Re: Scouted: Home test kit for second-hand smoke exposure
Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] but the basic statistics on second hand smoke have been supported by real testing. snip I think it is a mistake to look for single causes when the potential for synergistic effects should be evident. Yes, tobacco and other air pollutants/contaminants can be contributory, additive or synergystic (that was touched on in some of the air pollution abstracts I posted); a uranium miner who smokes a couple of packs a day likely has a greater statistical chance of developing lung cancer than a non-smoking miner, or a smoker non-miner (I say likely b/c I can't recall the exact reference, but will track it down if requested). Just what is in that underarm deodorant anyway? And how much of it gets into your lymphatic system? nod Yes, a recent study links breast cancer with aluminum-containing deodorants -- the question may be, as in Alzheimer's, does aluminum _cause_ the mutation/tangle, or does the mutated cell/fibrillary tangle bind Al more tightly for some reason? If you can smell it or taste it, or rub it on your body, its likely in your bloodstream seconds later. Organic solvents are particularly nasty for penetrating the skin; many water-soluble chemicals are repelled effectively by intact skin. Mucous membranes are more vulnerable to both, as well as to penetration by microbes, which is why the digestive system has such a high concentration of immune tissue. Our defenses are pretty darn good against the hordes of bacteria and viruses waiting to pounce, and over the millenia we've recruited our own host of protective bugs to aid in the battle, but we haven't had time to develop good strategies against some of the chemicals that never existed in our environment before the industrial revolution. Some can be interpreted as a variant of our own self-generated hormones, and wreak mischief. Certain 'communities' of bacteria, OTOH, as a group can adapt to fairly toxic organic compounds, one breaking a portion from it, and passing the metabolite on to the next in the chain. Debbi who'd better stop before she whirls off in a tangent on the web of life... ;) __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Trent Lott on recess appointments
At 09:55 PM 1/20/2004, you wrote: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/79.html Trent Lott on recess appointments: THEN Any appointment of a federal judge during a recess should be opposed. - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) opposing the appointment of an African American judge, December 2000 NOW Judge Pickering's record deems this recess appointment fully appropriate. - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), 1/17/04 So Clinton did a recess appointment one month before the new congress was sworn in, after the elections, a month before he leaves office. And that's a good thing? Oh, I see the source now. Nevermind. Kevin T. - VRWC ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)
At 11:17 PM 1/20/2004, you wrote: At 09:00 PM 1/20/2004 -0600 Julia Thompson wrote: It's not that far-fetched to have run into someone in eastern Massachusetts who'd have run into some particular Congressman elected from that area sometime in the past 20 years. Especially if you were seeking out people who had been active in political campaigns. I read Gautam's statement as implying that it was not extraordinary for ordinary Massachusettans to have run into one of their Senators. JDG - Who has never so much as met his Congressional Representatie. Have to agree with Julia here. I've met at least ten without even trying. Four of them I'm on a first name basis with. (Two I ride bikes with, another who married my cousin's widow, and the fourth is in my social/service club.) Two houses ago my rep's office was in the same plaza as my comic dealer. I walk past Santorum's office every day now but have not seen him yet. Comes from living in a non-stress city: http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20040113stress0113p1.asp Kevin T. - VRWC Back to work after four days off ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Trent Lott on recess appointments
From: Kevin Tarr [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 09:55 PM 1/20/2004, you wrote: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/79.html Trent Lott on recess appointments: THEN Any appointment of a federal judge during a recess should be opposed. - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) opposing the appointment of an African American judge, December 2000 NOW Judge Pickering's record deems this recess appointment fully appropriate. - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), 1/17/04 So Clinton did a recess appointment one month before the new congress was sworn in, after the elections, a month before he leaves office. And that's a good thing? No it was a bad thing. And what the Evil Shrub did was even worse, but that wasn't the point. The point was to point out how hypercritical and racist mr Loot is. Oh, I see the source now. Nevermind. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)
--- John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 09:00 PM 1/20/2004 -0600 Julia Thompson wrote: I read Gautam's statement as implying that it was not extraordinary for ordinary Massachusettans to have run into one of their Senators. JDG - Who has never so much as met his Congressional Representatie. It's not, actually. None of the people I had in mind were in any way involved in politics. Most of them were doctors, actually. Massachusetts politics is very retail. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Attn Br!n: Hoon Genius
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Our artist of Contacting Aliens has not yet answered back. If Brin does not do it, I'll have to try to fill in. We have to have a hoon dressed up as the Mikado. It's too good. If I ever get around to building a Hoon 3D model, which I plan to do for a shirt someday, I could probably do it. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Science Fiction-themed online store . http://www.sloan3d.com/store Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Attn Br!n: Hoon Genius
In a message dated 1/21/2004 6:34:18 AM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Our artist of Contacting Aliens has not yet answered back. If Brin does not do it, I'll have to try to fill in. We have to have a hoon dressed up as the Mikado. It's too good. If I ever get around to building a Hoon 3D model, which I plan to do for a shirt someday, I could probably do it. We still need someone with enough dispoable income, to go out and buy two wooden artist models, and cut and reglue the arms and legs together to make a model hoon. William Taylor - zMUD in two hours. Ha! Beat you to it, Steve. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Practice? (was: Home test kit for second-hand smoke exposure)
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Julia wrote: Uh, yeah. How hard can it be to pee on the correct part of the thing, anyway? :) Depends on how far awy you stand. 8^) Doug ROU Target Practice lol Well, apparently in some trials with actual patients, as many as 20+% performed the test incorrectly somehow...I think most were timing or dilution errors. Debbi We Aim To Please...You Aim Too, Please! Maru ;) __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Trent Lott on recess appointments
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kevin Tarr Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 02:56 AM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Trent Lott on recess appointments At 09:55 PM 1/20/2004, you wrote: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives /79.ht ml Trent Lott on recess appointments: THEN Any appointment of a federal judge during a recess should be opposed. - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) opposing the appointment of an African American judge, December 2000 NOW Judge Pickering's record deems this recess appointment fully appropriate. - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), 1/17/04 So Clinton did a recess appointment one month before the new congress was sworn in, after the elections, a month before he leaves office. And that's a good thing? ..of a candidate that wasn't previously rejected, who went on to be confirmed by Congress for official and real. -j- ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Science Fiction Question
OK guys, you're my last resort on this one. A long, long time ago I read a short story by Algis Budrys named, I think, Shadow on the Stars. It was about a mercenary military genius hired by an alien empire, who ended up being a human in disguise. Sounds sort of dumb, but I actually ended up liking it a lot. It read as if it was part of a larger series. IIRC, the ending was something like And all roads now led to Earth. To wily, scheming Earth. The die had been cast. Which sure reads like a lead-in to a series to me. Does anyone else on this list have any idea what I'm talking about? Does this sound familiar? Was it part of a series? Have I, in fact, lost my mind (note that the answer to this question is not necessarily related to the previous ones)? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Weekly Chat Reminder
This is just a quick reminder that the Wednesday Brin-L chat is scheduled for 3 PM Eastern/2 PM Central time in the US, or 7 PM Greenwich time, so it started about an half an hour ago. There will probably be somebody there to talk to for at least eight hours after the start time. See my instruction page for help getting there: http://www.brin-l.org/brinmud.html __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Science Fiction-themed online store . http://www.sloan3d.com/store Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wining with Dan
- Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 12:32 PM Subject: Wining with Dan As was mentioned here recently, Dan Minette's wife gave him a trip to Napa for his 50th. Cindy and I met them there yesterday and had a good time wine tasting, munching and talking. This may eventually result in the Arnett/Minette (hey, rhythm!) combination spiritual retreat center and spa. Ascetics need not apply, I guess. I've been remiss in thanking Nick for coming up to Napa to meet with us. We leaned on his expertise with wineries to go to two very nice spots. He also saved us from the embarrassment of our last trip (no pictures of the two of us) by taking our photo. Finally, he showed his powers by ordering up the best day of our vacation on the day we met. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction Question
On 21 Jan 2004, at 8:23 pm, Gautam Mukunda wrote: OK guys, you're my last resort on this one. A long, long time ago I read a short story by Algis Budrys named, I think, Shadow on the Stars. It was about a mercenary military genius hired by an alien empire, who ended up being a human in disguise. Sounds sort of dumb, but I actually ended up liking it a lot. It read as if it was part of a larger series. IIRC, the ending was something like And all roads now led to Earth. To wily, scheming Earth. The die had been cast. Which sure reads like a lead-in to a series to me. Does anyone else on this list have any idea what I'm talking about? Does this sound familiar? Was it part of a series? Have I, in fact, lost my mind (note that the answer to this question is not necessarily related to the previous ones)? It's not listed in his bibliography under that title. And I don't remember reading it although I have read most of his collected shorter works. But I could be wrong :) I would say that that kind of ending, enough plot for a trilogy these days, was often stuffed into a short story in the wildly inventive sf of the late fifties and early sixties. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. - Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Bone Phone
http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2004/01/21/1074360813226.html Japanese telecom carriers, pioneers of internet-capable and picture-snapping handsets, have now come up with the world's first mobile phone that enables users to listen to calls inside their heads - by conducting sound through bone. The TS41 handset, manufactured by electronics firm Sanyo, was put on sale by the Tu-Ka mobile phone group this month, drawing healthy demand from customers who want to hear calls better in busy streets and other noisy places. The new phone is equipped with a Sonic Speaker which transmits sounds through vibrations that move from the skull to the cochlea in the inner ear, instead of relying on the usual method of sound hitting the outer eardrum. With the new handset, the key to better hearing in a noisy situation is to plug your ears to prevent outside noise from drowning out bone-conducted sounds. If the user holds the handset to the top of the head, the back of the head, cheekbone or jaw and plugs his or her left ear, the call will be heard internally on the left side. It is the first time that the bone conduction has been used in mobile phones although the technology has been available for fixed-line phones in Japan, mostly for elderly people, for the past two years. The Tu-Ka group has launched a major advertising campaign for the new mobile phone, featuring a young woman and a X-ray image of her skull using the handset. A spokesman at Tu-Ka Cellular Tokyo said it was too early to declare the TS41 a success, but retail store clerks said they were seeing a healthy demand for it. We have lots of inquires from young women thanks to the television commercial, said Tomoyuki Harasawa, a sales consultant at a Bic Camera consumer electronics store in Yurakucho, central Tokyo. The actual buyers are mostly businessmen in their 30s and 40s, Harasawa said. We sell four to five TS41s a day, a good figure for Tu-Ka, which lags far behind rival mobile operators such as DoCoMo and Vodafone. The mobile phone is priced at ¥7800 ($A95) each at the discount store. I don't know if this is going to be a big hit, but it will be possible for Tu-Ka to raise its market share since this high-profile handset has improved its brand recognition among consumers, Harasawa said. Tu-Ka firms belong to Japan's second-largest telecom carrier, KDDI group. But Tu-Ka subscribers account for only a small percentage of the market, far less than the roughly 20 per cent for the au brand in the same KDDI group and the more than 50 per cent for industry leader DoCoMo. Customers who examined the new phone on the Bic Camera sales floor had mixed reactions. Masaya Iwata, a 31-year-old accountant, said the product was interesting but he was not sure if he would buy it because he uses his mobile less and less for talking. I use my mobile for picture-taking and emailing rather than having conversations, he said. Japan's top mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode phones in February 1999, offering internet surfing, emailing and video watching on mobile handsets. And J-Phone, now rebranded Vodafone to underline that it is controlled by the British-based telecoms giant, launched picture-taking handsets in November 2000. Nearly every new mobile handset in Japan now has a built-in digital camera enabling users to send images taken with their mobiles via email to other handsets or computers. Tomohiro Abukawa, a 34-year-old hair stylist, said he liked the bone-conducting phone, noting railway stations and streets were often too noisy to talk. I may get this as it is also small, he said. But one woman in her 20s said she found the phone scary. Isn't this bad for your health? she asked. Another woman, in her 30s, said she was interested in the mobile phone but was self-conscious. What troubles me is that I may look weird if I'm talking with the phone pressed between my eyebrows, she said. xponent Riel Nu Waev Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bone Phone
Japanese telecom carriers, pioneers of internet-capable and picture-snapping handsets, have now come up with the world's first mobile phone that enables users to listen to calls inside their heads - by conducting sound through bone. Thus validating every poor schizophrenic in the world... Maybe that's how come Joan of Arc heard voices...combine one of those phones with an electromagnetic time warp... Nine out of the ten voices in my head are telling me NOT to shoot Tom Beck www.mercerjewishsingles.org I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)
At 04:42 AM 1/21/2004 -0800 Gautam Mukunda wrote: It's not, actually. None of the people I had in mind were in any way involved in politics. Most of them were doctors, actually. Massachusetts politics is very retail. But again, doctors aren't exactly representative of ordinary Massachusettans.They tend to be the very sort of highly-paid people who would be likely to donate a couple hundred dollars to a political campaign - which is again, not ordinary. JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
At 04:25 PM 1/18/2004 -0500 Gary Nunn wrote: In my travels online today, I ran across a reference that took me to another reference that eventually led me to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory home page. There is some very interesting information here as well as some spectacular pictures and maps. One map in particular shows the areas of US that were probably covered by Ash from Yellowstone's last few eruptions over the last 2 million years. I can't imagine just how catastrophic that would be today: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/figures/fig3.html Yellowstone Volcano Observatory home page http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/index.html If I recall my Geology classes correctly, there is a very non-zero chance that pretty much all of Yellowstone National Park could collapse into a giant caldera within our great-grand-childrens' lifetimes. These collapses have occurred periodically throughout geologic history the remnants of one of those collapses is now Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho. I believe that a similar event is also responsible for having produced massive floods that once destroyed most of the Eastern half of Washington State. JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry
I've really struggled with how to respond to your post, but I'm going to leave my quoting to a minimum and make some general points. At 11:04 PM 1/17/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: Further, you give very little in the way of analyis yourself. The main arguement you seem to be making is that numbers don't matter because they can always be argued away. The problem with this type of arguement is that we, then, should never consider correlations because there can always be a good retorical arguement to ignore them. First, as far as I understand the peer review process there is no obligation on those who criticize shoddy data analysis to conduct better data analysis themselves. Secondly, I regret to state that Brin-L isn't in the top tier of my hobbies these days. I have no doubt that there is a lot of research that could - and maybe already has - been done. I just don't feel that devoting several horus to the subject in the hope of persuading people I am pretty sure would not be convinced anyways is how I want to spend the free time I have left over from work and school. Likewise, he never connects his analysis to policies, such as, for insistance taking account of the fact that George H. W. Bush raised taxes He had to because his read my lips promise to keep Reagan's policies intact were impossible to sustain. Assign whatever reason to it that you want, if your theory is that minorities benefit from increased taxes on the rich - then that is the theory that you should be testing. The motivations for an action should have no effect on the predicted outcome of those actions. As it is, using Inauguration Addresses as your sole indicator of economic policy on the country - without looking at Congress or even any specific economic policy indicators, does not strike me as a particularly useful, scientific, or relevant line of inquiry. In other words, to return to what I said above - another reason why I am not providing my own data is because I don't find your line of inquiry to be particularly relevant. One final proposition. I'll be willing to look at the best 8 years of the 14 of Reagan-Bush I II (we don't have data for '03) and compare then to Clinton's 8 years. I bet that I will see significant differences in the distribution of economic growth. I'd actually probably agree with that bet. The '90's expansion, fueled in large part by development in information technology was extraordinary in a number of ways.Foremost among them was an extraordinary decrease in the unemployment rate. Since minorites tend to be poor, they almost certainly benefitted as never-before from this extraordinary reduction. To quote this week's issue of _The Economist_: the younger George Bush presides over 2.3m fewer jobs than when he came to office. The figures may paint a bleaker picture than is warranted. To begin with, comparing job creation with a high point early in Mr Bush's term is probably the wrong starting-point. Unemployment then, at 4.2%, was unnaturally low; most economists think the natural employment ratethe rate consistent with stable inflationis around 5.0-5.5%. As many as 1.5m jobs at the height of the boom were, in the long run, not sustainable. If you believe, as most economists do, that the United States reached a temporary level of unsustainable employment for a period of a few years during the 1990's - then it is very reasonable to suspect that those groups that tend to have high unemployment rates, such as minorities, tended to do very well during that time period. JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)
--- John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 04:42 AM 1/21/2004 -0800 Gautam Mukunda wrote: But again, doctors aren't exactly representative of ordinary Massachusettans.They tend to be the very sort of highly-paid people who would be likely to donate a couple hundred dollars to a political campaign - which is again, not ordinary. JDG Not sure why you're fighting this one out, John. Yes, maybe they would be. The doctors I'm thinking of met Kerry at: 1) A Hospital (where they practiced) and 2) On the street in Boston Other people met him in similar settings. Now, to be fair, the people who met him in political situations had the same feeling - it seems to be rather a general feeling about the haughty, French-looking Senator from Massachusetts who by the way served in Vietnam. Honestly, John, I can't imagine how a politically active person in Maryland could have _avoided_ meeting your Congressman. I've run into Connie Morella (my old Congresswoman) more times than I can count, and _none_ of those times were at political functions, nor is my family in the least wealthy, influential, or politically active. I'd be shocked if either of my parents had ever donated to _any_ political campaign, and they've certainly never attended any political events. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction Question
--- William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's not listed in his bibliography under that title. And I don't remember reading it although I have read most of his collected shorter works. But I could be wrong :) I would say that that kind of ending, enough plot for a trilogy these days, was often stuffed into a short story in the wildly inventive sf of the late fifties and early sixties. -- William T Goodall Little bit more information: http://www.locusmag.com/index/s115.html Lists it as originally published in 1954, then republished in two books in the 1990s (I read it in one of them, obviously). Thanks for your help, William. A pity if that was all there was - I was very impressed by it. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
