Now they’re censoring "Iranian terrorist" out of ’80’s movies

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PC Madness!! ABC Family owned by Disney

From Eric Dondero:

This has been confirmed by Debbie Schlussel's blog.

From Frederick (MD) Hockey Club blog:

I’m watching The Goonies on ABC Family with my daughter today. In the scene where Chunk calls the police to report that he’s locked in the Fratelli’s basement with Sloth, the officer on the phone naturally thinks Chunk is making up a story.

In the uncensored version of this ’80s classic film, the officer on the phone with Chunk, in his disbelief, says, “Like the time you told me about the 50 Iranian terrorists who took over all the Sizzler Steakhouses in the city? … Just like that last prank about all those little creatures that multiply when you throw water on them?”

Wait. Did you miss it? What was worth censoring there? Could it be that ABC (owned by Disney) has a problem with Gremlins? Nope. Is there some history of bad blood between The Mouse and The Steakhouse? It doesn’t seem that way. Is ABC afraid of terrorists, or simply the mention of the word terrorist?

As Schlussel confirms, ABC Family bleeped out the phrase "Iranian terrorist."

Editor's comment - Keep that old version of Goonies on video cassette. It may become a collector's item.

The wit and wisdom of Barack Obama

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by Clifford F. Thies

Not knowing to quit when he was behind, Barack Obama has caused something of a minor international incident at the meeting of the G-20. First, he congratulated Nicholas Sarkozy of France on the good looks of his and his wife's new child, a baby girl.

Good thing she inherited her mother's looks and not yours, said our ever witty President, apparently not realizing that Sarkozy is rather proud of his own good looks. Then, just to make all the gathered heads of state certain that his awkward remark shouldn't be taken very seriously, as nothing that he doesn't read off a teleprompter should, he followed up with, "And so now we share one of the greatest challenges and blessings of life, and that is being fathers to our daughters."

The President of France should consider how fortunate he is that he is the father of his daughters?

Popeyes sued by Muslim group for not being Halal-compliant

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Another American corporation to cave in to Political Correctness

From Eric Dondero:

Now, a great American fast food chain is about to keel under Muslim pressure to go halal. Popeyes stores throughout North America may soon become halal-compliant.

According to the Toronto Star:

A group of Muslim restaurant franchisees is fighting fast-food chain Popeyes Louisiana Chicken in court over the right to sell hand-slaughtered Halal meat for religious reasons

Seems Popeyes corporate recently made the decision to switch to quicker, more effiecient and more painless for the chickens, slaughter by machine, rather than by hand.

The Muslims are having none of it. And are threatening a boycott.

A pox on antivaxxers | Bad Astronomy

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A couple of antivax stories hit the web in the past day or so, and both have me pretty angry, shaking my head about how people can manage to get things so wrong.

First, the antivax organization that is (Orwellianly) called the National Vaccine Information Center has paid for ads to run on in-flight Delta airline TVs. These ads give what can charitably be called misleading information about vaccines. Skepchick has the details, as does Harpocrates Speaks.

NVIC is an organization that is resolutely antivaccination, despite the overwhelming evidence that vaccines are one of the greatest medical science triumphs of all time, having saved hundreds of millions of lives. NVIC, on the other hand, is a group that likes to try to sue critics into silence while at the same time spouting statements so ridiculous they make my irony gland fear for its life.

I decided to make a short and simple tweet about the ads being run on Delta airlines:

I mean it, too. The link in the tweet goes to the Skepchick article linked above, which also links to a change.org petition, which I signed — and I rarely do such things. But Delta really needs to take those ads down. Groups like NVIC are a public health threat.

I also write about this on Google+. It got some of the usual anti-vax nonsense in the replies, but also overwhelmingly positive responses in general. With this many people involved, I’m hoping Delta takes notice.

The second bit of news is so appalling it’s difficult to overstate. On Facebook, parents belonging to an antivax group were encouraging others to send postal mail to each containing items like lollipops infected with saliva containing chicken pox.

I will give you a moment to pick your jaw up from off the floor. When you’re done, watch this:

I can hear jaws all over the world right now smashing right through the ground.

Yes, this is for real. The idea is to have what’s called a "Chicken pox party", where parents purposefully infect their kids with a disease that can put them at great health risk, because they so strongly dislike the idea of vaccinating their children. This idea all by itself is incredibly bad — once you’re infected, the virus stays with you for life, putting you at risk for shingles as an adult, and can cause severe complications to people with compromised immune systems.

I understand that a lot of parents don’t think chicken pox is that big a risk. Many of us had it as a kid, and it wasn’t much more than an inconvenience. I had it, and I remember being miserable and itching like crazy, but that was about it.

But even so, sending a known biohazard through the mail? Does this not cause alarm bells to go off in anyone’s head? And rubella? Measles? Are you kidding me? Measles can kill.

Incredible.

Again, Harpocrates Speaks has more on this, as does Tara Smith, who is a Professor of Epidemiology, and knows of what she speaks.

I just hope none of these people have mail carriers with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, and are taking immunosuppressants.

All I can add is to say what I did on Google+ on this issue:

Once you let go of evidence-based reasoning, anything at all makes sense. Sometimes even putting your own children at grave risk.

Related posts:

- Confirmed measles cases in US tops 150
- Pertussis and measles are coming back
- Help stop antivax ads in NYC
- Bill Gates lays it on the line about vaccines


Nicotine Causes Epigenetic Changes in Mice that Spur Cocaine Addiction | 80beats

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cig

What’s the News: Epidemiologists have long noticed that people with drug addictions often start out smoking cigarettes before moving on to harder stuff. Whether that’s because there’s something about cigarettes that makes people vulnerable to other drugs or because certain kinds of people are predisposed to addiction (or for some other reason entirely) is an open question, and the idea of so-called “gateway drugs” has been a controversial topic in addiction for years. Now, an elegant new study in mice has discovered a mechanism that could explain the gateway drug effect: nicotine actually changes the expression of genes linked to addiction.

How the Heck:

  • First, the researchers (including biologist Denise Kandel and her Nobel laureate husband, Eric Kandel) gave mice nicotine to mimic the effects of cigarette addiction before giving them several injections of cocaine.
  • Watching their behavior, the team saw that mice that had been given nicotine for many days returned again and again to locations where they had been given cocaine, far more—nearly double the frequency—than mice who had only received nicotine for 24 hours. In studies with drugs, this is a well-established sign of addiction.
  • Opening up the brains of the mice, they found that the neuronal pathway that delivers cocaine’s rewards was much more strongly activated in mice that had had days of nicotine. This suggests that nicotine actually enhances the pleasure derived from cocaine.
  • Looking deeper at the brain cells implicated in addiction and reward, they found that FosB, a gene whose expression helps cement addiction, was expressed at levels 74% higher than in mice who hadn’t had nicotine.
  • Investigating how nicotine could have this effect, they discovered that it was acting at an epigenetic level—in other words, changing the chemical packing of DNA. Here’s how:
  • When certain chemical tags are present on DNA, the double helix unfurls a bit, making it easier for the cellular machinery to get a hold of a gene, read off its code, and translate it into a protein. When mice were exposed to nicotine for many days, an enzyme that removes those tags and thus keeps certain genes out of circulation was knocked down. That was how nicotine caused FosB production, and thus, addiction, to go into overdrive.
  • Importantly, the team found that this relationship was a one-way street: giving cocaine before nicotine did nothing. For this effect to take place, nicotine has to come first.

What’s the Context:

  • The idea of gateway drugs has been discussed heatedly and at length, with many people pointing out that what most epidemiology studies show is correlation, not causation—just because people start out smoking cigarettes or marijauna and often move to harder drugs doesn’t indicate that cigarettes or marijauna caused the shift.
  • While that’s certainly true, this particular study isn’t about observing trends in drug use—it’s a stringent investigation into what biological changes cigarettes might cause that could accelerate cocaine addiction later. It provides the first biological evidence for the gateway drug theory.

The Future Holds:

  • This study will be a hard act to follow—it’s admirably thorough, progressing from animal behavior all the way down to the tags on DNA—but it should spur other addiction researchers to see whether nicotine has a similar effect when paired with other drugs. Also, alcohol and marijuana are frequently described as gateway drugs, and it will be interesting to see if they do anything similar to the brain.
  • Outside the lab, the more we understand the biological mechanisms behind addiction, the closer we’ll come to figuring out a way to prevent or treat it. The researchers suggest that manipulating the enzyme that nicotine knocks down might be able to do something to reverse the effect.

Reference: Levine, et al. Molecular Mechanism for a Gateway Drug: Epigenetic Changes Initiated by Nicotine Prime Gene Expression by Cocaine. Science Translational Medicine, 2 November 2011: 107ra109

Image courtesy of SuperFantastic / flickr


Shock Poll! African-Americans far more likely to be Anti-Jew than Whites

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Occupy Wall Street encouraging rise in Anti-Semitism?

by Eric Dondero

We've all seen the stereotypes; white guy, loser blue collar dude, probably shave head, wearing a swastika or attending some NeoNazi rally in Montana or Idaho.

Turns out, that old stereotype is way outdated.

The new face of Anti-Semitism is much more likely to be black or Hispanic. (Such as the infamous Anti-Semite Occupy L.A. demonstrator Patricia McCallister in the photo)

You have to dig deep in the mainstream media reports to discover these findings. In the following Orlando Sentinnel piece it was buried in paragraph 11 of a 13 paragraph piece.

In the report's demographic section, 42 percent of Hispanic immigrants percent held anti-Semitic views, versus 20 percent of Hispanics born in the U.S. ...29 percent of African Americans held strongly anti-Semitic views, much higher than Whites.

The Sentinel piece (or other media) did not even give the exact percentage for Whites, which was less than 10%.

Jewish "shady" money grabbers who "hold too much power" on Wall Street don't you know...

A regional manager in Florida for the ADL is quoted:

“We’re obviously troubled,” said [David] Barkey, ADL's counsel for six states including Florida. “With attitudes come conduct. We could potentially have more people who engage in anti-Semitic actions.”

It gets worse. Occupy Wall Street may be helping to boost Anti-Jewish sentiment.

Continuing:

Thirty-five million Americans hold “deeply anti-Semitic views,” according to a new survey by the Anti-Defamation League. The number, representing 15 percent of Americans, is 3 percent higher than a similar survey found two years ago.

The survey of 1,754 adults found many believe it was “probably true” that Jews have “too much power in the U.S.” and in the business world, wield too much control or influence on Wall Street, and are “more willing to use shady practices.”

No doubt, those who rail against capitalism, "Jewish bankers," and Jewish-controlled banking institutions, are adding gasoline to the fire. A 3 percent increase since two years ago, is certainly no accident.

Photo h/t Businessinsider.com

Artificial Intelligence, Physiology, and Art – Video

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Three-day workshop on Artificial Intelligence, Physiology and Art took place at the American University of Paris (AUP). The PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Collective Intelligence, Mohammad Majid al-Rifai [Goldsmiths, University of London], and Dr. Ahmed Aber, practitioner of medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London answer the Federico Ruiz's questions from Qwartz TV .

Excerpt from:
Artificial Intelligence, Physiology, and Art - Video