Football Frenzy: Dangers in the Locker Room

Careful Hygiene Can Ward Off Staph Infections

November 1, 2006 — Drug-resistant staph infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus have become more common outside prisons and hospitals, and have been known to spread among athletes in the locker room. Athletes can develop aggressive skin infections when small cuts or scratches come into contact with MRSA through contaminated equipments, clothing, or towels. Preventative measures, such as ultraviolet light filters in the locker room Jacuzzi, and adjustments in the players' behaviors are crucial steps to preventing the spread of MRSA.

Killing Germs

In Hospitals, Air Ducts with Silver-Based Coating Stay Germ-Free

September 1, 2005 — Preventing hospital infections -- from such stubborn bugs as Staphylococcus aureus -- could get a little easier with a new non-toxic, silver-based material. Used in coating, it helps keep hospital air ducts bacterium- and fungus-free. The material is also used in a number of products including athletic footwear, door hardware, pens and business supplies.

DUARTE, Calif.--For more than 6,000 years, humans have used silver to fight germs, also known as microbes. Now, some hospitals are using a silver compound to reduce hospital infections.

You can't see them, but millions of microorganisms are living quietly among us, in places where we least expect them.

one Granny D. ... Whaddaya say?

RUN GRANNY RUN

Run Granny Run is the inspirational story of Doris “Granny D” Haddock’s road from political activist to the Democratic candidate for US Senate in New Hampshire. The documentary initially was to focus on campaign finance reform, but director Marlo Poras instead found himself surprised to be in the middle of one of the most unusual political campaigns to ever happen in this country where a 94 year old woman with few resources but a lot of guts was facing off against a two time incumbent Senator with a load of cash.

Granny D narrates much of the movie, and in her own words: “When I was younger, I always tried to be active in my community but really, who has the time?…… And then when I turned 89, death came. Death took my husband and then my best friend and I thought I was next. I needed a reason to live. And I found that reason. It was my country.”

The Republicans are worried that we can't pay to insure an additional 10 million children, they sure don't care about finding $200 billion dollars to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where you going to get that money? You going to tell us lies, like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war or children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people ... if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement.

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The first is on SCHIP and the second is on the hi-jacking of the California healthcare plans by the insurance industry

Send a message to Congress about SCHIP here, or here

Send a free fax to your legislators about California healthcare here

Click

Tue, 09/25/2007 - 11:13am.

President Bush concluded his remarks several minutes ago, and I just got my hands on the text of his speech. Several of the foreign names in the draft include handy phonetic pronunciations. Want to talk like the president? Here's how to do it:
* Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan]
* Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a]
* Harare [hah-RAR-ray]
* Mugabe [moo-GAH-bee]
* Sarkozy [sar-KO-zee]
* Caracas [kah-RAH-kus]

Oddly, there are no training wheels in the draft for the toughest name of all: that of Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, which I can't even pronounce.

Stem Cell video [click]

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Lung-Cancer Blood Test

A pharmaceutical company is developing a highly sensitive test that could catch the deadly disease in its early stages.

By Katherine Bourzac

Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other cancer. Doctors know that smokers and former smokers are at much greater risk than the rest of the population, yet there's no safe way to screen them, and lung tumors are rarely discovered in early, more curable stages.

Now researchers at a Gaithersburg, MD, pharmaceutical company say they have found that 99 percent of patients with all stages of lung cancer have detectable levels of a particular protein in their blood that healthy individuals do not. The company, Panacea Pharmaceuticals, is reporting encouraging preliminary results for its test for the protein this week at a conference of the American Association for Cancer Research. The company is working toward federal approval to market the test for high-risk patients.

"Lung cancer is the only major cancer with no approved screening procedure," points out David Carbone, director of Vanderbilt University's Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center's research program in lung cancer. Smokers and former smokers have a ten- to fiftyfold greater risk of developing lung cancer. But "there's no way to detect [lung cancer] before they're coughing up blood and suffering shoulder pain," signs of advanced cancer, says Carbone.

Quicktime video
Here's the story behind the picture:

Through the viewfinder of his camera, Ensign John Gay could see the fighter plane drop from the sky heading toward the port side of the aircraft carrier Constellation. At 1,000 feet, the pilot drops the F/A-18C Hornet to increase his speed to 750 mph, vapor flickering off the curved surface of the plane. In the precise moment a cloud in the shape of a farm-fresh egg forms around the Hornet 200 yards from the carrier, its engines rippling the Pacific Ocean just 75 feet below, Gay hears an explosion and snaps his camera shutter once.

"I clicked the same time I heard the boom, and I knew I had it," Gay said. What he had was a technically meticulous depiction of the sound barrier being broken July 7, 1999, somewhere on the Pacific between Hawaii and Japan.

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Wonkette has the video

HT/Suin @ FDL

Minister tackled, arrested by Capitol police at Petraeus hearing

by: pam
Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 07:00:00 AM EDT

[UPDATE: Liz from Hip Hop Caucus passed on word that Rev. Yearwood has a broken leg as a result of the fracas with the police.]

If you had any doubts about the near-police state we are in, take a look at this: Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., president of the grassroots political organization Hip Hop Caucus, attempted to attend the Petraeus hearings yesterday, along with many others who had to pass a checkpoint to file into the room.

Rev. Yearwood was not only stopped from entering the room, but he was tackled by six Capitol police officers, which resulted in a trip to the hospital. It was all captured on video.

You can hear people yelling "take it easy" and "he's a minister" and asking him "are you hurt?" in the background when the Capitol police officers push him to the ground. According to Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, Rev. Yearwood was tackled and detained by SIX cops because he allegedly refused to go to the end of the line of people waiting to enter the hearing room. He was charged with disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer.

youtube

Electrodes stir man from six-year coma state

Thursday, 2 August 2007
by Samantha Medina
Cosmos Online

SYDNEY: A brain-damaged man, trapped in a coma-like state for six years, has been brought back to consciousness by doctors who planted electrodes deep inside his brain.

The method, called deep-brain electrical stimulation (DBS) has successfully roused communication, complex movement and eating ability in the 38 year-old American man who suffered a traumatic brain injury and for six years showed few signs of recovery.

Click


youtube

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Picture and video of Assembly-speaker Fabian Nunez talking about the negotiations

BREAKING NEWS: STATE BUDGET PASSES 27-13

* SENATE APPROVES PLAN
* BUDGET HEADS TO GOVERNOR
* 52 DAY CRISIS COMES TO END

The State Senate approved the budget bill, SB 77, this afternoon (August 21), bringing to an end the budget stalemate that has lasted 52 days. Action by the Assembly was needed on some budget related bills (trailer bills), including SB 203, which replaced SB 83 as the health "trailer bill".

The budget bill now heads to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for approval, which is likely to come within the next few days.

Advocates remain concerned about the Governor's pledge to Senate Republicans to make an additional $700 million in spending reductions and savings in the budget being sent to him, using his line item veto power.

The Schwarzenegger Administration has not disclosed publicly where those cuts would come.

Which one of these is not like the others?

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Clockwise starting at top left

Windsor Hotel, Madrid Spain

1st Interstate Bank building, Los Angeles

World Trade Center, NYC

Shanghai World Financial Center, Shanghai

Watch this video then answer the question

Click

I defy anyone but the psychopaths in Washington to not tear up when you watch this video. This is one result of your tax money that buys rockets, bombs, missiles and bullets - they call them kinetic weapons - so anytime you hear a military consultant on the news say, "kinetic," you'll know it's a euphemism for bomb.

http://mothersdayforpeace.com/salee.php

On November 7, 2006, ten-year-old Salee was playing outside her home in Hasswa, Iraq with her brother, cousin and some friends when US jets circled overhead. Suddenly the jets fired three missiles, apparently at two passenger vehicles. One of the missiles hit Salee's home, killing her brother and taking both of Salee's legs.

In the video Salee's Father said, "Some of us ran into the house, overcome by terror." ... "In fear we had forgotten the children outside" ... "I asked if anyone was hurt because all of our clothes were stained with the blood and flesh that had sprinkled over the fence" ... "Akram and Tabarak were scattered in pieces on the ground"

Watch the video

More videos of Salee from the genius that is, Robert Greenwald

FILM: SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Is Sacramento the Next Katrina?
A film and discussion about Sacramento's history of levees and flooding with the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.

Following a screening of the History Channel documentary, Mega Disasters: California's Katrina, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency will lead a discussion that explores Sacramento's history with flooding, its levees and their current state, and what the future holds for protecting Sacramento from what occurred with New Orleans' levees.
Time: Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 3:00pm PST

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Here's what he wrote of the Rapturite Christian Fundamentalists

On July 16, I attended Christians United for Israel's annual Washington-Israel Summit. Founded by San Antonio-based megachurch pastor John Hagee, CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and his minions have forged close ties with the Bush White House and members of Congress from Sen. Joseph Lieberman to Sen. John McCain. In its call for a unilateral military attack on Iran and the expansion of Israeli territory, CUFI has found unwavering encouragement from traditional pro-Israel groups like AIPAC and elements of the Israeli government.

But CUFI has an ulterior agenda: its support for Israel derives from the belief of Hagee and his flock that Jesus will return to Jerusalem after the battle of Armageddon and cleanse the earth of evil. In the end, all the non-believers - Jews, Muslims, Hindus, mainline Christians, etc. - must convert or suffer the torture of eternal damnation. Over a dozen CUFI members eagerly revealed to me their excitement at the prospect of Armageddon occurring tomorrow. Among the rapture ready was Republican Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. None of this seemed to matter to Lieberman, who delivered a long sermon hailing Hagee as nothing less than a modern-day Moses. Lieberman went on to describe Hagee's flock as "even greater than the multitude Moses commanded."

Video

[Triple exposure of artist Pablo Picasso drawing w. light at his home in Vallauris by Gjon Mili.]

Mixed Signals

Does your favorite book smell like textured circles? Do you think you are the same age as the cerulean blue, steadfast, brotherly, male number 4? Do you dislike the personality of your bedroom’s doorframe? Do you see white when you stub your toe? Does the odor of road tar taste salty? Does Sting's voice look like golden spheres?

If so, you are almost certainly a synesthete. (Most people are!) Synesthesia literally refers to the fact that in some animals, a stimulus in one sense modality involuntarily elicits a sensation/experience in another sense modality.

July 20, 1969, 7:56 PM PST

The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of the Apollo programs, and the third human voyage to the moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.