Many Things

I just had surgery last Friday. I'm doing fine, but I had a scare. I woke up at 5:30 AM with what felt like stomach acid pain in my stomach. I had no antacids in the house. I was not nauseous. I did not have diarrhea. The pain grew as the morning went on. I had to make a move. I decided I did not want to drive the 25 miles to Duluth to my GP's office. It was a Friday in Atlanta on the cusp of Memorial Day weekend. What a drive that would be. Instead, I decided to stop by Rite-Aid and get some Tums. See if that helped. If not, then I would drive a couple of miles to a nearby Urgent Care clinic. Tums did not help. The MD at the clinic wasn't sure what was wrong. He said it was either my gall bladder or bad gas. He sent me for an ultrasound and told me to go to the emergency room by Saturday if I was not better. He clearly didn't understand how bad the pain was. After a short drive and about an hour wait, I had my ultrasound. The tech told me it was my gall bladder. She ga...

This is a very interesting story about how a killing in 1967 set West Germany on the road to being a progressive nation. East German Stasi Spy Killed Protester, Ohnesorg, in 1967 - NYTimes.com

My favorite city is Paris, but I would love to live in Cannes. Create your own travel map or travel blog Travel Info at TripAdvisor

The Obama administration is making a clear shift in drug policy: The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use. In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country." [ WSJ ] This is a dramatic shift from past Republican and Democratic administrations. Obama and Congress now need to follow through with new laws that eliminate prison sentences for minor drug offenses that do not involve other crimes ...

The Associated Press is reporting the following: A source tells The Associated Press that President Barack Obama is considering California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno and more than five other people as nominees for the Supreme Court. An official familiar with Obama's decision-making said others include Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood —people who have been mentioned frequently as potential candidates. Kathleen Sullivan is missing from this list. I was hopeful that she might be the first lesbian justice. From this AP list, I am guessing he will pick Sonia Sotomayor, to select both a woman and a Latino. If Obama selects a man, women will be pissed. If he doesn't select a Latino, Latinos will be pissed. LGBTQI folks are already pissed at all Obama is not doing for us, so I'm sure overlooking us once again will be no ...

Although I don't listen to right-wing talk radio, I've heard and read the news reports that the right doesn't get the joke. Well, pardon me, but if people laugh at something, it is usually funny. I saw the crowd laugh at Wanda Sykes . So shut up about it and move on; Sykes is known for her "over the top" style. On May 9, 2009 she created controversy at a White House Correspondent's Dinner stand up routine, where she cracked jokes about Rush Limbaugh being the 20th hijacker but "he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight", wished that he would be waterboarded and then joked that she 'hoped his kidneys would fail,' in response to Limbaugh's statement that he hoped Barack Obama 's policies would fail. [ Wikipedia ]

This is a very short video about Rick Scott, the face on those TV ads against health care reform. Scott also was one of the folks behind those deceitful "Swiftboat" ads against John Kerry. (Here is the direct URL to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tItAd_rzJ48 .) His ads against health care reform are just as deceitful. They make people think they will die waiting for emergency procedures in a public insurance system. I wager that more people have died in the US because of insurance companies denying benefits or from lack of insurance than have died in the UK or Canada in their public health care systems.

Tomorrow, the Nanotech Conference and Expo 2009 opens in Houston. Session tracks include: Fabrication, Characterization & Tools Advanced Materials Electronics & Microsystems Medical & Biotech Energy & Environment Business & Initiatives I've been interested in nanotechnology for several years now, and one of the more hopeful applications is in the field of cancer treatment and prevention. Here is an excerpt from the synopsis of the cancer nanotechnology sessions: Nanotechnology has the potential to have a revolutionary impact on cancer diagnosis and therapy.... For breast cancer, for instance, the goal of molecular imaging is to be able to accurately diagnose when the tumor mass has approximately 100-1000 cells, as opposed to the current techniques like mammography, which require more than a million cells for accurate clinical diagnosis. In cancer therapy, targeting and localized delivery are the key challenges. To wage an effective war against cancer...

Georgia scumbag politician, Bob Barr , spoke to CNN on Saturday, waxing on about how bad it was for the Republicans that Arlen Specter became a Democrat. He said the party is in "deep 'shit,'" but it is less so after he left. Barr was such a scourge on the GOP, that when he ran for President in 2008 as an absurdly fake libertarian, the party faithful returned the favor and virtually no one voted for him. Now if someone would just invite Barr to leave Georgia or get him to shut the fuck up, what a blessing that would be.

Here's an interesting link about May Day. Thoughts on Democracy, Freedom, and Justice: May Day: Workers of the world unite!

I started using closed captioning on a fairly regular basis about two years ago. Chalk it up to me getting older and hard of hearing or all the people speaking in whispers on TV shows. What is it with Jack Bauer on 24 always talking in a whisper? Does he have a sore throat? Did this whispering naturally lead to the whispering shows: Ghost Whisperer and Dog Whisperer ? If I were actually deaf and fully needed closed captioning, I would immediately face a big problem. Most closed captioning appears at the bottom of the screen, where most networks and stations are displaying other info.: logos, promos for other shows, alerts, etc. You cannot read it in such cases, which happens too frequently. I wrote to one of my local stations and asked them to consider displaying CC at the top of their screen. No response. No change. I guess when I challenge their license renewal, they will wish they had listened. There is a bonus to using CC, which are the secrets I refer to in the title of this po...