Yahoo! News - On election day, elation and payback

Need a picker upper?

Yahoo! News - On election day, elation and payback: "Weeks of trepidation turned into a near-celebration through much of Iraq (news - web sites) on election day. Despite suicide bombs and mortar attacks, millions of Iraqis - Kurds and Shiites, though fewer Sunnis - showed up to vote in Iraq's first free elections in half a century. With most traffic banned for fear of car bombs, they walked to the polls and carried elderly relatives in chairs. They ignored the sound of explosions. Some prayed while they waited in line. Others cried after they had cast their ballots."

And we take Democracy for granted.

Random topics Squared #4

Brr...-11 F is cold. Cars don't like to start at that temperature, the snow squeaks, and it takes forever to dress for a run, but how can I complain about cold after thinking about Auschwitz.

I really would love to see a big turnout for Iraqi elections. And PLEASE no violence....How scary must it have been in the Empire State Building when the fire alarms went off? I saw the news and was instantly thrown back to 9AM on 9/11. And I was 6 hours away.

Things learned while shoveling:

1. Slow and steady and pretty soon even the longest driveway is done.
2. Looking ahead is not always a good idea
3. Looking back at what you have done can be satisfying.

Washing my car when it was 7F out may not be the smartest thing I have ever done...The Village of Allegany shovels all of the sidewalks in the village. In Olean each occupant/owner shovels. Allegany's sidewalks are all satisfactory, but very few people clear their walks. In Olean the sidewalks have much more variability, with many quite clear. If I smarter I would suggest that this says something about why communism and socialism never work....

Terri Clark's "I Think the World Needs a Drink" is funny and maybe true. I think it is a remake. but maybe not as I could not find it online...have you ever considered how much time and money is spent on protecting one's assets? Keys, passwords, locks would all be unnecessary in my perfect world....I have not yet incorporated Vinegar into diet, but think I will to a degree. For example before having many sweets.

I finished Big Russ and Me. I started the Perfect Mile. Both are surprisingly good.

Pitchers and Catchers report in less than three weeks.

time to sleep

Auschwitz-60 years ago

60 years ago. A blink in time, yet that is when Auschwitz was freed. Absolutely unbeliveable. How could anyone do that to others? Some links:

Auschwitz.org.pl, Remember.org, another Remember.orgpage, PBS, pictures from the BBC, and finally from Holocaust-History.org.

Some other sites that are not directly about Auschwitz, but are at least in part include

• Remember.org --what can be said, but to remember lest it happen again. Read the accounts. Chilling (even when you know what is coming).
  
• Not quite as fancy but equally moving is Holocaustsurvivors.org .
• <> The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
<>
• <>The HistoryPlace has a very good timeline .
• Florida has funded a teacher's resource site that is tailored at high-school, but is interesting none-the-less. It includes picture tours of many plaecs, including Anne Frank's "home"
• Speaking of high school, high schoolers made this site
• A gallery of pictures of the suffering.

How could they do such a thing? How?


Anything else I can write pales in comparison, so I will end now.

Random topics2 squared #3

I hope thinks get into a better rhythm this week. First week of classes plus weather made last week very choppy. Not a bad week, but hard to get anything done…When shoveling, extra driving (River Road was closed for three Days), extra time to dress and undress, pack, etc. are included, I figure the winter weather cost an extra 15-18 hours last week. The low here was minus 8 Fahrenheit and we got about 15 inches. Sure it was worse elsewhere, but bad enough. I guess it makes us all appreciate warm weather more!

The New England Patriots look awfully good….I hope Jerome Bettis does come back…THis year's new RAAM video is now online. Jim Lampley is the host again. I still can not imagine that race, I think I now know what is too much.

There may be sadder songs/video's than Martina McBride’s “God’s Will” but I can not think of many...I am about 80% done with Big Russ and Me, it is good. Not the best book ever, but interesting. I especially like it since it is about Buffalo.

Well out of time.

Mississippi Burning

The recent arrest of Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers was no doubt a large part of the reason for the showing of Mississippi Burning this week. And provides me the opportunity to recommend that If you have not seen it, go watch it. It is the story of the killings. The movie should be required watching for all.

The best web site I have found for information on the case is from The University of Missouri Kansas City. It centers on the resulting 1967 US vs Cecil Price et al trial.

How people could be so ridiculously hateful and say then they are doing it because it is God's will, is totally beyond me.

And lest you think that it was only a select few. This quote is attributed to the Dallas News. I would not believe it myself if it weren't listed on such reputable college (University of Missouri Kansas City):

"A thousand college students from the North are reported to be invading Mississippi this summer in order to engage in a Negro voter registration drive. It is unbelievable that a thousand college students would do this of their own volition. Those who know the ways of propaganda, especially of a Communist nature, probably correctly suspect that the idealism of some college youngsters has been taken advantage of by some very hard boiled left wingers and Communists who know exactly what they want to do--stir up trouble in the South.
This newspaper a long time ago pointed our that [a part of the Communist plan in the United States is to stir up racial strife]. The ultimate aim is . . . a black revolution. The invasion of Mississippi this summer is . . . part and parcel of this plan.
These young people who have gone to Mississippi have been attending training schools which can be described as nothing short of inflammatory . . . The naive inexperience of these youngsters has been preyed on, and they have been stirred up by tales of horror and violence that simply don't exist in Mississippi."

I guess we really cannot always trust the media.


Pitt also has some info on the trial.

Yahoo! News - Rats 'Born to Run' Show How Fitness Extends Life

Speaking of vascualr bumps, this one is related.

Yahoo! News - Rats 'Born to Run' Show How Fitness Extends Life: "rats with low aerobic capacity scored higher on risk factors linked to cardiovascular disease -- including high blood pressure and vascular dysfunction,' said Ulrik Wisloff, a professor of exercise physiology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
Vascular dysfunction means abnormalities of the blood vessels.
'Rats with low aerobic capacity also had higher levels of blood fat disorders (such as high cholesterol), insulin resistance (a pre-diabetic condition) and more abdominal fat than high-capacity rats,' added Sonia Najjar, of the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo"

I'll wrtie more about this later...I have to go work out now :)

Medical Breakthrough on the horizon?

As Paul Harvey would say, "it sure is an exciting time to be alive!"

Until now the best we can hope to do in preventing heart attacks and strokes has been to try and make sure our blood is not full of fat and bad cholesterol that will lead to clogs where there are bumps on the arterial walls. These bumps act like a low hanging tree in a river and cause a blockage.

This may change as doctors appear reasonably close to being able to prevent many of the bumps (or mounds as they call them) from occurring in the first place! Wow! From the Guardian:

"A project led by Professor John Martin of University College, London, is designed to tackle the world's heart disease crisis and stems from a 10-year collaboration between Finnish, German, Italian and British researchers.

The group - whose work was recently highlighted at the European Commission's Descartes Prize awards in Prague - has concentrated on a substance called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a natural body chemical that stops arterial cell division....'If we stop the mounds in the first place, then cholesterol will have nothing to stick to and no blockages will occur.' The solution, said Martin, is to persuade the body to make extra VEGF."