A Slice of Philosophy

It is always dullest before the yawn.

Conservatives Call Obama’s Correct Pronunciation Of Pakistan ‘Exotic’ And ‘Annoying’

Once again they prove their ignorance and stupidity ... but hey isn't that their 'darling boy' general Betray-us using the correct pronunciation as well.



So, now speaking in correct English is not proper?! And they wonder why the rest of us refer to them as Neanderthals and Troglodytes - sheeesh!

Read the rest at Think Progress

Lehman Brothers CEO Punched In The Face

Dick Fuld testified before the House Oversight Committee yesterday, blaming everyone but himself for Lehman's collapse, an attitude that prompted Ward to confirm reports that he'd been punched in the face and to side with the attacker:

“From two very senior sources – one incredibly senior source – that he went to the gym after … Lehman was announced as going under. He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold. And frankly after having watched this, I’d have done the same too.”

(Click Photo for full story)

Foo Fighters tell McCain to stop using song

Yet another band is complaining about John McCain's use of their song to promote his campaign.

This time, it's the Foo Fighters.

The rockers sent out a missive telling the Republican presidential candidate to stop using "My Hero."

They said they learned it was being use through news reports.

"The saddest thing about this is that `My Hero' was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential," the band said in a statement.

"To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song."

The band noted it's not the first time McCain has been told to stop using a song.

John Mellencamp, Heart and Jackson Browne have also complained - Browne even filed a lawsuit.

Body found in suitcase contained 50 heroin packets

An autopsy has revealed that a man found dead in a suitcase in a suburban park was a drug "mule" who had 50 packets of heroin in his body and probably died when one or two of them broke open.

Investigators expressed surprise that the man's body had not been cut open for the drugs. The heroin would have been worth an estimated $100,000 on the streets, Westchester County police spokesman Kieran O'Leary said Tuesday.

The man, estimated to be 50 to 60 years old, has not been identified. Investigators aren't sure who put him in the suitcase found last Thursday in Tibbetts Brook Park in Yonkers, just north of New York City.

But it probably wasn't the drug dealers who were expecting the man's shipment, because they likely would have cut his body open for the drugs, O'Leary said.

"We've seen that on occasions in the past," O'Leary said. "How he got to the park with the drugs still inside him is still a piece of the puzzle."

Detective Lt. Christopher Calabrese theorized that other mules, not wanting the dealers to cut open the corpse, bought the suitcase and dumped the body before the dealers came to collect the drugs.

"I'm very surprised this guy's not been cut open," he said.

Detectives believe the man traveled from the Dominican Republic.

While the man's cause of death had not been confirmed, one or two of the packets inside him were broken, O'Leary said. There was no outward sign of violence or trauma.

The man probably died a day or two before he was found, the spokesman said.

The body was discovered when a parks worker went to remove the abandoned black canvas suitcase near the park's entrance and the victim's leg popped out.

Jockey's daughter gets prison for fatal crash

The daughter of Hall of Fame jockey Jose Santos was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for vehicular homicide, drunken driving and other charges.

Sophia Santos was sentenced Wednesday in Long Island's Nassau County Court. She pleaded guilty last month.

Prosecutors said Santos had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit in November 2007 when she ran a red light and plowed into a car at an intersection in Levittown, N.Y.

The accident killed Virginia Casazza Urgo and injured three others.

Santos's father rode Funny Cide to victories in the 2003 Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.

'Perfect storm' could give Democrats 'magic 60' in Senate

In the face of an economy in crisis and a deeply unpopular president, some analysts believe the situation is ripe to give Democrats a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in November.

It's "the perfect storm," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "You've got Republican voters angry at Republicans, many Americans just petrified about the future...wanting change. And right now change appears to be coming in the form of Democrats."

Of the 35 Senate seats on the line this year, 23 are held by Republicans. Five Republican senators are retiring: Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Wayne Allard of Colorado, John Warner of Virginia, Larry Craig of Idaho and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Democrats control the Senate. Although it's split evenly with 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans, two independents -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut -- caucus with the Democrats.

Winning a filibuster-proof majority of 60 Senate seats, commonly called the "magic 60," would virtually prevent Republicans from blocking legislation on the Senate floor.

The last time either party had this ability was in the 95th Congress of 1977-1979, when Democrats held 61 seats during President Jimmy Carter's administration. Carter faced concerns similar to those today -- economic instability, inflation and a 7.5 percent unemployment rate.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Democrats have a good shot at reaching a 60-seat majority in November, a possibility he all but ruled out earlier this year.

"The fundamentals of this election year could not be more Democratic," Sabato said. "You've got a terrible economy, a deeply unpopular president and an unpopular war. You put those elements together and it's going to produce a Democratic victory. ... The only question is, what size?"

A recent survey found that Americans blame Republicans by a 2 to 1 ratio over Democrats for the financial meltdown.

Forty-seven percent of those questioned found Republicans more responsible for the problems facing the financial institutions; 24 percent said Democrats were more responsible.

Although Democrats say it's too early to predict whether they will get 60 Senate seats, they acknowledge that the focus on the economy has given them a bounce across the map.

"The economy was already the No. 1 issue in voter's minds," said Matthew Miller, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "What the crisis did was focus attention like a laser on the fact that Republican economic policies have crippled the economy."

But, the next question is: Will Democrats need 60 or 61 seats to effectively block the Republican Party?

Some believe Democrats may actually need 61 seats in order to have a majority because of the "Lieberman factor."

"Not every Democrat will be with them on every measure and every bill," Rothenberg said.

Lieberman turned independent after being defeated in Connecticut's 2006 Democratic primary, but later went on to win the general election. He has been at odds with the Democratic Party -- particularly for his support of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and the Iraq War.

"Maybe Americans will say it isn't Republicans' fault," Rothenberg said. "It's possible that Republican prospects could improve over the next month, but if they don't this year will be as bad as 2006 for the Republicans and worse in Senate races."

In 2006, Republicans lost six seats in the Senate and 30 seats in the House, shifting the majority to the Democratic Party.

Rothenberg and Sabato agree that Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and New Hampshire are all but a lock for Democrats. With Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on trial on corruption charges, Alaska could go to Democrats as well.

"Minnesota, Mississippi, and Kentucky are the three states most likely to determine whether Democrats get to 60," Rothenberg said, adding the unexpectedly tight race in North Carolina between incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole and state Sen. Kay Hagan could turn out detrimental for Republicans as well.

Scientists win Nobel for green jellyfish protein

Three U.S.-based scientists won a Nobel Prize on Wednesday for turning a glowing green protein from jellyfish into a revolutionary way to watch the tiniest details of life within cells and living creatures.

Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen who works in the United States, and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien shared the chemistry prize for discovering and developing green fluorescent protein, or GFP.

When exposed to ultraviolet light, the protein glows green. It can act as a marker on otherwise invisible proteins within cells to trace them as they go about their business. It can tag individual cells in tissue. And it can show when and where particular genes turn on and off.

Researchers worldwide now use GFP to track development of brain cells, the growth of tumors and the spread of cancer cells. It has let them study nerve cell damage from Alzheimer's disease and see how insulin-producing beta cells arise in the pancreas of a growing embryo, for example.

In awarding the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy compared the impact of GFP on science to the invention of the microscope. For the past decade, the academy said, the protein has been "a guiding star " for scientists.

GFP's chemical cousins produce other colors, which let scientists follow multiple cells or proteins simultaneously.

"This is a technology that has literally transformed medical research," said Dr. John Frangioni, an associate professor of medicine and radiology at Harvard Medical School. "For the first time, scientists could study both genes and proteins in living cells and in living animals."

Last year, in what the Nobel citation called a "spectacular experiment," Harvard researchers announced that they had tagged brain cells in mice with some 90 colors. The technique is called "Brainbow."

GFP was first discovered by Shimomura at Princeton University. He'd been seeking the protein that lets a certain kind of jellyfish glow green around its edge. In the summer of 1961, he and a colleague processed tissue from about 10,000 jellyfish they'd collected near the island town of Friday Harbor, Wash. The next year, they reported the finding of GFP.

Some 30 years later, Chalfie showed that the GFP gene could make individual nerve cells in a tiny worm glow bright green.

Tsien's work provided GFP-like proteins that extended the scientific palette to a variety of colors. Tsien "really made it a tool that was extremely useful to lots of people," Chalfie told reporters.

Shimomura, 80, now works at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and the Boston University Medical School. Chalfie, 61, is a professor at Columbia University in New York, while Tsien, 56, is a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The trio will split the $1.4 million award.

Chalfie said he slept through the Nobel committee's phone calls early Wednesday because he'd accidentally adjusted his telephone to ring very softly. He found out about the prize only when he checked the Nobel Web site to see who had won.

"It's not something out of the blue, but you never know when it's going to come or if it's going to come, so it's always a big surprise when it actually happens," Chalfie said.

Shimomura told reporters that he, too, was surprised.

"My accomplishment was just the discovery of a protein. ... But I am happy," he said.

Speaking to reporters by telephone, Tsien thanked scientists worldwide. When they do "good things with GFP and its progeny," Tsien said he can "bask in the warmth of that glow a little bit too."

Gunnar von Heijne, the chairman of the chemistry prize committee, demonstrated the award-winning research to reporters by shining ultraviolet light on a tube with E. coli bacteria containing GFP. The tube glowed green.

Von Heijne said that kind of result "gets scientists' hearts beating three times faster than normal."

The winners of the Nobel Prizes in medicine and physics were presented earlier this week. The prizes for literature, peace and economics are due to be announced Thursday, Friday and Monday.

Three Americans, three Japanese, two French and one German researcher have won Nobel Prizes so far this year.

The awards include the money, a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

*****

It seems to be the year of 'Threes' this year ... with every prize announced thus far having three winners sharing it.

NYC National Debt Clock runs out of digits

In a sign of the times, the National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing figure.

As a short-term fix, the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has been switched to a figure - the "1" in $10 trillion. It's marking the federal government's current debt at about $10.2 trillion.

The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next year by adding two digits. That will make it capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars.

The late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989 to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt.

As of this moment ...

4180 Brave men and women are dead in Iraq.

Zero out of three with one to go

Third debate and team McPain/Pale-lyn is 0 for 3.

Last night's debate was not a barn burner for either campaign but Obama did do what he had to.
He presented his views and visions for our nation in a coherent manner albeit some points were not as sharp as they could have been.
Mcpain - even according to his own party's analysts - did not do what he had to do ... win the debate running away ... he lost it while not presenting his views and visions for our country in a coherent manner.
Granted he was less snarky this time but still out of touch and could not string together two thoughts on the same question in a row the entire night.
It was like watching a child lost in the wilderness.
It is getting to the point where I don't know who is more pathetic, McPain or Pale-lyn.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The third Friday in October of each year is National Mammography Day. This year it falls on October 17th. So stay informed, stay healthy, and browse the links below to help a great cause.

Worldwide, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer and the fifth most common cause of cancer deaths. It is the most common cancer in women in the United States.

The Rooftop Concert: parts 1, 2 and 3

In London on a rooftop four lads from Liverpool played and sang themselves into history ...

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Divers reach steamship that sank off Mass. in 1898

Five Massachusetts men became the first divers to reach the wreck of a 19th-century steamship that sank in one of the most destructive storms in New England history, and say they saw an array of artifacts like dishes and mugs but no human remains.

The Portland, known as the "Titanic of New England," sank off the Massachusetts coast Nov. 26, 1898, after it sailed from Boston, taking more than 190 people with it.

The recreational divers spoke this week for the first time about their three successful dives in August and September.

David Faye, one of the divers, said wreckage of the Portland was littered with artifacts like plates, dishes and mugs, wash basins and toilets - and even a few medicine bottles etched with the name of an apothecary in Maine.

"I immediately thought of these people - how horrible it must've been," said Faye, a lawyer in Cambridge, Mass. "They had no communication with shore. They had no idea where they were. The storm was pushing them out to sea."

An image from team leader Bob Foster's camera depicts a starfish clinging to a mug. Another shows toppled stacks of sandy plates and dishes.

The divers found no human remains. If there are any human remains, they were likely below decks, which the divers didn't explore because of the danger, they said.

Reaching the ship tested the divers' limits and their equipment because the wreckage rests so far below the surface. Their dives - 460 feet below ocean surface - were so deep that some of the underwater lights imploded with a boom, Faye said. The divers could only spend 10 to 15 minutes exploring the wreckage site before returning to the surface.

The wreck was first located in 1989 by underwater explorers Arnold Carr and John Fish, but they couldn't prove it was the Portland.

It wasn't until 2002 that the ship's location in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, an area about the size of Rhode Island between Cape Ann and Cape Cod, was firmly established by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration team using sonar equipment and remotely operated submersibles.

Because the location is kept secret, the divers had to independently verify the location. They had no sponsors; they paid out of pocket for their dives. The diving equipment cost between $10,000 and $50,000 per person, Faye said.

"You have to give the wreck its respect," Faye said. "It's deep and it's dangerous, and you have to be at the top of your game."

The 291-foot Portland left Boston's India Wharf for Portland, Maine, as scheduled despite forecasts of an impending storm and the decision by the captain of a sister ship to stay in port.

Captain Hollis Blanchard may have believed the Portland could outrun the gale, but the storm was actually two separate storms that collided at sea and grew in force. Winds reached 100 mph, and waves crested at 60 feet, higher than the ship's smokestacks.

Bodies and wreckage began to wash up on the shores of Cape Cod shortly after the storm, which became known as The Portland Gale.

The divers were unable to retrieve artifacts from the wreckage because of rules in place at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. For now, the Portland's resting place remains a secret to prevent it from being plundered.

Texan is Washington's kin, and could've been king

A genealogy Web site says it has found the king of America - or rather, the descendant of George Washington's family who would have most likely held the title had the nation's first president been its first monarch instead.

Long live Paul Emerson Washington, 82, of San Antonio, a retired regional manager for a building supply company.

Paul Washington is the one among 8,000 possible Washington descendants that the chief family historian at Ancestry.com believes would currently hold the crown - had there been one.

"He kind of won the sweepstakes," said Megan Smolenyak, with the genealogical research group.

George Washington had no children. He had an older half brother, Augustine, and a younger brother, Samuel. Many descendants died young or as lifelong bachelors. Other Washington descendants had only daughters, Smolenyak said.

She ran four family lines to account for the two brothers and lines of succession with and without women inheriting the crown. She found that against improbable odds, two of the four lines led to Paul Washington.

Paul's son, Bill, said his father now spends his days caring for his wife, who has Alzheimer's disease. He said his father is honored but completely unpretentious about his would-be crown.

"He's always been a modest, soft-spoken person," said Bill Washington, a 54-year-old bookseller.

The family has long been proud of its connection to the founding father.

"I was dubious as a child growing up because I always thought, 'Why don't we have a sword lying around or a three-pointed hat?" Bill Washington said.

But as an adult, Bill began filling the second floor of his home with George Washington-related artifacts, and he participates in historical re-enactments wearing a Revolutionary War artillery officer uniform.

Still, he says George Washington made the right decision, allowing himself to be elected president but not seeking a crown.

"He fought for eight years to do away with the monarchy, and I think he made the right decision," Bill Washington said. "The idea of one individual having supreme power over all others is an antiquated idea - to say the least."

Easy for him to say. As the second of Paul Washington's three sons, he's not next in the line of hypothetical succession.