Blogs in the news
The comedy news show Daily Show with Jon Stewart is one of the best sources for news. It is disturbing. They recently won a Peabody Award which are generally given for news organizations. Crazy. Tonights show they covered the fact that several news organizations had regular spots which covered blogs. How crazy is that? News organizations that use blogs as news. What will they think of next? Evidently the only major american news source that hasn't gone this route is Fox and I don't know what to think about that.

A useful new phone tool developed by a friend of mine is Amabuddy which is software that allows you to text an ISBN number or CD bar code and then returns a price comparison. The best part is that if you are in a shop and you see a book you want you can instantly check it out online via text. It even gives reviews. Try it out!

NPR
Yesterday NPR did a story about Homestarrunner which is a very silly bit of cartooning. It is entertaining, and, completely ad free. The designers never intended to make a profit and now support it only by selling merchandise. I like it.

Today my wife easily passed her driving exam here in the state of Massachusetts. She had previously passed the written part of the test which she described as 'made for idiots'. Turns out, the driving wasn't much better. The test involved us arriving in a parking lot in a car to meet a state trooper (clearly his least favorite part of the job). He got into the car with us, I was in the back as the silent sponsor, and we drove off. After asking my wife where she was from and how long she had been driving he had her do a three-point turn (don't forget to signal) and then drive back to the parking lot. He declared that further testing was a waste of everyone's time. This was of course true, but still it was surprising. I think what most surprised me was that the test was conducted by a state trooper and not a designated tester. Anyway, it was all pretty much a joke and we worried a lot about it for nothing. Final word on this, if you haven't got your license get it done. I think with the bills in congress about national standards will make the situation much worse in the future.

Can anyone tell me what kind of a dog this is? This is pretty much the kind of animal I want to get. I want something about knee high, short haired, generic looking, and smart. Where do I find a dog like this. By the way, this one saved a baby.


Finally, there is no better cure to a dull life than cheap Tequila, loud music, and no need to be anywhere. God bless Mexico and all the good things it has given us!

I'm not dead
Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not dead. Just wanted to let you know.

Is this offensive?

I found this while surfing. For those of you who don't know a large part of my family tree arrived in this country in chains, on ships, a few hundred years ago. Only lost the chains about 100 years ago. Anyway, this word really offends me, can't deny it. I'm from the south and in no way have I ever thought it was appropriate to use (although I am guilty of saying it accidently when reciting rap lyrics). Still...all that being said I think this picture is so funny. It just seems so appropriate in it's juxtaposition of little ducklings and such a vile word. The fact that the ridiculousness of one duckling making the distinction adds to the humor. Although I should add that I have been accused of being a bit abnormal so this could be more indication of that. What do you think?

Surfing the web

So I was reading the Boston Globe and I noticed a section where they had pictures of random people. They included names so I thought, what the hell, see what I can figure out from a name and a picture. I tried a number of pictures/name before I got a clear hit. The picture was this one and the person who gave a hit is the women on the right KB (initials only-do your own search):

Part of the reason she was easier to find is that her name seemed fairly unique. You only get a few hundred hits on Google. Looking through a bunch of these I discovered that she is is originally from Iowa, went to Iowa State University at least. I found a full CV (her GPA was 3.95/4.0) and that she was a sorority president, majored in communication, etc... Along with that stuff I eventually found this pic, she's on the left, what do you folks think?

Same chick? I'm not sure but the name and blonde locks looks like a great match. God, I love the internet.

Wal-Mart is Evil

Just a quick addition. NPR made me aware of some very disturbing news. A store's employees in Saguenay, Quebec organized into a union. The first Wal-Mart employees ever to do so. This of course goes against long standing policies in the US WM stores that prevent organization. So what did WM do? It closed the store. Evidently, but not admittedly, trying to set an example. Go on Quebecois, combat pour la liberte! I for one, won't shop at any bloody WM stores, or Sam's Club for that matter. Costco is an employee friendly alternative.

Tuesday Morning
Well my Disciples, after a day of reflection I think that I can say with some humility that I want to put the whole ugly situation of the last week behind me. I ultimately think that the majority of the issues that I let escalate (inside my own head) are due to cultural differences that I have only viewed from one perspective. I'm guilty of assumptions, ones that weren't fair. I can't help the fact that I got angry, I felt quite justified at the time, but, as I guess I always knew, the other party to this mess is not a bad person in any way imaginable. There are a lot of personality differences which don't mesh, but that can be worked out.

Back to my random ramblings...why does CNN still have the headline about the 'Runaway Bride' This is ridiculous. Why won't she go away? Why are we caught up in this as a public. It is so sad. Also, why does the first lady get credit as a comic for just reading a bunch of lines written by someone else. The delivery was awful.

Mrs Bush poked fun at her husband's riotous youth, saying: "I was a librarian that spent 12 hours a day in the library. Yet somehow I met George."

She somehow sounded more pathetic on the microphone then her husband. I also have to ask why does her husband always get a pass on his 'riotous youth'. He didn't stop partying until around 40. I guess I can still do coke and drink and drive, plenty of time left.

Well, another person has found a finger, this time in his ice cream. Unlike previous other claims this one is real. This brings up some real horrible imagery. The fact that so much crap must be in all our overprocessed industrialized food is really awful. When does it end?

CONGRATULATIONS! my boss, Tom Rapoport, has become a member of the National Academy of Sciences, quite prestigious.

Update? Just keeping the readers informed.
This is the "lab gossip?" that I have edited for names etc...

"....below the Philistines' camp on the opposite hill David heard Goliath yelling ... the gaint Goliath, King Saul decided to allow David to fight the giant. ..."

Hey ....,

here the gossip for Monday morning. After some days of recollection I thought I have to come up with my version of the recent collision I witnessed. It was 10 days ago between a would-be PI (editors note - would be?) and an arrogant Post-Doc, the former being Bil and the latter myself. Not so unbelievable and also true. (Hi Bil). I guess it was one of these rare occasions when gravity enhances and even tiny little masses cannot do otherwise but eventually fall into each other. The event, tragic but seemingly inevitable, led to my appearance in cyberspace, something I that made me wonder.


I was cyberwhipped by "The Man" (!) (editors note - see below), with shock and awe (see further down). In retrospect I guess I have to admit that I really behaved badly. I am not shy of confessing and there seems no need to argue. Or is there?
Almost too irrelevant are the little details that lead me to ...eehhh....insult the "The Man" (and apparently others) but reflecting over details made me wonder what made me eligible to "The Man’s" lesson. If I recall rightly (you correct me if I am wrong, Bil) I was pipetting on my bench when "The Man" started to free the neighboring bench of a lot of old stuff that had accumulated over the years, because the guys wanted to transfer the light scattering machine to the lab. At some point "The Man" must have politely asked me whether I would be willing to have part of these old accumulations plus a heat bloc on my bench from then on. Although I could not hear that sort of question (which I guess was because he must have charmingly whispered) I must have signaled him I was happy to do so because he simply put several items on my bench. However, after "The Man" was finished with cleaning the other bench he made no intentions to take care of the things he deposited in my workspace. This in turn switched on my evil mind and made me put the things back to where they originated. Well, at this point "The Man" must have tried to calmly explain to me, that my bench is public space and especially that trash is everybody’s business. Unfortunately, I could not follow his wise advises and now the man had a rather critical moment, shouting loud and starting to throw things into trashbins (maybe I am confusing things here). ... has shown up meanwhile and to his surprise witnessed the entire situation. He tried to calm "The Man" down, not easy, but "The Man" finally walked away to his bench. I lost trace of "The Man".
Later, to my surprise I was told that "The Man" has punished me hard for my evil doing (see further down). I was almost close to tears when I read about all the other wrongdoings that I had committed in the past. I learned that I might be the source of frustrations amongst fellow labmembers because I was having "group belongings" on my bench. In retrospect I am sure that many of the items that I was so hardheartedly and purposely taking away from the group and to my bench (for instance an agarose gel chamber) would have been much better off at more public places. (If I only could make that unhappen). All I can offer at this point is to not take things anymore so wrongfully and give people the items they need promptly instead of accumulating them in all the secret places that I have established on my bench. I will also try to work out my "arrogance and self-righteousness".

Now, here is "The Man’ in his own words on his blog, for those of you who have not had the chance to read it (rumors spread fast and cyberspace is cyberspace, so I guess most of you know by now):


(editors note - rehash of below no point in dragging this out)

Well, ‘nuff said. I was actually about to leave it like it is (why should I not remorsefully hide, concede and take it like "A Man"?). However, cyberspace is cyberspace and rumors are rumors, and who knows who else besides "The Man’s" disciples stumble across his empathic words. (Editors note - this response should have been made to the blog, those are the readers of it, but equal time being equal time, I've reposted it)

After all, it is an episode that is hard to take but, honestly, I teased Bil a bit on that April 22nd. I was, however, not expecting this result. Fair enough, he took his original remarks off cyberspace a day later (so you won’t find it there anymore). I am also aware of the fact that I might not appear as an angel to everybody in the lab (although I try really hard ;-) ). Well, I am not perfect and will certainly try to change some of my own attitudes if necessary and if being told properly.
Why do I write you this? I actually wanted to discuss this in a lab meeting (and we could still do this), but we had a guest last Tuesday and we will have another one on coming Tuesday. Maybe the guests wouldn’t be impressed very much.
I think in a lab one should not be shy of having arguments if necessary but they should be exchanged in an atmosphere of respect. Again, I have no problem when it comes to address problems. A little selfreflection sometimes might be good to prevent the big blame, especially if words are put on the Internet, i.e. in public space. I think we have nice people in the lab and we should try not to spoil this atmosphere with actions like this. Well, in the end I think that Bil and I are sharing space for another couple of months. Lets be cool, and share some smiles too!

Pace, brother! (And by the way, I am not from East Berlin).


(editors note - my response)


Okay, this is interesting. Fortunately I am probably the first to read this (besides ...) so it is interesting that I get a chance to reply directly. Hopefully no one else gets bored by all of this. The fact is that what ... fails to understand is that it is an accumulation of actions that led me to get angry. Admittedly, it wasn't the most mature action I've ever taken but to be honest I was pretty pissed. It wasn't the first time that ... had acted like he was separate from the group. I won't go into details but the issue is that when I moved that heat block I was returning it to the position where it originally was. It was ..., in his wisdom, who decided that the extra six inches of space on his bench was more important than a piece of shared group equipment. He decided that moving the 100C block under a computer and a bunch of cables was a good idea. I moved it back. To be honest, the fact that I had to move it back already made me frustrated, so when ... moved it again, I lost it. Like I said, there is a surprisingly long list of things that I have witnessed ... do that I let build up. Should I have mentioned this stuff to ... before, probably, but he isn't the most accessible person when it comes to this sort of thing. I know that I'm not the only person who has witnessed this and been frustrated by it.

Now that ... has called me out to my colleagues I'm not sure what he expects. I suppose we'll discuss this in lab. I'm impressed that he feels my blog has such an impact. He is probably the only person in the world who has this original angrily written comment, oh, and you now. Good luck trying to find the original anywhere else but, if you want to see the whole published bit have a look https://biltheman.tripod.com/blog scroll down to April 23rd.

I expect to be called into ...'s office today, I guess ... doesn't know how we deal with these issues in ...'s group. Maybe I'll keep you posted because it is my blog. I'll write what I want, if ... doesn't like it, he can start his own blog....

(editors note - stay posted!)

Paternity
There is the old quote that "Maternity is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion." This of course is an older way of thinking because today we have the power of molecular biology to prove a persons genetic identity. This has changed the way that our system has dealt with questions of Paternity and legal responsibility, or has it... Take this very interesting story:

A 35-year-old Maine man is being sued for child support even though a DNA test has proved the child isn’t his. Geoffrey Fisher, 35, stopped paying support in 2002, when tests showed a girl born to an old girlfriend was not his. But the state says proper paperwork wasn’t filed and it is suing him for $11,450 under its “deadbeat dad” statute. “It’s crazy,” said Fisher. “A man doesn’t have much power in a situation like this.” Thanks Phil.

This case illustrates in some way the serious issues involved in Paternity suits and maybe even the broader issue of financial responsibility.

I'm reminded of a case that happened while I was in Salt Lake City. A woman had become separated from her boyfriend early in her accidental pregnancy and opted to carry the child to term and put it up for adoption. The father was not allowed to have the child. He went to court to prevent his own offspring from going to strangers.

I definitely feel that it is important to provide protection for women in these issues. Certainly levels of education and property ownership aren't remotely close to equitable and we need to take account for that. I do think, however, that as a society we should be able to come up with a solution to the fact that paternity is no longer a choice for some. Accidents happen, especially in this society where sex education is lacking. One moment shouldn't change a persons life. A father should have some say over what happens to his childs life and his life. This of course really is an issue for a small part of these types of cases that don't occur in marriages or unions of some sort but in my opinion it is a problem.

Hitchhiker's
Finally went to see the movie version of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Not bad, but definitely lacked in oomph. That being said, I'm still a huge fan. The books are so fantastic. They are of course based on a BBC Radio series that was created by Douglas Adams who later turned the whole thing into a book. The BBC also made a TV miniseries which wasn't bad either. All in all, I love these stories and I think Adams did a good job by summing us all up as 'Mostly Harmless.'

A task for you all. The next time you go to a bar step up to the counter and say "Six pints of bitter. And quickly please, the world's about to end" and then laugh at the hilarity that will follow.

I had an interesting idea the other day. If one were to take the book of Revelations and analyze all of the signs of the anti-christ I think you could find a strong argument that Dubya fits the bill. Creepy.

Election Coverage
Today I'd like to show a little bit of what is wrong with America, the country that I love. When I opened the front page to the BBC News there is not one direct mention of the election campaign that is going on in the UK. To get the info you have to go to the UK section and find a few headlines. This is somewhat surprising considering that the BBC is a state run program. The issue is that the UK long ago realized that the news had to be truly independent and that meant sponsoring a news organization with public funds that was not answerable to any interests. Of course, this doesn't always work, people being people, but it does provide a way for the world public to get unbiased information. Todays headline is about a terrorist attack on tourists in Egypt, a country about to have its first free presidential election (fingers crossed).

Here in the US we have nothing close to an equivalent. The probable assumed national news organizations are CNN and Fox which both have headlines about a 'runaway bride' who had claimed to be kidnapped. Perfect. Fox of course takes it one step further by announcing "Jeb Bush's Health Care Fix" which in no way could ever be considered unbiased. Of course we know Fox is biased. For the whole scoop on this you should watch the great documentary Outfoxed.

The ESO, European Southern Observatory group, appears to have excellent evidence that they have found taken a picture of another planet orbiting a sun. The system is about 200 light years away. The current information is confirmation of their earlier finding but was necessary to show that the two objects moved together as a system. The planet is about 5 times the size of Jupiter. The sun is a brown dwarf and the planets orbit is about twice that of Neptunes, so it is a small diameter star and the planet is pretty far away, which is probably why we can see it.

NASA and the JPL rovers have captured pictures of dust devils on Mars. Nature has a cool story about them. I still can't believe we have a presence on another plant. I'll have to spend some time with my Caltech brothers at the JPL when I finally get to Pasadena.