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Orphaned hedgehogs adopt cleaning brush as their mother
Four tiny orphaned hedgehogs are snuggling up to the bristles of a cleaning brush - because they think it's their mother.
The four inch long creatures are being hand-reared by staff at the New Forest Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park in Ashurst, Hants.
Workers say Mary, Mungo, Midge and Slappy get comfort from playing with the centre's cleaning brush and enjoy rubbing against it.
[more hedgehogia at link]
Updates and breaking developments are available at irrawaddy.org.
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Security forces fired automatic weapons into thousands of pro-democracy protesters for a second day Thursday, and the military government said nine people were killed and 11 wounded.
Tens of thousands defied the ruling military junta's crackdown with a 10th straight day of demonstrations in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Security forces also raided several monasteries overnight, beating monks and arresting more than 100, according to a monk at one monastery.
The protests are the stiffest challenge to the generals in two decades, a crisis that began Aug. 19 with protests over a fuel price hike, then expanded dramatically when monks started leading the marches. The crackdown has drawn increasing international pressure on the isolated regime.
Thousands of protesters ran through the streets of Yangon on Thursday after warning shots were fired into the crowds. Bloody sandals were left lying in the road.
"Give us freedom, give us freedom!" some shouted at the soldiers.
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Kenji Nagai of APF tries to take photographs as he lies injured after police and military officials fired upon and then charged at protesters in Yangon's city centre September 27, 2007. Kenji, 52, a Japanese photographer, was shot by soldiers as they fired to disperse the crowd. Kenji later died.
REUTERS/Stringer
[Note: according to the Japanese news agency APF, the soldier shown shot and killed the already wounded Kenji moments after this photo was taken.]
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A man gestures to members of the military after a crowd of thousands were fired upon while protesting in Yangon's city centre September 27, 2007.
REUTERS/Stringer
The 46 million figure has become a fixture of news stories and campaign speeches, but it turns out to be off by a factor of two:
New Report Finds 89.6 Million Americans Were Uninsured during 2006-2007
More than One Out of Three Non-Elderly Americans Were Uninsured
Washington, D.C. - Approximately 89.6 million Americans--more than one out of three people (34.7 percent) under 65 years of age--were uninsured at some point of time during 2006-2007, according to a report released today by the health consumer organization Families USA.
The report, based mainly on Census Bureau data, showed that most of these uninsured individuals lacked coverage for lengthy periods of time: nearly two-thirds (63.9 percent) were uninsured for six months or more; and more than half (50.2 percent) were uninsured for nine months or more.
The number of states where more than one-third of non-elderly people went without health insurance for all or part of a two-year period more than doubled--rising from nine states in 1999-2000 to 20 states plus the District of Columbia in 2006-2007. Texas had the highest rate with 45.7 percent of the non-elderly population uninsured. The other states are: New Mexico (44.3%); Arizona (41.8%); California (40.5%); Florida (40.1%); Mississippi (38.7%); Nevada (38.4%); Louisiana (38.1%); Oklahoma (37.7%); Georgia (37.6%); South Carolina (37.4%); Arkansas (37.2%); Utah (35.2%); Alabama (35.1%); the District of Columbia (35.1%); West Virginia (35.1%); Alaska (34.8%); North Carolina (34.6%); Oregon (34.6%); Colorado (34.2%); and Montana (33.9%).
"The huge number of people without health coverage over the past two years helps to explain why health care has become the top domestic issue in the 2008 presidential campaign," said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA. "The expansion of health coverage in America is no longer simply a matter of altruism about other people but a matter of intense self-interest."
The report shows that four out of five of the uninsured (79.3%) were in working families: 70.6 percent were employed full-time, and 8.7 percent were employed part-time. In addition, nearly every age group was affected. Of the total 89.6 million uninsured, 64.2 million were between 18 and 64 years of age. More than one-third (34.9%) were ages 25 to 44--the age group that makes up the largest percentage of the uninsured.
The report also documents the large increase in the number of people who have experienced a loss or lack of health coverage. In the two-year period of 1999-2000, 72.5 million people went without health coverage--more than 17 million fewer than the people experiencing a lack of coverage in 2006-2007.
To clarify that last sentence, the number of the uninsured increased by 17 million between 1999-2000 and 2006-2007, leaving 89,600,000 men, women and children in the US with no form of health insurance.
Full report (41 page .pdf file) available here.
Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that people are incapable of making distinctions between social networking "friends" and friends they see in the flesh. The use of the word "friend" on social networking sites is a dilution and a debasement, and surely no one with hundreds of MySpace or Facebook "friends" is so confused as to believe those are all real friendships. The impulse to collect as many "friends" as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of the human need for companionship, but of a different need no less profound and pressing: the need for status. Unlike the painted portraits that members of the middle class in a bygone era would commission to signal their elite status once they rose in society, social networking websites allow us to create status--not merely to commemorate the achievement of it. There is a reason that most of the MySpace profiles of famous people are fakes, often created by fans: Celebrities don't need legions of MySpace friends to prove their importance. It's the rest of the population, seeking a form of parochial celebrity, that does.But status-seeking has an ever-present partner: anxiety. Unlike a portrait, which, once finished and framed, hung tamely on the wall signaling one's status, maintaining status on MySpace or Facebook requires constant vigilance. As one 24-year-old wrote in a New York Times essay, "I am obsessed with testimonials and solicit them incessantly. They are the ultimate social currency, public declarations of the intimacy status of a relationship.... Every profile is a carefully planned media campaign."
Make-Believe Reagan : Rolling Stone:
... Well, I think as I stand by myself on the curb, so much for Fred Thompson. After all, logic dictates that anyone who's too much of a lightweight for Fox News is probably...I freeze. Probably what? Probably a shoo-in for the presidency, that's what! I shudder as I realize my mistake, and suddenly the candidacy of Fred Thompson, which seemed impossibly silly just a few minutes ago, makes deadly serious sense. Thompson may act like a blank slate -- a homespun version of Being There hero Chauncey Gardiner running on a platform of "Whatever you say" and "I'll get back to you on that" -- but he represents something else that no one, after seven years of George W. Bush, could possibly have expected: a new low. It was bad enough when the GOP field was led by a grinning Mormon corporatist and a fascist ex-mayor itching to take his prostate pain out on the world, but Thompson is the worst yet -- a human snooze button, campaigning baldly for the head-in-the-sand vote by asking Americans not to think but to change the channel.
Much more at link, and well worth reading. Matt Taibbi is right on the money, as usual.
Video Professor upset by criticism, sues 100 anonymous critics:
You've probably seen infomercials for the Video Professor on late-night TV; a kindly-looking John Scherer has been pitching his company's computer training videos for two decades now. But Video Professor, Inc. has no problem using less-friendly tactics when confronted with criticism, and the company is now suing more than 100 anonymous Internet posters over derogatory comments that they made about Video Professor's business.
Derogatory? Perhaps. Unjustified? They sound pretty reasonable to me:
9/24/2007 - Melissa writes:I ordered the Excel cd from Video Professor June of 2007. I ordered it through a promotional offer stating "free, just pay shipping and handling" I figured $6 shipping to try the product should be fine. I received it in the mail a few days later, never opened it. 5 days after I was charged the $6 shipping, a $89.95 fee shows up. I sent the unopened disk back and called the main phone number. After waiting on hold for 20 minutes someone tells me they will refund my money. Today, September 24th, I have not gotten my refund. On top of it all, I am STILL receiving disks in the mail. Excel, Quickbooks, Windows, you name it! I receive them every 2 weeks, a $6 shipping fee shows up THEN ANOTHER $89.95 fee for each and every disk they send. I had to cancel the credit card to prevent them from charging me. I have called their main number numerous times to cancel the disks and to get my money back and no one is able to help me. They tell me there is no refund for the disks. I have sent each and every one back unopened. SCAM. Do not use this so called "program." It is a waste of money.
Gosh, and to think that all this time I've been assuming his product was merely the useless crap it so clearly is. But a scam, too! You really get your money's worth with these folks.
Giuliani Party Seeks $9.11 Per Person
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A spokeswoman for Rudy Giuliani says it is unfortunate that a supporter throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign is asking for that amount.Abraham Sofaer is having a fundraiser at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on Wednesday, when Giuliani backers across the country are participating in the campaign's national house party night.
But Sofaer said he had nothing to do with the "$9.11 for Rudy" theme.
"There are some young people who came up with it," Sofaer said when reached by telephone Monday evening. He referred other questions to Giuliani's campaign.
Now where could those crazy kids have gotten that idea?
Health Coverage in the Balance - New York Times
To the Editor:It is amazing how the presidential candidates are determined to come up with health insurance programs that are invariably complicated, often tied to employers, and frequently based on taxation gimmicks. They seem to ignore the one insurance program that is overwhelmingly popular and already has infrastructure in place: Medicare.
It is a highly efficient program that confounds all the critics of government-run health care. There are no restrictions on choosing doctors, the medical providers do not work for the government, and the processing of insurance claims is virtually transparent to the consumer.
In fact, from a consumer standpoint, Medicare is the best health insurance program ever invented.
The easiest solution to the problem of health care coverage, without resorting to one of the half-baked schemes offered by the candidates, is to simply offer Medicare coverage to anyone who wants it.
Of course, indigent people would be given a break on premiums. Employers could still offer insurance coverage if they wish, as a way of attracting employees. And if an individual does not like Medicare coverage he can still go to the private market.
As for states enacting their own insurance plans, sure, go to it. But let's also offer consumers another choice: voluntary Medicare. Then, the consumers themselves, not the politicians, can decide whether they want public or private health insurance.
Ron Sheppe
Rochester, N.H., Sept. 23, 2007
And speaking of hitting the nail on the head:
To the Editor:Paul Krugman's mention of the scare tactics of health care reform opponents should have included the demonization of universal health care by the news media among his fears ("Health Care Hopes," column, Sept. 21).
Despite polls suggesting a high popularity for such a system, the news media regurgitate myths and fail to explain the proposals of the health care debate. Single-payer health care is frequently described as "government run" or "socialized medicine," even though the Canadian, French and German systems involve private doctors, hospitals and other caregivers who merely get paid by the government. Even Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's tempered proposal that would involve a private-government partnership did not escape inaccurate accusations.
Until the mainstream media stop distorting reality on behalf of the industry, health care reform will remain at the fringe of political viability, and it will be dead on arrival for the foreseeable future.
Spyros Andreopoulos
Stanford, Calif., Sept. 21, 2007The writer is director emeritus, Office of Communication and Public Affairs, Stanford University Medical Center.
TwinCities.com - Tip of the day: Multiple Sclerosis simulator
Chronic fatigue, numbness, blurred vision and loss of balance only begin to describe the symptoms people with multiple sclerosis cope with on a daily basis. An estimated 9,000 people in our area have MS.Thanks to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's state-of-the-art multimedia MS Simulator, you can "Step Inside MS" to learn more about the disease and how to be helpful to and understanding of someone with MS.
The event, hosted by Biogen Idec, is located in the Sears Court of Mall of America until 8 p.m. today and is free and open to the public. - Courtney Sinner
Oh, it sounds all high-tech, but it's actually just two midgets whacking at your legs with baseball bats while another guy runs a cheese grater over your fingers and his assistant sprays hot wax in your eyes.
But seriously, it's a good idea and I'd like to know exactly what's involved.
Update: Here we go:
With Step Inside MS, participants interact with cutting-edge media and technology to simulate a realistic approximation of the MS patient experience. Accompanied by a trained attendant, participants enter a small theatrical simulator that houses a treadmill where they will be outfitted with goggles and sensory gloves so they experience many of the symptoms that people with MS often encounter, including unpredictable loss of muscle control and coordination problems, numbness and tingling in the hands, hot flashes, and visual and cognitive impairment such as memory loss and decreased verbal ability. The simulation also illustrates social hurdles that a person with MS often faces.
Memory loss and decreased verbal ability ... are they giving out free beer?
Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal
"I'm just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master's degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job," Bitterman said.
Mitt Romney asks, Slate delivers:
Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
We Have Seen the Enemy -- And Surrendered
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Bow your heads and raise the white flags. After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront - the American private health insurance industry.
With the courageous exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic candidates have all rolled out health "reform" plans that represent total, Chamberlain-like, appeasement. Edwards and Obama propose universal health insurance plans that would in no way ease the death grip of Aetna, Unicare, MetLife, and the rest of the evil-doers. Clinton - why are we not surprised? - has gone even further, borrowing the Republican idea of actually feeding the private insurers by making it mandatory to buy their product. Will I be arrested if I resist paying $10,000 a year for a private policy laden with killer co-pays and deductibles?
It's not only the Democratic candidates who are capitulating. The surrender-buzz is everywhere. I heard it from a notable liberal political scientist on a panel in August: We can't just leap to a single payer system, he said in so many words, because it would be too disruptive, given the size of the private health insurance industry. Then I heard it yesterday from a Chicago woman who leads a nonprofit agency serving the poor: How can we go to a Canadian-style system when the private industry has gotten so "big"?
Yes, it is big. Leighton Ku, at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, gave me the figure of $776 billion in expenditures on private health insurance for this year. It's also a big-time employer, paying what economist Paul Krugman has estimated two to three million people just turn down claims.
[more at link]
There is, apparently, an entire subculture on YouTube devoted to videos of cats on treadmills. Fair enough.
From the comments on this one: i love the way the cats tail sticks up lol!!!
As opposed to ... what? Dragging on the floor? Has this person not seen a cat before?
How economic crackpots devoured American politics.
American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. The scope of their triumph is breathtaking. Over the course of the last three decades, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago--that cutting taxes for the very rich is the best response to any and every economic circumstance or that it is perfectly appropriate to turn the most rapacious and self-interested elements of the business lobby into essentially an arm of the federal government--are now so pervasive, they barely attract any notice.A remarkably good short history of a really, really stupid idea.
Since we seem to be doing animals, I get to repost my favorite Cute Overload shot of all time.
Is there some way to make Van Morrison shut the hell up? I just heard him doing a cover of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue on Radio Paradise, and it sounded like a goat caught in a blender. Last time I heard Domino I almost smashed a perfectly good radio. I'd rather listen to Head On commercials 24/7 than bear his off-key hog-calling another second. Please make him stop.
Evidently, the photo two doors down is not manipulated, but drawn from a book called A Pig With Six Legs And Other Clouds, edited by Gavin Pretor-Pinny (Sceptre, £10).
More photos, including this doggy, can be seen here.
Story here.
Hey kids, it's Sky Pig! Breathe deep the gathering bacon!
Mommy, why does Sky Pig have six legs?
Click on pic for full size version.
Must. Say. Something. Positive.
OK, one of my favoritist things back when I was using Windows was a neat little BBC news ticker that sat at the top of my screen and scrolled the latest headlines, just like the news zipper in Times Square. Even better, if I clicked on a headline in the ticker, it opened the relevant BBC page in my browser. Very cool, and I was always at least vaguely aware of breaking news.
Unfortunately, the BBC ticker, which is still available on the BBC website, does not run on Linux. Boo, hiss. There is a similar widget that is supposed to run under Gnome (the desktop environment I use), but it really doesn't work. (It works for a while, but the version of Python it needs is outdated, and the conflict with the newer version on my system eventually sends my processor into a tizzy.)
After a bit of searching, however, I discovered KNewsTicker (click on photo for larger view), which is designed to work in KDE, a different desktop environment, but which will run in Gnome if you install bits of KDE behind the scenes.
Best of all, KNewsTicker will display news from any RSS feed, so I can snag headlines from AP, Reuters, BBC, Google News, even Slashdot or Talking Points Memo. You can also set filters to kill headlines containing certain words; I've had one spiking any mention of Larry Craig for the past two weeks. That's the configuration panel open in the screenshot; the ticker itself is an infinitely resizable bar that can be placed anywhere on your screen. The colors are also endlessly customizable, as is the speed (and direction!) of the scrolling.
I love this thingy. There seem to be similar apps available in Windows, but (apart from the BBC ticker) the ones I've seen cost money and/or seem likely to harbor spyware.
If you use Ubuntu, you can find KNewsTicker in the Synaptic repositories. You should install all dependencies, as well as the KDE control center (just search under "KDE"), which will allow you to specify your default browser (under "File Associations").
Slang from Operation Iraqi Freedom
Death Blossom : The tendency of Iraqi security forces, in response to receiving a little fire from the enemy, to either run away or do the "death blossom" spraying fire indisciminately in all directions. The term originated in the 1984 movie "The Last Starfighter" as a maneuver in which a single starfighter can single handedly wipe out an entire armada.
A grimly interesting glossary.
Childhood TV viewing linked to teen attention problems - New Scientist
Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a large long-term study.The roughly 40% increase in attention problems among "heavy" TV viewers was observed in both boys and girls, and was independent of whether a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder was made prior to adolescence.
"Those who watched more than two hours, and particularly those who watched more than three hours, of television per day during childhood had above-average symptoms of attention problems in adolescence," Erik Landhuis of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, wrote in his report, published in Pediatrics on Tuesday.
Symptoms of attention problems included short attention span, poor concentration, and being easily distracted. The findings could not be explained by early-life attention difficulties, socio-economic factors, or intelligence, says the team.
ScienceDaily: Psychologists Attribute Yawning To The Need To Cool The Brain And Pay Attention
Evidence shows that blood vessels in the nasal cavity and face send cool blood to the brain, and by breathing through the nose or by cooling the forehead, the brain is cooled, eliminating the need to yawn. Recent evidence has linked multiple sclerosis, a demyelinating disease, to thermoregulatory dysfunction. Excessive yawning is a common symptom of multiple sclerosis, and some MS patients report brief symptom relief after they yawn.
Thank you. I thought I was going nuts. And some people thought I was being rude.