Strange Musings

blogs update

2005-11-01T00:38:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to point out that I've changed main blogs. Go to zandperl for my main blog. To access some of the posts you will need to have me friend you, so get an LJ account and then friend me or leave a comment on a public post and I'll add you as well.

My secondary blog is Modern Science, and it's commentary and summaries of events, discoveries, and controversies in science. Discussion is encouraged.

More on New Orleans Hospital Murders

2005-10-17T08:35:00.000-04:00

I've finally seen the alleged New Orleans hospital "mercy killings" in a news source other than CNN, though not one I've ever heard of. It's also got much less info than the CNN article I quoted previously.

State of Emergency?

2005-10-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

Apparently Massachusetts was under a state of emergency until this afternoon. Who woulda thunk it?

Random

2005-10-14T20:30:00.000-04:00

Today while commenting on Gran's On Bran, Google's "human verification" system threw me an interesting random set of letters.

ifucmu

I fuck mu.

"mu" as in the Greek letter that indicates the metric prefix micro (10^-6) or the coefficient of friction.

*hee* I am entertained. :)

Mormons in Ar-Kansas?

2005-10-14T17:11:00.000-04:00

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- Michelle Duggar just delivered her 16th child, and she's already thinking about doing it again.

Johannah Faith Duggar was born at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and weighed 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces.

The baby's father, Jim Bob Duggar, a former state representative, said Wednesday that mother and child were doing well. Johannah's birth was especially exciting because it was the first time in eight years the family has had a girl, he said.

Jim Bob Duggar, 40, said he and Michelle, 39, want more children.

"We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them," he said in a telephone interview.

(CNN)

LJ

2005-10-14T16:51:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to use my LiveJournal account a bit more for posting "classified" material ever since I found out that a search on my full name could lead to this page. Check it out and friends me to keep tabs, though if I don't know you I may not friends you back and let you see all the secret stuff.

Killing Birds

2005-10-14T07:09:00.000-04:00

The large number of birds that has to be killed in Europe and Asia to prevent the spread of the avian flu saddens me. In Thailand I think they tried vaccinating the birds, but not everywhere has the money and/or desire to do so. It probably also isn't a failsafe way of preventing the spread. If you want to be sad about dead birdies too, scroll through the pictures in this CNN article.

Charity Evals

2005-10-14T00:46:00.000-04:00

I just found a link to CharityNavigator.org, an independent non-profit group that rates US charities (equivalencies exist in other countries as well).

Mercy Corps spends 92% of its revenue on its programs, spends only 3c to raise another dollar of donations, and has an overall score of 64 (whatever that means...).

The American Red Cross spends 91.1% of its revenue on programs, but requires 18c to raise a dollar, and has an overall score of 60.

As a religious organization, the Salvation Army is exempt from filing the forms that would allow Charity Navigator to analyze them, so they've no data.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) spends a measly 65.7% on programs and takes a whole quarter to raise a dollar. Its score is 52.

Noah's Wish, which I'm considering as a potential future alternative to HSUS is apparently too new to have enough data to analyze, so perhaps I'll hold off on them.

Meanwhile, I've been pondering making a monthly donation to Mercy Corps. If I did $10/month that'd be $120/yr. Some religions suggest their members donate 10% of their yearly income to charity. I'm aiming for 1%, or around $300 so $10/mo isn't unreasonable, and I'm under the impression that a regular donation helps more than event-targetted donations.

Super Secret Spy Service

2005-10-13T18:36:00.000-04:00

The National Clandestine Service (NCS) will oversee all human espionage operations - meaning spying by people rather than by technical means.
...
The chief of the new service will supervise the CIA's espionage operations and co-ordinate all overseas spying, including those of the FBI and the Pentagon.

The director of the new agency, whose identity will remain secret and is simply known as "Jose", will report directly to the head of the CIA, Porter Goss.

"This is another positive step in building an intelligence community that is more unified, co-ordinated and effective," National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said.

Setting up the NCS was one of more than 70 recommendations made by a commission on weapons of mass destruction in March, which was highly critical of the US' intelligence capabilities.

As part of reforms following the 11 September 2001 attacks, the CIA lost overall control of US intelligence to the newly created National Director of Intelligence.

(BBC)

Too secret to be on American media apparently. But see how much we lag behind British intelligence agencies? They've got it on their news!

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

2005-10-13T17:55:00.000-04:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

30% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

They left out a few choices though - not that I say these, but I hear them all the time here in Massachusetts.

5. You call sweetened, carbonated beverages:
Tonic

6. You drink from:
A bubbler

14. You work out in...
Trainers

And a few other interesting points...

1. The level of a building that is underground is called the:
In Europe, the ground floor is 0, and if you go up one flight of stairs it's the 1st floor. For the geeks, it's just like the difference between Fortran and C. ;) Belowground are increasingly negative numbers.

15. "Y'all"...
Some people around Pittsburgh, PA, say "Y'ins".

20. Mary / marry / merry...
Dawn / Don - I say those VERY differently. (I'm from NYC originally.)

CNN: New Orleans hospital may have performed "mercy killings"

2005-10-13T08:39:00.000-04:00

Holy fuck.

[Dr. Bryant] King said, the second-floor triage area where he was working was cleared of everyone except patients, a second hospital administrator and two doctors, including the physician who had first raised the question of mercy killing.

King said the administrator asked those who remained if they wanted to join in prayer -- something he said had not occurred at the hospital since Katrina ripped through the city.

One of the physicians then produced a handful of syringes, King said.

"I don't know what's in the syringes. ... The only thing I heard the physician say was, 'I'm going to give you something to make you feel better,' " King said.

"I don't know what the physician was going to give them, but we hadn't been given medications like that, to make people feel better, or any sort of palliative care," he said. "We hadn't been doing that up to this point."

King said he decided he would have no part of what he believed was about to happen. He grabbed his bag to leave. He said one of the doctors hugged him.

King said he doesn't know what happened next. He boarded a boat and left the hospital.
...
The coroner said the attorney general's office has requested autopsies but, because of the condition of the bodies, it may be difficult to determine why so many patients died at Memorial.

Tenet Healthcare, the company that owns Memorial, told CNN that most of the 45 patients who died were critically ill.

Tenet said about 11 patients had died the weekend before the hurricane and were placed in the morgue.

Twenty-four of the dead had been patients of an acute care facility known as LifeCare that rented space inside Memorial.

But King said he finds it hard to understand how that many patients could have died at the hospital, even under such grim conditions.

"There was only one patient that died overnight," he said. "The previous day, there were only two. From Thursday to Friday, for there to be 10 times that many, just doesn't make sense to me."

(CNN)

The other individuals involved have said "no comment," but if Dr. King is right, it's scary. I am not against euthanasia in general, and I understand their reasoning - these people were in pain, dying, with no care available and no clue of when there would be - but I am against it in this specific case: I feel (I don't have evidence) these patients could've made it out, so if their deaths were purposeful, it's absolutely horrible. Worse, as Dr. King tells the story the patients were NEVER given a choice! It's murder, not a mercy killing. The whole point to assisted suicide is that it's SUICIDE with a little help.

Fashionista!

2005-10-12T19:22:00.000-04:00

C/o sarrichelle.

Fashionista
45% Tastefulness, 60% Originality, 47% Deliberateness, 38% Sexiness

[Tasteful Original Deliberate Prissy]

One is certain: you have great taste and plenty of ideas. You have clearly defined beliefs about what's good and what's bad in fashion but they are far from banal. Stylish and imaginative, you prefer to inspire admiration than to shock and you mostly succeed. Even if sometimes you'd like to have more courage to put on something absolutely outrageous you do great job in creating a unique look that others look up to. There is a possibility that you work in the fashion industry. If you don't, perhaps you should.

The opposite style from yours is Bar Cruiser [Flamboyant Conventional Random Sexy].

All the categories: Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess) Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 4% on Tastefulness
You scored higher than 89% on Originality
You scored higher than 33% on Deliberateness
You scored higher than 23% on Sexiness

Link: The Fashion Style Test written by mari-e on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Morse code beats SMS

2005-10-11T22:39:00.000-04:00

OK, so it's an old article (April 2005), but it's news to me. A 93-year old man beat a 13-yr old girl by sending a teeny-bopper message verbatim via Morse code while she txtd it w/ abbrvs. Link above.

Enlistment rates

2005-10-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

Army enlistment rates have begun rising again, however not enough to make much of a difference.

Michael O'Hanlon, defense specialist at the Brookings Institution, said Monday that if conditions get worse the future of the all-volunteer force could be in jeopardy.

"Unless the situation in Iraq improves, or unless we drastically enlarge the pool of possible recruits in some way -- for example, lowering academic standards for them, or even considering an extreme option like allowing foreigners to gain U.S. citizenship by serving -- one would have to expect continued tough slogging for the Army," O'Hanlon said.

CNN

Many other countries already impose a version of this. Mandatory civil service or army duty is required in many countries before your 25th birthday. Those who refuse face a fine and jail time. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers (not the movie) suggested that in order to become a full citizen with voting rights, one must serve in the army, including seeing combat.

What would these various potential situations do to the US as we know it? Many people do wish to become US citizens, so O'Hanlon's suggestion would probably allow the army size to grow, while allowing many more people to become citizens. It would also allow a wonderful way in for terrorists. Today men already have to register for the SS (Selective Service?) which means they would have to serve in a draft, but women (sexistly) do not register.

Would mandatory army service disenfranchize the poor? Or would it perhaps empower them, as I get the impression that they are more likely to join the army? It would definitely have the effect of raising the effective legal voting age, since you can't serve until age 18 and then if say, 2 years service were required to vote you'd then be aged 20 by the time you could vote. It would also prevent the "Rock the Vote" efforts that the Republicans successfully employed to turn out the vote for Bush in 2004 (as I recall, do correct me if I'm wrong).

I believe (perhaps incorrectly) that Democrats are more likely to be pacifists, so mandatory army service for voting would lead to a more strongly Republican controlled government. Additionally, women would likely be under-represented with such a scheme, as would any cultures that emphasis pacifism or scholasticism. They would have to work hard to come up with other alternatives to combat duty, for example National Guard (which today can still involve combat duty) or domestic civil service (maybe at a 2:1::combat:civil ratio? though as I wrote it you can interpret it either way).

Any thoughts?

Orientation terms?

2005-10-11T17:38:00.000-04:00

More than 1,000 Croatian gays and lesbians have had their names published in several of the country's newspapers in a bid for greater tolerance.

One thousand two hundred names appeared in the advert under a banner reading: "I don't want to hide any more."

The people named on the list identified themselves as either gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, queer or heterosexuals who support the campaign.

(BBC)

Can anyone clarify for me what "queer" means? I thought it was a derrogatory term meaning "homosexual," (i.e., either gay or lesbian) but from the context it seems to mean something else.

Rain

2005-10-11T10:19:00.000-04:00

I knew we got a shitload of rain, but I didn't think this much!

Driving back from tiurin's Saturday evening I had to go 50-55 on the highway because I couldn't see the lane markers - the Pike is being repaved and there are just short dashes instead of the usual long white ones, and no reflectors. Going to see Jethereal Sunday afternoon I saw some of the cliffs off the Pike had had boulders knocked off, but I figured from the wind. Driving back Monday evening was hellish, as the Pike was bumper-to-bumper the whole way.

blame the victim

2005-10-05T00:09:00.000-04:00

Crossposted from a comment at Rosefox's LJ. Read the article first.

Holy fucking fuck fuck.

Picture this scenario: a teenage girl in the Mid-West gets raped. The rapist doesn't use a condom b/c (1) he learned in school that they're ineffective, and (2) they're required to have warnings on the labels that reinforce this. She is not on birth control because her pharmacist wouldn't fill the prescription. She is not allowed to get the morning-after pill without a prescription from her doctor, and her earliest appointment to see her doctor is long after the 72-hour window of effectiveness. She tries to go to a Planned Parenthood for information about abortion, and is stoned and cursed at on her way in, at which point she finds out that she'd have to get parental permission. By the time she does so, it's in the third trimester, and "partial birth" abortion is illegal. Then on top of all that she has the baby, is FUCKING FINED for it, and has to drop out of school to take care of the child.

"So, we do want to have laws that protect the children." Explain that one to me again, would you?

Seduction Style Quiz

2005-10-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

Man, I gotta stop doing these time-wasting quizzes and do something useful! Like sleeping.

Your Seduction Style: Sweet Talker

Your seduction technique can be summed up with "charm"
You know that if you have the chance to talk to someone...
Well, you won't be talking for long! ;-)

You're great at telling potential lovers what they want to hear.
Partially, because you're a great reflective listener and good at complementing.
The other part of your formula? Focusing your conversation completely on the other person.

Your "sweet talking" ways have taken you far in romance - and in life.
You can finess your way through any difficult situation, with a smile on your face.
Speeding tickets, job interviews... bring it on! You truly live a *charmed life*

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

Gender Role Quiz

2005-10-04T23:50:00.000-04:00

Found via Jo Harris, I find my results not at all surprising.

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch.
Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes.
You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them.
You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

Who'd win in a fight, the US Army, or Avian Flu?

2005-10-04T21:19:00.000-04:00

On the one hand, it's nice to see the government (read: Bush) taking a proactive stance on an inevitable disaster. On the other hand, he wants to personally and directly control the US Army within the borders of the country to stop a disease. Anybody else think that's fucked up and really really scary?

Lake Effect Snow!

2005-10-04T17:32:00.000-04:00

Now announcing the launch of the Lake Effect Snow blog, lakeeffectsnow. We're an MIT Mystery Hunt semi-competitive team, and new members are welcome - especially if we know you ftf. For more info, check out the links here and there.

Would you have been a Nazi?

2005-10-04T14:25:00.000-04:00

I just took a (semi) thought provoking quiz, about whether you would've been a Nazi had you lived in Germany when Hitler came to power. My result is that I would've expatriated. I am inclinded to agree: I have joked that if Bush manages to Constitutionalize discrimination in the form of a Straight Marriage Only Amendment that I'd look into moving to Canada. The primary thing preventing me is Peeper.

The Expatriate

Achtung! You are 30% brainwashworthy, 31% antitolerant, and 23% blindly patriotic

Congratulations! You are not susceptible to brainwashing, your values and cares extend beyond the borders of your own country, and your Blind Patriotism does not reach unhealthy levels. If you had been German in the 30s, you would've left the country.

One bad scenario -- as I hypothetically project you back in time -- is that you just wouldn't have cared one way or the other about Nazism. Maybe politics don't interest you enough. But the fact that you took this test means they probably do. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt.

Did you know that many of the smartest Germans departed prior to the beginning of World War II, because they knew some evil shit was brewing? Brain Drain. Many of them were scientists. It is very possible you could have been one of them.

Conclusion: born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would not have been a Nazi.

The Would You Have Been A Nazi? Test

- it rules -

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 33% on brainwashworthy
You scored higher than 50% on antitolerant
You scored higher than 22% on patriotic

Link: The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

Quiz of the Day!

2005-10-04T14:03:00.000-04:00

You know you're a geek if you take a quiz that measures intelligence and you have to restrain yourself from noting down the errors. Thanks to marquiswildbill for the entertaining link, though my results make me sad. :( :-P

Much More Scientific

You have:
70% SCIENTIFIC INTUITION and
40% EMOTIONAL INTUITION

The graph on the right represents your place in Intuition 2-Space. As you can see, you scored slightly below average on emotional intuition and above average on scientific intuition.Keep in mind that very few people score high on both! In effect, you can compare your two intuition scores with each other to learn what kind of intuition you're best at. Your scientific intuition is stronger than your emotional intuition.

Your Emotional Intuition score is a measure of how well you understand people, especially their unspoken needs and sympathies. A high score score usually indicates social grace and persuasiveness. A low score usually means you're good at Quake.

Your Scientific Intuition score tells you how in tune you are with the world around you; how well you understand your physical and intellectual environment. People with high scores here are apt to succeed in business and, of course, the sciences.

Try my other test!
The 3 Variable Funny Test
It rules.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 57% on Scientific
You scored higher than 4% on Interpersonal

Link: The 2-Variable Intuition Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

Self-Serving

2005-10-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

In science we're often reminding people to be critical of the funding source of a bit of research. For example, take a look at this article and the accompanying videos about the dangers of non-stick cookware and birds.

Done yet?

Ok now, to summarize and elaborate, all of the following are harmful to birds: overheated non-stick (Teflon®) pans, heated butter, hot wax (candles), aerosol and non-aerosol sprays, cigarette and other smoke, other pets, ceiling fans, boiling water, hot pans... How many of those have I already subjected Peeper to? I keep her wings clipped so she doesn't ever fly high enough to hit a ceiling fan. She's run through two pans while they were still on the stove. She did that entirely voluntarily. I'm still trying to eliminate the airborne stuff from the house - environmentalism too. I'm not going to give up the Teflon, but I know that if I overheat something the VERY first thing to do is get her out of the kitchen.

I totally freaked out when this happened once. I yanked the pot off the stove, ran into the bedroom w/ her, threw open all the bedroom windows (in the middle of winter), locked her in her cage and closed the bedroom door, and then opened all the other windows in the house and turned on all the fans. She was fine, didn't notice anything other than my panic as far as I could tell. So maybe I didn't need to worry, but better safe than sorry. Bird rescue organizations will not adopt birds out to households with non-stick pans.

Hi Dad!

2005-10-03T20:16:00.000-04:00

He found this blog. I have no fucking clue how, but he found it. After reading a few pages of posts, he apparently figured out that it was slightly personal (but not entirely private as it IS out there on the web) and stopped reading and told me that he found it thru a simple Google search on my first and last names. I know that "Star Stories" still shows up under those as I only recently removed my name from on it, so it'll take a while to flush out of the Google cache, but Dad implied that he didn't go thru that page, but found this one directly. I'm really baffled as to how... But anyways, I do trust when he said he's taking it off his favorites and won't read it in the future - there's nothing here I really *hide* from them, just stuff I'm not comfortable talking about with them. Unlike how I really DO want to hide stuff on here from my job. Speaking of which, Dad's point of telling me was that he realized I probably didn't want this info out there for anyone to find. Which he was entirely correct about, so if anyone does a similar search and comes up with however in the world he got here, PLEASE let me know!

Quotes from the conversation with Dad:

"Wow, your HS is really bad. Kinda like how I used to have painful sores from cystic acne all over my face when I was a teenager. This one time my boss had to take me to the hospital for it and I was so embarassed. I really feel for you hon." See, this is why I don't like talking about it with them, then I have to sit and compare horror stories. I am not my disease, why can't we talk about something interesting instead?

"I swear I'll never visit your blog again." Huh, he knows what a blog is!

"You're a really good writer." Um, thanks, I think...

"I didn't realize you were so liberal. You're a commie!" (The last was in jest.) More of a socialist actually, though only a very slight bit. And I get the liberalism from you - you taught me to listen to what people have to say and that everyone's opinion counts. "I'm not really all that liberal. Not for New York." Heh.

"Really, I mean it, I won't read it again." Ok, I believe you, you can drop it now.

"I can tell it really upsets you that I found it." No shit, Sherlock. It's a matter of a breach of privacy, and I worry who else could find it, and most of all I'm pissed at myself for not hiding it better (not that I'm yet certain it's my own fault he found it). This's worse than when my research advisor's collaborator found my proto-blog, because then the worst was mushy stuff about T$ on the one hand, and my Muslim German physicist stalker on the other. Yeah, he was as wierd as he sounds; I should tell the story someday - when Dad's not reading! :-P

And from Mom (she didn't actually see the site I believe, but Dad told her about the content of the entries he read):

"Dad says you have this blog thing. What is it?" It's like a journal that my friends can read. "Do they?" Um, yeah. But it's stuff I talk about with friends, I don't really talk about this stuff with coworkers or, well, you.

"I want you to know you can talk with us about anything." And when I want to talk about these things with you, I do.

"Why don't you tell us about these things more?" Because then we end up having conversations like these.