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The nearest tube station serving W11 Bayswateris South Kensington.


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Low-Fat Bacon? Scientists Use CRISPR to Breed Petite Piglets
By Sara G. Miller 2017-10-23T21:29:08Z
Several of the genetically-modified piglets.
(Image: © Zheng et. al., PNAS, 2017)
A group of scientists in China has successfully modified the genes of pigs to create a slimmer swine.
These "low-fat" pigs have about a quarter less body fat than normal pigs, according to NPR.
The petite piglets were created using the genetic cut-and-paste tool CRISPR, which can be programmed to make a cut into a genome in a targeted spot and then insert new genetic snippets into that slot.
These edited pig embryos were implanted into 13 female pigs, three of whom became pregnant and gave birth to a total of 12 piglets, according to the study. [10 Amazing Things Scientists Just with CRISPR]
In addition to having less fat than their non-modified piggy peers, the low-fat pigs were better able to regulate their body temperature in the cold.
Indeed, the ability to withstand colder temperatures was the main reason the scientists modified the pig genome. Cold temperatures can be a killer for newborn piglets, which are unable to maintain their body temperature, according to the study. Pig breeders have responded by using heat lamps to warm the infant pigs. However, the creation of piglets that can stay warm on their own could increase piglet survival, the researchers said.
But you probably won't see these low-fat pigs, and their low-fat bacon, in the United States any time soon: It's unlikely that the Food and Drug Administration would approve a genetically modified pig to sell in the U.S., and consumers would likely also be highly skeptical, study editor R. Michael Roberts, an animal sciences professor at the University of Missouri told NPR.
Originally published on Live Science.
The Surprising Condition That Causes 1 in 5 Deaths
Out of Deep-Sea Mud, a Strange Blob May Hold Secrets to the Origins of Complex Life
A Hot Blob in the Pacific Ocean Caused 1 Million Seabirds to Die
'Gay' Penguin Couple Had No Egg of Their Own. So They Stole One.
Mystery of Orb in a Record-Breaking Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Deepens

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The bullets that struck two innocent bystanders in Wednesday's wild Bronx shootout came from an NYPD officer's gun, police sources revealed Thursday.
Officer Juan Gomez, 30, fired at robbery suspect Edwin Castillo-Concepcion 27 times — and had to stop once to reload, said sources.
Castillo-Concepcion shot twice as he fled down Loring Place North and W. Fordham Rd. in University Heights, the sources said.
A bullet from Gomez's 9-mm service weapon hit 46-year-old Rosana Urena in the side, while fragments from another of the officer's bullets tore into 12-year-old Gabriel Hayes' leg as she was walking with her mom, sources said.
Castillo-Concepcion, 37, survived a bullet through his neck. He's charged with attempted murder and weapon possession.
Urena, a mother of three, moved to New York from the Dominican Republic with her mom less than two months ago, said her friend, Lizbeth Perez.
Urena's mom experienced a spike in her blood pressure after the shooting, and she needed to be hospitalized as well, another family friend said.
Investigators are still evaluating the tactics used by Gomez, who's been on the force for five years, as well as those of his partners. But two high-ranking police officials pointed out that the suspect had already fired a shot at civilians, and was shooting at the officer during the chase.
Castillo-Concepcion, who was toting a .25-caliber handgun, had just robbed two drug dealers in the lobby of a building on W. 183rd St. just before 6:10 p.m., oblivious to the presence of Gomez and his partner, Brandon Gambecki, 31, who were both in plainclothes and were patrolling a half-block away, sources said.
Castillo-Concepcion fired a shot at the dealers — but the officers didn't hear it, sources said.
Castillo-Concepcion came running out of the building. "He's got a bag. He's holding it close to his waist and he's concealing his face," one source said.
Gomez jumped out of the officers' car, while Gambecki, an eight-year veteran, pulled into reverse and radioed for help, sources said.Both officers wore body-camera, but neither turned them on.
After he was shot, Castillo-Concepcion fell in front of a sports bar on W. Fordham Rd.
Police recovered the gun, along with a brick of white powder, believed to be cocaine or heroin, in a red backpack.
The dealers fled after the robbery, and police are still trying to identify them.
On Thursday morning, the NYPD deployed one of its drones — the first time the department has used the new technology — to take aerial photos of the crime scene, sources said.


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Minister's Biography
Seasonal Message
Japanese Files
The Logo of Bayview United Church
The amalgamation team wanted to see several different iterations of the same theme, a cross or dove to represent faith, or a globe to represent the world. The idea was to pick a theme that most liked and to clean it up from there. Ultimately, the most popular choice was a simplified globe with a cross and spirit lines to incorporate God, faith and the world. After some discussions on colour and sizing we had our final product! (logo designed by Kathe Sanz)
Bayview road sign revealed
Bayview United Church Amalgamation
Bayview United Church came into existence on Sunday, September 28, 2014. The celebration started with the revealing of the new Bayview road sign and parading into the church singing "We are one". An inspirational service followed with the amalgamation of Centennial-Japanese United Church and Oriole-York Mills United Church to form Bayview United Church.
Click here for photos from the amalgamation day.
Antipendium
New Antipendium
The new antipendium hanging on the communion table at the front of the church was revealed on Sun. Sept 7.
Dome in Narthex
Dome Installation
The dome recently installed in the church narthex was originally installed in 1958 in the upper chapel of 701 Dovercourt Road; the former home of Centennial-Japanese United Church.
Bowl of Udon at CJUC Bazaar
The Bazaar at CJUC –
Sat. Oct 19, 12:30 to 3:00pm
The 2nd Annual Oriole-York Mills United Church and Centennial-Japanese United Church FOOD & CRAFT BAZAAR was held on Saturday, October 19. Thank you for your donations of crafts, pickles, jams, baked goods, books and gently used or new household items. The udon was very good and several hundred bowls of it were served.
Photos from previous bazaars.
Sun. Apr. 6 – 11:00 a.m. – CJUC 60th Anniversary Service
Centennial-Japanese United Church, in 1954 known as Toronto Japanese United Church Nisei Congregation, then led by Rev K Shimizu, celebrates its 60th anniversary on Sunday April 6, 2014. You are welcome to attend the anniversary service to remember the events of that inaugural day. Please join us for the singing of timely hymns and stories from church members about that era and a free lunch following the service.
Click here to view the CJUC history synopsis pamphlet for the 60th anniversary April 6, 2014.
Click here to view the greeting from the Rt Rev Gary Paterson, Moderator of the United Church of Canada on CJUC's 60th anniversary.
Click here to view the order of service for the first regular worship of Toronto Japanese United Church Nisei Congregation on April 11, 1954.
Click here to view the slide show for the CJUC 60th anniversary.
Click here to view the certificate of congratulations from the Premier of Ontario.
Click here to view the ad in the Nikkei Voice for the CJUC 60th Anniversary.
Click here to view the worship slides for CJUC's 60th Anniversary.
Click here to view the worship bulletin for CJUC's 60th Anniversary.
Remembering Audrey Fukuzawa
Nori Nagano, Audrey's daughter-in-law, remembers Audrey in this essay.
Click here to view this remembrance.
Spirit.calm at CJUC/OYM June 16, 2013
Spirit.calm Service
This special service on June 16 featured the singing of the gospel band Spirit.calm with guest trumpeter John Liddle. Some songs included, Our God Goes with Us, Amazing Grace (Rising Sun version), Wherever You May Go, Victory Chant, Flowers Will Bloom in the Desert and Our Father. Thanks to the band members for their participation and leadership.
Church Picnic June 23, 2013
Church Picnic at Earl Bales Park
For the first time, the church picnic was held at Earl Bales Park (Bathurst and Sheppart) on Sunday June 23. The weather was hot and partly cloudy, so we were lucky to be able to sit in the shade under some large trees. Rev Cindy conducted the outdoor worship service, with John Liddle and Brian Kai providing the musical accompaniment. The potluck lunch was delicious and the games were enjoyed by the young and old.
Canada Day Worship, June 30, 2013
June 30 Canada Day Service
This colourful red and white service on June 30 featured a variety of members of the congregation (and the minister) wearing Canada's official colours.
Sue Kai recalls the Ushi Doshi celebration event
This is an article written by Sue Kai that appeared in the magazine called More of Our Canada. This is a magazine where the articles are written by the subscribers. The article is about a celebration event called Ushi Doshi that Sue is a part of. The participants are born in 1925 and meets every five years. The article also appeared in the Holiday 2012 edition of the Nikkei Voice. Click on the title to view the Our Canada article. Click here for the article in the Nikkei Voice
CJUC celebrates the 33rd anniversary of sponsorship of Vietnamese refugees
On Sunday December 2, the CJUC members who were involved with the sponsorship of Vietnamese refugees in 1979 met with the former refugees and their families. In 1979, Van Long Hua, Phuoc Minh Tran, Tan Loc Tran and Chi Minh Tran, arrived in Canada on a harsh and cold wintry day. They had never seen snow before. In August 1979, then CJUC minister, Rev. George Tomita, has challenged the CJUC board to act and do something about the plight of the boat people. CJUC formed a committee headed by Irene Kagawa and Brian Kai. We applied for sponsorship of a family and we received 4 teenaged boys from Vietnam.
The boys had survived poor conditions in a Malaysian refugee camp and a dangerous boat ride in the South China Sea to escape their homeland. They were separated from their family who could not leave Vietnam. A new country, Canada, was now their home.
After getting settled and acclimatized to their new homes, with the help of the CJUC members, the Vietnamese men have become Canadian citizens. They and their children are contributing citizens in their adopted country. They view the CJUC members who helped them, as part of their family. We were happy to make a difference in their lives.
To view photos from the December 2 event, please click on the title and go to the bottom of the photo page. The CJUC members at the dinner were: Rev Cindy Cooper, Brian/Irene/Howie Kagawa, Kaz/Ruby Shikaze, Brian Kai, Dee Dee Yatabe
Recital by Karen Quinton – Sun. Nov. 27. 1:30pm
Karen Quinton (piano) and Helen Russell (clarinet), along with one surprise guest, Hannah Corbett (violin), daughter of Helen's husband, Hugh, played a light-hearted one-hour recital of works by Paul Reade, Poulenc and Charles Stanford. This concert was held in the sanctuary after lunch at 1:30 p.m.
Remembrance Day trumpeter with wreaths 2012
Remembrance Day Service
This special service featured the trumpet playing of John Liddle in all aspects of the service including the Last Post. Karen Quinton on piano was excellent too. We heard the stories Private David Fraser Marshall from World War I, read by his daughter-in-law, Barbara Marshall. We also listened to the story of current OYM member Ron McIntyre, presented by Bruce McIntyre and Lynne Pulenzas.
Worship bulletin of Nov. 11 service
Barb Marshall's talk at the Nov. 11 service
New Crest of the United Church of Canada
In what former Moderator Mardi Tindal described as "an historic moment," The United Church of Canada has acknowledged the presence and spirituality of Aboriginal peoples in the United Church by adopting additions to the introductory materials to the Basis of Union as found in The Manual and revising the church's crest. More information can be found at The United Church of Canada website.
Plaque at 701 Dovercourt. Click to view a larger image
701 Dovercourt – Plaque Honouring CJUC
After 2006, when CJUC left 701 Dovercourt Road, Toronto, and after about five decades of calling it our church home, the church building went under construction. Four years later, it became a 28 unit condominium including parking in the former gymnasium. The plaque is posted on the outside wall of the condo which explains some history of the building. As the Bloor/Dovercourt area changes, a new condo is being constructed at the former site of the Earle Elliot Funeral Home.
Media article on the condos at 701 Dovercourt
The Bazaar returns to CJUC –
Sat. Oct 13, 12noon to 3pm
The annual CJUC and OYM Food and Craft Bazaar took place on Sat. Oct. 13 at Oriole-York Mills United Church. Preparations took place during the week leading to Oct. 13 to renew memories and traditions of previous bazaars. Features included: bake sale, boutique, udon, pickles, and preserves. In the kitchen over 200 bowls of udon were prepared. All were sold and it tasted great. Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped to make the bazaar a success.
Bazaar advertising poster
New United Church Moderator Rev. Gary Paterson offers United Church congregations a message of hope in his first pastoral letter, "Learning to Live in Babylon".
Moderator's Message (text)
Moderator meets the press (video)
Historical Note – CJUC Moved from Dovercourt to Lansing – January, 2006
It's been over six years since CJUC moved from downtown Toronto to Lansing United Church in 2006. We look back to the final worship service at Dovercourt.
After many years at 701 Dovercourt Road in downtown Toronto, CJUC wanted to give up maintaining a church building and moved to Lansing United Church in a rental agreement. David Kai was commissioned to write a song to commemorate this event. He composed Our God Goes with Us to celebrate the Japanese Canadian dispersal from British Columbia, overcoming hardships and forming a church community.
The words and music to Our God Goes with Us
Video clip for Our God Goes with Us
CJUC Launches a New Website
In the year 2000, CJUC created its first website. In those days, the most common mode of connection to the internet was a dial up circuit of 56 kilobits per second. The original CJUC website was primarily text-based as the slow internet speeds could tolerate sending text through the internet, but bandwidth hogging images were transferred much too slowly. A decade later, connection speeds are commonly 500 times faster or more and websites rich with images can be transmitted more easily. This website upgrade refreshes the look and feel of the original website and adds new features like image galleries, variable text sizes. Perhaps in the future we will move to links to social networks and electronic givings, but only time will tell.
You will notice that on the top left corner of each page is the circular dome symbol. This dome was installed at 701 Dovercourt Road in 1958 when the Upper Chapel was built for the then-named Toronto Japanese United Church Nisei Congregation. The Niseis required a separate space for their worship services held in English rather than sharing space with the original Toronto Japanese United Church Issei Congregation that worshipped in Japanese. The dome was the focal point of the chapel and when CJUC moved to Lansing, the dome was dismantled and stored at Lansing. The plan is to re-install the dome inside the renovated Lansing building. The dome is an important symbol of CJUC as we move from Dovercourt to Lansing to Oriole-York Mills.
Much of the content of the old site is included in the new site. If you have not already explored CJUC's history, take a look at the page About Us, History. View some faces in the Gallery page. Take a look at our events in the Calendar page. See how CJUC fits into the larger United Church of Canada in the About Us, Background page.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Please send them (and any digital images of church activities for possible inclusion in the photo gallery) to cjuc@sympatico.ca
CJUC Moves Once More
After 5 years of worshipping at Lansing United Church, CJUC has temporarily moved its location. Lansing is undergoing a large renovation project to demolish the old gymnasium and build a new worship space, put in an underground garage, and change the old sanctuary into a multi-use activity room. Lansing decided to stay at the site while the construction is in progress. As the length of the construction is not known, but estimated to be two years, the CJUC council decided to move to Oriole-York Mills United Church for a period of up to two years. OYM's minister retired in June 2011, so Rev Cindy Cooper is now the minister of two churches. CJUC and OYM retain their autonomous status as separate churches and have agreed to combine their worship services, with CJUC renting space from OYM. Both churches have adapted to this unique situation. The service outline is much like the CJUC service of previous times. However, the worship music includes many OYM traits, including soloists and a strong choir. Our new service now has two music directors alternating or playing simultaneously on the piano and organ, with many other instruments included regularly.
OYM and CJUC have both benefitted. OYM found the minister they needed after the former minister retired and is reinvigorated with new people. CJUC found the physical space that they were searching for and were welcomed warmly by OYM members. Attendance at Sunday services is encouraging and many times the chapel pews and parking lot are full. Shared activities are well attended and Sunday lunch has become very popular.
To add to the mix, the former Toronto Japanese United Church (Issei or Japanese-speaking congregation) now has amalgamated with CJUC and its members worship with CJUC and OYM. Former TJUC members meet monthly for a Japanese language worship service.


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Insta360's X3 360-degree action cam will blow you away
2.29-inch display is an excellent viewfinder
Rugged and accessible design
Insta360 software is basically dark magic
User-friendliness is underrated
5.7K resolution translates to just 1080p video
Software export times can be sluggish
You'll want a large MicroSD card to store the 360-degree footage
Insta360 has been on an absolute tear lately, churning out cameras as if supply chain issues were non-existent. From the gimbal-like Link webcam to the modulating One RS that my colleague Matthew Miller tested earlier this year, the company clearly doesn't have any shortage issues with components — or ideas.
Whether you're a professional or a beginner, the X3 brings a lot to the table for all to play
Next in line to carry the torch is the Insta360 X3, the successor to last year's One X2. Insta360 says it's doing away with the 'One' branding now which, in a market full of complicated names like GoPro Hero 11 Black and DJI Osmo Action 3, is a very welcome change.
While the X3's naming scheme has gotten smaller, everything else with this year's model is all about being bigger. Bigger display. Bigger camera sensor. Bigger battery. Bigger price. So whether you're a seasoned content creator, or just starting to venture into the action camera space, Insta360 is making a compelling case for why you should buy the X3 over everything else.
114 x 46 x 31mm
2.29-inch touchscreen
1/2" 48MP
Up to 5.7K resolution
1,800mAh (removable)
Connection ports
USB Type-C, MicroSD
Waterproof up to 33ft (10m)
Third time's the charm
This is generation three of Insta360's fun-sized Snickers bar of a camera and, undeniably, its most refined design yet. The frame measures about four inches tall and a little less than two inches wide, making the X3 adorably compact to hold, swing around, and bite on (I'll explain later, and it has nothing to do with the Snickers reference.)
The exterior is gilded with a rugged blend of rubber and texturized ridges which assures you that the X3 can hang in the toughest outings and/or within the slipperiest of fingers. Every compartment that borders the centerpiece is buckled tight and water resistant, yet surprisingly accessible with a simple pluck. (Long fingernails not required.) That means charging and transferring data via the USB-C port is fast, and swapping out the removable battery and MicroSD card is convenient.
That larger, touchscreen display though.
June Wan/ZDNET
The biggest changes with the X3 are the new half-inch 48MP sensor and 2.29-inch touchscreen display. The former delivers improved image quality and dynamic range, allowing the action camera to capture sharper and more color-accurate footage — even on the brightest days. This comes at the expense of a heavier body (180g) and a camera lens that bulges just a little further out.
As for the new display, the advantages write themselves: You can now see more from the viewfinder when recording, there's greater real estate for gestures and tap controls, and gone are the days of squinting at that small, circular display to review your 360° masterpieces.
The X3 also introduces three new buttons: one on the bottom left to start/stop recordings, one on the bottom right to swap between front and back cameras, and one on the right edge for camera mode presets. For ergonomic reasons, I'd like the record button to be a little higher, or even placed on the side for a thumb press.
More: Five best vlogging cameras you can buy
Most users should find the X3's 360-degree video recording the most useful, especially for how easy it is to modify, edit, and reframe the shots in "post". This year's model caps out at 5.7K resolution at 30fps, with the 4K resolution supporting up to 60fps.
Don't be fooled by the numbers, though. A 360-degree video at 5.7K resolution technically compresses into 1080p, meaning footage won't be as pixel-perfect as, say, movies on a 4K TV. Instead, you'd be wise to upscale the 1080p content into 4K after the fact.
There's also a single-lens mode for front or back-facing shots and slow-motion capture at up to 4K/120fps.
Numbers aside, the image quality from the X3 has generally looked impressive. I made the mistake of not turning on Active HDR for my initial batch of outdoor shots, but even then, my footage in broad daylight wasn't too blown out or lost of color. Here's a compilation of various shots, angles, and post-processing effects that the X3 is capable of. (Spoiler: They're quite magical.)
It's no skydiving montage but I'd say the recordings came out great, especially when all I had to really do was hold the X3 up, hit the record button, and let the camera take care of the rest. Remember, it's a 360-degree video, so no matter how the camera is orientated, you'll be able to crop, reposition, stabilize, and frame the footage just right in the post-edit. It's a very foolproof format, which professionals and first-time users can appreciate.
There's a slew of first-party and third-party accessories that can enhance the X3 experience, but the one that I kept going back to was the invisible selfie stick. As the name implies, footage that is captured with the accessory attached automatically hides it from view — like in the car scene of the video sample. You can still see its shadow from certain angles but the camera is generally reliable at cropping the selfie stick away from the final product.
From left to right: Lens cap, Bullet Time cord, Insta360 X3, and the invisible selfie stick.
For first-person shots, like when I was riding my bike up the hill, you can either prop the X3 onto a head or chest rig or, get this, literally hold the bottom half of the camera with a mouth mount. (You can technically bite the camera to keep it in place too, but I wouldn't recommend it.)
Putting the 'art' in artificial intelligence
Insta360 prides itself as a software company — not a camera company — for good reason. The Insta360 software experience is full of whimsical video filters, editing functions, and endless opportunities to turn your standard 360° (or 180°) footage into something more.
All of that is powered by Insta360's AI technology, a series of back-end processing that intelligently assembles raw footage in the most presentable manner. During my briefing, Insta360 made sure that nothing more was shared. From the app's ability to intelligently pan the video so that all the action is framed properly to the various Shot Lab filters that can literally replace the skyline with Van Gogh's Starry Night, there's clearly some kind of wizardry happening here — and the company wants to keep its spellbook under the wraps.
Shot Lab in the Insta360 app has up to 30+ viral-worthy effects to apply to your footage.
What impressed me the most about the software experience was the ease of use. The mobile editor is not as extensive as professional services like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro, but I was surprised to find all the essentials. In fact, the simpler interface of Insta360's editing suite (shown above) made setting keyframes, speed ramps, and jump-cuts, all possible from the palm of my hand. I didn't need to whip out a MacBook Pro to cut down the high-resolution, 360° footage; everything was done right on a smartphone.
Sure, the export times can be a few seconds faster, and applying ShotLab filters and effects can add another minute or two to your workflow. But for how effortless it is to turn raw video into shareable content, the wait is certainly worth it.
During my two weeks of testing the Insta360 X3, I found the camera capable of lasting two to three days per charge. Obviously, battery life boils down to how often you're recording, video resolution, whether it's 360°, 180°, or single-shot content, and so much more. Still, the endurance numbers are a healthy step-up from the One X2, which had a smaller 1,630mAh capacity and held up for about a day less.
I will never forget my first experience using a 360-degree camera. The Samsung Gear 360 which, to this day, collects dust in my treasured tech drawer, was slow, janky, expensive, and absolutely mesmerizing for photos and video capture. It was such a shameless device that overheated by the second, but the output — all that 360-degree, all-you-can-see goodness — made any defective behavior negligible.
Why am I telling you this? Because using the Insta360 X3 has brought back all of those fond memories, minus the bad bits. It's the second coming of my honeymoon phase with 360-degree cameras, and I'm even more blown away this time around.
Whether you're a professional or a beginner, the X3 brings a lot to the table for all to play. The $449 price is fair, especially when you consider all the fun and practical video features you're getting, and how they stack up to GoPro and DJI's $300-$500 action cameras. Just make sure you have a MicroSD card that's sufficient enough to store all those 360-degree videos; you'll probably capture more than you think.
Alternatives to consider
Besides the Insta360 X3, here are some worthy alternatives to consider:
My ZDNET colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes calls the GoPro Hero 11 Black the "world's best action camera". Perhaps it's the color-rich video recording or the exceptional video stabilization that's become synonymous with the GoPro brand. There's no 360-degree recording with this camera, but it's a compelling option for $399.
For even more flexibility, check out Insta360's ONE RS. It's a modular gadget that lets you swap out camera lenses for all kinds of shooting conditions. This plug-and-play feature is enough to distinguish the ONE RS from any other action camera. ZDNET's Matthew Miller found the image stabilization and battery life just as impressive.
Clearly, there are plenty of options in the action camera space. DJI's latest Osmo Action 3 makes a return to the compact, rectangular form factor that's reminiscent of GoPro cameras. Naturally, a lot of the Osmo Action 3's functionality is similar to the aforementioned Hero 11 Black, with 4K 120p video recording and HyperSmooth 4.0 stabilization to keep all the action steady.
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Must Read: Rafael Nadal Models Tommy Hilfiger Underwear, Marc Jacobs Is Having an Insane Fashion Week Party
And for the first time in recent retail history, teens are shopping more like their parents.
Maura Brannigan
An image from Rafael Nadal's Tommy Hilfiger Underwear campaign. Photo: Tommy Hilfiger
These are the stories making headlines in fashion this Tuesday.
Rafael Nadal is the chiseled new face of Tommy Hilfiger Underwear
Starting this fall, the world's eighth-ranked tennis player, Rafael Nadal, will serve as brand ambassador for Tommy Hilfiger's underwear and tailored clothing range, as well as a new men's fragrance, TH Bold. The 29-year-old Spanish native signed a two-year contract with the brand, during which Tommy Hilfiger plans to relaunch its underwear business. {WWD}
Marc Jacobs is hosting an '80s-themed party during New York Fashion Week
Marc Jacobs, bless his heart, is celebrating the release of Gloss, a book about '70s photo legend Chris Von Wangenheim, with an absolutely insane-sounding party during New York Fashion Week. Held at infamous '80s nightclub Tunnel, the shindig plans to enforce an intimidatingly strict dress code, including (but not limited it): "fur coats over lingerie," "cowl neckline halters" and "no flat shoes." We'll be there. {Yahoo}
Stephanie Seymour is the new face of The Room at Hudson's Bay
Iconic '90s supe, swimsuit model and actress Stephanie Seymour fronts The Room at Hudson's Bay's fall 2015 campaign. In the ads, a seemingly ageless Seymour, now 47, wears a number of top labels including Proenza Schouler and Balmain. The department store chain is no stranger to '90s-era supermodels: Seymour's onetime colleague, Linda Evangelista, starred in its campaign last season. {Fashion Gone Rogue}
Teens are shopping more like their recession-tainted parents
For the first time in recent retail history, teenagers are shopping more like their parents — which is to say, more conservatively. As evidenced by this summer's back-to-school season, today's kids are being more "thrifty," recycling more clothing and abandoning the spending sprees of years past. Merchants are taking some time to adapt. {Business of Fashion}
Rafael NadalStephanie SeymourMarc JacobsThe Room at the Bay
Tommy Hilfiger Heads to Shanghai for Next TommyNow Show
It will be the first time TommyNow has taken place sans a capsule designed in collaboration with Gigi Hadid.
By Whitney Bauck
Must Read: Adele Graces the Cover of 'Vogue,' Tommy Hilfiger to Adopt a Direct-to-Consumer Model
Plus, there's already a booming resale market for Kanye West's "The Life of Pablo" merchandise.
By Gemma Kim
Gigi Hadid Will Co-Design a Second Collection for Tommy Hilfiger for Spring
The supermodel's sophomore outing for the brand will once again include apparel, footwear, accessories and fragrance.
By Maura Brannigan
Tommy Hilfiger's Fall Campaign Could Be His Most All-American Yet
The designer scores a cashmere-clad field goal with the help of Behati Prinsloo and a whole team of football players.


In the mid-nineties, Beatrice trained as a secondary school drama teacher before enrolling at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama on their Postgraduate Diploma in Voice Studies. She has worked for twenty years as a voice and accent coach, teaching in UK drama schools and in professional theatre, as well as in private practice.
Having experienced the benefits of Mindfulness herself following a period of illness, Beatrice resolved to learn to teach it, and is now approaching the end of a two-year Supervised Pathway in Mindfulness Based Approaches at the University of Exeter. She is experienced in teaching Mindfulness to members of the public, as well as specifically to musicians, actors and artists, and she is looking forward to coming to teach at Nine Springs. She believes that there is no-one who cannot benefit from what Mindfulness has to offer!
Beatrice lives with her husband and three teenagers in Dorchester. She continues to teach voice and accent at the Arts University Bournemouth and the Dorset School of Acting, and is currently teaching Mindfulness for Creatives on the AUB short course programme.


Michael W. Pagenkopf died on March 30, 2012, at his home.
He was born June 17, 1949, in Newton to Roy M. and JoAnn Kelsey Pagenkopf. He married Rebecca Smith in 1969.
He spent many years employed in the recreational vehicle industry. He later married Leslie Pagenkopf. They were married for 27 years.
He is survived by one daughter, Michelle Wood; one son, Dan Pagenkopf; his parents, Roy and JoAnn Pagenkopf; one brother, Kerry Pagenkopf; three grandchildren; and other family members.
A memorial service was April 4 at Bowman Funeral Home in Garden City. Condolences may be sent via http://www.bowmanfuneral.com. Memorials may be sent to St. Luke's Hospice, 325 West Idaho St., Boise ID 83702.


PURPOSE:To laminate the same resist into two layers and to make possible the easy formation of an overhang shape by treating preliminarily the resist surface of the lower layer with a silane coupling agent thereby preventing the dissolution between the resists. CONSTITUTION:The photoresist 11 is coated on a substrate 10 and the entire surface is exposed with UV rays 14 after prebaking. The surface of the photoresist 11 is treated with the silane coupling agent 12 or titanate coupling agent 12 and after drying, the same resist 11 is similarly coated thereon and is dried. The resist is then exposed through a photomask of the prescribed pattern and the overhang shape is obtd. by one developing stage. A thin film 13 is formed at the temp. at which the photoresist does not deform and finally the photoresist layer is removed, by which the thin film pattern is obtd.


Alchemical Dwarves: An unusual and alien species of Dwarf found in the Country of Sang.
Arthopods from Nowhere: There is a place that the inhabitants call Zrgztl, but you might as well call it Nowhere because it's here and not here all at the same time.
Motley Isles: The islands are known as a haven of pirates who value their freedom above all else, except perhaps the plunder they take from hapless ships. Vessels that call the Motley Isles their home often fly a distinctive flag: a skull and crossbones emblazoned on a crazy-quilt pattern.
Shooting Star Folk: A vagabond and rowdy bunch, who are generally not welcomed among the Stars and Planets that comprise polite society of the heavens. They are forever crashing into things, (Planets, Stars, each other) and despite the danger, consider it a great thrill to do so, burning bright and screaming to the void.
Velocipede Gangs: In the eastern plains of the Country of Yanth in the Land of Azurth, there are nomads with an unusual mode of travel.
A manor house dominates the only hill on a small island in the middle of the slow-moving Lazybones River, barely visible behind a perpetual bank of heavier-than-normal Bewilderlands haze. A noble family and all their servants, rendered into a hideous undeath millennia ago by a sorcerous curse, carry on as if nothing has happened.
When posthuman intelligences began dismantling planets to build rudimentary Matrioshka brains, the apotheosis refusenik near-human remnant was cast out of their reservations to space habitat redoubts. Most of these continued in the relatively carefree people had lived on the now-recycled worlds, but in a few something went wrong. Sometimes very wrong.
The Weal (as the inhabitants now know it) is one of those places. After war and perhaps a period of utter barbarism, a roughly Medieval technology level society has emerged (amidst the half-functioning remnant of what came before) of androids (though they would think of themselves as "people," thank you): the artificial biologic beings once servants and playthings for the idle human rulers. Being an android has some advantages, not the least of which is the reality of resurrection, if you are attended to by the appropriate authority (i.e. super-user).
These post-human people have developed into tribes that carry some echo of their previous function: the clerics receive wisdom from the old god-machines, the fighters still hold as their sacred duty the protection of the Weal, and the wizards broker deals with spirits and command the various nanomachines and utility fogs gone quiescent or feral after their former masters forgot the eldritch codes to command them.
All these tribes or fraternities wind up battling monsters. Their is only so much space in the Weal, and the people need it. The lower, outer levels are the abodes of creatures once human (altered into strange forms by adaptive and cosmetic gememods gone wildly off model by natural selection unleashed), nanotech that will not be tamed, and in the outer, deepest levels there are posthuman sociopaths and grifters trying to break in.
The Weal is a dangerous place, but intrepid heroes can claw back the world from darkenss or die in the attempt.
Marduk, the Theocrat of Pandarve, has had his scientists and magicians hard at work at creating a device to bring someone called "the Anomaly" to him over a great distance. He places the last element needed into the device: a red sphere called the Egg of Pandarve.
An energy beam shoots out across unimaginable distances and arrives on Earth, striking Storm and causing him to disappear. Ember jumps into the beam after him and disappears as well.
Storm and Ember find themselves in orbit around a planet, falling slowly, yet someone able to breath. They have arrived near Pandarve at least, but this isn't exactly what the Theocrat wanted. His technicians are looking for them, but a rebel attack disrupts their power supply. The "Anomaly Detector" tells Marduk that the object of his search has arrived in the system at least.
Staring down the maw of some sort of space whale, Storm and Ember push away from each other. the force carries each of them out of the creatures path but on opposite sides.
The hunter reels the creature in closer, then fires another harpoon.
Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with the first session in an adaptation of X2: Castle Amber. While the PCs had been getting used to their being a new mayor in town and tying up loose ends from previous adventures, the Elf Ranger Shade had received a visit from her mother, Oona whom she hadn't seen in one time. Oona told her it was time for her to visit her family in their manse and fulfill her familial obligation to house Sylaire (obligations her mother had notably fled herself all those years ago) and perhaps set right what has gone wrong.
Shade is reluctant to reveal all of this to her companions but ultimately, she does. They accompany her to the Aldwode on a night of the new moon to find the phantom House Perilous, the home of the Sylaire clan. To save her from the unwanted marriage they are sure is coming, they do a hasty marriage of dubious legality to the bard Kully. The party finds an iridescent salamander in a clearing and the creature tells them to walk widdershins around the area, then sleep the night with no light sources. They do as the the creature bids them, and they wake up in the foyer of the house.
In the salon, the rakish Jereth and his waxen pugilist offer them a wager. Against Shade's warning, Erkose takes him up on it, and knocks the creature out in under 2 rounds, winning them 500 gold. Jereth suggests to Shade that the grand matron, Carmilla, might wish to see her and "do a reading of the cards."
In the study they encountered strange cat men who wanted only to sleep and warned the party off with hisses and curved daggers. In the banquet hall, the party declines to eat with the elegant, fancy-dressed phantom dinners. Waylon and Erekose did feed some roast beef to the cat men, to no visible effect.
In the Mirror Hall, half the party is blinded for an hour. They encountered a leprous looking servant (a thoul) who leaves them be when Shade invokes her mother's name. They avoided the other rooms in that wing and went into the indoor forest. Again, they mostly stayed clear of trouble, keeping to the path.
Erekose's greed was enticed by a chest ensconced beneath the gargoyles in the fountain, and he and Waylon contrived to get the chest without entering the water. The chest scraping across the bottom, however, roused the ameba lurking there, and it attacked. The party lit it up with blasty cantrips and drove it back. As the party peered at the riches in the chest, a feminine voice from behind them asked just what they were doing.
Synopsis: The astronauts launch a raid against a Kreeg religious shrine in a White Sands Missile Range museum and acquire a new weapon.
Commentary: Google maps makes getting a map of a real world location a whole lot easier than in the pre-internet days--if only they had a hexgrid overlay! The White Sands missile Range Museum is, of course, a real place. Through the magic of suspension of disbelief, it was buried by sand rather than eroded by the millennia and the mutants were able to dig it up.
With it's machine gun the gang turned the Kreeg church meeting into a lower budget version of the climatic gun battle in the Wild Bunch.
In my gaming career, I haven't ran too many published adventures. When I was younger and had a lot of time, there didn't seem much point. These days, I can definitely see the appeal. I've run more since starting this blog than I did in all my gaming years prior, I think.
The problem is, either I'm too particular or my settings are such special snowflakes that it still takes a good bit of forethought and prep for me to be happy with them. In my Weird Adventures game, Castle Amber only wound up serving as inspiration to swipe a couple of rooms from for a sprawling, haunted estate. Jason Sholtis's Zogorion, Lord of the Hippogriffs was so freely adapted that the session served as the basis for Mortzengersturm, the Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak. I tend to alter them so much that I'm pretty picky about the fodder I start with, if only to minimize that tendency.
I wonder if other people have that problem? Do other folks with particular settings/campaigns just alter them to accomodate the "facts" of the published adventure or do adaptations like I do?
Cog was mentioned in my play reports previously.
Will take a breather here in the Storm series, before heading off to Pandarve to consider to comics collections I scored in my holiday gift haul.
I've been (slowly) picking out Fantagraphic's E.C. Seegar's Popeye collections, and I got the last two volumes I needed. Volume 4: Plunder Island includes the titular storyline, often considered to be the best of the series, which features the Sea Hag and introduces her goon henchman, including Alice. Volume 6 is the last one and features a return of the Sea Hag, among other things. Both collections are original size and up to Fantagraphics usual production standards. Popeye's Depression era adventure fantasy was an sinspiration for Weird Adventures.
The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Omnibus was not technically a gift, but I picked it up during my holiday shopping, so it was kind of a gift to myself. This reprints material from Marvel's black and white The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine. It features Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, and the Sons of Tiger, and the usual Marvel magazine topical articles. The stories feature art by the likes of Paul Gulacy, Rudy Nebres, and Jim Starlin.
Circus registry 331/3 (called by its operators Thirty-Three and A Third) is a Universal Standard Transport LS1517 series space hauler. The LS1517 series is often used as a pilot engine for a train of container pods with the primary motive power coming from a secondary drive at the end.
The series is an older design with a higher crew (or more sophisticated nonspohont mind) than new models and only one axis of container attachment, but it has better armaments (ostensibly "space debris protection") and a more powerful engine.
The above diagram will appear in Strange Stars OSR.
The base Rogue class in 5e works fine as does the thief & assassin archetypes. The Arcane Trickster has so nice features that could maybe form the basis of a "magical trickster" or charlatan (wherein the magic is feigned or pretended), but as currently constituted it's too magical. The Mastermind and the Swashbuckler archetypes from the Sword Coast Adventure's Guide work too, the the latter would be a bit of a relic. Rogues would also be the class of choice for "Thief-takers" working on the opposite side of the law.
Obviously musicians and performers have always existed, but the inspirational "powers" of this class seem better suited at a time of revolutions for rabble-rousers, speechifiers, and pamphleteers: your Samuel Adamses and Thomas Paines.. The Warden class of AiME seems to get closest to this range of types without the use of spells, so it's probably a good bardic substitute.
Strange Stars OSR is getting close to release! To prove these words are true, here's the Gamemastering chapter. Some minor edits and typo-fixes aside, this is what it will be in the finished product.
George Lucas's Willow is no Star Wars. Even though its made from the same sort of stock characters and the same sort borrowings from early sources, but it doesn't quite come together in the same way. At least it didn't seem to to my fifteen year-old self, and it doesn't seem to to me today.
Here's the titular hero and (I believe) one of his Nelwyn fellows. Nothing of the pastoral gentility of a Baggins, nor the too literal "small folk" of the film. These guys make me think of Howard's diminutive and declining Picts in "The Lost Race," but also aboriginal peoples like the Emishi (in Princess Mononoke) or Ainu. A sense of the Nelwyn threatned by humanity (or Daikini) would have been nice. I like the long earlobes, too.
Madmartigan is the rogue with the heart of gold Han Solo type, but with a bit more wastrelness, he could have been a wuxia sort of character, or Sanjuro from Yojimbo, or Mugen from Samurai Champloo--both of which are great swordsman, too. Moebius gives us a design that completely fits with those characters, suggests a world of ronin or wandering swordsmen of some sort.
King Kael here (General Kael in the film) is described as "bestial" in the third draft of the script, which he obviously is here. Perhaps he is a lover of Bavmorda transferred by her magic? A reverse Beauty and the Beast (there's maybe a bit of Cocteau's beast about him. Maybe)? Or is he the captain of the flying monkeys, so to speak? Anyway, he fulfills a bit of a Witch-King of Angmar role, so fleshing out his badass villainy would have been good.
Now, it's back to the Asian stylings. The mask suggests (to me) childhood mindwarping courtesy of Bavmorda for the warrior woman Sorsha. Maybe she's just go a slight blemish, but has been convinced its a horrible disfigurement a la (some accounts of) Doctor Doom? Maybe her inhuman beauty as a daughter of the Tuatha de Danaan-esque folk of Tir Asleen is her disfigurement to her witch queen mother? Note that the mask isn't just a human mask, it's go that single Oni horn. Probably means something.
Lastly, I believe this is one of two fairly divergent designs Moebius did for the brownies--but in an earlier script draft Willow and baby get captured by elves who are described as wearing "samurai-type outfits and angry little haircuts." These are guys who (in the script) collect baby tears as part of their gig. Now think of these sinister little guys, like a mashup of the Indian in the Cupboard and the evil faerie of del Toro's Don't be Afraid of the Dark remake. I think we could do without the French accent Lucas specifies for their leader, though.
Ember is suspended over hot coals. Kai gloats that by the time the gods appear tomorrow, she will be charred to bone.
The next day, everyone is assembled and the missiles they call gods rise as usual--but with them are Storm and Huatl!
Storm demands Kai honor his father's agreement. Kai refuses and orders Ember's ropes cut so that she will fall into the pit, but Storm has a trick up his sleeve. He pushes the button on a remote control he had kept hidden, launching one of the god missiles.
The townsfolk fall prostrate with superstitious awe. Kai snatches up the axe to do the job himself, but Storm braces the falling Ember. Still, both are left defenseless against another attack from Kai.
At that moment Huatl challenges Kai and quickly kills him before he can react. Storm declares that by their law, Huatl is now leader of both tribes, and a new age of peace can be ushered in.
After a week of festivities where Storm and Ember are the guests of honor, the two set out again to see what unknown lands lie beyond the horizon.
Prophet: I've mentioned my admiration for this series before, so I won't dwell on it here. It's sci-fi superheroes, but much more Dune than Legion of Super-Heroes. It's finished now, and I believe all the issues have been collected.
Habitat: Is about life in an isolated orbital habitat, a bit like Starlost but with cannibalism. It's by Simon Roy, co-creator and sometime artist on Prophet. Roy has also done a number of other science fiction sorts that are suitable, some collected in Jan's Atomic Heart and Other Stories.
Dreadstar: This is another one I've mentioned before. Starlin's space opera is a science fantasy, but its visual style (and its Instrumentality!) influenced Strange Stars greatly.
Descender: While the aesthetics aren't the same, Lemire's tale of genocidal super-machines and the adventures of artificial intelligence is great inspiration.
The 5e Fighter works pretty well were representing your standard warrior types from any of the cultures, though the Eldritch Knight will be out as an option. Maybe Adventure in Middle Earth's Weapons Master might be an archetype option.
The AiME Wanderer class can represent the historical units known as Rangers, but also the general wilderness scout type. The Hunter of Shadows Archetype is out, but the much maligned Beast Master archetype of the 5e Ranger will work. I might also replace Trackless Step with the Ranger's Land's Stride, but this isn't a big issue. Interesting historical tidbit: the terms for skilled firearms marksmen: "crack shot" and "sharp shooter" (the latter a calque from German) are both attested to from only the 1790s.
Though the name is borrowed from the Adventures of Middle-Earth class, I think 5e's Barbarian works better. This will represent the fierce, rustic warrior, including some Native American warriors, but also some of the frontiersmen or proto-Mountain Men with which they contended. Weapons would be similar for both: muskets, tomahawks/hand axes, and knives, though some Natives might still employ the bow.
On breaks from getting other projects done, I've been working adapting some of the classes in Adventures in Middle-Earth (due to their low magic setup) for a hypothetical 5e game set in a game in the America Colonies just before the Revolution War. Thinking the fighter classes will (hopefully) but pretty straight forward. I've started with the (quasi-)magc-using classes.
AiME has the Scholar, which is mostly a healer. While conceptually, I might have wished for a nonhealing scholar, the rules sort of require some healing, and this class can reasonable reskinned as the Enlightment version of a sort of Paracelsus alchemist-physician type, possibly with a little of the faith healing aspect of a Valentine Greatrakes, or pseudoscience theorists the likes of Mesmer. I plan to make the two different specialties of the class Master Healer and Master Alchemist (or something similar), which would require a bit of a change.
The Scholar's abilities are easy enough to reskin. "Hands of the Healer" becomes "Curative Arts," "News from Afar" becomes "The Republic of Letters," and "Tongues of Many Peoples" becomes "Able Linguister."
The only class that may need to be largely made from whole cloth is a sort of magic-user to represent the esoteric magic tradition, likely taking advantage of 5e's ritual magic rules, the Magus. These guys will probably have Lodges or Societies to join.
Storm and Huatl, back in the hands of the Manatecs, will be forced to face someone named Kuadro in the duel. At the appointed time, they are led into an arena where ancient missiles risen--worshipped as gods by these people too.
Storm is overmatched by a foe with four arms. He's knocked from the walkway but manages to hang on until Kuadro stabs him in the hand. Storm's other hand reaches for something to save him. He grabs a metal bar--which turns out to be a lever. The platform begins to turn. Kuadro is thrown off balance and falls into the pit.
Storm is declared the victor and the new leader. Storm demures from the office, offering Huatl in his place--after he returns. Before the Manatec people can respond, the two race into the tunnel the god-missiles emerge from. The two jump on the transports that carry the missiles along a track through the subterranean tunnel. Huatl thinks this all is the work of the gods, but Storm explains that ancient humans made this (though he wonders at what the power source must be).
The spider grabs Huatl and begins to enrapt him in webbing. Thinking quickly, Storm wipes grease from the transport's axle so he can climb over the web without sticking. He manages to do that without drawing the attention of the spider and free Huatl.
No sooner is that done than the two have to sprint after the transport, which has began moving again.
We spent New Year's with my wife's parents, and she really wanted to introduce them to D&D. They are avid gamers of the Catan/Carcassone/Pandemic sort but had never played an rpg. On the way to their place, we bought the 5e Starter Set (mainly to get ahold of the Lost Mines of Phandelver intro adventure), but also for the sample characters.
I'm sorry to say Squire Bill the Dwarf Cleric, Maggie the Elf Wizard, and Sara Longstreet the Fighter, were all lost in a goblin den. It was the first TPK of the new year. Hell, it's my first one as a DM in decades, perhaps.
While this was sort of on the fly and an introductory game not the start of a campaign, I did reskin a few thinks to make them more in line with my sensibilities, taking some suggestions from Gus L's critique of the adventure here. The PCs started in media res walking along the road from Knarr to Fandlin, where they know there is to be a festival honoring St. Frithona. I vaguely had in mind a Canterbury Tales riff, and I may differ a bit from Gus in my stance on funny names (I want them to be consistent in a way that suggest culture and interesting, but I do not necessarily see facility of player use as primary concern. If they can't remember them, they can take notes.) so I actually added more than are in the adventure while I altered the ones they were there. So the PCs soon encounter the gruff dwarven outfitter with a secret, Rockseeker Gev, and his associate, Silfer, and soon after, a pilgrim camp with Maudrey (a corpulent merchant), Eilmer (a used car salesman-esque relic seller), Bregwin (a taciturn female fighter with a hatred of goblins), and Karthusa (a nervous tinkerwoman).
After Gev and Silfer are apparently kidnapped in a goblin attack--and the player's find a tantalizing but unreadable map to the ruins--they track the goblins back to their lair.
In the end, it was mostly bad rolls that took them down and even then it was a close thing: the last PCs was felled by the last goblin in a room who was himself hanging on only by 1 HP. I suppose I should have had the goblin flee at that point to raise alarm (and give the PCs time to maybe attempt escape), but it happened relatively fast and the contest was so close. In any case, the player's seemed to enjoy the game, despite feeling they had "lost" in the end. Being more conformable with boardgames with role-playing the combat was more to their liking than the NPC interaction, so this introductory thing suited them better than one of my adventures might have.
Happy New Year--And Remember the Hydra Sale!
A happy 2017 to everyone! Remember there are just four more days of the 12 Days of Hydra Sale.
I'm looking forward to release of Strange Stars OSR early in 2017 and Mortzengersturm, the Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak a bit later.


text:
The science goes round and round, and it comes out here (4/6/2005)
I have been doing an archaeological dig in my garage, and I came across a stack of stuff I wrote when I was at university many years ago. As a prerequisite for studying psychology, I had to also do some introductory anthropology and sociology. By coincidence I just happened to pick up a book by Martin Gardner this week in which he wrote about Derek Freeman's criticism of the work of Margaret Mead. This reminded me of some examples of how to do and not to do science that I came across in that particular Behavioural Sciences department. (Please don't bother to tell me that the social sciences are not sciences. I have heard it all before.)
(This article is a bit long for the front page. You can read it here.)
Deja vu, tu quoque (4/6/2005)
I have often mentioned the practice of quackery supporters defending their position not by offering evidence but by attacking real medicine. (It is not only medical quacks who do this, and I expect a significant amount of it from the creationists in the debate coming up next week - "there are problems with evolution, so creation must be true". Also, it was the response from Motorola when I complained about the dismal quality of my daughter's new, expensive, but now useless mobile phone. I finally told Motorola that I didn't care how bad Nokia or LG phones are because it was a Motorola that I had paid for and which was now broken.) This email illustrates the principle nicely:
Dear Mr. Bowditch (Peter),
Your Ratbags website never ceases to amaze.
Before going too far in your highly personalized attacks on people who practice complementary / alternative medicine, and how they make claims for efficacy which are not true; it might be prudent to do a little factual inquiry as to the nature of (now) Professor John Dwyer's medical research while at Yale University until 1987.
He claimed to be able to transplant live thymus tissue from children having surgery, into the arms of other adults (say immuno-compromised AIDS patients), and reported many therapeutic benefits thereof due to "reconstitution of the immune system".
He continued such claims for efficacy via "thymus transplantation" until the late 1990's, even suggesting to set up a clinic for that purpose at Prince of Wales.
When the first authentic thymus transplant was finally made by a leading biomedical researcher at Duke in 2001, she confirmed that he had only been transplanting dead tissue, with subsequent "immune response" due to rejection (like for putting a stick in your arm).
Such thymus-transplants today are used mainly to study the effect of transferring live viruses into an animal host.
These facts are all in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Please feel free to contact any of the authors of such articles, say from Nature Medicine or Annual Reviews of Immunology, if you wish further authoritative opinion.
The Professor Dwyer referred to was, before he retired, the head of the School of Medicine at the University of New South Wales. In October 2002 he was appointed by my state's health department to chair a committee investigating egregious medical quackery, at which point the attacks on him intensified.
All that is really suggested in the email above is that Professor Dwyer once conducted research which lead nowhere, but that, in the way that human nature works, he was reluctant to give up his ideas. Subsequent research showed that he had been going about things in the wrong way. All of this really means nothing and does not in any way reduce my admiration for Professor Dwyer. I happen to disagree with him over the affliction called "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" as well, but that also really means nothing. What is important is that even if Professor Dwyer had been found guilty of gross scientific misconduct (and there has never even been a whisper of that), this would in no way validate the outrageous, fraudulent and often dangerous practices that he (and I) fight against. When the only defence someone has is to attack the messenger from the other side, then it usually means that what they are defending is indefensible.
Consistently idiotic (4/6/2005)
Some of the weirdest people you find in the anti-medicine world are the anti-chemical loons. Some of them claim to be and appear to be one-trick ponies, in that they concentrate exclusively on one chemical as the source of all ills and world problems. Examples of these dreadful chemicals are milk, aspartame, mercury, fluoride and Ritalin. Why I say they "claim to be" one-trick ponies is that they extend their silliness into opposition to other chemicals, and it is very rare (almost unheard of) to find one who is opposed to one of these chemicals but not others. They are consistent in their idiocy. It's when they extend their complaints without any apparent reason that their true anti-science, anti-medicine (and anti-intellectual) biases show.
I have seen two examples of this lately. The anti-amalgamists have long professed their horror at dentists doing root canal work and have had to invent all sorts of terrible things that can happen to people who have these procedures done to them. All this does is reveal that the anti-amalgamists are really anti-dentists. This was confirmed for me recently when I found out that there is opposition from the same people to dentists offering tooth-whitening services. As there can be no conceivable connection between the three procedures except that they are carried out in mouths by dentists, opposition to all three makes no sense unless the real opposition is to dentistry per se.
I was prompted to write this because of a coincidence which happened a few days ago. I saw an advertisement on television for the sugar substitute Splenda. (This product is made by altering the structure of the sucrose molecule to make it indigestible, so it still stays sweet but provides no calories.) I said to my wife that I supposed that the anti-aspartamistas would be opposed to that too, and, right on cue, arch-loon Betty Martini publishes an article with the title "UK Sweetener Co Admits Sucralose (Splenda) Is Synthetic". Well, duh! The ads say "made from sugar", which sort of suggests to sentient beings that it is synthetic. Of course, I am talking about "sentient beings" and that rules out Betty. And do you want to know why she doesn't like sucralose? It's because it is just like DDT! The amazing thing is that there are people who take this stupid woman seriously.
Old, dead guest writers (4/6/2005)
If you think that the criticism of the nonsense of homeopathy is new, read what Oliver Wendell Holmes had to say about it in 1842. He called his essay "Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions".
Coming up shortly (4/6/2005)
Just to make sure I don't have any spare time, I have the following public appearances coming up over the next few weeks. The creation debate will be occupying some time over the next three weeks which would normally be spent on doing things for this site, but I am sure that the trade-off will be worth it.
Creation debate in the Sydney Morning Herald's Webdiary - June 13 onwards
Canberra, July 12 - Herbal remedies - the good, the bad and the ugly.
Canberra, July 13 - Herbal Remedies: History, Heresy and Hereafter.
August 12 and 13 - The Australian Skeptics 2005 National Convention, Bond University, Gold Coast
Carelessness Corner (4/6/2005)
People blithely use the word "nanosecond" without understanding that it is the approximate time taken for light to travel the length of the long side of a piece of A4 copy paper. The shortest interval of time which can be reliably detected by humans is the "ohnosecond", which is defined as the time between asking a computer to delete something and realising that you don't really want it deleted at all. Such an event happened at Ratbag Castle this weekend, and while the exclamation might not have actually been "Oh, no!" it did have four letters in it. (Which reminds me of the late and great television star, Graham Kennedy, who died last week and once famously announced on television that the call of a crow sounded like "Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!". But I digress ...)
The particular thing deleted was the complete FrontPage copy of The Bear's Progress. In real life I always tell my clients that I have never met anyone with too many backups but I have seen many with one too few. Luckily I take my own advice and I was able to recover most of what had been lost. What I couldn't get back, however, was all the work I had done for this week's update. What this is leading to is that I don't have the time right now to do all the image editing and word writing again, so the next episode of The Bear's adventures will not appear until next week.
Briefness (11/6/2005)
A short update this week because I have been spending time preparing my opening statement in the great creation debate. Also, I was called out of town unexpectedly and as well as restricted time to work on the site I only have limited access to a 56k dialup connection (which actually reports a connection speed of 31.2k!) for research and site updating. Cable broadband sure does spoil you for slow connections.
Creation debate (11/6/2005)
The great debate between Australian Skeptics and Answers in Genesis is taking place on the Sydney Morning Herald's Webdiary pages. Read my first submission here.
What should I quote? (11/6/2005)
As part of my preparation for the debate I have been reading parts of the Bible again. Someone claiming to be a Christian started quoting scripture at me during the week so I responded in kind. She then told me that the Bible meant nothing unless you lived your life by it. I asked her if she agreed that disobedient children should be stoned to death (as commanded in Deuteronomy 21:18-21) and that it was a sin to wear mixed-fibre fabrics (Leviticus 19:19), and I also pointed out that several times in Deuteronomy there are instructions to obey all commandments like these. Her response? That I was quoting the Bible selectively. I will repeat that. Someone who selectively chooses which of God's commandments to obey and which to ignore accused me of selective quotation. I said that next time I will quote the whole thing. The hypocrisy of some pretend religionists is sometimes (always?) amazing.
SkeptoBear's World Tour - Day Twelve (11/6/2005)
Still on creationism, one of the places that SkeptoBear and his friends visited was the National Center for Science Education. Read about that, and The Bear's new friend, in the latest chapter of his adventures.
Ian Plimer was right. They tell lies for God (18/6/2005)
The debate between Australian Skeptics and Answers in Genesis is over, the formal part at least. The discussion is still going on in the public forum on the web site where the debate was held, if it can be dignified with the word "discussion". The debate wasn't a complete waste of time, as I learned something about the creationists that I didn't know before. I suspected it, but suspicion is not the same as knowing, and now I know that despite their protestations of being good and faithful Christians they are prepared to lie as much as is needed to avoid exposing the vacuity and idiocy of their particular mental illness.
The question for the debate was "Did the universe and life evolve, or was it specially created in 6 day s?", but at no time did the creationists ever even mention six days, let alone provide any evidence to support the claim. Despite this, I was told that the skeptics had not been able to refute the evidence provided for special creation. All evidence offered by the skeptics was dismissed out of hand. I was told that I had offered no evidence, and then I was told that the evidence I had offered really indicated a young earth. That's right - no evidence but the evidence said ... It was said that the references supplied by the skeptics were inadequate, but almost all of the references supplied by the creationists were to where they had said the same thing on their own web site. I was accused of ad hominem attacks when I had never mentioned anybody from the other side, but the other side had no problem naming me and saying that nothing could be expected from me. Each time I asked for some evidence of a young earth I was ignored, except for a ludicrous statement that any potential flaw in a measurement (such as the age of the universe) was evidence that an alternative theory was true. In the face of such sophistry, discussion seems pointless. I do not have Job's patience.
I finally gave the job up as useless when I was told two things. The first was that the debate wasn't about creation versus evolution but was really about creationism versus materialism. In other words, we were being asked to debate not with scientists but with people who believed in a fantasy world. In a fantasy world anything is possible, but I was a bit surprised to see them admit that that is what the world of creationism is. The second thing I was told was that the King James Bible is not a correct translation and cannot be taken literally. I will say that again in another form - people who continually quote the Bible as inerrant truth were telling me that it was not inerrant. More spectacularly, the part that they said was incorrect was the creation story in Genesis 2. They were asking me to believe the Bible and then telling me not to believe the relevant part.
Even then, they couldn't stop lying. To get around the problem that Genesis 1 and 2 provide different sequences for creation, they invented a linguistic property of Hebrew that the language does not have. I happen to know someone who likes to ask fundamentalists if they have read the Bible in the original language like he has, and the word "scornful" hardly describes his opinion of someone who invents a tense in a language in order to deceive people. When I pointed out the consequences of accepting that the King James Bible may not be an accurate translation I was accused of trying to find fault with the Bible, but the fact was that it was the creationists who had suddenly discovered that the Bible was wrong, not me. Here is what I said about the consequences of translation error in the King James Bible:
It is the reliance on the Bible which is most puzzling, however, as our opponents have now stated that the Authorised King James version of the Bible from 1611 is not inerrant and is, in fact, an unreliable translation! That's right - the most important and influential book ever written in the English language (the works of Shakespeare and the Book of Common Prayer make up the trifecta) is, as many have surmised, merely a magnificent work of literature and not the Word of God. What was God thinking when He let King James's editors put this book together? Why did He allow them to make mistakes? Could it have been a test, or perhaps, as Phillip Grosse suggested with regard to fossils and Adam and Eve's navels, just God being deceptive?
The real question becomes "What else in the Bible is wrong?". If we cannot accept that Genesis 2 is correct, then what can we accept? If translation errors are possible, who is to say that the English translation of the Sermon on the Mount in the King James Bible is anything like a true account of what Jesus said? After all, it was translated from Greek and the author of Matthew was working from a third-hand account of a speech given in Aramaic. Much emphasis has been placed on the lack of first-hand, eye witness accounts of evolution happening, but surely the same caveat must be placed on hearsay filtered through multiple translations. What a mess! If the King James Bible can't be trusted to tell us about the Rising of the Sun, what can it reliably say about the Rising of the Son?
I knew when I started that I was never going to convince any true believer to change his or her mind. The purpose of debates like this for the skeptics is to expose the lies and sophistry of the other side to onlookers, to get practice at debating people with no scruples, and to see if any new lies have been invented since last time. The tactics used by the creationists are identical to those used by the anti-vaccination liars, which is to stand up, tell a monstrous lie which requires a detailed technical response to show the truth, and then sit down leaving the question hanging and no time for an adequate reply. There is no difference in quality between "There are no intermediary fossils" or "There is no way that an eye can evolve" and "Vaccines are made from aborted foetuses" or "Thimerosal in vaccines causes autism". The lie is there, the spectators have heard it, and the liars rely on the fact that scientists take too long to explain the truth and are too polite to shout "That's bullshit!"
You can see the statements I wrote at Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. The entire debate can be seen at the Webdiary site, including the comments by bystanders. Feel free to join in the comment streams, but be prepared to be be horrified by the mindless acceptance of dogma by some people. The debates are at Round 1, Round 2 and Round 3, and comments can be accessed by links on those pages.
If you want to read some truth about creationism see John Stear's excellent No Answers in Genesis, and for a comprehensive rebuttal of most of the creationist nonsense, see An Index to Creationist Claims by Mark Isaak.
And I am still waiting for the first piece of evidence to support the claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old. Any evidence at all, no matter how small. Just something other than "You don't know everything so we must be right".
Speaking of liars ... (18/6/2005)
My mailbox this week has been full of requests to say something about the disgraceful article in Salon.com and Rolling Stone by Robert Kennedy about vaccination. This travesty regurgitates all the old claims and lies about thimerosal and autism, spouted by the same crowd of anti-vaccination liars as last time, like the Geiers and Boyd Haley. I've been busy with other things but as it turns out I don't have to write anything anyway, because my friend who runs the Respectful Insolence Blog has done the writing for me. He described it by saying that "Salon.com has just plopped down on the web the biggest, steamingest, drippiest turd", and I couldn't have put that better myself.
Note: The magazines issued corrections shortly after publication and the entire thing was retracted in January 2011.
Normal transmission will be resumed shortly (18/6/2005)
Now that the great mass debate is over, I will be able to get back to more pressing issues next week. SkeptoBear helped with the debate, and he made the point that even a bear with a head full of cotton wool knew more about the universe and science than some of the opposition dolts did. He found the whole thing quite stressful and is having a rest for a few days.
Redundancy in English lexicography (25/6/2005)
If you go to thesaurus.com and search for the word "deceit", you get the following list of words. After spending a few days "debating" creationists, I believe that a reasonable case could be made for replacing all these words with the single word "creationism".
The Dust of Souls
Dali 1951
actor, ambidexterity, ambidextrousness, appearance, artfulness, artifice, astuteness, baloney, bamboozlement, banana oil, beard, beguilement, betrayal, blarney, blind, bogue, boondoggle, bum, bunco, bunk, cahoots, canniness, cant, cheat, cheating, chicane, chicanery, circumvention, cloak, complicity, con, con game, concealment, connivance, conspiracy, copy, corruption, counterfeit, cover, cover up, cozenage, cozening, craft, craftiness, criminality, crocodile tears, crookedness, cunning, deceitfulness, deception, deceptive marking, deceptiveness, defraudation, defrauding, diddling, dirt, dirty dealing, dirty pool, dirty trick, dirty work, disguise, dishonesty, disinformation, dissemblance, dissimulation, dodge, double-cross, double-dealing, dummy, duplicity, entrapping, equivocation, facsimile, faithlessness, fake, faking, falsehood, falsity, fast one, fast shuffle, feint, fix, flam, flimflam, forgery, fourberie, frame, fraud, fraudulence, fraudulent artifice, front, graft, guile, guilt, guiltiness, guise, gyp, hanky-panky, hoax, hoaxing, hogwash, hokum, humbug, hustle, hypocrisy, hypocriticalness, imitation, imposition, imposture, improbity, infamy, infidelity, insidiousness, insincerity, intrigue, jazz, jive, juggling, junque, knavery, knavishness, legerdemain, lip service, lying, mask, masking, masquerade, mendacity, mimicry, misleading, misrepresentation, overreaching, paint, pecksniffery, perfidiousness, perfidy, pharisaicalness, phoney, phony, piety, plant, platitude, plot, pomposity, pretence, pretentiousness, prevarication, protective colouring, pseud, pseudo, put-on, racket, rascality, red herring, reproduction, rip-off, run around, ruse, sanctimoniousness, sanctimony, scam, scheme, screen, sell, sellout, shade, shady deal, sham, sharp practice, shell game, shift, show, shroud, simulacrum, skin game, skunk, slyness, smokescreen, snow job, soft soap, sophism, spoof, stealing, sting, stratagem, stunt, subterfuge, sweet talk, swindle, total shuck, trapping, treachery, treason, trick, trickery, trickiness, trumpery, two-facedness, two-timing, underhandedness, unscrupulousness, untruth, veil, whitewash, whitewash job, wile, wiliness.
Kennedy redux (25/6/2005)
Last week I mentioned a disgusting pack of lies written by Robert Kennedy and published by Salon.com and Rolling Stone which set out (and probably succeeded) to frighten parents about the non-existent dangers of thimerosal in vaccines which no longer contain the chemical. If you look at the end of the article on the Rolling Stone site a week after publication you see the following disclaimers. Translated into simple English, they say that the article was not properly researched and the author didn't care if what he said was true or not. The anti-vaccination liars won't care - they will be citing this garbage for the rest of time. By the way, Robert Kennedy spoke at a conference for Ramtha believers earlier this year. If you wonder who Ramtha might be, look here. Kennedy is obviously a journalist with a strong sense of respect for truth and common sense.
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun
NOTE: This story has been updated to correct several inaccuracies in the original, published version. As originally reported, American preschoolers received only three vaccinations before 1989, but the article failed to note that they were innoculated a total of eleven times with those vaccines, including boosters. The article also misstated the level of ethylmercury received by infants injected with all their shots by the age of six months. It was 187 micrograms - an amount forty percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury. Finally, because of an editing error, the article misstated the contents of the rotavirus vaccine approved by the CDC. It did not contain thimerosal. Salon and Rolling Stone regret the errors.
An earlier version of this story stated that the Institute of Medicine convened a second panel to review the work of the Immunization Safety Review Committee that had found no evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism. In fact, the IOM convened the second panel to address continuing concerns about the Vaccine Safety Datalink Data Sharing program, including those raised by critics of the IOM's earlier work. But the panel was not charged with reviewing the committee's findings. The story also inadvertently omitted a word and transposed two sentences in a quote by Dr. John Clements, and incorrectly stated that Dr. Sam Katz held a patent with Merck on the measles vaccine. In fact, Dr. Katz was part of a team that developed the vaccine and brought it to licensure, but he never held the patent. Salon and Rolling Stone regret the errors.
Note: In January 2011 Salon retracted the entire article.
Alternative idiocy (25/6/2005)
Many supporters of alternative medicine behave as if alt-med is a religion, and they make constant statements of faith. If any challenge is made to their holy scriptures they either ignore what is said or pretend that by saying something twice it will become fact. Two examples of this happened to me in just one day this week. The first was someone who demanded evidence that anyone said or believed that liver flukes cause cancer. The person doing the demanding is a strong supporter of cancer quack Hulda Clark, so I quoted the following material from Clark's web site, where Clark is quoting Clark's book:
For many years we have all believed that cancer is different from other diseases. We believed that cancer behaves like a fire, in that you can't stop it once it has started. Therefore, you have to cut it out or radiate it to death or chemically destroy every cancerous cell in the body since it can never become normal again. NOTHING COULD BE MORE WRONG! And we have believed that cancers of different types such as leukemia or breast cancer have different causes. wrong again!
In this book you will see that all cancers are alike. They are all caused by a parasite. A single parasite! It is the human intestinal fluke. And if you kill this parasite, the cancer stops immediately. The tissue becomes normal again. In order to get cancer, you must have this parasite.
How can the human intestinal fluke cause cancer? This parasite typically lives in the intestine where it might do little harm, causing only colitis, Crohn's disease, or irritable bowel syndrome, or perhaps nothing at all. But if it invades a different organ, like the uterus or the kidneys or liver, it does a great deal of harm. If it establishes itself in the liver, it causes cancer! It only establishes itself in the liver in some people. These people have isopropyl alcohol in their bodies.
All cancer patients have both isopropyl alcohol and the intestinal fluke in their livers. The solvent, isopropyl alcohol, is responsible for letting the fluke establish itself in the liver. In order to get cancer, you must have both the parasite and isopropyl alcohol in your body.
(From: "The Cure for all Cancers", p.1f.; copyright notice)
The response was to completely snip the quote from Clark's site and repeat the question "Just who believes that all cancers are caused by a liver fluke?"
The second case was a repetition of the nonsense from Professor Boyd Haley that 49.5% of the chemical compound thimerosal is another chemical compound altogether. Another anti-vaccination and anti-amalgam loon was cited as an authority. I made the following comment to the writer. At the time of writing I have not received a reply, but if I get one it will almost certainly consist of a mixture of abuse, non sequitur, appeal to authority and nonsense.
Picture stuff (25/6/2005)
I received some comments about the images I used to illustrate the piece I wrote last week about the great creation debate, specially the Dali drawing of Lucifer. I wanted to use another image from the same Divine Comedy series this week, but I found that the very informative site about the series which I had been using for a reference had disappeared. There are several sites out there dealing with Dali's illustrations for the book but none of them seem to have a complete set of quality images, and the one I was using also had commentaries which showed how the pictures related to the text. As I think that this is one of the most amazing collections of pictures I have ever seen, I am putting together my own collection and you can see the first stage here.
On a related matter, I am often asked how I can appreciate anything religious when I reject religion from my personal life and belief system. I tell these people to look at the pictures and statues, visit the cathedrals, temples and mosques, listen to the music, and remember that these things were all made by humans. The creators of these wonders may have been inspired by a god, but no god actually helped with the work.
Whales (25/6/2005)
Whales have been in the news around my place this week. It is whale migration season here, and a couple of humpbacks dropped in to Sydney Harbour to pay the locals a visit. They splashed around, stayed a few days and then, like all tourists, moved on to the next place on the itinerary. The real news, however, has been the International Whaling Commission meeting in South Korea, where the Japanese again tried to get the civilised world to let them blow up whales without restrictions.
I have no objection to people killing animals for food as long as the animals are treated properly before slaughter and killed humanely. I object to Australia's live sheep trade to the Middle East because it fails on both counts, and I object to whale killing because the method of slaughter is barbaric and, in any case, there is absolutely nothing which can be obtained from a whale which is essential for human existence. I don't object to whale hunting because whales are some sort of special smart creature, either. I just think that the days when it was acceptable to kill an animal by using an explosive spear are gone. A spokesman for the Japanese whaling industry put the case against whaling perfectly when he told a press conference that whale tasted just like beef. Unfortunately, none of the reporters at the meeting were rude (or honest) enough to call out "Then why don't you just eat cows, idiot?"
Australia is one of the leading nations in the fight against whaling, a position we are entitled to take because we once had a thriving whale killing industry. Nobody seems to know how to stop the Japanese if they decide to just go ahead and start mass killing in Antarctic waters, but the answer for Australia would seem to be quite simple. Ban whaling ships from entering any Australian port except in an emergency, and even then forbid refuelling or replenishment of supplies.
Vilification (25/6/2005)
Now that I have finished agreeing with Greenpeace, I will move on to agreeing with a fundamentalist religious sect.
In December 2004, Mr Justice Higgins, sitting as the Victorian Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal, found that the Catch The Fire Ministries and two of its pastors had breached the law by vilifying Muslims. This week the judge ordered that CTFM should apologise and also pay for newspaper advertisements announcing the decision. The two pastors have announced that they will go to prison rather than apologise. Apparently the form of vilification had included reading aloud excerpts from the Qur'an which could be construed as promoting violence against kaffirs. (I chose the word "kaffir" because it is a term used in Islam to vilify non-believers.) The obvious sequel to this would be Christians trying to catch Muslims publicly reading passages from the Bible where God orders His followers to kill non-believers and then running off to court to complain about hurt feelings. Thus the madness continues.
I had hardly heard of Catch The Fire Ministries before this nonsense broke out and I don't particularly like what I see of their philosophy, but they have a perfect right to be as silly as they like provided that they don't do any real damage. All that the Islamic Council has achieved by initiating this action is to give CTFM's loopy ideas a huge amount of publicity and provide an opportunity for bigots from all sides to shout at each other outside a courtroom (and appear on television doing it, of course). If people want freedom to practice their religions (and there is very little restriction on that in Australia provided that live animal sacrifices and abuse of children are not involved) then they have to allow people of other faiths to practice theirs. By definition, anyone who follows a particular religion believes that outsiders are unforgiven heathens. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion both demand that those heathens be allowed to say almost anything, without regard to the feelings of people outside their circle.
One unintended consequence of anti-vilification laws is that they don't stop the vilification, they just make it less visible. If people and organisations are free to speak their minds then the public is able to judge them on what they say. If they are not allowed to say anything except in private, then there is no way to see the top of the slippery slope. The answer to hate speech, or any other form of offensive speech, is more speech, not suppression.
(Someone once commented that an atheist is just someone who believes in one fewer god than do many religious believers. The corollary to this is that an atheist must also have one more source of vilification than a religious person, because an atheist is outside everybody's circle. Luckily, God gave atheists thick skins.)
Dr Death (25/6/2005)
I was criticised recently for lack of balance in my choices of which forms and instances of medical fraud to feature here. The specific complaint was that I didn't have a page on this site about Dr Jayant Patel, late of Bundaberg Hospital in Queensland, Australia. My first response was that I don't have a page about every quack or charlatan in the world, not even all those whose web sites are listed here. My second response was that Dr Patel does not appear to have a web site himself, and nobody seems to have one supporting him. My third point was that Dr Patel was not practising quackery but was just a dangerously incompetent doctor. That wasn't good enough, and it was claimed that by not having something to say about him I was condoning his behaviour and I was exhibiting a double standard by criticising quacks but not members of something called "evil organised medicine". In fact, I was protecting him by not calling him a quack and it was all part of some form of cover-up.
To people outside Australia (and those within who have been in a coma or otherwise disconnected from the world for the last few weeks) the name Dr Jayant Patel might mean nothing, but he was a doctor who managed to get a job at Bundaberg Hospital by lying about his qualifications and overseas experience. It now seems that he may have been directly responsible for the deaths of something like 87 patients. He may not have deliberately killed them, but his negligence and ignorance did. His hiring has revealed a huge hole in the recruitment practices of whoever it was that let him have a job, and the extent of the damage has shown that better methods of whistleblowing are required. Dr Patel has fled the country and nobody knows where he is.
Quackery supporters are using Dr Patel as an example of the dangers of real medicine as compared to the absolute safety of alternatives. I have been challenged to name a single alternative practitioner who has killed 87 people. The facts are that real medicine has methods to deal with disasters like this, but alternative medicine hasn't even any useful system of adverse event reporting. There is a government enquiry under way, the recruitment and reporting problems are being identified and corrected, Dr Patel will be charged with criminal offences (manslaughter at least, possibly even murder), his extradition to Australia will be sought as soon as he is located, and he is looking forward to a long time behind bars. This was not a case of medical fraud, but one of a failure of management. It is a tragedy and a disgrace, but something is being done to stop it happening again.
One delightful irony of this whole matter is that Dr Patel apparently said that it was not necessary to wash hands between patients because germs mean nothing. It is rather bizarre to see people holding these comments up as examples of the incorrect thinking of real doctors when those same people accept chiropractic, naturopathy, energy medicine, acupuncture, homeopathy and other magical medical paradigms in which pathogenic organisms play no part. But then, hypocrisy is never short on the ground when quacks start criticising medicine.


- Left to Right: 19 3/4"
- Front to Back: 22 3/8"
19.1 kWh per 100 lbs.
39.2 Gallons per 100 lbs.
Manitowoc URF-0140A NEO 26" Air Cooled Undercounter Regular Size Cube Ice Machine with 90 lb. Bin - 127 lb.
Manitowoc UDF-0240A NEO 26" Air Cooled Undercounter Full Size Cube Ice Machine with 80 lb. Bin - 219 lb.


Of all the ceremonies that are connected in our mind to the Christian faith, there is probably nothing more fundamental than that ceremony we call the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, or the Christian Passover, even. You would think that if something was so central to the Christian faith…that, at least, would be something we would not have any argument about. Well, you'd be wrong, because Christians do differ on many thing—on what they call it, when they do it, how they do it.
Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you.
Paul seems to say that we need to have this kind of thing so we can tell the difference—so that God can look down here and see who is going to serve him and who is just going through the motions. Then Paul addresses what was going on when the Corinthians gathered together to observe that fundamental ceremony. From what Paul has heard, they were not celebrating the Lord's supper—that re-creation of his last Passover with his disciples—but were doing it their own way…and he is not amused. But first, let's digress and get a little background on the example they were expected to follow, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22.


text:
URL = 'http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/observations/vicall.shtml'
require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'

# Open the HTML link with Nokogiri
doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(URL))

# Record new reading session
r = Reading.new
if source = Source.where(:name => "Bureau of Meteorology Australia").first
	r.source_id = source.id
end
r.save

# Parse the table
station_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn th')
time_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn td[headers*=-datetime]')
rainfall_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn td[headers*=-rainsince9am]')
temp_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn td[headers*=-tmp]')
dewpoint_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn td[headers*=-dewpoint]')
winddirection_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn td[headers*=-wind-dir]')
windspeed_list =  doc.css('tbody tr.rowleftcolumn td[headers*=-wind-spd-kmh]')

# Store it
(0..station_list.length-1).each do |row|
	sr = SingleReading.new
	sr.reading_id = r.id
	if station = Station.where(:name => station_list[row].content).first
		sr.station_id = station.id
	end
	time = Time.strptime(time_list[row].content, "%e/%I:%M%P").in_time_zone("Melbourne")

	sr.time = time

	rain = ((rainfall_list[row].content.eql? '-') ? nil : rainfall_list[row].content.to_f)
	rainfall = Rainfall.new(rainfall: rain)
	rainfall.save

	tmp = ((temp_list[row].content.eql? '-') ? nil : temp_list[row].content.to_f)
	temperature = Temperature.new(temperature: tmp)
	temperature.save

	dew_p = ((dewpoint_list[row].content.eql? '-') ? nil : dewpoint_list[row].content.to_f)
	dewPoint = DewPoint.new(dewPoint: dew_p)
	dewPoint.save

	w_speed = ((windspeed_list[row].content.eql? '-') ? nil : windspeed_list[row].content.to_f)
	w_dir = ((winddirection_list[row].content.eql? '-') ? nil : winddirection_list[row].content)
	wind = Wind.new(windDirection: w_dir,windSpeed: w_speed)
	wind.save

	sr.dew_point_id = dewPoint.id
	sr.rainfall_id = rainfall.id
	sr.temperature_id = temperature.id
	sr.wind_id = wind.id

	sr.save
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub