God Only SEEMS Nonexistent!

Worth watching.

Science 1, Lourdes 0...

Not one limb grown back. Not one deaf person cured. Not one bald man cured. Despite millions of pilgrims and prayers.

Yet here comes science and the clever hands of thinking men.

Treatment For Hearing Loss? Scientists Grow Hair Cells Involved in Hearing

Oregon Health & Science University scientists have successfully produced functional auditory hair cells in the cochlea of the mouse inner ear. The breakthrough suggests that a new therapy may be developed in the future to successfully treat hearing loss. The results of this research was recently published by the journal Nature.

“One approach to restore auditory function is to replace defective cells with healthy new cells,” said John Brigande, Ph.D., an assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Oregon Hearing Research Center in the OHSU School of Medicine. “Our work shows that it is possible to produce functional auditory hair cells in the mammalian cochlea.”

The researchers specifically focused on the tiny hair cells located in a portion of the ear’s cochlea called the organ of Corti. It has long been understood that as these hair cells die, hearing loss occurs. Throughout a person’s life, a certain number of these cells malfunction or die naturally leading to gradual hearing loss often witnessed in aging persons. Those who are exposed to loud noises for a prolonged period or suffer from certain diseases lose more sensory hair cells than average and therefore suffer from more pronounced hearing loss.

Being offended..

...doesn't give you the right to suppress the speech of others. Yet that is what we see from the left and the right. Mostly the right. But I don't forget the tyranny of "political correctness" and the nagging worry someone would find their idiotic views on the universe challenged and I would end up being forced to "recant" in some foolish show trial.

It was certainly bad enough that being an atheist (never mind the first strike of being a man) in a Southern courtroom while fighting for custody of my child would have been, in the eyes of the Court, grounds for denying me custody. As it was, it took three years even though the evidence was overwhelming she was a crazy, bad mother.

Nobody cares what you think...

When you act like a hypocrite:

Bush presses Russia not to recognize Georgia regions

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The White House on Monday pressed Russia not to recognize Georgia's rebel areas and said Vice President Dick Cheney, an staunch critic of Moscow, would visit the region to show U.S. support for former Soviet states.

President George W. Bush said Georgia's borders must be respected after the Russian parliament called on the Kremlin to recognize two separatist regions -- South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- as independent states.

Why shouldn't they? We recognized all the break-away regions. Georgia was a country for just four years before the Soviets re-incorporated it into the young USSR.

Kuwait should be part of Iraq. Israel was wiped out nearly 2000 years ago, should we not give it all back to the Palestinians?

No matter how you play the game, someone, somewhere isn't going to like the results. Especially when people are tired of the biggest hypocritical bully on the block who has needlessly weakened himself with a pointless and illegal war of choice.

If it's true, it explains a lot...

From Science Daily:

Killer Carbs: Scientist Finds Key To Overeating As We Age

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2008) — A Monash University scientist has discovered key appetite control cells in the human brain degenerate over time, causing increased hunger and potentially weight-gain as we grow older. The research by Dr Zane Andrews, a neuroendocrinologist with Monash University's Department of Physiology, has been published in Nature.

Dr Andrews found that appetite-suppressing cells are attacked by free radicals after eating and said the degeneration is more significant following meals rich in carbohydrates and sugars.

"The more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your appetite-control cells are damaged, and potentially you consume more," Dr Andrews said.

Dr Andrews said the attack on appetite suppressing cells creates a cellular imbalance between our need to eat and the message to the brain to stop eating.

"People in the age group of 25 to 50 are most at risk. The neurons that tell people in the crucial age range not to over-eat are being killed-off.

"When the stomach is empty, it triggers the ghrelin hormone that notifies the brain that we are hungry. When we are full, a set of neurons known as POMC's kick in.

"However, free radicals created naturally in the body attack the POMC neurons. This process causes the neurons to degenerate overtime, affecting our judgement as to when our hunger is satisfied," Dr Andrews said.

The free radicals also try to attack the hunger neurons, but these are protected by the uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2).

Dr Andrews said the reduction in the appetite-suppressing cells could be one explanation for the complex condition of adult-onset obesity.

"A diet rich in carbohydrate and sugar that has become more and more prevalent in modern societies over the last 20-30 years has placed so much strain on our bodies that it's leading to premature cell deterioration," Dr Andrews said.

Dr Andrews' next research project will focus on finding if a diet rich in carbohydrates and sugars has other impacts on the brain, such as the increased incidences of neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease.

This is interesting as I've read the US is not only a seriously fat nation, but we eat more foods with sugar as an unneccesary additive than everyone else. And while I've tried to limit sugar adn unecessary carbohydrates in the family diet (no soda, rarely chips, etc.) and try to find products without added sugar or high fructose corn syrup, it's very difficult to get away from all that.

For example, it took me years to find a tomato sauce that didn't have sugar in it. Within a year it was off the market because sugar is cheap and it makes a great additive when profits, not a healthy customer, are your goal.

Technical difficulties have scuppered the launch...

But the promo video is cool. And, thank God, it's not WoW. Though if you want to run with the sheep and look exactly like everyone else... I guess WoW is okay, then.

A must read post

on sexual dimorphism within males in a population. A sample of the excellent piece:

Salmon live most of their lives in the sea and travel back into fresh water to breed. When they reach their breeding grounds, the large males will occupy a territory and start gathering a harem of females that they defend from rival males. Jacks, on the other hand, do not defend a territory. Instead, they wander around the breeding grounds trying to find females that are not being well-defended by a large male. When the guarding male is distracted, the opportunistic jack will rush in and attempt to mate with his females while his back is turned. Males intermediate in size between large males and jacks are absent, and would probably be strongly selected against, being too small to effectively defend a harem and too large to mate in secret.

(Jacks are small male salmon.)

Love love shine Lyrics

My daughter is turning Japanese... I really think so...

Proof...

New Pat Condell.

By which the Pakistani's show us...

...what it is to live in a democracy:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Nuclear-armed Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation on Monday in the face of an impending impeachment motion by the ruling coalition government.

The former army chief and firm U.S. ally has seen his popularity slide over the past 18 months and has been isolated since his allies lost a February election.

"After consultations with legal advisers and close political supporters and on their advice, I'm taking the decision of resigning," Musharraf said a televised address.

"My resignation will go to the speaker of the National Assembly today."

And expose the useless Democrats for the worthless tools that they are. We can't impeach Bush, yet the Pakistani's, who might end up dead at the hands of the military for impeaching Musharraf, can act to preserve their democracy.

"Burn Goody Clinton!" by Roy Zimmerman

New Roy Zimmerman.

The Tyranny of Scripture

Great video.

Paris Hilton for President 2008 elections

Perfect. I'm voting for her.

Hovindism #1 Definition of Evolution

Worth watching.

Oh boy...

ZOMG!

BEIJING - AUGUST 10: President of the United States, George W. Bush holds up the American Flag the wrong way before wife Laura Bush instructs him to turn it around at the swimming arena at the National Aquatics Center during day 2 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 10, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Actually, not really. He's looking at the flag and the field is in the upper left hand corner. Which is where it should be when you're looking at it. Which is where it should be for everyone behind him.

The only 'fair' indictment is that he's, once again, showing his narcissism. He's orienting the flag based on his view, not the view of others who will be looking at him from the front. But it's not actually wrong in the circumstance in which it's displayed (a 360 degree venue).

Now, if it were a one-sided placard... Perhaps... But it's not.

Not that it will stop the Bush is Wrong About Everything crowd. And not that he isn't wrong about virtually everything important. He's the biggest ass-clown we've had as a leader, possibly ever.

But that doesn't mean we need to act like fools over every trivial 'incident.'

Worth reading...

From Frank Schaeffer:

So ... when some fruitcake like a James Dobson comes along and his organization calls for rainmaking to spoil the Obama speech, or the egomaniacal cult leader Victoria Osteen co-pastor of the biggest mega sect in Houston, allegedly assaults an airline flight attendant, there's not much other Evangelicals can do who are embarrassed by their pet-buffoon-of-the-moment, other than to wring their hands. That's because Evangelicalism is really just another version of American individualism and the entertainment industry wherein "freedom" is interpreted as the right to be a consumer and choose one's favorite products from ski mobiles, jet skis, a trip to the Bahamas, a new-car or joining a the local mega church of the moment. Victoria Osteen today, Rick Warren yesterday, whatever wanders in tomorrow, with a book deal and nice way of talking.

Rvangelicals can't criticize other Evangelicals' idiocy. After all with a few exceptions, they are all waiting for Spaceship Jesus to take them away, have declared evolution a lie, are anti-culture, art and life, and don't believe in global warming, are still saying that Iraq was behind 9/11, and want to attack Iran with what is left of our overstretched military that their born-again, Evangelical Low IQ frat-boy in the White House systematically has put at risk.

The Reagan Diaries...

"A moment I've been dreading. George brought his n'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work." [From THE REAGAN DIARIES - entry dated May 17, 1986]

Runaway! Runaway!

After years of Russian baiting and tacit support of Georgia by US Neocons and Right Wingers, including overtures by the Bush Administration to bring Georgia into NATO's "You attack one of us, you attack all of us" umbrella suddenly there are no stand-up friends in the Neocon Circles that dominate certain parts of Washington and the Media for the Georgains:

Russia brushes aside ceasefire calls after Georgia withdraws

Russian forces were moving to take total control of South Ossetia last night as Georgia withdrew troops amid intense diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire to end the three-day conflict in which 2,000 people have reportedly been killed and up to 22,000 displaced. Seizing the opening offered by President Mikheil Saakashvili's doomed military incursion last week, Moscow also insisted the Georgian leader should resign, according to senior US diplomats.

...

In a series of media interviews, Saakashvili sought to bring the United States fully behind him. After speaking to Bush by phone, he told Germany's Rhein-Zeitung newspaper: "[Bush] understands that it's not really about Georgia but in a certain sense it's also an aggression against America. The Russians want the whole of Georgia. The Russians need control over energy routes from central Asia and the Caspian Sea. In addition, they want to get rid of us, they want regime change. Every democratic movement in this neighbouring region must be got rid of," he was quoted as saying.

Sort of the Bay of Pigs all over again.

And, for a bit of irony, here is a link the President of Georgia's Opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal in October, 2006. The same man who started the war last week. It'd be funny, except thousands more have died due to the agitprops of a group of morons who think violence, not diplomacy, is the best solution to world problems.

Mark Ames has a first rate piece on some aspects of the conflict at The Nation. Worth reading.

Bought and Sold...

Mark my words, he's going to be the same capitualing waffle he's always been. After all, like the majority of the corrupt polticians that make up the "Big Two" he's been paid for. From the NY Times:

But records show that one-third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more: a total of $112 million, more than Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries, raised in contributions of that size.

Behind those larger donations is a phalanx of more than 500 Obama “bundlers,” fund-raisers who have each collected contributions totaling $50,000 or more. Many of the bundlers come from industries with critical interests in Washington. Nearly three dozen of the bundlers have raised more than $500,000 each, including more than a half-dozen who have passed the $1 million mark and one or two who have exceeded $2 million, according to interviews with fund-raisers.

While his campaign has cited its volume of small donations as a rationale for his decision to opt out of public financing for the general election, Mr. Obama has worked to build a network of big-dollar supporters from the time he began contemplating a run for the United States Senate. He tapped into well-connected people in Chicago prior to the 2004 Senate race, and once elected, set out across the country starting to cultivate some of his party’s most influential money collectors.

...

The fruits of his efforts have put Mr. Obama’s major donors on a pace that almost rivals the $147 million raised by President Bush’s network of Pioneers and Rangers in contributions of $1,000 or larger during the 2004 primary season.

Change my ass.

Great Job Bushie...

You created another Iran. So much for nation building.

Iraqi cleric al-Sadr disarms most fighters, creates social work unit
Associated Press
Published: Friday August 8, 2008

BAGHDAD — Anti-U.S. Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr ordered most of his militiamen Friday to lay down their arms, and his spokesman said the young cleric might call off all resistance if the Americans accept a timetable to leave Iraq.

In the north, a car bomb exploded Friday evening in a crowded market in the city of Tal Afar, killing at least 21 people and wounding dozens, police and U.S. officials said. Tensions have been rising among ethnic groups throughout the north because of a dispute over control of the oil-rich area around Kirkuk — claimed by Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds.

Moves toward peace from al-Sadr and the bloody attack in Tal Afar, a predominantly Turkoman city with a small Arab community, underscore the complexity of trying to ensure stability here despite a dramatic improvement in security nationwide.

The order from al-Sadr, who mounted two uprisings against U.S.-led forces in 2004, was read to his followers during weekly Friday prayers in Shiite mosques across the country. He instructed his Mahdi Army militiamen to join religious and social welfare classes as part of a new organization — the "Momahidoun," or "those who pave the way."

In short, Iraq goes as Sadr makes it go. I guess Bush and his cronies should have listened to more folk music:

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=risbS6ZBqQg

One more thing...

...the fear-mongers who say you MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA or we will BE IN IRAQ FOREVER can't hang over our heads any more:

BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi officials say the U.S. and Iraq are close to a deal under which all American combat troops would leave by October 2010 with remaining U.S. forces gone about three years later.

A U.S. official in Washington acknowledges progress has been made on the timelines for a U.S. departure but offered no firm date. Another U.S. official strongly suggested the 2010 date may be too ambitious.

A timetable is part of a security agreement being negotiated by U.S. and Iraqi officials. Both sides stress the deal is not final and could fall apart over the issue of legal immunity for American troops.

One of the U.S. officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a long and "very difficult" telephone conversation Wednesday in which she pressed the Iraqi leader for more flexibility, particularly on immunity.

As for the Supreme Court issue... Well, they still own it last I checked.

You must be...

...kidding me:

The sum involved has developed into an international guessing game. Rumored price tags for Hollywood baby photos are often wildly inaccurate, and Radar magazine recently reported that celebrity publications are not above stoking the hype in order to boost newsstand sales and Web site traffic.

In the case of the Jolie-Pitt twins, an unsourced report claimed the worldwide rights sold for $14 million, more than three times the rumored $4.1 million deal for Shiloh's baby photos in 2006. People has said that the rumored numbers for both deals, as well as those for other famous babies that have adorned its pages, are excessive. But it has declined to elaborate.

Fourteen million for somebody's baby pictures. That is stupid beyond belief.

People, get a life. Or at least some perspective.

What I would have said...

...if registering at Bakersfield.com was worth the effort:

Don't make stupid polls that celebrate dehumanization then. Seriously, they're idiotic.

For example, equal rights isn't for just the majority. They're for everyone. Giving the mouth-breathers in our society the false-belief that it's "okay" to believe in discrimination is very regressive. It's that kind of constant dehumanizing bile that ends up promulgating the tragedy that struck my fellow UU's in Knoxville.

I bet you thought this was funny:













Well, it ain't so goddamn funny now, is it?

The fact is, dehumanization of those you don't like is the first step towards elimination of those you like. You can't have the Holocaust without dehumanization. You can't the Trail of Tears without dehumanization. You can't have the Mai Lai Massacre without dehumanization. You can't have the Bataan Death March without dehumanization. You can't have racism, gay-bashing or any other type of bigotry without dehumanization.

To break that cycle you've got to stop doing the little things you do that enable dehumanization. Limbaugh, Coulter, et. al. are not "personalities." They hateful vile people and should be denounced. Militia's aren't patriots, they're wackaloons that spawn psychopath's like McViegh. Torture is not okay, ever, and should never be debated as if it might be "okay."

Maybe, in a few generations, if people like you stop the enabling of the worst of us, we'll start to progress, once again, as a society that practices what it preaches. Instead of being a bunch of hypocrites.

This was in response to their feeling "violated" because we freeped their poll about atheism.