Yes, there are demonic strongholds, without question. There is no doubt about it. There are certain areas where demon princes hold sway. And this thing has obviously got hold of you. Get away from there as fast as you can. Confess and recommit to the Lord. Absolutely. But get away from there. Flee.
Wired News: What if the next burger you ate was created in a warm, nutrient-enriched soup swirling within a bioreactor?
Edible, lab-grown ground chuck that smells and tastes just like the real thing might take a place next to Quorn at supermarkets in just a few years, thanks to some determined meat researchers. Scientists routinely grow small quantities of muscle cells in petri dishes for experiments, but now for the first time a concentrated effort is under way to mass-produce meat in this manner.
Henk Haagsman, a professor of meat sciences at Utrecht University, and his Dutch colleagues are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next few years.
...
Jason Matheny ... believes the easiest way to create edible tissue is to grow "meat sheets," which are layers of animal muscle and fat cells stretched out over large flat sheets made of either edible or removable material. The meat can then be ground up or stacked or rolled to get a thicker cut.
Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris, the two credited screenwriters for 'Superman Returns' have changed Superman’s famous motto, "Truth, Justice and the American way", to "Truth Justice and ... all that stuff". Seriously. No, really.
(Lady with cool contact lenses via CNN)Sure, video evidence would slow the game down slightly, but not as much as the luddites would have you believe. The ball is only in play for 60-odd minutes anyway and double-checking, say, a goal-line clearance, penalty or offside appeal would add seconds not minutes. If there were any doubts at all about the TV replays, the referee's original decision would stand.
Introducing technology would also change the risk v reward debate that zips around a player's head: there'd be no incentive to dive for a penalty when someone in the stands could alert the referee, who would soon be waving yellow in your direction. And why pretend to be punched, when in 30 seconds' time you'd be receiving red for play-acting?
Clearly there's a balance to be struck between maintaining the flow of the game and making the right decision but if other sports can do it, so can football. Ultimately, it boils down to what is preferable: a 30-second delay in play, or the Hand of God? Getting it right, or allowing cheats to get away with it? Certainty, or random chance?
Something magical has happened to us though in 2006. Despite the proliferation of nay-saying articles in the run up to kick off of "The World Eagerly Awaits, But Americans Could Not Care Less" variety and in spite of the Czech debacle, a break through has been made: bars in every major city are packed on game day, columns like Hirshey's Deadspin riff (is he the thinking man's George Vescey?) show signs of vibrant home-grown soccer analysis, and major outlets have repetitive front page coverage of every game. And all of these great strides are taking place even though America has yet to produce its first truly world class player.
So, close your eyes for a second and put yourself in the mindset of the legions of casual American sports fans tuning in to soccer for the first time -- those individuals who, for instance, are watching TEAM USA but who have not yet bought the How Football Explains the World. This is their moment. ESPN has taken the remarkable step of airing all the games. On HD no less. So they look fabulous. Which brings us back to Balboa, a man who could be presented as Exhibit A proof that heading a soccer ball can be hazardous to your health. All the casual viewer needs is a voice that is intelligent and accessible. But instead you get Balboa, a man that even corporate strategist charged with devising a way to ensure that America continued to only care about sports that allowed regular heavy doses of commercial breaks could invent in a laboratory -- one part Homer Simpson, two parts Chance the Gardner with a dash of George Bush. The World Cup deserves better, the medium term growth of soccer in this country via a sustained interest and continued growth of television ratings and the advertising revenue that brings will depend on it, and best of all, you Americans can do better. |link|
JUST A REMINDER....19 days from today, all cell phone numbers are being
released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale
calls. ..YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS.... To prevent this, call
the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. It is the
National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.
It blocks your number for five (5) years.
HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS OR GO TO:
http://www.donotcall.gov/
WASHINGTON - Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.
These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.
Contrarianness is a great and good thing—when driven by reason and facts. But contrarianness for its own sake is often the very definition of asininity.
“The federal government is trying to take over the whole country,” Michigan developer John Rapanos said on the Supreme Court's steps yesterday morning, “and if they do, we will all lose.” |link|
24. DigiScents iSmell (2001)
Few products literally stink, but this one did--or at least it would have, had it progressed beyond the prototype stage.
In 2001, DigiScents unveiled the iSmell, a shark-fin-shaped gizmo that plugged into your PC's USB port and wafted appropriate scents as you surfed smell-enabled Web sites--say, perfume as you were browsing Chanel.com, or cheese doodles at Frito-Lay.com. But skeptical users turned up their noses at the idea, making the iSmell the ultimate in vaporware.
A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. |Associated Press|
It's inevitable, given the way the U.S. teams are improving every year, that eventually we will make it to the semifinals of the World Cup, and it's likely, one would think, that the United States will win it all in the near future. This is a country of limitless wealth and 300 million people, after all, and when we dedicate the proper resources to a project, we get the job done (see Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq).|link|
"Harmful to minors" means:...that quality of any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse... or any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of inappropriate violence...|Link|
Are you a true believer? Do you just know deep down in your black Wal-Mart socks that every word of the Bible is the absolute literal truth and nothing dare be doubted and anyone who thinks [otherwise] should be strung up by their small intestine and beaten with sticks sharpened by Mel Gibson's teeth?
Do you feel, furthermore, that human cretins like, say, gays and Jews and Wiccans and all those hippie weirdos with their iPods and low-cut jeans and easy laughter are a plague upon this fine and holy land?
Do you think ...that you should probably go out into the street right now and behead a few lambs and perhaps mow down some Taoists with a Gatling gun just to deflect its horrible notions of the sacredness of the feminine divine? You do?
Praise Jesus! Your video game has arrived....."Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, based on the freakishly best-selling series of apocalyptic trash-lit books. It's an ultraviolent, hilariously inept, wondrously accurate portrayal of what every true right-wing Christian fundamentalist really fantasizes about after they've had one too many pink wine spritzers and have logged a few hours in the gay chat rooms and have sufficiently indoctrinated their happily numb kids with tales of vile homos and scary "progressive" liberals who want to buy them candy and tattoo their sacrums and feed them organic hot dogs.|SF Chronicle|
On this same morning last year, the Astros were 19-32, in last place in the Central Division, 10 and a half games from the nearest playoff spot. And it looked legit, too. They looked like a bad team going nowhere, and that's just where they went, if you consider the World Series "nowhere."
Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600˚F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250˚F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth. |Is It Raining Aliens?|
One reason for the persistence of these Democratic phobias has been the party’s abysmal inability, a year and a half after the fact, to reckon with the real reason for Kerry’s loss in the 2004 campaign: once again, fear. Kerry’s campaign was driven by a fear of his shadow (his antiwar activism after Vietnam), of seeming too strident by attacking, even when he himself was being attacked (first by Karl Rove’s “senator flip-flop” campaign, then by the Swift Boat veterans). How else can one explain the inexplicable—the spectacle of a Silver Star winner made to look wimpy by two men who avoided combat? Simple: He was terrified of speaking out. His campaign even toned down the convention speech of that most mild-mannered of presidents, Jimmy Carter. |Mark Hirsch|
