Feb. 3rd, 2005
No, the Chief News Executive of CNN did not claim that the US Military is deliberately targeting and kililng reporters in Iraq.
When he said the deaths of reporters - 63 so far - are not all "collateral damage" and are, indeed, "targeted", he meant that a lot of these journalists were, in fact, the target of the attack that killed them, whether they were mistaken for the enemy or what. Jordan contends "collateral damage" implies that they were killed by attacks aimed at others, which is manifestly not the case. While the US military does not deliberately kill reporters, they *have* attacked and killed people that have later turned out to be reporters.
When he said the deaths of reporters - 63 so far - are not all "collateral damage" and are, indeed, "targeted", he meant that a lot of these journalists were, in fact, the target of the attack that killed them, whether they were mistaken for the enemy or what. Jordan contends "collateral damage" implies that they were killed by attacks aimed at others, which is manifestly not the case. While the US military does not deliberately kill reporters, they *have* attacked and killed people that have later turned out to be reporters.
"Best health care in the world", huh?
Feb. 3rd, 2005 10:56 amHalf of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.
"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study.
"Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection."
Bankruptcy specialists said the numbers seemed sound.
"From 1982 to 1989, I reviewed every bankruptcy petition filed in South Carolina, and during that period I came to the conclusion that there were two major causes of bankruptcy: medical bills and divorce," said George Cauthen, a lawyer at Columbia-based law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.
"Each accounted, roughly, for about a third of all individual filings in South Carolina."
He said fewer than 1 percent of all bankruptcy filings were due to credit card debt. "That truly is a myth," Cauthen said in a telephone interview.
Cauthen said he was not surprised to hear that so many of the bankrupt people in the study were middle-class.
"Usually people who have something to protect file bankruptcy," he said. "The truly indigent — people that we see on the street — there is no relief that we can give them."
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard associate professor and physician who advocates for universal health coverage, said the study supported demands for health reform.
"Covering the uninsured isn't enough. We must also upgrade and guarantee continuous coverage for those who have insurance," Woolhandler said in a statement.
She said many employers and politicians were pressing for what she called "stripped-down plans so riddled with co-payments, deductibles and exclusions that serious illness leads straight to bankruptcy."
"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study.
"Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection."
Bankruptcy specialists said the numbers seemed sound.
"From 1982 to 1989, I reviewed every bankruptcy petition filed in South Carolina, and during that period I came to the conclusion that there were two major causes of bankruptcy: medical bills and divorce," said George Cauthen, a lawyer at Columbia-based law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.
"Each accounted, roughly, for about a third of all individual filings in South Carolina."
He said fewer than 1 percent of all bankruptcy filings were due to credit card debt. "That truly is a myth," Cauthen said in a telephone interview.
Cauthen said he was not surprised to hear that so many of the bankrupt people in the study were middle-class.
"Usually people who have something to protect file bankruptcy," he said. "The truly indigent — people that we see on the street — there is no relief that we can give them."
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard associate professor and physician who advocates for universal health coverage, said the study supported demands for health reform.
"Covering the uninsured isn't enough. We must also upgrade and guarantee continuous coverage for those who have insurance," Woolhandler said in a statement.
She said many employers and politicians were pressing for what she called "stripped-down plans so riddled with co-payments, deductibles and exclusions that serious illness leads straight to bankruptcy."
(no subject)
Feb. 3rd, 2005 10:58 amNine more survivors of the tsunami found.
The oldest survivor was a 65-year-old man; the youngest an 11-year-old girl, he said.
Two of the survivors were severely dehydrated and were hospitalized. The other seven were sent to a relief camp.
"They seemed weak but OK. They said they had eaten coconuts, boars and wild shoots. They hunted to stay alive," Hussain said. "We found them not too far from where we found a dead body and cremated it."
The tribespeople were all residents of the island's Pillowbhabhi village on the western coast.
"When the tsunami came, they had climbed on to a hill. They kept walking, they got lost, and were wandering in the forest, resting, then walking again," Hussain said. "They traveled from the western side of the island to the eastern side until we saved them."
The oldest survivor was a 65-year-old man; the youngest an 11-year-old girl, he said.
Two of the survivors were severely dehydrated and were hospitalized. The other seven were sent to a relief camp.
"They seemed weak but OK. They said they had eaten coconuts, boars and wild shoots. They hunted to stay alive," Hussain said. "We found them not too far from where we found a dead body and cremated it."
The tribespeople were all residents of the island's Pillowbhabhi village on the western coast.
"When the tsunami came, they had climbed on to a hill. They kept walking, they got lost, and were wandering in the forest, resting, then walking again," Hussain said. "They traveled from the western side of the island to the eastern side until we saved them."
University student lives in Utah her whole life. Travels to Mexico for a vacation, tries to come back across the border, and is arrested as an illegal alien.
She was also informed that, in addition to being an illegal alien, she's also 18, not 20, and will be deported to a country she has never been to and where she does not speak the language unless the laws change.
"When I was in junior high, I felt the way most Americans do about the Mexicans crossing the border,'' said Martinez. "I felt all the illegal aliens should be deported. My parents would laugh when I said that.''
Martinez said she had known one of her parents was a Venezuelan and the other was a German citizen. She understood that she also was a German citizen, but she had never lived in that country and her family moved to the United States from Venezuela when she was 2.
She grew up in West Valley City.
"Up until I was 12, I thought I was an American,'' she said. When she found out she wasn't a U.S. citizen, her parents told her she was a legal resident.
She had a Social Security card from her father. When she asked about her alien resident card, he told her it was lost, she said.
At USU, she landed a job as a resident assistant in Valley View towers. In October, she attended a conference in New Mexico for resident assistants and she and the other USU student made a quick trip across the border to Mexico.
When they returned and were questioned by U.S. border agents, she said she was a German citizen. The border officials could not find her listed in a database of permanent foreign residents. She was taken into custody and was told she was in the United States illegally.
"They said, 'Right now we are waiting for your passport to come to deport you. You don't belong here and you have no right to be here,'" Martinez recalled.
Martinez said she tried to call her parents and they hung up on her.
She then contacted a sister and an uncle, who told her the immigration officials were right.
She was also informed that, in addition to being an illegal alien, she's also 18, not 20, and will be deported to a country she has never been to and where she does not speak the language unless the laws change.
"When I was in junior high, I felt the way most Americans do about the Mexicans crossing the border,'' said Martinez. "I felt all the illegal aliens should be deported. My parents would laugh when I said that.''
Martinez said she had known one of her parents was a Venezuelan and the other was a German citizen. She understood that she also was a German citizen, but she had never lived in that country and her family moved to the United States from Venezuela when she was 2.
She grew up in West Valley City.
"Up until I was 12, I thought I was an American,'' she said. When she found out she wasn't a U.S. citizen, her parents told her she was a legal resident.
She had a Social Security card from her father. When she asked about her alien resident card, he told her it was lost, she said.
At USU, she landed a job as a resident assistant in Valley View towers. In October, she attended a conference in New Mexico for resident assistants and she and the other USU student made a quick trip across the border to Mexico.
When they returned and were questioned by U.S. border agents, she said she was a German citizen. The border officials could not find her listed in a database of permanent foreign residents. She was taken into custody and was told she was in the United States illegally.
"They said, 'Right now we are waiting for your passport to come to deport you. You don't belong here and you have no right to be here,'" Martinez recalled.
Martinez said she tried to call her parents and they hung up on her.
She then contacted a sister and an uncle, who told her the immigration officials were right.
And it's got HUGE CLAWS, too.
Feb. 3rd, 2005 12:12 pm
The star-nosed mole gives a whole new meaning to the term "fast food."
A study published this week in the journal Nature reveals that this mysterious mole has moves that can put the best magician to shame: The energetic burrower can detect small prey animals and gulp them down with a speed that is literally too fast for the human eye to follow.
It takes a car driver about 650 milliseconds to hit the brake after seeing the traffic light ahead turn red. The star-nosed mole, operating in the Stygian darkness of its burrow, can detect the presence of a tasty tidbit, such as an insect larva or tiny worm, determine that it is edible and gulp it down in half that time.
The researchers discovered that their subject is not just a super-fast forager, but that it is moving about as fast as its brain and nervous system will allow. They calculate that when a mole touches a new object, its brain has about eight milliseconds to determine whether it is edible. Given the split millisecond timing involved, it is not surprising that the moles frequently make mistakes. In a series of trials where the researchers set out worm sushi, they found that the moles started to move in the wrong direction and had to suddenly reverse themselves one out of three times.
This inefficient behavior suggests that the moles are operating at, or near, the limit set by the speed which the mole's nervous system can process touch information, the researchers conclude.
The ability to handle prey so quickly and efficiently appears to provide the star-nosed mole with a real advantage: It should be able to live on a diet of smaller animals than its slower competitors, such as shrews and other kinds of moles found in the same area.
It's more difficult to subsist on a diet of small animals than it is to live on larger prey. For example, it is more efficient to kill a 1,000-pound beef cow for food than 125 eight-pound rabbits. That is because it takes substantially more time and energy to kill and consume the rabbits. Ecologists have formalized this relationship with a factor called prey profitability. By reducing its handling time to a fraction of a second, the star-nosed mole may be able to achieve a net energy "profit" with a diet of insect larvae and other food sources. Of course, that doesn't mean it turns up its nose at larger prey, like long, luscious earthworms.
1.21 gigawatts comes next, just you see.
Feb. 3rd, 2005 12:34 pmLA scientist pursuing microwave-based car-stopping technology.
"If you put approximately 10 or 15 kilovolts per meter on a target for a few seconds, you should be able to bring it to a halt,"
"If you put approximately 10 or 15 kilovolts per meter on a target for a few seconds, you should be able to bring it to a halt,"
Another one. You dumb fucks.
Feb. 3rd, 2005 12:43 pmFavoured reporter during White House press conferences has no credentials, no history, and reprints White House press releases verbatim. Oh, and his paycheques come from the Republican Party.
Reports show that this "reporter" is often called upon to provide relief from unpleasant lines of questioning and to divert discussion away from issues the administration is embarassed about. Since providing a permanent "hard card" puts your credentials on public record, the administration has given this particular guy "daily passes" daily for the last few years running, since those can be given to anyone for any reason.
Edit: And now, a link to examples of the questions the plant asks when he's called on to make an inflammatory and distracting statement
Another Edit:
The Daily Show takes this on. Jon Stewart = the funny.
Reports show that this "reporter" is often called upon to provide relief from unpleasant lines of questioning and to divert discussion away from issues the administration is embarassed about. Since providing a permanent "hard card" puts your credentials on public record, the administration has given this particular guy "daily passes" daily for the last few years running, since those can be given to anyone for any reason.
Edit: And now, a link to examples of the questions the plant asks when he's called on to make an inflammatory and distracting statement
Another Edit:
The Daily Show takes this on. Jon Stewart = the funny.
Print-your-own Sushi!
Homaru Cantu's maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy.
But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.
At least two or three food items made of paper are likely to be included in a meal at Moto, which might include 10 or more tasting courses. Even the menu is edible; diners crunch it up into a bowl of gazpacho, creating Mr. Cantu's version of alphabet soup.
Sometimes he seasons the menus to taste like the main courses. Recently, he used dehydrated squash and sour cream powders to match a soup entree. He also prepares edible photographs flavored to fit a theme: an image of a cow, for example, might taste like filet mignon.
"We can create any sort of flavor on a printed image that we set our minds to," Mr. Cantu said. The connections need not stop with things ordinarily thought of as food. "What does M. C. Escher's 'Relativity' painting taste like? That's where we go next."
Homaru Cantu's maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy.
But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.
At least two or three food items made of paper are likely to be included in a meal at Moto, which might include 10 or more tasting courses. Even the menu is edible; diners crunch it up into a bowl of gazpacho, creating Mr. Cantu's version of alphabet soup.
Sometimes he seasons the menus to taste like the main courses. Recently, he used dehydrated squash and sour cream powders to match a soup entree. He also prepares edible photographs flavored to fit a theme: an image of a cow, for example, might taste like filet mignon.
"We can create any sort of flavor on a printed image that we set our minds to," Mr. Cantu said. The connections need not stop with things ordinarily thought of as food. "What does M. C. Escher's 'Relativity' painting taste like? That's where we go next."
Just for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aimisdirty
Feb. 3rd, 2005 03:59 pmReflections of writers having to deal with Uwe Boll.
[Sample quotes]
He kept asking us why the character in our script "Alone in the Dark," Edward Carnby, didn't have any special powers to battle monsters. We explained that the story revolved around suspense and a believable detective, based off the game. He replied by telling us he wanted to blatantly rip-off characters, as well as the tone of the films "Blade" and "The Crow." Here are some actual quotes from e-mails directly from the cinematic mastermind Uwe Boll himself in 2002:
He wanted us to add "big gun battles" and "car chases." You know, all the things that make horror movies scary, particularly movies that revolve around suspense. We kept arguing with him about how to actually tell a scary story, as it became apparent he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. A big point of contention was the monsters; he wanted tons of big, slimy, dog-looking CG monsters all over the story, while we kept repeating it was far scarier to keep them in the dark - hey, what do you know, kinda like the title - and build suspense. We tried to use the (at the time) recent film "Signs" to explain this to him, but everything seemed to bounce right off the guy.
[Sample quotes]
He kept asking us why the character in our script "Alone in the Dark," Edward Carnby, didn't have any special powers to battle monsters. We explained that the story revolved around suspense and a believable detective, based off the game. He replied by telling us he wanted to blatantly rip-off characters, as well as the tone of the films "Blade" and "The Crow." Here are some actual quotes from e-mails directly from the cinematic mastermind Uwe Boll himself in 2002:
Edward is not mysterious and does business as usual - which destroys his entire heroism - his entire reputation built up by the game, would be DESTROYED by this film. Edward has to be mysterious like in THE CROW and BLADE, he has to have special abilities and weapons and no normal BACKSTORY!!!
What isn't much use are grave things: the dialogue, Edward's Character and the story per se. IT IS GOOD THAT H IS NOT A SUPERNATURAL SUPERHERO - BUT HE CANNOT BE ALSO TOO NORMAL - HE IS A LONELY HERO.
You don't have big screenplay experience and after my bad experience on House Of Dead, I need a Top Script now. Your first script wasn't that. I want to be scared, intelligent, not boring, packed and surprising at the end.
He wanted us to add "big gun battles" and "car chases." You know, all the things that make horror movies scary, particularly movies that revolve around suspense. We kept arguing with him about how to actually tell a scary story, as it became apparent he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. A big point of contention was the monsters; he wanted tons of big, slimy, dog-looking CG monsters all over the story, while we kept repeating it was far scarier to keep them in the dark - hey, what do you know, kinda like the title - and build suspense. We tried to use the (at the time) recent film "Signs" to explain this to him, but everything seemed to bounce right off the guy.
Oh, yeah, he's well adjusted.
Feb. 3rd, 2005 09:08 pmMarine general: "It's fun to shoot people."
He added, "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis continued. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
He added, "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis continued. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
