My Blog (Verbose)

Oh the horror of it all!

CarpenterNJ — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:56:37 GMT

It is the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving and we are out of mayonnaise! There seem to be two serious camps on this issue. Miracle Whip vs. the Mayo crowd. I am definitely on team Mayo. Salad dressing on a turkey sandwich? I think not. Off to the Busy Bee Molly and I went. $5.99 for a small jar of mayo! *YIKES!* But it is a must for cold turkey sandwiches. This is why we call it the five dollar store, everything costs five bucks. They are open 24/7/365 and I can get a pack of smokes and gas up my truck every day of the year. The G-unit is doing Santa Saturday in Asbury Park today with the Pocono Warriors bike club. Edward is forcing me to wash my bed clothes today. WTF! My side of the bed is clean; it is Molly’s side that is a mess. Hey, maybe I will get lucky this weekend. Clean sheets are always a plus. ;o)

Oh joy

CarpenterNJ — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:30:15 GMT

I have an internet stalker it seems. The good bit is that he is over 3,000 miles away in the “land of fruits and nuts” and he will not show up on my door step anytime soon… Furry little bottom cubs don’t flip my switch to be honest. Yeah, I do work for the Navy. And no I don’t ever do my customers! Some very strange things going on in that lad's head it seems. I have enough trouble living vicariously through myself, so I really don't need any help. “Lost in Space” had its moments but I don’t obsess over it. Now give me some “Babylon 5” and I am there in a heartbeat. Chill out dude! :o/

So what the fuck is this shit?!

CarpenterNJ — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:28:48 GMT

A few notes on SEROQUEL’s modes of action The precise pathophysiology of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is not fully understood, but these conditions are thought to result from imbalances in the complex interrelated neurotransmitter systems involving dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine, also known as noradrenaline, in regions of the brain including the limbic system, striatum and the prefrontal cortex. Which in a word means that they don’t have a fucking clue as to how it works, but it seems to help me function better. SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) like Prozac and Zoloft make bipolars worse because they only enhance this imbalance. Trust me, I took Zoloft for seven years and never had an orgasm while I was on that crap. The big thing is to get the Dx right in the 1st place before you start throwing pills at it. Simple bipolar is an easy diagnosis one would think since they trend only a few times a year. Ultradians present a bit of a problem in psychiatry seeing that we cycle so rapidly that the pattern is often missed. We are not manic for months or depressed for weeks, instead we run the gambit in a matter of days. My cycle is usually 12-15 days and it is pretty much like clockwork. Houston, we have a problem. And it is a biggie. How do you medicate a hyperphasic psychotic using psychotropic drugs that take weeks to have any clinical results? And the word “psychotic” does not require one to dress in one’s dead mother’s clothes and stab folks in the shower btw. It is a disconnection from reality, albeit in varying degrees. My DDx (Dual Diagnosis) has the caveat “Psychotic Features” attached because sometimes I do hear and see things that are not real. Schizophrenics and Psychotics really believe what they are experiencing is truly real but it isn’t. I know that they are not but it sucks nonetheless. And if being a homo is not bad enough, try being a crazy one. I have a job, a dog, a car, and a house (no teenage daughter with a see-through blouse). God it is Frank Zappa, I couldn’t help myself. Where was I going with this? I honestly don’t know. Take 1,000mg’s of this stuff and add 2,000mg’s of Depakote. Throw in 22.5mg’s of Temazepam, 150mg’s of Trazodone, and 2mg’s of Klonopin and try to make a complete sentence. I am okay with being a bit of a nut job; I get up and go to work (when I can) like many of you do. But I am still considered to be “damaged goods”. Which is so unfair. I am disabled but I don’t require a wheelchair. All we ask is to not be judged for it. These folks help me. http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home Peace Namaste’ John ;o)

When all else fails there is always more Seroquel

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:02:05 GMT

Today started out pretty quiet and for some reason things suddenly got very “noisy” in my head. I have no idea what the trigger was but I am hearing shit again. I have three forms of the atypical anti-psychotic drug quetiapine fumarate. They come in 50’s, 200’s, and 400’s and I am eating them like candy lately. One thing for sure is that Astra Zeneca is making a boat load of money on me. 60 four hundred mg pills costs Aetna $5,000.00 a pop, but I take 10 other scripts as well. I can’t imagine what my HIV meds cost them. If the state was not paying for them I would probably be dead by now. But the dead don’t pay taxes… Now that is a diabolical loop for sure. Edward wants me to sleep for a bit. But I am hungry. I want “toad in the hole” and then I will have a nap. Peace Namaste’ John ;o)

Thanksgiving 2009 part two

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:21:36 GMT

Edward and I had our family things to do yesterday, so today we will do it again for Giuseppe who sat home alone. I felt kinda’ bad about that actually. He has no clan to speak of and we all need our holidays. Thawing a 22 pound turkey in the fridge for a week is not unlike trying to melting an iceberg in the Antarctic. The damn thing is still a block of ice. Into the sink it goes! Conduction is always faster then convection. See, physics really does have some practical applications in real life. Water moves heat faster than air. In an hour or so the bird will be thawed. And we will have left-over’s for days. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because there is always a ton of food to pick at. I hope you all had a good day. Time to cook some more. Peace Namaste’ John ;o)

Today’s show is brought to you by the letter “D” for Delta

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:56:36 GMT

It involves a lot of integral calculus which I will never understand but it works. The Dirac delta or Dirac's delta is a mathematical construct introduced by theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Informally, it is a generalized function representing an infinitely sharp peak bounding unit area: a 'function' δ(x) that has the value zero everywhere except at x = 0 where its value is infinitely large in such a way that its total integral is 1. In the context of signal processing it is often referred to as the unit impulse function. The Dirac delta is not strictly a function, because any function that is equal to zero everywhere but a single point must have total integral zero. While for many purposes it can be manipulated as a function, formally it can be defined as a distribution that is also a measure. In many applications, the Dirac delta is regarded as a kind of limit (a weak limit) of a sequence of functions having a tall spike at the origin. The approximating functions of the sequence are thus "approximate" or "nascent" delta functions. The graph of the delta function is usually thought of as following the whole x-axis and the positive y-axis. (This informal picture can sometimes be misleading, for example in the limiting case of the sinc function.). Despite its name, the delta function is not truly a function, at least not a usual one with domain in reals. For example, the objects f(x) = δ(x) and g(x) = 0 are equal everywhere except at x = 0 yet have integrals that are different. According to Lebesgue integration theory, if f and g are functions such that f = g almost everywhere, then f is integrable if and only if g is integrable and the integrals of f and g are identical. Rigorous treatment of the Dirac delta requires measure theory or the theory of distributions. The Dirac delta is used to model a tall narrow spike function (an impulse), and other similar abstractions such as a point charge, point mass or electron point. For example, to calculate the dynamics of a baseball being hit by a bat, one can approximate the force of the bat hitting the baseball by a delta function. In doing so, one not only simplifies the equations, but one also is able to calculate the motion of the baseball by only considering the total impulse of the bat against the ball rather than requiring knowledge of the details of how the bat transferred energy to the ball. In applied mathematics, the delta function is often manipulated as a kind of limit (a weak limit) of a sequence of functions, each member of which has a tall spike at the origin: for example, a sequence of Gaussian distributions centered at the origin with variance tending to zero. The idea of using a sequence of functions to approximate a unit impulse goes back to the early 19th century, and was considered by Augustin Louis Cauchy and Siméon Denis Poisson in connection with the study of wave propagation, and later in this connection by Gustav Kirchhoff. Kirchhoff and Hermann von Helmholtz also introduced the unit impulse as a limit of Gaussians, which also corresponded to Lord Kelvin's notion of a point heat source. At the end of the 19th century, Oliver Heaviside used formal Fourier series to manipulate the unit impulse. The Dirac delta function as such was introduced as a "convenient notation" by Paul Dirac in his influential 1927 book Principles of Quantum Mechanics. He called it the "delta function" since he used it as a continuous analogue of the discrete Kronecker delta. While I never use this math as such at work. I do use Hermann von Helmholtz’s coils to create a Gaussian distributed magnetic field for some of my MIL-STD-1399 suspstaiblity tests. In which case δ(t) must happen in less than 2 seconds, (t) being time. I find it amazing how much of everyday life that we take for granted can be defined in equations. It seems that almost all things can be defined using calculus. And that is down right spooky. Think about it… ;o)

“Black" Friday is upon us yet again

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:08:38 GMT

I only buy gifts for two people on the holidays, Giuseppe and Edward. I already gave the G-unit a $550 leather motorcycle jacket that I got in SF 15 years ago (which will never fit me again) for his B-day last month. But what to do about Christmas? G has trashed his computer yet again big time, and this is getting old very fast. I fix PC’s at the lab almost on a daily basis, the last thing I want to do when I get home is rescue his fucking iTines for the nth time. He has no money and now he wants to throw away his Dell and buy a Mac, Dear lord, I have no desire to even attempt to teach him OS X. G is one of those folks who clicks on any bad links without question. And in time you will most certainly find a toxic one, and he did. Now when his machine starts he gets the following message: Disc Read Error Press Alt-Ctl-Del to re-boot. I smell a root-kit here. Granted this machine did survive a fire, but just barely. It is all corroded inside, and I clean my machines often. So, rather than just replacing the drive. I got the G-unit an off lease e-Machines box for $159.95. It is a 1.6 GHz Atholan 64 processor running XP Pro. Hell all he does on it is his iTunes, look at smut, and hunt for his next top, So, TigerDirect to the rescue. As long I get to UPS first today Christmas will still be a surprise for Edward at least. G needs his computer back ASAP before he fucks mine up. I run Vista Ultimate and he has no clue as to how to navigate in it. Along with G’s new machine, I got myself an Acer 23” monitor for $199.95. I have a 22” in my room that I got 2 months ago for $229.95. I will re-gift it and hopefully it will not look too strange in the slightly bigger box. Edward wanted a bigger LCD display for his PC, he has a 17” now and soon he will have a 22” 1080p In these economic times we take what we can get. Long past are the $6,000 Disney vacations when I made more money than most. Perhaps one day I will get to spend a week in The Wilderness Lodge, but not today. To all of us Yanks (and rebels too) have a safe and happy holiday. Peace Namaste’ John ;o)

And in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday we have some nice art by Nick Shadow (see posted photos).

CarpenterNJ — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:22:56 GMT

I actually got to do this with quite a few mature men (more than once) in my youth; farm hands and gym teachers will generally fuck almost anything that holds still long enough if you give them enough Jim Beam and they can still get it up. And I was always more than happy too oblige. In the morning (if I spent the night) they usually would either act as if nothing had happened, or threaten to break an arm if I told. Tell!? Hell no! Meet me in the barn or the locker room as soon as you can throw another boner buddy. It was probably illegal way back when, it most certainly is now. But at fifteen I knew for certain that I was a “homo” and I have always liked older guys doing a “dog pile” on me. As Piper Laurie said in “Carrie” (the original 1976). “Smelling the filthy road house whiskey on his breath, he took me and I liked it, I liked it…” It was a rite of passage as a young gay man back then, and yes I still remember my 1st “man”. He was hung rather big and it hurt like Hell. And he always made sure that I was satisfied. He and his younger lover Michael would take me to their place in NYC and I wanted for nothing. Yeah, I was the “cute” boy who got passed around, but I never complained. These are the two guys who wanted to watch Bruno the bouncer at the Haymarket breed me and then take turns. Damn, I should have done that man. He still looks rather good actually, but that big thick uncut dick scared the shit outta’ me at the time. On this Thanksgiving Eve, my thanks to you Michael (R.I.P) and Marvin for showing me that kindness as a lad. They gave me a safe haven from my step-father, and introduced this NJ farm boy to “gay” life without shame in the big city. Michael died of AIDS back in 1996, I never got to say goodbye. Marvin has most likely passed as well; he’d most likely be a very old man now. We lost touch after I met Kindall, they said that he had made me a “monster”. Bad lovers do that to one it seems. But in any event, bless you both for all that you gave me in a time of great confusion in my life. Peace Namaste’ John

Today I feel a bit like Schrödinger's cat

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:29:58 GMT

A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead. Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung — literally, entanglement. Schrödinger's thought experiment was intended as a discussion of the EPR article, named after its authors — Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen — in 1935. The EPR article had highlighted the strange nature of quantum superpositions. Broadly stated, a quantum superposition is the combination of all the possible states of a system (for example, the possible positions of a subatomic particle). The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the superposition undergoes collapse into a definite state only at the exact moment of quantum measurement. Schrödinger and Einstein had exchanged letters about Einstein's EPR article, in the course of which Einstein had pointed out that the quantum superposition of an unstable keg of gunpowder will, after a while, contain both exploded and unexploded components. To further illustrate the putative incompleteness of quantum mechanics, Schrödinger applied quantum mechanics to a living entity that may or may not be conscious. In Schrödinger’s original thought experiment, he describes how one could, in principle, transform a superposition inside an atom to a large-scale superposition of a live and dead cat by coupling cat and atom with the help of a "diabolical mechanism". He proposed a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, wherein the cat's life or death was dependent on the state of a subatomic particle. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box is opened. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; quite the reverse. The thought experiment serves to illustrate the bizarreness of quantum mechanics and the mathematics necessary to describe quantum states. Intended as a critique of just the Copenhagen interpretation (the prevailing orthodoxy in 1935), the Schrödinger cat thought experiment remains a topical touchstone for all interpretations of quantum mechanics. How each interpretation deals with Schrödinger's cat is often used as a way of illustrating and comparing each interpretation's particular features, strengths, and weaknesses. One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts. It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks. Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, when does a quantum system stop existing as a mixture of states and become one or the other? (More technically, when does the actual quantum state stop being a linear combination of states, each of which resembles different classical states, and instead begins to have a unique classical description?) If the cat survives, it remembers only being alive. But explanations of the EPR experiments that are consistent with standard microscopic quantum mechanics require that macroscopic objects, such as cats and notebooks, do not always have unique classical descriptions. The purpose of the thought experiment is to illustrate this apparent paradox. Our intuition says that no observer can be in a mixture of states; yet the cat, it seems from the thought experiment, can be such a mixture. Is the cat required to be an observer, or does its existence in a single well-defined classical state require another external observer? Each alternative seemed absurd to Albert Einstein, who was impressed by the ability of the thought experiment to highlight these issues. In a letter to Schrödinger dated 1950, he wrote: You are the only contemporary physicist, besides Laue, who sees that one cannot get around the assumption of reality, if only one is honest. Most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality—reality as something independent of what is experimentally established. Their interpretation is, however, refuted most elegantly by your system of radioactive atom + amplifier + charge of gunpowder + cat in a box, in which the psi-function of the system contains both the cat alive and blown to bits. Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation. Note that no charge of gunpowder is mentioned in Schrödinger's setup, which uses a Geiger counter as an amplifier and hydrocyanic poison instead of gunpowder. The gunpowder had been mentioned in Einstein's original suggestion to Schrödinger 15 years before, and apparently Einstein had carried it forward to the present discussion. The whole mess resides here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat Ain’t Quantum Mechanics grand?! As it has been said, give a million monkeys a million type writers. In time one of them will eventually write Hamlet... Peace ;o)

And for those of you who don’t read or speak Latin

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:03:16 GMT

O vera, digna hostia, per quam franguntur tartara, captiva plebs redimitur, redduntur vitae praemia! In American English means, O Thou, from whom Hell's monarch flies, O great, O very Sacrifice, Thy captive people are set free, and endless life restored in Thee. It is a shame really, dead languages and all. I was offered it in my freshman year in high school. My guidance counselor recommended against it so I took German instead. Had I chosen Entomology or Biology instead of Electronics it might have helped. But as far as I know there is no word for transistor in Latin… ;o)

HYMN XXX. Book 5, Indra the Rig Veda.

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:10:36 GMT

'These blissful Maruts sing their psalm to praise thee, and pour to thee libation of the Soma. Indra with wondrous powers subdued the Dragon, the guileful lurker who beset the waters. Thou, Maghavan, from the first didst scatter foemen, speeding, while joying in the milk, the Giver. There, seeking man's prosperity, thou torest away the head of Namuci the Dāsa. Pounding the head of Namuci the Dāsa, me, too thou madest thine associate, Indra! Yea, and the rolling stone that is in heaven both worlds, as on a car, brought to the Maruts. Women for weapons hath the Dāsa taken, What injury can his feeble armies To me? Well he distinguished his two different voices, and Indra then advanced to fight the Dasyu. Divided from their calves the Cows went lowing around, on every side, hither and thither. These Indra re-united with his helpers, what time the well-pressed Soma made him joyful. What time the Somas mixed by Babhru cheered him, loud the Steer bellowed in his habitations. So Indra drank thereof, the Fort-destroyer, and gave him guerdon, in return, of milch-kine. This good deed have the Rusamas done, Agni! that they have granted me four thousand cattle. We have received Rnancaya's wealth, of heroes the most heroic, which was freely offered. The Rusamas, O Agni, sent me homeward with fair adornment and with kine in thousands. The strong libations have made Indra joyful, when night, whose course was ending, changed to morning. Like a strong courser, fleet of foot, urged onward, Babhru hath gained four thousand as his guerdon. We have received four thousand head of cattle presented by the Rusamas, O Agni. And we, the singers, have received the caldron of metal which was heated for Pravargya. The Rig Vedas. I did remove the annotations from the translated text, it reads better that way. The Veda’s originate from between 5,000 and 12,000 B.C. Indra is also known as Agni, which is the root word for fire in Latin. Ignus from which we get ignite. We have learned to walk upright and no longer need to sleep in beds of straw close to the fire at night with our packs of dogs that save us and help us hunt for food. We have machines that do that for us now. We speak in many languages. O vera, digna hostia, per quam franguntur tartara, captiva plebs redimitur, redduntur vitae praemia! We worship many different gods. And yet how tiny we still are indeed. In such a vast place one can only but imagine that in the blink of an eye that we are born of fire and are even here to discuss it. But as the master taught. “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” Carl Sagan Peace Namaste’ Jonn ;o)

It is Friday the 20th of November and I am irritated with my family BIG TIME!

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:27 GMT

Family is an interesting word actually, while it usually involves “blood relatives” mine is more complicated than most. There’s a news flash for ya’ folks! Three siblings, three fathers, and one mother (mom was rather randy and she seems to have passed that on to all four of us in varying degrees). Being 1st born they all tend to look up to me. I guess changing their diapers when mother was to drunk to do it creates a bond of sorts. My mother has long past and yet she still gets to be part of my therapy sessions; I really think that she should split the $50 co-pay with me. She managed to spawn two geniuses with my father, sister Judith did high school in 3 years with a GPA of 4.00 and was a go-go dancer/dominatrix, a swinging half brother who is an ex-Army mesomorph (and hung like a mule btw), and another half brother who is a tall lad and loves dominatrix’s. We are quite the crew it seems... The dynamics of my youth are way too complicated to address here, but if any of you understand “dysfunctional family theory” there is usually a missing parent and one of the siblings becomes that parent by proxy. Tag, I’m it! My folks got divorced when I was four, my mother married a man that she did not love to make another man jealous. Manipulating cow that she was, and it backfired. Now she was stuck in a loveless marriage with two children that she never wanted. She did tell me one night when she was very drunk; “You know John, if I’d never had you. I could have been happy.” In the dysfunctional model the proxy becomes so completely co-dependant that regardless of the hurtfulness of the situation that you hang on for the slightest scrap of approval. I was always a “problem child” my step father started calling me “faggot” when I was seven years old. I was in the 99.7 percentile in my Iowa tests in 6th grade, and I was also the class clown and acted out constantly. I only saw my Dad once a year and my step-father hated me. It was not so much the beatings that hurt me, but it was the constant disapproval that he used to try and break my spirit. I missed my real father so much that (through elaborate planning) I needed to be hospitalized for an unknown illness. A high fever of 102º for 6 months and no one had a clue as to why, Doctors must have been so clueless in the 60’s. I was a science wiz kid at 8 years old, and oral (and rectal) mercury thermometers don’t “reset” themselves after you remove the heat source. DOH! Hold it close to a light bulb and then shake it down to 102º, give or take a few tenths. And Viola’! Too sick to go to school, and spared being bullied for another day. I am not sure who was worse, some of my classmates or my step-father. Ever been hit in the back of the head with a basketball at high speed until you fall down in gym class? Tom Jensen loved that trick, Robin Peters would just gut punch me and leave it at that. In any event enough was enough; I was fairly safe at home so there I stayed. When I was in the hospital for my “unknown illness” an intern on the late shift took me on a tour of the labs long after lights out. He was in his early 20’s, he had a beard, and if memory serves a nice penis. He asked me at one point if I have to make a #1. We went to the bathroom and after I was finally able to urinate, we had oral sex. And I was fine with it. He was very nice to me, it was the 1st time I saw an X-Ray machine up close and personal without being on the business end of it, and I never saw him again. At nine I had already had sex with most of the boys in my scout troop (we’d play strip poke and all the guys fucked the loser, I lost as often as possible). We were all farm boys, we knew what peckers were really for after all. My elementary school principle made me ejaculate alone in his office (1st grade). The handsome hairy red haired swim coach shot his cum in my mouth (5th grade). But I digress. The “faux illness” was to see my father who lived in Texas. All I wanted was a man to hold me without a clenched fist. My dad and I have never been close, I think that I have been a major disappointment to him. He is President Emeritus of Bucknell University in Lewisburg PA. The home to a really snooty Ivy League college and a federal penitentiary, how nice for me. As a junior high school student he already had his old room reserved for me at Sigma Chi his old fraternity. From a distance I was being preened for the Ivy League and perhaps part of Esso Corp of which he was a VP at the time. My mother had manipulated me enough and I was not having it anymore. I dropped out of high school in my senior year (much to my father’s horror) and got a job. Fixing X-Ray machines of all things… What tangled webs we weave. My father had had his suspicions about my sexuality and on a vacation in Florida he confronted my sister Judith. (My step-mother had already figured it out years earlier and in one of her drunken stupors asked why I didn’t have a girl friend…) “Is your brother a “Homosexual?” He asked. He is always so concise. Judith (bless her heart) said; “Shouldn’t you be asking John this question Dad?” Kudos to you Judy! I will always love you... Now it gets really weird… I was in the 2nd year of my relationship with a big redheaded loony toon and it was my 1st trip to see my Dad with his new ex-wife in Florida. And yes, he married her, she divorced him, and when the money dried up, she came back. He married her again, go figure. I was 21 and Coral Gables was boring. I decided to go to the clubs in Coconut Grove where all the gay bars were. I have always had a “baby face” it seems one of the reasons I keep the bush on my face. I prefer to look older rather than younger I think. The 2nd bar I went to I ran into a Cuban guy named Ramundo who knew my lover in NY. And when I got home my lover knew that I had been out to the bars. Nothing seems to travel faster than gossip, not even light. I met a very nice fella’ at the bar and he took me home and fucked the Hell outta’ me all night. The next day he drove me back to my Dad’s place and dropped me off. Judith saw me get out of a shiny white Corvette smiling from ear to ear; and my Dad saw it as well. She knew a shit storm was coming, and soon. I had already showered (and yeah he fucked me there as well). It was about 1400 hours and nothing was on but football. So, I watched the Eagles, I can’t remember who they played. Bill Bergey had a beard and he gave me the hots big time! I was drawing, as I often did and my Dad came into the room and sat down. “Why are you watching football? You don’t like sports son.” he asked. The last thing I was going to tell him was that I was not watching football, I was watching Bill Bergey. “Son” he said, “Are you a homosexual?” “Well since you put it that way, yes I am Dad.” He paused for a while. “You have made a bad choice son, you will never go anywhere in business you know.” “I will get you the best doctors to make you better.” “There is nothing to be “cured” of here Dad, it just is what it is.” He quietly got up and left the room. The game went on and sister Judith left the house. A short time later my Dad walked back into the living room carrying a laundry basket. Only this time he was totally naked and had a hardon this time. He walked up to me, his foreskin glistening with pre-cum. “Do you need anything washed son?” he asked. HELLO! One thing I ain’t is stupid; my Dad was coming on to me! He went to the laundry room and I followed. We talked a bit and I looked at his cock most of the time. Nothing happened, and I am still pissed that I was circumcised without a choice and he is still intact. Judith and I got on an Eastern Airlines flight back to Newark and he never spoke to me again for almost 10 years. Time passes… Judith has always been slight of build, petite is not entirely accurate. At 5’6” (168 cm) she only weighed 70 pounds (31.75 kg). She suffered from Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia, and she was near to death. Late one night my Dad called me. All he said was; “Your sister is dying and I can’t help her. Please do what you can.” and he hung-up the phone. Now I am two proxies, I am my mother’s pseudo-husband, and my sister’s pseudo-father. WTF!!! I convinced Judith to contact the CDC and she went into a program in Washington DC. She recovered in time. She is healthly and two years ago married the man of her dreams at age 52. This is the end of the line for our branch of the Clan Duncan-Jenkins. And that may not be such a bad thing after all. I would have been a doting father and would have been glad to give my father a grandson. But my life is all about damage control at this point. Where did all of this come from you might ask? My Dad called me the other night to say hi (which rarely happens and he did leave my several voice mails none of them were urgent he said) only to tell me that his bladder cancer is back… BACK!? What bladder cancer?! When did this all start? It has been over a year from best I can tell and no one told me anything! Am I that fragile that I can't handle a member of my family who is seriously ill? I am his 1st born and only son and he could not confide in me, I made no bones about my HIV Dx. I watched Jean-Pierre slowly and painfully die of lung cancer, and in a word it sucked. They all lied to me boldfaced (and there is a good chance that I'd have done the same had it been I, but that is another matter)... A song comes to mind, many of you are too young to remember it. It is the stuff of Woodstock in 1969. But the words still ring true to this day. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Teach Your Children by Graham Nash You Who Are On The Road Must Have A Code That You Can Live By And So Become Yourself Because The Past Is Just A Goodbye. Teach Your Children Well Their Father's Hell did Slowly Go By And Feed Them On Your Dreams The One They fix The One You'll Know By. Don't You Ever Ask Them Why If They Told You, You Would Cry So Just Look At Them And Sigh And Know They Love You And You, (Can you hear and) Of Tender Years (Do you care and) Can't Know The Fears (Can you see we) That Your Elders Grew By (Must be free to) And So Please Help (Teach your children what) Them With Your Youth (You believe in) They Seek The Truth (Make a world that) Before They Can Die (We can live in) Teach Your Parents Well Their Children's Hell Will Slowly Go By And Feed Them On Your Dreams The One They fix The One You'll Know By. Don't You Ever Ask Them Why If They Told You, You Would Cry So Just Look At Them And Sigh And Know They Love You. And folks wonder why I am "damaged goods". *Grumble* I have been through the mill more than once folks, but I am a surivor. Why did I write all of this? For my shrink mostly, but also for you who understand my pain. I never "chose" to be a homo, nor did I chose to be mentally ill. As George Orr says in "The Lathe of Heaven". "It is, we are, it is not something that you can look up in your arithmetic books!" I will print this out for my shrink, it has been very cathartic for me writing this and it will give him some insights into what he is dealing with here... Peace Namaste’ Shri Ganesh! John :o/

Amendment 138 scrapped in EU Telecoms Package deal

CarpenterNJ — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:12:44 GMT

European Parliament back-room bargain sacrifices Internet users rights Amendment 138, which protects Internet users rights against blocking and 3-strikes measures, has been scrapped in a back-room EU deal. The European Parliament has sacrificed users rights, in order to appease the French and UK government demands, so that they can move ahead with plans for 3-strikes and protocol blocking. Amendment 138 is to be deleted. The pressure is coming from the UK and French governments, and it is likely to be a completely intolerable situation for the rapporteur, the French Socialist MEP Catherine Trautmann. Nevertheless, she knows the importance of Amendment 138, in symbolising the protection of users interests against those of the large corporations. At home, in Paris, her Party has opposed the Sarkozy regime and its 3-strikes law (also known as the Creation and Internet law). That opposition saw the successful rejection of the Creation and Internet law just over a week ago. There will be a Recital, which Mrs Trautmann is trying to sell to her colleagues as a suitable replacement. But a Recital is not the same, because EU countries are not bound to do anything with a Recital, whereas they must implement what is stated in the Articles. Amendment 138 is, importantly, an Article. The new Recital has been written by Coreper, the back-room, unaccountable civil servants who run the Council of Ministers. And the same people who are pressuring Mrs Trautmann on behalf of the UK and French governments. These people will never have to account to anyone for the appallingly bad law they are trying to push through. This law will fundamentally alter the Internet, it will permit the blocking of services and applications by network operators - on behalf of copyright or for their own reasons. It will erode users rights, contrary to the spin that some MEPs are trying to put out. It is up to the European Parliament - in the face of elections - to stand up for what is right for citizens. La Quadrature du Net has called on all European Internet users to write to their MEP asking the to support Amendment 138 . Amendment 138 Amendment 138 seeks to safeguard Internet users' rights in the face of 3-strikes/graduated response measures, network filtering and protocol blocking. Together with Amendment 166 (Article 32a of the Universal Services directive) it seeks to prevent users being unfairly sanctioned or blocked by their broadband provider. The 'limitations' amendments in the Telecoms Package - see my articles on 'limitations' in Filtering the Package on iptegrity.com - will legally permit broadband providers to block access to websites, services and applications, at their discretion. That means they could block peer-to-peer traffic and sites, as well as Skype and other services. NB: Amendment 138, the original text, is listed as Amendments 46 and 135 in the Trautmann report. (fb) applying the principle that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users without a prior ruling of the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened, in which case the ruling may be subsequent. New Recital replacing Amendment 138 This new Recital has been circulated on an email within the European Parliament. All MEPs will have it. Recognizing that the Internet is essential for the practical exercise of freedom of expression and access to information and education, any restriction imposed on the exercise of these fundamental rights must be subject to a decision by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law acting in respect of due process as defined in Article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. This is a Recital. EU countries are not obligated to implement it. It only recognises the Internet for access to information and education - implying a limited set of uses - ignoring the myriad of other uses. It removes the word 'principle' - 'principles' do have a meaning in the law, they must be respected. 'Recognizing' something is weak, and I think, it is meaningless - but I'm happy to hear from any lawyers who can correct me. Ah big money wins yet again, dirty rat bastards... :o/

Palin photographer breached contract with sale to Newsweek

CarpenterNJ — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:11:24 GMT

Jeff Bercovici (2009-Nov-18) -- What on earth was Sarah Palin thinking when she posed in a pair of teeny-tiny gym shorts for a photograph that ended up on the cover of Newsweek -- a cover she has called "sexist"? Perhaps she was thinking that her image would only appear in the magazine she was posing for, Runner's World, and nowhere else, at least not for months and months. If so, she had good reason -- since, as DailyFinance has learned, the photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek. That photographer, Brian Adams, could not immediately be reached, and his agent, Kelly Price, declined to comment, saying, "I keep all of my clients' business private." But a spokeswoman for Runner's World confirms that Adams's contract contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication -- meaning until August 2010. "Runner's World did not provide Newsweek with its cover image," the spokeswoman said. "It was provided to Newsweek by the photographer's stock agency, without Runner's World's knowledge or permission." The spokeswoman declined to say whether Runner's World intends to respond to Adams's breach of contract with legal action. But while Adams clearly violated his agreement, it's not clear he did so without Runner's World's consent. A source with knowledge of the situation says multiple outlets, including Time, approached Runner's World after the photos first appeared on its website in July to inquire about obtaining the reuse rights. Those who inquired were forwarded to Adams. Editors at the magazine were aware of negotiations to resell the pictures, and were primarily concerned to see that Runner's World received prominent credit, says the source. In the event, Newsweek credited Runner's World right on its cover. That leaves the questions of whether anyone at Newsweek knew that Adams was not contractually free to sell the photo, and whether the promised embargo was a factor in Palin's decision to pose for Runner's World. Spokespersons for Palin and Newsweek have not yet responded to inquiries from DailyFinance. Update: A Newsweek spokesman says, "We purchased the photo from an agency and were not aware of any issues with it." As for whether the Newsweek cover is, as Palin says, sexist, editor Jon Meacham addressed that accusation Tuesday: "We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do," Meacham said. "We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard." Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease, is this woman just "stoned" or "stupid"?! It will be on the cover of Mad Magazine next (one can but hope)... DOH! ;o)

Dolly Parton Voices Support for Gay Marriage

CarpenterNJ — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:09:45 GMT

by Stephen L. Betts www.theboot.com (2009-Nov-17) -- The always candid Dolly Parton has revealed that she's in favor of granting gays and lesbians the rights to marry. "Sure, why can't they get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do," the outspoken superstar told CNN show host Joy Behar. When Behar suggested Dolly's Southern roots might not mesh with the idea of marriage equality, the singer agreed, "I know that's true." Dolly's not alone. This year, Reba McEntire surprised some of her conservative fans when she spoke in support of her gay fans and "many gay friends." "Don't judge me and I won't judge you," she said. "Keep an open mind." Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, too, recently celebrated her gay fans. "I've always had a large gay following," the singer, who has performed at Gay Pride in Atlanta three times, said. "Particularly in the lesbian community. I am grateful for that ... It also means that I'm a cute girl singing a rock song in an alto voice!" As for Dolly, the flamboyant entertainer admits she feels a certain kinship with her many gay and lesbian fans."I think it's because they know I'm different too, and it took me a long time to be accepted," she reasons. "Plus, a lot of my gay guy friends love to dress up," she adds. "I think they just appreciate the fact that I love everybody for who they are." Dolly did have some strong words, however, for Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, who earlier this month stated that "homosexuality is not God's best work." "I don't want to talk about him," she said with a laugh. "I think God made us who we are and how we are, and I don't think if [Osteen] was a religious person, he would be judging people." Dolly herself has weathered gay rumors. She and assistant Judy Ogle are constantly spotted together, and their close friendship (they've also been best friends since the third grade) eventually fueled speculation about whether the two were romantically connected, as well. "We're totally honest, open, and comfortable with each other," Dolly told AARP magazine of her friendship with Judy. "We've been accused of being lovers. We do love each other, but we've never been like that." Dolly shrugs off the rumors and insists that the "I dos" she said 43 years ago with husband Carl Dean were meant for life. "I know we'll never divorce," she says. "He always knows I'm coming home." Dolly's 'Live from London' CD/DVD was released last week. You go gurl, I have always liked her music and her style... ;o)

So what's with the "ring" thing here?

CarpenterNJ — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:05:13 GMT

It is all about the receptors folks. Highly protein bound moderately lipid soluble drugs act by polysynaptic pathway inhibition via interaction with specific receptors (GABA, BZ, Barbiturate modified Chloride channel) which enhance the inhibitory effect of GABA in the Reticular Activating System and Amygdala by increasing the open time of the Chloride channel. Barbiturates are synergistic (supra-additive) by increasing receptor affinity for Benzodiazepines. Inverse agonists cause wakefulness, anxiety, fear, and convulsions. The actions of both agonists and inverse agonists are reduced by benzodiazepine antagonsists such as flumazenil (Anexate). Two receptor subtypes; BZ1 in cortex, BZ2 receptors in the amygdala and hippocampus. Ain't brain chemistry fun!? Main effects are: CNS Depression - decreased anxiety, tranquility, sedation, anterograde amnesia, ultimately unconsciousness and respiratory depression. Anxiety reduced more than apparrent drowsiness. Sleep changes include delayed and reduced REM sleep and reduced stage 3 and 4 sleep, but increased overall sleep times. Anticonvulsant effects - mostly with Diazepam. Muscle relaxation - spinal polysynaptic pathway, ie no enhancement of NMBs. In general they work for me. Most benzos are class iV controlled substances. If you have a script that ends in the letter "C" then you are taking one. Leave it to the Germans to discover this stuff. On the Net: http://www.anaes.med.usyd.edu.au/lectures/tranquilisers_clt/tranquiliser.html Time for some Ativan... ;o)

A few notes on sleep and circadian rhythms (or the absence of them)

CarpenterNJ — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:27:06 GMT

A circadian rhythm is a roughly a 24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living entities, including plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria bacterial circadian rhythms. The term "circadian", coined by Franz Halberg, comes from the Latin circa, "around," and diem or dies, "day", meaning literally "approximately one day." The formal study of biological temporal rhythms such as daily, tidal, weekly, seasonal, and annual rhythms is called chronobiology. Circadian rhythms are endogenously generated, and can be entrained by external cues, called zeitgebers, the primary one of which is daylight. That said, why can’t I sleep without drugs at night? I have “black-out” shades on my windows and yet I almost wake at 0300 hours every morning? Usually to urinate, maybe it is just a 54 year old prostate thing. With all the meds that I take I should sleep through the night and I don’t. I take two benzodiazepines to enhance the effects of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid, which results in sedation and also the sedative hypnotic Trazodone at bedtime, so why am I still awake? Perhaps it is stress; all I want is a quiet night’s sleep. No screaming dementors, no dreams of loves lost, or being chased in the dark like the Eloi. Just some downtime please. I do have some drug options here; there are a few hypnotics that suppress dreaming like Meprobamate which allow a moderated dream state. Or drugs like Klonopin (clonazepam) which will suppress them completely, dear god why does the get out of jail free card always have a benzo attached to it these days? I am beginning to believe that the benzodiazepines; like the Furies of the Norse myths come in threes. And they all have a unique carbon double hex bonded rings in common. Perhaps it comes from Mordor, and hence the addiction as well... One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954, chapter 2 British scholar & fantasy novelist (1892 - 1973) Peace Namaste’ John :o/

Well it is Friday, November 13th, 2009

CarpenterNJ — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:22:30 GMT

I am not superstitious or anything like that, but I still believe in the supernatural to a degree. Hey, the universe is just too vast and largely unknown not to at least ponder the idea of strange things going on about in the woods. But as an engineer 13 is just a number, and it is the is the 7th prime in the series of positive integers (and yes IMHO 1 is a prime since it is divisible by 1 and itself). Just because the result is the number that you started with doesn’t make it not a prime in my book. As for -1/-1=1 that is part of number theory that I will not address here. The G-unit was annoyed that I got home early today, and he can just bite me! He had Molly locked outside in the cold and she was barking her brains out. Usually he works out between 1200 and 1300 hours when he is not irrevocably linked to his TV set. It is now 3:00 in the afternoon, and if he’d get off the damn computer and stop jerkin' off for a few minutes we would not have had a time conflict problem here. He refuses to workout when I am in the basement; and I have yet to understand why to be quite honest. But it is fine with me if he doesn’t, he plays his music way too loud fucking loud and I can't concentrate, and he is a tenant after all. This is my house and I am more than accommodating as such. If he and the pig decide to move out next month, all I will miss is the $500/month in rent that he pays. But not him. It will be a wash since we will no longer have to feed him, 1/3 fewer showers 1/3 fewer laundries, and we will not to have to come home to a kitchen of disasters every day anymore. Not to mention he won't be pushing the thermostat up to 80º during the day while Edward and I are at work. And the the trail of debris that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. He is in a word a slob. I have been working on a huge math project in Excel involving Shock Response Spectra for the past two days that will save me loads of time and major headaches. I have been doing it sort of under the radar because trying to explain what I am doing and why it not only saves me days worth of tedious calculations and the company loads of pissed away money. That it helps everyone involved (and mostly me). After all we can charge the customers for it, and data reduction is not free. I only let Miller (our chief engineer who is in his 70’s) know what I was working on and frankly he was amazed at the solution that I had come up with in Excel. It was rather complicated and involves calculus and multiple logarithms in 4 axis’s using acceleration, displacement, velocity, and frequency. Both of which I suck at, but I did it flawlessly (so far). X1 and Y1 were easy, X2 and Y2 were more complicated because I had to interpolate the values and draw them by hand. Tom looked at the plots and said; "WOW! How did you do that?!" Hey, I kick butt in Excel folks. In any event I got my +40 hours in this week and now I can just relax for a bit. And 13 is just another prime number it seems, so all and all, it was a good day. Now if I could just find a date for the weekend, life would be good... Peace Namaste’ John ;o)

Happy tales for some former fighting dogs

CarpenterNJ — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:37:11 GMT

By CHERYL WITTENAUER AP ST. LOUIS (2009-Nov-11) -- Dozens of American pit bull terriers netted in the largest dogfighting raid in U.S. history are finding homes despite some who predicted aggression or trauma would make them unsuitable as pets. More than 120 of the animals have been placed in foster homes or are headed there this week through the efforts of pit bull rescue groups throughout the U.S. An additional 117, like the scarred but smiling Tulip, await their turn. "They are not a vicious animal. They are the victims of abuse," said Debbie Hill, vice president of operations for the Humane Society of Missouri. "That face and their eyes tell the story. They only want to be in someone's home, on a couch, or sleeping at someone's feet, maybe chew up a rug or two for entertainment. They're learning for the first time how to be a dog." In the days leading up to the July 8 raid, the Humane Society secured a cavernous industrial warehouse in St. Louis that it transformed into an emergency shelter for the hundreds of dogs seized in Missouri and Illinois. About 100 dogs seized in other states were taken by rescue groups elsewhere. Once at the Missouri shelter, dogs were tested by a national team of certified animal behaviorists, taken on walks, and allowed to chew on bowling balls stuffed with peanut butter. Some finicky eaters were treated to home-cooked chicken breasts to supplement meals of dog food. The Human Society offered The Associated Press first access to the site Tuesday. During the tour, puppies born since the raid took turns playing tug of war with a chew toy in a play room. Humane Society staff members pulled a catering cart down a long row of dog cages, calling animals by name as they slid them bowls of food. Some, like Pacific, were shy, quivering in fear of new visitors. Others were extroverts, springing on hind legs to say hello. The foster homes will acclimate the dogs to the noises and rules of a household, and teach them basic manners. Animal behaviorist Pamela Reid, who was part of the team that evaluated the dogs, said a surprising two-thirds tested well for nonaggression and adoptability. She's fostering one puppy, although one her favorite dogs had to be euthanized because he showed aggression toward men. Hill said 160 dogs were put down because of injuries, illness or behavior. None of the puppies showed aggression, Reid said. Tim Rickey, who heads the Humane Society's anticruelty task force, said the raids proved the underground dogfighting industry is pervasive. "We scratched the surface," Rickey said. "We could have done several of these (raids) in Missouri alone." — On the Net: Humane Society of Missouri: http://www.hsmo.org/ I truly love my Stafford-shire American pit bull terrier Molly. She may be the best dog that I have ever had, nothing but rescue dogs for me from now on... ;o)

Telescopes Make Stunning Galaxy Photo

CarpenterNJ — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:34:32 GMT

www.Space.com (2009-Nov. 10) — A giant composite image of the Milky Way's center has been taken by NASA's three Great Observatories — the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The image, unveiled by NASA today, was made to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, 400 years after Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens. This is one of the most detailed images to date of the heart of the Milky Way. The galaxy's center is within the white spot near the right edge of the photo. NASA released the image Tuesday to mark the 400th anniversary of the telescope. It is a composite of images from three observatories: the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The pictures of our galaxy's hub combines a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory into one multiwavelength picture. Experts from all three observatories carefully assembled the final image from large mosaic photo surveys taken by each telescope. This composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy's mysterious core. More than 150 planetariums, museums, nature centers, libraries, and schools across the country have received a giant 6-foot-by-3-foot print of the stunning image. Participating institutions also will display a matched trio of Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra images of the Milky Way's center on a second large panel measuring 3 feet by 4 feet. The composite image features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes. This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy's core, the center of which is dominated by a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than our Sun. Permeating the region is a diffuse blue haze of X-ray light from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole as well as by winds from massive stars and by stellar explosions. Infrared light reveals more than a hundred thousand stars along with glowing dust clouds that create complex structures including compact globules, long filaments, and finger-like "pillars of creation," where newborn stars are just beginning to break out of their dark, dusty cocoons. WOW that is just awesome! And it is not 2 million light years away, this is our home... ;o)

AMA Opposes Military's Policy on Gays

CarpenterNJ — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:33:11 GMT

Group Also Says Gay Marriage Bans Widen Health Gaps By LINDSEY TANNER AP CHICAGO (2009-Nov-10) -- The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to oppose the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and declared that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities. The nation's largest doctors' group stopped short of saying it would seek to overturn marriage bans, but its new stance angered conservative activists and provides a fresh boost to lobbying efforts by gay-rights advocates. "It's highly significant that the AMA as one of this country's leading professional associations has taken a position on both of these issues," said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a Washington-based advocacy group. The health disparities measure "in the long run, will certainly help efforts to win marriage equality," Carey said. Whether the AMA's lobbying power will hasten efforts to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" law remains to be seen. President Barack Obama has said he is working with congressional leaders to end the policy, and the AMA's stance will likely help, although gay rights issues have been upstaged by Obama's health care overhaul battle. The AMA's vote took place at the group's interim policy-making meeting in Houston, a day after AMA delegates voted to affirm their support for health reform. The health disparities policy is based on evidence showing that married couples are more likely to have health insurance, and that the uninsured have a high risk for "living sicker and dying younger," said Dr. Peter Carmel, an AMA board member. Same-sex families lack other benefits afforded married couples, including tax breaks, spouse benefits under retirement plans and Social Security survivor benefits — all of which can put their health at risk, according to an AMA council report presented at the meeting. But Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, a conservative advocacy group, called it a health insurance problem, not a marriage problem. "We all know there are problems with health care so let's solve the problem of the uninsured, rather than messing with marriage," she said. Doctors who pushed the group to oppose "don't ask, don't tell" say the policy forcing gay service members to keep their sexual orientation secret has "a chilling effect" on open communication between gays and their doctors. "A law which makes people lie to their physicians is a bad law," said Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor who attended the meeting. In other action Tuesday, the AMA moved closer to supporting medical marijuana, adopting a measure urging a federal review of marijuana's status as a controlled substance. That would make it easier to do research, which the AMA said could lead to development of marijuana-based medications that don't require smoking. The group said its position doesn't mean it supports legalizing marijuana. On the Net: AMA: http://www.ama-assn.org Inch by inch bois and gurls... ;o)

Did We Domesticate Dogs, or Did Dogs Domesticate Us?

CarpenterNJ — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:05:45 GMT

www.sphere.com (2009-Nov-06) -- A new book by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Jon Franklin concludes that man's best friends may have been responsible for our emergence as the alpha dogs of the animal kingdom. We wouldn't be who we are without them. So we rewarded them with a lifetime supply of Snausages and Purina Puppy Chow. Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Franklin's book, "The Wolf in the Parlor" (Henry Holt, 2009), traces "the eternal connection between humans and dogs" through the millennia. His 20 years of research convinced him that we couldn't have made it without each other. Dallas critic Bill Marvel calls the author's deductions a stretch. "Franklin seems to suggest that while we were taming the dog, the dog was civilizing us," Marvel wrote. "He reminds me a little of the dyslexic churchgoer who worshipped Dog." But biological anthropologist Forrest Smith, a professor emeritus at the University of Akron, isn't troubled at all by the results of Franklin's detective work. "I agree with him 100 percent," Smith said. Wolves and man were once virtually equals at the top of the predatory food chain, he said. It's logical to believe that the species had to collaborate to survive. He said it's much the same conclusion that Michael Pollan reached in his book about plant life, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." "Did we domesticate corn or did corn domesticate us?" Smith asked. "We needed each other." Franklin's book is a blend of emotion and science. Which is a lot like his career. His book "Writing for Story" taught a generation of journalists to bolt past details to the emotional center of the story. Yet he's equally respected among scientists. "I've been carrying around something he wrote about the importance of science for more than 10 years," said Dr. Emilie Clemmens, a professor at Cascadia College near Seattle who has a Ph.D. in bioengineering. "It defines who I am." In an interview with Sphere, Franklin that he's shown the book to scientist friends and received little resistance to his results or his methods. "Science begins with emotion. Something triggers an emotional response, and then we investigate it." His emotional response was triggered when he met the love of his life, Lynn, in the late 1980s. "Love me, love my dog," was their unspoken pact. That's how the descendant of the wolf, a standard poodle named Charlie, came into his parlor. The marriage and his relationship with Charlie flourished. The feelings that grew toward the dog piqued his scientific curiosity about the link between the species. A decade earlier he had seen a photograph of the fossilized remains of a man who had been buried with a small dog or wolf cub in what is now Syria some 12,000 years ago. The man was reaching furtively toward the small creature. Franklin stuck the picture in a drawer until he met Charlie. Two more decades of research led to the book. Scientists generally agree that the first domesticated dogs appeared around 15,000 years ago, give or take a few dozen centuries. In those days, humans, as they still do, left a mess as they wandered about the planet. Some wolves found it was easier to follow the garbage buffet than to hunt for them. Dr. Ray Coppinger, an animal behaviorist expert, argued in the book "Dogs" that the wolves began to domesticate themselves as they learned to live around humans. "It was natural selection," he said in the New York Times several years ago. "The dogs did it, not people." Franklin suggested, though, that humans did play a role in the selection process. Sometimes, the wolf cubs made for a convenient dinner. The cuddly ones were less likely to meet the end of a club. He noted something else unusual was happening then. The man in the photo's death occurred near the end of the ice age. About the same time, fossils show, the human brain was shrinking by as much as 10 percent. Yet we got smarter. "Suddenly and inexplicably we began to herd, dig, build, draw, plan and invent ... we became uncontested masters of the planet," he wrote. He believes that our evolutionary dance with the wolves made it all happen. As wolves became dogs -- as the genetic research of Dr. Robert K. Wayne of UCLA has shown -- they herded our flocks. They warned us of nearby predators. They helped us hunt more efficiently. That gave us time to think. Dogs, Franklin reasons, made us better people. Just as Charlie nurtured him during their dozen years of walking together. It's a lesson for us all. "Just remember," Franklin said, "there's an animal on both ends of the leash." Stuart Warner, an aol.com editor, also teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve University. He has worked with Jon Franklin on several writing projects. Dr. Clemmens is Warner's oldest daughter. The chicken or the egg huh? ;o)

Hubble Gives Best View Yet of Star Birth

CarpenterNJ — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:03:40 GMT

www.Space.com (2009-Nov-05) — The Hubble Space Telescope's powerful new camera has taken the most detailed image yet of star birth in the nearby spiral galaxy M83. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus. A new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured this amazingly detailed view of stars being born. In galaxy M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, hundreds of young star clusters are present, especially in the nucleus. In this galaxy, the sharp eye of the Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) — newly installed this summer during the telescope's fourth and final servicing mission — has captured hundreds of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiants. WFC3's broad wavelength range, from ultraviolet to near-infrared, reveals stars at different stages of evolution, allowing astronomers to dissect the galaxy's star-formation history. The new image reveals in unprecedented detail the current rapid rate of star birth in this spiral galaxy. The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark dust lanes, the backbone of the spiral arms. These fledgling stars, only a few million years old, are bursting out of their dusty cocoons and producing bubbles of reddish glowing hydrogen gas. Gradually, the young stars' fierce winds (streams of charged particles) blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters. These stars are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The older populations of stars are not as blue. A bar of stars, gas, and dust slicing across the core of the galaxy may be instigating most of the star birth in the galaxy's core. The bar funnels material to the galaxy's center, where the most active star formation is taking place. The brightest star clusters reside along an arc near the core. The remains of about 60 supernova blasts, the deaths of massive stars, can be seen in the image, five times more than known previously in this region. M83 is located 15 million light-years away in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Hydra. What a kewl instrument Hubble is... ;o)

Baguette-Toting Bird Stalls Atom Smasher

CarpenterNJ — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:02:51 GMT

CNN (2009-Nov-09) -- This is too weird: A bird reportedly has dropped a "bit of baguette" onto the world's largest atom smasher, causing the machine to short out for a period of time. It's just the latest mishap for the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, which scientists plan to use to get insight into the universe's origins. The LHC, which has a 17-mile track to circulate protons and is located underground on the French-Swiss border outside Geneva, Switzerland, is the largest particle accelerator in the world and cost about $10 billion. The Large Hadron Collider, represented here by a model at CERN (European Organization For Nuclear Research), was shorted out when a bird dropped part of a baguette into the atom smasher's external machinery. The LHC booted up in September 2008, but technical problems forced it to shut down shortly after its launch. When the mystery bird reportedly dropped a piece of bread onto the particle accelerator's outdoor machinery earlier this week, the device was not turned on, according to reports, and therefore did not suffer major damage. Had the machine been activated, the baguette incident could have caused the LHC to go into shutdown mode, the UK's The Register reports. The Register quotes Dr. Mike Lamont, a worker at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN), as saying that "a bit of baguette" had been dropped on the LHC, possibly by a bird. A call to CERN's press office was not immediately returned. ZDNet writes that the baguette in question did not have a chocolate filling: "The [CERN] spokesperson said the bread, which was 'naked and unfilled,' had caused a short circuit when dropped on an electrical installation that supplies energy to the massive experiment. While the bird was unconfirmed as the definite culprit, it had been spotted beforehand near the substation carrying bread, said the spokesperson." The avian accident has prompted a number of online parodies and jokes. CNET UK, a CNN content partner, writes jokingly that it's clear the bird was French since it was carrying a baguette: "We're not ones for crude for national stereotyping, but the detail that the bird dropped a bit of baguette suggests this must have occurred on the French side of the LHC. It's unclear whether the bird was actually riding a bike, or indeed wearing onions and a beret." A Discover blog exclaims: "Zut alors!" And CrunchGear says the strange incident shows the LHC is "so abhorrent to nature that the universe is contriving to snuff it out." Never a dull moment over there it seems... ;o)

It is Monday morning and I am a bit worse for wear

CarpenterNJ — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:28:50 GMT

1,000mg’s of Seroquel is just way too much, so it is back to 600mg’s in small steps. And today is the G-unit's 47th birthday. Not only did I not know that he is two years older than Edward, but for some strange reason I thought it was in February! Welcome to “The Valley of the Dolls” folks. God I really just dated myself there didn’t I? Seeing as I am totally broke right now all he got was a hug and a kiss. He wants me to fuck him but that ain’t happening. We shall have hot roast beef sandwiches for dinner and a cannoli cream cake in his honor. He is a Sicilian after all. For reasons unknown to myself his name is not really Giuseppe, it’s Joseph. Perhaps it makes him feel unique. And boy does it ever, folks in quite a few states know who G is, and have probably fucked him at least once. I know that when I was a lad that wished that I had been named Sebastian or Bartholomew. John seemed so boring, but it was my grandfather’s name and so I am II. Once again I had to take another unpaid sick day because of my doctor dicking about with my meds. Mercifully my job is very understanding about my health issues. And I appreciate it a lot, not many companies would put up with my high absenteeism. We came to an agreement that they would be flexible with my hours and I would be a part-time employee. I get no benefits, but I do have a job. Since the State of New Jersey pays for all of my meds and for my healthcare through ADDP and HICP, it is a win-win situation for us all. My only other option would be to go on total disability as Giuseppe is through Social Security and Medicaid. And that just won’t pay the bills. Even with all the medications that I am on (11 scripts last count) I still have days that I physically can’t get out of bed. Bi-polar Depression is truly a debilitating illness. Add to that child abuse, being bullied at school, being raped, HIV, and Hepatitis-B and then you have a fine kettle of fish. And fuck stigma, I am living with it everyday. I refuse to suffer in silence. Nor should anyone have to. My thanks to all of you who read what I write. It helps me get through the day, honestly. My lord Ganesh, remover of all obstacles. Hear my quite prayer. Clear our way to the true path. Until the time we meet. Peace Namaste’ Shri Ganesh John