1684 Why you just may need a librarian to help you with that search

Spelling. Yup. Even researchers and doctors can't agree on how to spell the little buggers. I used to be a whiz at bovine viral diarrhea virus because I knew all the British and American spelling and name variations. I've forgotten all that now since I retired 5 years ago, but I know it could make a difference of finding 75 articles or 175. So pay attention.

"Historic change in the spelling of these names is the primary reason they are published and cited in PubMed with different spellings. However, even disregarding historic taxonomic variants, ≈14.8% of Tropheryma whipplei, 14.3% of Acinetobacter baumannii, 12.3% of Coxiella burnetii, and 1.9% of Coccidioides citations are spelled incorrectly in PubMed. These relatively large percentages may mean that relevant literature is overlooked in searches."
Spelling of emerging pathogens, Emerging infectious diseases, Volume 11, Number 11—November 2005. This is the journal (free, on-line) to check about avian flu, if you are so inclined to need new things to worry about in the middle of the night.

1683 The Blizzard of O5

This one is going around the internet. I first saw it in Gekko's comments on Doyle's site, but it is also on a lot of blogs, and I believe refers to the early blizzard they had in the plains in October:

"Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 60 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorist in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
no one howled for the government...
no one even uttered an expletive on TV...
nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
no one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
no news anchors moved in.

We just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps and put on an extra layer of clothes. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

Gravity Always Wins!"
RunRyder, Bismarck, ND

1682 Naked Republican Lawyer

Although I was pretty sure I'd written about this when it happened, I can't find it in my blog search. Anyway, Stephen P. Linnen is trying to save his private law practice from the shambles he created when he was sent to prison for 18 months for jumping out from behind buildings and bushes and photographing his surprised victims' stunned expression. He did this naked. He has served some time in the Franklin County Jail, and will do the rest at home. He says, although he may have pinched a few, he didn't assault anyone. The judge didn't want him labeled a sex offender, but I sure don't want him in my neighborhood, Republican or not.

He says it was an addiction--he did it for the jolt. Next time, fella, just go to Starbucks.

November 2003 story

1681 All Hallows' Eve

November 1 is All Saints' Day on the Christian calendar, and the day before is All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween. However, it didn't start out as a Christian holy day. The early Christian missionaries who spread through Europe didn't try to eradicate the local religions, but rather just folded them into their own. All major Christian holidays have pagan roots, or Christianized roots, if you prefer. Christmas and Easter with all the strange symbols like trees, yule logs, bunnies and colored eggs are pagan in their symbols, but not in the current meaning. So when Christians complain about consumerism and the "real meaning" they should understand that way, way back, it was about worshiping something other than the one, true God. When secularists try to take a Christmas tree out of the public square, I wonder if they have any concept that they are kicking out their own!

Nevertheless, there is a lovely tale about Halloween and its beginnings among the Celts who used to be all over Europe at this well written site by Jack Santino.

"Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle."

1680 Bill Gates advice

I think I had a pop-up today that told me it is Bill Gates' 50th birthday. Then at Bonita's site I saw his 2004 address at a high school commencement, where he makes mincemeat of some of the things kids learn in school. It can be found on a holistic site, or at Bonita's.

Here's a few of my favorites.

Rule 7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

1679 This is not the way to honor Rosa Parks

A Californian complains about 100,000 stalled and stuck motorists who were forced to pay tribute to Rosa Parks on Tuesday:

". . .the westbound Santa Monica Freeway (a.k.a. Interstate 10), was partially closed for roughly 20 minutes in the middle of rush hour so that a memorial service could be held to honor Rosa Parks. KFI news announcer Terri-Rae Elmer and traffic reporter Mike Nolan indicated that the two right-most lanes of the freeway were closed for about a mile, along with several on-ramps. This small portion of the freeway is named for the recently deceased Rosa Parks."

When visiting my husband's family, I've always thought LA area traffic was horrendous--I'm not sure I could tell their snarls from their crawls.

1678 Blogger has good advice on page design

The host of my blog, blogger.com, which is owned by Google, has a good advice page on Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes. I thought #9 was particularly important, and I always pass this along to anyone I help who is setting up a blog. I also frequently remind the younger folks at LISNews that they need to be very careful about what they say about their co-workers and boss. Afterall, information is the librarian's business, and they are expert snoops and have long memories.

"9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Whenever you post anything to the Internet -- whether on a weblog, in a discussion group, or even in an email -- think about how it will look to a hiring manager in ten years. Once stuff's out, it's archived, cached, and indexed in many services that you might never be aware of.

Years from now, someone might consider hiring you for a plum job and take the precaution of 'nooping you first. (Just taking a stab at what's next after Google. Rest assured: there will be some super-snooper service that'll dredge up anything about you that's ever been bitified.) What will they find in terms of naïvely puerile "analysis" or offendingly nasty flames published under your name?

Think twice before posting. If you don't want your future boss to read it, don't post."

I regularly violate #8 which reminds bloggers to have a focus in order to develop regular readers. When it comes to information, I'm an omnivore, which is why I've split off to specialty blogs for some topics, but this one goes from personal to politics to pets to page design.

1677 Mississippi will come back

My son-in-law will be sent to Florida by his insurance company. Like many of the other people who go into devastated areas, insurance adjusters provide an important service in times of need--and have a unique viewpoint. Angle of Repose, an insurance adjuster from California, stopped by and left a comment on my previous post, so I took a look and found this message of hope and many photos that are worth a thousand posts:

"If this deputy represents the citizens of the devastated Mississippi Gulf Coast, I predict that southern Mississippi will emerge from this disaster stronger than ever. This man was polite, generous, happy, confident -- not a bit of whining or complaining about him. He didn't know if he was going to rebuild his house or sell his property. He mentioned that big money developers are moving in. I posted earlier on how this could change the area, not necessarily for the better. But whether homes or large hotel/casinos are built in this area, Mississippi will come back strong."

Unfortunately, things don't look as good for Louisiana where he says there is much griping and moaning.

1676 Architects join forces to sketch a new Mississippi

Miami-based architect Andres Duany says Mississippi had been destroyed by urban sprawl long before Katrina, and now he has a vision to rebuild it without strip malls, office parks, and housing subdivisions. So he's gathered some of like mind and they're dreaming: Chicago Trib story reprinted in Archi-Tect.

"For Biloxi, the designers advocated tearing down an elevated highway and replacing it with a ground-level boulevard that would feed traffic into the depressed downtown business district, instead of bypassing it. They also would return two-way traffic to the downtown's forlorn pedestrian mall and encourage casinos, the engine of the city's economy, to have shops that faced outward toward the street rather than turning inward, as suburban malls do."

No one really expects Mississippi will be rebuilt on the dreams of outsiders, but some fresh ideas couldn't hurt. Afterall, who but architects have designed the mess we have now inside and outside our cities?

1675 Norma’s short list for Supreme Court

Thanks to WaPo for the bios. So if you detect some affirmative action on my list, blame it on my Democrat years.

—PRISCILLA OWEN, 50: Owen was confirmed in May for a seat on the 5th Circuit after a drawn-out Senate battle. Democrats argued that Owen let her political beliefs to color her rulings. They were particularly critical of her decisions in abortion cases involving teenagers.

—EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, 57: On the 5th Circuit since 2001, Clement is known as a no-nonsense judge with a reputation for being tough on crime and meting out stiff sentences. Her 99-0 Senate confirmation vote to the circuit court in November 2001 suggests she has broad appeal. She was touted as a top possibility for the vacancy to which Roberts was nominated.

—JANICE ROGERS BROWN, 56: Newly confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after a bitter Senate battle and filibuster, Brown is an outspoken black Christian conservative who supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability.

—ALICE BATCHELDER, 61: A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Batchelder has been a reliable conservative vote on abortion, affirmative action and gun control. Bush’s father appointed the former high school English teacher to the court with jurisdiction over Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

—KAREN WILLIAMS, 54: A former trial lawyer, Williams is known as one of the most conservative judges on the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, the Richmond-based 4th Circuit. In 1999, Williams wrote the 4th Circuit opinion that would have paved the way for overturning the landmark 1966 decision in Miranda that outlines the rights read to criminal suspects. The Supreme Court voted 7-2 to let it stand.

—MAURA CORRIGAN, 57: The Michigan Supreme Court justice is a walking billboard for the conservative mantra of judicial restraint — the notion that judges should stick to interpreting the law and not making it. Her resume includes a number of firsts, among them: first woman to serve as chief assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit, first woman to serve as chief judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals.

—MAUREEN MAHONEY, 50: Often described as the female version of Chief Justice John Roberts, Mahoney, a lawyer in private practice, clerked for the late Justice William Rehnquist, served as deputy solicitor general under Kenneth Starr and has argued cases before the Supreme Court. Mahoney might upset conservatives with one of her major court wins, the landmark University of Michigan Law School case defending affirmative action.

1674 Democrats demand a moderate

Now that Hurricane Harriet has passed out to sea, Democrats are regrouping and saying they hope Bush selects a moderate. Like Ruth Bader Ginsberg perhaps? Did they demand that Clinton nominate a moderate? George Bush really isn't much of a conservative except on abortion, and if he thinks he can save a few babies in the next 30 years by successfully nominating a pro-life judge, I say, it's worth a try. I doubt that the laws will ever be turned back, but some of those babies just might grow up to be president some day, or help pay your Medicare bill and Social Security.

Update: Now about all that caving in to the extreme right wing: Jeff Goldstein writes--"Question: how many “bases” does the President have, exactly? I mean, for years we’ve been hearing from Democrats and the legacy media how James Dobson, Hugh Hewitt, the evangelicals, et al, are Bush’s “right wing” conservative base—but these are the very people who, in addition to GOP party pragmatists, by and large were most supportive of the Miers nomination.

And yet today, all I’m hearing is that Bush caved to his “extremist” “right wing base.” "
HT Sister Told Jah

I wondered about that, too. So are there right-wing-secularist like Ann Coulter and George Will who were having hissy fits about Harriet, and right-wing-religious like Dobson and Hewitt? Or are the Democrats just mad because now they'll have to have a real debate about issues involving the court.

1673 How many ways can you say, Be Prepared?

Can you believe those Florida whiners? Or the American tourists in Cancun who think the U.S. military or FEMA should rescue them from shelters? Hello! How many days warning did you folks get? Six or seven? Some complainers are out-of-state. I know a very bright, well-educated, professional Columbus woman stuck in Florida, who just assumed she’d hop on a flight right after the hurricane. I guess she thought they’d leave all those jets just sitting on the run way waiting for her. She had plenty of time to get out before Wilma--in fact, had to change her ticket to stay.

And the media is playing right into it. Last night ABC Evening News was tsk-tsking because 72 hours after hurricane Wilma passed through there were long lines of people waiting for food and water and ice. I rarely ever buy food in quantity, but even at our house with what I have on hand from week to week, we could eat nicely for three days. I’d rather go without ice than stand in line for 7 hours in hopes of getting some. Where are their brains?

If I knew a hurricane was coming to my neighborhood, I would leave. However, since they sometimes don’t go where expected, I’d have my charcoal grill ready, my bathtub filled with water (actually, I don't have one, but most people do) and several filled ice chests in reserve. I’d have flashlights and candles, a lot of cash on hand, and a gasoline powered chain saw. I’d have sandwiches made up ahead of time, and if I had a lot of food in the freezer, I’d use it up or cook it the week before the hurricane hit land.

Responsibility. Common sense. Ingenuity. Planning. Foresight. Backbone. These are what are in short supply in some people’s homes--first, second and third responders have none to give away.

Doyle is a Floridian and she thinks the same and so does Florida Cracker.

1672 Laura Bush's new education push

A story in USAToday covered Laura Bush's new focus on programs to rescue young boys. At one point in the interview where the descreasing enrollment of young men in college is brought up, she says:

"I think we need to examine the way we're teaching children from elementary school. Are we asking boys to sit still when they really want to jump around? Is it because boys have fewer and fewer role models because such a large percentage of elementary teachers are women? I suspect those are the reasons."

About 25 years ago I attended one of the gazillion workshops of my career and remember a speaker who believed that young boys do better in spatial and abstract reasoning than girls because they DO NOT have male teachers and thus from an early age have to try to figure out by guessing and making mistakes, just exactly what those lady teachers want. This fine tunes the brain, apparently. Little girls, just have to imitate and follow the rules. That's the only place I've ever heard that idea, and it may be crazy, but there are many more male teachers in the lower grades than there used to be, and boys aren't doing as well.

The theory probably doesn't apply to private, single gender schools where other factors like wealth and education level of parents come in to play.

1671 Ah Judy, we hardly knew ye

There are some key phrases in the memo from Bill Keller, New York Times, to Jim Romanesko (journalism industry news and forum, published by The Poynter Institute) absolving himself and the Times of any credit or blame in the WMD stories preceding and during the Bush administration, or in defending Judith Miller. This message is so full of “shoulda, coulda, woulda,” I’d be embarrassed to have it out there where reasonable people can see it. I've selected a few phrases, and added some of my own under the breath comments. I don't think I could have gotten away with this many excuses in my job. Could you?

what I should have done differently

I wish I had chosen my words more carefully

we wish we had made different decisions

the clarity of hindsight

I wish we had dealt with the controversy over our coverage of WMD as soon as I became executive editor.

It felt somehow unsavory to begin a tenure by attacking our predecessors

a huge new job

get the paper fully back to normal [after the last big scandal of lack of oversite]

I feared the WMD issue could become a crippling distraction [it wasn‘t on my radar because we all believed it]

[it was] a year before we got around to really dealing with the controversy [WMD]

published a long editors’ note acknowledging the prewar journalistic lapses [does not list these lapses]

we intensified aggressive reporting aimed at exposing the way bad or manipulated intelligence had fed the drive to war [does list these points, but now we know why all the negative reporting]

By waiting a year to own up to our mistakes, we allowed the anger inside and outside the paper to fester [this is soooo touchy feely]

we fostered an impression that The Times put a higher premium on protecting its reporters than on coming clean with its readers. [well, you’ve certainly corrected that one, haven’t you, by hanging Miller out there]

If we had lanced the WMD boil earlier [but you didn’t know it was a boil--your paper supported WMD stories, especially during Clinton years]

wish that when I learned Judy Miller had been subpoenaed [what is your usual routine when a reporter is subpoenaed?]

and [wish I’d] followed up with some reporting of my own

under other circumstances it might have been fine [what would those circumstances be?]

I missed what should have been significant alarm bells [finally, some admission of guilt]

I should have wondered why I was learning this from the special counsel [but I didn’t]

This alone should have been enough to make me probe deeper [but I didn’t]

I’m pretty sure I would have concluded [but we’ll never know, will we]

we were facing an insidious new menace in these blanket waivers [huh?]

But if I had known the details of Judy’s entanglement [I try never to ask reporters about their sources or truth of the stories]

I’d have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense

[there should be] a contract between the paper and its reporters [long list learned in journalism school]

how we deal with the inherent conflict of writing about ourselves [as I’m doing now, badly]

rival publications are unconstrained [everybody’s doing it, especially that mean right wing]

I don’t yet see a clear-cut answer to this dilemma [but please, I don’t want to be fired like the last guy]

1670 Kindergartner's free speech

Can a kindergartner's poster be hung on the bulletin board of the school if he depicts Jesus? Well, after 6 years, the court of appeals has sent it back to a lower court for another look at free speech.

"Antonio Peck, who attended Catherine McNamara Elementary School in Baldwinsville, N.Y., as a kindergarten student during the 1999-2000 school year, included an image of Jesus and other religious elements in a poster created in fulfillment of a homework assignment on the environment.

The student reportedly was expressing his belief that God was the only way to save the environment."

I suppose the school administrators thought the next step would be forced teaching of Creationism, if a 5 year old thought God could save an errant human race from self-destructing.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan remanded the case back to a federal district court Monday [Oct. 17] for further consideration, so I suppose this could end up someday in the Supreme Court, or by the time little Tony graduates from college. WorldNetDaily

The boy's counsel said: ""The school humiliated Antonio when the teacher folded his poster in half so that the cutout drawing of Jesus could not be seen. To allow a kindergarten poster to be displayed for a few hours on a cafeteria wall, along with 80 other student posters, is far from an establishment of religion.

"To censor the poster solely because some might perceive a portion of it to be religious is an egregious violation of the Constitution." " NewsMax

"In the Peck vs. Baldwinsville School District case, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals joined with the ninth and eleventh Circuit Courts who hold the view that discrimination--even in the public school setting--is unconstitutional.

Conversely, the first and tenth Circuit Courts opine that discrimination in the public school context is permissible.

This split in opinion could land Antonio in the Supreme Court--something which Staver says he would be all for." Catholic News Agency

The child must be white, male, a non-immigrant and non-handicapped, because I didn't see anything about this in the MSM. If you did, just correct me with the link.

1669 Falling behind in math

At Carnival of Education this week I noticed an item on teaching math, always my weak area. But I was happy to see they did it right in the old days, even if I didn't catch on.

". . . in Japan, Singapore and Russia, they do teach math differently. They teach it correctly. They teach content. They teach skills and facts as a foundation upon which understanding will be built. They teach like they used to in the U.S." Kitchen Table Math

Math wasn't required when I went to college, so I took an evening class at OSU in the mid-70s. New math was really BIG then, but fortunately a high school math teacher was teaching the class. I squeaked through with an A- I think.

1668 Where are you safer?

This tidbit comes from Dane Bramage's blog, and I can't verify its source. But it is an interesting thought.

"If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000.

The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has 20 some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq."

Actually, many of the deaths of our military in Iraq have been caused by accidents, not firearms or bombs. This is probably going around in forwarded e-mail and just hasn't caught up to me yet.

1667 What do the Democrats need to do

to take back the Congress, the Presidency and the Courts? Well, a few weeks ago all you needed to do was type in “Democrats need. . .” into Google and you’d find that Democrats were longing, begging even, for some good, strong ideas, values and concepts. But that’s all changed during the Fall of 2005. Bush has stumbled badly and his base is discouraged. And it’s this, not ideas or programs, that has energized the Democrats. It’s really pathetic--from both parties--isn’t it? The Democrats still have no ideas, but they’re smelling blood, and they know how soft and wimpy the Republican voters are. The President of big, bold ideas cracks up when he should be going for the gold. He should be rallying the troops and giving us one of the best courts in the history of the nation. Here’s what one Dem wrote (probably last November):

“I disagree with most of the President’s agenda. As a Democrat that’s no surprise. But I am jealous of Republicans. They have a leader taking bold steps domestically and internationally. Where is the Democratic leader with big ideas? Why am I stuck with candidates who, when faced with these issues, lamely come up with lock-boxes, school uniforms and foreign consultations?” Chris Burke. Raw story. Can’t find a date on this column (I think it is defunct), but it appears to be late November 2004.

Most of these Google headlines are from Democrats like Helen Thomas, Ted Kennedy, Carville, and liberal MSM columnists. A few are from blogs; very few from Republicans.

Do Democrats Need Their Own Gingrich?

The Democrats Need a Spiritual Left

Democrats Need Changes on Abortion

Democrats Need to Support Major Paul Hackett (Iraq war vet)

Do Democrats Need the South?

Democrats Need a New Plan for Social Security

Democrats need a consensus builder for mayor

What Democrats Need to Leave Behind in Order to Win

Democrats need to start acting more like the people's party they once were

Dems need stronger narrative to win

Democrats need a twang

Democrats Don’t Need a New Message—They Need Ideas

Democrats need to come up with some ideas

Democrats Need to Hang on to Values

Democrats Need To Prepare Now For Another Social Security Push By The GOP (too bad that didn’t happen)

Is Harry Reid the leader the Democrats need?

Democrats need fire in belly to save party

Democrats need to be introspective: Kerry was a lousy candidate

Democrats need a strategy

The Democrats will need every black and Latino vote they can get

Democrats need to get over themselves on Iraq

Democrats Need to Rejoin America

1666 Mom, she's just a puppy!

My son's been telling me that about his chocolate lab Rosa for 2.5 years. I don't know what she's eating these days, but she's done wall board and bedspreads. Jelly has a great post about her dogs. Some great photos and text if you feel like scrolling. I have no idea who Jelly is, but she has a cool looking blog.

1665 This is adorable

You can create your own ad. This is really cute and if you're stuck at home with a terrible cold and have nothing to write about except Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, go to the Ad Conceptor and plug in some details. I selected "athletic shoes, plus edgy, plus over 55." A video came on of two guys trying to sell old fogies like me the idea that I needed new shoes. Pretty cute. I don't know if it will replace real ad writers, but it's good for a laugh. Now I'm going to go back and try my hand at fast food. Did you hear that McDonald's is going to start posting nutritional info on its packaging? Where's the fun in french fries if you have to read how much salt and fat they have?