Led by the child who simply knew - The Boston Globe
Do Bach flower remedies have a ro... [Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2007] - PubMed - NCBI
1 stick butter (one quarter-cup)
1 cup sugar
1.5 – 2.0 cups applesauce
2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 4 bananas)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 and one-quarter cups flour (can use gluten-free flour from Bulk Barn – you can't tell the difference)
milk chocolate chips to taste, one-quarter to one-half a cup (optional)
In large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add bananas, eggs, and applesauce. Combine baking soda and flour. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix, stirring just enough to moisten the flour. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Pour batter into 2 greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 – 55 mins or until bread tests done. Run knife around edge and turn out immediately. Cool on wire racks.
Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory // University of Notre Dame
Please meet my newest role model: At 102, therapist is too busy to stop working - latimes.com
Study debunks myths on organic farms
The results are in from a 30-year side-by-side trial of conventional and organic farming methods at Pennsylvania's Rodale Institute. Contrary to conventional wisdom, organic farming outperformed conventional farming in every measure.
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #86: Tiny Revolutions - The Rumpus.net
I know as women we’re constantly being scorched by the relentless porno/Hollywood beauty blow-torch, but in my real life I’ve found that the men worth fucking are far more good-natured about the female body in its varied forms than is generally acknowledged. Naked and smiling, is one male friend’s only requirement for a lover. Perhaps it’s because men are people with bodies full of fears and insecurities and shortcomings of their own.
Is right here:
* American Solutions, the fundraising powerhouse at the center for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s promotional empire, has quietly shut its doors. Gingrich was forced to sever ties with the 527 group in order to run for president. At its peak, the group raised more money than any other such organization, collecting in excess of $52 million in its first four years. But it also spent nearly two-thirds of that on fundraising.
The NFL star and the brain injuries that destroyed him | Science | The Guardian
If I had a child, I would never let him/her play tackle football ...
Gardasil Researcher Speaks Out - CBS News
VERY interesting article about the HPV vaccine.
Suzuki warns Tory scheme to cancel green energy plans is ‘absolute insanity’ - thestar.com
Something to think about while we're in the throes of Thermageddon ...
A journalist's Jerry Maguire moment. Awesome. Why I quit my job: « Kai Nagata
“Arrival of the Fittest” by Rachel Giese | The Walrus | June 2011
In addition to finding out whether their teenage respondents were getting into trouble, the researchers also asked them about their values, habits, and temperaments. Do you talk to your mother about your feelings? Do you finish your homework? Do you like to take chances? What ultimately set the first generation kids apart were three important protective factors against delinquency: strong family bonds, commitment to education, and aversion to risk. What’s more, these three qualities acted in a kind of feedback loop: the kids who regularly did their homework were also the kids who admired and confided in their parents, and were also the kids who shied away from troublemaking behaviour.
Dinovitzer stresses that these qualities would deter any young person from engaging in crime, whatever their ethnicity or immigration status. It’s just that first generation immigrants — again, across ethnic lines — tend to possess these traits to a greater extent than their peers do. And that makes sense: the traits required for a person to leave behind all that’s familiar and take a chance on making it in a new country — ambition, resilience, perseverance, imagination, optimism — are conducive to the rearing of successful children; those children, in turn, naturally feel an obligation to their self-sacrificing parents. “The kids said they didn’t want to let their parents down,” Levi says. “Their parents had suffered to get here, so they owed it to them to succeed.”
"Worst" analogies found in high school papers.
Some of them are brilliantly funny. ;->
I used to do patrols for birds before school took over my life. This is a fascinating article on legal steps that are being taken to try to hold landlords accountable for so many killed birds (some of them endangered!)
This one’s for the birds - Life - Macleans.ca
'Growing up bin Laden - Book: Osama's son Omar Speaks - TIME
Intelligence agencies and scholars of extremist movements might do well to pay attention to Omar's al-Qaeda childhood for clues about how to inoculate young people against radicalism. His remarkable achievement — to have maintained humane beliefs despite being pulled from school at the age of 12 and exposed to a near constant deluge of hateful propaganda, isolation and family pressure — seems to have been helped by a love of animals. A constant collector of pets — against his father's wishes — and an avid horseman, Omar's awareness of the madness of al-Qaeda was fueled in part by several acts of animal cruelty by his father's men.
Dear Globe and Mail
A wonderful response to the Globe and Mail's editorial endorsing Harper for PM.
Royal wedding: Does Kate Middleton really want to marry into a family like this? - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
I can't argue with anything Hitchens writes here, but I still hope for the best for these two. It helps that I don't watch TV news.
An Open Letter to Stephen Harper: "Nowhere is your mastery of fiction more evident than in your decision to run on your economic record when you don’t actually have one. Smart of you to take credit for Canada’s financial stability in the current global recession when it was exactly neoconservative policies like yours that unraveled the economy south of the border, and shamefacedly socialist ones, put in place before your party even existed, that protected our own. (I don’t know if you remember, for instance, a certain Liberal decision back in 1998 to pull the plug on some major bank mergers.)"
Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian: "Canada is a cultured, peaceful nation, which every so often allows a band of Neanderthals to trample over it. Timber firms were licensed to log the old-growth forest in Clayaquot Sound; fishing companies were permitted to destroy the Grand Banks: in both cases these get-rich-quick schemes impoverished Canada and its reputation. But this is much worse, as it affects the whole world. The government's scheming at the climate talks is doing for its national image what whaling has done for Japan."
Gender Imbalance in Media, Geena Davis, Broken Models of Masculinity & Femininity - Thompson on Hollywood: "“the more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life. And the more hours a boy watches, the more sexist his views become.”"
Utterly amazing.: "Kish can hardly remember a time when he didn’t click. He came to it on his own, intuitively, at age two, about a year after his second eye was removed. Many blind children make noises in order to get feedback — foot stomping, finger snapping, hand clapping, tongue clicking. These behaviors are the beginnings of echolocation, but they’re almost invariably deemed asocial by parents or caretakers and swiftly extinguished. Kish was fortunate that his mother never tried to dissuade him from clicking. “That tongue click was everything to me,” he says."
Silencing Dissent: The Conservative Record | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: "The Harper government’s now lengthy record of silencing – or attempting to silence – its critics also includes the removal of heads of government agencies, commissions, and tribunals who insist on making independent decisions. Academics who have spoken against government actions or policies have also been targeted."
An open letter to Canadian journalists - CAJ:
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle. Cabinet ministers and civil servants are muzzled. Access to Information requests are stalled and stymied by political interference. Genuine transparency is replaced by slick propaganda and spin designed to manipulate public opinion ...
In addition, the Access to Information system has been “totally obliterated” by delays and denials, according to a scathing report by the country’s information commissioner. Requests are met with months-long delays, needless censoring and petty political interference ...
Politicians should not get to decide what information is released. This information belongs to Canadians, the taxpayers who paid for its production. Its release should be based on public interest, not political expediency.
The Dollars and Cents of Bats and Farming - NYTimes.com
Every day, a bat eats much of its body weight in insects, many of them harmful to crops. A group of scientists led by Thomas Kunz at Boston University calculated how much more money cotton farmers in one region of Texas would spend on pesticides if bats weren’t present. Extrapolating from those numbers, they estimated that bats save American farmers somewhere between $3.7 billion and $54 billion a year, most likely about $22.9 billion.
This is a huge savings no one notices as long as bats flourish. But bat populations are severely threatened, especially the commonest species, the little brown bat, which is being decimated by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome. The disease has spread all across the eastern half of the country and is now moving westward from Oklahoma.
The Canadian Nixon | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "As prime minister, Harper's shocking comments about Elections Canada's investigation of the 'in and out' scam alleged by the agency are perhaps the most alarming outburst by any sitting prime minister. Desperate to take Canadians' focus off the Conservatives' allegedly illegal overspending during the 2006 campaign, Harper actually publicly criticised the head of Elections Canada for upholding the law ..."
Freedom’s Painful Price - NYTimes.com: "“The revolution isn’t over yet,” Ms. Omran told me. “Freedom isn’t for free.”"
Harris: Owl Whisperer | mamapundit
This story is so beautiful that I can hardly breathe.
Is Daylight Saving Time Bad for Your Health? – TIME Healthland:
An Australian study study published in 2008 in Sleep and Biological Rhythms found that men were more likely to commit suicide during the first few weeks of Daylight Saving Time (DST) than at any other time during the year.
Another 2008 study, published by Swedish researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the number of serious heart attacks jumps 6% to 10% on the first three workdays after DST begins.
In other words, people who are already vulnerable to certain health problems may experience more severe effects of their body-clock disruption.
Gingrich is asked about his personal life more often than most politicians. If you’re on your third wife, cheated perpetually on the first two, and are running for the Republican presidential nomination as a social conservative, these things come up.
The most famous story about Gingrich’s failed marriages is about his first wife, Jackie, who had been Newt’s high school math teacher before he appeared at her door and suggested a new equation. Jackie was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer when her husband walked in and started talking about the terms of a divorce.
She is not to be confused with the second wife, Marianne, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was visiting her mother when her husband called to tell her there was another woman.
...
People, can we all agree now that men who spend their early and middle ages betraying women right and left are not allowed to get credit for discovering the joys of monogamy at about the same time that they receive their first Social Security check?
Of course, Gingrich is being a better husband this time around. He’s 67! By then, most men have not just finished sowing their wild oats. The oats have been harvested, ground up, reprocessed and turned into soggy cornflakes.
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #67: The Black Arc Of It - The Rumpus.net: "... compassion isn’t about solutions. It’s about giving all the love that you’ve got."
44 - Newt Gingrich: 'Passion for the country' led to personal indiscretions (video)
It's times like this that I would really like to live with someone who follows U.S. politics. Because right now, I'd like to walk into the next room, saying "You gotta hear this", and proceed to read:
"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," said Gingrich
Is Gandhi really in hell? - CSMonitor.com: "“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – Gandhi"
Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science - Magazine - The Atlantic
Fascinating article about some of the questions about "Evidence-based" medicine.
The 'Nocebo' Effect: Pessimism Can Hinder Treatment: "'We all know that many treatments work for some people but not for others,' says neuroscientist Dr. Randy Gollub of Massachusetts General Hospital. Instead of stressing only the percentages, 'say, `I have every reason to believe that you could be one of the people who will respond.''"
Madeleine Albright: On being a woman and a diplomat | Video on TED.com
This gladdens my heart on so many levels ... the full-throated, unapologetic embrace of feminism, a celebration of the accomplishments of a strong and smart woman, the intelligent conversation between two women, and - not least - two women "of a certain age" whose faces haven't been maimed in the name of "beauty" and pulled as tight as a goddamned drum.
BBC News - Gene Sharp: Author of the nonviolent revolution rulebook
Truly fascinating. We are living in a new time.
Daily Kos: Union is the measure: "Nothing has changed since the time that first line of the Constitution was written. Union is not just a means to oppose tyranny, it is the only means."
Lying to Ourselves « WilloToons: "Often our white lies are our inability to forgive ourselves for messing up or not knowing better. So if we lie to ourselves, and others, we’re really just trying to be [an illusion of] perfect. By blaming something else, it’s not your fault. Or by making up an answer, you don’t look stupid. What if we started accepting responsibility? What if we committed to being aware of our feelings in those moments we find ourselves wanting to make up a story, and get curious as to why we feel compelled to speak anything other than the truth? Even if that means admitting you’re embarrassed or ashamed. Don’t take this as an invitation to beat yourself up about your shortcomings, just be aware of what’s really going on."
The G.O.P.’s Post-Tucson Traumatic Stress Disorder - NYTimes.com: "Indeed, his appearance at CPAC on the morning of Friday, Feb. 11, was entirely consistent with his public image as an otherworldly visitor from an Aqua Velva commercial circa 1985."
YouTube - Senator John Kerry on Hypocrisy
God, if only he had won that presidential race ... :(
Willie Smits restores a rainforest | Video on TED.com
So empowering and exciting.
Unexpected find opens up new front in effort to stop HIV
Marvellous Cordyceps sinensis ...
In 1997 Letter, Vatican Warned Irish Bishops on Abuse Policy - NYTimes.com
I can understand why Catholics continue to go to their own local churches. I can understand why Catholics give some of their hard-earned money to support their churches. What I cannot understand is why they don't fight TOOTH AND NAIL to keep any of that money from going to the Vatican to support these f---ers.
Amazing writing and a fascinating account of the history of nuclear weapons.
Awesome, so awesome. Sounds like a program I'd love to do once I got over the current one. :->
Love it! Hard to improve on Nature.
The ideas in this column should inform our economic policy going forward. It's that important.
