ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2010) — In a landmark study to be published in the journal Nature, scientists have been able to create the first picture of genetic processes that happen inside every cell of our bodies. Using a 3-D visualization method called X-ray crystallography, Song Tan, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University, has built the first-ever image of a protein interacting with the nucleosome -- DNA packed tightly into space-saving bundles organized around a protein core. The research is expected to aid future investigations into diseases such as cancer.
You may well remember this poem from your high school days (if you are of a certain age) and it is something to which those in a liberal education environment were exposed. It seems somehow to have been lost in the rush to follow curricula perhaps considered more modern, which is a great shame. The poem in its simplistic power is easy enough for ten year olds to take in the ramifications of its message..
This marvellous animation, a real blast from the past, is the 1964 animated version of the poem, created by Les Goldman and Paul Julian. Herschel Bernardi is the narrator. The film was a co-winner of the Silver Sail award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1964.
The story is quite simple as it the somewhat dated animation techniques (which do give it a real flavor of its time and place however). A hangman who arrives in a small town and begins to execute its citizens one by one. As each citizen is led to the gallows, the rest are afraid to object out of fear that they will be next. Ultimately there is nobody left in the town apart from the Hangman and the poem's narrator. The narrator is then executed by the hangman as there is no one left who will defend him.
The poem is about about acquiescence to the state when it begins to oppress others. Some though that Ogden was referring to The Holocaust, others yet thought that he was delivering a metaphorical critique of McCarthyism. If he indeed wrote about anything specific it is not necessary to know the absolute specifics as we must interpret the work for our own time. With that in mind, the poem has lost none of its powers.
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Earlier this morning Glen E Friedman got a call from pal Russell Simmons asking for help on a new project to send a message about the current Ground Zero Mosque hullabaloo.
Glen and Russell collaborated similarly some years back on what is now known as The Liberty Street Protest [more photos, and previous BB coverage here & here]—massive antiwar signs housed in the windows of Russell's apartment, which is literally across the street from Ground Zero.
This new visual protest today occupies those very same windows. It addresses all who believe that the First Amendment and freedom of religion applies only to them.
By Brian Day, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/20/2010 06:52:24 PM PDT
CASTAIC - A high-tech ray gun built for the military that fires an invisible heat beam capable of causing unbearable pain will be tested on unruly inmates in the sheriff's detention facility in Castaic, officials said Friday at an unveiling event.
The "Assault Intervention System" (AIS) developed by the Raytheon Co., could give the Sheriff's Department "another tool" to quell disturbances at a 65-inmate dormitory at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility, said Cmdr. Bob Osborne, head of the technology exploration branch of the sheriff's Department of Homeland Security Division.
[...]
Similar devices have already been sold to the U.S. military, however the machine demonstrated Friday is the first to be placed in an American correctional institution, sheriff's officials said.
[...]
When asked if the public can expect to see similar AIS devices mounted on patrol cars in the future or attached to deputies' utility belts, Osborne said, "not in my lifetime."
But Booen said his company is working on much smaller versions of the AIS. Progress on that research is a closely held secret, he added.
"That's our vision," said Booen. "We want to get to the point where it is a hand-held device."
As California Republicans address the “Pension Tsunami”
Lungren enjoys lavish LRS Pension
ELK GROVE, CA – On Saturday August 21, 2010, the California Republican Party is hosting their fall convention, which will feature a workshop on “The ‘Pension Tsunami Facing California.” The agenda for the workshop states that it will address the issue of lavish pension packages:
[...]
If California Republicans are really looking for “concrete examples of lavish pension packages,” they could look to one of their own: Rep. Dan Lungren. In 2009, Lungren received $55,697 in pension income from the California Legislators Retirement Pension (LRS) for only eight years of service as attorney general. (Financial Disclosure Statement, “Schedule I: Earned Income,” United States Clerk of the House, Dan Lungren)
Lungren’s LRS pension has far exceeded the pension income earned by the average state employee in California. According to calculations by the Orange County Register, under the pension plan offered to typical state employees, an 11-year employee would be eligible, at most, for $40,738 annually. (Orange County Register, 8/13/10)
Moreover, Lungren enjoyed a significant spike in his pension payments due to a 25.9% salary increase he received during his final month in office ...
The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 is one of the most intense, widespread, and long-lasting heat waves in world history. Only the European heat wave of 2003, which killed 35,000 - 50,000 people, and the incredible North American heat wave of July 1936, which set all-time extreme highest temperature records in fifteen U.S. states, can compare. All of these heat waves were caused by a highly unusual kink in the jet stream that remained locked in place for over a month.
... They are now termed "advise and assist brigades" by the administration, and the press dutifully reported this new term in their stories.
No wonder the press missed it. They can’t be expected to take dictation and fact-check it too.
Normally, misleading text and headlines are so commonplace they just don’t bother one like they used to. But this is Iraq. And I’m worried that the American public may be misled into thinking that all we’ll have over there a month from now are a few clerks and supply officers. The public might wrongly perceive from a false-fact like "all combat troops gone" that the light they’re seeing at the end of this horrific tunnel is fairly strong, when maybe it’s not that strong and it’s pretty far away.
What the administration has done (and the press would know this if they’d simply do their collective job) is rebrand the Iraqi mission with an new tag-line (“New Dawn”), and re-label six fully-combat-capable brigades with new, kinder and gentler titles. That’s basically the story. Here’s the February memo from Gates to CENTCOM giving the go-ahead to roll-out the kinder/gentler new mission tag-line that we’ll all going to hear so much about.
The New Dawn mission tagline and associated public relations effort doesn’t fit well with the word “combat”–and actually the American people have had their fill of the term too. So no accident that the administration has simply renamed six (or so) brigade combat teams as “advise and assist” brigades. The units may have received minor personnel changes, but otherwise are in no way different from existing combat brigades in Iraq. Indeed, some or maybe all of them are already deployed and functional under our current “Operation Iraqi Freedom” mission. The only thing that has changed is the name.
Submitted by Tjadendevries on Sun, 08/15/2010 - 5:55pm
The video is from the Calico Roundup in Nv. last January where the horses were stampeded for miles and miles over volcanic rock and ran the hooves off of young foals
It goes without saying that this guy plead guilty as part of a plea bargain for violating Federal Law [pdf file]. The horses he was rounding up were going to company that shipped them to Mexico for slaughter. More about the slaughter issue below with pictures
Another video below - fast forward to about the 7 minute mark
A state appellate court has declared that rules regulating talk among strangers at the Galleria at Roseville violate California Constitution free speech guarantees.
A Placer County judge earlier had thrown out the case, finding that the owner's rules of conduct pass constitutional muster.
But, in stark contrast, a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal declared this week in a 43-page opinion that "the rules are unconstitutional on their face" under the state constitution.
The panel reversed Placer Superior Court Judge Larry D. Gaddis' ruling in favor of Westfield LLC, and sent the case back to him for further proceedings.
The specific rule at issue prohibits a person in the center's common areas from "approaching patrons with whom he or she was not previously acquainted for the purpose of communicating with them on a topic unrelated to the business interests" of the mall or its tenants.
Federally-backed program aims to help outsourcers in South Asia become more fluent in areas like Java programming—and the English language.
Despite President Obama’s pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia.
Assemblyman Ted Gaines announced today that he is running in the special election for the 1st Senate District seat.
The Roseville Republican, who is wrapping up his second term in the Assembly, pledged to continue to oppose tax increases if elected to the Senate.
"Since my election to the Assembly in 2006, I have worked hard to bring common sense conservative principles to the State Capitol," he said. "I will not support any tax increase on the people or businesses of California and I will never compromise my principles just to 'get a deal done' or move the process along."
Submitted by Tjadendevries on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 2:45pm
Four subjects: 1st, how the Chilean coastline was dramatically and violently altered during last February's earthquake; then, instructions on how to make your own air quality sensor (without having to rely on the tv weatherperson); then, video of the thunderstorm that created the world's largest hailstone; and finally, the mystery of the declining California Sea Otter population
Assemblyman Ted Gaines announced today that he is running in the special election for the 1st Senate District seat.
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