Can we ask? Yes, we can!

Saturday Open (nothing else matters)

Homecoming

(photo: Aaron Rhoads | Enterprise-Journal)

By Timothy Woerner | Enterprise-Journal
Posted: 05/09/08 - 11:11:10 am CDT

The body of Marine Lance Cpl. Casey Casanova arrived Thursday in Mississippi, carried in a plane that landed at McComb-Pike County Airport in Fernwood, where mourners held an informal, solemn ceremony marking her homecoming.

Casanova, 22, was one of four U.S. Marines killed Friday in a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq, where she was serving her first tour of duty.

Also killed were Cpl. Miguel A. Guzman, 21, Norwalk, Calif., Lance Cpl. James F. Kimple, 21, Carroll, Ohio and Sgt. Glen E. Martinez, 31, Boulder, Colo.

They all were assigned to the Combat Logistics Battalion 1, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., in which Casanova served as a radio technician.

Visitation for Casanova is 1 p.m. Saturday at New Heights Baptist Church in Summit until services there at 3, followed by graveside services with full military honors at Adams United Methodist Church in the Auburn community.

A crowd of about 300 people, including local officials and many relatives and close friends, waited for Casanova at the airport. Two lines of cars were parked down the road to the airport — one with a bright red Marine flag mounted from its roof.

The ceremony itself was entirely silent. Marines carried Casanova’s flag-draped casket from the plane to a hearse, family members approached to pay their respects and Patriot Guard riders and city vehicles led a caravan from the airport to the Hartman-Sharkey Funeral Home in McComb.

Yellow and black ribbons marked the procession’s path, and people took time from their jobs and school to line the streets and wave American flags.

Privately, friends shared memories at the airport.

“She was my best friend,” said Kelly McKinney, who met Casanova in grade school at North Pike, and the two remained friends. “Nobody could ever compare to her. She was always there. … Pretty much ever since we met, we were inseparable.”

Casanova has been described as a woman who turned to the military with a desire to make something of herself, telling her mother the career brought meaning to her life.

McKinney said that when Casanova joined the Marines, it was a shock.

“She was always a girly girl, she wasn’t ever the strong type,” McKinney said. “I supported her 100 percent because I knew she wanted to get out of this town and do something. It made her strong. She went from being a girl who would not stand up for herself to strong-minded and strong-willed. She had more of an independence.”

McKinney said Casanova was selfless as a friend, too.

“She was at my baby’s shower. She would come home and not want to talk about her; she wasn’t concerned about herself, she wanted to know how everybody else was doing.”

The Entrepreneurial Spirit Lives…Make Your Own Ethanol At Home!

I came across an interesting article, Make Fuel At Home With Portable DIY Refinery. It’s interesting and informative, and if prices of gasoline and oil continue to rise, it may be an attractive alternative. In the article, the manufacturer, an accomplished inventor, states that the cost of the ethanol from their EFuel Micro Fueler, will be less than one dollar per gallon. A bold claim, that doesn’t factor in all the related costs, such as electricity, water, or the cost of the unit itself. The article is worth the read, if for no other reason, to illustrate the kinds of minds that are at work on the current problems associated with rising fuel prices, and what we may have as options, if fuel ever reaches the point when the majority of the population is no longer able, or willing, to pay the prices, and will find other sources.

After reading this article, I began searching for info related to Henry Ford’s desire with the Model T that farmers would manufacture their own ethanol, and found a wealth of info, with one in particular being filled with more info than I ever knew existed on the subject, in a time line of discovery and research. The following quote from the article, Henry Ford, Charles Kettering And The “Fuel Of The Future.”

“They say we have foreign oil,” he said. “It is … in Persia, and it is in Russia. Do you think that is much defense for your children?”(Francis Garvan noted the problem in a speech promoting alcohol fuel at the Dearborn, Mich. “Chemurgy” Conference on Agriculture, Industry and Science in 1936)

I had no idea that alcohol powered internal engines had been experimented with since 1826, nor all of the political, and business issues, that have surrounded the use of alcohol as a fuel or fuel additive, and how prescient so many people were on it’s use. It truly is an amazing, and lengthy article. In the conclusion of this piece, I will note one paragraph that resonated with me.

If there is an historical lesson to learn from the “fuel of the future,” it is that technology is often political. In this case, fuel technology developed in a direction that was a matter of policy choice and not predetermined by any clear advantage of one technology over another. For different reasons, Henry Ford and Charles Kettering both saw the fuel of the future as a blend of ethyl alcohol and gasoline leading to pure alcohol from cellulose. A dedicated agrarian, Ford thought new markets for fuel feedstocks would help create a rural renaissance. On the other hand, Kettering, as a scientist, was worried about the long term problem of the automotive industry’s need for oil, a resource with rapidly declining domestic reserves. Clearly, the shortage of domestic oil that was feared in the 1920s has occurred in the late 20th century, although it has hardly been noticed because of the abundance of foreign oil. Whether the oil substitute envisioned by the scientists and agrarians of the first half of the century would be appropriate in the latter half remains an open question.

A concise analysis of the history of developing alternative fuel sources, often hampered by abundant oil supply, then spurred on in times of shortages. I am not optimistic we will ever strike a perfect balance on the use of our resources, but I am always encouraged by the technological achievements that can be made when the demand is there, and the entrepreneurial spirit thrives.

*Must Read* U.S. oil production cut by half in last twenty years.

SwampMan, This Song’s for You!

SwampMan was triumphant this morning after buying an out of print service manual for GMC trucks. “I got it for only $50 including SHIPPING!”

“What did it cost new?”

“That’s NOT the point. The point is that I’ve been trying and trying to get one, and I rarely find them for under $80.”

Yep, that hunting and stalking caveman gene is alive and well. SwampMan, I dedicate this song to you.

I Will Be Proud To Vote For This Man

He’s not as conservative as most would like. He’s not against illegal immigration as much as I would like. He believes in the global warming hoax a little too much for my taste. But I have seen what the other two candidates have to offer, and they pale in comparison. To me the major issue is Protecting This Country, and if you look at that fact alone, Hillary will let us be slowly overrun by the terrorists, with Obama, they will be here overnight. Read a little about the toughness of my candidate, and decide for yourself who will keep us safer.

John McCain rarely speaks about his experiences as a POW in Vietnam, but one of his cell mates at the Hanoi Hilton on Thursday described some of the conditions and character traits that earned McCain the commendations he received for his war service.

Col. George “Bud” Day, 83, is the most decorated service man since Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with more than 70 medals. A living legend, Day was blown out of the sky two months to the day before the North Vietnamese shot down a propaganda prize, whose father and grandfather were renowned American admirals.

“They told me we were gonna get a roommate and it was gonna be the prince. The Vietnamese called him the prince so I asked my nurse what was his name? They said John McCain,” Day told FOX News.

Both he and McCain were taken captive in 1967, and held until their release in 1973.

Day said the first time he saw McCain, he believed the future senator was close to death and that the only reason for the chance encounter was part of a Vietnamese ploy to break the morale of U.S. servicemen already in captivity.

“I took one look at him, and my brain instantly said, ‘They dropped this guy off on me to claim that we let him die,’” Day said. “He was just emaciated. Very, very skinny, in this full body cast. Just filthy.”

The U.S. soldiers were held sometimes five to a cell, barely big enough for two.

“He had this gimpy knee where he’d busted his knee, this arm had been fractured in a couple places, he’d been bayoneted in the leg, this arm was out at the shoulder and, in fact, during that time it was out at the shoulder so long it wore a hole in this bone,” Day said.

During captivity, they were tortured mercilessly, Day said, describing one tactic that McCain has also recalled.

“They roped me under the arms, tied my hands behind my back, ran another rope to that, got me up on a chair, threw that rope up over a rafter and jerked the chair out from under me and your own weight just tears your body apart,” he said.

Day’s broken arm was re-broken during torture so he would never fly again. McCain played physical therapist.

“John said, ‘Well we’ll gather up some bamboo, and he was in a bandage on his leg at that time. So I got some strips of bamboo, smuggled them into the room, John put his foot in my arm pit and pulled on my wrist ’till we could get the bone forced back down … it wasn’t exactly perfect but it worked out he got it back to where it was functional,” Day said.

But nerve damage was extensive — his crushed hands were useless. Meanwhile, McCain was treated no better than the trash they were fed in the form of a soup.

“I mean you could smell him for 25 feet. Bunch of food and nasty stuff in his hair, and down his neck and inside his cast. The cast was not lined so every time he would move inside this cast, it was just eating a hole in his arm or his elbow or someplace, and he was just in — he was in pain,” Day recalled.

Yet McCain, now 71, made efforts to help Day recover from his own injuries, Day said.

Day said he had limited use of his arms, which was a result of a combination of torture and the initial plane crash that put him in the hands of his captors — an ordeal that earned Day the Congressional Medal of Honor.

“And when I finally did regain use of that, it was after months and months of dragging this hand and finger on the wall of the prison cell,” Day said, walking his fingers up the air like he did many years ago.

“John would help me. … John would pull my fingers out straight. They would just instantly recurl. And finally, one morning, I had just the slightest bit of movement in this hand — finger — and we both cried,” Day said.

McCain, whose military record was released to the Associated Press on Wednesday, received 17 commendations over his career from 1951-81. They included the Silver Star for his conduct in captivity. He also received the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Bronze Star.

Day said by any humane standard, McCain would have been a good candidate for early release from the camp, but that wasn’t in his playbook.

“It also wasn’t in his playbook to die. In fact he quickly became a leader.”

Day said he asked McCain if he would be one of his preachers.

“He said sure. He had a great handle on the Episcopalian liturgy, he could just repeat it verbatim,” he said.

But repeating what he went through during his incarceration is something McCain almost never does as a presidential candidate. Day said he thinks he should.

“I’ve never seen any shortcomings or any shortfall out of him talking about that, but he just doesn’t trade on that. I think he feels that it’s wrong to trade on being a hero, but he is,” Day said.

I’ll keep in mind that no candidate for any office has ever done everything I wanted them to. But looking at the choices, John McCain stands head and shoulders above the other choice.

He has earned My vote.

Source

Differences Between the Middle Class and Middle Class Millionaires

MIDDLE CLASS

With an annual income of $50,000 to $80,000, the average middle-class person spends 41 hours a week at work and takes 20 vacation days. About 21 percent regularly work weekends, 16 percent are always available for business, 56 percent are highly confident the government will protect them from natural disaster or terrorists, and 24 percent have volunteered in a political campaign.
Sources: Prince & Associates, Advanced Planning Group

MIDDLE-CLASS Millionaires

With a net worth of $1-million to $10-million, the average “middle-class millionaire” spends 70 hours a week at work and takes 12 vacation days. About 67 percent regularly work weekends, 76 percent are always available for business, 14 percent are highly confident the government will protect them from natural disaster or terrorists, and 2 percent have volunteered in a political campaign.

Sources: Prince & Associates, Advanced Planning Group

Source: TampaBay.com

Take whatever lessons you get from this as you wish.

Politics? Who Cares?

While Nuke is out fishin’, I suppose that I probably ought to at least look at the returns from the primaries tonight, but I really don’t care enough to turn on a television station for breathless coverage about how either Democratic candidate is doing.

If the rest of y’all want to chime in and educate me, feel free. 

Just remember to call me Rhett because frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

 

Going fishin’

Got the RV loaded up, gear packed, and just a few more odds and ends to put together. Me and the Missus are taking a week off to do some camping and fishing. Well, that’s not exactly true. See, she has to attend some business meetings during the day, while I go fishing.

Works for me. See y’all in a week or so.

A woman goes into Walmart to buy a rod and reel. She doesn’t know which one to get so she just grabs one and goes over to the register. There is a Walmart “associate” standing there with dark shades on.

She says, “Excuse me sir… can you tell me anything about this rod and reel?”

He says, “Ma’am I’m blind, but if you drop it on the counter I can tell you everything you need to know about it from the sound it makes.”

She didn’t believe him, but dropped it on the counter anyway.

He says, “That’s a six-foot graphite rod with Zebco 202 reel and 10-pound test line… It’s a good all around rod and reel and it’s $20.00.”

She says, “That’s amazing that you can tell all that just by the sound of it dropping on the counter. I think it’s just what I’m looking for so I’ll take it.”

He walks behind the counter to the register.

In the meantime the woman passes gas. At first she is embarrassed, but then realizes there is no way he could tell it was her, being blind, he wouldn’t know that she was the only person around.

He rings up the sale and says, “That will be $25.50.”

She says, “But didn’t you say it was $20.00?”

He says, “Yes Ma’am, the rod and reel is $20.00, the duck call is $3.00 and the catfish bait is $2.50.”

Strap-On Helicopter Could Offer Solo Flying Experience

It’s not quite the “flying car” of Jetson’s lore. In fact, it looks more like something from another Saturday morning cartoon character: Wiley E. Coyote, using yet another great invention from Acme Mfg.

Your personal “strap-on helicopter.”

Technologia Aeroespacial Mexicana (TAM), the company behind the Libelula strap-on helicopter, explains on its Web site how the device is powered by two hydrogen fuel canisters. Tiny rockets at the tips of the helicopter´s rotor blades take the place of a tail rotor, a component which couldn´t be safely attached to a human body. According to the company, the Libelula would be the lightest helicopter in the world, so light that it could be strapped to a person´s body with a carbon fiber corset.

“The best [part] of this technology is that [these] kinds of helicopters don´t need a tail rotor because they don´t have any torque, so with a simple vane they can turn - being the simplest form of an helicopter and the easiest and safer to fly,” the company says on its Web site.

Source: physorg.com

More info available at the company’s website

NowPublic

Tags: Mexico | SOLO | Aeroespacial | CREDIT | device | eliminate | Flying | helicopter | Libelula | making | MEXICANA | propellers | Rockets | ROTOR | Site | strap-on | Tech & Biz | Technologia | tips | worn

Crash and Burn

London Mayor, “Red Ken” Livingstone, was upended in yesterday’s re-election attempt, completing a nightmare day for Gordon Brown’s Labour Party.

Boris Johnson is the new Mayor of London, his rivals conceded tonight.

The Tory MP scored a stunning election victory to end Ken Livingstone’s eight-year reign and round off a disastrous 24 hours for the Labour Party.

After a nailbiting count, Mr Johnson was so far ahead on first-preference votes he could not be caught by Mr Livingstone, even after second preferences were taken into account.

Labour officials conceded privately that the Conservative was too far ahead. At 5pm, Mr Livingstone’s campaign chief Tessa Jowell said: “The reports I’m getting suggest Boris Johnson is ahead. link

It was a stunning election day in Britain, as Labour stumbled to its worst showing in 40 years.

See Also:

• From bumbling Boris to natural born winner
• Mayor Boris says he’s chairman of the board. They’d better be good
• Canny Ken was outwitted in the end by an even cannier enemy
• Evening Standard comment: Now the hard work starts for Johnson
• Boris Johnson’s winning manifesto
• Boris Johnson’s CV
• Australian was power behind team Boris, and let’s not forget Marina

Friday Reading

Here’s Hillary’s take on those “huge profits” of the evil oil companies who have “made out like bandits.”

Northwestern University has decided to withdraw its offer of an honorary degree to Jeremiah Wright.

Another Clinton supporter switches to the Obama camp … and here’s the long-winded explanation of why.

Iran is upset with Hillary Clinton for threatening to “totally obliterate” the country … so it runs to the UN to whine about it.

Michelle Obama says that she didn’t want Barack to get into politics because “people are mean” and she would rather him teach, write, sing, dance or do anything else.

Is Hillary Clinton implying that once you make more than $250,000 you are no longer “doing hard work to keep our country going”? I wonder what all those small business owners have to say about that Hillary.

What do you get when you mix environmental dogma and bureaucratic collectivism … disaster.

Airlines are starting to slow down their planes to save on fuel. If they carried less fat people, they’d save a lot more fuel.

When trying to tackle gang-related violence, the first step is for the government to rename gangs as “crews.” Yeah, that’s better. The violence is bound to stop now.

New Jersey is considering a “sin tax” on fast food sales. Citizens are complaining that it is unfair because “it is a necessity to eat.” Just like smokers will continue to smoke, despite cigarette taxes … lardasses will continue to get their daily dose of BigMacs.

When your newspaper publishes information about a $16 million advertising bill for taxpayers to help get the government re-elected … that’s ground for a police invasion to find out who is responsible for printing the information.

The most outrageous part of this story is that the principal of this government high school asked her staff to create a detailed list of any students who were dating so that she could “keep an eye on them to cut down on public displays of affection.”

What is the worst possible thing you can think of that the government could build in your neighborhood … in Baltimore that answer seems to be a government school.

A government school teacher accidentally drove to school with her husband’s loaded gun on the roof of the car. She is now suspended.

Looks like Philadelphia is having a hell of a time with their gun laws.

Are you writing a history paper about the Prophet Muhammad? That’s cause for a Muslim riot.

The outgoing government in Italy decided that its final act would be to publish every Italian’s declared earnings and tax contribution on the web for all to see.

(hat-tip Boortz)

This is the World Famous Friday Open Thread. A Free Speech Zone. Comments, questions, linkage, track-backs, etc. are welcome.

WFFOT: Only three things in life make it worth living’: Guitars tuned good, Open Threads, and firm-feelin’ women. (not necessarily in that order)

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Trackposted to Pooh Flinging NeoCons, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Allie is Wired, third world county, Faultline USA, Woman Honor Thyself, McCain Blogs, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Wolf Pangloss, Democrat=Socialist, A Newt One, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Emmmmm, breakfast!

SwampMan is a grits purist, so he didn’t want to have anything to do with the garlic grits with green chilis and with a cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese mixed in after it was cooked that I made for MY breakfast  (along with left over mustard greens and pork chops with hot sauce), so I was under orders to fix him some plain ol’ grits for breakfast.

PLAIN grits? Where’s the artistry (and taste) in THAT? I couldn’t help myself. I added a lil’ garlic for taste, but (sigh) nothing for color. He does not like broccoli and cheese grits. He does not like chopped ‘maters and onions and bacon and cheese grits.

He has a tendency to look all squinty-eyed when I make cornbread and demand “what did you put in it THIS TIME?” before he’ll try that, too.

Red Ken to get the boot?

Voters in London will go to the polls today, and Hizzoner Red Ken Livingstone appears to be on his way out.

Cool.

from Yahoo News:

LONDON (AFP) - London mayor Ken Livingstone went head-to-head with his maverick rival Boris Johnson Thursday, amid predictions the Conservative challenger could just win, if only by a blond hair’s breadth.

The “Ken versus Boris” contest, coming to a climax after gripping the capital for months, is by far the most high-profile poll clash in a day of local elections across England and Wales.

Livingstone was long assumed to be cruising to re-election. But Johnson surprised many by taking an opinion poll lead earlier this year, and the Labour Party candidate has only got back on terms in recent weeks.

An election-day poll by the London Evening Standard put Johnson six points ahead, but the newspaper said the result was too close to call.

Elvis introduces the band

h/t lost melodies

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Maggie’s Notebook, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, Faultline USA, third world county, McCain Blogs, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, , Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, OTB Sports, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Midweek Open

Presenting the 60 cal hand canon.

h/t FHK

4/30/75

Thirty-three years ago today, communist North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon and seized control of the government that was once the democratic South Vietnam.

The Fall of Saigon (in Vietnamese: Sự kiện 30 tháng 4 - or the “April 30 Incident” is also called by many Vietnamese Ngày mất nước - literally, “The Day of losing the nation”) started a decades long tragedy that impacted millions of Vietnamese and reached into other Southeast Asian nations. The “Killing Fields” of Cambodia were made possible by the communist domination of the region.

The scene in Saigon on April 30, 1975, was one of total chaos.

John E. Carey has a great read….Thirty-three years ago today

See also: SYM: Welcome Home GI

Paris declares war on rats

from BBC

The city, with its canals, river and restaurants is something of a rodent paradise, experts say.

There are four times as many rats as humans in Paris - perhaps eight million in total, according to the council.

A city-wide information campaign, followed by inspections, aims to reduce the numbers of rats on the streets ahead of the lucrative tourist season.

The article doesn’t mention what the plans are to do with the rats once they are caught, however, according to the Larousse Gastronomique, rats are still eaten in some parts of France. For example, this classic example of French cuisine:

Grilled Rats Bordeaux Style (Entrecote à la bordelaise)
Alcoholic rats inhabiting wine cellars are skinned and eviscerated, brushed with a thick sauce of olive oil and crushed shallots, and grilled over a fire of broken wine barrels.

Yum, yum.

Bert Christensen brings us these interesting rat-facts:

In West Africa, however, rats are a major item of diet. the giant rat (Cricetomys), the cane rat (Thryonomys), the common house mouse, and other species of rats and mice are all eaten. According to a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization report, they now comprise of over 50 percent of the locally produced meat eaten in some parts of Ghana. Between December 1968 and June 1970, 258,206 pounds of cane-rat meat alone were sold in one market in Accra! This is a local recipe that shows the South American influence on West African cuisine.

Stewed Cane Rat
Skin and eviscerate the rat and split it lengthwise. Fry until brown in a mixture of butter and peanut oil. Cover with water, add tomatoes or tomato purée, hot red peppers, and salt. Simmer the rat until tender and serve with rice.

Stuffed Dormice / Ancient Rome
Prepare a stuffing of dormouse meat or pork, pepper, pine nuts, broth, asafoetida, and some garum (substitute anchovy paste.) Stuff the mice and sew them up. Bake them in an oven on a tile.

Roasted Field Mice (Raton de campo asado) / Mexico
Skin and eviscerate field mice. Skewer them and roast over an open fire or coals. These are probably great as hors d’oeuvres with margaritas or “salty dogs.”

Does J. Wright Remember the Zebra Killings?

Rev J. Wright has been all over the news for the past few days, and the following was just one of many very revealing comments. His defense of the Nation of Islam, and Louis Farrakhan, at the National Press Club was vintage left-wing “victim politics”…. (HotAir has the clip)

“Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery …”

Chains? Slavery? No, Farrakhan is not guilty of these crimes. Nor is anyone else, for that matter.

But, just in case anyone needs a reminder of some of the things which do qualify Farrakhan and the NOI as an enemy of liberty, here is something which is much more dangerous than Louis’ notorious hate-speech.

Remembering the Zebra Killings

The Zebra Killings occurred in the San Francisco bay area between 1972 and 1974 and left 71 people dead. They were dubbed the Zebra Killings because of the radio channel used by the police investigating the case (channel Z). The name would take on a more sinister meaning as it became apparent that a group of blacks was systematically stalking and killing whites simply because of the color of their skin….

The majority of the attacks were carried out by five members of a group within Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam called the “Death Angels.” Jesse Lee Cooks, J.C. Simon, Larry Green, Manuel Moore and Anthony Harris were part of this group which believed that whites were created 3,000 years ago by a black mad scientist named Yacub who wanted a race of inferiors to rule over. Death Angels believed they could earn “points” towards going to heaven when they died if they killed whites. For them, whites were not human beings but “grafted snakes,” “blue-eyed devils” and “white motherf—–s.”

Is there political strategery by the Obama campaign involved in Wright’s looney-tunes rant?

Probably. The more Wright speaks, the more he makes it all about himself, and his ego. His speaking tour puts everything in the present tense, quite possibly making it easier for Obama to distance himself from him.

The interesting part of all of this is seeing how many on the left, and in the media, actually agree with, or are sympathetic to Wright’s lunatic ravings.

See also: MM–Wright’s security provided by NOI

Chocolate reduces pregnancy complication risk

Chocolate, Nature’s perfect food.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Indulging in chocolate during pregnancy could help ward off a serious complication known as preeclampsia, new research suggests.

Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is rich in a chemical called theobromine, which stimulates the heart, relaxes smooth muscle and dilates blood vessels, and has been used to treat chest pain, high blood pressure, and hardening of the arteries, Dr. Elizabeth W. Triche of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and colleagues write.

Preeclampsia, in which blood pressure spikes during pregnancy while excess protein is released into the urine, has many features in common with heart disease, the researchers add.

Sunday Vids

A couple of Lone Star themes, from Delbert McClinton, and Gary P. Nunn.

Serial killer targets young college men?

Could there be a calculated, cross-country plot to kill young college men? It seems a little hard to believe, but two New York detectives say they can prove it.

The stories are the same all over the country–an athletic, intelligent, well-liked college student goes missing.Family and friends launch a massive search. Weeks or months later, the young man is discovered drowned. In more than 40 cases, the deaths are blamed on a drunken accident–except for one.

The death of Chris Jenkins in Minneapolis is the only one where the cause of death was changed from ‘undetermined’ or ‘drowning’ to ‘homicide.’

The two detectives from New York, Gannon and Duarte, have done something that no other law enforcement agency has ever done in this case — they looked at the big picture and visited each site where the young men disappeared. While most local investigations focused on where a body was recovered, Gannon and Duarte tried to figure out where the body went into the river.

City after city, when they’d find the spot where the body went into the water, they would find something else: The symbol of a smiley face. “It’s very disturbing,” Duarte said.The paint color and size of the face varies, but the detectives are convinced that it’s a sick signature the killers leave behind.

Source: kstp.com via nukegingrich

NowPublic

Tags: college | JENKINS | minneapolis | Minnesota | New York | calculated | Chris | connects | cross-country | deaths | Detectives | dozens | eyewitness | including | murder | Plot | seems | World

Beetlemania

First it was cow farts, then it was moose belches. And now, it is … drumroll, please …
beetles. No, not the Lennon/McCartney variety.

An outbreak of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia is doing more than destroying millions of acres of lodgepole pines: By 2020, the beetles will have done enough damage that the forest is expected to release more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, according to research published in the journal Nature this week. Bark beetles also have killed swaths of pines in the western United States, including about 2,300 square miles of trees in Colorado.

The study, led by Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service, estimates that over 21 years trees killed by the beetle outbreak could release 990 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — roughly equivalent to five years of emissions from Canada’s transportation sector. source

We’re Dooooooooomed.

h/t boortz

Black Conservatism

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing in the Atlantic, has penned an article that will leave me in a reflective mood for some time.

It’s about race. It’s about culture. It’s about America. And, it is an honest appraisal of our unfinished business as a uniquely American culture — a frank and unflinching glimpse into the inner ticking of an African-American writer who takes a close look at Bill Cosby and the message (and the messengers) of black self-reliance.

I’ve written several times about growing up in the 60’s Deep South, believing that this experience gives a unique perspective on the subject of racism. But, as I mentioned previously, growing up on the white side of the divide, I really have no idea of what it was like for the blacks, and I want to thank Mr. Coates for granting some much needed perspective.

Here are a three excerpts:

the liberal notion that blacks are still, after a century of struggle, victims of pervasive discrimination is the ultimate collective buzz-kill. It effectively means that African Americans must, on some level, accept that their children will be “less than” until some point in the future when white racism miraculously abates. That’s not the sort of future that any black person eagerly awaits [...]

Part of what drives Cosby’s activism, and reinforces his message, is the rage that lives in all African Americans, a collective feeling of disgrace that borders on self-hatred. As the comedian Chris Rock put it in one of his infamous routines, “Everything white people don’t like about black people, black people really don’t like about black people …

the “organic” black conservative tradition: conservatives who favor hard work and moral reform over protests and government intervention, but whose black-nationalist leanings make them anathema to the Heritage Foundation and Rush Limbaugh. When political strategists argue that the Republican Party is missing a huge chance to court the black community, they are thinking of this mostly male bloc—the old guy in the barbershop, the grizzled Pop Warner coach, the retired Vietnam vet, the drunk uncle at the family reunion. He votes Democratic, not out of any love for abortion rights or progressive taxation, but because he feels—in fact, he knows—that the modern-day GOP draws on the support of people who hate him. This is the audience that flocks to Cosby: culturally conservative black Americans who are convinced that integration, and to some extent the entire liberal dream, robbed them of their natural defenses.

A couple of points: First, the statement that conservative black men “know” that the GOP draws on the support of people who hate them is a straw man argument. Who are these haters and bigots? Being labeled a racist, bigot, homophobe by liberal writers does not make one a racist, bigot, or homophobe. There is no shortage of liberal bloggers and reporters who love nothing more than the opportunity to label a Republican as a racist. Of course, “gotcha” journalism is not the exclusive arena of liberal writers, but this is one area that truly deserves some introspection.

Because, in the end, it’s not so much a matter of the lack of respect, as Mr. Coates asserts, but rather, a lack of trust. Embracing the likes of Farrakhan and the NOI does nothing to build trust. Nor does the embrace of Black Liberation Theology. I do not trust these particular people, or these particular institutions, nor do I have any use for many of the words and ideas they promote.

The excerpts really don’t do justice to this fine essay. Please read it all. Also, in the vodpod sidebar, please take a look at the video featuring Coates and Bill Cosby.

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Stocking up

I admit to being surprised at the reports of Sam’s Club and other retailers limiting bulk sales of rice. Panic-buyers, breathlessly reported by mass media, generating concern among the public of possible food shortages, and skyrocketing prices of basic food staples. Is this the next crisis we must face in these bizarre times, or is this just another sign of the times?

In fact, WSJ’s Brett Arends opined the other day that “maybe it’s time for Americans to start stockpiling food.”

Maybe it is.

9/11, Katrina, H5N1 preparation, …. If these events didn’t get America’s attention, then maybe a potential problem with food supplies will do the job.

We have been buying a few extra cans all along, trying to get to the point that we can go for ninety days — like FEMA has recommended to our hospitals — but 90 days of self-sufficiency is a tall order. That’s a lot of cans.

Kind of like filling the Strategic Petroleum reserve. If it’s there when you need it, it really doesn’t matter what you paid for it.

Previously: “What’s in your emergency kit?”