Monthly Archives: February 2011

Gaza: Fundamentalism in the Extreme

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Religous Police on every Street Corner: "Show us your papers please"

From Eric Dondero:

A spokesman for Hamas Yousef Rizka, a senior government official in Gaza, told the London Telegraph, Yousef Rizka: "We respect freedom."

According to the Telegraph, "Gaza's elected Islamist rulers crack down on secular community" the List of some activities now banned by Hamas in Gaza, include:

1. Novels it deems offensive to Islam

2. Bars

3. Cinemas

4. Women walking outside in Western clothes

5. Male hairdressers

From the Telegraph:

In recent years, hardliners have burned down the cinemas. Their charred remains are still visible in Gaza City. Militants blew up the last bar in 2005.

Gaza women, whose attire once varied from Western pants and skirts to colourful traditional embroidered robes, began donning ankle-length loose robes.

And don't even dare walking outside with your wife without the correct documentation.

Continuing:

Today, plainclothes officers sometimes halt couples in the streets, demanding to see marriage licenses.

Editor's comment - You gotta ask, where are the US Libertarians on this? Why the silence? Why no outcry from so-called Civil Liberties advocates in the United States? Where are they?

UK "Mums" on Welfare cleverly swap Milk Vouchers for Booze and Cigarettes

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MOOCHER WATCH!

From Eric Dondero:

Four years ago, the Labour Party introduced an expansion of the Mother's Milk program to include fruits and vegetables. Over 600,000 women currently receive the taxpayer-subsidized government hand-out.

From the UK Telegraph "New mothers swap fruit vouchers for booze and cigarettes":

Now a Government survey of more than 2,000 retailers, health professionals and recipients has found that more than one in five knew of occasions when shops had swapped the tokens for products outside the scheme... trading vouchers for alcohol and cigarettes.

Limited government advocates in the UK are steaming. Continuing:


Emma Boon, campaign director of The TaxPayers’ Alliance, urged the Coalition to abolish the scheme.

She said: “All these endless handouts from the nanny state do nothing but encourage shameless behaviour from those in society who would rather spend money on cigarettes and alcohol than on their own children.”

“It’s naive of the Government to give out these vouchers and expect the scheme to have an impact on how much healthy food mums or mums-to-be are buying. This misguided programme is wasting taxpayers’ money and should be scrapped.”

Photo - actual famous UK welfare queen, who scammed the UK welfare system.

Scholarship for a New Minority Group in Texas: White Males

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Those Crazy Caucasians

From Clifford F. Thies:

A group calling itself the "Former Majority Association for Equality" is offering scholarships for white males at Texas Tech at San Marcos. Applicants must carry at least a 3.0 GPA and be at least 25 percent caucasian.

Not quite in the same league as Bill Gates' Billionium Scholarship Fund, open to anyone who is not white, the group hopes to raise enough money to award five scholarships of $500 each.

As to who qualifies as "caucasian," the organization says anybody whose lineage is at least 25 percent caucasian. Let's see. That would include such disadvantaged Americans as Halle Barry, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter and, of course, President Obama.

Next on the agenda? Caucasian Heritage Month, Caucasian Entertainment Television, Caucasian Studies?

Former MADD President in Florida blows a .239, well over the Legal Limit

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Before and After

From Eric Dondero:

MADD was the main nationwide proponent of lowering the legal limit from the normally accepted .01 (basically 2 1/2 beers an hour), to .08.

One past president of MADD was way over .01, let alone .08.

From MyFox - Orlando, Feb. 25:

MARION COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A woman who was the former president of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter in Gainesville has been arrested for drunk driving.

Debra Oberlin, 48, was arrested around 1:00 a.m. February 18 after police say the car she was driving was swerving on Northwest 39th Street. According to the arrest report she was given two breathalyzer tests and measured .234 and .239. The limit in Florida is .08.

Journalist-turned-blogger Jonathan Turly calls her mugshot "awkward," and notes dryly, that her local MADD chapter "was closed due to lack of funds." Did that drive her to drink?

Major New York Times Expose on Fracking | The Intersection

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Did I say this issue was heating up, or what?

A series on the environmental risks of fracking has just begun in the Times; the first installment is here. It focuses on a less discussed issue than flammable tap water–so central to Gasland–although one wonders if a piece on that topic is still forthcoming from the Times.

In any case, the current article is about wastewater from the fracking process, which apparently contains lots of radioactive material and is being sent to water treatment plants which (the piece claims) can’t handle that material, or adequately remove it before it ends up in waterways.

If what the Times says is true, this is the sort of expose that is going to cause an uproar. The central paragraphs from the piece:

With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.

While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.

The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.

Other documents and interviews show that many E.P.A. scientists are alarmed, warning that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by an E.P.A. consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law.

The Times also found never-reported studies by the E.P.A. and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.

But the E.P.A. has not intervened. In fact, federal and state regulators are allowing most sewage treatment plants that accept drilling waste not to test for radioactivity. And most drinking-water intake plants downstream from those sewage treatment plants in Pennsylvania, with the blessing of regulators, have not tested for radioactivity since before 2006, even though the drilling boom began in 2008.

In other words, there is no way of guaranteeing that the drinking water taken in by all these plants is safe.

You can read the full expose here.


"Anatomical Venuses, Slashed Beauties, and Three Fetuses Dancing a Jig," Lecture, Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum, This Tuesday, March 1st

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If anyone out there has plans to be in or around the lovely city of Cleveland, Ohio this Tuesday, March 1, why not come by the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum to take in an illustrated introduction I will be delivering on the the topic of medical museums?

The lecture--entitled "Anatomical Venuses, Slashed Beauties, and Three Fetuses Dancing a Jig?"--is open to the general pubic and, to the best of my knowledge, free to attend. The lecture is scheduled to being and 6:00 PM and will be followed by a reception at 7:00 PM.

Full details follow; would love to see you there!

Anatomical Venuses, Slashed Beauties, and Three Fetuses Dancing a Jig:
An Illustrated Journey into the Curious World of Medical Museums
Date: March 1, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM Powell Room, 2nd floor
Reception: 7:00 PM, in the Percy Skuy Gallery, of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum (Allen Memorial Medical Library, 11000 Euclid Avenue).
Please RSVP by February 25th, phone 216-368-3648, or e-mail jennifer.nieves@case.edu

In April 2007 Joanna Ebenstein created a fascinating blog, Morbid Anatomy, where she has since been "surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture." Medical museums, like the Dittrick, provide much of the content for Morbid Anatomy. But Ebenstein has cast her net still further, exploring arcane and curious collections across Europe and the UK. She'll be sharing with us her take on the often macabre and sometimes beautiful fruit of that search. From wax moulages of syphilitics in Paris to obstetric models in Bologna, and from pathology specimens in London to fetal skeletons in Leiden, Ebenstein explores the wonder of things found in medical museums. In the process, she will offer insights on the psychology of collecting, and reveal the secret life of objects and collections in these intriguing spaces.

Lecture: 6:00 PM Powell Room, 2nd floor, Reception: 7:00 PM, in the Percy Skuy Gallery, of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum (Allen Memorial Medical Library, 11000 Euclid Avenue).

Parking is available in the visitors lot under Severance Hall.

Full info available here.

Image: The Bolognese "Venerina," Anatomical Venus, Clemente Susini, 1780-1782, housed at the Museo di Palazzo Poggi in Bologna, Italy where the Venerina is housed; More on that here.

Salt Water Fuel Revisited

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Although many expert research labs have said that generating the power to provide the frequency ignition of salt water makes this process inefficient or impractical for use in cars. I feel that other types of engines would be more practical. The ceramic tubine, coupled with a flywheel and an efficie

A Baby Was Trapped Inside a Time-Locked Bank Vault By Herself [Crazy]

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In Georgia, a 14-month-old toddler wandered away from her mother inside a bank. Crazy, I know. What's even crazier is that the baby managed to walk inside an open bank vault that locked as the bank closed (and wouldn't open again until the bank opened). After cameras spotted the baby on security cameras inside the vault, the mother realized that her kid was trapped inside. More »