How long do you think it would take you to understand the mechanism that leads to global warming? Years? Months? Days? Nope. Fifty-two seconds:
[youtube http://youtu.be/R-qtr9xKwow]If you want more information, How Global Warming Works has one, three, four, and five minute versions that go into greater detail. I love examples of elegant learning like this.
Federal long-term unemployment benefits expired at the end of 2013 and Congress has yet to approve a bill extending those benefits. Democrats just want to get it done while Republicans claim to want to get it done but they are insisting on cutting things that benefit poor people which is like saying “Here’s $5 for unemployment benefits and I’ll just take that $5 that I gave you for food in return. Now go and be not poor!”
A lot of Republicans are simply dead set on denying any extension of the unemployment benefits. Their pushcart of thought seems to go like this: People on long-term unemployment are lazy and are just collecting unemployment because they can. Taking away the long-term unemployment benefits will force them to get off their lazy asses and find a job and then they can empower themselves to be not poor.
There are a few things wrong with this, the most important of all being that people who are on unemployment are required to look for jobs are a prerequisite to continuing to get unemployment. So they are looking for jobs. The jobs just don’t exist. Recently, a new Washington D.C. Wal-Mart posted openings for 600 jobs. How many applications did they get? 23,000! I’m sure those 22,400 people who no longer have unemployment will be even extra motivated to find the jobs that don’t exist.
Then there’s the myriad other problems that the long-term unemployed face like companies refusing to hire them because they’ve been unemployed so long and the mental health problems that go with being unemployed in a culture where you are defined by your job. Not to mention Congress hasn’t done anything to actually help these people when there is a long list of things that could be done immediately. Take massive, much needed, infrastructure spending for example.
But no, the only answer that Republicans can come up with to lift people out of hardship is to create more hardship for them. Yeah, that’ll work. So now, the unemployed are back to only receiving 26 weeks of unemployment benefits in an economy that takes them on average 35 weeks. What could possibly go wrong?
Virgin Galactic successfully tested its third super sonic flight of its Space Ship Two manned space vehicle. This means we’re getting close to the goal of the plebians being able to go to space. If by plebians you mean one-percenters who are not astronauts. It’s going to be priced out of possibility for us normal folk for some time. But still, it’s an exciting start to an exciting industry. Is there video, you say? Why yes, there is:
[youtube http://youtu.be/pwm3leZu-O0]Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars
Bottom line: Inspiring real life story. Walks the line of patriotism and pointing out flaws well. Some pointlessly gratuitous violence.
“Lone Survivor” tells the true story of a botched Navy SEAL operation to detain or kill a high value Taliban target in Afghanistan. A four man fireteam is dropped off far from a remote village where the target is suspected to be. Their mission is to get to the village and identify the man and do what is necessary to make sure that he is no longer a threat to U.S. soldiers. Things quickly go south when a combination of communication problems and an unfortunate run-in with goat herders inform the Taliban of the SEALs presence.
That only one of the SEALs survives should be of no surprise to anyone who can read the movie title. The movie itself is more about human survival than anything else. It should come as no surprise that Navy SEALs are pretty badass. Their training alone puts them through the worse conditions imaginable because they just might face those conditions when out in the field. These four did. It is impossible to tell through the fog of war and the remembrances of one man who was almost dead himself what is fact and what is fiction, but if even half of what happened to these four is true, they all survived far longer than any mere mortal would be expected to.
I was pleased that this wasn’t a gung-ho patriotic movie. It tells the story of what happened to these four warts and all. From the very frank conversation over whether to murder the hostage goat herders to the poor equipment we send our soldiers to war with to the unavailability of needed resources to the unwise rescue attempt, it’s all there for you to see. That is rare in a movie that was given implicit approval from the U.S. Armed Forces.
There was some really gratuitous violence in the movie that I thought was a bit uncalled for and that’s saying a lot about a movie about a very bloody battle. Most notably, a long and drawn out head-shot of one of the SEALs as he sits propped up and slowly dying as his lungs fill with blood. It seems to me an impossibility that events could have been reconstructed enough to know for sure that he died that way and to put it in the movie as fact seems disingenuous. Maybe I’m wrong and they were able to piece it together much more thoroughly than I think possible.
Besides the gratuitous violence, I have only one other qualm about the movie. As is common with real stories of the U.S. Armed Forces, there was a role call of the service members that died during the mission. I think the filmmakers did a great disservice to the Pashtun villagers who fought and died to save and protect lone survivor Marcus Luttrell by not including their names alongside ours. Regardless, it is a movie well worth seeing to give you a good look into the life of a Navy SEAL.
For reasons that I will probably never know, I remember dreams in bursts. Meaning I will go weeks without remembering my dreams and then many days in a row I will remember them. I wonder why this is…
In last nights dream, I was over at an ex-girlfriend’s house for some reason. I think maybe to babysit. She lived in this large boarding house with her husband and two kids and they rented out the rooms to people though the house was empty besides us. I go into the living room and say hello to her and her kids and we start talking. I ask where her husband is and she says he’s at work. She then moves in to kiss me and I stop her and ask her what she’s doing. She responds, “What we always do.” and then kisses me. Yadda-yadda. Better than the lobster bisque.
But then the dream continues which is very strange. We take the kids out to keep them entertained. I don’t recall where. All I remember is her having a chauffeur and us drinking red wine the entire time. We eventually get back to the house and we are walking up the path leading to the house, wine glasses in hand, and I notice that my clothes are all stained from the wine. I look back and the entire path has splotches of spilled wine on it.
Then some time had passed and she realizes her eldest kid is not present and she starts to panic and begins searching the house in a frenzy while I watch the younger one. She eventually finds her wayward child in one of the rooms that they rent. The kid had done a bit of redecorating apparently because she came back with a bunch of tools and the child in tow and exclaims, “Now we won’t be able to rent out that room for a while!” Then I wake up.
I’ve seen space shuttle launch cameras before, but nothing like this. Follow one of the boosters from take-off to landing in this epically beautiful video with audio. Be sure to set it to HD if it is not already so.
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars
Imagine if you were responsible for hundreds of medical breakthroughs and you never even knew about it. Imagine if you were responsible for hundreds of medical breakthroughs and no one else knew about it either. So was the life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was killed by a particularly vicious form of cervical cancer that consumed her body in a matter of months. Early in her treatment, doctors took a biopsy of her cancerous cells and found something remarkable. They did not die. Cells, when taken out of a host, tend to be very difficult to keep alive and could only divide a certain amount of times before they stopped dividing. Henrietta’s cells not only stayed alive, they thrived and kept dividing forever. Scientists finally had a source of cells to perform research on that bypassed many of the troubles they had with other cell lines. Thus the HeLa cell line was born.
The book can really be divided into three distinct but intertwining stories; Henrietta’s story, her cells’ story, and her family’s story.
Henrietta’s story is interesting. Skloot does a very effective job of humanizing a woman whom nobody knows but everyone should. Until quite recently, every medical professional had heard of HeLa cells but few knew of the person from which they came. She didn’t deserve the death she had, but her death led to the saving of, likely, millions of lives. It is only fair that her actual life be immortalized in the same way her cells continue to live past her death.
HeLa’s story is absolutely fascinating. Scientists have since figured how to make other cell lines immortal, but no others have ever come directly from a human being save HeLa. There are more HeLa cells spread around the world than made up Henrietta Lacks’ body. We are talking measuring in tons. The amount of breakthroughs that were a direct result of being able to test with HeLa cells is remarkable.
The Lacks family story is a bit, er, lacking. When the story is on point and directly tied to their attempts to cope with the knowledge that their mother has the status that she does and the moral implications of people using her cells, it is both riveting and sad. There were so many people who tried to help and as many people who tried to take advantage of the Lacks family that they ended up not knowing who to trust. Their distrust was so great that it is remarkable that Rebecca Skloot was able to write the book in the first place. The Lacks family story revolves around one question; who owns your cells and who gets to profit from them? The answer remains to this day unanswered under law.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a book that should be read by all. Henrietta Lacks is a woman who should be known by all. It is mind-blowing that so much good can come from the death of one woman.
I had a dream where I was chosen to join an elite crew that went on dangerous missions throughout the world. The training consisted mostly of riding bikes places and being able to assemble and disassemble them. We went out on our first mock mission and I was assigned a tandem bike and we rode to what looked like downtown Evanston. When we got there, the drill sergeant told me to give him my pliers. I didn’t have any pliers. He proceeds to ream me for not having pliers and not being prepared and how was I supposed to fix a bike if I didn’t have pliers. I argue with him that no one told me that I needed to bring pliers and besides he had a pair of pliers in his hand already. He responded that he isn’t always going to be there to supply me with a pair of pliers and what would I do then? He then shows me this large chart of tools that he expects me to have at all times and that if I want to stay in this unit I need to shape up. Then I woke up.
What happens when you combine Jesus and zombies? This (NSFW for over the top blood):
[youtube http://youtu.be/GuKV2Z3eYTY]