WTF St Louis?

I know, I know, I have been absent from the blog. And here I am, coming back just to put down St. Louis.

But I thought this story must be shared.

Update

I have no witty comments or editorials on this article, but I thought it would be worth posting for those of you who have not seen this news/discussion about the USPS and service cuts.


[As I was attempting to choose the labels for this post, I didn't know whether to put recession or depression. Yesterday, a colleague of mine facetiously pointed out that people with jobs tend to call it a recession, those without, a depression. So, it's a recession for me.]

Bacon Explosion

I'm not sure what to say about this. Good use of internet marketing? Congratulations, enjoy your heart attack?

Promise for the Future...

We all have our issues. I mean, the issues floating around society that we are more interested in than the average person.

This is one of mine.

Wow

There must be some other way to ensure our President's safety, right? Because this seems kind of unreasonable- no email while in office?

Interesting Article

Also in reference to Colbert...written by a guest he had the other night.

Jeffrey Goldberg's The Things He Carried

It's a great article. In my "line of work" we often use airports as the benchmark for effective security. In reality, this just is not the case. We need a new approach to security, not these ineffective band aids implemented to make the general public feel better. Rather, security has to be a state of mind, embraced by all. And then maybe we can free up some of those funds for better intelligence...

State Sponsored Late Notes

But how can they prove if you were really on the train?

Live Puppy Cam!

I have to share this with everyone I know.

It's a live puppy cam!

Google

I enjoyed reading this article. I followed a similar progression to using many of Google's features. And as for a large corporation kind of controlling my life, I believe Carr said it rather well: "If Google owns me, it’s probably because I am in favor of what works"

Science conversation, continued

Read this.

Very Interesting Article

I received this article in a listserv email from my department - the 2 doctors involved were residents in the department for which I work.

I realize some may find it depressing or hard to read/swallow, but it is worth reading all the way through, even just to understand the US' stance on torture under the Bush administration.

This is just the beginning...

The Green Revolution!


On a more serious note, it's about time something is done about the ridiculousness of Times Square energy consumption. On election night, ABC was so proud of itself for having commandeered all of the fancy billboards and screens in Times Square. Bart aptly noted the unbelievable excess of this in regards to energy consumption. Well, at least one billboard is starting to change...hopefully this will catch on, and quickly.

That's right

NYU Medical Center receives $200 million gift.

Working here, I could share many, many details about this particular announcement. I could also make many suggestions about what that money should fund, as opposed to what it will fund. Actually, that is part of my job...

google, saving the world

I was very impressed with Google's developments in epidemiological tracking systems, given that people I talk to on a daily basis are frustrated with the difficulties in disseminating crucial and timely information. Google is ahead of the game- possibly 10 days ahead of the CDC! (That is an unbelievable number. Way to go, Google.)

I highly recommend checking out some of their other projects at google.org.

TroopTube?

I had no idea the Department of Defense put restrictions on their international servers, though I suppose it makes sense, especially with their reasoning of bandwidth issues. And now they've made up their own video site...TroopTube. And it may actually be technologically advancing:

"But the startup's real forte is making sure searches on the site turn up the best video results. Delve's system turns a video's sound into a text transcript. It pares unimportant words like "this" and "that," then compares what's left against a massive database of words commonly uttered in proximity to each other, collected from crawling hundreds of millions of Web pages.
The result: Even if speech recognition software trips on the one word someone is searching for, there's a good chance Delve can still deliver relevant results."

...I'm a federal employee, paid by the DoD...and I access youtube on my computer! Don't tell anyone

Interesting Read

Science + Prison + Psychopaths...

Suffering Souls

It's a long article, but worth it. (Well, worth it to me. I work in healthcare now and have previously had involvement with the prisoner's rights.)

experiences at the ballot box

So I know I had to wait in line for about 50 minutes this morning, but then my voting went smoothly. Waiting in line was quite enjoyable- it was clear the majority was in favor of Obama. Granted, I was voting in Bed-Sty and was one of maybe 4 other non-African Americans in the line. I learned that when the voting opened this morning, the line did indeed wrap around the block, though it was shorter upon my arrival.

How have your experiences been? Fortunately the voting machine did not break one person ahead of me like it did for the primaries.

I was very excited afterward; I paused to appreciate the magnitude of what I had just done. A stranger on the subway platform seemed to identify that we were having similar feelings and struck up a friendly conversation about the momentous occasion. How unusual!

Obama announced he would run on February 10, 2007. That's 19 months of campaigning. Everyone should pause as they cast their ballot- it's the end of a long journey, and as we are all glued to 538 or RCP or CNN throughout the day, let's hope it's the real beginning of...change we can believe in.

Also unrelated to most things...

But I know of at least 2 people who read this blog and appreciate Tracy Morgan's antics, so I recommend this NYT spotlight article.

And because it's the season, I must add Werewolf Bar Mitzvah for those who love it already, or those who have never seen it.

I love Tuesdays' Science Times.

I love academic/scholarly discussions about sex.

I enjoyed this quote: "“Is it that men are bragging about it and women are lying to everybody including themselves?” Dr. Fisher asked. “Men want to think women don’t cheat, and women want men to think they don’t cheat, and therefore the sexes have been playing a little psychological game with each other.”"

Not exactly a high brow scholarly discussion of sex, but an interesting read. The article notes we may be cheating more- whether physically or emotionally- because of the facility with which we can "communicate" today. It's funny- cell phones and email and chat supposedly inhibit sincere connections and relationships yet facilitate something like cheating, which can often be categorized as simply reaching out to forge a superficial relationship, often devoid of real emotion but nonetheless providing an intimate connection. The relationship between technology, communications/relations, and infidelity is indeed dynamic.

the aftermath

Katie, I think you especially will appreciate this well-crafted euphemism (in bold below) employed by NYT in its article "Candidates Clash Over Character and Policy":

"At times showing anger and at others a methodical determination to make all his points, Mr. McCain pressed his Democratic rival on taxes, spending, the tone of the campaign and his association with the former Weather Underground leader William Ayers, using nearly every argument at his disposal in an effort to alter the course of a contest that has increasingly gone Mr. Obama’s way."

Methodical determination? How about repeating the same disputed points over and over again while Obama attempted to clarify and defend his policies?

Yes, I thought McCain had to reach for "the kitchen sink and the plumber" to try to make his points in this one.