Arbitron ratings are out for the top three markets – New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago – and, as shown below (click the image for a bigger version), Rush’s numbers continue to trend downward in the 12-and-over demographic:

His loss does not translate into a gain for liberal Air America Radio, however. The ratings in those markets show AAR with no change in NY since the Fall ‘05 numbers, a slight increase in LA and a slight decrease in Chicago. So the Limbaugh listeners who are leaving aren’t going because they’re craving liberal talk radio.

I see two possibilities:

• Rush has lost ratings because of podcasting. For example, I haven’t caught his show on WMAL since the first podcasts came out last July. If others are doing the same, it could be dragging his numbers down. But it would have to be a lot of people to have any effect.

• The GOP base is becoming worn out and/or seriously unhappy with the Republicans and are dropping out of politics, and as a side effect are also dropping Limbaugh.

If Rush’s numbers were the only sign of trouble, I’d shrug and say it doesn’t matter. But, according to this article in The Nation by Marc Cooper, ” there’s a lot of fear and trembling going on among Republicans” and many of the conservative elites “are openly worried about Republican chances in the Fall.”

Cooper was at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend, an annual get-together of top conservatives and some of their favorite pols and strategists. The topics covered the areas where Republicans are vulnerable:

• Immigration: Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake urged fellow conservatives to avoid immigrant-bashing legislation. “I encourage Republicans to not repeat what happened in California in 1994,” he said referring to GOP support for Prop 187. “It works for one cycle and then you pay a price for a decade.”

  I think Flake is right in that more legislation isn’t the answer. We need to improve border security with fences like they’re building in Israel. If that’s done, much of the problem will disappear.

• War on Terror: While the war in Iraq has been very successful, it hasn’t played that way at home (thanks in large part to a hostile media and Democrats who are beholden to the lunatic anti-war fringe of their party).

  Ex-Congressman Pat Toomey said “We have to acknowledge we have a President who is not popular… The war in Iraq is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room and a major downturn could drown anything we do…”

• Corruption: In my opinion, the Bush Administration has been one of the most honest we’ve ever had. The reason isn’t just that President Bush has integrity to spare, it’s also thanks to a media that’s frantic to get some kind of real scandal on Bush to tarnish his legacy, so Bush’s people have to be squeaky clean. But the Abramoff scandal has tainted Republicans in Congress.

  Arizona Congressman John Shaddeg on the Abramoff scandal: “I believe these scandals are the end of the 1994 Revolution… all this seriously threatens the Republican majority. It might be hard to shrink government as we promised. But it’s not that hard to be honest and we haven’t.”

Then there are my pet peeves:

• Runaway spending: This issue is one where the Bush Administration has failed the base. Republicans are fortunate, however, in that the public knows Democrats would be spending even more and raising taxes.

• Failure to communicate: Many of Bush’s problems stem from a failure on his part to explain his policies more often to the public. Whenever Bush takes the time to brief us, his poll numbers rise, so I don’t understand why he doesn’t do it more often.

So the convention wisdom is that the base is tired and morale is bad. As Missouri Lt. Governor Pete Kinder put it “The demoralization of the base is real. I hear it everywhere.”

But things can’t be that bad, right? After all, there’s been plenty for the base to cheer about. Bush has appointed two conservative judges to the Supreme Court and they may soon overturn some of the worst decisions on abortion, which should really fire up the base. Also, the economy seems to be roaring along and Iraq is slowly quieting down. If nothing catastrophic occurs between now and the elections, I think the base will summon enough enthusiasm to go to the polls.

In the meantime, they may even start listening to Rush again. I’ll let you know on March 27 when the ratings are updated again.

[Hat tip to InstaPundit for the Marc Cooper link]

Tags: blog | weblog | rush | bush administration | politics | limbaugh | rush limbaugh | air america

I was just looking at this photo I took the other day for Pic of the Day and noticed that it looked odd, as if one of the deer was intersecting another – Siamese deer!

Granted, our house is located just outside the security fence at Fort Detrick, the place where they do all kinds of research on biochem weapons and such. I don’t doubt they may be doing super double-secret genetics programs to cross different species, but I’m pretty sure they’re not literally crossing deer!

So it’s just a very convincing (and unintentional) optical illusion.

Tags: blog | weblog | humor | life

The website InnocentEnglish.com has a page of Amazing anagrams of famous people, some of which are spot-on:

• Princess Diana: Ascend in Paris & End is a car spin

• Jim Morrison: Mr. Mojo Risin’

• Madonna, the material girl: Real dim, man-eating harlot

My personal fave: President Clinton of the USA: He finds interns to copulate

Tags: blog | weblog | humor | life | odd news

In the 1996 movie Tin Cup, Kevin Costner plays Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy, a talented golf pro who has flashes of brilliance combined with a stubborn streak that won’t let him play it safe to win tournaments. McAvoy finally makes it to the U.S. Open and does well enough that he qualifies to play again the next year, all he has to do is make par on the 18th hole. Instead, McAvoy gives it all up in a dogged 12-stroke assault on the 18th that finally ends in a hole-in-one:

McAvoy: “I just gave away the U.S. Open.”

Molly Griswold (McAvoy’s girlfriend): “You sure did. It was the greatest 12 of all time. No one’s going to remember the Open years from now, who won…but they’ll remember your 12! My, God, Roy, it was…Well, it’s immortal!”

I haven’t watched any of the Winter Olympics this year, but what from what I’ve heard of the “nutty” (to use The Daily Telegraph’s term) Brazilian bobsled team, I wish I’d caught their performances. Their team member Armando dos Santos was sent home for doping, and yesterday they crashed their sled (the “Frozen Banana") on the first of their high-speed trips down the mountain. But today they outdid themselves:

[The Brazilians] delivered one of the most bizarre and inept performances of the Games, crashing twice in spectacular style.

The most embarrassing incident occurred on their fourth and final run, when the sled overturned and slid upside-down and out of control along much of the course.

After crossing the finish line, the runaway sled slid backwards on to the track with the sledders still trapped inside as officials scrambled to rescue them. Brazil finished last of 25 starters.
…
Team member Marcio Silva said the team had braced themselves for the latest crash.

“We talked about it and decided to just hold on tight so we didn’t hurt ourselves,” he said.

In an echo of the movie Cool Runnings, based on the Jamaican bobsled team, the crowd cheered as the men, with torn speed suits and damaged helmets, extricated themselves from the sled.

Sledder Claudinei Quirino received medical treatment for ice burns to his shoulder.

Twenty years from now, nobody will remember who took home the gold in the bobsled competition, but people will still be talking about the Brazilian team’s wild ride.

It’s immortal!

Read the whole article and check out the photo of the Frozen Banana zooming by upside-down.

Tags: blog | weblog | humor | life | odd news | sports | olympics | torino | winter olympics

As bad as problems in your life may be, it’s a truism that someone always has it worse. The Sydney Morning Herald goes a long way toward proving the adage in this article that highlights some of the creatively bizarre ways that the human body can malfunction.

First I’ll start with the hands-down winner:

Penis Panic: Koro is one of a number of names for a hysterical condition known medically as Genital Retraction Syndrome, whose victims become convinced that their genitals are disappearing into their bodies. It can be contagious, sparking off “penis panics", such as the one that overtook Singapore in 1967 in which thousands of men became convinced that their penises were being stolen; it was contained by a complete media blackout on the condition. Often blamed on witchcraft, Koro typically strikes in less developed parts of the world, including Africa and Asia, where belief in sorcery remains strong. It’s thought to be an extreme overreaction to normal genital shrinking from cold or other causes. Koro can be treated with medical reassurance and anti-anxiety medications.

Here’s a sampling of the others:

• Alice in Wonderland Syndrome: Also called micropsia, this condition distorts visual perception so that objects that are close appear disproportionately tiny, as though viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.

• Ondine’s Curse: This one’s scary, it’s a sleep disorder resulting from a malfunctioning autonomic nervous system. Its victims are unable to breathe spontaneously but must consciously will each breath, so they will suffocate if they fall asleep.

• Pica: This is a compulsive appetite for non-edible items, including clay, McDonalds hamburgers [just kidding], stones, cigarette ash, paint, glue, laundry starch, ice and even hair.

• Alien Hand Syndrome: this bizarre syndrome involves losing control of one hand, which can do anything from gesticulating to unbuttoning clothes its owner is trying to put on with his or her other hand. The condition is also called Dr Strangelove Syndrome.

Read the whole article.

Tags: blog | weblog | humor | life | odd news

When you’re driving down a neighborhood of costly McMansions, marveling at how expensive they are, do you find yourself thinking that the people who own them must have to be drug dealers to afford them?

No? Well then I’m weird that way. And, as it turns out, correct for once.

On the phishhook.com forum, Chumba posted photos of a lovely house in Dixon Springs, Tennessee where Fred Earl Strunk, Brian Gibson and Greg Compton, the alleged owners, had a sophisticated setup for growing marijuana in a vast underground room. The room (more like a vault) is fully equipped with hydraulic blast door, an escape tunnel that has an exit camouflaged to look like stones, and a complex system of water pumps and indoor plant lighting. They were growing a crop every 60 days and scored enough folding green for Earl to buy a home next to the water in Florida, and a yacht, and a bunch of guns.

WFTV.com has more details:

[Strunk] was arrested Dec. 14 at his home in Gainesville, Fla., where authorities said they found firearms, a grenade and fake documents for at least six different identities.

Authorities searched Strunk’s Florida home on the same day a raid on his Dixon Springs home revealed a large underground complex with offices, a kitchen and growing rooms with about 850 plants at various stages of maturity.

The plants at the time had an estimated street value of $1 million, authorities said.

In addition to three counts of possession of machine guns, Strunk is charged in Florida with possession of marijuana, PCP and counterfeit drivers’ licenses.

[Hat tip to InstaPundit for the original link.]

Tags: blog | weblog | marijuana | weed | pot | police | didn’t inhale | odd news

Bill Clinton, famous around the world for his eponymous line of multi-colored condoms, is looking for a few “dependable, enthusiastic” interns (25 to be exact.)

Here’s an excerpt from the qualifications section of the job posting [hat tip: UrbanElephants.com]:

Upon leaving office, President Clinton

Oh, that’s right, he was president once! I’m so used to thinking of him as the King of Condoms that I forgot. Unlike the current President Bush, Clinton must not have accomplished much that was memorable. (Other than being impeached and helping coin the term “presidential keepads,” that is.)

established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the dual missions of [deleted blah-blah]. If you are an undergraduate, graduate or professional student or a recent graduate with your own strong interest in crucial issues of our day, the Clinton Foundation Intern Program offers a unique opportunity for growth, learning and meaningful service.

I can help them start learning right away: Here’s what the meaning of the word ‘Is’ is: Third person singular present form of Be. Also (trust me on this), oral sex is adultery, so don’t try that excuse on your spouse or in front of a grand jury.

We are looking for people who are dependable, enthusiastic, professional, and intelligent.

That’s what he wants in an intern, but what’s it like working under Bill Clinton? Here’s what the world’s most infamous intern has said:

Monica Lewinsky says she feels betrayed by Bill Clinton’s failure to acknowledge how he destroyed her life…

“He says he was proud of the way that he defended the presidency, at my expense,” she said.

“In the process he destroyed me, and that was the way he was going to have to do that, to get through impeachment,” Lewinsky added. “I was a young girl and to hear him saying some of the things he was saying today — it’s a shame.”

If you are “dependable, enthusiastic, professional, and intelligent,” now that you know what could be coming if you work on Clinton’s staff, you’ll never accept the job!

[Edit] Welcome Michelle Malkin readers! Settle in and stay awhile. You might also want to check out the ongoing global warming debate in the comments section of this post.

Tags: blog | weblog | politics | democrats | clinton | scandal | miserable failure | impeach

Jobless claims dipped by 20,000 last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been solidly above 11,000 for the first time since 1999 (largely because of rumors that the GDP and other economic numbers coming out next week are going to be astoundingly good).

Gas prices have dipped below $2 a gallon in some places and are dropping all over the country.

Thank you, Mr. President!

Tags: blog | weblog | economics | bush administration | politics

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is Robert Heinlein’s Hugo-award-winning novel about a revolution on the Lunar colonies to overthrow the tyrannical control of Earth. One of the main characters in the story is Mike, a self-aware computer who helps the colonists win their freedom. Here’s how Heinlein describes him:

…Mike was a fair dinkum thinkum, sharpest computer you’ll ever meet.

Not fastest. At Bell Labs, Bueno Aires, down Earthside, they’ve got a thinkum a tenth his size which can answer almost before you ask.

When I first read that passage (30 years or so ago!), I smiled at the absurdity of it.

From NewScientist.com:

Quantum computer works best switched off

Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.

The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running….

With the right set-up, the theory suggested, the computer would sometimes get an answer out of the computer even though the program did not run. And now researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have improved on the original design and built a non-running quantum computer that really works.

“It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is,” says team member Onur Hosten.

So it gives them the answer almost before they ask for it!

On the other hand, the quantum computer does seem to violate this dictum of Heinlein’s: TAANSTAFL! (there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!).

Read the whole article.

Tags: blog | weblog | sci-fi | science fiction | heinlein | physics | science | computing | quantum

According to this article from The Register, the Mars Spirit Rover has photographed a rock on Mars upon which is clearly etched the number 19:

But what does it mean? Chillingly, according to numerologists, the numbers 1 and 9 transpose into the letters AI. Co-incidence? We think not.

We can now say with absolute certainty that Mars was previously inhabited by super-intelligent machine beings which, for reasons unknown but probably related to a lack of any decent nightlife on that distant world, came to Earth where they are now running the UK’s rail network and teaching cybernetics at Reading University.

Quick, somone tell Louis Farrakhan!

Tags: blog | weblog | humor | science | spirit rover | mars | nasa | space | space fotos | farrakhan | mothership

Pig cells might offer cure for type 1 diabetes

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have cured type 1 diabetes in monkeys by transplanting from pigs the cells that produce insulin. Also called insulin-dependent diabetes, childhood diabetes, or juvenile-onset diabetes, type 1 diabetes usually strikes children and adolescents, but it also occurs in adults. It is characterized by beta-cell destruction, which leads to a deficiency of insulin. [Source: Wikipedia]

According to this EarthTimes.org article:

…The researchers injected about 12 diabetic monkeys with pig islet cells, the cells in pancreas that produce insulin. A follow-up of six months showed that the monkeys could live without regular insulin injections. Even though some of the monkeys rejected the transplant of pig islet cells, in five of them the transplant was successful using a cocktail of drugs.

“These results suggest it is feasible to use pig islet cells as a path to a far-reaching cure for diabetes,” said Bernhard Hering, the lead author of the study. “Now that we have identified critical pathways involved in immune recognition and rejection of pig islet transplants, we can begin working on better and safer therapies with the eventual goal of bringing the treatment into people,” he added. The researchers would start human trials by 2009.

Earlier, human diabetes has been cured using islet cells from human pancreas. However, the demand far outnumbered the supply and so the researchers looked at animal cells for the transplant. Over 20 million Americans suffer from diabetes, with the worldwide figures being pegged at over 150 million.
…
The next step now is to develop the combination of drugs that can ensure the cells are not rejected by the human body. “If we want to make this available for people, it cannot come with a lot of immuno-suppression. It must be a very safe treatment. This is where all of our research has to be focused,” Hering said.

Read the whole article.

OSI is beginning trial of type 2 diabetes drug

According to this article at Pharmaceutical Business Review Online, OSI is beginning a phase IIa study to evaluate proper dosages of PSN357, a drug designed to keep glucose levels from rising in diabetic patients by preventing glycogen breakdown to glucose in the liver.

“We believe that PSN357, together with our DPIV inhibitor, PSN9301, which is scheduled to begin phase IIb studies this year and PSN010, our glucokinase activator, which entered phase I trials last week, together comprise an innovative clinical pipeline of novel, molecularly targeted therapies for the treatment of type 2 diabetes,” stated Dr Anker Lundemose, president of Prosidion, OSI’s UK-based diabetes R&D arm.

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by “insulin resistance,” as body cells do not respond appropriately when insulin is present. Although many experts agree that “insulin resistance” is the defect behind the type 2 disease, many others contend that insufficient amounts of insulin may actually be the primary cause. [Source: Wikipedia]

Phases I, IIa, IIb – What’s the diff?

What does it mean when a drug is in a phase IIa, phase IIb, or phase I study?

Clinical trials of new drugs are separated into different phases:

• Initial human tests, called phase I studies, usually involve a small number (20 to 80) of healthy volunteers, and are conducted to determine dosing levels and assess the safety, tolerability, dose response and metabolic properties of the compound in humans.

• In phase II studies, the drug is administered to a larger number (50 to 500) of subjects. Unlike phase I trials which involve healthy volunteers, phase II studies confirm the drug’s safety profile in patients diagnosed with the disease being studied. Phase II studies can be divided into two categories: phase IIa studies usually examine a variety of doses to identify the initial dosing regimen. Larger phase II studies, often referred to as phase IIb, confirm the safety in a larger patient population, and define the optimal dosing regimen. Because they are often double blinded, they may also provide preliminary data on the drug’s efficacy.

• Phase III studies are much larger in scale, and gather additional information about the drug’s safety and effectiveness in the intended patient population. Depending on the therapeutic area, thousands of patients may be enrolled in studies that compare the drug being tested to one or more currently available therapies. The objective is to show statistical superiority via either improved efficacy or safety over current treatments. This critical endpoint is needed to obtain regulatory approval to market the drug.

Listings of trials that are recruiting patients are available at several places on the Internet. The US government hosts a website called ClinicalTrials.gov. This website provides regularly updated information about federally and privately supported clinical research in human volunteers. ClinicalTrials.gov gives you information about a trial’s purpose, who may participate, locations, and phone numbers for more details. Before searching, you may want to learn more about clinical trials. [Source: The Diabetes Monitor.]

Tags: blog | weblog | science | health | diabetes | diabetic | diet | heart disease | treatments

Molecular Expressions has the coolest powers-of-ten tutorial I’ve seen. It starts out with an image 10 million light years or 10⁺²³ meters from Earth (at which distance, even our Milky Way Galaxy is just a small bright spot) and advances steadily until 10^-16 meters is reached and you’re gazing at quarks.

Check it out.

Tags: blog | weblog | science

Adopted in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol has managed to reduce the global temperature by a chilly 0.0015 degrees Centigrade according to this FoxNEWS.com article by Steven Milloy:

At that rate, it would take 667 years and cost $100 trillion to hypothetically avert just 1 degree Centigrade of global warming.

But such infinitesimal estimates of averted global warming would only apply, of course, if Kyoto’s signatories actually complied with its provisions. They are finding it virtually impossible to even do that.

Kyoto obligates the European Union to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent from 1990-levels by 2012. But the European Environmental Agency projects that EU greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 will be 7 percent above the 1990 levels.

The Russian news agency Novosti took a charitably long-term view of Kyoto noting, “Many people question the effect of the measures outlined by the Kyoto Protocol on the climate. Today, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is approximately 370 PPM (units of these gases per million units of the air).
…
While Kyoto’s failure may be news to the public, it’s not to former vice president and global-warmer-in-chief Al Gore, who smugly admitted on Jan. 4 at a political gathering that included yours truly, “Did we think Kyoto would work when we signed it [in 1997]?… Hell no!”

Read the whole article.

Tags: blog | weblog | global warming | science | climate change | junk science

It’s a rare thing to be there when an aphorism dies, but science has done it again:

Mutant Chickens Grow Full Set of Teeth

Well, better start searching the skies for flying pork — scientists have discovered a mutant chicken with a full set of crocodile-like chompers.

Researchers also tweaked the genes of normal chickens to grow teeth.

The mutant chick, called Talpid, also had severe limb defects and died before hatching.

Although it was discovered 50 years ago, no one had ever examined its mouth.

“What we discovered were teeth similar to those of crocodiles — not surprising as birds are the closest living relatives of the reptile,” said Mark Ferguson of the University of Manchester in England.

Read the whole article. Now that “Scarce as hen’s teeth” is no more, can it be long before we start seeing winged pigs nesting in trees?

Tags: blog | weblog | humor | science | biology

I complain a lot about reporters in the mainstream media not being supportive of the Global War on Terrorism, so I wanted to make sure and recognize David Martin of CBS for doing the right thing in spiking a story on the war because it could have endangered the troops:

This week I killed a story about the battle against Improvised Explosive Devices after a senior military officer told me it contained information that would be helpful to the enemy. I didn’t find his argument about how it would help the enemy very persuasive, but because there’s a war on I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ve done that a number of times over the years, and each time it’s turned out that going with the story wouldn’t have caused any harm. It’s always a difficult decision, made more difficult by the fact that it always seems to happen late in the day when you’re under deadline pressure. When I killed the story on Thursday, it was 5:30 – an hour to air – and I left the Evening News broadcast without a lead story which they had been counting on all day. Not a good career move.

Read the whole article. Looks like responsible reporters aren’t as scarce as hen’s teeth after all…Oh, wait…

Tags: blog | weblog | politics | news media | global war on terror

NBC White House correspondent David Gregory, who threw a tantrum last week because the White House delayed informing him that V.P. Cheney had accidentally shot someone while hunting, apologized for his overbearing behavior on Meet the Press yesterday:

“I think I made a mistake,” he told host Tim Russert. “I think it was inappropriate for me to lose my cool with the press secretary representing the vice president. I don’t think it was professional of me. I was frustrated, I said what I said, but I think that you should never speak that way, as my wife reminded me, number one. And number two, I think it created a diversion from some of the serious questions in the story, so I regret that. I was wrong, and I apologize.”

Fair enough, but then, according to NewsMax.com, Gregory followed up with a comment that proves he’s still a puffed-up, arrogant little twit:

“No matter how you feel about the White House press corps – and we’re worthy of criticism, and we can take our lumps – this is about how the vice president chooses to communicate to the American people. We are a proxy for the American people.

“Whether you have faith in us or not, and we do make mistakes, we are still a proxy. This is about how the vice president chooses to communicate to the public. My view is not that I should have been informed or others should have been informed. It’s not about that. It’s a question of ‘Does the vice president have a responsibility to the American people to inform them of his public and private activities?’”

Tags: blog | weblog | politics | news media | humor

Here are few links I found via Fark.com:

• This is an interesting page, but the “Dancing House” pic made my eyes cross at first – the image looks like someone hit it with the Photoshop Liquify tool.

• It’s just as well that this guy isn’t intent on passing his genes on to posterity….

• And finally, something needs to be done about the bad attitude of nurses in the U.K.:

  A nurse who slapped a colleague’s face with a frozen trout before moving the fish’s lips and saying: “give us a kiss” has been struck off.

  Britain’s Nursing and Midwifery Council ruled at a disciplinary hearing that Patricia Jennings, 55, who also poked a woman’s breasts to see if she was pregnant should be banned from practising to protect the public.

  In a bad week for the reputation of the nursing profession, Christine Mitchelson, 52, of Newcastle was struck off after the tribunal heard she put a patient’s glass eye in a glass of Coca Cola and served it to her ward sister.

  Ms Mitchelson faced 12 counts of professional misconduct, including drawing a smiley face on a patient’s hernia.

Tags: odd news | news | blog | weblog | life | humor | architecture

President Bush spoke those words today in Michigan while explaining his Advanced Energy Initiative to the employees of Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“I laid out what’s called an Advanced Energy Initiative. And a cornerstone of the initiative is a 22 percent increase in funding for clean energy research at the Department of Energy. And it’s got two major goals, or two objectives. First, to transform the way we power our cars and trucks. And, secondly, to transform the way we power our homes and offices.

So let me talk to you about the first one. Our nation is on the threshold of some new energy technologies that I think will startle the American people. It’s not going to startle you here at Johnson Controls because you know what I’m talking about. (Laughter.) You take it for granted. But the American people will be amazed at how far our technology has advanced in order to meet an important goal, which is to reduce our imports from the Middle East by 75 percent by 2025, and eventually getting rid of our dependence totally.

The first objective is to change the way we power our cars and trucks. Today’s cars and trucks are fueled almost exclusively by gasoline and diesel fuel, which, of course, comes from oil.
…
The most promising ways to reduce gasoline consumption quickly is through hybrid vehicles. Hybrid vehicles have both a gasoline-powered engine and an electric battery based on technologies that were developed by the Department of Energy. In other words, this technology came to be because the federal government made a research commitment. That’s why I think it’s double – important to double research as we go down the next decade. The gasoline engine charges the battery, which helps drive the vehicle. And the twin sources of power allow hybrid cars and trucks to travel about twice as far on a gallon of fuel as gasoline-only vehicles. That is a good start when something that can go twice as far on a gallon of gasoline than the conventional vehicle can.

Breakthrough in solar power

The President’s second objective – changing how we power our businesses and homes – is about to get a significant boost if a reported breakthrough in solar power generation is borne out.

According to an article at IOL.com A team of South African researchers from the University of Port Elizabeth, University of Pretoria, and Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), have developed an efficient solar power technology that they say will enable homes to obtain all their electricity from the sun:

The panels are able to generate enough energy to run stoves, geysers, lights, TVs, fridges, computers - in short all the modern conveniences of the modern house.

The new technology should be available in South Africa within a year and through a special converter, energy can be fed directly into the wiring of existing houses. New powerful storage units will allow energy storage to meet demands even in winter. The panels are so efficient they can operate through a Cape Town winter, while direct sunlight is ideal for high-energy generation, other daytime light also generates energy via the panels.
…
Production will start next month and the factory will run 24 hours a day, producing more than 1 000 panels a day to meet expected demand.
…
The South African solar panels consist of a thin layer of a unique metal alloy that converts light into energy. The photo-responsive alloy can operate on virtually all flexible surfaces, which means it could in future find a host of other applications.

Alberts said the new panels are approximately five microns thick (a human hair is 20 microns thick) while the older silicon panels are 350 microns thick. the cost of the South African technology is a fraction of the less effective silicone solar panels.

An article published last October at iAfrica.com has more details:

Just one-quarter the cost and significantly more efficient than conventional solar panels, the thin film technology is jointly owned by the University of Johannesburg and the head of its physics department, professor Vivian Alberts.
…
Professor Alberts says the thin film technology he and his team developed can generate up to 150 watts of electrical power at a cost below R10 ($1.66 U.S.) per watt peak. He adds that it has demonstrated not only high efficiency, but also long-term performance stability. “The pilot plant demonstrated that these thin film solar modules could be produced by highly scalable and proven industrial technologies such as physical vapour phase deposition and diffusion processes.” Commercial-scale thin film modules are being produced with output powers between 10 and 40W in direct sunlight.

Quoted costs of R10/Wp ($1.66/Wp) look highly favourable against the cost of “traditional” electricity. And better still against the R35 ($5.81) per watt production cost of conventional modules. The import price locally of a silicon-based 50W solar panel is about R2000 ($331.97) (R40/Wp or $6.64).

The material that absorbs sunlight and converts it to electrical energy is a semiconductor material consisting of copper indium gallium selenium sulphide or Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2.

The metals are deposited on a glass substrate by sputtering, a standard industrial process. (Sputtering is used commercially for reflective coatings, for instance.) The coated glass is then reacted in a diffusion furnace with specialised gases that transform the metallic layers into high-quality semiconductor films.

Tags: solar power | breakthroughs | science | news | blog | weblog

It’s long been known that if you reduce a creature’s caloric intake to 30 or 40% of normal, it tends to live a healthier life that’s about 30% longer than average. In fact, severe calorie restriction is the only life extension technique that’s been proven to work.

But since such severe dieting as a treatment doesn’t work well with humans, scientists have been trying to determine what actually goes on when an organism is on a restricted diet.

According to this article in Scientific American:

Understanding the mechanisms by which calorie restriction works and developing medicines that reproduce its health benefits have been tantalizing goals for decades…. The phenomenon was long attributed to a simple slowing down of metabolism–cells’ production of energy from fuel molecules–and therefore reduction of its toxic by-products in response to less food.

But this view now appears to be incorrect. Calorie restriction does not slow metabolism in mammals, and in yeast and worms, metabolism is both sped up and altered by the diet. [Article authors David A. Sinclair and Lenny Guarente] believe, therefore, that calorie restriction is a biological stressor like natural food scarcity that induces a defensive response to boost the organism’s chances of survival. In mammals, its effects include changes in cellular defenses, repair, energy production and activation of programmed cell death known as apoptosis. We were eager to know what part Sir2 [a gene they’ve found extends the lifespan of yeast cells by 30%] might play in such changes, so we looked first at its role during calorie restriction in simple organisms.

What they learned is that by reducing caloric intake, life extension does occur, but only if the SIR2 gene is present:

Moreover, a fly that overproduces Sir2 has an increased life span that cannot be further extended by resveratrol or calorie restriction. The simplest interpretation is that calorie restriction and resveratrol [a compound that can activate Sir2] each prolong the lives of fruit flies by activating Sir2.

Once they had a handle on what keeps yeast cells and flies alive longer, scientists located a similar gene in mammals called the SIRT1:

Increased Sirt1 in mice and rats, for example, allows some of the animals’ cells to survive in the face of stress that would normally trigger their programmed suicide. Sirt1 does this by regulating the activity of several other key cellular proteins, such as p53, FoxO and Ku70, that are involved either in setting a threshold for apoptosis or in prompting cell repair. Sirt1 thus enhances cellular repair mechanisms while buying time for them to work.

Over the course of a lifetime, cell loss from apoptosis [programmed cell death] may be an important factor in aging, particularly in nonrenewable tissues such as the heart and brain, and slowing cell death may be one way Sirtuins promote health and longevity. A striking example of Sirt1’s ability to foster survival in mammalian cells can be seen in the Wallerian mutant strain of mouse. In these mice, a single gene is duplicated, and the mutation renders their neurons highly resistant to stress, which protects them against stroke, chemotherapy-induced toxicity and neurodegenerative diseases.
…
In a more recent study by Christian Néri of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, resveratrol and another STAC, fisetin, were shown to prevent nerve cells from dying in two different animal models (worm and mouse) of human Huntington’s disease. In both cases, the protection by STACs required Sirtuin gene activity.

So researchers know that the SIRT genes (Sirtuins) protect cells during calorie restriction, and they think that the increase of NAD levels in the liver during fasting are what activate the Sirt1 gene.

Among the proteins Sirt1 acts on is an important regulator of gene transcription called PGC-1, which then causes changes in the cell’s glucose metabolism. Thus, Sirt1 was found to act both as a sensor of nutrient availability and a regulator of the liver’s response.

Similar data have given rise to the idea that Sirt1 is a central metabolic regulator in liver, muscle and fat cells because it senses dietary variations via changes in the NAD/NADH ratio within cells and then exerts far-reaching effects on the pattern of gene transcription in those tissues.

The authors are currently running tests in their labs to determine whether the SIRT1 gene improves health and increases the life span of mice. Unfortunately, they don’t expect to have conclusive results for at least 20 years.

Nevertheless, those of us already alive could live to see medications that modulate the activity of Sirtuin enzymes employed to treat specific conditions such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. In fact, several such drugs have begun clinical trials for treatment of diabetes, herpes and neurodegenerative diseases.

Read the whole article.

Tags: longevity | life extension | science | news | blog | weblog

The Scotsman.com has good news on longevity in this article:

Experts predict longevity increase

Living to 100 could be commonplace in the UK in little more than two decades’ time, according to a new forecast.

The leap forward in life expectancy, caused by advances now being made in the treatment and prevention of disease, will transform the world we live in, say scientists.

With it will come profound social and political changes, including a massive cost burden as numbers of dependent elderly soar. One consequence could be an increase in retirement age to 85.

The trend is expected to start in 2010 as human lifespan begins expanding at an unprecedented rate, says biologist Dr Shripad Tuljapurkar, from Stanford University in California.

His research indicates that the acceleration will continue until 2030. During this time, typical age at death could increase by 20 years, raising life expectancy in industrialised countries such as the US and UK from around 80 to 100.

Dr Tuljapurkar arrived at his estimate by selecting representative populations from different countries and examining patterns of ageing, population growth and economic activity.

This data was combined with predictions about the future of anti-ageing treatments from leading researchers. Examples of therapies with the potential to hold back ageing include drugs that lower cholesterol and blood pressure, or tackle cancer and degenerative brain disease.

Dr Tuljapurkar’s projected lifespan growth rate is five times faster than it is today. One effect would be a world population explosion, as fewer people died while more were born.

Read the whole article.

Tags: longevity | life extension | science | news | blog | weblog

From an article in the The Hindu News:

Growing number of British patients visit India for treatment

A growing number of patients in Britain are travelling to India and other destinations for cheaper and quicker treatment.

Norwich Union Healthcare’s health-of-the-nation index reported last week that 74 per cent of General Practitioners said they were seeing more of their patients travelling abroad for operations because of dissatisfaction with British waiting lists.

Popular destinations include India, Costa Rica, South Africa, Germany, America and Thailand.
…
Heidi Rogers, 47, and her daughter, Victoria Lamberth, 29, traveled to India with the Taj Medical Group for Rogers to have an operation on a slipped disc and Lamberth to have dental treatment.

“I had problems with back pain and it turned out to be a slipped disc. There was a long waiting list for treatment on the National Health Service (NHS) and I couldn’t afford to go private on my nurse’s salary,” Roberts told the paper.

She needed an MRI scan, which costs about 1,000 pounds privately in Britain, but without a consultation, appointment or diagnosis. The same scan costs only 100 pounds in India with consultation and diagnosis included, so she flew to Delhi last December to have it done.

Tags: socialised healthcare | healthcare | politics | news | blog | weblog

According to a New Scientist SPACE article, the Cassini spacecraft has detected electrical storms in Saturn’s atmosphere that are a 1,000 stronger than those occurring on Earth:

The most powerful lightning storm ever detected on Saturn has been captured by the Cassini spacecraft – but scientists are still not sure what is causing it.

Cassini’s Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument captured the first radio noise from the storm on 23 January 2006. But the storm continued to rage and scientists have recorded at least 25 strong episodes of lightning activity since.

“It is clear that this is the strongest lightning activity that we’ve seen with Cassini since it arrived at Saturn,” says Donald Gurnett at the University of Iowa, US, and RPWS principal investigator. “In fact, the flash rate even exceeds the rate observed by Voyager 1 back in 1980 and the intensities are at least as large, if not larger.”

The lightning bolts are more than 1000 times stronger than those on Earth – listen to them here. The storm covers an area larger than the continental US, at a southern latitude around 36°. This region is known as “Storm Alley” because Cassini has observed so many storms there since it reached Saturn in July 2004.

Here is the JPL page on the lightning storms.

Tags: astronomy | cassini | saturn | news | blog | weblog

According to this SPACE.com article, NASA is busily designing launch vehicles and various craft that can be used to establish an outpost on the Moon.

Tags: space travel | news | blog | weblog | science | luna | spaceflight | nasa

Read more!

From the Associated Press comes news that archaeologists have uncovered the first untouched tomb in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of King Tutankhamun in 1922.

Through a partially opened underground door, Egyptian authorities gave a peek Friday into the first tomb uncovered in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut’s in 1922. U.S. archaeologists said they discovered the tomb by accident while working on a nearby site.

Still unknown is whose mummies are in the five wooden sarcophagi with painted funeral masks, surrounded by alabaster jars inside the undecorated single-chamber tomb.

The tomb, believed to be some 3,000 years old and dating to the 18th Dynasty, does not appear to be that of a pharaoh. But it could be for members of a royal court, said Edwin Brock, co-director of the University of Memphis in Tennessee that discovered the site.
…
Archaeologists have not entered the tomb, having only opened part of its nearly 5-foot-high entrance door last week. But they have peered inside the single chamber to see the sarcophagi, believed to contain mummies surrounded by around 20 pharaonic jars.
…
The discovery has broken the long-held belief that nothing is left to dig up in the Valley of the Kings, the desert region near the southern city of Luxor used as a burial ground for pharaohs, queens and nobles in the 1500-1000 B.C. New Kingdom.

The 18th Dynasty lasted from around 1500-1300 B.C. and included the famed King Tut.

Read the whole article.

Tags: archaeology | news | blog | weblog | egyptology | discoveries | mummies | science | history

According to this Physorg.com article, next week, physicist Dr. Franklin Felber will present his new exact solution of Einstein’s 90-year-old gravitational field equation to the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) in Albuquerque. The solution is the first that accounts for masses moving near the speed of light.

Felber’s antigravity discovery solves the two greatest engineering challenges to space travel near the speed of light: identifying an energy source capable of producing the acceleration; and limiting stresses on humans and equipment during rapid acceleration.

“Dr. Felber’s research will revolutionize space flight mechanics by offering an entirely new way to send spacecraft into flight,” said Dr. Eric Davis, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin and STAIF peer reviewer of Felber’s work. “His rigorously tested and truly unique thinking has taken us a huge step forward in making near-speed-of-light space travel safe, possible, and much less costly.”

The field equation of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity has never before been solved to calculate the gravitational field of a mass moving close to the speed of light. Felber’s research shows that any mass moving faster than 57.7 percent of the speed of light will gravitationally repel other masses lying within a narrow ‘antigravity beam’ in front of it. The closer a mass gets to the speed of light, the stronger its ‘antigravity beam’ becomes.

Felber’s calculations show how to use the repulsion of a body speeding through space to provide the enormous energy needed to accelerate massive payloads quickly with negligible stress. The new solution of Einstein’s field equation shows that the payload would ‘fall weightlessly’ in an antigravity beam even as it was accelerated close to the speed of light.

Accelerating a 1-ton payload to 90 percent of the speed of light requires an energy of at least 30 billion tons of TNT. In the ‘antigravity beam’ of a speeding star, a payload would draw its energy from the antigravity force of the much more massive star. In effect, the payload would be hitching a ride on a star.

“Based on this research, I expect a mission to accelerate a massive payload to a ‘good fraction of light speed’ will be launched before the end of this century,” said Dr. Felber.

But I want it now!

The STAIF symposium sounds like a lively event, I wish I could be there. Take a look at some of the conference topics:

• An Evolutionary Model for Space Solar Power

• Propulsion and Power Generation Capabilities of a Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) Fusion System for Future Military Aerospace Vehicles

• The Alcubierre Warp Drive in Higher Dimensional Spacetime

• Is Faster-than-light Communication Possible?

• Experimental Concepts for Generating Negative Energy in the Laboratory

Tags: ftl | news | blog | weblog | antigravity | discoveries | breakthroughs | science | science | physics

Muslims have been on the rampage recently because several cartoons were published in Danish newspapers depicting Muhammed unflatteringly (one of the images shows the Prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, in another he’s telling still-smoldering suicide bombers: “Stop, Stop, We have run out of virgins!” – you get the picture).

In support of the Danes, the cartoons have also been republished in newspapers across Europe, as well as in the more gutsy newspapers in the United States. (If you haven’t seen the cartoons, Human Events Online has them posted.)

So Muslims are enraged and it seems that everywhere you look in the Middle East, protesters are dancing around a torched Danish, Israeli, or American flag (Michelle Malkin has photos).

I got to wondering: Where do they get all those flags? Are the Iranian secret police handing them out to foment anti-Western outrage?

Could be, but in at least one case, the flags appeared out of a sharp business sense:

When entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Dayya first heard that Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were being reprinted across Europe, he knew exactly what his customers in Gaza would want: flags to burn.

Abu Dayya ordered 100 hard-to-find Danish and Norwegian flags for his Gaza City shop and has been doing a swift trade.

“I do not take political stands. It is all business,” he said in an interview. “But this time I was offended by the assault on the Prophet Mohammad.”
…
“I knew there would be a demand for the flags because of the angry reaction of people over the offence to Prophet Mohammad,” said Abu Dayya, whose PLO Flag Shop also sells souvenirs and presents.

He sells his Danish and Norwegian flags for $11 a piece – a price he acknowledged might be dampening sales. Many protesters prefer to save money and make the flags themselves from scraps of fabric, he said.

Abu Dayya sources some of his flags from suppliers in Taiwan, but he buys Israeli flags from a merchant in Israel, even though he sells them to be burnt at anti-Israeli rallies.

[Ironic emphasis mine.]

Read the whole Reuters article.

Tags: islamophobia | news | blog | weblog | islam | muhammed cartoons

According to this Associated Press article, police in Walnut Creek, Calif. arrested Susan Goselin on suspicion of animal cruelty after she dumped bleach into a 300-gallon salt water tank filled with tropical fish, killing the seven fish inside. Goselin allegedly whacked the fish during an argument with her husband.

Goselin and her husband were arrested Friday after police responded to a domestic disturbance call.

Both posted bail this weekend and were released

Book ‘em Danno, piscicide one, seven counts!

Tags: odd news | news | blog | weblog | crime | life | police | aquarium | pets

The Wall Street Journal provides this fascinating glimpse at some of the unmanned drones being developed by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works

Lockheed is shedding its ambivalence and busily developing concepts for newfangled drones. One drone would be launched from, and retrieved by, submarines; another would fly at nine times the speed of sound. A third, which is off the drawing board but not quite airborne, has wings designed to fold in flight so that it could rapidly turn from slow-speed spy plane to quick-strike bomber.

Lockheed is drawing its drones from the same well that produced its stealth fighters: the company’s secretive Skunk Works unit. And the unmanned craft are just as radical as some of the unit’s past creations. “You have to throw out conventional aerodynamics,” Skunk Works head Frank Cappuccio says of the so-called morphing drone, with the folding wings.

As it pursues cutting-edge technologies, Lockheed – maker of the world’s costliest fighter plane, the F-22 – also wants to throw out conventional economics. The drone ideas it has disclosed are relatively inexpensive, more in the spirit of trailblazing models made in Israel than the $57 million Global Hawk unmanned spy jet made by Northrop Grumman Corp. at the same Mojave Desert airfield where the Skunk Works sits.

The U.S. arsenal should have plenty of room for both types. The fiscal 2007 Pentagon budget unveiled yesterday proposes boosting spending on unmanned aircraft to $1.7 billion next year. A separate long-term Pentagon blueprint calls for a quantum leap in drones, from hand-launched planes for battlefield surveillance and pilotless scout helicopters to long-range unmanned bombers that military planners expect to make up nearly half of the Air Force’s future strike fleet.
…
[The] Skunk Works these days devotes some 40% to 50% of its own research funds to unmanned aircraft, Mr. Cappuccio says. Quietly, Lockheed has already contributed to the drone revolution. Skunk Works developed flight-control systems for the Dragon Eye, a five-pound, hand-launched reconnaissance drone used by Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003.

It also designed and delivered the seven-pound Desert Hawk within 127 days of receiving an Air Force request. The total cost for the first six drones and laptop-computer control system was less than $400,000, Mr. Cappuccio says. To date, Lockheed says it has supplied 126 Desert Hawks, which are used for surveillance to protect U.S. bases in Iraq.

The Skunk Works’s new concepts, like the morphing drone, are more ambitious. With funding from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, the Skunk Works set out to develop a plane whose wings can fold inward in flight so it can transform from a slow, loitering aircraft into a speedy plane that swoops in to drop a bomb. The project tests the viability of new materials for aircraft skins and “smart” controls that enable the plane to morph within “10 to 20 seconds without falling out of the sky,” Mr. Cappuccio says.

Read the whole article.

Tags: aircraft | news | blog | weblog | military | surveillance | airplanes | drones | war

A man named Chung. I’ll explain why in just a moment.

In James Clavell’s book Shogun, there’s a scene in which a Japanese lord named Yabu has climbed down a cliff to rescue a trapped seaman and has become trapped himself by the incoming tide. Realizing there’s no escape, Yabu prepares himself for death by falling into a trance. The people on the top of the hill, frantic to rescue him, observe a small ledge that Yabu couldn’t see. They shout at him, pointing to the cliff, but by now his trance is so deep that he doesn’t hear them.

Here is how Clavell described what happened next:

One of them spoke to the others briefly and they all nodded and bowed. He bowed back. Then with a sudden screaming shout of “Bansaiiiii!” he cast himself off the cliff and fell to his death. Yabu came violently out of his trance, whirled around and scrambled up.

As Clavell put it, “[The] man deliberately commited suicide on the off-chance he’d attract the attention of another man…”

As a member of Western civilization, I thought this scene was, if you’ll pardon the expression, a bit over the top, if not unbelievable. But as this news from Reuters shows, Clavell understood the Asian’s casual contempt of death when honor is involved much better than I do:

S.Korean commits suicide over Hwang scientist case

A South Korean truck driver killed himself on Saturday by setting himself on fire after distributing leaflets urging disgraced stem-cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk to resume his research, police said.

The man in his late 50s, identified only by his family name Chung, doused his body with paint thinner in front of a historic statue in the center of Seoul in the early hours of Saturday. He died before reaching hospital.

Witnesses saw Chung distribute about 30 leaflets calling for Hwang to carry on his studies before setting himself alight, a police official said by telephone.

An investigation panel at Seoul National University said in January a team led by the once-heralded Hwang had deliberately faked two landmark papers on embryonic stem cells. Hwang resigned his post at the university in December.

According to Yonhap news agency, the dead man was a member of an online chat cafe, “I love Hwang Woo-suk", but had not actively participated in outdoor protests to support him.

He left a memo in an Internet chatroom just before killing himself to call for a gathering in Seoul on Saturday in support of the disgraced researcher, the news agency said.

Police said Chung drove trucks in Pusan, the country’s second-biggest city, but had no further personal details.

Hwang’s research had raised hopes because it seemed to hasten the day when genetically specific tissue could be grown from embryonic stem cells to repair damaged organs or treat diseases such as Parkinson’s.

When I first read the headline at the Drudge Report (S.Korean commits suicide over ‘fake’ stem cell scientist case…), I thought it was the scientist Hwang Woo-suk who had killed himself out of shame. It shocked me to read that Chung, a total stranger, had burned himself alive in hopes of prompting Hwang to resume his work.

I’ll freely admit I don’t understand people who act like he did. Are all Koreans as willing to die over such a seemingly minor point? If so, why is anybody still alive in Korea? You’d think there’d be people killing themselves every day for equally silly reasons until nobody was left.

Tags: life | darwin award | evolution | blog | weblog | odd news

This post I wrote last October is one of my favorites. The fact that hundreds of songbirds committed suicide on the same day that Britney Spears gave birth was a bizarrely fitting coincidence.

But was it a coincidence?

According to this Yahoo! story yesterday, Britney has announced to the world that she’s pregnant again.

Hot on the heels of that announcement comes news that 40 songbirds died of broken necks after crashing into windowpanes. Granted that the songbird downing actually happened last month, and it occurred in Vienna, Austria this time, not Madison, Wisconsin….

But still, isn’t it a weird coincidence that the same two story lines were published again on the same day?

Alright, no, it’s not at all weird or even interesting. But before you leave here less than gruntled, let me tell you the rest of the story:

The birds were stinkin’ drunk when they experienced fatal panes in the neck:

Experts who conducted tests on 40 songbirds found dead in Vienna say they didn’t die of bird flu as initially feared, but slammed into windows after becoming intoxicated from eating fermented berries.

The birds - whose remains were carefully examined to ensure they were not victims of avian influenza - had livers so diseased “they looked like they were chronic alcoholics,” Sonja Wehsely, a spokeswoman for Vienna’s veterinary authority, told Austrian television Thursday.

All died of broken necks after slamming into windowpanes, apparently after gorging themselves on berries that had begun to rot, turning the juice inside to alcohol, Wehsely said. She said the juice probably continued to ferment as the birds digested the berries, causing them to become disoriented and fly into the panes.

Tags: birds | news | blog | weblog | britney spears | odd news | humor

From the BBC News comes this story:

Bull charges bullfight spectators

At least two people are being treated in hospital in Mexico City after a bull leapt into a crowd during a bullfight.
The half-ton bull - named Pajarito or Little Bird - breached the safety barrier and landed on the fans.

The rampage ended when a fight participant entered the stand and killed the animal with his sword.

Mexico City’s bullring was built 60 years ago and is one of the biggest in the world, with a capacity of 48,000.

Television images of the bullfight showed the beast jump over the heads of journalists and into the most expensive seats at the capital’s vast ring.

One woman spectator received a six-inch (15-cm) gash in her chest.

The bullfight resumed 30 minutes after the incident. Little Bird is the first bull in the ring’s history to jump into the crowd.

As I watched the video of the rampage, I heard the narrator say “It is not known why the bull jumped into the stand…”

Here’s a clue: in 60 years, no bull that’s entered the Plaza de Toros bullring has ever walked out again. I couldn’t find the statistics for Mexico, but in Spain, 134,000 bulls have died in bullfights since 1960 (four matadors have died over the same period). Little Bird no doubt decided to go down swinging, taking the fight to its foes.

I wish mankind would give up on bull fights – yes the bull has horns, but he never really has a chance against the more heavily armed matador and his assistants. As a sport, the unfairness of bullfighting reminds me of deer hunting: every fall, hunters with their rifles sporting laser sights and camouflaged blinds, go out to kill unarmed grass eaters. They even use deer attractant scent ("Appeals to all of a buck’s basic instincts, working on five levels to draw them in. Unique mixture has doe-in-heat and rutting buck urines, plus a calming agent, curiosity link, and a powerful “enhancer.").

How unfair is that?!

After using all this technology to drop a dim-witted vegetarian, what do you, the successful hunter do next? Why hang the creature’s head on a wall! Sheesh, while you’re at it, why not also display the head of the cow that contributed to the Big Mac you’ll be having for lunch?

Homo sapiens have taken over this planet because we’re smarter than all the other predators. So much so that the other meat eaters on the food chain continue to exist only because we allow it. So where’s the challenge in killing plant eaters? A real test of skill should consist of tackling a tiger or bear with a Bowie knife - pitting a human armed with brains and a simple weapon against the instinct, claws, and teeth of predators who could easily have you for lunch if your neurons aren’t firing at peak efficiency. After you’ve survived a hunt like that, then you should hang a trophy, because by God you are a hunter.

But until such hunts become the norm, or until a buck can carry a rifle to shoot back at you, spare me the trophies.

Tags: hunting | news | blog | weblog