Kind of interesting recap.
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Kind of interesting recap.
Saturday, February 28, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
UPDATE: Mouse #4 now in captivity.
Further Update: Note from our friend Karen - "Word went out in the neighborhood...."Go to the Faranda house. They will put you in a little box and provide free food and transportation to a new location. You will become famous on a blog and people will love you!""
Having posted the story of mouse 1 (we didn't know there'd be multiple mice - guess we should have expected it) Mouse in the House ... Captured! on Wednesday, here's the word on the Thursday and Friday mice.
This is mouse #2, captured Thursday and released in the same location as #1, the structure being built at the north parking lot of Half Moon Bay.
Here's the view the mice have, looking out onto the Hudson.
Mouse #3, captured Friday and released by Joe and Brigid. Brigid took the pictures, that's Joe's hand. A neat series (if you like this sort of stuff) of #3 exiting the trap. Once in, they don't like to come out.
This is the smallest of the three mice.
you can just barely see the tail starting to come out.
Friday's view onto the Hudson. That's a Bald Eagle sitting on the ice. Looking for mice perhaps?
Saturday, February 28, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Dr. Frankenstein?
He has claimed for years that medical science has advanced to the point that a full body transplant is plausible, but the proposal has caused raised eyebrows, horror and profound disbelief in other surgeons.
The Italian doctor, who recently published a broad outline of how the surgery could be performed, told New Scientist magazine that he wanted to use body transplants to prolong the lives of people affected by terminal diseases.
“If society doesn’t want it, I won’t do it. But if people don’t want it, in the US or Europe, that doesn’t mean it won’t be done somewhere else,” he said. “I’m trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you.”
Putting aside the considerable technical issues involved in removing a living person’s head, grafting it to a dead body, reviving the reconstructed person and retraining their brain to use thousands of unfamiliar spinal cord nerves, the ethics are problematic.
Very heady stuff. I suppose it's actually an interesting technical problem - there's more on the hypothesized technique if you hit the link.
According to the procedure Canavero outlined this month, doctors would first cool the patient’s head and the donor’s body so their cells do not die during the operation. The neck is then cut through, the blood vessels linked up with thin tubes, and the spinal cord cut with an exceptionally sharp knife to minimise nerve damage. The recipient’s head is then moved on to the donor’s body.
The next stage is trickier. ...
Saturday, February 28, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Gone at 83. COPD (chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), despite giving up smoking decades ago.
Friday, February 27, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
The game is in Dublin and the winner will be positioned to take the championship. Both teams are 2-0.
Worth finding a pub showing it!
Here's a look at the last four results.
Friday, February 27, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
The actual hike was only one mile; 50 minutes in the snow.
it was the short loop - the Annsville Creek Trail - in the Hudson Highlands Gateway Park. It's a few minutes from the Annsville Traffic circle and only about three minutes from the Cortlandt Colonial Restaurant. Besides being well-marked by red tags, there was a clear narrow trail, made by a snowmobile.
It was my turn to come up with the hike, since Jeanne Marie had organized the first of the year - Turkey Mountain. Also in cold and wind! I figured that given the weather conditions, a short hike on terrain that we hadn't visited before, would work. I would have preferred the longer, blue blazed hike in the same park, but the entry from Sprout Brook Road - there was no visible trail, and no blue tags.
This entry is at the end of Doris Lee Drive - L to R: Karen Riner, Brigid, Mike Riner, Jeanne Marie
Up and away -
the frozen and snow-covered pond
Annsville Creek -
Moving along -
Here you can see how close the trail is to Rte 9.
And it was here that I started to get suspicious that Brigid and Jeanne Marie had the same coat, in different colors. And I was right - from LLBean with a synthetic lining! Brigid inherited hers from the boys.
Here's where we settled in for some tea - we'd brewed some tea on the first hike - very important. I had my msr pocket rocket stove, the propane, 2 quarts of water, and a 1 quart pot. Only issue - I forgot the tea bags ... duh ... DUFUS. Oh well. Made it up later.
Nice lids. And fashionable high viz red.
The four Horseman of the Apocalypse. And four nice lids. For those not in the know, Mike and I both went to Stepinac and were roommates at Fairfield.
Heading back - the snowy landscape is pretty stark.
Having blown it on the tea, the only thing to do was head up to The Stadium for a drink.
That's a Guinness at each end (Farandas!), a Chardonnay, a Harp and a Black and Tan. Note seating arrangement with Jeanne Marie b/w Mike and Tom.
But Jeanne Marie then upgrades (quietly she thought) her seat - it is The Stadium - and joins Brigid and Karen! it was noted!!
A good day! Jeanne Marie is in charge of the next Hike of the Month, probably March 21st or 22nd.
Friday, February 27, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Bobby Schindler was Terri Schaivo's brother. Terri Schiavo was profoundly disabled, but she was not terminally ill.
I took this entirely off the LifeNet website.
This was in the Wall Street Journal, and is also here on the Terri Schiavo Foundation website. While the article defends Bush against the pro-death/euthanasia/assisted suicide people, it's worth mentioning that some people think Bush did not do enough. The brother of Terri Schiavo thinks Bush did all he could legally.
The usual media suspects are excoriating Jeb Bush —again—for trying to help save my sister Terri Schiav o’s life. An article last month in the Tampa Bay Times, “The Audacity of Jeb Bush,” later quoted in a New Yorker article titled “The Punisher,” accused the former Florida governor of going “all in on Schiavo” and running roughshod over Florida state law.
I suppose attacks like these go with the territory of what appears to be a presidential run by Mr. Bush. But it is telling that the attacks never tell my sister’s whole story, or identify the coalition of liberals and conservatives, believers and nonbelievers, that tried to prevent her slow death by dehydration.
The effort to protect Terri went all the way to the Supreme Court. One side comprised a pope (John Paul II), a president (George W. Bush) and a governor (Jeb Bush), as well as Democratic leaders (former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, for example), and many ordinary Americans who didn’t believe that providing food and water for a living human being with a brain injury could reasonably be regarded as extraordinary care.
On the other side stood Terri’s legal husband—then living with his fiancée and their two children—the vast majority of mainstream media outlets, America’s powerful “right-to-die” lobby and, sadly, one Florida circuit judge.
It was enough to make her dead. On March 18, 2005, Terri was no longer permitted to receive food or water, causing her to slowly starve and dehydrate, just as anyone would. Despite my family’s efforts—incredibly, we were denied even the right to put ice chips on her lips and tongue to relieve her torment—Terri died on March 31.
The case against Jeb Bush seems to be that he exceeded his constitutional authority and, having done so, revealed the kind of rogue president he would be if elected. Actually, he was following a duly passed Florida law later found to be unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court. That’s not acting unconstitutionally. Once the statute was invalidated, Mr. Bush followed the law.
The facts in Terri’s case were rarely presented to the American public in a clear, unbiased and nonideological manner, a pattern that has only grown more pronounced as time passed. Ten years later, the media still tread the same well-worn path, presenting a false paradigm of a supposedly loving husband versus interfering theocrats.
This is a good opportunity to set the record straight about what the governor was legally permitted to do and what he actually did.
Terri was a live human being who had a brain injury. She was minimally conscious. But contrary to many media reports, her autopsy did not prove that she was in a “persistent vegetative state,” or PVS. To that question, several neurologists submitted affidavits to the court and were willing to testify that Terri was not, in fact, unconscious or in a PVS. Among those neurologists was the widely respected Dr. William P. Cheshire, who examined Terri before her death. They were, however, denied the opportunity to testify by the now retired Circuit Court Judge George Greer because their testimony was deemed new evidence. Clearly, they should have been allowed to testify in a case involving life and death.
These physicians were also prepared to document cases in which brain-injured patients became, with therapy, capable of moderate levels of consciousness and, in some instances, regained some level of functionality. There are also cases on record where such patients regained full functionality and today live active, independent lives.
So what did Gov. Bush actually do that was supposedly so egregious? Under what was known as “Terri’s Law,” he was legally permitted to seek “to clarify the facts” in a court case that appeared to many to have clearly defective judicial orders and irregularities. That is what he did—for which he was immediately and viciously attacked.
Having clarified the facts, and having been advised that without food and water Terri would slowly starve and dehydrate to death, he sought as governor to have her case “reviewed”—very much as he had been asked to do, and did, in capital-punishment cases.
This same motive prompted the U.S. Congress to get involved. Their reasoning was that if mass murderers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy could have their cases thoroughly reviewed by federal courts in cases that had run through the normal appeals process at the state level—surely an innocent, brain-injured woman facing a death sentence ought to be given the same basic right. This view received unanimous consent in the Senate, including from then-Sen. Barack Obama , which he later characterized as a “mistake.”
Today, a scant 10 years later, more and more families are finding themselves in the same situation that our family faced. Life-and-death decisions for their loved ones are being taken out of their hands and being put in the hands of health-care professionals and hospital-review boards. These families are frightened and, increasingly, voiceless. They know their loved ones are alive, even if minimally conscious, and deserve to live. With the proper therapeutic protocols, the condition of these persons can and in some cases does indeed improve over time.
Many family members are willing to take on the responsibility of care and the long, hard work of rehabbing their loved ones to higher levels of consciousness. All they ask is for the right to do so. All Jeb Bush did was try to help win that right for me and my family. Sadly for us, and for Terri, he couldn’t.
Mr. Schindler is the executive director of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, which works to protect the lives of the medically vulnerable and disabled from the threat of euthanasia.
Friday, February 27, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
From a well-to-do West London family.
Thursday, February 26, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Born in 1932, today he'd be 83. He died in September, 2003.
Thursday, February 26, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Interesting, even though Christiane Amanpour's accent grates on me.
Thursday, February 26, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
UPDATE: Joe spotted another mouse Wednesday afternoon, sauntering around the kitchen counters.
For quite a few months we've had a mouse who seems to have the run, not just of the kitchen, but the basement and in fact the whole first floor. I got some pictures of him a few weeks ago when I heard him in the kitchen - he'd found an old chocolate covered nut and was pushing it around. Here he is, behind the pink toy mouse (Brigid's idea of a joke -it had been there for weeks), with his eye lit up. That's the nut he's pushing.
He even established one of his nests near the front door in one of Tim's old, unused boots (don't tell Tim).
We actually caught him (I just assume it's a him and not a her) almost three months ago, in one of those sticky, flypaper type traps. But Joe then let him go! He didn't like seeing him struggling - was afraid he'd rip off his own leg.
Tim and I wanted to put out a few of those snappy traps that quickly dispatch mouses off to mouse heaven - I couldn't see the point of putting the poor mouse out in the snow to freeze to death. But Brigid and Joe who are crazy overruled us, saying lots of mice live outdoors and he deserved his shot.
So .. Brigid got this very high tech have-a-heart trap - and caught him Monday night/Tuesday morning - the first time she put it out. Classic - baited with cheese spread. She took him down to near the Croton Duck Pond (correction - it's the house being built @the Half Moon parking lot), and put him in a house being built, along with some bedding and some nuts.
First picture - what he looked like in the trap and then released at the house.
Freedom!
And supplies - the black thingie is the trap.
Purple bedding. Half surprised she didn't give him a heater.
We left the trap out again Tuesday night, but no customers.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (4)
In the NY Times so it must be true.
Well I don't know if I qualify for "golden years" or not, but this doesn't sound all that hot or frequent to me.
Which I suppose - - is good. Hit the link and decide for yourself.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Gotta love another great Yankee!
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Senator Manchin, who supports Keystone. A demolition job.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Gone because of sexual harassment charge; should have resigned years ago over phonied-up data.
Outgoing UN IPCC Chief reveals global warming ‘is my religion and my dharma’
Climate Depot’s Morano statement on Pachauri’s resignation: ‘The IPCC is quietly popping champagne corks today. Pachauri gone can only be good news for the UN IPCC’ – Marc Morano: ‘If Pachauri had any decency, he would have resigned in the wake of the Climategate scandal which broke in 2009. Climategate implicated the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists in attempting to collude and craft a narrative on global warming while allowing no dissent. Or Pachauri could have resigned when he wished skeptics would rub asbestos on their faces or conceded that the IPCC was at the ‘beck and call’ of governments. There were so many opportunities to to the right thing and fade away. But it took the proceedings of the Indian court system over the allegations of sexual harassment to finally bring Pachauri down. Things can only be looking up for the UN IPCC now that it has ridded itself of this political and ethical cancer.’
Many climate change activists are motivated by religious conviction. See: Climate Depot round up of climate religion. Actor Harrison Ford’s Green Religion: ‘I needed something outside of myself to believe in and I found in nature a kind of God’
Flashback: Michael Crichton: ‘One of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists.’
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Of course a set-up since everyone knew President Obama would veto. It's already up on youtube.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Played ten days ago in Rome. England won 47-17 scoring six tries - but Italy also got three. So lots of attractive running rugby.
Suddenly England has some dangerous backs. They play Ireland in Dublin this Saturday - the only two undefeated teams in the Championship.
Here the first score - at the beginning of the game with great continuity by Italy after stealing the England lineout.
And here are the extended highlights with more good tries (scores).
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sharpton pointed at the machines and loudly bemoaned the fact that most of them were white.The manager replied, “Well, Reverend, it's true that most of the washing machines are white, but if you'll open the lids, you'll see that almost all of the agitators are black."
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
The only question that gets asked (only to Republicans) is "Do you believe in evolution."
The answer should always be "no" because evolution is not (supposed to be!) a belief system, it's a scientific theory.
Here's a really fine article on science questions - that are never rarely asked but should be. Not very long and I've excerpted a bit.
Here Are The ‘Science’ Questions Reporters Should Ask Politicians
The real problem is that these episodes feed the bogus notion that Democrats are less prone to ignore settled science than Republicans. And the same journalists who fixate on “science” that makes the faithful look like slack-jawed yokels almost inevitably ignore science that has genuine moral and policy implications.
So in other words, any science that isn’t “climate change.”
And since we’re on the topic, I’d love for informed science-loving liberals to be asked questions such as:
What is evolution?
How many of candidates or journalists could answer this question with any useful specificity? (My colleague Sean Davis has already exposed how some of the pundits who unconditionally “believe in evolution” know very little about it.) This is because “do you believe in evolution” is an inane question. Do I believe in natural selection? Or do I obediently accept every macroevolutionary theory that’s ever been thrown my way?
For me, it’s plausible to believe that slug-like creatures emerged from primordial slime and after millions of fortuitous accidents over hundreds of millions of years emerged as politicians. Most people, though, disagree. According to 2012 Gallup poll, along with plenty of Republicans, 41 percent of Democrats believe God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. So, around the same number of liberals that believe there’s something to astrology. What are the views of Democratic candidates?
******
And a bonus.
Do you ever question settled science?
If the answer is no, you’re doing it wrong. Doctors are allowed to question whether cholesterol is a “nutrient of concern.” Scientists can wonder if we’ve settled on Big Bang. That’s just this week. And one of the reasons journalists are under the impression that only one group rejects scientific consensus is because they don’t bother asking the right questions.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
I suppose there was never a more famous wartime photo?
Three of the flag-raisers were killed over the next few days. There ages were 19, 20 and 25.
Monday, February 23, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found on Ann Althouse's blog.
"Nut Up" - or - "your orchids."
Monday, February 23, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
From the "Information Age" Wall Street Journal column.
Both ObamaCare and “Obamanet” submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken.
The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week. On Thursday the three Democrats among the five commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission will vote to regulate the Internet under rules written for monopoly utilities.
No one, including the bullied FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, thought the agency would go this far. The big politicization came when President Obama in November demanded that the supposedly independent FCC apply the agency’s most extreme regulation to the Internet. A recent page-one Wall Street Journal story headlined “Net Neutrality: How White House Thwarted FCC Chief” documented “an unusual, secretive effort inside the White House . . . acting as a parallel version of the FCC itself.”
******
Supporters of Obamanet describe it as a counter to the broadband duopoly of cable and telecom companies. In reality, it gives duopolists another tool to block competition. Utility regulations let dominant companies complain that innovations from upstarts fail the “just and reasonable” test—as truly disruptive innovations often do.
AT&T has decades of experience leveraging FCC regulations to stop competition. Last week AT&T announced a high-speed broadband plan that charges an extra $29 a month to people who don’t want to be tracked for online advertising. New competitor Google Fiber can offer low-cost broadband only because it also earns revenues from online advertising. In other words, AT&T has already built a case against Google Fiber that Google’s cross-subsidization from advertising is not “just and reasonable.”
More if you hit the link. The Government must control everything.
Monday, February 23, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
From the interfaith publication First Things. FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm a graduate of Fairfield and Fordham Universities, and neither of them are mentioned in this piece.
The entire article runs 24 paragraphs and takes less than 10 minutes to read.
“We Hide the Word ‘Catholic’ From Prospective Students”
Gonzaga University graduate Autumn Jones asks a provocative question in a December 30 piece for The Atlantic, “The New Brand of Jesuit Universities.” Jones chronicles a rebranding effort by Jesuit universities across the country, and considers “whether this rebranding attenuates the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.” In search of an answer, Jones solicits comments from Jesuit faculty members, students, and administrators.
Running throughout the piece is a straw man argument, expressed by some interviewees, namely: Catholic universities can either “fall in line” with the Church, or they can be “places where young adults are encouraged to think critically.” Few of those interviewed seem to believe that a Catholic university can be both authentically Catholic and of the highest intellectual caliber.
Sunday, February 22, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
At the NFL combine for top prospects.
Tim has a faster 40 then Winston. I'd take Mariotao.
For comparison, here are some wide receivers doing their 40's. Lots of $$$ riding on this stuff.
Sunday, February 22, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
I love her. A straight shooter (and cancer - breast - survivor).
She also doesn't mince words when it comes to problems she sees with big-government liberals. She cited the example of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber, who was captured on video boasting that Americans were too stupid to understand the law.
"I don't doubt that they care about helping people, but I also don't doubt that in their heart of hearts a lot of them think they are smarter than you are, better than you are, and that's why they're going to decide for you," Mrs. Fiorina said in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times.
In that respect, she said, they are a lot like some CEOs who decide for other people rather than listen to their customers.
"I don't think President Obama spends an awful lot of time consulting with other people," she said. "He's pretty sure he's smarter than everyone else. He's pretty much said so."
******
Since the days of Ronald Reagan, Republican presidential aspirants have claimed fealty to conservatism's holy trinity of free markets, traditional values and a strong military.
Mrs. Fiorina agrees with those principles but adds one of her own.
"The philosophy of conservatism is that no one of us is any better than any other one of us," she said. "Everyone has gifts, everyone wants to live a life of dignity and purpose and meaning, and everyone can do that.
"Liberals don't believe that, and that is the core difference between liberals and conservatives, because liberals think some are smarter than others," she said.
She doesn't shrink from answering the question of why a technology executive who ran a company of 180,000 workers with little political experience thinks she is qualified to run a nation of more than 300 million.
"A large part of our problem is that we have so many people in elective office, including the president, who have done nothing but government and politics all their lives," she said. "So maybe they know government, but so far government isn't working real well."
Mrs. Fiorina said the next president needs to have "real experience in making tough decisions in tough circumstances and will need to know how bureaucracies work and know technology."
Why technology?
"Because it is a transformative tool that is never used to its full extent here in Washington," she said.
******
At first, Mrs. Fiorina sounds almost like a comrade-in-arms with the more liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, noting that both women want to find ways to end what they regard as an unholy alliance between Wall Street and its cronies in the executive branch of the federal government.
It's been going on under Republican and Democratic presidents, she said.
"Elizabeth Warren is right. We have crony capitalism in this country," Mrs. Fiorina said of the woman who was a Harvard law professor and is the No. 1 liberal heartthrob in the Senate.
Many liberals say they would give their eye teeth to see Mrs. Warren contest former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Some on the left see Mrs. Clinton as having no degrees of separation from the economic ravagers of Wall Street.
"We don't have a free market in this country today. We have crony capitalism, which is why small businesses are folding up and going away," Mrs. Fiorina said. "It's why more of them are being destroyed than being created."
Mrs. Fiorina's apparent consonance with Mrs. Warren vanishes quickly.
"Warren's wrong about the answer to crony capitalism. It's not more big government, which only creates more crony capitalism," she said. "The answer is less government, radical simplification, real government reform — not just enough to lower tax rates. You have to simplify the tax codes."
unfortunately, she doesn't have realistic chance to be nominated by the republicans. Too bad. The pundits suggest she's really shooting for the VP slot.
Saturday, February 21, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
You have to read Ann Althouse (blonde - at least in her pictures, and a very bright law prof at U. of Wisconsin, Madison), who called her a dumb blonde, column linked below, for the definitive story.
I hadn't read Collins column - I really loathe her glib, wannabee-Maureen-Dowd humor, and general ignorance - but loved Althouse piece.
The Times had to put in a retraction and correction to one of her absurd attacks on Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin.
Here's Althouse from a few days ago:
My 703rd post about Scott Walker... finally getting around to what Gail Collins wrote last Friday.
Saturday, February 21, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ahhh, this is classic. At a fundraiser for the Fairfield U. Rugby Club, sponsored by FOFR (Friends of Fairfield Rugby) which I attended along with 60-70 other rugby alumni on Friday, February 6th - two weeks ago.
Here's a shot of the NY Public Library which I took on a whim walking to Blaggard's Pub on 8 W. 38 St. where the party was. None of these pictures are great, since I used my android phone without the flash. But you'll get the "picture".
There was a wee bit of drinking, eating, and more drinking and then a quick update from Mark and Ben, the current coaches, on the excellent state of the club.
Then an IMPROMPTU FUNDRAISER is organized, as our boy Tom shows his talent at upside down beer drinking!!
GO TOM GO!!
He nails it! 10 out of ten!
Our boy Tom -
And it gets better, as Tom's wife Mary Lou decides to make it mixed doubles!!
Tom tells me three out of his four children can do this. No word on the grandchildren.
YES - the thrill of victory.
And none the worse for wear.
It may be awhile before this gets topped. Probably the next get-together.
Friday, February 20, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday morning I texted him and he said they were on the way to the Prado. I've been - it's one of the world's great museums for painting. Here are the first two pictures Tim is in Europe; find him in this picture & Another - Find Tim - this time Paris
I believe this is in the "Old City" of Madrid, but I'm not sure.
Hint below the picture -
He's more or less in the middle - with hat on backwards & sandwiched b/w red!
Friday, February 20, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (3)
Short video. I'll have to cut back my trips to the gym.!? And fiber?
Friday, February 20, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (2)
To that poor woman the other day.
Friday, February 20, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
In this morning's NY Times. Sacks is a well-known scientist (neurology) and author. He wrote several books, including “Awakenings” , which was made into a movie, and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”
The op ed is 16 paragraphs long.
A MONTH ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, I still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out — a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver. Nine years ago it was discovered that I had a rare tumor of the eye, an ocular melanoma. Although the radiation and lasering to remove the tumor ultimately left me blind in that eye, only in very rare cases do such tumors metastasize. I am among the unlucky 2 percent.
I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with dying. The cancer occupies a third of my liver, and though its advance may be slowed, this particular sort of cancer cannot be halted.
It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.”
A worthwhile essay to read in full - hit the link above.
Thursday, February 19, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
And the Yanks are retiring his #!
Thursday, February 19, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Fr., the official Guru of the Faranda family, who died last year.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
In this picture he's a little easier to spot then in this one Tim is in Europe; find him in this picture
He's enjoyed Paris - called for more $$$. They headed to Madrid this morning.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
An experienced outdoorswoman. But the New Hampshire mountains, solo, in this weather?
Matrosova’s Facebook page shows a life lived in pursuit of the extreme: Paintball, white-water rafting, boating, rock climbing and mountaineering.
Husband Charlie Farhoodi, a vice president at J.P. Morgan, reportedly dropped off Matrosova early Sunday morning at the base of the mountains.
******
She was alone and planned to hike to the top of Mount Madison, WMUR said, before heading through Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson and Mount Washington, which at about 6,300 feet is the highest peak in the Northeast.
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Search and rescue crews couldn’t reach the area overnight because of extreme weather. A National Guard crew flew over the area with a helicopter on Monday morning but couldn’t see anything because of blowing snow and had to turn back.
A team made up of Fish and Game officers, Mountain Rescue Services members and Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue members braved 108 mph winds and frigid temperatures to reach the area.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
He had a column in yesterday's NY Post.
Cardinal Dolan: Civilization is threatened by evils of ISIS
Now we encourage the majority of Islam to speak up and condemn these attacks, like Jordan is doing.
Catholic bishops in Ireland bravely stood up 40 years ago to say the church did not support car bombings and attacks against civilians by the Irish Republican Army, which perversely identified itself as “Catholic.”
And now we have peace in Northern Ireland.
We need Islamic religious leaders to stand up and say, “This is not Islam. This is a perversion of our faith.”
Simply because these Christians make the sign of the cross, there is a price on their head.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Marisa Inda, about 38 years old with two children. I've posted about her before, here Whew girl ... that's a pull up! "Girls just want to have fun.". And if you look at that post, you'll see she's graceful as well as super-strong.
Marisa is going to compete in the Arnold Weightlifting Championships in early March.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Well they're honest. CNN covered it, but it looks like Ithaca has already taken down their little joke.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ireland won the game, played in Dublin, 18-11 with only one try scored. The best play of the game is the first video - a monster ruck cleanout by the Ireland #7, Sean O'Brien. how much can that guy squat?
Here are the full game highlights, such as they are.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thanks to my bud Dennis for sending this to me. Brigid thought this was very funny - and that it was at a football game. When I said, "Uhh, it's basketball" she said "Oh, well then it's not so funny." ??
"Be sure to watch the video to the very end. Funny how one guy doesn't get it."
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Short article from the Guardian (UK) which I found interesting.
Here's the study that's the basis for the article below, with excerpt below the link. The National Sleep Foundation in the US has had 18 experts
... The new guidelines not only give recommended amounts, but also state what might be appropriate for different ages. Children aged six to nine need nine to 11 hours a night, but may get by on seven to eight. Teenagers need eight to 10 hours. Seven hours may be OK for some, but sleeping more than 11 hours a day may be detrimental to their health, although some may need that much during puberty.
Dr Lydia DonCarlos from Loyola University, Chicago, one of the experts on the study, says that the circadian rhythm of teenagers naturally shifts to make them feel sleepy later at night and to wake up later. This is a normal phenomenon and nothing to do with being addicted to social media. She warns that teenagers should still try to get enough sleep on a daily basis, rather than building up a sleep debt to pay off at weekends. “You can never quite make it up,” she says.
Adults aged 18 to 64 need to sleep for seven to nine hours a night, but some cope on six. For people over the age of 65, the recommended amount is between seven and eight hours, although some survive on five hours sleep (often waking up earlier and napping during the day).
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Last Thursday Tim and about fifty other Stepinac boys flew out to London on a school-organized trip. He gets back this Saturday, after visiting London, Paris and Madrid (NICE!). Yesterday he spoke on the phone with Brigid's sister Libby, who lives in Milton Keynes, about 50 miles outside of London. Tim was disappointed he couldn't get to see her, but told her "longer trip next time."
Anyway here are all the boys - can you spot Tim? Hint under the picture - you'll have to scroll down to see the hint.
Check the right hand side, at the back.
Monday, February 16, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Thanks to my friend Maria M-S (to distinguish from Maria C) for sending me this a few days ago. I think the whole thing was probably pre-arranged - but so what? Still pretty good.
Here's the background:
The Rev. David Rider, 29, of Hyde Park, New York, and the Rev. John Gibson, 28, of Milwaukee, first shot to Internet fame when they were filmed in April during a fundraiser at the North American College, the elite American seminary up the hill from the Vatican.
Rider warmed up the crowd with a lively tap-dance routine, only to be pushed aside by Gibson’s fast-footed Irish dance. Soon they were battling it out, trying to impress the crowd.
At the back of the room, journalist Joan Lewis of the Eternal Word Television Network recorded the event and later posted on YouTube.
Monday, February 16, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
HA! Not so funny though. I know some Facebook people who have died - and then what happens?
Sunday, February 15, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Fascinating - not sure how they were able to do the study. USA surprisingly low on the list - I thought we'd be near #1.
Saturday, February 14, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (3)
played in Italy. Uninspiring match.
Friday, February 13, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Ahhh, a few people took offense (emails and comments) at my stating the obvious, WaPo: Massive Boston snowfalls further proof of Global Warming and that we should have other global priorities then the increasing charade about global warming. Here's the best one to start with - Lack of Freshwater Throughout the World
Woeful mispriorities, addressed by this 12 paragraph Wall Street Journal editorial from last September. Unfortunately it's now behind the WSJ pay wall but you can try the link anyway for the whole article.
Rather than debasing economics, perhaps the climate lobby should return to the climate science and explain the hiatus in warming that has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years depending on the data set and which the climate models failed to predict even as global carbon dioxide emissions have climbed by 25%. Their alibi is that the new warming is now hidden in the oceans, an assertion they lack the evidence to prove.
The campaign to redo the global energy economy has produced plenty of spectacle (the activists in Manhattan), contempt for democratic norms (the EPA), and the promise of a less prosperous future (Germany's renewable fuels fiasco). But perhaps Mr. Modi has a better sense of priorities because while in New York he plans to attend a Central Park event on the theme of reducing global poverty as well as the 9/11 memorial that is a reminder of the renewed threat of terrorism.
Friday, February 13, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
It's like, whatever. "She's completely waxed..." - Ok if there's no pubic hair? Glad the other woman stood up against exploitation.
Friday, February 13, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wow. I just saw him Tuesday night while watching the Rachel Maddow show in the gym.
He collapsed Thursday night in the NYT's offices - he was only 58. He had overcome a horrendous level of addiction which he wrote about in his autobiography. What a shame - a talented man.
UPDATE:
Friday, February 13, 2015 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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