Gingrich Isn't Running...Can't Say I'm Shocked

Gingrich announced today that he isn't running for president. Did this surprise anyone? He could probably beat Carl Rove in a popularity test, but it would be close. For all of his claims about being a new kind of Republican, on a whole he still creeps most Americans out a little.

Brain-Eating Bacteria Loves Global Warming

As if there weren't enough things to worry about that could happen with climate change. It turns out that a rare brain-eating amoeba called naegleria thrives in warm fresh water. The amoeba enters through the nose and basically eats your brain. Death comes creeping in about two weeks later. The most common symptom is a persistence headache. Once infected, there is little chance of survival. Although extremely rare, there was a spike this year and six people lost their lives in the US this summer. The CDC warns that there could be an upswing in cases in the coming decades. Warmer temperatures equal more brain-eating amoebas. Ah global warning, is there nothing too terrifyingly weird it can't do?

Coach Greg Ryan Sucks

This morning I watched Brazil steamroll the US Women's team 4-0 making a 3rd place standing our best possible outcome in this World Cup. There seemed be quite a few stupid choices made. I was livid watching the game and was left with a few scorching questions. Like, why? Why did Ryan start Scurry instead of Solo? Scurry is a great athlete and has had an impressive career, but Solo had played goal in all the World Cup matches this time around. She had performed magnificently. Things were going great. We were in the semifinals. Solo had earned her place out on that field. So why switch it up? Why try to fix what isn't broken? And then the weird substitutions that were heavy on defense while taking all power out of offense. The Brazilians had already scored; a heavier defense was not going to make those goals disappear. An offense is needed to score. Coach Ryan seemed to do everything he could to guarantee defeat.

FDA Drops The Ball For Forty Years

Something I read today was difficult to believe. When a new drug is submitted to the FDA they assign it a 10-digit number to keep track of it as it goes through the testing process. For reasons only know to the FDA, they do not assign the drugs a different type of designation if/when the drug is approved. This means that as soon as a drug company submits a new drug, they have the code that will be used by pharmacies to order the drug. Whether the FDA had conducted a single test on the drug, pharmacies can order it. To the pharmacy and the physician, nothing out of the ordinary seems to occur, unapproved drugs have the same coding as unapproved drugs. Apparently this has been a know loophole for the last four decades. To draw attention to healthcare providers, all the FDA had to do was change their coding system. Maybe that would be a pain in the ass, but they had quite some time to sort it out. Now the FDA refuses to make public the list of unapproved drugs that have received a number, so we as regular individuals don't have a way to check if the drugs we are prescribed have actually been tested. It's estimated that 2% of prescriptions written are for unapproved drugs. That means that one out of every fifty is unapproved and untested. A recent arrestee who had marketed unapproved drugs was shocked by his arrest stating that the FDA had turned a blind eye to the loophole for so long, it was pretty much SOP. I already have lots of reasons to mistrust the FDA, I suppose I'll have to add wild incompetence to the list.

Ahmadinejad the Homophobe

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the verbal bitch slap Columbia University president, Lee Bollinger, delivered to Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today in lieu of an introduction, I was pretty creeped out by Ahmadinejad's speech and his responses to the questions afterwards. His speech and responses were very clearly planned, for every attack of his past behavior and statements he had ready spin. Instead of admitting to being a Holocaust denier, he claimed to be a scholar who just wanted to review the facts a little more. When asked about the ill treatment of women in his country, he claimed they were treasured. He professed a love of democracy and free speech. He danced around most of the questions and wouldn't provide straight answers. To the uninformed, he did not seem like a psychopath. I was starting to get worried he wouldn't make an obvious ass of himself. But then, oh joy, although he had to be asked twice, he finally responded to a question about his execution of homosexuals. It seemed to be one question he wasn't prepared for. He seemed a little set back and stated that homosexuality wasn't a phenomenon that occurred in Iran. He laughed a little uncomfortably and asked, "Who told you it did?" The audience erupted into laughter. In one fail swoop he went from the president of a country to something as common and pathetic as a homophobe. Tee Hee.

A Moment of Silence for Marcel Marceau

I'm not a fan of mimes. Maybe it's because I've seen so many bad ones, maybe it's an extension of my fear of clowns. But my dislike of the craft in no way extends to Marcel Marceau as a human being. A French Jew, Marceau lost his father to Auschwitz. Marceau spent the Holocaust working with the French Resistance to protect Jewish children from the Nazis. Always a peace loving man, in 2000 he spoke to reporters about the children lost in the Holocaust, "Among those kids was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug. That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another." After more than 50 years performing all over the world, Marcel Marceau has passed away at the age of 84. Now, a moment of silence.

OJ Screams For Attention

I've been watching this OJ robbery thing with annoyed but slight curiosity. The man is obviously a toll and not all that bright, but the armed robbery threw me for a loop. Then I started thinking about the book scandal. For a man who got away with murder and then managed to avoid paying off the civil suit, it made very little sense for him to kick that bee's nest with "If I Did It". Ok. Here's my theory, he just likes attention, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, he just wants attention. After all the hubbub settled down from the murder trial and the following civil suit, he settled down for a few years in relative but luxurious obscurity. He got lonely without all the attention, so, he wrote "If I Did It" in hopes of renewed attention. It was short lived and the Goldman family swooped in and took the manuscript. They get on "Oprah" and he gets ignored. Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! I want attention! Hence the Vegas burglary. No one can rob him of this spotlight, it's his crime. But not too big of a crime, probably no long term jail time. Just big enough to get attention and maybe another trial. Oh what fun and so much attention. Your thoughts?

Giuliani Keeps It In The Family

Did anyone out there actually buy Giuliani getting "interrupted" by his wife during his speech to the NRA? If you missed it, his cell phone rang while he was up at the podium. He answered it and had a cute little conversation with his wife concluding with "I love you," and he hang up he got a little smattering of applause before returning to his speech. He played it off as if he had just forgotten to turn off his phone. Are we to be led to believe that a man who has spent the last several years doing little but going around giving speeches would forget to turn off his phone? And on that rare moment he forgets to turn off his phone that wife just happens to call? Bullshit. It's a cute little stunt to paint the picture of a family man. Giuliani may be many things, but a family man isn't one of them. His first wife was his second cousin. They met as children at family gatherings, later married and remained so for fourteen years. Luckily there were no children for the obvious genetic creepy reasons. He had two children with his second wife. That marriage didn't go so well either due to him cheating on her with his press secretary and later, a pharmaceutical sales manager and those are just the undeniable ones. He then announced his plans for divorce at a press conference. Nothing odd about that except that was the first his poor wife had heard of it. He is to this day estranged from his two children. His third wife, the one of the cutesy phone call today, is the aforementioned pharmaceutical sales manager. All things considered it's still the second cousin thing I keep getting stuck on.

Annoying Coworkers and the Spread of Popcorn Lung

I used to have a very annoying coworker who popped a bag of microwave popcorn every afternoon like clockwork. She annoying for other reasons, but the popcorn didn't help. As I'm sure you can guess, the entire office reeked of that cloying buttery odor for the remainder of the workday. Turns out I should hunt her down and smack her silly. That overpowering stench wasn't just annoying, those noxious fumes contain diacetyl and it can be fatal. Though not dangerous to eat, over exposure to those fumes can cause bronchiolitis obliterans, a nasty fixed obstructive lung disease which results in inflammation and scarring of the lungs. It can only be cured by a lung transplant and it goes by the sick but oddly cute slang "Popcorn Lung". It was thought originally that only those who worked in the manufacturing industry were at risk, but now some everyday consumers of microwave popcorn have been diagnosed with popcorn lung. Right now there seems to be a consensus that the FDA is turning a blind eye to this and it's apparent the EPA was aware of potential problems two years ago. Can't say I'm surprised, but all I really want to do is track down my old diacetyl spreading coworker and do something particularly nasty to her.

Willing To Drill Anywhere

Today in Florida, Republican presidential hopeful, Fred Thompson was asked by a reporter if he would drill for oil in the Everglades, he said wouldn't rule it out. Did your eyes blink rapidly when you read this? It confused me for many reasons. Back in 2002 the family that owned the drilling rights for large chunks of the Everglades were planning on drilling about 1,500 holes and blowing stuff up with dynamite in about 40 locations. Though a red state, this was not a happy thing for most Floridians and all studies indicated that the amount oil located beneath the Everglades would be the equivalent of two days worth at current US consumption. It would mean a crap load of money for the family who owned the rights, but not much of a benefit in the grand scheme of things for the rest of us, especially if the price is the Everglades. Jeb was up for re-election that year and he had a very unhappy constituency. So, in a shameless move to help his brother Jeb, President Bush had the Department of the Interior buy back the drilling rights. It was straight up nepotism, but the end result was the protection of the Everglades so I can bitch too much there. So, whether or not to drill in the Everglades is rather a moot point, a fact of which I'm sure the reporter was well aware. Thompson said he had no idea there had been any controversy. I can understand an everyday non-Florida citizen missing this slice of history, but Thompson was a Tennessee senator at the time. You would think a politician would have some clue what's going on in the news. Ok. So Thompson is a politician who doesn't follow politics. Ok. I'll move on. I don't think Thompson would ever seriously consider drilling in the Everglades, but like most politicians he's just cranking out what he thinks people want to hear. Apparently Thompson thinks people want to hear their politicians are willing to destroy the habitat of numerous endangered species in order to reap an insignificant benefit. Though I disagreed, I could understand the reasoning behind the rightwing concerning drilling in Alaska. It's large, frozen and many of the residents wanted it. But the Everglades? Come on! Even the archconservative Bush spawn realized that most people, even republicans, would not be down with the rape of the Everglades. Now I'm just trying to figure out if Thompson just went a little too far trying to stick to the Republican message of "drilling good, environment bad", or if the rightwing has gone far into crazyland that the destruction of all things natural, whether there is an actual benefit or not, has become part of the party line message. In either case, he should print up, "Willing to Drill Anywhere", bumper stickers.