Enjoy DC, it's a wonderful town. One thing I'll always remember from living there are the great places to eat. In particular, the first two desserts I thought of were the chocolate hazelnut mousse torte at Jaleo's (good tapas as well) and the pecan cheesecake at Georgia Brown's (gourmet Southern food).
Maybe I should stop putting off dinner. Before I drool on my keyboard.
The missing CDC link for the last post
A lovely bit of information from the WHO.
By the way, your adaptive immune system will only recognize pathogens it has seen before on a molecular level. The immune system will mount a strong and quick response the second time it sees the same molecules, that's why vaccinations work. For example, you get the flu (just plain old human influenza A) from someone at work, the strain has different antigens that the immune system recognizes, and you are sick because your body hasn't seen that flu before. The seasonal flu vaccine is a cocktail of a few different flu strain vaccines that are determined to be the most likely to go around during flu season. The seasonal flu vaccine shot you had the month before did not work because the flu you were infected with was not be the strain you were vaccinated for. Only those exposed to the H5N1 strain thus far and have survived will have a strong secondary response to another exposure.
The good news: recent trials show excellent progress in developing an avian influenza A/H5N1 vaccine. There may be one available beforehand should a pandemic occur (see link above).
The bad news: world production capabilities for flu vaccine production is about 300 million doses per year.
The worse news: "The H5N1 virus currently infecting birds in Asia that has caused human illness and death is resistant to amantadine and rimantadine, two antiviral medications commonly used for influenza. Two other antiviral medications, oseltamavir and zanamavir, would probably work to treat flu caused by the H5N1 virus, though studies still need to be done to prove that they work." (From the CDC)
Teresa, thanks for reminding me about hot peppers and significant others. A girl I once knew would use that as a way to torture her boyfriend when he pissed her off. A deliciously evil tactic.
Georgiana, I noticed other studies on the subject of using capsaicin to alleviate pain. There might be something to it if it garners so much attention. If your son does it I'd be interested to know how it works out.
Habaneros work great in salsa. My variation involves mango, oranges, and carrots. It has a nice heat that sneaks up without being overwhelming.
Maybe that's just me, as I use two habaneros, chopped and handled with bare hands. Sometimes a serrano or two will go in as well.
I am curious as to the severe reactions others have had in response to peppers from hell. I don't have any skin reactions other than stinging if it involves a nose or an eye, or burning lungs if I happen to cook with habaneros and the capsaicin goes up in smoke.
In the meantime, if you want to think of something painful, imagine this from the September issue of the journal Pain, "Migraine prevalence within ethnic populations is varied. Capsaicin injection to the forehead of healthy volunteers induces the state of an experimental trigeminal sensitization, which is one of the proposed mechanisms of migraine."
Ouch.
If family tales are to believed, Charlemange would be related to the Cherokees through the DAR.
Here is one clue as to the oft cited Cherokee connection in family histories - in order to properly account for Cherokees in dealings with the US government, many, many censuses were taken, such as the Dawes Roll (early 20th century) and the Baker Roll (1924). If it is well documented, it can be traced genealogically.
My family has been wise enough to save old love letters sent to and from prisons a few generations back. It's hard to beat Prohibition and the Great Depression for good stories.
Obviously it's true. And God is a trickster god who hid all the lead-206 and neodymium-143 in all those there rocks just to show geochemists the folly of their hubris. Thus they were drawn into Satan's trap with the lurid, unholy delights of mass spectroscopy, forever lost to sin, doomed to publish in Geochemica et Cosmochemica acta for eternity.
Until you have your own giant robot flamethrower fists to crush and burn, this may have to do, and this, and this, and this.
I like it. INFERNOKRUSHER may be what finally gets me into science fiction, like volcanoes did with geology with that special eruptive way of theirs.
Although not on a planet-sized monster truck scale the folks at survival research labs at least have a start with robots, fire, and destruction.
"Things are true because you say they are. The only thing that matters is how sure you sound when you say it."
Okay, I've been called a bastard for doing this to people to throw them off for not questioning what they're told. I have a picture of Hodson Island, much like this one...
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1900-11=
Except mine has sea ice and it looks a lot darker and colder. Usually this needs a little build-up to go for the joke. I was born in Cleveland, which is true. Look at the picture of the above webpage, and imagine, someone trying to pass it off as a wistful childhood memory of looking across Lake Erie at Canada. I am amazed at how many people don't question it (Mentally add in a lot of sea ice, and that the picture I show them is a photocopy).
Those special retail moments. My favorite was when I worked in a record store. A woman comes in and asks, "I don't remember the name of the band I'm looking for..."
I interrupt her and say, "Here it is." I reach into the cd rack immediately to my right, pull out a cd and hand it to her. She looks at me amazed and asks me how I knew that Breeders cd was what she was looking for as a gift. I said I didn't know and walked away.
Either I have powers of mind control, I'm psychic, or most likely I am extremely lucky at the most unspectacular moments.
Oh my, what a wonderful hour spent ignoring my studies. Thank you all, especially JVP.
I was raised areligously, so I have a certain fascination for what makes people believe, or not, in religions.
Along similar lines...
What do you get when you put two anarchists in a room?
Three splinter groups.
Teresa,
Since the blog has changed to 'Making Light work of the Greens' I felt obliged to post.
I think your harping on Naderites is quite frankly, a pointless waste of your time and intellect.
First, it does nothing to further your inclusion in what one might call "the reality based world" because it doesn't do a damn thing to change the outcome.
Secondly, if you seriously believe that everyone who voted for Nader then and/or now is someone who believes that things have to get worse before they get better, you are quite simply wrong.
Thirdly, you are beginning to remind me of Democrats I personally know who have begun to scapegoat gays as having a lack of self-control in everything they do and couldn't wait until after the election to push for marriage rights. It appears that you just want a scapegoat like the aforementioned Democrats, except your target is politically safe amongst most liberals.
Lastly, you don't have to agree, like, or approve of someone else's vote because votes don't seek agreement, amiability, approval. You just have to allow it, and count it. To me there is a disturbing trend amongst Democrats that as a liberal you can vote for anyone you want as long as it's a Democrat. That sentiment really makes me, as one weary of ideologies, tire of the Dems as much as it turns me away from Republicans. If someone takes it as being called stupid, that is their problem. The principle of valuing democracy has to come before political parties, and when anyone acts in such a manner I have to question their commitment to democracy. Remember, democracy doesn't mean you will win, and acting otherwise will push a lot of people away - not what you want when each of them can vote.
You can have your soapbox back now.
Thanks for stirring the pot.
And since I've heard it said very little
Thank you John Kerry
Randall, I am not much of a sci-fi or fantasy person. Just today I had a Phillip K. Dick book in my hand while browsing a bookstore and dropped it for an Oe novel. I do however have one suggestion for the sci-fi realm. Look for anything by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Their books are a bit hard to find, and some Russian friends have looked askew at some of the translating but they are the only sci-fi authors I have bought, read and enjoyed in the past 7 or 8 years.
Would that last statement be fair if I said the only other sci-fi book I've bought during that time is Solaris which I still have not gotten around to reading yet? I have to get thru A-K on my bookshelves first, and that is rather distracting.
o who will come and go with me
to the university library
and delve amongst dusty tomes
the dog-eared pages of knowledge's home
hark! there beneath a cover that molts,
if indeed covers do molt,
awaits a vision of dissimilatory
arsenate reducing prokaryotes
so please forgive my metre and rhyme
I did not intend this poetic crime
it is only arsenophiles I seek
and will search in the library for at least two weeks
And good morning to all.
Or if you feel really adventurous and don't want to put effort into cooking something try this - make some teriyaki chicken, put that with some nachos (pepper jack cheese, serranos, pineapple salsa - guacamole and sour cream at your own risk but I don't think they'd work with this), now add mandarin oranges, heat, take out of oven, and splash a little soy sauce and some lime on there.
Finish off with some dark coffee and dark chocolate afterwards.
I know it sounds nuts, and it is lazy food, but it is really good to me at least, but then again, I am a student (see ramen haiku).
six for a dollar
malnutrition is on sale
my ramen noodles
I'm a budding geomicrobiochemist or something like that or an astrobiologist perhaps (I'm pretty sure they reproduce by budding too).
I do believe that as a whole the folks here are lovers of the obscure and interesting.
You and you Celtic page have now been adopted lovingly. "You're stuck with us now" followed by an evil, evil laugh.
I have held the Creation of the God of the Burgess Shale in my hand, and yea, it is good.
OK, not all of the Burgess Shale, mind you, just a fist sized piece. Just last week even.
I believe we should treat each other with great compassion and respect. And treat borrowed books the same.
Beautiful post Teresa. Some things are applicable out of context - I've only been to church services twice in my life and never to a service conducted in English. Faith is a wondrous spectacle, regardless of conscious understanding.
Okay, I also admit I scrolled over the bickering bits.
Wow. I am glad to see so many of my own thoughts reflected and voiced here, from the political idealist in me to the pragmatic liberal I try and be, right down to the tin-foil hat wearing wing-nut conspiracy voice. Excellent!
I am humbled by a prediction I made after the last election which was that at least with Bush we know what we're getting, and that I didn't think his handlers would let him go out on his own. I can admit when I'm wrong.
Frankly, the idea of this current administration getting a second term frightens me. I would have never expected them to be so grossly and blatantly dishonest, petty, and self-serving as a tactic to gain more power. Not that I expect sainthood from politicians as politics requires compromise, and that process today involves a degree of pettiness, dishonesty, and self-serving. But when an elected (however flawed the process may be) government in a democracy cannot compromise, when it harbors no dissent and can only resort to attacking the character and careers of those whom dare raise a voice against it, then it is no longer a democracy and those in power are no longer acting as elected officials but as proto-dictators, and are a hop, skip, and a emergency law away from destroying any vestigal traits of our Republic and the freedoms it should ideally afford us as citizens.
Meanwhile...
I been thinking of making a t-shirt which says "Gun Owning Liberal" on it, for fun, as I don't really have a desire to own a gun. I just think it would be a great thing to have at any protests or anything like that. Maybe with NRA hats, and membership cards too! Maybe, even as a liberal, I just enjoy razzing hippies too much.
And to think I used to work for Greenpeace :)
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| 2005 | 13 |
| 2004 | 7 |
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