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Getbig Misc Discussion Boards => The Getbiggers Board - The Lounge => Topic started by: Bluto on May 07, 2007, 09:04:48 AM
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Alright this is great! this is why getbig is the greatest pace on earth yes! holy shit! yes!
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Let's start with some news from Philadelphia!
(http://media.philly.com/images/20070507_dn_0jh0o7jl.jpg)
WHEN MARY KATHERINE Kidd died, she left her developmentally disabled sons - Bill, 64, and Russell, 52 - the Olney rowhouse where they had lived with her all their lives, but she could not leave them the skills to survive there without her.
Their sister, Dottie, a retired hospital worker, looked after them until her own severe health problems stopped her.
In tears, Dottie showed up at the Association for Retarded Citizens (the ARC of Philadelphia), where Russell has attended vocational-training workshops for 30 years, because she had nowhere else to turn.
Two ARC caseworkers inspected the Kidd brothers' house.
"The first thing I noticed was the smell," remembers one of them, Robert Slack. "There was an old, obese dog named Tiny running around with open sores and an arthritic hip, obviously in pain.
"Most of the odor in the house came from Tiny."
Ancient wallpaper was peeling off the walls in strips, Slack said. "There were boxes everywhere, stacked halfway to the ceiling, filled with wires, brochures, wrappers, all this stuff the brothers had found over the years," he said.
"Everything they picked up, they kept. Mice and roaches lived in those boxes."
Slack found eight gallons of milk in the refrigerator, all well past the "use by" date. There was lots of cheese in the same condition that the brothers were eating.
The toilet upstairs flooded chronically and the water had leaked through the dining-room ceiling and walls, which had deteriorated dangerously.
"It was very dark in the house. There was almost no light," Slack said.
"There were stains all over the living-room carpet," he said. "Billy pointed to one of the stains and said, 'That's where she died.'"
Bill and Russell clearly did not have the skills to cope with living independently in the only home they had known since childhood.
When Dottie tearfully appealed to ARC executive director John Felt, she did not know that he had been searching for a way to use a surprise benefactor's $1.4 million bequest targeted specifically at helping people facing the crisis that her brothers were in.
Felt realized that the Kidd brothers were the ideal pioneers to enable the ARC - which has fought since 1948 for the rights of developmentally disabled people to an education, job skills and living-wage jobs - to tackle housing for the first time in its history.
"I almost dropped my teeth when John Felt told me, because I had no idea that such a program existed," said the Kidds' current ARC case manager, John Read.
"Without this program," he said, "Bill and Russell would have experienced a continual decay of their home that would have put their health in jeopardy. Their well-being was at stake."
The ARC's rescue of the Kidd brothers gives hope to hundreds of elderly parents in the city who are afraid that after they die, their developmentally disabled adult children will be unable to care for themselves at home or be forced into institutional living for the first time in their lives.
The ARC planned to move the Kidds into a hotel during the rehabbing of their house but "they were adamant about staying in the house and personally monitoring the progress," Read said.
"All during the rehab, they complained about the loud rock music that the construction guys were playing. Russell said, 'They are here to work, not to listen to music.' These guys are a riot.
They're very opinionated."
Recently, standing in their nearly completed rehabbed home, the Kidd brothers had a lot to say about the missing boxes and furniture that ARC workers had spent a week hauling out of there.
Today, the porch and kitchen have new, green slate floors; the living room and dining room have new, blue wall-to-wall carpeting; the house has a new sofa, new wooden kitchen cabinets, a new stove and microwave oven, and donated wicker dining-room and breakfast-room furniture.
The broken toilet that used to leak through the dining-room ceiling has been fixed, the structural damage has been repaired and the walls have been freshly painted white.
"We want our old stuff back," Russell said, talking rapidly and pointing at the places where the missing pieces used to be. "Tables, back. Lamps, back. Sofa, back. Boxes, back. Everything, back."
"All right, Russell," Slack said gently. "We'll get it back. Some of it. Not all of it."
Considering Slack's proposal, Russell rested his hands on his portable radio, which he houses in a pouch strapped high on his chest.
"You ever see anybody wear it up that high?" Russell's brother Bill asked, smiling. "If he was a woman, he couldn't."
One carton that wasn't removed from the house holds Bill's vintage collection of classic country music on vinyl - Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again," Johnny Cash's "Orange Blossom Special," Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline.
Bill was less adamant than his brother about getting the other old things back. Neither brother mentioned Tiny, who was euthanized.
Russell's below-70 IQ has qualified him for a lifetime of ARC vocational workshops: He repackages Hank's Beverages for transport to big-box stores; he packs furniture for Jacob Holtz Co., and he packs displays and fixtures for Acro Display Inc.
Bill, whose IQ is just above the disabled level, worked most of his life - prepping salads and meats at the Oak Lane Diner for 10 years, doing janitorial jobs at a nursing center for almost eight - until he hurt his back lifting a 55-gallon trash container in 2002. He has stayed home since.
The brothers survive on their dad's old Pennsylvania Railroad pension benefits and Bill's government disability income.
Some things have changed in their "new" digs. Some have not.
The old dog has been replaced by a young cat, Tiger, and her kittens.
The brothers still buy too much milk. On a recent visit, one shelf of the refrigerator held nine half-gallon containers, all but one unopened.
Russell explained that they need the milk because Tiger's kittens drink it and he likes a bowl of breakfast cereal every morning.
The brothers buy too much cat food. More than 100 cans were stacked in the kitchen.
The difference now is that an ARC caseworker will make sure the milk is discarded before it goes bad and will help the brothers shop for more-reasonable quantities in the future.
The main thing, Felt said, is that "Bill and Russell are living in a home of their own, rather than living in a home that someone told them they had to live in."
"Without this new program," he said, "Bill would be in a nursing home and Russell would be in a community-living group home and they would be separated. That's a burden I'm not sure they could handle."
Felt said that Harry B. Scheirer, the unexpected benefactor who left the ARC $1.4 million, was "a visionary" because "he has blessed the lives of people like the Kidds, the most vulnerable people in our community, by giving them the opportunity to live independently.
"We pay their utilities. We do all maintenance and repairs. If Russell or Bill have any issues that compromise their safety or health, each has a pre-programmed cell phone. They push a number and the call gets to the support person, 24 hours a day.
"Developmentally disabled people don't have credit ratings so there's no way they can get a bank card," Felt said. "Wachovia Bank gave the Kidd brothers a card and taught them how to use it for living expenses: food, clothing, the necessities."
The ARC's new focus on housing is a natural extension of its mission, said former board president Gerald Weisman, who has helped developmentally disabled people for 50 years - since the days, he recalled with distaste, when they were called "idiots" and "feebleminded."
"The ARC was always reflective of the civil-rights movement because it was about the right of all individuals to have a decent life," he said.
"Back in the '50s," Weisman said, "parents were pretty much left to the mercy of physicians who almost uniformly were saying, 'You have a child who's never going to be anything, who's going to be such a burden at home. Put him in an institution.' "
The ARC, he said, was founded by parents fed up with the public schools' refusal to educate their mentally retarded children.
For 20 years, before winning a lawsuit against the state in the '70s that opened public schools to the developmentally disabled, ARC parents ran "demonstration programs" at sites such as Smith Playground in Fairmount Park to prove that their children could be and should be educated.
"We found people in the community willing to be the teachers," said Eleanor Elkin, 90, an ARC activist since her developmentally disabled son Richard, now 59, was a little boy. "They were not all accredited teachers but they were all good souls."
One of those good souls was Scheirer - a quiet, self-effacing Quaker from Logan who was a lifelong bachelor with no children.
When he died several years ago, he left the ARC $1.4 million to help the people his heart had gone out to in the '70s by enabling them to live independently.
Now that the Kidd brothers have led the way, ARC is buying and rehabbing more houses that will give developmentally disabled people the gift of living in their own homes.
"It's like spring," Felt said. "Our heads are out of the ground and we're seeing the fruit of our first labors. And it feels good."
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Mayors' sons are trying to move up Sharif Street and Bill Green are running for City Council. Are they open to following their fathers to the top?
(http://media.philly.com/images/20070507_inq_se1sons06-a.JPG)
Philadelphia may not have had its last Mayor Street, nor perhaps its last Mayor Green.
In the last few months, their sons - Sharif Street and Bill Green - have built impressive fledgling political bases as they run for at-large seats on City Council.
They are arguably the two Council challengers with the best shot to win on May 15, thanks in no small part to fathers who have given them instant name recognition, enviable connections, and lifelong schooling in the art of Philadelphia politics.
It's a potent combination, as mayoral sons Wilson Goode Jr. and Frank Rizzo can attest. They already serve on Council, creating the distinct possibility that four of the chamber's 17 seats could be held by sons of the city's mayors.
Street and Green aren't openly trying to follow their fathers into the mayor's office, at least not yet. But their names, the support they have gathered, and their own statements suggest they are open to the idea.
"I certainly wouldn't rule that out," Street said. "But that's a long way off."
Green was more circumspect.
"I don't intend to try to stay on City Council my entire life, but whether or not I try to get involved in another political act, I can't say," Green said.
Green and Street may both well lose on May 15. There are 19 Democrats competing for five at-large seats, including the five incumbents and a handful of other well-financed and -organized challengers.
But there is the sense that, win or lose, Green and Street won't be leaving Philadelphia's political stage anytime soon.
"Why do doctors' children decide to become doctors? Or why do lawyers' children decide to become lawyers? They've seen it in their house, they understand it, they know what's involved," Green said.
Yet Green has not always been about politics first.
His first job - which began abruptly when he dropped out of St. Joseph's University at 19 - was trading options at the London Stock Exchange, a career he continued in Amsterdam and New York.
Later, Green completed his undergraduate education at Auburn University before enrolling in the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.
"The advice my father gave me was, don't ever be dependent upon an election for your livelihood; you need to be an independent person," Green said.
Green and his family moved to Atlanta, and returned to Philadelphia in 2005. Some analysts have wondered whether his recent return is a political liability. Not so, Green said.
"I think it's one of my greatest assets. I've seen how other cities are handling similar problems far more successfully then we are in Philadelphia," said Green, who works at the law firm Pepper, Hamilton L.L.P.
As a candidate, Green is most comfortable talking about the city's big-picture problems: the economy, job creation, taxes and so on. He is impatient when discussing polls, ballot position, and other electoral minutiae that so obsess the city's political class.
But he always chooses his words carefully, couching his criticism and making a clear effort to be diplomatic.
His father? Not so much.
"Legislation is serious and sophisticated business, and I could show you again and again how Council messes it up," William J. Green III said in an interview at his son's campaign headquarters last week.
"Frankly, they haven't been bright enough, and they need somebody in there that's a crackerjack lawyer, has a good brain, is politically sophisticated, and has seen it since he's a child."
As he said this, the elder Green, 68, beamed at his 43-year-old son as though he had just won a Little League championship.
"I am proud, and I think, if he's elected, everybody's going to be proud, because he's going to make a mark so fast and so strong that they'll be stunned," said Green, who served as mayor from 1980 to 1984.
The younger Green blushed a bit. A little later, as his father fired off another shot at City Council, the candidate sighed, shook his head, and planted it in his hands.
"Does that mean I should stop talking?" the elder Green asked, chuckling. "Sorry, son," he said in a stage whisper.
The former mayor answered one last question. Would he like to see his son become mayor?
"I will pray every day that doesn't happen," he said before erupting in laughter again.
Many of Sharif Street's earliest memories are political ones, and not all of them are pleasant.
The clearest is an episode from South Philadelphia, circa 1979. Sharif and his father were in the back of a truck, campaigning against the charter change that would have let Mayor Frank Rizzo run for a third term.
Sharif Street was five years old. "People were throwing stones at us," he said.
Even that early, Street said he knew he would follow his father into politics. It's a path the 33-year-old hasn't veered from since: president of the student body at Central High School, leader of the student senate at Morehouse College, president of the Penn Law Democrats, legislative aide to State Sen. Shirley Kitchen, Democratic committeeman, founder of a political action committee, and so on.
"I've never found politics intimidating. I understood it, I knew it naturally," said Street, who now works at the law firm Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen L.L.P.
His first foray into electoral politics was a losing campaign for the state House in 2002. After that defeat, Street was coy about his plans, but many considered it inevitable that he would seek a seat on City Council, the chamber his father worked so masterfully for 17 years.
As the mayor's son, he has undeniable advantages heading into May 15. But being a Street has its liabilities as well. Sharif Street has had to deal with the sideshow Council candidacy of his uncle, T. Milton Street, as well as frequent attacks on his father's performance by the mayoral candidates. "I've tried to make the best of that reality without spending a whole lot of time thinking, 'What if I were born the son of somebody else,' " Street said.
When he speaks, Street sounds a lot like his father: Their cadence is similar, even their word choice. But Sharif Street comes across as much less guarded than his father, a trait that has helped him maintain cordial and even friendly relationships with many of his father's opponents.
Through a spokesman, Mayor Street "respectfully declined" to be interviewed for this article, which is consistent with his approach to this Council race. The mayor has made few high-profile campaign stops with his son.
But that does not mean he is not involved, Sharif Street said. The mayor has given him advice on "how to be a good father and husband" while campaigning, as well as political tips. Mayor Street's infamous attention to detail rears its head as well, the younger Street said.
"He spends a whole heck of a lot of time talking about how to arrange an office, how many paper clips you need, what color ink you should have, should you italicize," Street said.
"Sometimes, he's a great help. And, you know, other times, he's a dad."
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Overview of Homarus americanus: The American Lobster
Nomenclature
So what is a lobster do you ask? A mammal, a fish or some primitive sea creature? Well, in case you don’t know a lobster belongs to the category Invertebrata, one of the two categories making up the animal kingdom. Unlike us humans who belong to the other group, Vertebrata, invertebrates lack a vertebral column (a backbone).
This is the classification system that all scientists use to categorize animals. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Below is the classification for Homarus americanus.
Kingdom: Anamilia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Crustacea
Order: Decapoda
Family: Nephropidae
Genus: Homarus
Species: americanus
Lobsters are actually closely related to insects! It’s hard to believe that these beady-eyed, clawed-clothed marine animals could be closely related to a mosquito or a grasshopper, but indeed they are. Lobsters, like insects, belong to the invertebrate phylum Arthropoda. Besides lobsters and insects, spiders and snails belong to this group as well. These animals are closely related because of two main characteristics that they share: they all have an exoskeleton (outer skeleton) and they all have joint appendages.
Lobsters are farther categorized into the class Crustacea, along with other marine organisms like crabs and shrimp. These crustaceans are distinguishable from other Arthropods with hard exoskeletons, like mussels and clams, because their shell is softer and more flexible. Because lobsters have ten legs they belong to the order Decapoda (derived from the Latin word, ten feet).
Also called the American lobster, the Atlantic lobster or the true lobster, Homarus americanus belongs to the family Nephropidae. Another kind of edible lobster found in the order Decapoda is the family Palinuridae. These lobsters are called spiny lobsters or rock lobsters. Unlike the American lobster they lack large claws, have spines all over their bodies, and live in subtropical and tropical oceans.
(http://www.parl.ns.ca/lobster/images/spinylobster.jpg)
Like all Arthropods Homarus americanus, is bilateral. This means that if you were to cut a lobster from head to tail (or more correctly cephalon to abdomen!) right down the middle, you would come up with two equal halves. The organs are arranged in such a way that each half would be identical. (They would be mirror images of one another.)
(http://www.parl.ns.ca/lobster/images/lobsterdiagram.jpg[img]
A lobster consists of two main parts. The first part, the cephalothorax, which is made up of the cephalon (the head) and the thorax (the mid-section), is often called the body of the lobster and is covered by a hard shell called the carapace. The second part that makes up the lobster is the abdomen, which is commonly called the tail. The 14 segments that are fused together to make up the cephalothorax are called somites and each somite bears a pair of appendages that are located on different areas of the lobster, usually on either side of the body or on the underside of the body.
The eyes of the lobster are found on the first segment, and are housed at the end of two individual, movable stalks found on either side of the rostrum (the very tip of the cephalon). Each eye is actually made up of thousands of little lenses joined together, which is why they are called compound eyes. You would think that with all these “tiny eyes” that lobsters would have excellent vision, but ironically they do not. In fact, in bright light a lobster is practically blind. Lobsters cannot really see specific images but they can detect motion in dim light.
The second segment of the cephalothorax bears the antennules, which are carried on a three-segmented peduncle (foot) and contain the chemosensory organs. The chemoreceptors found in these short antennae detect distant odors or chemical signals that are carried by the seawater. These messages received by the antennules help a lobster find food, choose a mate and decide if danger is near. The more then 400 different types of receptors found on the delicate hairs of the antennules are sensitive enough to allow a lobster to distinguish between particular species of mussels. Imagine having a nose that sensitive! The antennae, which consist of a five-segmented peduncle and a single flagellum, are located on the third segment. These antennae are much longer then the antennules and are used as sense organs as well.
The last three segments of the cephalon and the first three segments of the thorax are where the mouthparts are located. The many mouths of the lobster have a variety of functions and are found on the underside of the lobster. Some are used to grip food such as the second and third maxillipeds. Others, such as the first and second maxillae and the first maxillipeds are used to pass this food along to the jaws, also called the mandibles, for crushing and ingestion. The Jaws are located on the fourth segment of the cephalothorax, and the other mouths are located on segments 5-9.
The remaining segments of the cephalothorax are where one finds the walking legs of the lobster and what are commonly called the claws. These five legs (including the claws) are located on segments 10-14, and are joined to the lobster on either side of the body. The first three pairs of legs end in pincers, which are sharp, small, scissor-like claws that are used in handling and tasting food. Tiny hairs that line the inside of the pincers are sensitive to touch and taste. The first legs with the largest and sharpest pincers are called the claws. One claw is actually called the pincer claw, but the other is called the crusher claw. The crusher claw, being the larger of the two, is more powerful and is used to crush the shells of the lobster’s prey. The pincer claw is like a razor and is used to tear the soft flesh of the prey.
Not only are humans right-handed or left-handed, surprisingly lobsters can be as well. Depending on whether its crusher claw is on the left side or right side of its body determines whether the lobster is left or right handed!
The other two sets of legs that do not have pincers end in a point called a dactyl. These two sets of legs are mostly used for grooming and walking. At the base of the third walking legs in females the opening to the oviducts is located. This is the opening through which eggs are released. In males the opening of the sperm duct is located at the base of the fifth walking legs.
The six segments that make up the abdomen are not fused together to allow for flexibility and movement. The soft tissue that connects them is not hard like the carapace. One of the advantages of having this flexibility is that it helps the lobster when it is in danger and needs to flee quickly. It’s tail is able to contract forcefully and then retract quickly, allowing the lobster to scoot backwards to safety. The first 5 segments of the abdomen bear the pleopods, which are also called swimmerets, and are located on the underside of the tail. The last segment, where the tail fan is located, is dived up in to a central telson with pairs of uropods on both sides. These uropods are pleopods that have been modified. Altogether there are five parts to the tail fan.
Physiological processes and body systems:
The digestive, excretory, respiratory, circulatory and reproductive systems of the lobster are located within the cephalothorax, below the carapace. These systems are quite similar to other species found in the order Decapoda.
The digestive system of the American lobster consists of three stomachs, the foregut, midgut, and the hindgut. The first stomach, the foregut, contains a gastric mill, a set of grinding teeth that can grind food into fine particles. The particles then pass into the midgut glands where the particles are further digested. The midgut glands are actually the tomalley, the yummy green stuff that so many lobster lovers enjoy! Material that is too large to be absorbed is eventually passed into the hindgut and then through to the enlarged rectum and out the anus at the tip of the lobster’s tail.
The excretory system removes toxic byproducts of protein metabolism and tissue breakdown. Wastes are eliminated via excretory organs located at the base of the lobster’s antennae. Urine is also released from this area through the nephropores. Wastes can also be eliminated through the gills, the digestive glands or can be lost when the lobster molts.
Twenty pairs of gills located within the branchial chambers on either side of the cephalothorax are what comprise the respiratory system. These gills are made up of numerous feathery like filaments situated around a central rod and are protected within the gill chamber of the carapace. Water passes up through openings between the lobsters legs, over the gills and up towards the head. Every few minutes this current of water is reversed the other way so that debris can be flushed out of the chambers. An important part of this “gill current” is that when it is flowing forward towards the head it can project urine forward. It is thought that the urine of the lobster contains important information about the sex of the lobster, and it’s physiological state.
A lobster does not have a complex circulatory system like we do. Instead of a four-chambered heart it has a single-chambered sac that consists of muscles and several openings called ostia. Their heart lies above the stomach on the upper surface of the animal (but still below the carapace of course!) A lobster’s circulatory system is known as an “open” system whereas our system is known as a closed system. The heart of an adult lobster beats 50-136 beats per minute.
Coloring:
Live lobsters are not red like the cooked ones you’ve bought at the store or restaurant. The colour of a live lobster does vary among individual lobsters, but most lobsters are either olive green or greenish brown. Orange, reddish, dark green or black speckles are commonly found adorning a live lobster and a bluish colour is often found at the joints of the lobster.
[img]http://www.parl.ns.ca/lobster/images/cookedlo.jpg)
The major pigment in a lobster’s shell is astaxanthin, which is bright red in its free state. In a live lobster astaxanthin is chemically bound to proteins that change this colour to a greenish or bluish colour. When a lobster is boiled the heat from the water breaks the bonds that hold this pigment to these proteins and the astaxanthin is released in to its free state. Thus a cooked lobster is bright red and not dark green.
Habitat
The Northwest Atlantic is where the American lobster calls home. From Labrador to North Carolina this lobster is found eating, breeding and roaming the ocean floor. Lobsters prefer to make their homes in rocky areas where they can hide in the crevices from predators. However, young lobsters that have just settled on the bottom may not be able to find gravelly material so they burrow in pebble, sand or clay. In the first few years of a lobster’s life home is really where the hiding place is. A young lobster that has just settled on the bottom must hide away so as not to be eaten by predators, but older juveniles and adult lobsters that are larger and better equipped for protecting themselves can wander away from their burrows to explore.
How far can these older lobsters actually travel? Studies done in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in Atlantic Canada, have concluded that the 15,000 lobsters that had been tagged and released had moved an average of 10-15km from their release points. Similar studies done in other parts of Atlantic Canada have observed the same trends.
With their large claws an adult lobster can dig away sand and gravel from under a rock, making a tunnel that they can call home. Some of the larger extensive burrows may house two or three lobsters of different sizes. Lobsters may be found from the low tide mark out to depths of approximately 400m. Although lobsters can be fished in deep waters, high concentrations are found closer to shore in shallower water, like in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence at depths ranging from 1-40 meters.
Predators and Diet
The biggest predator of the American lobster is man! After man, their next biggest predators are ground fish such as flounder and cod, sculpins, eels, rock gunnels, crabs, and seals.
Lobsters are not fussy eaters. Although they prefer fresh food they will eat basically anything that they can get their claws on, even if it’s dead. (As is evident in their desire to get at the bait in the lobster traps!). The main diet of a lobster is crab, mussels, clams, starfish, sea urchins and various marine worms. They are also known to catch fast moving animals like shrimp, amphipods (also known as “sand fleas”) and even small fish. Lobsters eat mostly animals, but if these resources are scarce, as they are sometimes in the spring, a lobster might eat plants, or sponges to get energy. In the Northumberland Strait, an area making up a great part of the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, a main dish for a lobster in the fall is a newly settled crab. Lobsters in this region can get up to 50% of their energy requirements from crabs.
Some people believe that lobsters are cannibals. This is really a misconception. Lobsters have never been documented eating other lobsters in the wild. This has only been seen in close conditions with lobsters in captivity. It was once thought that lobsters might be cannibals because scientists found traces of lobster shells in the digestive systems of the lobsters they were examining. However, it was later discovered that this material was actually the lobster’s own shell that had been digested by it after it molted. A lobster may eat part of its old shell to absorb the calcium found in it to strengthen their new shell that is forming.
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i saved this thread its that good.
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An Evolutionary Look at Human Homosexuality
The first key idea is that evolution optimizes function. It makes things work. If there is a change in a gene that helps the organism, that change increases over the generations, becomes more common. If it causes trouble, as most changes do that make any difference at all, the change decreases over the generations, becomes rare. So although changes (mutations) happen, they don't happen very often, and natural selection tends to keep them rare. You could think of it as a filter, constantly removing changes that don't work. It magnifies the rare changes that improve things.
When we say that a mutation, a gene change, helps or hurts the organism, what we really mean is that it helps or hurts the organism reproduce. Reproduction is the currency of natural selection: a gene that made you long-lived, happy, and sterile would never become common. 'Good' means good at being passed into the next generation. Good genes are a recipe for all kinds of complex functions, and for good health - but from an evolutionary point of view, strength and health are just means, while babies are the end product.
So you don't expect defective genes to be the main cause of human disease, and they aren't. They do cause some genetic diseases which fall into two categories.
The first is simply the consequence of the fact that mutations happen: you might call it the noise in the system, the inevitable price of imperfect gene-Xeroxing. This means single-gene Mendelian disorders like classic dwarfism or muscular dystrophy, and I suppose I would include chromosomal disorders like Down's syndrome. Maybe 1% of the population (In Europeans say) has some Mendelian disorder, mostly mild ones, but no single disorder is at all common.
The second category consists of mutations that are surprisingly common -- because, it turns out that they offer carriers some advantage, usually protection against some really unpleasant infectious disease. The most famous of these is the sickle-cell mutations, which protects carriers against the worst forms of malaria. We know of a number of others. Most are also malaria defenses (G6PD deficiency, alpha- and beta-thalassemia, etc.); some protect against other things. Cystic fibrosis probably protects against typhoid. We pay a lot of attention to them, because they are much more common than other genetic diseases, but they are atypical. They are common because they are actually useful in certain situations, rather than being an expression of the noise in the system. They are only important in populations whose ancestors have lived with malaria for many generations. For comparison, the most common disease of this sort in people of European ancestry is cystic fibrosis, which maybe hits one in 2500 kids, but sickle cell anemia can hit more than 1 in 100 kids in much of Africa, in some places one in 30.
How can we use this information to understand disease? Well, in the first place, if genetic problems were the only kind of problem we had, most of us would hardly get sick at all. The second point is that it gives us a new notion of what a disease is - anything that interferes with reproduction.
How could a serious disease be common, if evolution is always optimizing everything? Well, if it hit you at age 85, selection wouldn't be very good at filtering it away. People have already had their children by then ... So this optimizing process works less well at advanced ages. Which is the basic explanation for aging.
But how could a serious disease be common in early life? And think of it as we do - how could a condition that reduces or eliminates reproduction be common in early life?
First we have to say what 'common' means, in this context. Common means common compared to the noise in the system. So 1% is very common: no disease caused by random mutations is anywhere near that common. 1 in 10,000 is surprisingly common, but there are one or two mutation-caused diseases that are in that ballpark, like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. Turns out that the gene involved in muscular dystrophy is maybe 20 times longer than the typical gene - there are more opportunities for typos. So 1 in 7000 boys have Duchenne's muscular dystrophy - that's as common as a 'system noise' disease gets.
A disease caused by a malaria defense gene can exist in up to a few percentage of people in a high-malaria region: but only there. No other disease has hit as many people as hard, no other disease evokes such high frequencies of expensive genetic defenses.
A common disease can be caused by something new in the world, something to which the human race has not had a chance to adjust. Most lung cancer is caused by cigarette smoking - but cigarettes just haven't been around for many generations.
Most common and serious diseases that have been around a long time and hit in early life are caused by germs - bacteria, viruses, parasitic worms, etc. Evolution doesn't necessarily make them rare, because evolution is playing on both sides in this struggle: they're evolving too. In much the same way, evolution doesn't just make zebras faster, it makes the lions faster too. Lions can continue to be a major problem for zebras over millions of years - and in the same way, malaria can continue to be a problem for humans indefinitely.
So if a disease is common (> a tenth of one percent), hits in early life, has been around a long time (so we know it's not caused by some new industrial chemical or whatever), and it's not restricted to people from the malaria zone - it's probably caused by some bug.
But what about homosexuality? Well, from this biological perspective, it's surely a disease. Disinterest in the opposite sex reduces reproduction quite a bit - around 80% in American conditions. Does it hit in early life? Sure. Has it been around a long time? Certainly. Do you find it in non-African populations, people who never lived with malaria? Yes.
So it's a bug.
Now that we know that human male homosexuality looks like a disease caused by some infectious organism, the next question is how that could happen - how could some virus change sexual interest?
I don't think that anyone can be sure of the exact mechanism at this point. I think we can be fairly confident that it is caused by an infectious organism, from the information we have and general evolutionary considerations, but infectious organisms can cause harm in many different ways. Malaria colonizes and uses up red blood cells, diphtheria and cholera manufacture toxins, HIV slowly knocks out a key subpopulation of the immune system, leaving you defenseless against many other pathogens, while certain papillomavirus strains deregulates cell division and thus cause cervical cancer. And those are just samples: there are many pathogenic mechanisms involved in infectious disease, some not well understood.
What do we know? We have a lot of indications that there has been some change in the brain. After, all that's the most logical location for the cause of a change in behavior. Simon LeVay and others see differences in hypothalamic nuclei (similar to those seen in sheep). There are associated changes - the lisp, increased neuroticism and depression, etc. Somehow the cause is affecting the brain.
Just as important are all the things we don't see. We don't see IQ depression, we don't see epilepsy, we don't see convulsions, and we don't see aphasia. Clearly there is no gross trauma - somehow, the brain has been damaged, but in a very limited and focused way. A key function has been messed up, which gravely impacts reproductive fitness, but homosexual men can still hold down jobs, including very complex jobs. The overwhelming majority of mental functions are perfectly intact, or at most subtly changed. The damaged neural subsystem could be male-specific.
Do we know of diseases in which there are very specific targets - in which certain cell types are damaged or destroyed while neighboring cells are left intact? Sure. In some cases, a pathogen targets a particular cell type and has little effect on anything else. Human parvovirus (also known as fifth disease) hits erythroid precursor cells (the cells that manufacture red cells) and temporarily inhibits red cell production. In type-I diabetes, it seems likely that Coxsackie virus infections (in people with a genetic predisposition, in which HLA type plays a major role) trigger an autoimmune disease that gradually (over a year or so) destroys the islet cells which produce insulin. Other cells are not much affected.
We know of a similar, very specific damage pattern in the brain - Narcolepsy
In Narcolepsy, most of the neurons that produce hypocretins (neurotransmitters) have somehow disappeared. There are only 30,000 of these neurons in the first place, all in a small hypothalamic nucleus. This loss leaves one pathologically sleepy, subject to cataplexy and in some cases hypnagogic hallucinations. Narcolepsy hits about 1 in 2000 people: identical twin concordance is around 25%. Almost all narcoleptics have a particular HLA type, one shared by about a third of the general population. Narcolepsy (almost always) is not present at birth but manifests in early adulthood.
Narcoleptics are pathologically sleepy, but most mental functions are unaffected.
There is at present a strong suspicion that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease, possibly triggered by a viral infection. The HLA association points in this direction, but as yet the exact cause of the destruction of the neurons that make hypocretin is unknown. Narcolepsy does, however, show that there exists some mechanism that can destroy a particular hypothalamic neuron subpopulation without causing general brain trauma.
Narcolepsy can also be caused by a mutation in the gene for hypocretin or its receptor: so far, out of hundreds of narcoleptics examined, just one had such a mutation. Of course natural selection keeps such mutations rare. He had an unusual profile, being narcoleptic from birth.
Imagine a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in male sexual behavior, produced by a few specialized neurons, probably in another of the many known hypothalamic nuclei, quite possibly in the nucleus that LeVay studied... Obviously you can walk and talk without it - women probably don't have any at all, while children may not have much. You could live without it, think without it - just as eunuchs live and think without much testosterone. But this hypothetical neurotransmitter is more specialized than testosterone: instead of beginning a chemical cascade that has many effects on body and mind, like testosterone, this one mainly affects the choice of sexual partner: is involved in constructing a search image.
Occasionally a pathogen, in one of a few possible ways, causes the destruction of most or all of those specialized neurons. Maybe its molecular mimicry: maybe it has a tropism for those particular cells and kills them directly. But this kind of super-precise damage pattern can happen, because it does happen with narcolepsy. Maybe the HLA genes make a difference, maybe they don't. As in so many things in the male brain, the search image generator is by default female-type: doing nothing, failing to masculinize, results in sexual interest (testosterone is still being produced) but it's interest is in males, not females.
Fortunately, we have an excellent experimental animal model: sheep. Some rams, 6 percent in some herds, show sexual interest in males and no interest in females, ever. Breeding experiments, using artificial insemination, showed insignificant heritability. Studies of the sheep's brains show oddly differential hormonal activity in certain areas of the hypothalumus. OSU professor studies sexual preference in sheep.
Preferential homosexuality, sexual interest in males, rather than females, is very rare. The only two species known to exhibit this behavior, at the-few-percent level, are men and sheep. It may be worth noting that men and sheep have often been found in close association.
Another point worth mentioning is that the prevalence of homosexuality probably varies a lot. It seems to be considerably more common in young men who grew up in urban areas than in rural areas, something like a factor of three, which is also true of Schizophrenia. This is a much bigger effect than the birth order stuff. If you look out in the real sticks, say among the Kalahari Bushmen, there doesn't seem to be any at all. Typically, hunter-gatherers have trouble believing that homosexuality actually exists.
All this is speculative, of course: but the idea that male homosexuality is caused by a pathogen makes good evolutionary sense, unlike every other explanation ever proposed. This particular form of pathogen explanation of homosexuality, inspired by the recent breakthroughs in narcolepsy research, is consistent with the low identical twin concordance for homosexuality, with geographical variation in its incidence, with some observations of volume changes in a particular hypothalamic nucleus in homosexual men, and most importantly, with the dog that didn't bark - the fact that homosexual men do not suffer from general brain damage, do not show symptoms like IQ depression.
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How to Tend a Garden in New York
New York City officials have long been plotting the sale of community gardens to housing developers. Appreciating the few stretches of green in our city of concrete and steel is easy for anyone who’s visited; saving them is something else. Fortunately, garden defenders have proven a creative lot and have successfully frustrated Mayor Rudy Guiliani’s plan to sell off every last vestige of public space. Yet what's happening in New York is going on across the nation–municipalities are selling off public space to private interests. Inspired by the garden troops, Stay Free! has compiled a list of their tactics for folks to try in their own communities.
DISRUPT FILM SHOOTS
Guiliani understands how important it is for Hollywood to use public space, so don’t try walking down 5th Street during the "rain sequence." Instead, drive home the value of public space. Win the administration’s attention by getting that of the filmmakers: chuck eggs filled with glitter onto the set, which disturbs lighting. Offer disgruntled local dwellers sheets of mylar–a reflective material available at any crafts store–to put in their windows. Afterward send the poor crew some chocolate chip cookies; it’s not their fault city officials suck!
RUSH-HOUR GRIDLOCK
Take the day off! At 8 a.m., block State Street, the road on which the New York Partnership (for Garden Killing) is located, by handcuffing humans across it. Unhandcuffed others should hand out flyers. Smile and comb your hair. People are watching.
POOL PARTY
Find some kids, gather outside a developer’s home with beach toys, kiddie pool, balloons, noisemakers, and let the fun begin. When passersby inquire, tell them that without gardens, the kiddies have to play on the sidewalk.
AUCTIONS
Attend public auctions where gardens are to be sold. Encourage family and friends to make false bids, drive prices up up up until you WIN! When it’s time to pay, search desperately for your wallet. Offer to run home and check. Speak slowly. Stall. (Warning: highly illegal.) Then graciously offer your wrists because you, friend, have won a night in jail.
Another option: purchase 10,000 live crickets off the internet, stuff in large envelopes (cut a hole and cover it with mesh to allow air in), then place each in a briefcase. Comrades–dressed stylishly and businesslike–should disperse throughout room. At the signal, release insects and watch the fun. Cricket-launchers will spend a night in jail, so make sure undercover pals are on hand to videotape the show . . . and to hand-deliver dubs to local television network affiliates [the aforementioned scene, thanks to help from Dyke TV, made it on all three major networks]. Inform animal rights extremists that the crickets typically met their fate in an instant, painless manner while helping New York cops exercise aggression through vigorous (and comedic) stomping.
TREE SIT
Put on a sunflower costume, climb up a gingko tree in City Hall Park, and promise not to come down until Giuliani decides to meet with you or, more likely, you get arrested. Or: Gather 30 or more people who, in the words of Rudy Guiliani, are stuck "in the era of communism." All sit down in City Hall lobby.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Promote the gardens to the public; encourage people to spend time with them. Extend garden hours; enroll more members (usually only $10 a year with four hours of volunteer work); provide keys to more members. Hold parties and bake sales in the gardens.
FAX AND PHONE JAMS
Fax: Set that puppy on loop–only to one number, that of the city council. Tie up their fax for days. You may be able to send as many as 400 from one machine before they knock on your door to cart you away. To avoid arrest, don’t fax the same thing over and over–fax different long missives, in large type. Also, limit the number of faxes from any one number; inform others to fax on behalf of the gardens (appropriate or poignant wording not necessary; old newspaper articles and recipes works just fine).
Phone: Same idea. Call City Council Speaker Peter Vallone’s office on specified days and keep the receptionist on the phone at all costs. Talk slowly, accidentally drop phone, mumble, adopt an important-sounding manner. Perhaps now’s the time to practice that second foreign language. Or to ask vaguely civic-related questions you might have wondered about. Send harried secretaries flowers the next week.
PRESSURE HPD
Pressure Housing Preservation and Development, an agency that argues that affordable housing requires sacrificing community gardens. Place a classified ad in the local weekly offering low-cost housing with the HPD’s phone number.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, BRIND ON BETTE MIDLER
Really. This woman has helped provide funding for dozens of gardens slated for sale. Activism, though–not money–has saved the gardens.
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The History of Plastics
Timeline of Plastics
The First Man-Made Plastic - Parkesine
The first man-made plastic was created by Alexander Parkes who publicly demonstrated it at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. The material called Parkesine was an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be molded, and retained its shape when cooled.
Celluloid
Celluloid is derived from cellulose and alcoholized camphor. John Wesley Hyatt invented celluloid as a substitute for the ivory in billiard balls in 1868. He first tried using collodion a natural substance, after spilling a bottle of it and discovering that the material dried into a tough and flexible film. However, the material was not strong enough to be used as a billiard ball, until the addition of camphor, a derivative of the laurel tree.
The new celluloid could be molded with heat and pressure into a durable shape.
Besides billiard balls, celluloid became famous as the first flexible photographic film used for still photography and motion pictures. John Wesley Hyatt created celluloid in a strip format for movie film. By 1900, movie film was an exploding market for celluloid.
Formaldehyde Resins - Bakelite
After cellulose nitrate, formaldehyde was the next product to advance the technology of plastic. Around 1897, efforts to manufacture white chalkboards led to casein plastics (milk protein mixed with formaldehyde) Galalith and Erinoid are two early tradename examples.
In 1899, Arthur Smith received British Patent 16,275, for "phenol-formaldehyde resins for use as an ebonite substitute in electrical insulation", the first patent for processing a formaldehyde resin. However, in 1907, Leo Hendrik Baekeland improved phenol-formaldehyde reaction techniques and invented the first fully synthetic resin to become commercially successful, tradenamed Bakelite.
Timeline - Precursors
1839 - Natural Rubber - method of processing invented by Charles Goodyear
1843 - Vulcanite - Thomas Hancock
1843 - Gutta-Percha - William Montgomerie
1856 - Shellac - Alfred Critchlow, Samuel Peck
1856 - Bois Durci - Francois Charles Lepag
Timeline - Beginning of the Plastic Era with Semi Synthetics
1839 - Polystyrene or PS discovered - Eduard Simon
1862 - Parkesine - Alexander Parkes
1863 - Cellulose Nitrate or Celluloid - John Wesley Hyatt
1872 - Polyvinyl Chloride or PVC - first created by Eugen Baumann
1894 - Viscose Rayon - Charles Frederick Cross, Edward John Bevan
Timeline - Thermosetting Plastics and Thermoplastics
1908 - Cellophane - Jacques E. Brandenberger
1909 - First true plastic Phenol-Formaldehyde tradenamed Bakelite - Leo Hendrik Baekeland
1926 - Vinyl or PVC - Walter Semon invented a plasticized PVC.
1927 - Cellulose Acetate
1933 - Polyvinylidene chloride or Saran also called PVDC - accidentally discovered by Ralph Wiley, a Dow Chemical lab worker.
1935 - Low-density polyethylene or LDPE - Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett
1936 - Acrylic or Polymethyl Methacrylate
1937 - Polyurethanes tradenamed Igamid for plastics materials and Perlon for fibers. - Otto Bayer and co-workers discovered and patented the chemistry of polyurethanes
1938 - Polystyrene made practical
1938 - Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE tradenamed Teflon - Roy Plunkett
1939 - Nylon and Neoprene considered a replacement for silk and a synthetic rubber respectively Wallace Hume Carothers
1941 - Polyethylene Terephthalate or Pet - Whinfield and Dickson
1942 - Low Density Polyethylene
1942 - Unsaturated Polyester also called PET patented by John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson
1951 - High-density polyethylene or HDPE tradenamed Marlex - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks
1951 - Polypropylene or PP - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks
1953 - Saran Wrap introduced by Dow Chemicals.
1954 - Styrofoam the trademarked form of polystyrene foam insulation, invented by Ray McIntire for Dow Chemicals
1964 - Polyimide
1970 - Thermoplastic Polyester this includes trademarked Dacron, Mylar, Melinex, Teijin, and Tetoron
1978 - Linear Low Density Polyethylene
1985 - Liquid Crystal Polymers
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PWN
PWN (verb)
1. An act of dominating an opponent.
2. Great, ingenious; applied to methods and objects.
Originally dates back to the days of WarCraft, when a map designer mispelled "Own" as "Pwn". What was originally supose to be "player has been owned." was "player has been pwned".
Pwn eventually grew from there and is now used throughout the online world, especially in online games.
1. "I pwn these guys on battlenet"
2. "This strategy pwns!" or "This game pwn."
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Multi-purpose strap for a laser tripod
United States Patent 7207118 Link to this page:http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7207118.html Abstract:A multi-purpose strap for use with a laser tripod having a head portion and a base portion includes a flexible member, a first coupling component located at an end of the flexible member, and a second coupling component located at an opposite end of the flexible member. The flexible member when in a first configuration is adaptable to be coupled to the head portion using the first coupling component. The flexible member in a second configuration is also adaptable to be coupled to the tripod base using the second coupling member to form a shoulder strap.
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Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. People with malaria often experience fever, chills, and flu-like illness. Left untreated, they may develop severe complications and die. Each year 350-500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
This sometimes fatal disease can be prevented and cured. Bednets, insecticides, and antimalarial drugs are effective tools to fight malaria in areas where it is transmitted. Travelers to a malaria-risk area should avoid mosquito bites and take a preventive antimalarial drug.
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hahahahaha
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Get ready for $4 gasoline
With prices at record high, demand and refining problems could push them much higher. Any relief in sight?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With gas prices near record highs, experts say $4-a-gallon gasoline is just around the corner.
"I think it's going to happen," said Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago. "Unless things change dramatically, I think we're going to see $4 a gallon."
As pump prices set new record, experts say demand and refining problems could push them to $4 in many parts of the country. Is relief in sight?
Iraq's oil minister insists the future is bright despite bloodshed, bickering and oil industry doubts. CNN's Hugh Riminton reports (May 5).
Play video
Already, prices in California average $3.48 a gallon, according to the motorist organization AAA. And one service station in San Francisco was charging $3.95, according to GasBuddy.com, a handy site that lists the cheapest and most expensive gas stations by city and state across the country.
Refinery problems and strong demand are the two main reasons cited for the runup. Prices hit a record high of $3.07 a gallon, according to the Lundberg survey released Sunday.
The bad boys of oil
Refinery output in the U.S. has been below normal for several months now, after fires and other accidents combined with longer than normal maintenance shutdowns, hurting production.
Peter Beutel, an oil analyst at consulting firm Cameron Hanover, noted in a recent report that refineries have not operated above 95 percent capacity since Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005. Before 2005, the refineries, clustered around the Gulf coast and badly damaged in the storms, routinely operated at over 95 percent capacity.
Flynn said gasoline stocks have fallen for the past twelve weeks straight and are now at their lowest level for this time of year since 1956.
This all comes just as the nation gears up for the summer driving season, spurred by vacationing families and students out of school.
Meanwhile, demand has shown no sign of easing. That's despite a nationwide average price of $3.07 a gallon for unleaded regular, a record, according to Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey of thousands of stations nationwide.
During the winter months gasoline demand grew at about 2.5 percent, according to the Energy Information Agency. Average demand growth is about 1.5 percent.
"More and more communities are going to see gasoline that approaches or exceeds $4 a gallon," John Kilduff, an energy analyst at Man Financial in New York, said recently. "Where we're currently at with prices, that's a given."
Behind high gas prices: The refinery crunch
But not everyone is so convinced.
Wholesale gasoline prices have fallen 20 cents over the last week and prices for gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange have lost about the same amount over two weeks, according to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, which gathers statistics for AAA.
Kloza said gasoline prices as measured by AAA have not yet hit a record, clocking in at $3.04 a gallon Monday, two cents shy of the 2005 record.
"I'm not sure we're going to get there," said Kloza. "I wouldn't be surprised to see our numbers stay the same, or maybe even tick lower."
When inflation is factored in, Lundberg's record of $3.07 still trails the all-time high in March 1981. At the time, gasoline cost $1.35 a gallon - and in today's dollars, that's $3.13 a gallon, said Lundberg.
Also, Americans earn a lot more now than they did in the early 1980s, so by some measures what people spend now on gas is only half of what is used to be.
In 1980, the average American had to work 105 minutes to buy enough gas to drive the average car 100 miles, David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, said in a study last year. By 2006, the average American needed to work only 52 minutes, thanks in part to better fuel efficiency but mostly due to higher wages.
It's also worth noting that while $4 gasoline would be a record for American motorists, in Europe it's common due to high taxes. The average price for a gallon of gas in the Netherlands is over $7, and it's over $6 in many European countries.
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Exploding device kills man near Vegas casino
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- A device left on top of a car in a casino parking garage exploded early Monday, killing a man as he attempted to remove it, authorities said.
The man was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after the 4 a.m. blast, police said. Another person who was with the man was not injured, police spokesman Bill Cassell said.
Police said the blast behind the Luxor hotel-casino was directed at the man, who worked at a business inside the pyramid-shaped hotel, and was not a terrorist act or a mob hit. Police did not identify the victim or the person who was with him. (Watch as investigators respond to the scene of the explosion )
Investigators were reviewing hotel surveillance videotapes for clues.
"We believe the victim of this event was the intended target," Cassell said. He denied initial reports that a backpack had exploded, and dismissed suggestions that the slaying had ties to organized crime.
Cassell said no threat was made against the Luxor or its employees.
The man who was killed "worked inside the Luxor, but we do not think he was on the hotel payroll," he said. He characterized the slaying as "a homicide with an unusual weapon," but declined to describe the device.
Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Mirage Inc., which owns the Luxor, said the person killed was not a company employee.
"Police do not believe the resort was targeted in any way," Absher said, adding that the Luxor was not damaged and that -- except for the top floor of the two-story parking garage -- the resort was continuing normal operations.
There was little damage around the vehicle and the hotel was not evacuated, police and a hotel official said.
Entrances were sealed after the explosion and authorities went vehicle to vehicle with bomb-sniffing dogs. People were allowed to remove their vehicles after they had been inspected, Absher said.
The explosion happened in the parking garage behind the Luxor, a hotel at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip, a main road where many of the city's casinos are located.
Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents were involved in the investigation, said ATF Special Agent Nina Delgadillo, regional spokeswoman for the agency in San Francisco.
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Sarkozy: I have mandate for change
PARIS, France (CNN) -- France's new leader Nicolas Sarkozy vowed on Monday to implement a program of swift change to make his country more business-friendly, tougher on crime and less attractive to would-be immigrants.
The conservative victor in Sunday's presidential election promised a series of reforms in his first 100 days in office, including plans to undermine the 35-hour work week by cutting taxes on overtime, curbs onunion powers and tightened sentencing for repeat offenders, Reuters reported.
Sarkozy's promised reforms are aimed at shaking up France's labor market to revive the country's flagging economy.
But Sarkozy's first presidential battle will be to secure a majority for his conservative party in next month's parliamentary elections that will decide the future of the next national assembly.
A Sunday poll put Sarkozy's UMP party ahead of the Socialists, with 34 percent to 29 percent, for the June election.
Union leaders criticized Sarkozy's proposals and France could face crippling strikes in the autumn of the sort that tripped Chirac when he took office in 1995 and tried to impose change, the report added.
Over the next few days, Sarkozy "will retire to somewhere in France to unwind a little ... and to start organizing and preparing his teams," said Francois Fillon, an adviser often cited as the leading candidate for prime minister, The Associated Press said.
Making changes
In a surprising turn of events, 46 percent of blue-collar workers -- traditionally leftist voters -- chose Sarkozy, according to an Ipsos/Dell poll, AP said.
Forty-four percent of people of modest means voted for him, along with 32 percent of green voters and 14 percent of far left supporters. The poll surveyed 3,609 voters and has a margin of error of about 2 percent.
"The president of the republic must love and respect all the French," Sarkozy told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters. "I will be the president of all the French people."
"The French people have called for change. I will carry out that change, because that's the mandate I have received from the French people."
Violence was reported after the election outcome. Youths clashed with police in Paris and Lyon on Sunday, and security forces fired tear gas at 2,000 protesters in the French capital. (Full story)
'American friends'
In his victory speech, Sarkozy said he wanted to tell his "American friends that they can rely on our friendship ... France will always be next to them when they need us."
But, he added, "Friends can think differently."
Sarkozy also urged the United States to take the lead on climate change and said the issue would be a priority for France, an AP report said.
He then called on the United States "not to impede" in the fight against global warming. "On the contrary, they must lead this fight because humanity's fate is at stake here." (Watch Sarkozy's victory speech )
"We are working very closely on issues related to climate change," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the U.S. state department, according to an AP report.
McCormack said France was a good friend and ally and that the U.S. looked forward to working with Sarkozy's government. He also said the American government was working closely with France on developing technology to help combat dependence on hydrocarbons.
President George W. Bush called Sarkozy to congratulate him on his victory, a White House spokesman said in a written statement. (Watch how the White House responded )
While Sarkozy, who is largely untested in foreign policy, expressed a desire to maintain France's independence, mentioning the U.S. in his victory speech showed his desire to break from the trans-Atlantic tension of the Chirac era.
Sarkozy said he would also work to form a link between Europe and Africa. "We have to overcome hatred to give way to the great dreams of peace and civilization," he said. "It's time to build a great Mediterranean union."
Sarkozy said he would put in place an immigration policy "that is going to be controlled" and a development policy "that is going to be ambitious."
But he said that France would "stand next to" those who are persecuted by tyrants, dictatorships."
"We are going to write together a new page of our history. This page, my dear fellow citizens, I am sure it will be great."
Socialist defeat
Royal, a 53-year-old mother of four, acknowledged her defeat in a speech to supporters moments after the polls closed at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET).
"Keep the faith, keep intact your enthusiasm," she said at her party's headquarters. "I will keep on fighting the fight that we have started today." (Watch Royal's speech )
If she had won, Royal would have been France's first female president. The defeat at the polls could throw the Socialist party into disarray, revealing fractures within the party between those who say it must remain firm to its leftist traditions and others who want a shift to the political center like other socialist groups around Europe, an AP report said.
A high-ranking Socialist and former health minister who co-founded Doctors Without Borders, Bernard Kouchner, said the party should shift gears and foster ties with centrists instead of reaching out to the far-left, the report added.
"We have to change our formatting, our ways of thinking, on the left," he told TF1.
First French president born after WWII
Sarkozy, a former interior minister, and Royal were in a runoff after emerging as the top candidates from the first round of voting on April 22.
Sarkozy will replace Jacques Chirac, a conservative who has been France's president since 1995. His election makes him the first French president born after World War II.
Voting in the presidential election was brisk. According to official figures, more than 75 percent of registered voters had been to the polls by 5 p.m. (11 a.m. ET).
Sarkozy won with 53 percent of the vote in Sunday's presidential runoff, according to preliminary results issued by the French Interior Ministry. Socialist Segolene Royal took 47 percent of the vote.
Sarkozy voted in the affluent Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine where he lives, while Royal cast her vote in the western Poitou Charentes region, where she is regional president.
The campaign had been dominated by a debate over how to improve economic growth and reduce unemployment among the young, but its most explosive moments focused on immigration.
Appealing to right-wing voters, Sarkozy said France could not provide "a home for all the world's miseries."
On Friday, Royal said a Sarkozy presidency could trigger violence and brutalities in suburbs with high immigrant populations, prompting Sarkozy to condemn her "threatening comments."
During the 2005 Paris riots, Sarkozy inflamed immigrant communities with French-born children living in impoverished suburban housing projects as "scum." In his victory speech, he reached out to those he alienated in the past, promising to be president "of all the French, without exception."
There are no official figures on the number of North African immigrants and their French-born descendants in France. Unofficially, the number is estimated at between 3 million and 6 million.
Surprisingly, Sarkozy took 43 percent of the votes in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris, the epicenter of the 2005 rioting, an area with a large immigrant population and high unemployment, an AP report said.
Prior to the election results being made public, Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, said a Sarkozy victory would be favorable to the United States.
"Clearly, his views are more in line with ours," Lugar told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, concurred: "I do. I do," he told CNN. "I mean, it would be nice to have someone who is head of France who doesn't almost have a knee-jerk reaction against the United States."
Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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This is the greatest thread ever......by far.
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i love this thread. this is what the v is all about
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320 useless facts that you most likely didn't know and most likely won't need to know ?
1. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet can be seen. During his life he predicted that he would die when it could be seen.
2. US Dollar bills are made out of cotton and linen.
3. The "57" on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of pickle types the company once had.
4. Americans are responsible for about 1/5 of the world's garbage annually. On average, that's 3 pounds a day per person.
5. Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels.
6. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks so that it doesn't digest itself.
7. 98% of all murders and rapes are by a close family member or friend of the victim.
8. A B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945.
9. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.
10. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
11. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
12. Benjamin Franklin was the fifth in a series of the youngest son of the youngest son.
13. Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia means fear of Friday the 13th (which occurs one to three times a year). In Italy, 17 is considered an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is considered an unlucky number.
14. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
15. All the chemicals in a human body combined are worth about 6.25 euro (if sold separately).
16. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles.
17. The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan.
18. Coca-Cola contained Coca (whose active ingredient is cocaine) from 1885 to 1903.
19. A "2 by 4" is really 1 1/2 by 3 1/2.
20. It's estimated that at any one time around 0.7% of the world's population is drunk.
21. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar
22. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
23. Every person, including identical twins, has a unique eye and tongue print along with their finger print.
24. The "spot" on the 7-Up logo comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino.
25. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled.
26. The "save" icon in Microsoft Office programs shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards.
27. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins (Elsa Löwenthal and Emma Wedgewood respectively).
28. Camel's have three eyelids.
29. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day.
30. John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son.
31. Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister.
32. Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system.
33. Daniel Boone hated coonskin caps.
34. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
35. 55.1% of all US prisoners are in prison for drug offenses.
36. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
37. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
38. Dr. Seuss pronounced his name "soyce".
39. Slugs have four noses.
40. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
41. The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
42. India has a Bill of Rights for cows.
43. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (DON'T TRY IT, DUMBASS)
44. During the California gold rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the extremely high costs in California during these boom years, it was deemed more feasible to send their shirts to Hawaii for servicing.
45. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out an olive from First Class salads.
46. About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States.
47. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
48. Over a course of about eleven years, the sun's magnetic poles switch places. This cycle is called "Solarmax".
49. There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess.
50. Upper and lower case letters are named "upper" and "lower" because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters.
51. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
52. The numbers "172" can be found on the back of the US 5 dollar bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
53. Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That's more than sharks.
54. Half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday.
55. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it.
56. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
57. The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
58. The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour.
59. It took Leonardo Da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa. He never signed or dated the painting. Leonardo and Mona had identical bone structures according to the painting. X-ray images have shown that there are 3 other versions under the original.
60. If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
61. Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves.
62. The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar).
63. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA".
64. IBM's motto is "Think". Apple later made their motto "Think different".
65. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget.
66. The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
67. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
68. One in fourteen women in America is a natural blonde. Only one in sixteen men is.
69. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.
70. When the Titanic sank, 2228 people were on it. Only 706 survived.
71. In America, someone is diagnosed with AIDS every 10 minutes. In South Africa, someone dies due to HIV or AIDS every 10 minutes.
72. Every day, 7% of the US eats at McDonald's.
73. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from.
74. In the US, about 127 million adults are overweight or obese; worldwide, 750 million are overweight and 300 million more are obese. In the US, 15% of children in elementary school are overweight; 20% are worldwide.
75. In Disney's Fantasia, the Sorcerer to whom Mickey played an apprentice was named Yensid (Disney spelled backward).
76. During his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, "Red Vineyard at Arles".
77. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
78. One in ten people live on an island.
79. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
80. 28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%.
81. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
82. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
83. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Humphrey Bogart NEVER said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, and they NEVER said "Beam me up, Scotty" on Star Trek.
84. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
85. Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokes model.
86. The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head.
87. More people are afraid of open spaces (kenophobia) than of tight spaces (claustrophobia).
88. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.
89. There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas.
90. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
91. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
92. Back in the mid to late '80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered 100% compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
93. $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S.
94. Every US president has worn glasses (just not always in public).
95. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
96. Jim Henson first coined the word "Muppet". It is a combination of "marionette" and "puppet."
97. The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with (not counting the words "North" and "South).
98. The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896.
99. About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity.
100. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
101. About 14% of injecting drug users are HIV positive.
102. A word or sentence that is the same front and back (racecar, kayak) is called a "palindrome".
103. A snail can sleep for 3 years.
104. People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide.
105. China has more English speakers than the United States.
106. Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year's Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes.
107. One in every 9000 people is an albino.
108. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
109. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
110. Everyday, more money is printed for Monopoly sets than for the U.S. Treasury.
111. Every year 4 people in the UK die putting their trousers on.
112. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds; dogs only have about ten.
113. Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing.
114. In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman picture or reference somewhere.
115. If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck.
116. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.
117. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
118. Each year in America there are about 300,000 deaths that can be attributed to obesity.
119. About 55% of all movies are rated R.
120. About 500 movies are made in the US and 800 in India annually.
121. Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were created in India.
122. Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (implemented on July 16, 1969) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles.
123. The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
124. The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
125. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable.
126. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
127. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
128. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
129. There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world.
130. The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick.
131. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
132. For every memorial statue with a person on a horse, if the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died of battle wounds; if all four of the horse's legs are on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
133. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building.
134. An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000.
135. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
136. Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT".
137. $283,200 is the absolute highest amount of money you can win on Jeopardy.
138. Almonds are members of the peach family.
139. Rats and horses can't vomit.
140. The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim.
141. There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.
142. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance.
143. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
144. There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
145. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
146. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
147. "101 Dalmatians" and "Peter Pan" are the only Disney animations in which both of a character's parents are present and don't die during the movie.
148. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
149. Hedenophobic means fear of pleasure.
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150. Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their bodies.
151. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
152. Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. 80% of burglaries are committed by people aged 13-21.
153. An ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
154. All polar bears are left-handed.
155. The catfish has over 27000 taste buds (more than any other animal)
156. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
157. Butterflies taste with their feet.
158. Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump.
159. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
160. Starfish have no brains.
161. 11% of the world is left-handed.
162. John Hancock and Charles Thomson were the only people to sign the Declaration of independence on July 4th, 1776. The last signature came five years later.
163. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
164. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
165. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
166. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
167. A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray.
168. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
169. Lizards can self-amputate their tails for protection. It grows back after a few months.
170. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula". It can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.
171. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
172. A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour.
173. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
174. A "jiffy" is the scientific name for 1/100th of a second.
175. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
176. The youngest pope ever was 11 years old.
177. The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer.
178. One out of every 43 prisoners escapes from jail. 94% are recaptured.
179. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
180. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it.
181. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
182. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
183. Elwood Edwards did the voice for the AOL sound files (i.e. "You've got Mail!"). He is heard about 27 million times a day. The recordings were done before Quantum changed its name to AOL and the program was known as "Q-Link."
184. A polar bears skin is black. Its fur is actually clear, but like snow it appears white.
185. Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis middle name was spelled Aron, in honor of his brother.
186. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
187. Donkeys kill more people than plane crashes.
188. Shakespeare invented the words "assassination" and "bump."
189. There are a million ants for every person on Earth.
190. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
191. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
192. The name Jeep comes from "GP", the army abbreviation for General Purpose.
193. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.
194. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
195. Cats' urine glows under a black light.
196. A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip.
197. The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970.
198. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors, the helicopter, and many other present day items.
199. In the last 4000 years no new animals have been domesticated.
200. 25% of a human's bones are in its feet.
201. David Sarnoff received the Titanic's distress signal and saved hundreds of passengers. He later became the head of the first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
202. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
203. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than every Nike factory worker in Malaysia combined.
204. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers (they saw it as competition).
205. "Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
206. Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older.
207. If you yelled for 8 years 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
208. Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S.
209. The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet.
210. A jellyfish is 95% water.
211. Truck driving is the most dangerous occupation by accidental deaths (799 in 2001).
212. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
213. Elephants only sleep for two hours each day.
214. On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
215. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle)
216. In golf, a 'Bo Derek' is a score of 10.
217. In the U.S, Frisbees outsell footballs, baseballs and basketballs combined.
218. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
219. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple.
220. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
221. The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross.
222. There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France.
223. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers plays football at home the stadium becomes Nebraska's third largest city.
224. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life".
225. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
226. In Iceland, a Big Mac costs $5.50.
227. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are flowers.
228. Newborn babies have about 350 bones. They gradually merge and disappear until there are about 206 by age 5.
229. There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal.
230. In a survey of 200000 ostriches over 80 years, not one tried to bury its head in the sand.
231. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A quarter has 119.
232. On an American one-dollar bill there is a tiny owl in the upper-left-hand corner of the upper-right-hand "1" and a spider hidden in the front upper-right-hand corner.
233. Judy Scheindlin ("Judge Judy") has a $25,000,000 salary, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a $190,100 salary.
234. The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z.
235. Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years.
236. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
237. Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister.
238. In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day.
239. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
240. You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
241. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
242. "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
243. There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330.
244. The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies.
245. "Duff" is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor.
246. The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined.
247. There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history.
248. Kuwait is about 60% male (highest in the world). Latvia is about 54% female (highest in the world).
249. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.
250. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
251. At the height of its power in 400 BC, the Greek city of Sparta had 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves.
252. Julius Caesar's autograph is worth about $2,000,000.
253. The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer.
254. People say "bless you" when you sneeze because your heart stops for a millisecond.
255. US gold coins used to say "In Gold We Trust".
256. In "Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks.
257. A shrimp's heart is in its head.
258. In the 17th century, the value of pi was known to 35 decimal places. Today, to 1.2411 trillion.
259. The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+)
260. Pearls melt in vinegar.
261. "Lassie" was played by a group of male dogs; the main one was named Pal.
262. In 1863, Paul Hubert of Bordeaux, France, was sentenced to life in jail for murder. After 21 years, it was discovered that he was convicted of murdering himself.
263. Nepal is the only country that doesn't have a rectangular flag. Switzerland is the only country with a square flag.
264. Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer are the only angels named in the Bible.
265. Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War.
266. Johnny Appleseed planted apples so that people could use apple cider to make alcohol.
267. Abraham Lincoln's ghost is said to haunt the White House.
268. God is not mentioned once in the book of Esther.
269. The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census.
270. Scotland has more redheads than any other part of the world.
271. There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment.
272. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane in case there is a crash.
273. The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad. The most common name (of any type) in the world is Mohammed.
274. The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice.
275. For every 230 cars that are made, 1 will be stolen.
276. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital.
277. Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day.
278. Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people.
279. The "if" and "then" parts of conditional ("if P then Q") statement are called the protasis (P) and apodosis (Q).
280. Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech.
281. If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.
282. Only female mosquitoes bite.
283. The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail.
284. Most household dust is made of dead skin cells.
285. One in about eight million people has progeria, a disease that causes people to grow faster than they age.
286. The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female.
287. The "countdown" (counting down from 10 for an event such as New-Years Day) was first used in a 1929 German silent film called "Die Frau Im Monde" (The Girl in the Moon).
288. Negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can weaken your immune system.
289. There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas.
290. A mongoose is not a goose but more like a meercat, which is not a cat but more like a prairie dog, which is not a dog but more like a ground squirrel.
291. Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo died.
292. Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit.
293. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe died on July 4th. Adams and Jefferson died in the same year. Supposedly, Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives."
294. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player.
295. Dolphins can look in different directions with each eye. They can sleep with one eye open.
296. The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person).
297. There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.
298. While many treaties have been signed at or near Paris, France (including many after WWI and WWII), nine are actually known as the "Treaty of Paris": Seven Years' War (1763), American Revolutionary War (1783), French-Swede War (1810), France vs Sixth Coalition (1814), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Crimean War (1856), Spanish-American War (1898), union of Bessarabia and Romania (1920), establishment of European Coal and Steel Community (1951).
299. Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln's oldest son) was in Washington DC during his father's assassination as well as during President Garfield's assassination, and he was in Buffalo NY when President McKinley was assassinated.
300. The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands.
301. The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst".
302. Don Mac Lean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who all died in the same plane crash.
303. The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard.
304. Hummingbirds can't walk.
305. When movie directors do not want their names to be seen in the credits, they use the pseudonym "Allen Smithee" instead. It has been used over 50 times, starting with "Death of a Gunfighter" (1969).
306. Four different people played the part of Darth Vader (body, face, voice, and breathing).
307. Pamela Lee-Anderson was the first to be born in Canada on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence (7/1/1967).
308. There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history.
309. William Shatner is credited for being the first person on TV to say "hell" as well as to have the first inter-racial kiss (with Nichelle Nichols), both in episodes of Star Trek.
310. While the US government's supply of gold is kept at Fort Knox, its supply of silver is kept at the Military Academy at West Point, NY.
311. Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf.
312. Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.
313. In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, if a man was not married by age 30, he would not be allowed to vote or watch athletic events involving nude young men.
314. Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), Pope Leo VII (936-939), Pope John VII (955-964), Pope Leo VIII (963-965), Pope John XIII (965-72), Pope Paul II (1467-1471), Lord Palmerston (British Prime Minister, 1784-1865), Nelson Rockefeller (US Vice President, 1908-1979), and John Entwistle (The Who's bassist, 1944-2002) all died while having sex.
315. Humans and dolphins are the only animals known to have sex for pleasure.
316. Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P".
317. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, April 23, 1616.
318. There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population).
319. The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days.
320. The "middle finger" gesture originates back to 423 BC in Aristophanes play "The Clouds".
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eric is runnin rampant in this bitcch
sing on brotha
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SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF APPROACHING DEATH
When confronted with approaching death, many of us wonder when exactly will death occur. Many of us ask the question, "How much time is left?" This can often be a difficult question to answer. The dying do not always cooperate with the predictions of the doctors, nurses or others who tell family members or patients how much time is left.
Hospice staff have frequently observed that even the predictions by physicians about the length of time from the original diagnosis till death is often inaccurate. Many families report that "the doctor told us he [the patient] only had so much time left, and he's lived much longer than that." ... or a similar story. Statistical averages do not tell us exactly how long a particular patient has to live; they can only serve as a general guideline or point of reference.
Although statistical averages do not help much in an individual case, there are specific signs of approaching death which may be observed, and which do indicate that death is approaching nearer. Each individual patient is different. Not all individuals will show all of these signs, nor are all of the signs of approaching death always present in every case.
Depending on the type of terminal illness and the metabolic condition of the patient, different signs and symptoms arise. An experienced physician or hospice nurse can often explain these signs and symptoms to you. If you have questions about changes in your loved one's condition, ask your hospice nurse for an explanation, that is one of the reasons she is serving you.
There are two phases which arise prior to the actual time of death: the "pre-active phase of dying," and the "active phase of dying." On average, the preactive phase of dying may last approximately two weeks, while on average, the active phase of dying lasts about three days.
We say "on average" because there are often exceptions to the rule. Some patients have exhibited signs of the preactive phase of dying for a month or longer, while some patients exhibit signs of the active phase of dying for two weeks. Many hospice staff have been fooled into thinking that death was about to occur, when the patient had unusually low blood pressure or longer periods of pausing in the breathing rhythym. However, some patients with these symptoms can suddenly recover and live a week, a month or even longer. Low blood pressure alone or long periods of pausing in the breathing (apnea) are not reliable indicators of imminent death in all cases. God alone knows for sure when death will occur.
Signs of the preactive phase of dying:
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increased restlessness, confusion, agitation, inability to stay content in one position and insisting on changing positions frequently (exhausting family and caregivers)
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withdrawal from active participation in social activities
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increased periods of sleep, lethargy
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decreased intake of food and liquids
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beginning to show periods of pausing in the breathing (apnea) whether awake or sleeping
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patient reports seeing persons who had already died
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patient states that he or she is dying
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patient requests family visit to settle "unfinished business" and tie up "loose ends"
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inability to heal or recover from wounds or infections
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increased swelling (edema) of either the extremities or the entire body
Signs of the Active Phase of Dying
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inability to arouse patient at all (coma) or, ability to only arouse patient with great effort but patient quickly returns to severely unresponsive state (semi-coma)
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severe agitation in patient, hallucinations, acting "crazy" and not in patient's normal manner or personality
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much longer periods of pausing in the breathing (apnea)
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dramatic changes in the breathing pattern including apnea, but also including very rapid breathing or cyclic changes in the patterns of breathing (such as slow progressing to very fast and then slow again, or shallow progressing to very deep breathing while also changing rate of breathing to very fast and then slow)
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other very abnormal breathing patterns
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severely increased respiratory congestion or fluid buildup in lungs
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inability to swallow any fluids at all (not taking any food by mouth voluntarily as well)
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patient states that he or she is going to die
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patient breathing through wide open mouth continuously and no longer can speak even if awake
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urinary or bowel incontinence in a patient who was not incontinent before
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marked decrease in urine output and darkening color of urine or very abnormal colors (such as red or brown)
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blood pressure dropping dramatically from patient's normal blood pressure range (more than a 20 or 30 point drop)
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systolic blood pressure below 70, diastolic blood pressure below 50
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patient's extremities (such as hands, arms, feet and legs) feel very cold to touch
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patient complains that his or her legs/feet are numb and cannot be felt at all
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cyanosis, or a bluish or purple coloring to the patients arms and legs, especially the feet and hands)
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patient's body is held in rigid unchanging position
Although all patients do not show all of these signs, many of these signs will be seen in some patients. The reason for the tradition of "keeping a vigil" when someone is dying is that we really don't know exactly when death will occur until it is obviously happening. If you wish to "be there" with your loved one when death occurs, keeping a vigil at the bedside is part of the process.
Always remember that your loved one can often hear you even up till the very end, even though he or she cannot respond by speaking. Your loving presence at the bedside can be a great expression of your love for your loved one and help him to feel calmer and more at peace at the time of death.
If you have questions about any of the changing signs or symptoms appearing in your loved one, ask your hospice nurse to explain them to you.
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Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)
Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, affects just two to three percent of the population. But, if left uncorrected, this vision problem can have a very big impact on those affected. Central vision fails to develop properly, usually in one eye, which is called amblyopic. A related condition, strabismus, sometimes causes amblyopia.
Untreated amblyopia may lead to functional blindness in the affected eye. Although the amblyopic eye has the capability to see, the brain "turns off" this eye because vision is very blurred. The brain elects to see only with the stronger eye.
Amblyopia Symptoms and Signs
Amblyopia generally develops in young children, before age six. Its symptoms often are noted by parents, caregivers or health-care professionals. If a child squints or completely closes one eye to see, he or she may have amblyopia. Other signs include overall poor visual acuity, eyestrain and headaches.
What Causes Amblyopia?
Trauma to the eye at any age can cause amblyopia, as well as a strong uncorrected refractive error (nearsightedness or farsightedness) or strabismus. It's important to correct amblyopia as early as possible, before the brain learns to entirely ignore vision in the affected eye.
Amblyopia Treatment
Amblyopic children can be treated with vision therapy (which often includes patching one eye), atropine eye drops, the correct prescription for nearsightedness or farsightedness, or surgery.
Vision therapy exercises the eyes and helps both eyes work as a team. Vision therapy for someone with amblyopia forces the brain to see through the amblyopic eye, thus restoring vision.
Sometimes the eye doctor or vision therapist will place a patch over the stronger eye to force the weaker eye to learn to see. Patching may be required for several hours each day or even all day long, and may continue for weeks or months. If you have a lot of trouble with your child taking the patch off, you might consider a prosthetic contact lens that is specially designed to block vision in one eye but is colored to closely match the other eye. [Read more about prosthetic contact lenses.]
In some children, atropine eye drops have been used to treat amblyopia instead of patching. One drop is placed in your child's good eye each day (your eye doctor will instruct you). Atropine blurs vision in the good eye, which forces your child to use the eye with amblyopia more, to strengthen it. One advantage is that it doesn't require your constant vigilance to make sure your child wears the patch.
Recently a study* compared atropine therapy with patching in 419 children age 3 to almost 7 and found it an effective alternative. As a result, some previously skeptical eye care practitioners are using atropine as their first choice over patching.**
However, atropine does have side effects that should be considered: light sensitivity (because the eye is constantly dilated), flushing, and possible paralysis of the ciliary muscle after long-term atropine use, which could affect the eye's accommodation, or ability to change focus.
If your child has become amblyopic due to a strong uncorrected refractive error or a large difference between the refractive errors of both eyes, amblyopia can be treated with eyeglasses or contact lenses in the correct prescription. Your eye care practitioner may prescribe an eye patch along with the new glasses or contact lenses.
Surgery is best for amblyopic children with an underlying physical problem, such as strabismus. The surgery corrects the muscle problem that causes strabismus so the eyes can focus together and see properly.
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A total of 3 wars and 1 major battle has transpired between India and Pakistan.
1948: Indian army decides to take over Kashmir before the Kashmiris can exercise their UN acknowledged right to choose. Pakistani army and some tribals push India back and free a 3rd of what is now known as Azad Kashmir (or Free Kashmir under the rule of Pakistan). Azad Kashmir itself bears the testimony of who won the war (i.e., Pakistan)
1965: Indian forces decide to attack Pakistan as they were thinking that because of their size, they will seize Pakistani territory. Pakistan's military answers the challenge with unprecedented bravery, (acknowledged by articles written by retired Indian generals in TimesOfIndia and in world's military magazines). Pakistan uses American supplied military hardware such as F-86 Sabres etc to kick Indian army's butt all the way to arabian ocean. The air-superiority was so evident that (documentedly) for every plane that Pakistan lost 7 Indian planes were destroyed. The war was started by Indians on 6th Sept and was ended by Pakistan on 11th Sept when India ended up conceding areas and went to UNSC to beg Pakistan to stop the war. The war produced some of the best military achievements and tactics taught today even in US military academy's such as West Point etc. One of Pakistan's airforce young star fighter pilot known as M. M. Alam (lookup on the google) set a world record when he destroyed 5 indian attacking aircrafts in less than 1 minute time.
1971: Pakistan army was trapped in Eastern Pakistan as there was a revolt in that region. Indians took advantage of the inner turmoil of Pakistan and helped the creation of what is called Bangladesh. This also gave them a chance to square off the humiliating defeat they suffered in 1965 at the hands of their smaller neighbor. Even in this war, on the Western front, Pakistan destroyed the major Indian navy ports of Dwarka and captured western part of Indian territories which had to be returned under peace agreement brokered by UN.
1999: Kargil, a group of mujahideen capture areas of Indian occupied kashmir. The fighting starts (according to Indian figures), over 4300 soldier's died, several fighter planes downed along with helicopter. 263 Pakistanis martyred. Indian sucked Clinton's balls to stop the battle and on America's insistance, Pakistan withdraws from what was being seen by every Pakistani is a sure victory and consequently, the decision to side with US costs the Pakistani Prime Minister of that time Nawaz Shareef his job. But a clear victory over Indians and their army suffered heavily in this war.
Read the Jane's defense weekly's archive on the 1965 war and how Pakistan showed a superior military muscle over its larger neighbor with lesser resources.
General Tommy Frank and other US general's on one or more occasions have testified to the fact that Pakistan one of the best armies in terms of discipline and tactics in the world and that is why it is no wonder that there is a close military cooperation between Pakistan and US.
Indian's in general have never been good war and related tactics. That is why India for the most part of its history has been occupied by invading forces. Pakistanis are different, they are the proud and very brave forebearers of very honorable traditions based of freedom at any cost.
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Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)
Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, affects just two to three percent of the population. But, if left uncorrected, this vision problem can have a very big impact on those affected. Central vision fails to develop properly, usually in one eye, which is called amblyopic. A related condition, strabismus, sometimes causes amblyopia.
Untreated amblyopia may lead to functional blindness in the affected eye. Although the amblyopic eye has the capability to see, the brain "turns off" this eye because vision is very blurred. The brain elects to see only with the stronger eye.
Amblyopia Symptoms and Signs
Amblyopia generally develops in young children, before age six. Its symptoms often are noted by parents, caregivers or health-care professionals. If a child squints or completely closes one eye to see, he or she may have amblyopia. Other signs include overall poor visual acuity, eyestrain and headaches.
What Causes Amblyopia?
Trauma to the eye at any age can cause amblyopia, as well as a strong uncorrected refractive error (nearsightedness or farsightedness) or strabismus. It's important to correct amblyopia as early as possible, before the brain learns to entirely ignore vision in the affected eye.
Amblyopia Treatment
Amblyopic children can be treated with vision therapy (which often includes patching one eye), atropine eye drops, the correct prescription for nearsightedness or farsightedness, or surgery.
Vision therapy exercises the eyes and helps both eyes work as a team. Vision therapy for someone with amblyopia forces the brain to see through the amblyopic eye, thus restoring vision.
Sometimes the eye doctor or vision therapist will place a patch over the stronger eye to force the weaker eye to learn to see. Patching may be required for several hours each day or even all day long, and may continue for weeks or months. If you have a lot of trouble with your child taking the patch off, you might consider a prosthetic contact lens that is specially designed to block vision in one eye but is colored to closely match the other eye. [Read more about prosthetic contact lenses.]
In some children, atropine eye drops have been used to treat amblyopia instead of patching. One drop is placed in your child's good eye each day (your eye doctor will instruct you). Atropine blurs vision in the good eye, which forces your child to use the eye with amblyopia more, to strengthen it. One advantage is that it doesn't require your constant vigilance to make sure your child wears the patch.
Recently a study* compared atropine therapy with patching in 419 children age 3 to almost 7 and found it an effective alternative. As a result, some previously skeptical eye care practitioners are using atropine as their first choice over patching.**
However, atropine does have side effects that should be considered: light sensitivity (because the eye is constantly dilated), flushing, and possible paralysis of the ciliary muscle after long-term atropine use, which could affect the eye's accommodation, or ability to change focus.
If your child has become amblyopic due to a strong uncorrected refractive error or a large difference between the refractive errors of both eyes, amblyopia can be treated with eyeglasses or contact lenses in the correct prescription. Your eye care practitioner may prescribe an eye patch along with the new glasses or contact lenses.
Surgery is best for amblyopic children with an underlying physical problem, such as strabismus. The surgery corrects the muscle problem that causes strabismus so the eyes can focus together and see properly.
:o :o :o
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every once in a while, you come across a gem of thread like this one, getbig Gold.
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bump for bsb
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you just gotta laught at the crazee fuck somtimes this thread is gold ;D
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some threads just deserve to be bumped once in a while! :D