This Sunday on PBS - The Blues! :
"'The blues are the roots; everything else is the fruits.'
- Willie Dixon "

Thought you might like to check out 7 nights of the Blues. Would expect this to be a good program. A Martin Scorcese project.

 
Confessions of a Spam King:
"''Click here,'' says my spamming mentor. Hovering over my chair, he points to the computer screen. ''Now click on that file of e-mail addresses there.'' I have been invited by a master for an education in spamming, the practice of blasting millions of unsolicited e-mail messages into the Internet in order to advertise everything from loans with easy terms to women of easy virtue. "

If you want to see how spam works, read this article. hmmm... my next career?

 
In GOP, Concern Over Iraq Price Tag (washingtonpost.com):
"A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million."

Bet there will be a few Iraqis signing up for the witness protection program! Boy, the sh.... is gonna hit the fan!

 
Text: Democratic Candidates Debate (washingtonpost.com)

In case you missed the Dems debating yesterday on CNBC or MSNBC, here's a full transript of the debate. I always find Al Sharpton makes these things much more enjoyable. He's nobody's fool, that's for sure. Maybe we should have Sharpton and Kucinich running the country - at least you would know where they stood.

Dean took some tough shots, but also gave it back. Clark did ok, but didn't do enough yet, nor was specific enough to get my vote. Think Lieberman is fading from the picture. Braun doesn't have a chance, though her answers are excellent and well thought out. They didn't ask her as many questions as they asked the others which was more a reflection of the questioner's opinions of how much of a chance she stood in the election, I believe. She let them know it though, that she thought she deserved more questions. Edwards is getting better, but will appear to young and boyish for most voters, I believe. Kuchinich isn't afraid to stand up and say we should do away with NAFTA and bring the soldiers home now. I give him credit for that, but it is probably not a view that will garner across the board support.

The biggest problem for the Dems now, is that there are too many of them. Not enough chance for good give and take in these, when you have to go around to so many. Still, Brian Williams did a good job as host and so did the questioners.

It's always refreshing to hear how all these people are going to fix our problems, but rather depressing when you think about how it will really turn out, especially if the Republicans dominate the Congress.

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan (1911 - )

 
Amusing Flash Toy

A way to amuse yourself if you are are without a life. Just move your mouse around when you get to the page. :)

 

Types of Impaired glucose tolerance - WrongDiagnosis.com:

Types of Impaired glucose tolerance

Types list: The list of types of Impaired glucose tolerance mentioned in various sources includes:

• Impaired Fasting Glucose


• Gestational Impaired Glucose Tolerance

Types discussion: There are two forms of impaired glucose metabolism.

Impaired Fasting Glucose
A person has impaired fasting glucose (IFG) when fasting plasma glucose is 110 to 125 mg/dL. This level is higher than normal but less than the level indicating a diagnosis of diabetes. Approximately 13.4 million people in the United States, or about 7 percent of the population, have IFG.

Impaired Glucose Tolerance
Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) means that blood glucose during the oral glucose tolerance test is higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes. IGT is diagnosed when the glucose level is 141 to 199 mg/dL 2 hours after a person is given a drink containing 75 grams of glucose. 1 "

The odd thing in my case is that I'm in the impaired glucose tolerance range upon awakening (after fasting), and sometimes even lower. Yet 2 hours after the oral glucose tolerance test, I was 300 which is definitely diabetic.

It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like.
Jackie Mason (1934 - )

 
Thirsty Batteries Tell Rechargers How Fast to Pour

With some battery rechargers, restoring a couple of double-A's can take up to eight hours. But with Rayovac's new I-C3 system, batteries can be charged during a coffee break.

I've seen these in the stores. Think it only takes about 15 minutes to recharge them, but you have to use this newer type battery, if I understand the article correctly.

 
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract."

 
FeedDemon Beta

The excellent Feed Demon Newsreader now has an updated beta for download.

 
Thought this was rather interesting. Was checking on Gurunet the spelling for "catsup" and stumbled across this bit of word history.

"WORD HISTORY The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifications that can take place in borrowing—both of words and substances. The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kçchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kçchap, like ketchup, was a sauce, but one without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. Sailors seem to have brought the sauce to Europe, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some unknown point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born. But it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690 in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the form catsup. All three spelling variants of this foreign borrowing remain current."

TalkLeft: When Ashcroft Sang a Different Tune

Now isn't this interesting? Are these guys chameleons, or what? Of course, it also raises the question as to what the hell Clinton was thinking about, but we're concentrating on Ashcroft today. :)

 
A New Regime at the White House

Get the popcorn out. West Wing is returning and is heating up according to this article. The Dems are out for the moment (The Pres's daughter was kidnapped and he stepped down so the Republican Speaker of the House took over, rather than the VP who was embroiled in a sex scandal) and John Goodman is now the Repbulican Pres in command. Should be interesting - NBC - 9 Eastern time tonite.

 
In Senate, Kennedy Fuels Sharp Debate (washingtonpost.com): "Bush had called Kennedy's remarks 'uncivil,' and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said Democrats had 'spewed more hateful rhetoric at President Bush than they ever did at Saddam Hussein.'"

I find DeLay's remarks highly amusing. Apparently DeLay has forgotten his attacks on the Clinton Administration for 8 years. If anyone is a master of the vitriolic, it is DeLay. Funny how they react when they get a dose of it coming their way. Politics are always so much fun - too bad all the squabbling produces so little action.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

 

WorkingForChange-Fear and loathing in America

A friend passed this along to me, so thought I'd share. Ol' Molly pretty much hits the nail on the head with this one.

"We got no Osama, we got no Saddam, we got no weapons of mass destruction, the road map to peace in the Middle East is blown to hell, we're stuck in this country for $87 billion just for one year, and no one knows how long we'll be there. And still poor Krauthammer is hard-put to conceive how anyone could conclude that George W. Bush is a poor excuse for a president."

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

 

mercola.com blog

Even Doc Mercola is getting into the blogging world? Why am I not surprised? Even though he is a bit "out there" when it comes to his nutritional recommendations (actually, I don't have a problem with the recommendations ,so much as I do with the fact that I would think it would be extremely hard to remain on such a weird diet, and an expensive one as well - grass fed beef,ostrich, wild salmon,etc), he does come along with interesting articles so I always check it just to see what he's up to. If you've installed the blog reader below that I highly recommend, then it's easy to add his blog to the reader. That way you get all your news and blogs in one place. If you don't want to go that route, then you can just bookmark the site and add it to your favorites.

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Redd Foxx (1922 - 1991)

 
Iraq's simmering south | csmonitor.com:

Part 1 of a 3 part series on the difficult problems we're facing in Iraq. Note the new tools of religion indicated below - Mercedes Benz's and AK-47's - still makes me ponder the benefits of religions in the world - seems like more often than not, they are just a cause of strife.

"'No to the invaders!' chant thousands of Iraqi followers, sitting on prayer rugs in the mosque's dusty inner courtyard. After the sermon, Mr. Sadr speeds away in a Mercedes Benz, accompanied by a phalanx of bodyguards carrying AK-47s"

 

K Street

This should be a hot show - 10 pm on Sunday nights on HBO. Produced and directed by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh - all about lobbyists in DC, using real life people (James Carville, Mary Matalin, Michael Deaver), as well as actors. Each episode 30 minutes - incorporates what is happening this very week into the show. Will keep you posted as to whether it is any good!