Nate Edel's blog
World’s first hypo-allergenic cat
Sept. 18 – There’s a new solution for cat lovers allergic to cats.
San Diego based company Allerca says it has successfully produced the world’s first hypoallergenic cat, something that could allow allergic pet lovers to enjoy cats again.
Paivthra George reports.
SOUNDBITE: Stephen May, Allerca Spokesperson
In an article on MSNBC, Senate committee rejects Bush anti-terror plan
The president’s measure would go further than the Senate package in allowing classified evidence to be withheld from defendants in terror trials, using coerced testimony and protecting U.S. interrogators against prosecution for using methods that violate the Geneva Conventions.
Lovely. Does anyone yet doubt Bush is a fascist at heart?
Via Troy, on DBA:
Bush ran as a moderate, tacked right and governed ineffectually — before 9/11. Since then he’s become the most radical American president in history — and arguably the worst.
Editor’s note: Following is the introduction to Sidney Blumenthal’s new book, “How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime,” recently published by the Princeton University Press.
By Sidney Blumenthal
No one predicted just how radical a president George W. Bush would be. Neither his opponents, nor the reporters covering him, nor his closest campaign aides suggested that he would be the most willfully radical president in American history.
In his 2000 campaign, Bush permitted himself few hints of radicalism. On the contrary he made ready promises of moderation, judiciously offering himself as a “compassionate conservative,” an identity carefully crafted to contrast with the discredited Republican radicals of the House of Representatives. After capturing the Congress in 1994 and proclaiming a “revolution,” they had twice shut down the government over the budget and staged an impeachment trial that resulted in the acquittal of President Clinton. Seeking to distance himself from the congressional Republicans, Bush declared that he was not hostile to government. He would, he said, “change the tone in Washington.” He would be more reasonable than the House Republicans and more moral than Clinton. Governor Bush went out of his way to point to his record of bipartisan cooperation with Democrats in Texas, stressing that he would be “a uniter, not a divider.”
The article non-free but visible behind the ad at Salon’s site and is well worth a read.
Electoral-Vote.com which preoccupied many of us during the 2004 campaign, has now released their 2006 Senate page. I know I will be checking in a couple of times every day.
It certainly was one of my favorite sites in the run-up to the 2004 election, and it’s run by a well-known computer science professor.
Side note: more content coming, I promise.
At Jon Lech Johansen’s reason for moving to San Francisco from San Diego.
More posts soon, I promise! Maybe even a “reboot” of the blog.
97f today. Forecast on Yahoo was for a 93f high. Rather weak AC here in the office has it barely controlled to the lower 80s.
Gah. I hope my air conditioner works at home.
For lack of a better place to write about them:
1) As I was scootering on Hillsdale between Edgewater and El Camino a helicopter went coverhead. This, in itself is not that unusual; we get traffic, police and occasionally executive helicopters a lot – Hillsdale is between (probably roughly halfway, in fact) between SFO and the San Carlos airport.
What WAS unusual is this was VERY obviously not a civilian helicopter. It went by quickly, but it was the narror profile and shape (especially the front and back cockpit) of an attack helicopter. I’m pretty sure it was some sort of Cobra, not an Apache, as it was not angular enough for the latter – though this much is on looking at photos online and not an instant recognition.
Interesting. I’d have needed a much better camera than the one in my phone to get it.
2) We had a fire alarm malfunction at work today. They were supposed to be doing some kind of checking on the sprinkler system, and apparantly they set it off. Annoying.
…but this seems to take the fun out of it for me. They’re trying to get rid of “monopoly money” in the UK edition of the game:
In-game advertising comes to Monopoly
7/25/2006 11:39:06 AM, by Nate Anderson
In an effort to remain relevant, venerable board game Monopoly has been given an electronic European makeover. Capitalist robber barons in the UK will now have the option of making a cashless fortune thanks to a new version of the game that features an electronic card from Visa instead of paper money.
The new card, which resembles a debit card, is inserted into a small plastic reader/writer that can display and update the balance on the card. Traditional money is gone altogether, though purists can still purchase the original version. Visa’s partnership with Parker Bros. seems designed to bolster the belief that using paper money is baffling and insecure.
First, saw Clerks 2 tonight. Best movie… ev… well, not quite, but certainly best comedy in quite a while and a truly fitting finale to the New Jersey saga.
Second, file under unclassifiable 100 Reasons Why I Hate My Husband; sad, but very funny.
Lastly, via RASSF, on MSNBC we get: Outer-space sex carries complications
Experts say new devices and data would be needed to hit the zero-G-spot
LAS VEGAS – Having sex in the weightlessness of outer space is the stuff of urban legends and romantic fantasy — but experts say that there would be definite downsides as well.
etc… it mentions briefly sex during Zero-G flights (such as on the “Vomit Comet”) – which has been done in an adult movie, Private’s The Uranus Experiment
And that’s all for today.
I ran into this a while ago, but I think it was before I was blogging. I was recently reminded by a friend of it, and thought it worth a mention.
There is an explanation at the overlying site, but the fun part is to simply go to the Colorgenics profiler itself and give it a shot.
My results for the curious:
You are always alert and keenly observant. You are not truly satisfied with your everyday status and you are seeking fresh avenues which can give you the opportunity to prove your worth. You feel that there are still many barriers that stand between you and recognition – but one by one you will overcome them. Your tenacity is your one good point – like an English Bulldog, once you take the bite, you will seldom let go.
Always anxious to accept the role of the leader, as indeed you often work well with people – but try to stay out of the limelight. You’d like a life of ease with no one to rock the boat and someone who understands you is so important in your life.
Being a very proud individual, you tend to hold yourself aloof pretending that you are stoical – indifferent to pain and pleasure. This is not so, for in truth you are an extremely emotional individual, one that may make a hasty decision and perhaps regret it at leisure. It is time now to break the bond of detachment and be the ‘you’ that you would like to be – give vent to your emotions and enjoy yourself.
You are being unduly influenced by the situation that is all around you. You do not like the feeling of loneliness and whatever it is that seems to separate you from others. You know that life can be wonderful and you are anxious to experience life in all its aspects, to live it to the full. You therefore resent any restriction or limitations that are being imposed on you and you insist on going it alone.
You are anxious about all the limitations to which you are subjected to at this time. You feel that you are not valued for what or who you are. You need OUT. So why procrastinate any longer – MOVE!
A tale from my Alma Mater, via DBA:
De-Sanitizing the Police Blotter
The police did not determine her error through close and careful questioning of the jogger, which would have established that she was observing 4 Valley Road, whereas she lived farther down Valley Road at another number. The police did not determine her error by noticing the absence of evidence supporting the hypothesis that this was a burglary in progress — there was no getaway car, no damage to windows or doors and no suspicious activity occurring within the house. The police did not determine her error through the application of inductive knowledge which would indicate the unlikelihood that a burglary would be in progress on a Sunday morning in a small, college town in rural New Hampshire. The police did not even establish her error by a combination of these factors. The police “quickly established” her error by laying an unannounced, intimidatory siege to our house, accompanied by screams telling me to come to the door with my hands up. They then proceeded to draw a gun on me that was menacingly pointed at my chest as I stood there in cargo shorts, t-shirt and bare feet! After further screaming and questioning, the police finally realized their mistake — 10 minutes later the officer who pulled the gun came over and apologized.
OK, if you looked in the last few hours, you could see that anyway.