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March 31, 2005
More Spring Cuteness!
Posted by Daffodil at 6:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Lawmaker Urges NASA on Hubble Mission
"GREENBELT, Md. - Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer called on NASA Tuesday to go ahead with plans to send a robot to service the Hubble Space Telescope while officials from the space agency said such a mission likely won't happen due to proposed budget cuts."
Nice to see a local Congressman out there trying to pound the pavement watching out for the space program. The Republicans would love nothing more than to make sure that manned space flight was a matter for the history books. Hubble despite all its flaws has been critical to our understanding of the universe. I know that the idea has been planted in the head of the people a NASA that if they let Hubble go that the Republicans will let them build a better telescope, but that's a pipe dream guys. The Republicans hate the space program, you're better off finding a cheap way to fix what you've got for a couple of more years until some decent people replace them in Congress and the White House. See if you can get the Russians to launch your repair robot for Hubble, start thinking outside the box.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Virgin says space flight plan complete
This is pretty cool, only 30 months to get their program off the ground is very quick, but the challenges of low earth orbit are a lot smaller than they use to be. There isn't much to be gained by going into low earth orbit, which is why we don't do it much anymore, but for trill seekers I'm sure that it will be a rush like they've never really experienced before. I imagine once they get this to be a regular occurrence, that business will realize that they can make real money getting the benefits from space we've been too inept to do as a nation. The potential of materials developed in space is so staggering that it almost demands that we build the most robust space infrastructure possible. Our future is in space!
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Operation Haremail: The Goodies!
My bunny buddy package came and it was so thoughtful! Amanda even included a book for Alexis! And she didn't even know that I collect cookie cutters, but there was a bunny cookie cutter in the package too and believe it or not I didn't have a bunny cookie cutter in my collection! Karma I tell you, karma! Thanks Amanda! I loved the package and Alexis did too!
Thanks to Tammy for putting this together! What fun! And thanks again to Amanda for the great bunny package! Hopefully yours will arrive at your door sooner rather than later. You were a great bunny buddy! :o)
Posted by Daffodil at 3:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Oil Surges $2 on 'Super-Spike' Prediction
And in the background as I read this article, I could just hear the ignorant Republicans claiming there is no need for Americans to decrease consumption and move to technologies that would make us energy independent. I can hear the lame-ass excuses about the technology just not being "there" yet. Doesn't matter that it's been there for years now, now the new excuse is that the infrastructure just isn't "there" yet. Do you think maybe we should start thinking about getting it there yet? No, in another 10 years everything will be in place. No folks, in another 10 years we will be helpless to do anything as a nation to save ourselves from this Republican mismanagement! We need to move now to decrease our dependence on oil once and for all. The government needs to step in force through regulations for fuel economy on all vehicles to sold in this country by next year. We need to push through technologies that will help us move completely toward renewable energies today. And we need to begin a ruthless phase out program for all mass fuel consumption sources and add a tax on those sources to move people toward immediate upgrades. The markets basically are saying that the Republicans are too inept to react to keep America from being victimized by our own consumption. Sadly it's a pretty damn safe bet that they will do nothing to save America, because they don't give a damn about this country.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 2:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Democrats Set to Reject Republican Pick for U.N.
Now if only a single Republican on the committee can show some stones and stand up for America and send the Republican hatemonger back to the bowels of the Bush Administration hate tank, then we may be on to something. This guy isn't fit to hold any public office, he's definitely not the "best" choice to manage our relationship with the U.N. The guy is a self professed UN hater. It's like sending the fox to guard the hen house. It's just plain stupid for America. I'll be the first to say there are problems with the UN, but that doesn't mean we should try to cut America off from it. I know Republicans hate America and the rest of the world for that matter, but this is just plain irresponsible for them to attempt, but it's the standard kind of low life behavior that has become the norm of the Republican party under Bush and his Neo-Con masters behind the scenes.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 2:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Girl, 5, calls 911 after parents shot dead
I don't know when this became impressive, but it's standard operating procedures. Every kid above the age of 3 should be able to call 911 to get help for their parents. There are no technical challenges to it that a kid of that age shouldn't be able handle. Alexis has almost gotten to the point that she can call people on Dianne's cell phone at will. This is a horrible tragedy and the cops are lucky that the girl didn't go into shock over the event. If you have a 3+ year old that doesn't know the procedure for dealing with an emergency then you're a failure as a parent. There are no guarantees they will deal with it properly, but if you give them a procedure that they've practiced they will remember their training when the time comes. In olden days, I had to learn my name, address, and phone number and then be able to find the number of the police or fire department in the phonebook. These days all they have to know how to do is call 911 and ask for help, because all calls are traceable. Things have gotten infinitely easier to do.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 2:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Neocons as Parasites
I read this interview and I was impressed. I'm not the only one connecting the dots and finding that the Neo-con problem is the greatest threat to this nation since the British invaded and burned the White House. I've had a hard time separating the Neo-cons from the Republicans myself. The Republican party being the organizational host is an interesting notion. I don't know how much I'm able to forgive them for the fact that they are spreading the Neo-con hate and evil across the globe. Either way, it's an interesting perspective on the current political situation in this country. Personally I find his rosy analysis that it will only take 8 to 12 years to shake off this cancer on our nation a bit on the optimistic. I don't think he's taking into account all the efforts they are making to hamstring this country from being an effective economic and intellectual superpower. I'm still not convinced yet that we can recover at all from their evil plans. I'm not saying it's time to give up yet, but it's time to take a serious look at ourselves and how we let this nation get into this state, then solve those problems first.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Panel: Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMDs
Trust me folks the panel's 74 recommendations will see absolutely no attention from this Administration, because the failures of intelligence had nothing to do with the mistake of going to war in Iraq. This was the only agenda the Republicans had when they took the White House. The intelligence community could have provided definitive proof of no WMDs and Bush and his brain-dead cronies in Washington would have still gone to war. The war had nothing to do with WMDs it had to do with winning the 2004 election. Republicans have to have wars to justify their ever increasing oppression of the public with their hate filled right wing agenda. The only way to fix the problems with the system is to get rid of the source of the problems, which is the Republican party. They should be removed from office. After that the problems with the intelligence agencies might be able to be handled, but until that happens there will be an ever growing cancer on these communities and they will still deliver the bad intelligence that the Republicans demand to justify their militant actions against the world.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 12:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Republican Anti-America Agenda Undeterred by Resistance
I can't decide if the Republicans are just too fundamentally stupid as people to understand that they have failed, or that they just want so badly to believe their own press that they have slipped into the realm of complete and total delusion. Let's take a quote yesterday from the cokehead leader of the Republicans "I think there is a political price for not getting involved in the process." Yet the polls seem to indicate the further you can get from the Anti-America Agenda the better off you are as a politician. Did you guys really think that Americans were really so stupid they would sit back and gladly let you destroy their country?? I mean it's one thing when you used your scripted format for your card carrying idiot followers, but real flesh and blood Americans have no clue what you're talking about. And for those you that claimed before the election there was no difference between the political parties, I think it's become quite clear that there is a fundamental difference between the parties. You're either for America or against it. The Republicans have made it quite clear that they hate everything America stands for and are going to destroy it. So it's time to get aligned with a pro-America mentality.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Terry Schiavo Dies, Family Spokesman Says
"PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the heart of a bitter right-to-die dispute that drew in the U.S. Congress and President Bush, died on Thursday, 13 days after a court halted her tube feeding, a spokesman for her parents said."
It would appear that Terry Schiavo has passed on. We at Daffodil Lane would like to pass on condolences to her family and friends.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 12:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Supreme Court Rejects Schiavo Last Appeal
I think the follow comments sum up everything that needs to be said about the Republican attempts to politicize this issue.
"One of the appeals court judges rebuked the White House and lawmakers Wednesday for acting "in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people — our Constitution."
"Any further action by our court or the district court would be improper," wrote Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., appointed by President Bush's father."
In all of American history a more massive effort to undermine the Constitution and America principals has never been attempted.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 30, 2005
Spring Cuteness
And in case you didn't know you should drink raisins and not eat them!
Posted by Daffodil at 4:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Report: Human Damage to Earth Worsening Fast
OSLO (Reuters) Humans are damaging the planet at an unprecedented rate and raising risks of abrupt collapses in nature that could spur disease, deforestation or "dead zones" in the seas, an international report said on Wednesday.The study, by 1,360 experts in 95 nations, said a rising human population had polluted or over-exploited two thirds of the ecological systems on which life depends, ranging from clean air to fresh water, in the past 50 years.
"At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning," said the 45-member board of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
"Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it said.
Ten to 30 percent of mammal, bird and amphibian species were already threatened with extinction, according to the assessment, the biggest review of the planet's life support systems.
"Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel," the report said.
"This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on earth," it added. More land was changed to cropland since 1945, for instance, than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.
"The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years," it said. The report was compiled by experts, including from U.N. agencies and international scientific and development organizations.
Read it all here.
Posted by Daffodil at 2:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Oh My!
You scored as Anarchism. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'>
What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com |
Posted by Daffodil at 2:50 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Pet Peeve #12
Junk mail. And I mean any kind of junk mail, whether it be e-mail spam or junk mail that arrives in my mail box each and every day! The sheer number of trees that had to be killed so that companies I would never buy anything from can send me this junk is astounding! The sad thing is some idiot out there has to be buying stuff from these unsolicisted junk mail avalanches, whether it be online or through the mail, or these idiots wouldn't send this junk out! And companies I do do business with have to be selling my address to their "friends". Sometimes it's obvious who sold your address and I don't do business with them anymore. Sometimes it isn't so obvious, but it should be out lawed none the less! For God's sake save the trees if nothing else!
Posted by Daffodil at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Defense Attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. Dies
I'll be upfront and tell you that I was NOT a fan of Mr. Cochran. I often wondered how he slept at night knowing he put a murder back out on the street, but none the less it is always sad when someone passes away. My heart goes out to his family.
Read it all here.
Posted by Daffodil at 9:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Court Ruling May Not Hinder Music Theft
"WASHINGTON - Even if entertainment companies win their Supreme Court battle for new authority to protect movies and music on the Internet, lawyers say it won't be easy to shut down the decentralized computer links used to trade songs and films.
However, entertainment executives say expanded grounds for lawsuits are needed to discourage inventors from profiting from cool gadgets of the future that could be used for stealing."
Translation folks, the Music and Movie industries only goal is to stifle innovation. They have never been able to stop piracy and never will be able to stop it. Their only "hope" is to stop innovation so they can stagnate technological innovation in America so they can slow it down. Just to maintain their corrupt business model. That's all that is going on here, that's all that has ever been going on here. I'm still holding out hope that the Supreme court will smack them down.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 7:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 29, 2005
Death sentence by jury that discussed Bible thrown out
It's woefully inappropriate for anyone to bring in information not presented in the trial to make decisions. The Judges are clear on that when they talk to the jury. I know the Neo-Christians love to have the opportunity to evangelize their religion of hate and fear to captive audiences, but someone should have reported them to the judge at the time the problem was happening, so they could have been kicked off the jury and exposed for the kind of people they really were. I know you Neo-Con Republicans like these don't believe in the rule of law. If you want to talk about your religion go to church, if you want to be a good citizen keep your religion there.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 4:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
59 American Ex-Diplomats Oppose Bolton
Bolton is the living embodiment of the Republican hate of global diplomacy. Republicans think that since we are the only super power we should run the planet. The fact that no one else in the world seems to agree sort of puts them at odds. So they have to have these wars to prove how powerful they are, but the reality of the situation is that there are other new super powers on the rise because the Republicans are destroying the US economy trying to make a short term buck at the nations expense. Bolton is pretty much the worse possible choice for any job beyond garbage collector. He lacks even the most basic social skills required to be a diplomat. Lack of social skills seems to be a prerequisite to be a Republican so I guess it makes sense to them. I'm hoping somebody in the Republican congress has a moment of good sense and resists putting this worthless animal in such an important position, but depending on a Republican to show signs of good sense is like holding your breath waiting on the eclipse of the sun, but we can warn you fools anyway and just keep praying that we can save this country from your messes before you have managed to destroy it with your ignorance.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 11:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Supreme Court to Weigh in on File-Sharing
I've long been a loud and vocal supporter of fair use technologies. The notion of fair use has been continuously under attack in America over the last decade. Corporate enterprises see an opportunity to starve off innovations and hopefully squeeze a few more dollars out of their customers through these efforts. Rather than simply embracing the technologies that are out there and offering a better choice, letting the market determine how content will be delivered. Basically you have corporate types fighting against new ways of thinking because they are enjoying the profit margins by exploiting old and dying technologies that give them a greater level of control over content than they truly deserve to have. I'm hoping the Supreme Court will tell them where their place is and tell them to travel back to it post haste and stop trying to stop the evolution of technology in the name of profit margins. The Republicans still don't have enough anti-America voices on the court yet to not have them protect us, but you never know with the Court these days.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
V-22 Osprey enters final test phase
I put this post under political because the very headline used to describe this is a political statement "Crash-prone aircraft enters final test phase". Now I'll be the first in line to bash the efforts of US Military contractors, who over charge and under test their submissions. but a good portion of that is the fault of the US government for not having a more serious oversight system in place to make sure they aren't doing things like that, but claiming the prototypes are any more crash proned than any other highly advanced aircraft that still under development is a joke. There is more advanced technology in the Osprey so it's going to have more problems, but in the process of overcoming these problems we stand on the verge of building an entirely new class of aircraft that will give us battlefield advantages that will last for decades. There is nothing like it running around in the world. The Osprey can out run any helicopter in existence and out VTOL any plane. For all the challenges there have been in its development they will be worth it in the long run. To abandon this technology would to failure to see the future.
Read more here and to learn more about the V-22 click here.
Posted by ManDrake at 11:50 AM
March 28, 2005
IE 'Unsafe' 98 Percent Of 2004
Not a surprise really. For those of you that are curious, Firefox was only unsafe for 15% of the year. Infinitely better to say the least. I thought it was interesting that the company that did the calculations that Mozilla's (maker of Firefox) reward policy for reporting major bugs might be playing an important role in how they are able to find and fix problems before they become a serious issue. I tend to think that this is probably the source of their success as well. I mean if you're a hacker and you have a choice between getting paid and writing viruses to prove how smart you are, I'll bet 9 times out of 10 they will take the cash. Another thing that helps them is that they have so many people looking at the code. When a developer has the code to look at they are less likely to dismiss anomalies and are much more likely to dig into the code and figure out what happened to see if it's a problem. I know as a web developer, my first instruction is to restart IE, because I don't have any incentive to figure out why one of my pages is in distress.
Read more on how unsafe IE is here and to get Firefox to replace it with here.
Posted by ManDrake at 4:51 PM
Michigan May Require Online Dating Checks
Republicans make me laugh, no matter what part of the country they are from!! Their dreams of building the ultimate caretaker state to manage people's lives is a hysterical joke. Basically their corporate sponsors have decided to start offering a new "service" of doing background checks. So they told their Republican puppets in the state legislature to introduce legislation to add value to their service by requiring competitors to clearly post that they are lacking the "service". This is where the abuses of corporatism become inherently obvious to everyone but the Republicans that are reading about it. The problem is the notion that people don't know that dating is dangerous business is laughable. It presumes an ignorance of society that can only exist from Neo-Christian home schooling or the like. I find it hard to believe beyond this out of touch Republican minority that you will be able to find people that are truly that dim witted. Relationships are a complicated matter on the best of days, but somehow I don't think that any government regulations on them will end up making that process any easier. Ultimately despite what Republicans believe we are all going to have to learn how to take care of ourselves and make our own mistakes. Sure some people will make mistakes and some will even die because there are evil people in the world through no fault of their own, but in the end it will make us all better people as a whole.
I guess I should disclose that I met my own wife online, and despite her poor money management skills she's yet to kill me. ;)
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 4:48 PM | Comments (1)
Doctors trying to reduce 'doorknob phenomenon'
I have to say this is a wild idea, that I would love to be able to participate in if I could. Nothing I hate more than a doctor trying to treat me before I'm done explain what's going on. I can't remember a time that I've ever had a productive conversation with a doctor about what was really going on with my health. Actually at this point I'm not sure if I could have an actual conversation, since I have to figure out what's wrong with me on my own, then describe it in a way that they will come to the right conclusion so I can get the treatment that I need. It's become a long drawn out game and cat and mouse that just annoys me. Of course, the question is would it be worth it to a doctor to go through the process? For them they are just there to sell whichever drug the drug reps that own them have told them to start selling and to see the maximum number of people in a day as possible. I really don't think this will take off because it's not in a doctor's interest really to get to know anything about their patients, they get paid the same if they talk to you for 1 minute or 20 minutes. But if they can keep it down to below 10 minutes they can see twice as many people in an hour then if they waste 20 minutes and in a perfect world they would only waste 5 minutes a person and then see 4 times as many people. To this end they have the nurse collect the information from you so they don't have to waste their time doing it, but what's annoying about that is that most of them don't even read what the nurses collected and ask all the same questions again. Nothing makes me madder than answering the exact same questions twice. I'm not going to be any more or less honest with a nurse than I am with a doctor. Personally I'd rather just use a computer administrated set of standard questions and I really like the Nurse line from my insurance company, I would much rather deal with them than doctors, because they only have the information you give them to work with, so they don't spend a lot of time going off on unnecessary tangents. Anyway, it's an interesting idea that they are working on here, but until you can build a doctor that realizes that they are partners in their patient's health and not in charge of it, it will never work. It would require a completely new mindset for the medical profession that I'm not convinced they are ready to make.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 4:17 PM
Reflections on a year of blogging
It's my nature to ask if I've accomplished my goals when I reach a milestone like this. The problem is that with the blog I had no real goals. Basically Dianne and I were looking for a better way to deliver pictures to the grandparents. We had been working on the web for years, everything from running games to message boards, for us it was just an extension of a theme of our lives. I have to say I never imagined that we would ever attract as much attention as we have. I know there have been many days over the last year that I've sat stunned by the reactions to even the most innocent comments that I've made on the blog. Despite that, I would say that it's been a positive experience for me. It's helped me refine my skills as a writer, and helped me refine my arguments to a razors edge. I find that I'm still in a negative cycle of dehumanizing the opposition left over from the election and I'm still working on that one. I'd love to say I'm making progress on that one, but those things became so personal that it moved several topics from intellectual discussions to personal attacks. Unfortunately I'm old school when it comes to things that are personal, I neither forgive nor forget. I have many 20 to 25 year old grudges that I still haven't gotten over yet. So this may end up being a very long negative cycle in my life. Ultimately I'm proud of the work that we've done here. We share thoughts and ideas with hundreds of people a day and still are able to lead relatively interesting and productive lives. I think I'm not even going to set goals for the next year of blogging. I'm just going to keep saying what needs to be said, pointing out the obvious, and hopefully making the world a little better place to live in the process.
Posted by ManDrake at 2:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Portfolio Update
Well I moved Savings into Bonds as I planned, but with the Republicans gutting the economy, there doesn't appear to be any good place to put your money. I'm going to keep riding the market until my actual percentage approaches 2%, then I'm going to move my money out of the market completely. From my knowledge of how Republicans work, I know that they will move things to a desperate level and then cause some sort of incident to cover up their mismanagement of the economy. So my goal is to get out before they act to drive the markets into serious straights. Last time, I pulled out months in advance of their cover-up, this time I'm going to try to ride it right up to the edge. I've already protected at least a 1/3 of my assets from the market, so that should give me enough leeway to take a few chances. In the end I expect that the only thing in my portfolio that will be worth anything is the stuff I have invested in foreign markets, where the Republicans seem to send all the jobs and economic strength of this country. Unfortunately it only represents 10% of my portfolio, but once again I'm going to play chicken with it and try to act right before the Republicans do. Intellectually I know that even if I do win, the ramifications of Republicans destroying the American economy will make the money I have invested worthless, but the exercise is just something I'm doing to keep my mind busy so I don't have to sit around thinking about the doom that is rapidly approaching us because of their ignorance.
This Weeks Actual Percentage: +3.859%
Last Weeks Actual Percentage: +4.941%
Best weekly percentage: +7.437%
Personal Rate of Return according to Fidelity for This Week: 6.9%
Personal Rate of Return according to Fidelity Last Week: 8.0%
Current Asset Allocation:
54.29% Stock
45.71% Bond
00.00% Savings
Posted by ManDrake at 2:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pentagon Invests in Unmanned 'Trauma Pod'
This is a long overdue technological advancement. As we've gotten better and better with our medicinal science one thing we've learned is that the faster you're able to start life saving techniques, the greater the chance you have to protect the body from additional damage. The rapid treatment of anything from strokes to heart attacks with the right drugs can mitigate and reverse the damage that these kinds of traumas cause to the body. Now what the military is proposing takes these concepts to the next level. Basically allowing operations to occur on wounded soldiers before they leave the battlefield. This is a natural extension of the entire Telemedicine concept that the Pentagon has adopted. Personally I'm very supportive of the concept, because its peace time applications are staggering. The FDA has approved these same machines for use in American hospitals. What this allows is for remote access to specialists around the world. This allows a reduction in the overhead of maintaining a hospital's ability to treat any problem that comes along. While the challenges may seem to be large, I don't see any technological reason that they won't be able to get these systems down to a pod size. I'd also like to see some effort into AI for these systems to eliminate the need to tie down a doctor for the entire procedure, instead allowing the computer to do some of the more mundane aspects of the surgeries. For me the bigger challenge is designing a new Medical Helicopter to hold the pods without increasing its problems on the battlefield. Ultimately I would really like to see a much more massive investment in these kinds of technologies. Robotics are going to be the future of not only war, but of peace as well. The better grasp we can get on these technologies the better our position in the world of tomorrow.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 2:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pictures From Last Week
My computer is still hosed, but I was able to download these pictures to another computer to share with everyone. Enjoy!
Tada!
Beads!
After months of dealing with the Britax people, and it becoming more and more clear that they had no intention of helping us out in any way or sending us a new car seat strap for the one that was recalled, we bought Alexis a couple of new ones. She likes them MUCH better! They sit up completely, where the Britax one always had a bit of a lean to it. A word of advice to any parents out there considering a Britax car seat: BUY ANOTHER BRAND!!
My New Car Seat
Bunny!
Taking pictures with Grams' camera
Princess
Posted by Daffodil at 1:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
New Compound May Prevent Allergies, Study Finds
I'm not sure how comfortable I am with putting a compound that is part human and part animal in my system. From the description it appears to latch onto the receptor site for allergies and basically makes it so the body doesn't know that the allergen is there. So no histamine response. I get the concept, just not sure how you can call it a compound when it has genetic features. Sure seems like you should call it a virus or an organism, something like that. It's obviously not just blocking histamine it's actually interfering with the body's ability to produce histamine for the specific genetic source in the test substance.
Other than those concerns, it's amusing that they made mice that were allergic to cats. I mean you can't pay for irony like that folks. :)
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 1:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Operation Rescue threatens the Republican party
On the one hand this Republican meltdown is a hilarious turn of events. They've allowed the party to be held hostage by a minority of radicals who could care less about the rule of law. They are vitriolic monsters seething with hate and contempt for America. I'm sure the Republicans thought they could control the beast as they radicalized America, splitting us apart so they could win an election, but like when the Southern Democrats unleashed the Klan to try and stop integration, once you unleash the hate mongers there is nothing that can be done to bring them back under control and in the end the very thing you thought would save you ends up destroying you. See these same Southern Democrats now call themselves Republicans, and the Klan, always a religious movement, now diffused itself into the Evangelical faiths. Those that don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it and the Republican party can't remember what they did yesterday, let alone have the good sense to realize they are making the same mistakes again.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 1:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Business Sees Gain In GOP Takeover
The growing relationship between corporate America and politicians is great cause for concern. Your average dimwitted Republican will tell you that what is good for business is good for America, but as we learned in the early 1900's that is seldom the case. Business interests are always short term and the business of America is the future. These two mindsets can't effectively work together for any length of time. You can't build the future trying to restrict the growth of competitors. It's a dangerous president to set using the government as a tool of corporate will, but the Republicans have blindly accepted their corporate directives and run blindly towards the cliff which is in line between right and wrong. In the end, if we are lucky, we will get a leader again who will be able to rescue America from the grip of corporatism over this nation through their puppets in Congress, but not for as long as the Republicans control the government. They believe that wealth should determine the value of your vote, and corporatism fits right into their mindset. Of course the fact that this is direct opposition to what the Constitution sets forth never bothers Republicans, because they don't believe in the rule of law anyway.
Read more here and read more about Corporatism here.
Posted by ManDrake at 1:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DeLay Had Own Tough Quality-Of-Life Choice
Not that there really needs to be anymore evidence that all Republicans are hypocrites, but here it is anyway. Facing the same situation with his own father DeLay and his family decided not to continue treatment to keep him alive. Now the Republican's claim is that it was different because his conditions was in a downward slide. But the reality of the situation is that if this decision had been made in the Schiavo case when she was in the same state we wouldn't have the Republicans around Grand Standing on the issue. See Republicans don't want you to make decisions for them, but they want to make decisions for everyone else. This is the fundamental nature of Hypocrisy. Live by the rules I make, not by the actions I take. The Republicans should make that into the party motto. If ending the suffering of your dad is ok for you, then ending the suffering of this guy's wife is ok for him. There shouldn't be two separate rules for behavior, one for the Republican elite and then another for the rest of us.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Happy Blogaversary!
Happy Blogaversary to us!!
On this day, one year ago, we started Daffodil Lane. My how far we've come!
Have a great day everyone!
Posted by Daffodil at 9:22 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
March 27, 2005
Happy Easter!
Posted by Daffodil at 5:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 26, 2005
Amazon.com Knows, Predicts Shopping Habits
I'm trying really hard to get worried about the data that Amazon is collecting on me, well more specifically on us all. First of all, they are just about as paranoid about protecting my information as I am. Which makes me less concerned about what they are doing with the data. Secondly, unlike many smaller online stories I've gone too, Amazon never sends me advertisements to my email address. I don't log onto my Amazon account for months at a time, and yet they never seem concerned. Now I use it for nothing more than for the holidays, and they seem to be fine with that. I think people are being excessively concerned over nothing.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 3:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Philippine village crucifies seventeen people
I don't know what to do with this one. Sure seems like a pretty grotesque display to say the least. The notion that anyone could do anything so bad as to justify going through the process year after year is equally absurd. I guess it's all good safe fun for Catholics, since they keep paramedics on hand to treat the fools that are allowing themselves to be beaten and nailed to a cross.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 2:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 25, 2005
Easter Bunny Gets Pummeled by Boy at Mall
What a strange, strange story. I'm not sure why a 12 year old was going to the Easter Bunny. I imagine this is going to turn into something bigger before long.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Dean Says Party Should Speak From Heart
"We need to respect people who believe differently than we do, and we need to honor their concerns about America."
While I respect what Dean is trying to say here, and I've heard similar things from my own wife on the subject, I find it impossible to respect people that have no grasp of the fundamental principals that made America. I'm sorry, I just can't see why I should extend respect to people that are utterly lacking in good sense. Their entire existence is based on hearsay and mythology. Most don't have the good sense it takes to get out the rain, as we would say in the South. Not to mention Republicans are completely devoid of even the most basic concept of moral values. They just aren't decent people, most would put a cap in their own mothers for a c-note. How do you respect people like that? It's really not possible. A handful seem to demonstrate the beginnings of what I would refer to as the airs of polite society, but the vast majority are nothing more than hate filled animals. They are a cancer eating at the soul of this great nation. And we need to treat them just like you would any cancer, isolate, contain, and destroy. Actually the cancer analogy works quite well in describing Republicans and how their hate ideology spreads. The most important thing that Dean said was that the Democratic party needs to run campaigns just like Republicans 24/7/365. And I'm glad to hear that.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
White House Payments to Columnist Probed
This is what the Schivo case is really about here folks. The Republicans have been committing crimes against the United States continuously now since Bush took office. Every free moment they've been stealing as much money from the tax payers and giving it to their wealthy campaign contributors. But Republican criminality is so rampant that people don't even blink about it. Given the natural immoral mindset of your average Republican voter, they don't mind theft of the treasury, that's fine as long as God is brought up every other breath. It's only the image of morality that they desire, they don't even the most basic common sense to actually know the difference. They wouldn't know decent human being because most of them have never met one, and if they did they would feel so uncomfortable about the differences that they would shun those kinds of people. So that's why they have been working so hard to exploit this shell of a human being, because they are being caught in rapid secession they needed to do something big to change the news cycle. And your run of the mill Republicans probably will fall for it, because let's be honest their stupid. Suddenly they aren't worried that the Republicans are committing crimes because they've been told that they have something "more important" to worry about.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Polls Show Drop for Bush's Job Approval
On the surface of this I should be happy. But the reality of the situation is that only in polls paid for by Republican leaning companies do we ever find any form of solid support for Bush. The guy is a whack job folks, nobody really likes him. The right wingers just love that an ignorant fool can be President, it gives them hopes for their own futures. I think the Republican party may have made such a massive overstepping of their authority to the point that they reawakened something other than the standard emotion of pure hate that makes up the majority of the Republican party. Suddenly Republicans everywhere have stopped and said what the hell do you think your doing. And the current crop of hate mongers in Washington rapidly answered God's will of course. I know you Republicans out there are feeling like worthless fools. And you should, your pretty much some of the stupidest people on the planet. But now the real question is what are you going to do now? The Republicans are confident that your too stupid to remember all the way until next year what they did this year. Frankly I think you too stupid as well, it's a safe bet that you are, but you could make the decision to not be inbreed idiots I guess. But it sure would be a first. Republicans aren't Americans really anymore, they are some sort of a hybrid hate group/political party. Anyone that supports any of them, is pretty much just as guilty of their crimes as they are.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Maryland Republicans seek to backtrack on crooked land deals.
Maryland politics is a complicated matter. We are a solid blue state, but we have worthless Republican governor. You might ask why? Well after 40 years a successfully leading our state the Democrats got a bad apple in office. The public reaction was to put a Republican in office. This is pretty much the norm of how people think things should work. The problem is that Republicans are naturally evil people and the Republican governor we have has done nothing but to seek the destruction of the Maryland Democratic party since he took office. One of his favorite crimes has been a organized effort with the rest of the Republicans in Maryland to sell off all the protected state lands to real estate developers that contributed to his campaign. Mind you these are the very lands that feed the largest estuary on Earth. The very estuary that represents a significant portion of Maryland's economy. But Republicans are short sighted people, the future means nothing to them no matter what level of government they are involved in. So the Democratic legislature has been working to curb the Republicans tireless efforts to steal and destroy the state. So they decided to try and protect the state lands. And mysteriously the Republicans have decided to support the legislation. See the governor is going to be up for election in 2006, so he needs an environmental win under his belt. Mind you that it was his bad behavior that required the law to be made. That's what I love about Republicans they will commit every crime imaginable then take credit for passing the law that was created to stop them. Talk about worthless people, Republicans take the cake. The Republicans should get their moving trucks set up, for they will not sit much longer in the governor's mansion.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2005
Student Reinstated After Principal Flap
I'm sorry, but this story made me very happy. Basically the student Eliazar Velasquez took a picture of the school principal smoking within 25 feet of a school building, which is a violation of state law. Then posted them on his website. I'm not sure why the student was suspended "because he disrupted the learning environment at the school". How is exposing a law breaker disruptive? Basically this is a beautiful example of the abuse of power. Now if the pictures were taken off the school grounds, I could buy the argument. Anyway, it all appears to have been cleared up by the Superintendent after some discussions with the ACLU. I think this speak volumes for the need for changing the America education system. There has to be some realization that students are more than mindless cogs in a wheel. They are creative and intelligent human beings who need to be taught and mentored into being productive adults. It's not a task for the faint of heart that's for sure. We need to step in a break the molds and adopt a new kind of interacting between adults and children. We need to extend to them more of the courtesies and considerations that we take for granted as adults. And in return we should expect more of them and require more behaviors that are in-line with adult behavior. It's completely asinine to think that your average 14 year old which knows more than a 25 year old from 50 years ago, deserves any less respect than you would have given the 25 year old.
Read more here and to see the kid's website click here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
IRS recoups $3.2B from abusive shelter
I know that the Republicans around will tell you that Rich people aren't naturally dishonest. But 3.2 billion dollars worth of avoided taxes sure seems a bit on the dishonest side to me. See this is the problem with the wealthy, the more money they have the less they want to pay in taxes. Doesn't matter if they aren't lacking for anything on Earth. They will do anything they can do to steal that money from hard working taxpayers. All the time they will deny that it's that our system of government that made it possible to acquire that wealth and they owe that system of government a fair share of the money they made. Personally I just can't get past having millions of dollars and not wanting to pay your fair share of it to the government. It's not only criminal, it's just flat out unpatriotic.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Microsoft attempts to steal the IPv6 standard
Now you have to ask yourself, how can a publicly developed standard be stolen. By it's very nature it was developed in the public, for the public good. What kind of people would take something developed in such a fashion and try to steal it? Well that's easy to answer, Microsoft. Their engineers sat in on the public meetings and then rushed off to the patent office to try and patent the designs that were agreed upon by the technical group in charge of drawing up the standards. See the one thing the computer revolution has taught us all, that the greater good has to be considered or else you end up with nothing but incompatibility and ultimate you end up defeating yourself. It's only in an environment of cooperative development that we all make progress. But there are some that don't want to work that way, they want to take over all the technology and hold the world hostage to whatever price they choose to set for the technology. What's even more fiendish about this particular plot is that the rest of the world has been working to integrate this new standard into their products, and Microsoft was hoping to spring this on the market after everyone was committed and wipe out all the competition by making it impossible for them to compete using "Microsoft" technology. I'm sorry, but this is grounds alone for busting this monopoly folks! Just the attempt at trying to pull something like this off against the rest of the world displays beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are untrustworthy.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
First Look: OpenOffice.org 2.0 Looks Good
I've been so impressed with the OpenOffice project, I find myself using it more and more in place of Micro$oft Office. It's hard to argue with features like instantly turning any document into a PDF format. Also you can bring in and change any Micro$oft document and spit it back out in their format for someone else. If you find yourself needing Office features, I highly recommend downloading OpenOffice first and giving it a whirl. There is pretty much nothing of importance that you can't do. The one feature that was missing was a Database program like Access. Well here comes OpenOffice 2.0 introducing that feature. For me personally I've never been able to get Access to work the way I wanted it too, so I've never been a fan of it. I think I may give the OpenOffice version a try and see if I can't move to using Databases more. 2.0 is still in Beta, but I'm sure a GA release is not in the too distant future. I'm hoping that they fixed the problem with some XP Word documents, which was causing a few problems from time to time. I'm sure that's Micro$oft's doing trying to protect their install base. I really like to see some businesses and institutions start adopting this technology and stop wasting resources being held hostage to the unstable Micro$oft product cycle. This country would be better off to just move on to an Open Source footing.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mozilla Patches Firefox Hole
I didn't even know there was a problem, I was just surfing with FireFox and icon popped up saying there was a new patch for FireFox and asked if I wanted to download it. And you see folks that's why Micro$oft can never win the battle against Open Source. If a IE fix had been created, I would have had to open a new session to realize it. Unless they put it in there normal serious fix update system. I'm amused of the kind of coverage a FireFox fix gets compared to the thousands of fixes Micro$oft has to do on a regular basis. I then this comment sure sums it up perfectly.
"...the discovery of the hole and release of a patch shortly after are evidence that the open source software model is safer and more secure than closed-source commercial code, because it is "scoured by thousands" of contributors, developers and professionals, and "not just the company's development team."
I'm sure the Micro$oft spin control will be out with dramatic statements of how dangerous Open Source is by this afternoon.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filibuster under Fire
I heard an interesting on NPR this morning. It was a discussion of the Republican effort to overturn centuries of American law and tradition to eliminate the Filibuster by the minority party. It pointed out the standard irony that the Republicans used these same rules to stop Democratic nominations as well. But proving that a Republican is a hypocrite is as easy as getting out of bed in the morning. What I found particularly interesting and hadn't heard before was some of the reasons for not allowing the 10 judges on the bench. Now I always assumed it was just because they were so radical that they didn't reflect American values anymore. Republicans have a hard time with the notion of being impartial about things. But some of the stuff they dug up on these guys was staggering, quotes like "Slavery was a gift from God to the white man". Excuse me!! I know these are standard Republican values as confirmed by the Conservatives that say Frist has to do it to get their votes, but please tell me that your not trying to put that kind of racist ideology back into the courts. Actually after hearing that I want to impeach the entire Republican party! What kind of worthless monsters are you guys!! This is America folks, we may not always be right, but we try to always walk the straight and narrow. I know you guys dream of returning to day of segregation and oppression. But do you seriously believe that people will take such a massive step backwards? So for all you minorities out there that are voting Republican, these are their real values when their are alone in the dark. They hate us all, and dream of the day that they will be able to put us back in our place as slaves. I, for one, have no plans of walking willing into slavery to the Republican elite. We have a saying here in America that you Republicans may not know about. Give me liberty or give me death. I'm not too keen on the latter, but I'll die to protect the former.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Plants Challenge Genetic Inheritance Laws
I heard about this last night on NPR. It's really interesting the notion that defies science we know. Pretty much every school child can explain Mendel's rules of genetic inheritance. I know I've written computer programs to see how a recessive negative trait could propagate through a society. Yeah it wasn't for a class I was just curious, I'm that kind of guy, annoying isn't it. Anyway, according to the Purdue University research it's possible that plants with no genetic possibility of having a trait, were able to produce that trait somehow having a hidden method of retaining a recessive copy of genes somewhere. People are kicking around the idea that it's something to do with RNA which is used to clone DNA strands, maybe retaining old versions of the DNA, which is sometimes getting passed on to the next generation. It's a wild notion any way you look at it. Probably going to take me a couple of more days to hear the idea without it causing an internal conflict.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 6:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Supreme Court Won't Hear Schiavo Case
Ironically the first words out of my mouth where thank God. For those of you on the wrong side of the issue, this may seem sacrilegious, but the reality of the situation is much more complicated than you have the ability to realize. We live in a time where our technology allows us to perform our own version of miracles. But our own abilities in these areas are not always up to par. We have the ability to break the grand design, change the flow of events in unnatural ways. I personally believe that the Schiavo case is a prefect example of this kind of unnatural intervention. Doctors were able to save her body, but as a strong believer in a merciful God, I can not believe that her soul was left in that body. Our science allowed us to maintain a shell of human being devoid of what made it who it was. No one is personally more horrified by the fact that the shell is being made to suffer unnecessarily, but this is caused by the Ring Wing thinking they have the right to play God and not allow science to correct it's horrible mistake. I sympathize with the parents, because it's hard to let go, but it is the job of the living to realize that they must let go of the dead. The loss of a child is among the most horrifying things that can happen to a parent. But tomorrow the sun still rises and things have to get done. While you will grieve your loss for the rest of the days you have on this Earth, your job is still to live until it's your own time. That's why we are all here, it may not always seem just, but it's our fate.
God bless you all and these United States.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 5:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Durable Orders Weak, Jobless Claims Rise
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for U.S.-made durable goods edged up an unexpectedly weak 0.3 percent in February and claims for jobless aid rose last week, signs the U.S. economy might be a touch softer than economists had thought."
A touch softer!!! Are you nuts?? The Republicans are working night and day trying to undermine the economy! Anything they can do they are doing. What even worse than that are their sins of omission where they failed to act either out of incompetence or ignorance. There are things that can be done to bolster the economy, first and foremost is end all tax cuts to the wealthy! If we don't get the money following back into the hands of middle class this country is pretty much doomed as an economic power. Of course, if we can get rid of every worthless Republican out of every level of the US government we will all be better off as well. We need some sort of slogan for that. I'll have to think about it, suggestions are welcomed.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at 5:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Desperate Republican use Schiavo case to cover criminal activities
Not surprising, Republicans aren't the kind of people that "believe" in anything beyond money and power. The notion that there are still people out there that believe that Republicans believe in God is laughable. Just goes to show that are education system is an abject failure, because