NIH Strikes Again

Here we go again. Not content with wasting US tax dollars studying drunken gay sex in Argentina and advising Chinese prostitutes on how to drink responsibly on the job, the NIH is also researching the reasons behind drug-using Thai prostitutes having high HIV rates.

The federal government is spending $178,000 to better understand why drug-abusing prostitutes in Thailand are at greater risk for HIV infection, an endeavor taxpayer watchdogs are calling a huge waste of American taxpayers' money.

Something of an understatement.

The NIH funds many studies that focus on HIV risk and prevention in hopes that it can lay the vital groundwork for developing treatment and intervention plans to thwart the deadly AIDS virus.

Now, why would female and transgender prostitutes who also abuse drugs have higher than normal rates of HIV? Hmm, that's a real puzzler. It's also difficult to think of some way of reducing the rates in a group of people who regularly engage in risky sex and risky drug use? Oh, if only there was some clue to solving this enigma.

The NIH spends $29 billion each year to help fund thousands of health studies, including many overseas initiatives.

Oh, and they're also studying suicide patterns in young men and women...in China. Apparently the NIH doesn't seem to realise that they are a US institution funded by US citizens. I think too- I think this is right, correct me if I'm wrong- that Argentina, Thailand and even China have their own governments which can, if they so desire, spend their own money on these particular research programs.

Your tax dollars at work, folks. And, as they say on FARK, still no cure for cancer.

Green Hypocrisy

Poster-boy for travel by private jet while espousing green ideals Al Gore, is not alone. Trudi Styler is a member of his elite club of hypocrites.

Environmentalist Trudie Styler is being accused of hypocrisy for hiring a private jet just to take her and her stylists to a party at the White House.

Styler - who co-founded the Rainforest Foundation 20 years ago - allegedly took the gas-guzzling jet from New York to the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

She was accompanied by an entourage of eight to help her prepare for the event, with those onboard including Manhattan-based hairstylist Antonio Prieto.

And her charity is not exactly useful either-

Sting and Trudie are big proponents of saving the rainforests.

But last year it was reported that Sting's star-studded charity concert for the Rainforest Foundation in 2006 donated only 41 percent of the proceeds to tree-saving programs.

Well-run charities typically spend 75 per cent on programmes.

So how do they compare in other ways to Al Gore- whose house used more energy in one month than the average American home did in a year?

Last May, the couple were said to 'have a carbon footprint estimated at 30 times that of the average UK resident.'

Green hypocrisy- Trudi's in good company with Al Gore and even Barack Obama.

A Fixed Back

I suffer from pretty bad back pain so this story really stood out to me today. A fourteen year old girl underwent an 11 hour long operation to correct a dramatic twisting of her spine- it was so bad that she was bullied about her appearance, being nicknamed the "hunchback of Notre Dame". You really need to see the photo of her X-ray for the full impact.

Jessica was diagnosed with scoliosis 16 months ago when she was having a dress fitted and the tailor spotted her crooked shoulders.

Her parents Kevin, 42, and Ange, 44, took her to the doctors and she was referred for an operation but had to wait 16 months before having surgery.

She was due to have the op just before Christmas but because of a backlog of patients she was told she would have to wait four more painful months.

During that time her spine continued to twist out of shape and she had to prop herself up on five pillows in order to get a good night's sleep.

She could only walk by shuffling sideways to relief the pressure on her hips and doctors feared her heart was at risk because her ribs were squashing her arteries.

Oh yeah- and look how wonderful our government-run health care system is too. She only had to suffer needlessly and have her life endangered for a few months longer than necessary.

Three Years Left

That's right- there's only three years left until TEOTWAWKI.

The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire.

Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies.

Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.

Beautiful- but deadly.

And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground.

Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power.

By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television - terrestrial and satellite - blinks off the air.

Radio is reduced to a burst of static.

By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.

Mad Max time- here we come. Actually, an event like this did occur back in the 19th century-

This last happened on the morning of September 1, 1859.

A bright flash of light erupted from the Sun's surface and detached itself from it.

Just 48 hours later it struck, and the effects were extraordinary.

Brilliant aurorae lit the Earth's night skies right down to the Tropics - their light being so brilliant it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight.

In California, a group of gold miners were roused from their bed hours early, thinking the dawn and a new day's prospecting had come. It was 2am.

Telegraph operators received severe electric shocks as solar-induced currents surged through the networks. It was as though the Earth had been immersed in a bath of electricity.

Just one question- will this cause the zombies or will they come after?

Green Hypocrisy

This seems to be getting a fair bit of coverage but just in case you missed it-

THEY may shout their green credentials from the rooftops, but some of Britain’s most prominent environmental champions are living in homes that produce up to half a ton of excess carbon dioxide a year.

An audit of properties, measuring heat loss, has revealed that Chris Martin, the pop star, Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, and Sir David Attenborough, the broadcaster, are among those who reside in homes that are “leaking” energy. Some lack even the most basic energy saving measures such as cavity wall insulation and double glazing.

I guess the American equivalents are Al Gore and Barack "thermostat" Obama.

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat energy and climate change spokesman, owned the least energy-efficient property. He bought his £150,000 flat in Southwark, south London, 25 years ago but has failed to fit it with any significant insulation. Only last week Hughes unveiled plans to make every home in Britain energy efficient within the next decade. He could start with his own flat.

True in so many cases with politicians, isn't it?

Mengele's Twins

This has to be one of the strangest stories I've read in a long time. An historian believes that Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death at Auschwitz, is responsible for the astonishing number of twins born in a South American town.

For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies in a small Brazilian town have resulted in twins – most of them blond haired and blue eyed.

But residents of Candido Godoi now claim that Mengele made repeated visits there in the early 1960s, posing at first as a vet but then offering medical treatment to the women of the town.

The normal rate for twins is one in eighty.

Global Warming

There's a whole heap of global warming going on in the US right now- and quite frankly I'm glad we don't get temperatures like that over here.

Much of the country was in extremis Friday, with temperatures dropping to record lows in parts from Minnesota to Vermont.

"After it's 10 below, what difference does it make?" asked Wendy Schlueter of Babbitt, Minnesota, where the temperature hit 48 degrees below zero Friday.

The cold set records in Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota, said Bruce Terry, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Maryland.

Jennifer Flesher, a 20-year-old CNN iReporter and student at the University of Illinois, said Thursday that the temperature was "unbelievable."

"I went outside to use the snow blower, and my lungs actually started hurting," she said.

Surprisingly, there isn't a single mention of global warming or climate change in the entire article- something you always get when the weather becomes a bit balmy.

Odd that, isn't it?

Stonehenge Rave

As with dinosaurs there seems to be a new theory about Stonehenge every few months. This latest one is quite interesting.

The mysterious Stonehenge was a dance arena for ancient revellers listening to 'trance-style' music, according to one professor who is an expert in sound.

Quite the party spot- and the acoustics expert who came up with the notion tested his theory in the US.

The most exciting discoveries came when he and colleague Dr Bruno Fazenda visited a full-size concrete replica of Stonehenge, which was built as a war memorial by American road builder Sam Hill at Maryhill in Washington state.

He said: 'We were able to get some interesting results when we visited the replica by using computer-based acoustic analysis software, a 3D soundfield microphone, a dodecahedronic (12-faced) speaker, and a huge bass speaker.

'We have also been able to reproduce the sound of someone speaking or clapping in Stonehenge 5,000 years ago.

'The most interesting thing is we managed to get the whole space (at Maryhill) to resonate, almost like a wine glass will ring if you run a finger round it.

He notes that the stones were shaped or curved as if to reflect sound. While I can't see the construction as being purely for a neolithic rave, it doesn't seem beyond possibility that the site was perhaps enhanced to maximise the acoustic properties for whatever rituals were held there.

Another Compilation

A little collection -

Labour does even more to reduce the rights of British home-owners. Try to restrain a burglar breaking into your home or attacking you and you'll be charged- but now debt collectors are being given the right to not only break into homes to collection possessions, but they're also being allowed to use "reasonable force" against home-owners.

So much for the GOP learning their lesson from McCain's defeat. Michael Steele shows he's no friend of the Second Amendment.

Army scientists delve into the realms of science fiction- by developing the ability to regrow lost tissue (for example a lost fingertip) and new research which has allowed them to regrow bone in rats.

Have a happy Christmas!

Varied Items

A little sign that there's still some life left in the blog.

People are willing to torture others if in the presence of an "authority figure". The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Reforestation in the Americas centuries ago helped to plunge the world into the Little Ice Age.

Pork, pork and more pork - a request by US mayors for funds to be used for "infrastructure" improvements (allegedly to help the economy) is packed with extra spending for the likes of a polar bear exhibit, a water park ride, zoos, museums, etc. Politicians- is there any crisis they won't use to their own advantage?

A woman's rights activist in Iraq has been beheaded in her own home.

Judge Dredd looks like he'll be returning to cinema screens- though without Stallone this time. Here's hoping they hire a director and script-writer who has actually read the comics. Interesting to note the call for Jason Statham to play the part in the comments. That might actually be a good idea.

Frank Miller is apparently going to make a Buck Rogers movie. I'm not sure what to make of this one. My initial thought is that Miller's too dark for this. It seems to be that this should be more of a Spielberg-ian effort. And they should definitely go back to the old serials for inspiration.

That's all for now but please do keep checking back for more!

The Resurrection Project

A scientific development I can get behind.

Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had created a mouse from a dead cell frozen for 16 years, taking a step in the long impossible dream of bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths.

But the researchers said tough challenges remain ahead in terms of how to restore extinct animals, which would require breeding with animals that are still alive.

To revive a mammoth, researchers would need to find a way to implant a cell nucleus of a mammoth into the egg of an elephant and then implant the embryo into an elephant's uterus, it said.

The elephant is the closest modern relative of the mammoth, a huge woolly mammal believed to have died out with the Ice Age.

But Akira Iritani, a mammoth expert at Kinki University in Osaka, said it was only a matter of time before researchers could find a mammoth for a resurrection project.

Any other megafauna they can bring back I wonder?

Another Inconvenient Truth

Environmentalism is not science so much as it is ideology. Don't get the results you want from a study? Well then, just hush them up! Never let little things like facts get in the way- even if the thing you're supporting actually causes more environmental damage. By trying to hide the results of this study the government is essentially admitting that this isn't about the environment so much as it is about the appearance of doing things the politically correct way.

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.

Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the “negative laundry options” outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.

Thanks to Clayton Cramer for this one.

Lawgiver

This may take a little time to read through but a quick skim makes it seem quite compelling- a discussion about various science fiction weapons from a real world point of view. The whole website covers a remarkable variety of topics but the "sidearms" section is one that I'm most interested in.

Found it when I was reminiscing about reading 2000AD as a kid and I did a quick search for Dredd's Lawgiver. They seem to have updated the design in the comic with a Mk II. Loses the aesthetic appeal of the original as far as I'm concerned.

An Inconvenient Truth

Here's one for your environmentally-friendly friends-

Drilling makes up about 1% of the petroleum in American coastal waters.

Natural seepage accounts for a staggering 63%.

The Big Dog

AllahPundit is not entirely impressed by the Big Dog, a quadruped robot. I am- it doesn't seem like too long ago when the world was stunned by a robot that could walk up a set of steps. Now we have one that can not only carry more than 300lbs of gear but which can compensate for slippery ice or even getting kicked. I can't even begin to imagine the genius which makes it possible to co-ordinate all its limbs like that. The Big Dog could one day go into service with troops on patrol in remote regions, carrying extra supplies- or perhaps be armed and sent into combat.

You've really got to see it to believe it- this really is awesome.

Snake Robots

From the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University comes the Modular Snake Robot.

Making It Worse

Wow- proof positive that environmentalist alarmism and science don't mix.

Biofuels are making climate change worse, not better, according to two new studies which found that total greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels are far higher than those from burning gasoline because biofuel production is pushing up food prices and resulting in deforestation and loss of grasslands.

“Emissions from ethanol are 93 percent higher than gasoline,” said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author of one of the papers published Thursday in the journal Science.

“The bottom line is that using good farmland for biofuels increases greenhouse emissions,” he said.

Solving one problem with another that's even worse- so how come none of these supposed climate experts saw this coming? I was under the impression that they were supposed to know everything about the Earth's complex systems. Does this mean that the sages aren't infallible?

Cooling Off

Time to stock up on thermal underwear?

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Not the first time that evidence has emerged of such a trend. Expect the current environuts wailing about the weather getting too nice to be crying about it getting too bad in a few years. And all the billions of dollars spent on global warming will have been wasted.

Modesty Before Life

Muslim medical students are refusing to adopt hygiene practices which are required to try and save lives.

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion.

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

And instead of being promptly told they cannot practice medicine lest they kill patients, dhimmi authorities seem to be pandering to them.

But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.

"No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," it said.

Yep, their so-call modesty trumps infections that can and do kill vulnerable patients. Whatever happened that a medieval ideology can be placed before the health and safety of the sick?

Climate Change

Global warming comes to China.

Some parts of China have seen their worst weather in 100 years this winter, with the recent snowfalls the biggest in that time, a meteorological official told Agence France-Presse.

'For some provinces such as Hubei and Hunan (both in central China), it's been the biggest snowfall in 100 years,' said an official at the China Meteorological Administration's publicity department.

'Other provinces have had the biggest snowfall in 50 years. Others again, the biggest snowfall in decades,' said the official, who declined to be named.

It's a good thing so many environmentalists are doing their utmost to try and reduce the temperature even further, isn't it?

The extreme weather had affected more than 77.86 million people in 14 provinces by 2 p.m. on Monday. Direct economic losses were estimated at 22.09 billion yuan (about 3 billion U.S. dollars).

About 6.87 million hectares of crops were affected in 16 province-level areas as of Tuesday morning, with total crop failures of 735,333 ha.

The latest official figures showed that the bad weather had claimed 24 lives as of 2:00 p.m. on Jan. 28. However, a traffic accident in the southwestern province of Guizhou on Tuesday morning added 25 to the toll.

I keep hearing that the climate has changed because of man's dastardly desire for a better standard of living but the one thing that environmentalists haven't made clear yet is which period of climate in history will they be happy with? The Little Ice Age perhaps, which ended in the 1800s when we're told that man's actions- the Industrial Revolution- caused temperatures to rise.

The Little Ice Age brought bitterly cold winters to many parts of the world, but is most thoroughly documented in Europe and North America. In the mid-17th century, glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced, gradually engulfing farms and crushing entire villages. The River Thames and the canals and rivers of the Netherlands often froze over during the winter, and people skated and even held frost fairs on the ice. The first Thames frost fair was in 1607; the last in 1814, although changes to the bridges and the addition of an embankment affected the river flow and depth, hence the possibility of freezes. The freeze of the Golden Horn and the southern section of the Bosphorus took place in 1622. In 1658 a Swedish army marched across Øresund to Denmark and invaded Copenhagen. The winter of 1794/1795 was particularly harsh when the French invasion army under Pichegru could march on the frozen rivers of the Netherlands, whilst the Dutch fleet was fixed in the ice in Den Helder harbour. In the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction, closing that island's harbors to shipping.

The Little Ice Age by anthropology professor Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara, tells of the plight of European peasants during the 1300 to 1850 chill: famines, hypothermia, bread riots, and the rise of despotic leaders brutalizing an increasingly dispirited peasantry. In the late 17th century, writes Fagan, agriculture had dropped off so dramatically that "Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with barley and oat flour." Finland lost perhaps a third of its population to starvation and disease.

Given the amount of money that governments are spending on the "problem" of our changing climate, perhaps they'd like to be a bit clearer on when they want the temperature to stabilise?