a surprisingly strong opening."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-boxoffice6au g06,1,5854643.story?coll=la-headlines-business

I find it interesting that this is the same argument currently being used to suppress research on stem cells. The argument goes that, if the Feds give you any money to work on anything in your lab, even down to money used to buy ball point pens, you have to have a completely separate lab to do your stem cell work that is "clean" of any trace of Federal funding. Because labs are afraid intangibles such as power and water would count as this trace, they refuse to take part in stem cell research. I wonder if a challenge to one could lead to a challenge to the other.

You may argue about the term "de-evolution" - it's just evolution at work, as always.
But this is really scary stuff. We humans are creating a lot of environmental pressure these days.

Here's the entire LA Times series so you don't have to wade though the Flash crap:

Part 1: A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an30jul30,0,6670018,full.story

Part 2: Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals -- barometers of the sea's health.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an31jul31,0,7653060,full.story

Part 3: Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an1aug01,0,7088530,full.story

Part 4: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an2aug02,0,71579,full.story

Part 5: A Chemical Imbalance
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an3aug03,1,809748,full.story

You may argue about the term "de-evolution" - it's just evolution at work, as always.
But this is really scary stuff. We humans are creating a lot of environmental pressure these days.

Here's the entire LA Times series so you don't have to wade though the Flash crap:

Part 1: A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an30jul30,0,6670018,full.story

Part 2: Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals -- barometers of the sea's health.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an31jul31,0,7653060,full.story

Part 3: Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an1aug01,0,7088530,full.story

Part 4: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an2aug02,0,71579,full.story

Part 5: A Chemical Imbalance
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an3aug03,1,809748,full.story

You may argue about the term "de-evolution" - it's just evolution at work, as always.
But this is really scary stuff. We humans are creating a lot of environmental pressure these days.

Here's the entire LA Times series so you don't have to wade though the Flash crap:

Part 1: A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an30jul30,0,6670018,full.story

Part 2: Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals -- barometers of the sea's health.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an31jul31,0,7653060,full.story

Part 3: Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an1aug01,0,7088530,full.story

Part 4: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an2aug02,0,71579,full.story

Part 5: A Chemical Imbalance
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an3aug03,1,809748,full.story

You may argue about the term "de-evolution" - it's just evolution at work, as always.
But this is really scary stuff. We humans are creating a lot of environmental pressure these days.

Here's the entire LA Times series so you don't have to wade though the Flash crap:

Part 1: A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an30jul30,0,6670018,full.story

Part 2: Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals -- barometers of the sea's health.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an31jul31,0,7653060,full.story

Part 3: Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an1aug01,0,7088530,full.story

Part 4: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an2aug02,0,71579,full.story

Part 5: A Chemical Imbalance
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an3aug03,1,809748,full.story

You may argue about the term "de-evolution" - it's just evolution at work, as always.
But this is really scary stuff. We humans are creating a lot of environmental pressure these days.

Here's the entire LA Times series so you don't have to wade though the Flash crap:

Part 1: A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an30jul30,0,6670018,full.story

Part 2: Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals -- barometers of the sea's health.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an31jul31,0,7653060,full.story

Part 3: Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an1aug01,0,7088530,full.story

Part 4: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an2aug02,0,71579,full.story

Part 5: A Chemical Imbalance
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-oce an3aug03,1,809748,full.story

NGOs that take sides ... Enjoying what is know as the "halo effect," few if any journalists or diplomats bother to check the details, biases or credibility of NGO claims.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides. ... Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians.

'Civilian Casualty'? It Depends

I finally found the explanation for the rise of Republicanism...

A Primeval Tide of Toxins

Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.

And the explanation is entirely consistent with the environmental damage being done by their deregulation of industry, damage the Republicans try as hard as they can to pretend is not happening.

To quote Howard Mann:
(stolen from http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-t m-rules30jul23,1,3814092.story?coll=la-headlines-w est)

Years ago, I had an actor friend, John, who happened to be a Native American. We were having lunch one day when he said: "Howie, things are OK with me now. But when I first came out here back in the '40s, I couldn't get a job. I went over to Republic studios. They were doing hundreds of westerns then. I figured I'm a cinch to get an Indian part.

"Sorry," the casting director tells me. "You don't look Indian enough."

"I don't look Indian enough? I happen to be a full-blooded Sioux!"

"So what? You still don't look Indian enough."

"So if I don't look Indian enough, who does?"

"Italians."

"What?"

"You heard me. We only use Italians for Indian parts. They look more Indian than the Indians."

"Well, if Italians are doing Indian parts, maybe I could play an Italian."

"No, we use other people for the Italian parts."

"Who?"

"Jews. They play all Italian gangsters. Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield. All Jewish."

John told the guy he didn't understand.

"Look," the Republic guy said, "Jews look more Italian than Italians. I was in Rome last summer. I didn't see one Italian who looked how an Italian is supposed to look. They had blond hair, fair skin, high cheekbones."

John said, "Howie, I asked the guy, 'If Italians play Indians and Jews play Italians, then who plays Jews?' He said, 'WASPs. Who played David? Gregory Peck. Who played Charlton Heston's mother in "Ben-Hur"? Martha Scott.'"

John pounded the guy's desk and told him: "OK, Italians play Indians, Jews play Italians, WASPs play Jews. Let me play an Oriental. After all, Indians came over from Asia."

He said the guy apologized. "White guys play Orientals. Who played Charlie Chan? Warner Oland. Who played Mr. Moto? Peter Lorre. Who played Chinese dames for years? Myrna Loy."

Johnny seemed exhausted. The waiter came with the check. I paid. It was the least I could do. I asked him how he managed to stay in the business.

"I got the idea that if Italians are grabbing all the Indian parts, I would become Italian. I changed my name from John to Giovanni. I learned to think like them, dress like them, walk like them. I was ready. I went up for a part in the movie 'Little Big Man,' starring Dustin Hoffman.

"The casting guy asked me my name. I told him I was Giovanni and could play any Indian part he had. The guy gets up from his chair. 'I'm sorry,' he says. 'Things have changed. We only use authentic Native Americans today . . . people like Iron Eyes Cody, Graham Greene, Chief Dan George. Now if you were a genuine Indian, I'd hire you on the spot.'"

John said he couldn't take it. "I screamed at the guy, 'But I'm a full-blooded Sioux. I am an authentic Indian. I am the realest Indian you'll ever find.'"

He said the casting guy laughed in his face. "You actors," he said. "You'll say anything to get a part."

Solomon Chang