Four months into her pregnancy, Lorraine Allard was devastated to learn she was in the advanced stages of cancer.
Doctors advised her to have an abortion and start chemotherapy straight away.
Instead, with steadfast courage, she insisted on waiting long enough to give her unborn son a chance to survive, telling her husband Martyn: “If I am going to die, my baby is going to live.”
Wow.
Popin Pete doing his thing in the Talking Heads video “Crosseyed and Painless”.
Israel wants to cut Gaza links after border breach | International | Reuters
Israel wants to cut its links with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory’s border with Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade, Israel’s deputy defence minister said on Thursday.
Israel, which occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, pulled troops and settlers out in 2005 but still controls its northern and eastern borders, airspace and coastal waters, and has imposed a blockade it says is meant to counter militant rocket fire.
I’m sure this can all be solved by three rounds of Rock-Paper-Scissors between Egypt and Israel.
Woman With Tattoo From Homemade Gun Got Sick - Kansas City News Story - KMBC Kansas City
Some women in Springfield are regretting their decision last week to get a tattoo from a door-to-door tattoo salesman. At least one person had to be hospitalized and the others face serious health risks.
Friday night, a man knocked on doors holding a tattoo gun and offering his services. Tamra Eason described the tool as homemade, but still agreed to pay for a tattoo. So did two other women in her apartment complex.
I’m sure the price was good.
So I’m assuming that Heath Ledger won’t be reprising his role as The Joker for a second time unless they pull off some sort of “Weekend At Bernies” type thing.
I love the internet!
globeandmail.com: Blame it on Hamas
Israel agreed Monday to allow diesel fuel and medicine into Gaza on a one-time basis, easing the blockade it imposed because of rocket attacks on Israel’s southern towns. This concession will not be enough to placate critics who had jumped all over the country earlier in the day, accusing it of exacting, in the words of European Union external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, a “collective punishment of the people of Gaza.” Nor will the gesture in any way encourage Hamas to order its thugs to rein in their attacks on civilian targets in Israel. Never ones to let a good turn go unpunished, one of the terrorist group’s leaders, Mahmud Zahar, made as much clear yesterday, promising “to continue on the path of jihad and resistance, whatever the sacrifices and suffering, until victory or martyrdom.” The villains in the tawdry drama being played out at the expense of the impoverished and downtrodden Gazans should be obvious. But in case it’s not, here’s a hint: It’s not Israel.
I was thinking more of the lines of Milli Vanilli and was going to blame it on the rain but the Globe thinks otherwise.
reportonbusiness.com: Quebecor World seeks bankruptcy protection
Quebecor World Inc. filed Monday for creditor protection, telling a court hearing it will run out of cash within days, after failed attempts over the weekend to strike a compromise deal with its bankers.The struggling commercial printing giants application for protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act was being heard in Quebec Superior Court.
“We are days from a total liquidity collapse,” Derrick Tay, a lawyer for Quebecor World told the court. If the company doesnt get the emergency debt financing it is seeking, it will run out of cash by Thursday, he said.
There goes the neighborhood. Seriously though, who would have thought this a few years ago?
Mr. Deity is easily the funniest video podcast I’ve ever watched.
The Death of Environmentalism - FORA.tv
In October 2004, Shellenberger and Nordhaus argued that environmentalism was incapable of dealing with global warming and must die for a new ecological politics to be born. Now, they will make their case for a new “politics of possibility” to replace the old “politics of limits” - from environmentalism to liberalism to conservatism - grounded in changing social values and an expansive new vision of the future
Also, I can’t recommend the Fora.tv Program of the Week podcast enough. It features great speakers from all over the political spectrum.
BBC NEWS | Health | Green light for hybrid research
Scientists want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs in a bid to extract stem cells. The embryos would then be destroyed within 14 days.
The cells form the basic building blocks of the body and have the potential to become any tissue, making them essential for research.
At the moment, scientists have to rely on human eggs left over from fertility treatment, but they are in short supply and are not always good quality.
Critics say they are repulsed by the idea and there must be no creation of an animal-human hybrid.
They say it is tampering with nature and is unethical.
It is already illegal to implant human-animal embryos in the womb or bring them to term.
Wasn’t this a movie with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando? Or maybe I’m thinking of “Manimal”.
The Associated Press: FDA Says Cloned Animals Safe Is Food
Just over a decade after scientists cloned the first animal, the last major barrier to selling meat and milk from clones has fallen: The U.S. government declared this food safe Tuesday. Now, will people buy it?
Consumer anxiety about cloning is serious enough that several major food companies, including the big dairy producer Dean Foods Co. and Smithfield Foods Inc., say they aren’t planning to sell products from cloned animals.
Good news, everybody!
Australians are voting online for a “Word of the Year”
Australians are voting online for a “Word of the Year” from a list of new words to be included in the dictionary: among the frontrunners, “Chindia” and “globesity.” Create your favorite new word of the year that tells us something about trends in your country.
I got nothing.
Monkey Controls Robot Using Only its Mind : Environmental Graffiti - environmental news blog
Recently, neuroscientists at Duke University announced that a monkey in North Carolina had managed to make a robot all the way in Japan walk using only the power of its mind.
The monkey’s brain activity made the humanoid robot walk. This marks the first time that brain activity has been used to make a robot walk, although the research team had previously shown monkeys could control grasping and reaching robotic arms using thoughts.
Hillary takes a few minutes on the campaign trail to answer questions sent in from young voters.
I think I just barfed a little.
One of the least used properties in CSS is the Clip property. Clip is part of the visual effects module of CSS 2.1 and its job is to place a visible window on top of an object that is being clipped. It is useful for clipping images and creating thumbnails without having to create additional files. This trick can be used to create square thumbnails, or to create other varieties of thumbnails without actually duplicating files on the server. Here is the rundown.
You think you know everything….
Missing scenes from the original Star Wars movie.
Being a “self-proclaimed” classical liberal, I had read with much attention George Watson’s “The Idea of Liberalism” (1985); references in that book prompted me to look into the writings of two well-known, staunch British conservatives, Roger Scruton and Michael Oakeshott. Both men are quite forward and unambiguous in stating their beliefs and prejudices and they do not hesitate to criticize liberalism. For the expounder of the classical liberal view I turned to my favorite, Friedrich A. Hayek; I had his trilogy “Law, Legislation and Liberty” at hand from whence to draw quotations on the subject. I was surprised to discover that Hayek seldom even uses the term “conservative”, and rarely, if ever, engages in knocking it.
Well, this certainly clears things up. Rather it adds more books to my “To Read” list. Read the rest of essay here.
The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?
My message would be: Enough Already!