24. May 2010

14 Comments

New news

Forget national news; it’s so depressing. What about me? It’s been quite some time since anything personal went up, so…
I completely missed Daisy’s 3rd birthday yesterday, so happy belated natal anniversary to a grand, though coy, little teckel dog.

The weekend was more miss than hit, with yours truly instigating a new allergy season tradition of sprawling on the couch moaning. The head and ears feel like they’re impacted with wet socks. I’m certainly not singing ‘Welcome Sweet Springtime’; wouldn’t even know where to find the key of G.

Received a welcome call from my IBFF last night – wish I could have heard Crosby, Stills & Nash in the background, but my ears are totally blocked!

In the more personal news you didn’t want to know department: my gall bladder’s gone off me. Refuses to process fats anymore, which is a damn shame since butter and ice cream used to be main dishes on the menu. I can either have the hinky organ yanked or stay away from fat, which is the current game plan. At first blush, surgery might seem the best option… but if I’m not in pain I’d rather people armed with sharp knives kept a proper distance.

The main post apocalyptic problem seems to be protein; getting tired of white meat chicken and fish of all descriptions. One of my staples, peanut butter, is loaded with fat and thus taboo.

And so ends the bi-annual Pam report.

p.s. My lawn mower blew up last week. The fun never ends!

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22. May 2010

11 Comments

Splicing spider DNA into goats produces milk web

I know how weird it sounds… but they’re doing it and now goats are giving spider web laced milk. Sounds like the sci-fi movie subplot…

ON a farm in Wyoming, USA, goats are being milked for their spider webs.

And if that sounds bizarre, molecular biologist Randy Lewis claims that within two years, spider silk milked from goats could replace your body’s tired or strained tendons and ligaments – maybe even bones.

Professor Lewis and his team at the University of Wyoming have successfully implanted the silk-making genes from a golden orb spider into a herd of goats and are now, finally, producing one of nature’s strongest products in useable quantities.

The technology is cutting edge, but the science isn’t. Spider silk has been used for centuries to dress wounds with varying degrees of success, but the problem has until now been how to get it.

“We needed a way to produce large quantities of the spider silk proteins,” Prof Lewis told news.com.au.

“Spiders can’t be farmed, so that route is out and since they make six different silks, even that would not work if you could.”

Spiders also had a tendency to eat each other, so milking one thread from six out of a solo spider was clearly never going to service the entire human race.

Prof Lewis and his team singled out the “dragline” – the outer strand of the web – as the strongest of the six types of silk.

They spliced the DNA that creates the silk into a female goat’s DNA, then waited for it to give birth and start lactating.

“(The splicing) turned out to be relatively easy as there are known gene promoters that only produce expression in the mammary gland during lactation,” he said.

“Those were hooked up to our spider silk genes.”

After the milk is collected, it’s taken back to a laboratory where the silk protein is filtered out. It solidifies when exposed to air and is wound onto a roller.

Prof Lewis said the team collected about four metres of silk for every four drops of protein they gathered.

The pure material had a wide range of medicinal applications as sutures and binding agents – including ligament replacement – but its use could extend well beyond our hospitals.

Interesting…

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22. May 2010

12 Comments

Arizona Sing-A-Long

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer hit another one out of the park with this new video:

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22. May 2010

4 Comments

Someone yell ‘cut’.

Apple has ended the ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign. I think it’s a damn shame; while they didn’t induce me or anyone else I know to make a purchase, the ads were iconic and usually a pleasure to watch.

AdFreak has the entire campaign on one page for easy access.

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21. May 2010

24 Comments

Calderon: Democrat shill

I think Democrat leadership invited Mexican President Calderon here to address Congress and call us names in order to enforce their position that Arizona’s new law is ‘racial profiling’. Which is outright bullshit. Why doesn’t someone read the damn bill?

They gave him a standing ovation. Sick. Maybe instead of giving them maps and instructions to America, Mexican officials could take better care of their own people!

***

Rush is right. Again. Calderon has a lot of nerve, considering his country’s attitude toward immigrants.


Via Gateway Pundit

Basically, it was all a show for the nation’s cable & satellite subscribers. Hope y’all enjoyed it.

***

Yes! Congressman Tom McClintock:


Found at Bakerstreet

McClintockCA04 — May 20, 2010 — Response to President Calderon
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
May 20, 2010

M. Speaker:

I rise to take strong exception to the speech of the President of Mexico while in this chamber today.

The Mexican government has made it very clear for many years that it holds American sovereignty in contempt and President Calderons behavior as a guest of the Congress confirms and underscores this attitude.

It is highly inappropriate for the President of Mexico to lecture Americans on American immigration policy, just as it would be for Americans to lecture Mexico on its laws.

It is obvious that President Calderon does not understand the nature of America or the purpose of our immigration law.

Unlike Mexicos immigration law — which is brutally exclusionary — the purpose of Americas law is not to keep people out. It is to assure that as people come to the United States, they do so with the intention of becoming Americans and of raising their children as Americans.

Unlike Mexico, our nation embraces immigration and what makes that possible is assimilation.

A century ago President Teddy Roosevelt put it this way. He said:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

That is how we have built one great nation from the people of all the nations of the world.

The largest group of immigrants now comes from Mexico. A recent RAND discovered that during most of the 20th Century, while our immigration laws were actually enforced, assimilation worked and made possible the swift attainment of the American dream for millions of immigrants seeking to escape conditions in Mexico.

That is the broader meaning of our nations motto, e pluribus unum from many people, one people, the American people.

But there is now an element in our political structure that seeks to undermine that concept of E Pluribus Unum. It seeks to hyphenate Americans, to develop linguistic divisions, to assign rights and preferences based on race and ethnicity, and to elevate devotion to foreign ideologies and traditions, while at the same time denigrating American culture, American values and American founding principles.

In order to do so, they know that they have to stop the process of assimilation. In order to do that, they must undermine our immigration laws.

It is an outrage that a foreign head of state would appear in this chamber and actively seek to do so. And it is a disgrace that he would be cheered on from the left wing of the White House and by many Democrats in this Congress.

Arizona has not adopted a new immigration law. All it has done is to enforce existing law that President Obama refuses to enforce. It is hardly a radical policy to suggest that if an officer on a routine traffic stop encounters a driver with no drivers license, no passport, and who doesnt speak English, that maybe that individual might be here illegally.

And to those who say we must reform our immigration laws I reply that we dont need to reform them we need to enforce them. Just as every other government does. Just as Mexico does.

Above all, this is a debate of, by and for the American people. If President Calderon wishes to participate in that debate, I invite him to obey our immigration laws, apply for citizenship, do what 600,000 LEGAL immigrants to our nation are doing right now, learn our history and our customs, and become an American. And then he will have every right to participate in that debate.

Until then, I would politely invite him to have the courtesy while a guest of this Congress to abide by the fundamental rules of diplomacy between civilized nations not to meddle in each others domestic debates.

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20. May 2010

8 Comments

…and now for something completely different

As if.

Call it a palate cleanser, eye ajax or whatever you like, beauty is always appreciated. Yes, I’m trying to talk myself into posting this regardless of the fact that you must be sick of lilies by now. Oh, well.

Click for larger image.

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20. May 2010

4 Comments

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Pakistan blocked YouTube and Facebook ahead of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”, citing ‘sacrilegious content’.

I’m calling bullshit on one statement: “Islam discourages any visual representations of the prophets of God — Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, anybody…” because they’ve never rioted or slaughtered innocents after viewing an image of Jesus or Moses… and images of Jesus are everywhere. It’s all about Mohammed.

But Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the idea behind the group was offensive.

“Islam discourages any visual representations of the prophets of God — Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, anybody — because we believe it can lead to a form of idol worship,” he said.

“The majority of Muslims worldwide object to any representation of a prophet of God,” he said.

The idea of “Draw Mohammed Day” originated with a cartoonist who has since distanced herself from the idea, Sulpovar and Hooper said.

“The whole campaign has been taken up by Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes,” Hooper said.

But Sulpovar denied being anti-Muslim.

“This extends beyond being able to draw Mohammed,” she said. “If it’s offensive to you, that’s fine, but I don’t feel it’s right to impose your belief on others through intimidation.

“This is nothing to do with hate or bigotry,” she said. “Nobody is inciting violence or preaching open hatred towards individuals.”

I can not draw… nevertheless, I can filch stuff off the net. And since this image seems to inflame their desire to kill us as no other…

Other EDMD participants:

In Praise of Folly

El Marco’s photo-essay is not to be missed.

SIOA’s Facebook page.

Atlas Shrugs

Blonde Sagacity

Michelle Malkin

Zombie

Blazingcatfur

Mind Numbed Robot

Friction and Harmony

Look! A Baby Wolf! [Wish I had remembered to expose myself!]

Mark Steyn:

I’m bored with death threats. And, as far as I’m concerned, if that’s your opening conversational gambit, then any obligation on my part to “cultural sensitivity” and “mutual respect” is over.

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20. May 2010

2 Comments

Colonel West and the tough question

Erinyes gave us a gem in the comments of the last post:

Lt. Col. Allen West seems willing and able to answer the hard questions other politicians talk around.

Filmed at the the Hudson Institute’s Reclaim American Liberty Conference.

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19. May 2010

31 Comments

Daniel Pearl was beheaded by radical islamists

Barack Hussein Obama: “Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is.”

Captured the world’s imagination? Free press??

Daniel Pearl was killed because he was American and Jewish. His head was sawed off with what looked like a fucking butter knife by people obama does not want labeled ‘radical’… because there is no such thing as radical islam.

This man better pull his arab head out of his ass, and fast.

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