That kind of day...

Must. Focus. No. Cat. Head. Theater.

just the right bullets (lyrics)

(From Tom Waits' Black Rider)

there is a light in the forest
there is a face in the tree
i'll pull you out of the chorus
and the first one's always free*

you can never go hunting
with just a flintlock and a hound
you won't go home with a bunting
if you blow a hundred rounds

it takes much more than wild courage
or you'll hit just the tattered clouds
you must have just the right bullets
and the first one's always free

you must be careful in the forest
broken glass and rusty nails
if you're to bring back something for us
i have bullets* for sale

why be a fool when you can chase away
your blind and your gloom
i have blessed each one of these bullets
and they shine just like a spoon

to have sixty silver wishes
is a small price to pay
they'll be your private little fishes
and they'll never swim away

i just want you to be happy
that's my only wish
i'll fix your wagon and your musket
and the spoon will have his dish

and i shudder at the thought of your
poor empty hunter's pouch
so i'll keep the wind from your barrel
and bless the roof of your house

Another success with ADULT stem cells

They grew a man a new jawbone from his own stem cells. No humans were killed to do this, embryonic or otherwise!

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen.

Researchers said on Friday the breakthrough opened up new ways to treat severe tissue damage and made the prospect of custom-made living spares parts for humans a step closer to reality.

"There have been a couple of similar-sounding procedures before, but these didn't use the patient's own stem cells that were first cultured and expanded in laboratory and differentiated into bone tissue," said Riitta Suuronen of the Regea Institute of Regenerative Medicine, part of the University of Tampere.

She told a news conference the patient was recovering more quickly than he would have if he had received a bone graft from his leg.

"From the outside nobody would be able to tell he has been through such a procedure," she said.

She added, the team used no materials from animals -- preventing the risk of transmitting viruses than can be hidden in an animal's DNA, and followed European Union guidelines.

Stem cells are the body's master cells and they can be found throughout the blood and tissues. Researchers have recently found that fat contains stem cells which can be directed to form a variety of different tissues.

Using a patient's own stem cells provides a tailor-made transplant that the body should not reject.

Suuronen and her colleagues -- the project was run jointly with the Helsinki University Central Hospital -- isolated stem cells from the patient's fat and grew them for two weeks in a specially formulated nutritious soup that included the patient's own blood serum.

In this case they identified and pulled out cells called mesenchymal stem cells -- immature cells than can give rise to bone, muscle or blood vessels.

When they had enough cells to work with, they attached them to a scaffold made out of a calcium phosphate biomaterial and then put it inside the patient's abdomen to grow for nine months. The cells turned into a variety of tissues and even produced blood vessels, the researchers said.

Update: a more detailed article is here.

Wow

A powerful response to Susan Faludi's new book has been written on the "9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America" blog. If the published excerpts are at all representative of the whole book, it is ugly indeed.

Ron Paul's Goons Descend...

Mr. Peden's candidacy has irked many of Mr. Paul's ardent supporters. Mr. Peden says his family has been harassed in phone calls, emails, and in person at their home to a point where the Pedens have filed complaints with local police and sent their two youngest children to stay with his parents until the primary is over.

- Wall Street Journal

Paulestinians remain a class act. Sigh.

Obama Photo...

Forget the "looks like a Muslim" angle... when I first saw it, I thought "Gunga Din". Almost as dorky as the old Michael Dukakis-in-a-tank photo.

Frau Obama

(Should have have been "Fraubama"?)

Entire Episodes of Star Trek.... online!

Time to get in touch with your inner geek's inner geek!
Lookee lookee lookee!

Sure beats my old Light Brite™

Global Warming is a "crock"...

... sez General Motors Corp Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, while promoting environmentally friendly vehicles! Gotta love it:

... many of the people who’ve been spewing their virtual vitriol in my direction in the past week are guilty of taking the easy way out.

Instead of simply assailing me for expressing what I think, they should be looking at the big picture. What they should be doing, in earnest, is forming opinions not about me but about GM, and what this company is doing that is — and will continue to be — hugely beneficial to the very causes they so enthusiastically claim to support.

General Motors is dedicated to the removal of cars and trucks from the environmental equation, period. And, believe it or don’t: So am I! It’s the right thing to do, for us, for you and, yes, for the planet. My goal is to take the automotive industry out of the debate entirely. GM is working on just that – and we’re going to keep working on it — via E85, hybrids, hydrogen and fuel cells, and the electrification of the automobile.

Quote of the Day

"Mongo only pawn... in game of life."

"Sola Scriptura" Moment for today

(More on Sola Scriptura)


"The Protestant, Bible in hand, is his own Pope."

Viva la Reformation. Bleh.

Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome

OK, I admit it. I laughed out loud at this. Not being a lolcat, I refuse to say that I "LOL"-ed, though.

BTW, there is a support group, with a disturbing website layout. (Found via Mark Shea's blog.)

"Because we CAIR"

Why does the media listen to these swine?

“Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear.”

If we turn to the Bible, then we will be surprised to discover that, in the primal history of humanity, death seems to evoke no strong emotional responses. ...

With Abraham comes the promise: land, prosperity, and the immortality of countless descendants. Here we find the first step toward Sinai and the covenant of life that Christians believe is fulfilled in Christ. Then Sarah dies, just as Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, died before, and just as her own son Isaac and his sons and the sons of his sons will die in their own time. And for the very first time in the Bible, we find a scene of mourning. Abraham enters her tent and weeps over his dead wife (Gen. 23:2).

Abraham’s mourning over Sarah tells us something about the psychological effect of what Hans Urs von Balthasar calls “the dramatic rhythm” of salvation history. The covenant promise cannot help but sharpen the outlines of human experience. The future that God promises throws death into a new light. When he calls Abraham, God begins to awaken sin-slumbering humanity. We are created for fellowship with him, not for the grave, and inevitably what had been accepted as a fact of life becomes a brutal, unnecessary blow. Thus the psychological paradox of faith: a belief in God’s promises heightens rather than softens the existential pain of death.

- The Tears of Abraham

Lolcritter of the day

"Even blowing his nose, Obama gets applause"

There's a joke based on the word "honky" there, somewhere.

Yeah, yeah ... I know. 'snot funny.

Yow! Dead Relatives Online

The things you find online. A list of dead Hydar folks.

Krauthammer on Obamaolatry

"The Next Great Awakening"

[T]he Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a “salvational fervor” and “idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria.”

“We are the hope of the future,” sayeth Obama. We can “remake this world as it should be.” Believe in me and I shall redeem not just you but your country — nay, we can become “a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest.”

And believe they do. After eight straight victories — and two more (Hawaii and Wisconsin) almost certain to follow — Obama is near to rendering moot all the post–Super Tuesday fretting about a deadlocked convention with unelected superdelegates deciding the nominee. Unless Hillary Clinton can somehow do in Ohio and Texas on March 4 what Rudy Giuliani proved is almost impossible to do — maintain a big-state firewall after an unrelenting string of smaller defeats — the superdelegates will flock to Obama. Hope will have carried the day.

Classic Trek Phaser ... with Blu-Ray Laser!

This is beyond cool. Well, OK, exactly at cool, without going beyond. Forgive the hyperbole. (Actually, here are the lasers that are beyond cool.)


Blu-Ray Laser Phaser! - The most amazing videos are a click away

Those darn kids

Business week give pointers on how to deal with those darn "kids" (18-34) in the workplace. Now waitammint. Back when these chattering idiots wee talking about "Gen X", I was either too old to be "gen X", or barely in range. Did half the "gen X" people go Peter Pan and demand to be part of "gen Y"?

WWNPHD?

Money $peaks!

Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows.

(Story here)

Ca-ching!

My current employer makes The Onion!

Now see here.

Strategic Workforce Realignment...

... didn't involve me!

Negotiation

Droppin' the neutron Ballmer?

Microsoft likes to scare me.

Clinton / Nixon Analogy...

What the heck; people have been saying that Bush is the Republican's LBJ ... Hillary as Nixon? She may want to follow his strategy.