Wednesday, February 06, 2008
ABC News: Don't Tell Mama, Clinton-ites for Obama
ABC News: Don't Tell Mama, Clinton-ites for Obama
Interesting. ...
posted by Sal Towse at 10:40 PM|
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Interesting. ...
posted by Sal Towse at 10:40 PM|
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Friday, February 01, 2008
Yaze! for Baze!
Golden Gate Fields Sees Russell Baze's 10,000th Racing Win [KCBS]
Years and years and years ago, I read horse race results at the back of the sports section in the San Jose Mercury News. Didn't take me long to discover that a bet on whatever horse Russell Baze was riding was a good bet to place.
Congrats to Baze, who won his first race in 1974 in Yakima, WA, on a horse trained by his father, Joe.
posted by Sal Towse at 7:51 PM||
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Years and years and years ago, I read horse race results at the back of the sports section in the San Jose Mercury News. Didn't take me long to discover that a bet on whatever horse Russell Baze was riding was a good bet to place.
Congrats to Baze, who won his first race in 1974 in Yakima, WA, on a horse trained by his father, Joe.
posted by Sal Towse at 7:51 PM|
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Noonan's take on Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, and Barack Obama (oh, and those pesky Republicans too ...)
A Rebellion and an Awkward Embrace
By PEGGY NOONAN
February 1, 2008 / Wall Street Journal
In the most exciting and confounding election cycle of my lifetime, Rudy Giuliani, the Prince of the City, is out because he was about to lose New York, John Edwards is out, the Clintons are fighting for their historical reputations, and the stalwart conservative New York Post has come out strong and stinging for Barack Obama. If you had asked me in December if I would write that sentence in February, I would have said: Um, no.
Noonan's column continues ...
posted by Sal Towse at 7:00 PM||
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By PEGGY NOONAN
February 1, 2008 / Wall Street Journal
In the most exciting and confounding election cycle of my lifetime, Rudy Giuliani, the Prince of the City, is out because he was about to lose New York, John Edwards is out, the Clintons are fighting for their historical reputations, and the stalwart conservative New York Post has come out strong and stinging for Barack Obama. If you had asked me in December if I would write that sentence in February, I would have said: Um, no.
Noonan's column continues ...
Labels: news, people, politics, writing
posted by Sal Towse at 7:00 PM|
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Sunday, January 06, 2008
Dirty Tricks? Who would've guessed? (the Democratic campaign)
I was trolling through political blogs and sites today for commentary on the political debates last night.
There in a comments tail, some someone posted an AP article that slammed Obama, followed by a paean to Clinton.
ASSOCIATED PRESS-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has lot of explaining to do.
He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes. And the list of sensitive topics goes on. With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn't have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes. recent land purchase from a political supporter who is facing charges in an unrelated kickback scheme involving investment firms seeking state business. Abortion opponents see Obama's vote on medical care for aborted fetuses as a refusal to protect the helpless. Some have even accused him of supporting infanticide.
[End excerpt. No indication that the article wasn't quoted in full. ...]
I checked out the AP reference. The reference isn't a current reference but a reference to a Ryan Keith article from January 2007. This is how it reads:
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may have a lot of explaining to do.
He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes. And the list of sensitive topics goes on.
With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn't have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes.
Obama _ who filed papers this week creating an exploratory committee to seek the 2008 Democratic nomination _ may also find himself fielding questions about his actions outside public office, from his acknowledgment of cocaine use in his youth to a more recent land purchase from a political supporter who is facing charges in an unrelated kickback scheme involving investment firms seeking state business.
Obama was known in the Illinois Capitol as a consistently liberal senator who reflected the views of voters in his Chicago district. He helped reform the state death penalty system and create tax breaks for the poor while developing a reputation as someone who would work with critics to build consensus.
He had a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. [...]
Notice the slight changes? Notice where the AP quote in the comments tail stops?
Should you care? It's only dirty tricks.
If you pop / Obama "lot of explaining"/ into Google, you'll find a variety of people quoting the excerpted AP article in the comments tails at various news and blog sites.
Dirty tricks? We have
and on ...
Come on Cary Sherry Lansing Davey dyck ... Clean up your act. Either Clinton approves of what you're doing (wouldn't be a surprise) or you're an overly ambitious volunteer.
Either way you're doing no favors.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:16 PM||
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There in a comments tail, some someone posted an AP article that slammed Obama, followed by a paean to Clinton.
ASSOCIATED PRESS-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has lot of explaining to do.
He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes. And the list of sensitive topics goes on. With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn't have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes. recent land purchase from a political supporter who is facing charges in an unrelated kickback scheme involving investment firms seeking state business. Abortion opponents see Obama's vote on medical care for aborted fetuses as a refusal to protect the helpless. Some have even accused him of supporting infanticide.
[End excerpt. No indication that the article wasn't quoted in full. ...]
I checked out the AP reference. The reference isn't a current reference but a reference to a Ryan Keith article from January 2007. This is how it reads:
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may have a lot of explaining to do.
He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes. And the list of sensitive topics goes on.
With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn't have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes.
Obama _ who filed papers this week creating an exploratory committee to seek the 2008 Democratic nomination _ may also find himself fielding questions about his actions outside public office, from his acknowledgment of cocaine use in his youth to a more recent land purchase from a political supporter who is facing charges in an unrelated kickback scheme involving investment firms seeking state business.
Obama was known in the Illinois Capitol as a consistently liberal senator who reflected the views of voters in his Chicago district. He helped reform the state death penalty system and create tax breaks for the poor while developing a reputation as someone who would work with critics to build consensus.
He had a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. [...]
Notice the slight changes? Notice where the AP quote in the comments tail stops?
Should you care? It's only dirty tricks.
If you pop / Obama "lot of explaining"/ into Google, you'll find a variety of people quoting the excerpted AP article in the comments tails at various news and blog sites.
Dirty tricks? We have
- Davey (Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun)
- obama flip flopper (CNN)
- Sherry Lansing (ed. sure)(Boston Globe)
- jonnie62 (politico.com)
- Cary (The Atlantic)
- dyck21005 (WashingtonPost)
and on ...
Come on Cary Sherry Lansing Davey dyck ... Clean up your act. Either Clinton approves of what you're doing (wouldn't be a surprise) or you're an overly ambitious volunteer.
Either way you're doing no favors.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:16 PM|
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Monday, October 22, 2007
Kinch "Dishing Up the Fall Harvest"
Joyce Gemperlein's Chefs At Home for the Wall Street Journal (20 Oct 2007) focuses on David Kinch of Manresa (Los Gatos, CA) with Dishing Up the Fall Harvest. Recipes included.
Which reminds me, we haven't been to Manresa since we moved up here full-time. THREE YEARS. It's been three years. Used to be easier when we lived at least part time just a couple miles up the road, but now any Manresa dinner plans involve a fifty mile trek coming and going and it's a bit of an excursion.
... but we have a dinner chit that we were high bidder for at a charity auction earlier this year.
We need to make plans.
[from a link at Eater SF]
posted by Sal Towse at 1:02 PM||
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Which reminds me, we haven't been to Manresa since we moved up here full-time. THREE YEARS. It's been three years. Used to be easier when we lived at least part time just a couple miles up the road, but now any Manresa dinner plans involve a fifty mile trek coming and going and it's a bit of an excursion.
... but we have a dinner chit that we were high bidder for at a charity auction earlier this year.
We need to make plans.
[from a link at Eater SF]
posted by Sal Towse at 1:02 PM|
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Sunday, October 21, 2007
Archives, archives, ARCHIVES!
On the heels of the Daily Show opening its archives to the world FOR FREE!, comes word (1) via Sour Grapes' Google Reader cache and (2) via link from the article that Grapes' snagged of more archives coming online.
(1) The Economist will put the Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003 online for a free look initially and then on a subscription basis -- fees not given.
(2) As of Nov 3d the Guardian and Observer newspapers will be available in an online digital archive. Free for November. Fee-structure post-November not given.
The first phase of the Guardian News & Media archive, containing the Guardian from 1821 to 1975 and The Observer from 1900 to 1975, will launch on November 3.
It will contain exact replicas of the original newspapers, both as full pages and individual articles. and will be fully searchable and viewable at guardian.co.uk/archive.
Readers will be offered free 24-hour access during November, but after this trial period charging will be introduced.
The rest of the archive will launch early in 2008, making more than 1.2m pages of digitised news content available, with Observer content available from its launch as the world's first Sunday newspaper in 1791.
[continues ...]
Hope springs eternal that both archives will discover, as the NYT did, that fees are not the way to go, that revenue generated by selling advertising based on page hits from a shipload of people is more lucrative than charging a fee to a coracle full.
posted by Sal Towse at 12:59 PM||
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(1) The Economist will put the Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003 online for a free look initially and then on a subscription basis -- fees not given.
(2) As of Nov 3d the Guardian and Observer newspapers will be available in an online digital archive. Free for November. Fee-structure post-November not given.
The first phase of the Guardian News & Media archive, containing the Guardian from 1821 to 1975 and The Observer from 1900 to 1975, will launch on November 3.
It will contain exact replicas of the original newspapers, both as full pages and individual articles. and will be fully searchable and viewable at guardian.co.uk/archive.
Readers will be offered free 24-hour access during November, but after this trial period charging will be introduced.
The rest of the archive will launch early in 2008, making more than 1.2m pages of digitised news content available, with Observer content available from its launch as the world's first Sunday newspaper in 1791.
[continues ...]
Hope springs eternal that both archives will discover, as the NYT did, that fees are not the way to go, that revenue generated by selling advertising based on page hits from a shipload of people is more lucrative than charging a fee to a coracle full.
posted by Sal Towse at 12:59 PM|
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Friday, October 19, 2007
Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean
Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean by Justin Berton, SFChronicle.
[...]
At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing."
To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe.
In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.
The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.
[...]
At the end of the article is a link to Save The Bay's Bay Trash Hot Spots. Click on a hot spot and get the details of dumped trash between Hunter's Point and Candlestick Point, Colma Creek's trash, trash in Coyote Creek in the south bay and more.
3.5 million tons of plastics and other debris floating out in the ocean between us and Hawaii! Yikes.
Do what you can to help, or at least don't make it worse. Minimize bag use and don't let the ones you have get loose and wind up in the wild.
His nibs and I are signed up for a SPUR tour of Norcal's transfer station out on Tunnel Ave next Tuesday AM. Should be interesting.
posted by Sal Towse at 2:24 PM||
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[...]
At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing."
To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe.
In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.
The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.
[...]
At the end of the article is a link to Save The Bay's Bay Trash Hot Spots. Click on a hot spot and get the details of dumped trash between Hunter's Point and Candlestick Point, Colma Creek's trash, trash in Coyote Creek in the south bay and more.
3.5 million tons of plastics and other debris floating out in the ocean between us and Hawaii! Yikes.
Do what you can to help, or at least don't make it worse. Minimize bag use and don't let the ones you have get loose and wind up in the wild.
His nibs and I are signed up for a SPUR tour of Norcal's transfer station out on Tunnel Ave next Tuesday AM. Should be interesting.
Labels: culture, environmentalism, news, San Francisco, urban
posted by Sal Towse at 2:24 PM|
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Thursday, October 18, 2007
Watch Daily Show Video Clips Online
By golly they DID IT!
Watch Daily Show Video Clips Online
Comedy Central's putting all Daily Show videos online (paired with subtle and well-thought-out advertising, natch).
1999-Now. Seven thousand one hundred twenty-eight videos so far.
The national productivity index makes a whooshing sound as it plummets by.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:44 PM||
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Watch Daily Show Video Clips Online
Comedy Central's putting all Daily Show videos online (paired with subtle and well-thought-out advertising, natch).
1999-Now. Seven thousand one hundred twenty-eight videos so far.
The national productivity index makes a whooshing sound as it plummets by.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:44 PM|
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
NYC Woman Finds Python in Her Toilet
NYC Woman Finds Python in Her Toilet
"And when she brushes her teeth, she said, 'I'm looking over my shoulder.'"
Update: WARNING. Mute your computer. The article opens on a page with a LOUD advertisement.
posted by Sal Towse at 10:32 PM||
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"And when she brushes her teeth, she said, 'I'm looking over my shoulder.'"
Update: WARNING. Mute your computer. The article opens on a page with a LOUD advertisement.
posted by Sal Towse at 10:32 PM|
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Tuesday, October 16, 2007
NYC Bride Sues Florist Over Flower Color
NYC Bride Sues Florist Over Flower Color [AP]
The florist sez he told her he probably couldn't match exactly the color she wanted. He provided pastel pink and green hydrangeas when the bride wanted dark rust and green ones.
Ruined her day, it did.
Bride is an attorney and is suing for $400K in restitution and damages.
And get this: the original flower bill was for $27,435.14!
Yikes. I hope her dear husband knows what he's getting into.
[More complete NYTimes article]
[tons of comments at the SFChronicle]
posted by Sal Towse at 2:32 PM||
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The florist sez he told her he probably couldn't match exactly the color she wanted. He provided pastel pink and green hydrangeas when the bride wanted dark rust and green ones.
Ruined her day, it did.
Bride is an attorney and is suing for $400K in restitution and damages.
And get this: the original flower bill was for $27,435.14!
Yikes. I hope her dear husband knows what he's getting into.
[More complete NYTimes article]
[tons of comments at the SFChronicle]
Labels: legal, news, people, yikes
posted by Sal Towse at 2:32 PM|
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Monday, October 15, 2007
CAN-SPAM works?!!!?!
Porn Spammers Get Five Years.
Nice coupla guys.
Harsh sentencing of Kilbride is credited to his attempts to prevent a witness from testifying at the trial. Kilbride received six years in prison and Schaffer received a 5-1/4 year sentence. Each was fined $100,000 and had to forfeit $1.1 million of their porn spam profits. They also had to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL, which claimed 1.5 million of its customers complained about their spam.
posted by Sal Towse at 10:19 AM||
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Nice coupla guys.
Harsh sentencing of Kilbride is credited to his attempts to prevent a witness from testifying at the trial. Kilbride received six years in prison and Schaffer received a 5-1/4 year sentence. Each was fined $100,000 and had to forfeit $1.1 million of their porn spam profits. They also had to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL, which claimed 1.5 million of its customers complained about their spam.
Labels: culture, internet, legal, news
posted by Sal Towse at 10:19 AM|
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Best headline of the day: Coach Stops Runaway Horse by Biting Ear
Saturday, September 22, 2007
fan mail
Fan mail.
Well, maybe not fan mail per se but at least someone agreeing with my LETTER TO THE EDITOR in today's Chronicle.
The letter was a rehash of a recent post wherein I gave my oh-so-lucid opinion re where Don Fisher should put his Contemporary Art Museum.
Fan mail's nice ...
posted by Sal Towse at 10:35 PM||
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Well, maybe not fan mail per se but at least someone agreeing with my LETTER TO THE EDITOR in today's Chronicle.
The letter was a rehash of a recent post wherein I gave my oh-so-lucid opinion re where Don Fisher should put his Contemporary Art Museum.
Fan mail's nice ...
Labels: art, museums, news, San Francisco
posted by Sal Towse at 10:35 PM|
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
No harm. It was missing 'the part on top that goes boom.'
Missile found in Florida junk yard
Thursday, July 19, 2007
"If you left a surface-to-air missile lying around in a scrapyard in Florida, then some people would like a word with you.
"Authorities say that the Patriot missile was discovered lying in a scrap metal yard in Ybor City, Tampa, which is on the west coast of The State of Never-Ending Weirdness."
[...]
Missile found in Florida junk yard
posted by Sal Towse at 11:14 AM||
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
"If you left a surface-to-air missile lying around in a scrapyard in Florida, then some people would like a word with you.
"Authorities say that the Patriot missile was discovered lying in a scrap metal yard in Ybor City, Tampa, which is on the west coast of The State of Never-Ending Weirdness."
[...]
Missile found in Florida junk yard
posted by Sal Towse at 11:14 AM|
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Sunday, July 08, 2007
Must be almost time for the All-Star Game
Sure, I know. The game isn't until Tuesday, but we already have the Goodyear blimp circling around between the ballpark (hidden behind the Embarcadero Center towers) and the pyramid.
Labels: news, photographs, San Francisco
posted by Sal Towse at 3:48 PM|
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Saturday, July 07, 2007
For Villaraigosa: Sex, lies and eyes that pry
For Villaraigosa: Sex, lies and eyes that pry - commentary by Timothy Rutten in the LA Times.
Is this affair a newsworthy tidbit? Is it any business of ours? Is it the business of people who watch Salinas on Telemundo or who live in the city for which Villaraigosa is mayor?
Is it newsworthy only as relates to whether Salinas should've kept covering the news? Had she told her bosses about the relationship? Does it matter whether Salinas and Villaraigosa were "just friends" or lovers? If she told her bosses "just friends" and not "lovers," should that have affected the limits her bosses put on her reportage?
Oh, the questions, the reckless behavior, the conflict-of-interest.
Does it even matter except as a way of selling the news in an industry where the more news sold the better?
My favorite part of Rutten's commentary is his reprise of the late Abe Rosenthal's standard in such cases:
It doesn't matter if a reporter sleeps with elephants, so long as they don't cover the circus.
posted by Sal Towse at 5:55 PM||
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Is this affair a newsworthy tidbit? Is it any business of ours? Is it the business of people who watch Salinas on Telemundo or who live in the city for which Villaraigosa is mayor?
Is it newsworthy only as relates to whether Salinas should've kept covering the news? Had she told her bosses about the relationship? Does it matter whether Salinas and Villaraigosa were "just friends" or lovers? If she told her bosses "just friends" and not "lovers," should that have affected the limits her bosses put on her reportage?
Oh, the questions, the reckless behavior, the conflict-of-interest.
Does it even matter except as a way of selling the news in an industry where the more news sold the better?
My favorite part of Rutten's commentary is his reprise of the late Abe Rosenthal's standard in such cases:
It doesn't matter if a reporter sleeps with elephants, so long as they don't cover the circus.
Labels: California, news, people, politics, writing
posted by Sal Towse at 5:55 PM|
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Monday, July 02, 2007
[UPDATE 2] Angora fire
100% contained.
254 homes destroyed. According to the Stanford update, all of the camp staff members with houses in the area came through with houses intact.
Cause of fire: illegal campfire in an area where campfires are never never ever allowed.
posted by Sal Towse at 12:26 PM||
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254 homes destroyed. According to the Stanford update, all of the camp staff members with houses in the area came through with houses intact.
Cause of fire: illegal campfire in an area where campfires are never never ever allowed.
posted by Sal Towse at 12:26 PM|
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007
And as long as we're discussing pain and fashion
On Your Feet by January W. Payne (yes, no kidding, payne) Washington Post Staff Writer. Subtitled: How do shoes affect your feet? Is there a good way to walk in heels? Want to know about Morton's neuroma? How about hammertoe and pump bumps?
A quick snippet from the middle:
One of trendiest shoes this season is YSL's platform "Tribute" -- with a tottering 5 1/2 -inch heel. Often painstakingly selected to complete outfits, shoes like these put stress not just on feet, but on ankles, knees and backs, contributing to the approximately $3.5 billion spent annually in the United States for women's foot surgeries, which cause them to lose 15 million work days yearly.
Ouch.
(mentioned in the comments tail of the previously mentioned aetiology post)
posted by Sal Towse at 8:29 PM||
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A quick snippet from the middle:
One of trendiest shoes this season is YSL's platform "Tribute" -- with a tottering 5 1/2 -inch heel. Often painstakingly selected to complete outfits, shoes like these put stress not just on feet, but on ankles, knees and backs, contributing to the approximately $3.5 billion spent annually in the United States for women's foot surgeries, which cause them to lose 15 million work days yearly.
Ouch.
(mentioned in the comments tail of the previously mentioned aetiology post)
posted by Sal Towse at 8:29 PM|
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The things women do for beauty--or, beware the bikini wax
The things women do for beauty--or, beware the bikini wax
Tara C. Smith, an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Iowa, creates a post with serious ewww factor.
Here's the background: A woman with untreated Type 1 diabetes (making her susceptible to infections) gets a bikini wax. ... She comes down with a fever, swelling and pain where the bikini wax works its magic, waited another week to find a doctor. ... and ...
She presented to the ER with not only "grossly swollen" external genitalia, and pain so extreme that she had to be put under general anesthetic just so her physician could perform a gynecologic exam. She was so swollen that, according to the legend to Figure 1 (which you can find online, as the article is freely available), "she was unable to pass urine, and the vaginal space was obliterated by edema."
Ouch.
The patient also had a rash over her chest and neck. From these clinical signs and the subsequent isolation of S. pyogenes from a urine culture and sample of the vaginal discharge, she was diagnosed with streptococcal cellulitis and toxic shock syndrome, and was also found to have an active herpes simplex virus type 1 infection.
[...]
Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ....
[via pharyngula. Thanks for the intro to Dr. Smith and aetiology, a blog that discusses "causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena."]
posted by Sal Towse at 7:58 PM||
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Tara C. Smith, an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Iowa, creates a post with serious ewww factor.
Here's the background: A woman with untreated Type 1 diabetes (making her susceptible to infections) gets a bikini wax. ... She comes down with a fever, swelling and pain where the bikini wax works its magic, waited another week to find a doctor. ... and ...
She presented to the ER with not only "grossly swollen" external genitalia, and pain so extreme that she had to be put under general anesthetic just so her physician could perform a gynecologic exam. She was so swollen that, according to the legend to Figure 1 (which you can find online, as the article is freely available), "she was unable to pass urine, and the vaginal space was obliterated by edema."
Ouch.
The patient also had a rash over her chest and neck. From these clinical signs and the subsequent isolation of S. pyogenes from a urine culture and sample of the vaginal discharge, she was diagnosed with streptococcal cellulitis and toxic shock syndrome, and was also found to have an active herpes simplex virus type 1 infection.
[...]
Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ....
[via pharyngula. Thanks for the intro to Dr. Smith and aetiology, a blog that discusses "causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena."]
posted by Sal Towse at 7:58 PM|
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Plazes - Right Plaze, Right People, Right Time
Plazes
Interesting app especially now. Everyone's weirded out about "them" knowing where we are and what we're up to. Sure! Use Plazes! Tell the world!
"You have no privacy. Get over it." as Scott McNealy famously said a few years back.
Check out the TechCrunch article from earlier this month -- Plazes CEO Busted By His Own Product -- for a sample of what's in store.
posted by Sal Towse at 7:30 PM||
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Interesting app especially now. Everyone's weirded out about "them" knowing where we are and what we're up to. Sure! Use Plazes! Tell the world!
"You have no privacy. Get over it." as Scott McNealy famously said a few years back.
Check out the TechCrunch article from earlier this month -- Plazes CEO Busted By His Own Product -- for a sample of what's in store.
posted by Sal Towse at 7:30 PM|
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[UPDATE] Angora fire
The fire's jumped the fire break and is down at Emerald Bay Road. Propane tanks exploding. All hell and all that breaking loose. Fire folks are evacuating Tallac Village.
ABC News coverage
SF Chronicle coverage
posted by Sal Towse at 5:38 PM||
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ABC News coverage
SF Chronicle coverage
posted by Sal Towse at 5:38 PM|
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Paris Hilton's Prosecutor Under Scrutiny
Paris Hilton's Prosecutor Under Scrutiny
"He was living in somewhat of a glass house," said Raphael Sonenshein, a political scientist at California State University, Fullerton.
posted by Sal Towse at 2:44 PM||
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"He was living in somewhat of a glass house," said Raphael Sonenshein, a political scientist at California State University, Fullerton.
Labels: California, news
posted by Sal Towse at 2:44 PM|
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Monday, June 25, 2007
Will not rent (really!) to people from Belgium
From Craigslist via Curbed SF
Room for a Woman in a No Guests Place
... and please if you decide to rent this furnished bedroom from this piano teacher, don't come to me a month down the road, crying and twisting your hanky.
posted by Sal Towse at 6:17 PM||
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Room for a Woman in a No Guests Place
... and please if you decide to rent this furnished bedroom from this piano teacher, don't come to me a month down the road, crying and twisting your hanky.
Labels: life, news, real estate
posted by Sal Towse at 6:17 PM|
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S.F. condo rules snarl FBI agent's plans
S.F. condo rules snarl FBI agent's plans
by Adam Martin, The Examiner
The buyer is suing everyone involved, it seems. Who do you think is at fault here?
[via Curbed SF]
posted by Sal Towse at 6:03 PM||
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by Adam Martin, The Examiner
The buyer is suing everyone involved, it seems. Who do you think is at fault here?
- The brother of the deceased owner, who sold the place at market price when it was a restricted Below Market unit? [maybe he didn't know]
- The buyer (an attorney) for not checking the title report that showed the restriction? [maybe she lets her "people" deal with the details when it's not a court case]
- The real estate folks on both the seller and buyer side who didn't check into whether the unit was a Below Market unit? [anything to do with the commission being based on sale price?]
- The appraiser who didn't check whether there were Below Market restrictions and appraised it at market price?
- The butcher?
- The baker?
- The candlestick maker?
[via Curbed SF]
Labels: news, real estate, San Francisco
posted by Sal Towse at 6:03 PM|
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Angora Fire updates
Back from our annual week at Camp, obviously.
Yesterday we were heading south to the annual Men's Club dinner and had KCBS on. They made mention of a fire in the South Lake Tahoe area. Uh. Oh. We'd just returned from that neck of the woods.
Seems the fire started up on Angora Ridge and the Angora Lakes Resort had been evacuated. Homes were ashes. The fire raged with no control in sight.
This noon, news isn't much better. 240+ structures burnt. 160+ of those someone's home. 2500 acres. Less than 10% contained. All from a fire reported less than a day ago, a fire probably caused by human activity as there was no trace of lightning or other natural cause before the fire began.
Camp Richardson, out on Emerald Bay Road in South Lake Tahoe, has been evacuated. I'm assuming that means Camp has been evacuated too. Those skinny, twisty roads that take people into and out of the lakes areas and the Desolation Wilderness would not be the best things to depend on if the fire is roaring down the mountainside toward you, especially if the people on the road include your family, another sixty or seventy families from Camp, all the people with family cabins and the people at the resort across the lake.
The El Dorado County Sheriff has a PDF up which gives the status of homes in the area. So far, the home of the only family we know on Tahoe Mountain has a status of "OK."
When we were at Camp, we learned that the fire crew stationed at the lake (including the Camp director and other Camp staff) had already been called out on fires four times this season and the season has just begun. "This doesn't bode well," we said. We all agreed that the area was a tinderbox and something had to be done to get the fire crackly vegetation crap out from under the trees and do some seriousfire fuel/tinder abatement and not dawdle around with a bit here and a bit there and the ten year plan.
Hope our fire teams have the fire under control soon.
Four more months of high fire danger in the state.
x'd fingers.
Update: Map of burned area (so far) courtesy of sfgate.com. "Lily Lake" is mislabeled. Should be "Upper Echo Lake" and "Lower Echo Lake" (the larger one). Weird to think how different it all must be from the area I was hiking in just last week.
Update2: Web site says that Camp was evacuated yesterday afternoon. When staff is given the all clear to return, they'll pack up the belongings left behind in the cabins and ship them to campers who had to split in such a hurry.
The guy in charge and seven staphers are at Camp to do what they can to keep it from burning but have been told they MUST get on boats and get out to the center of the lake if the fire comes down onto camp grounds and their stretch of the lake shore.
Don't get heroic, guys. We all love the place, but ...
Updated news from the Chron
posted by Sal Towse at 12:33 PM||
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Yesterday we were heading south to the annual Men's Club dinner and had KCBS on. They made mention of a fire in the South Lake Tahoe area. Uh. Oh. We'd just returned from that neck of the woods.
Seems the fire started up on Angora Ridge and the Angora Lakes Resort had been evacuated. Homes were ashes. The fire raged with no control in sight.
This noon, news isn't much better. 240+ structures burnt. 160+ of those someone's home. 2500 acres. Less than 10% contained. All from a fire reported less than a day ago, a fire probably caused by human activity as there was no trace of lightning or other natural cause before the fire began.
Camp Richardson, out on Emerald Bay Road in South Lake Tahoe, has been evacuated. I'm assuming that means Camp has been evacuated too. Those skinny, twisty roads that take people into and out of the lakes areas and the Desolation Wilderness would not be the best things to depend on if the fire is roaring down the mountainside toward you, especially if the people on the road include your family, another sixty or seventy families from Camp, all the people with family cabins and the people at the resort across the lake.
The El Dorado County Sheriff has a PDF up which gives the status of homes in the area. So far, the home of the only family we know on Tahoe Mountain has a status of "OK."
When we were at Camp, we learned that the fire crew stationed at the lake (including the Camp director and other Camp staff) had already been called out on fires four times this season and the season has just begun. "This doesn't bode well," we said. We all agreed that the area was a tinderbox and something had to be done to get the fire crackly vegetation crap out from under the trees and do some serious
Hope our fire teams have the fire under control soon.
Four more months of high fire danger in the state.
x'd fingers.
Update: Map of burned area (so far) courtesy of sfgate.com. "Lily Lake" is mislabeled. Should be "Upper Echo Lake" and "Lower Echo Lake" (the larger one). Weird to think how different it all must be from the area I was hiking in just last week.
Update2: Web site says that Camp was evacuated yesterday afternoon. When staff is given the all clear to return, they'll pack up the belongings left behind in the cabins and ship them to campers who had to split in such a hurry.
The guy in charge and seven staphers are at Camp to do what they can to keep it from burning but have been told they MUST get on boats and get out to the center of the lake if the fire comes down onto camp grounds and their stretch of the lake shore.
Don't get heroic, guys. We all love the place, but ...
Updated news from the Chron
Labels: environmentalism, life, news
posted by Sal Towse at 12:33 PM|
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Symptoms Found for Early Check on Ovary Cancer
Symptoms Found for Early Check on Ovary Cancer - New York Times
By DENISE GRADY
Published: June 13, 2007
Cancer experts have identified a set of health problems that may be symptoms of ovarian cancer, and they are urging women who have the symptoms for more than a few weeks to see their doctors.
The new advice is the first official recognition that ovarian cancer, long believed to give no warning until it was far advanced, does cause symptoms at earlier stages in many women.
The symptoms to watch out for are bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly and feeling a frequent or urgent need to urinate. A woman who has any of those problems nearly every day for more than two or three weeks is advised to see a gynecologist, especially if the symptoms are new and quite different from her usual state of health.
[...]
Take note. Read the rest of the article too.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:34 PM||
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By DENISE GRADY
Published: June 13, 2007
Cancer experts have identified a set of health problems that may be symptoms of ovarian cancer, and they are urging women who have the symptoms for more than a few weeks to see their doctors.
The new advice is the first official recognition that ovarian cancer, long believed to give no warning until it was far advanced, does cause symptoms at earlier stages in many women.
The symptoms to watch out for are bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly and feeling a frequent or urgent need to urinate. A woman who has any of those problems nearly every day for more than two or three weeks is advised to see a gynecologist, especially if the symptoms are new and quite different from her usual state of health.
[...]
Take note. Read the rest of the article too.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:34 PM|
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Friday, June 08, 2007
ARRIVEDERCI
[Caution reading Goodman's column and blog. There may be spoilers lurking therein.]
Tim Goodman (SFC) says ARRIVEDERCI to the Sopranos.
(Speculation/discussion/news of the Sopranos finale was above the fold on page one of today's paper!)
I've never seen an entire Sopranos show, just a few bits, and I mean a few. One bit, maybe. We're too parsimonious, you see, to subscribe to HBO. We have plain vanilla cable (about $3/mo when added on to our broadband costs) and that only because I figured we might want to watch some breaking news some time. Oh, and watch the Today Show broadcast from Bhutan. (Thank you, Auntie K, for that heads-up!)
My lack of viewing experience and serious lack in the fandom department does not, however, stop me from joining in the frantic speculation about the most hyped show finale since Dallas went off the air.
I have my own theory how it will all end next Sunday.
As a nod to our European contingent, who are a ways behind in the episodes, I've put my theory here.
Read Tim's blog entry / synopsis of Ep. 20: "A glorified crew." Search for "towse" to retrieve my comment from the 298 (so far) comments re the end of the Sopranos ... if you care and don't mind my uninformed speculations.
posted by Sal Towse at 9:31 AM||
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Tim Goodman (SFC) says ARRIVEDERCI to the Sopranos.
(Speculation/discussion/news of the Sopranos finale was above the fold on page one of today's paper!)
I've never seen an entire Sopranos show, just a few bits, and I mean a few. One bit, maybe. We're too parsimonious, you see, to subscribe to HBO. We have plain vanilla cable (about $3/mo when added on to our broadband costs) and that only because I figured we might want to watch some breaking news some time. Oh, and watch the Today Show broadcast from Bhutan. (Thank you, Auntie K, for that heads-up!)
My lack of viewing experience and serious lack in the fandom department does not, however, stop me from joining in the frantic speculation about the most hyped show finale since Dallas went off the air.
I have my own theory how it will all end next Sunday.
As a nod to our European contingent, who are a ways behind in the episodes, I've put my theory here.
Read Tim's blog entry / synopsis of Ep. 20: "A glorified crew." Search for "towse" to retrieve my comment from the 298 (so far) comments re the end of the Sopranos ... if you care and don't mind my uninformed speculations.
posted by Sal Towse at 9:31 AM|
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Thursday, June 07, 2007
cochineal, also known as carmine -- derived from the dried bodies of pregnant scale insects
theage.com.au has a terrific article, Meaty Bites (by John Bailey) which begins thusly,
Masterfoods in Britain recently announced that Mars Bars would now contain animal product - specifically rennet, an extract pulled from the stomachs of calves. Sweet-toothed vegetarians the world over howled in protest and the company quickly restored the original recipe and issued a blatant apology for its error. But how many other foods contain sneaky meats and furtive fish?
Number one on Bailey's list is Nestle Strawberry NesQuik which gets that unearthly pink color from "colour (120)". That 120 is cochineal, also known as carmine, and is derived from the dried bodies of pregnant scale insects (the yummy sounding Dactylopius coccus costa).
Yum!
His article goes on from there naming most cheeses (rennet there too), anything with gelatin (check the yogurt label), Guinness (Guinness!) and other you-may-not-realize-they're-not-vegetarian foods.
Bailey also specifically mentions Lea&Perrins Worcestershire sauce, which contains anchovies and has since forever.
I actually knew this (as of last night) because I was making a cheese sauce for the cauliflower (white sauce, shredded cheese...) and added a bit of Worcester sauce for some added punch along with chopped grilled onions and fresh-ground pepper. I said to his nibs, "What's in Worcester sauce anyway?" and he read the ingredients off the label: vinegar, molasses, high fructose corn syrup (!!), anchovies, water, hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, onions, tamarind, salt, garlic, cloves, chili peppers, natural flavorings and shallots.
Anchovies? Who knew? Well now you do, I do, and anyone who read John Bailey's article does too.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:57 AM||
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Masterfoods in Britain recently announced that Mars Bars would now contain animal product - specifically rennet, an extract pulled from the stomachs of calves. Sweet-toothed vegetarians the world over howled in protest and the company quickly restored the original recipe and issued a blatant apology for its error. But how many other foods contain sneaky meats and furtive fish?
Number one on Bailey's list is Nestle Strawberry NesQuik which gets that unearthly pink color from "colour (120)". That 120 is cochineal, also known as carmine, and is derived from the dried bodies of pregnant scale insects (the yummy sounding Dactylopius coccus costa).
Yum!
His article goes on from there naming most cheeses (rennet there too), anything with gelatin (check the yogurt label), Guinness (Guinness!) and other you-may-not-realize-they're-not-vegetarian foods.
Bailey also specifically mentions Lea&Perrins Worcestershire sauce, which contains anchovies and has since forever.
I actually knew this (as of last night) because I was making a cheese sauce for the cauliflower (white sauce, shredded cheese...) and added a bit of Worcester sauce for some added punch along with chopped grilled onions and fresh-ground pepper. I said to his nibs, "What's in Worcester sauce anyway?" and he read the ingredients off the label: vinegar, molasses, high fructose corn syrup (!!), anchovies, water, hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, onions, tamarind, salt, garlic, cloves, chili peppers, natural flavorings and shallots.
Anchovies? Who knew? Well now you do, I do, and anyone who read John Bailey's article does too.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:57 AM|
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Wednesday, June 06, 2007
"I didn't know how the book would end."
Graying duo keep passenger in check - The Boston Globe
Hooray for graying geezers.
Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.
"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."
posted by Sal Towse at 10:57 AM||
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Hooray for graying geezers.
Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.
"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."
Labels: news
posted by Sal Towse at 10:57 AM|
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