Bluemerle

Saw this trailer for a movie called "SHINING

It's about some kind of family holiday at a mountain lodge, where this quirky little kid named Danny reconnects with his distant writer dad. I've been disappointed by trailers before, you know, but I don't think this film could go wrong!!

taking methamphetamine or ecstasy to lose your inhibitions and erection, Then take Viagra to get the erection back again so that you can pork/be porked by a stranger(s) for ten days straight; who, like you, have had unsafe sex with with an average of 18 guys in the last two months. It's not like that would lead to a dramtic upsurge in HIV or other sexually transmitted disease, or anything.

And of course, if it does, it's only because there is no FDA label warning you not to use meth with your viagra.

Sex drugs called avenue to HIV - The Boston Globe:

"WASHINGTON -- Richard Gallo's experience is shared by thousands of men who sometimes find other men through e-mail messages that read: ''Do you want to PNP?' It stands for ''party and play.' To party, they take crystal methamphetamine, which reduces inhibitions but also their ability to have sex. To play, they pop Viagra at the same time. Gallo, a 28-year-old Boston resident, said he had many such sexual encounters"



''As far as FDA and labeling is concerned, a lot of this is really, really off-label," [Dan Shames, director of the FDA's division of reproductive and urologic drugs] said."

Indeed.

Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, however, wants to FDA to step in and relabel, and "educate" gay men about the risks of using viagra with meth. Personally, don't think education is the problem at all.

Unwillingness to check obviously self-destructive behaviour is not caused by lack of labels or lack of a targeted advertising campaign by the makers of viagra and Cialis. These are men deliberately seeking out a way to get rid of any sensible inner voice telling them to cool it. Don't make viagra harder to get for men who want and need it. Don't waste money trying to reach people who don't want to be reached.

Via KevinMD

More here


Via Lgf

The Times-Picayune follows up on widely reported attacks and deaths at the Superdome and Convention center. Most of the widely reported artocities are either demonstably false or unsupported by evidence.

Those 30 bodies in the freezer? Chow line gossip passed to guardsmen who had never seen any bodies. There were 6 bodies found at Dome (four more outside); 4 at the convention center. An exhaustive search and repeated sweeps found no others.
How about the Guardsman who was shot in a superdome locker-room? He shot himself by accident. Sniper fire? a lie. Shootouts and mayhem with roving bands of thugs? More like wild goose chases on false reports.

The truth was bad enough - stifling heat, not enough food, water, no place to go to the bathroom ... most of the deaths were from natural causes.

Vulnerable poor descending into sub-human seething raging predatory cannibalizing wildebeasts? Not so much.

FOAF (Friend of a Friend, or more likely Fool of a Fool) legends spread like wildfire, and no reporter apparently had the sense to pin down an original sources about where they got their story.

Update:

Jeff Goldstein lays a few of them out here: Hurricane Coverage and the Legacy Media's Mainstream Failures.

'twas already looted, so I guess they must be finders. Unless you count the government, then it's back to looting.


From the UK guardian:

A long quest for booty from the Spanish colonial era appears to be culminating in Chile with the announcement by a group of adventurers that they have found an estimated 600 barrels of gold coins and Incan jewels on the remote Pacific island.

"The biggest treasure in history has been located," said Fernando Uribe-Etxeverria, a lawyer for Wagner, the Chilean company leading the search. Mr Uribe-Etxeverria estimated the value of the buried treasure at US$10bn (£5.6bn).

The announcement set off ownership claims. The treasure hunters claimed half the loot was theirs and said they would donate it to non-profit-making organisations. The government said that they had no share to donate.

The treasure was discovered on Robinson Crusoe's island where the non-fiction version of Defoes famous character, Alexander Selkirk, made his home for four long years. Treasure hunters have stalked the island for generations without success, and claims of fabulous discoveries are apparently taken with a grain of briny sand. This time, however, treasure hunters employed a mini robot "Arturito", with an established reputation for finding things searchers have previously missed.

...dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico...

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. ..

Here is a page with Dolphins-in-the-Navy links, including this unsettling one:

Dolphins clear mines the natural way. Hardly seems sporting to our animal friends. It turns out, it's just the BBC news trying to make the US look mean to dolphins again.
In fact, the dophins face little danger but the BBC doesn't approve of using innocent animals for imperial hegemony. ( I guess.)

tip of the sofa cushion to Jeff Goldstein, who should also round up that damn armadillo.

Guess I'll go do a photoshop or something.

I had a lovely big post about the space elevator all ready to publish.
I guess all I have to say about it now is when Hubby told me about the concept (that he had first read about it in an Arthur C. Clarke novel) I did laugh and laugh. And laugh some more. I not sure how he won me over to the idea that a string slung up to counterweight in space was perfectly plausible way of packing heavy objects up to orbit like jack on a beanstalk. ..it's perhaps the mesmer in him. And now I follow the idea with some interest.

I still think weather is going to be harder to deal with than advocates suggest (supposedly an equatorial location makes it LESS vulnerable to cable snaps from hurricanes), but research into cables grown from magic beans (carbon nanotubes, for a light but supremely strong cable) is moving apace.

Post B was to be about the LOST series I intended to think was silly but sucked me right in like a guy who gets too close to a jet engine. Lileks has apparently been there, watched that, and wrapped up with a short review today.

But I didn't know that. Darling husband heard me rave about the two and half episodes I'd caught during the summer, and bought me the first season DVD set on Saturday. He's watching it with me and want ANSWERS! to the polar bear question. I want to know why the the main girl wants to take a gun apart despite the fact a large ursine toothy monster who WAS going to eat her little group and spit out the bones was stopped only by virtue of that weapon. Excuse me, the GUN is scaring you?

Other than that WTF moment, the show kicks all kinds of polar bear butt.

Blogger Corbusier penned this essay explaining why Paul Murdoch is just following conventional architectural theory about the use of symbols.

. . . I’m confident that Paul Murdoch intended to design a beautiful space, but his inability to take into account the power of the Islamic crescent is indicative of the poverty of symbolism in contemporary design. The current (and in my opinioned justified) outrage at the proposed scheme for the Flight 93 Memorial is evidence of the disconnect between designers and the public on the power of symbols. . . .

Dorkafork auditions for a CAIR photo-mod position.
When can you start!

Although it has been known for days that those who perished by drowning at St. Rita's died on the 29th, and that none alive were left behind, this is the first interview I have seen in which Tom Rodrigue states for the record he had no contact with his mother, Eva, (pictured below) after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.



Emergency worker couldn't save Mom 'They won't listen'
Tom Rodrigue recounts his frantic efforts to get St. Rita's nursing home evacuated before hurricane Katrina hit land.

Rodrigue heard nothing about his mother and the nursing home until four days after Katrina, when his son found the names of those evacuated from St. Rita's listed on the Internet. Her name wasn't on it."

Aaron Broussard was, in the light most favorable to him, wrong when he told a shocked nation of the daily pleas for rescue of an old sick woman trapped in a nursing home going unheeded for lack of federal resources in the aftermath of the storm.

Rodrigue never told Broussard his mother called him daily after the storm. That she had survived four days after the flooding, only to perish by drowning the night before any attempt at rescue was made, could only have come from Broussard's reliance on mere gossip, or his misinterpretation, confabulation, or outright fabrication of events.

What is it with dentists? Why are they always putting pointy hooky things in my mouth, trying to pry out my fillings?
Yeah right, buddy, that filling is loose NOW.

It could be worse. I could need four fricking root canals. As it is, a long period of dental neglect has resulted only in me needing some ancient fillings replaced, which I would have needed even if I went to the dentist every damn day of my life. Ha! I'm on to your game. Ok, I do have one actual cavity.

I'm going to this new dentist with a Waterlase® dental laser. It's mostly useless for my head full of crumbling amalgam, but at least the kid gets off easy.

I've heard it's good for root canals and for making resin fillings last longer. I knew I needed the latter and was bracing for the former.

I'm afraid of two things - spiders, and dentists. Only one is squashable. The other is avoidable. I've been doing that since I won't reveal when. I have the fear.

Blame Dr. Shockett. (when I think of that name, it kind of echoes in my head: Shockett- Shockett - Shockett -Shockett)

He was the irrascible Ben Casey of dentists, dark and hairy-armed, with thick swarthy thumbs.

He seemed to like lots of his little patients; the cute, good little girls and boys with perfect teeth, inevitably in the exam chair next to mine. Take two toys fom the box, Cindy/Bobby/Marcia/Greg!

He hated my guts. He hated me and my sister and brother. Maybe it has something to do with the bill, I don't know.

To me, he would growl "If you don't shut up and stop crying I'm going to give you a shot!" "Nurse, hold her down." "No toy for you!" What I hated the most was the lecturing and scolding and the constant judging of my innocent mouth. I leave many horrors to your imagination. The last time I saw him I was twelve, after which I refused to ever see him again. I had come in to have extractions for my braces, which were not difficult themselves; but he was a horror, enjoying himself immensly. The blood ran.
He relieved my anxiety with his usual chit-chat: "Heh. Looks like someone slit your throat."

My new dentist has the cool laser, one of only two in town The other guy runs a hepatitis hut with dirty carpets and sloppy staff.
NewDoc has a Nazi tech, which is a bad sign, and has that brusque and sullen manner only years prying parts out of stinky gaping maws could cultivate.

He said three words directly to me during my exam.
"Does that hurt?" he said, surprising me with a good hard poke in the masseter . Why, yes. Yes it does.

My husband's dentist has drills from like, 1849, but they treat him like gold - because they have to, I guess. Oh lord of teeth and the fuzzy tongue, please bring me a friendly happy dentist with a $70,000 drill.

More whine of the drill coming soon

And oh yeah, I will have it known *I* was the first crackpot to assert the association, and make a map, showing the qibla in relationship to the Memorial. (I looked into it to show myself the memorial was NOT canted on the qibla. After I saw it was, I said so, and I made a map cause some guy on LGF said it was "piss-poor geography" to claim that the qibla is to the north east.) Oh well, It's a joy to be hidden, that's my motto. And probably for the best, considering the present state of my mostly dormant fluff-blog.

Paul Murdoch talks about the inspiration and intent of his design with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He was aware of concerns about the imagery; but he says it was concieved independant of any reference to the red crescent associated with Islam.

Dean Esmay thinks this is a kerfuffle, disapproves of complaint. I kind of agree about growing trend of the right to be as shrill and perpetually indignant. I disagree that It. Is. Just. A. Grove. Of. Maples. (so does Paul Murdoch, the architect)

I write him a sensible note in the comments.

Wretchard at the Belmot club takes note of Politicalities math, I don't get any credit. Fewer troll comments for me!

Malkin deftly avoids linking a fluffblog, too. I can't say I blame her. Her post, links, and extended comments on the memorial are worth a read.

Behold, a Zombiefied diagram. The Islamic crescent frame is taken directly from his animation.

I used a cropped screen capture from the pdf map of the proposed memorial.
The edges of the open arc are outlined in black to complete the circle.

On that is overlayed a screen capture of a qibla diagram, using this qibla calculator.

The qibla diagram shows the qibla angle from Somerset, Pennsylvania, which is noted as 55 degrees from the north, closer to the crash site coordinates than Pittsburg.

An extended black line is drawn through the qibla angle of 55 degrees.

The crossed lines are at right angles.
The line segment perpendicular to the qibla is bisected.

On that I slapped frame 9 of Zombie's animation, rotated into alignment with north at the top, and proportionally tweaked for size so that streets, features and numbers, etc. lined up.

Check the numbers -

Is the Crescent of Embrace aligned with the qibla?

Voice of Reason at Politicalities looks harder, does actual math:

Conclusion: the crescent points towards Mecca with an error of 0.62°, or 0.17%. If you take a circle and divide its circumference into 580 equal arcs, the angle subtended by one of those arcs is the error. (Bear in mind that any error in my figures could change this value; the figure most open to interpretation is the distance in pixels between the tips of the crescent.)

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it's too close for comfort.

Update: Alec at Error Theory uses a different method of calculation, gets interesting results. They differ in that he draws a line through the center of the trees at about 50 degrees from the north.

( H/t Politicalities)

and the buildings fall.

Maybe it's because I was supposed to be on the Mall that day with my ten year old.
Maybe it's because the still unknown but ever-widening scope of the attack had hit me in pit of the stomach....

THIS is when I felt real sick fear instead of horror:


(I grabbed that pick from Lileks a couple of years ago. He recalled it as one moment he felt "naked and dead" - it was my breaking point.)

I thank the crew and passengers of flight 93 . I don't want to disgrace them with my banal platitudes, or anything, but I don't know how else to explain what their actions meant to me, and I think this nation. Their decision to stand and fight made me remember to get up, to stand and to fight and not crumple up in fear or with a broken heart.

That's one reason I think the proposed flight 93 memorial stinks. I don't just think of them as disembodied voices getting/giving a big hug. They were heroes, fighting heroes, whose unconquerable spirit needs to be recognized.
OK, I'm a light-weight, and maybe my little speech is just embarrassing. That doesn't change our right and obligation to remember them fighting back tooth and nail against those who would take our freedom.

Expressions of gratitude to Flight 93

A Tribute to Flight 93

I need to post this quickly, blogger seems to be wigging out.

What would you say if you found out, among other issues of Islamic imagery being incorporated into the memorial, that the red crescent was canted on the prayer qibla to Mecca?

I know, I know.

But it is.

Shoot an arrow on the bow of the crescent and it flies along the path of the qibla. (the imaginary line to Mecca believers align themselves with when they pray.)



UPDATE:
Etaoin Shrdlu
provides another map that confirms my quibla map overlay on the crescent.

I suppose one could look at it the other way 'round. Instead of it being the peak of the crescent pointing *towards* Mecca on the qibla, It's the comforting arms of the muslim world reaching out to us from Mecca. Or some kind of back-and-forth.

You know, all that "healing and bonding" stuff.

If the embrace coming from Mecca is just a serendipitous coincidence, that's too bad.
Because this is not the place for Islamic references or imagery.

It's in bad taste, horribly wrong; whatever the intent was, it has tremendous power to disturb and offend by its associations with the goals and actions of the hijackers.

One man's "crescent of embrace" is another's "talons of Islam" whose airborne spokemen certainly did try to claim that spot with a big burning hole in the ground.

That said,
It could have been worse...

Updated again so that you can calculate your own qibla and get a little map.

Updated again - D. Edgren also made a qibla direction map superimposed on a map of the memorial site, using the crash site coordinates.

Blast! Blogger keeps erasing what I write.
If you are wondering "Isn't Mecca Southeast of PA", I explain why the qibla isn't over at Ace of spades, here in the comments.

overdue UPDATE 9/12/05:

In a long comment #18 below: I explain why the qibla of Pittsburgh appears on the map above, and it's relationship to other maps that have been made.

Bottom line: that particular criticism is a red herring. The "Crescent of Embrace" is closely aligned with the qibla. It's alignment only gets closer when using the local coordinates. Very unfortunate. For a sensitive guy, a "visual poet", the architect sure missed the obvious symbolism.

Another Update 9-12-2005:
Find here a similar map overlay with the qibla as calculated for Somerset.

// posted by SarahW @ 11:49 AM 27 comments