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Bird Flu etc.

Today my coworkers and I had Popeye's for lunch. Should you have about 7 people to feed, you should use the coupons on this page. Not a bad price for 22 pieces of chicken.

To my point...after eating our chicken, we were discussing the bird flu, and how it would affect the fried chicken industry in the US. My theory is that it will plummet due to irrational fear. The low pathogenic form generally manifests itself in birds by just ruffling feathers and with a decrease in egg production. The high pathogenic form usually kills the host in 48 hours.

You can get more facts on the CDC site. It's worth reading and it may scare the bejesus outta you.

One thing that did come up during our informal discussion was the case about the cockfighter that sucked mucus from his birds and caught the avian flu. Now, while this seems like a tall tale, it is unfortunately not, and apparently it's a quite common practice in Southeastern Asia where cockfighting is popular.

Last year in Thailand, an 18-year-old man who raised fighting cocks died from avian flu. According to health authorities, he would suck mucus and blood from his injured roosters' beaks, a practice not uncommon in that part of the world.

Now, while this is one of the most disgusting things I've heard of, this guy deserved to die of something for sucking mucus out of a bird. While that is quite disgusting, the swallow's nest is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, where one gram of the a swiftlet's saliva can fetch $20 per gram, which is twice the price of pure gold.

The United States government has also taken steps towards informing the public about the H5N1 (Avian) flu, and has set up http://www.pandemicflu.gov to inform the public. The World Health Organization (WHO) also maintains a situation report to update people.

Following a fairly cursory internet search, a few questions remain unanswered that I think should be addressed (or researched if the question is not yet known).

1. Can the virus spread through cooked poultry?


2. Can the virus spread through eggs of infected poultry?


3. What can I do to protect myself? (besides to go vegetarian)

MS Walk in DC (4/1 or 4/2)

This April 1 and 2, if you're not busy, please consider walking in the 2006 MS Walk here in DC. You can register online. I'm busy on the 1st, but may walk on the second. Seriously, the National MS Society is trying to make it as easy as possible for you to walk. There are 6 locations, and 2 start times on 2 different days! Later on this year, there is also the Longest Day of Golf that I may try to do.

I've known a few people with Multiple sclerosis in my life, and I've never really known much about it. I know that it can be debilitating, and I know that there is no cure, and not really much known about it. Sure, everyone supports the Race for the Cure, or the AIDS Walk, but the MS Walk should be added to your charitable events and donations.

Here is a little bit about MS in case you don't know about it (from: http://www.msandyou.org.

Multiple sclerosis is thought to be an autoimmune disease. The body's own defense system attacks myelin, the fatty substance that surrounds and protects the nerve fibers of the brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord (the central nervous system). The damaged myelin may form scar tissue (sclerosis). Often the nerve fiber is also damaged. When any part of the myelin sheath or nerve fiber is damaged or destroyed, nerve impulses to and from the brain are distorted or interrupted, producing the various symptoms of MS.

If you can walk, let me know and walk with me.

Another parenting mistake

Not to be outdone by this guy, Jonathan Sander this morning, left his 7 and a half month old daughter in the back of his car.

Police cited him for violating a family law against leaving a child under age 8 unattended in a car or building. He faces a fine of up to $500 and/or a maximum of 30 days in jail.

Granted, the child didn't walk into a strip club, nor was the car left unlocked. I think it was an honest mistake, but that's two children in cars in two day. Where is someone going to leave their child in the car tomorrow?

Firefox causes relationship to crash

What a moron!

Toddler walks into a strip club

Yeah, this isn't the beginning of a joke. In Tulsa, OK, a Kansan man apparently went into a strip club and left his toddler son in the car. The child eventually wandered into the club looking for his father. The man, Christopher Greg Killion, 31, was arrested on a complaint of "encouraging a minor child to be in need of supervision."

He was in the strip club, and had left his son, who was between 3 and 4 years old, in his car in the parking lot.

The car was unlocked and parked about 20 feet from a four-lane street. It was raining and 45 degrees outside at the time, an officer noted in the police report.

Does anyone else think this might be a case of negligence? Killion either had a severe lapse in judgement or he's just plain moronic.

Getting Healthy

Since I'm going to Mexico in 50 days, I've started doing some things to look better. One thing I did was join a gym. That's been great, but I haven't gone in almost 2 weeks since I injured my foot. It's feeling much much better now, so I'll probably start going again tomorrow.

Another thing that I want to do is to stop smoking. I've cut down, and today I've had 2. That will probably be it for today. Hopefully tomorrow I can go the whole day without any.

Lastly, I'm trying to eat (and drink) a little healthier, and save some money. Saving money usually means cooking at home. If you've got some things laying around the house, and don't know what to make, punch the ingredients here at allrecipes.com and it will give you a recipe for what ingredients you have at hand. I may try this tonight, since I can't remember what I've got at home right now.

Hopefully, these efforts will help me lose some weight, and I think I'm going to have a period during April where I don't drink for something like two weeks. That's worked for me in the past, where I didn't drink for 10 days and I lost 15 lbs. Otherwise, I'll have to start using some of these weight loss tips.

Girl Scout Cookies: Good forever

Today in the Post, Don Oldenburg has a column called Good Old Samoas.

The column points out that Girl Scout Cookies like Carmel De-Lites (my fave), Thin Mints (which I hate), Samoas, Do-Si Dos, etc. don't have expiration dates on the boxes. The reason, they're not required to.

the only food items required by federal law to have expiration dates are infant formula and some baby foods -- which is because the feds are primarily concerned with potential hazards and, in the case of baby formula, nutritional and quality standards. Same for the various state laws that require dairy products and eggs to label expiration dates. Otherwise, products with expiration dates, sell-by dates, use-by dates and best-used-by dates are marked voluntarily by their manufacturers to guide consumers and retailers.

The cookies are not a potential health hazard from a food safety perspective should they go bad. And by go bad, they mean stale. Girl Scout cookies are meant to be consumed within six months of purchase, but everyone knows that once we get them, we're lucky if they last 6 hours. Recently I had a box of Carmel De-Lites, and I think they lasted about 20 minutes. No need to worry about the expiration date there, unless they were bad when I bought them.

Somewhat related to this, is the issue that transfats (aka hydrogenated fats) are going to start appearing on nutrition labels this year (if they haven't already. My dad just sent me and my siblings this article about eating healthily. Read more about transfats here. They are cookies afterall.

Went to the pool today

Today, I went to the William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center on North Carolina Ave. I went to test out my new found water treading skills. I did learn from this video, and it helped. I also remembered that my instructor told me to fill my lungs and just take shorter breaths. That worked. I treaded water for a total of about 25 minutes today with my longest going about 14 minutes.

Piece of cake. I didn't know how to tread water properly, but now I do, which is good. I think the reason I didn't make it the first time was two fold: 1) I had just finished my 200m swim, and 2) my technique was way off.

I think I'll be fine on April 1st when I have to take the test again.

Make your own

Previously, I blogged about a new crustacean (now named kiwa hirsuta) that was discovered in the Pacific ocean.

Now, you can make your own!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Granted, I'm only part Irish, I thought it would be a good time to share some Irish jokes with my readers. And away we go!

1. Two Irishmen, Patrick &Michael, were adrift in a lifeboat following a dramatic escape from a burning freighter. While rummaging through the boat's provisions, Patrick stumbled across an old lamp. Secretly hoping that a genie would appear, he rubbed the lamp vigorously.

   To the amazement of Patrick, a genie came forth. This particular genie, however, stated that he could only deliver one wish, not the standard three.

   Without giving much thought to the matter, Patrick blurted out, "Make the entire ocean into Guinness Beer!" The genie clapped his hands with a deafening crash, and immediately the entire sea turned into the finest brew ever sampled by mortals. Simultaneously, the genie vanished. Only the gentle lapping of Guinness on the hull broke the stillness as the two men considered their circumstances.

   Michael looked disgustedly at Patrick whose wish had been granted. After a long, tension-filled moment, he spoke: "Nice going Patrick! Now we're going to have to pee in the boat."

1. A drunken Irishman is driving through the city of Dublin on St.Patty's Day and his car is weaving violently all over the road.

   An Irish cop pulls him over. "So," says the cop to the driver, "where have you been?"

   "I've been to the pub," slurs the drunk.

   "Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few."

   "I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.

   "Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"

   "Oh, thank heavens," sighs the man. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."



2. One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints, and were stuck in the thick head.

   The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust.

   The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer, and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened.

   The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink, held it out over the beer, and started yelling, "SPIT IT OUT!! SPIT IT OUT YOU BASTARD!!!!"



3. There were three country churches in a small Texas town: the Presbyterian church, the Methodist church and the Catholic church. Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels.

   One day, the Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn't interfere with God's divine will.

   The Methodist group got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creations. So, they humanely trapped the squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town.

   Three days later, the squirrels were back.

   It was only the Catholics who were able to come up with the best and most effective solution. They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church.

   Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.



4. Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train. His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and bruised and he's walking with a limp.

   "What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.

   "Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.

   "That little son of a gun, O'Conner," says Sean,

   "He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."

   "That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible Lickin' he gave me with it."

   "Well," says Sean, "You should have defended yourself, didn't you have something in your hand?" "That I did," said Paddy. "Mrs. O'Conner's breast, and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."



5. Three Irishmen, Paddy, Sean and Shamus, were stumbling home from the pub late one night and found themselves on the road which led past the old graveyard. "Come have a look over here," says Paddy, "It's Michael O'Grady's grave, God bless his soul. He lived to the ripe old age of 87."

   "That's nothing", says Sean, "here's one named Patrick O'Toole, it says here that he was 95 when he died."

   Just then, Shamus yells out, "Good God, here's a fella that got to be 145!"

   "What was his name?" asks Paddy?

   Shamus stumbles around a bit, awkwardly, lights a match to see what else is written on the stone marker, and exclaims, It's "Miles, from Dublin"



6. Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.

   "Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I've somethin' to tell ya." "Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?"

   "That's what I'm here to be tellin' ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery..."

   "Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me.."

   "I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry."

   Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?"

   "It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout and drowned."

   "Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly?"

   "Well, no Brenda... no. Fact is, he got out three times to pee."



7. Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.

   He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"

   She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."

   The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, Mary, did he have any last requests?"

   She says, "That he did, Father.." The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"

   She says, "He said, 'Please, Mary, put down that damn gun...'"



8. McQuillan walked into a bar and ordered martini after martini, each time removing the olives and placing them in a jar. When the jar was filled with olives and all the drinks consumed, the Irishman started to leave.

   "S' cuse me", said a customer, who was puzzled over what McQuillan had done, "what was that all about?"

   "Nothin', said the Irishman, "my wife just sent me out for a jar of olives!"



9. An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut.

   The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.

   He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?"

   "Just water," says the priest.

   The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"

   The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"



10. Two Irishmen were sitting a pub having beer and watching the brothel across the street. They saw a Baptist minister walk into the brothel, and one of them said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see a man of the cloth goin' bad."

    Then they saw a rabbi enter the brothel, and the other Irishman said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see that the Jews are fallin' victim to temptation."

    Then they saw a catholic priest enter the brothel, and one of the Irishmen said, "What a terrible pity... one of the girls must be quite ill."



11. Murphy was staggering home with a pint of booze in his back pocket when he slipped and fell heavily. Struggling to his feet, he felt something wet running down his leg.

    "Please Lord," he implored, "let it be blood!!"



12. An Irishman had been drinking at a pub all night. The bartender finally said that the bar is closing. So the Irishman stood up to leave fell flat on his face. He tried to stand one more time; same result. He figured he'll crawl outside and get some fresh air and maybe that will sober him up. Once outside, he stood up and fell on his face again. So he decided to crawl the four blocks home. When he arrived at the door he stood up and fell flat on his face. He crawled through the door and into his bedroom. When he reached his bed he tried one more time to stand up. This time he managed to pull himself upright, but he quickly fell right into the bed and is sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

    He was awakened the next morning to his wife standing over him, shouting, "SO YOU'VE BEEN DRINKING AGAIN!"

    Putting on an innocent look, and intent on bluffing it out he said, "What makes you say that?"

    "The pub just called; you left your wheelchair there again."



13. Irish Humor Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, "Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey."

    Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Paddy looked up again and said, "Never mind, I found one."



14. Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died.

    He quickly phoned his best friend, Finney. "Did you see the paper?" asked Gallagher. "They say I died!!"

    "Yes, I saw it!" replied Finney. "Where are ye callin' from?"



15. Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender, "Pour me a stiff one - just had another fight with the little woman."

    "Oh yeah?" said Charlie "And how did this one end?"

    "When it was over," Mike replied, "she came to me on her hands and knees."

    "Really," said Charlie, "now that's a switch! What did she say?"

    She said, "Come out from under the bed, you little wimp!"

Controlling Avian Flu

There is a solution to the avian flu epidemic that is set to possibly arrive in the US this week. As any ecologist will tell you, if there are no eggs, there can be no birds. So, in order to control the bird population, use their eggs as art.

No Horn for Africa

I'm no geologist, but this is just plain interesting. The Afar triangle near the Horn of Africa is sinking, and there is a new ocean forming there. Crevices have been appearing in the area since September 2005. Some of the crevices are as deep as 328 feet, and scientists say it will become the floor of the new ocean.

Beneath the African countries of Ethiopia, Eriteria and Djibouti lies a meeting point of three tectonic plates. Two of these plates, the African and Arabian plates, are drifting apart on two fault lines at a rate of 1 cm per year. The third major crevice's two branches are moving at 1 mm per year.

It's almost like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

They had only just stepped out of their helicopter onto the desert plains of central Ethiopia when the ground began to shake under their feet. The pilot shouted for the scientists to get back to the helicopter. And then it happened: the Earth split open. Crevices began racing toward the researchers like a zipper opening up. After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving, and after they had recovered from their shock, Ayalew and his colleagues realized they had just witnessed history. For the first time ever, human beings were able to witness the first stages in the birth of an ocean.

This is a historic event, and I would love to go there before it becomes a new ocean. However, I've got about 10 million years, so I've got a little bit of time.

I'm suing Sony and BMG

There's been quite a bit of chatter about Sony's DRM rootkit software that they installed with certain CDs. Since they've admitted that they were wrong, stopped production, and offered to replace them, the EFF has filed suit against Sony, and I'm part of the class action.

In other words, I'm suing Sony! Bring it on! Out of all these CDs, I've bought a handful. I guess my computer has the BMG rootkit installed on it. So, what does that mean? My benefits may include $7.50, downloadable copies of the untainted cd, etc. This should be fun.

Billion Dolla Bills Y'all

Unbeknownst to Tekle Zigetta, the US does not have billion dollar bills. And if they did, they probably wouldn't have Grover Cleveland's picture on them. Former President Cleveland was however on the $1,000 dollar bill.

The largest denomination every printed was in fact the $100,000 1934 series Gold Certificate. Also, as of 1969, the $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 denominations were no longer printed.

There's some trivia for your Wednesday.

My first scuba class

Yesterday was my first pool session for my Open Water Diver certification. It was a lot of fun, except the 200m swim test and the 10 minute tread water test. I passed the 200m test, but failed the water tread test. Yeah, I lasted 3 minutes. My friends Snowdog, Helen and Maura all passed both. Actually, I'm not sure if Snowdog passed his 200m swim, but anyway. Perhaps I failed because the treading was like 2 minutes after the 200m test. Now, I don't claim to be a swimmer at all. I'm actually a pretty bad swimmer, but I can hold my own once I'm rested. I wasn't hungover (surprisingly), but just I'm not in that good cardio shape, and I've never been able to float.

Maybe this, or this might help, but I think as long as I just put my mind to it, and don't wear myself out with the 200m swim beforehand, I can do it. However, I'm going to start going here a few times to test myself.

As for the rest of the class, it was a blast. We did the fin pivot, cleared our masks (from half flooding), established neutral bouyancy, practiced snorkeling, switching between regulators and the snorkel, tried alternate regulator breathing, practiced hand signals, and a few other things.

The problem now is that I think I may have broken my foot somehow. It was fine for the pool, but I think it may have been done while I was running on Friday. I'm going to call my doctor and see if I can't get it looked at.

What's in there? What's out there?

Here is Pip and a few of the neighborhood ferals (that I feed) looking through the screen door into each other's worlds.

Obvious news: Spread of AIDS linked to prisons

Yesterday, the Washington Post "discovered" that the answer to the AIDS mystery lies in prison.

Statistics analyzed by Rucker C. Johnson and Steven Raphael of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley seem to lean toward the African-American men in prison.

In the last 12 years or so, the African Americans became 9 times as likely to contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Between 1982 to 1996, the percentage of prisoners who were black increased from 40 percent to over half. This, coupled with tougher sentencing laws that doubled the prison population, saw more African-Americans in the nation's prisons. Other studies suggest that half of all prisoners engage in homosexual sex.

While the fact that homosexual sex occurs in prison is not a surprise to anyone, the effects are quite surprising. When prisoners get out of jail, they will have sex with other people. While I've got no research to show what I'm going to say next, I'm guessing that the prisoners don't go straight to a clinic after getting out and get tested. Thus, the disease spreads to subsequent partners. Safe sex programs are not legal in many states, and it's only legal to distribute condoms in prisons in 1 of the 50 states due to fears that it would promote homosexual sex in prisons. I'm guessing that there also are no tests done on a prisoner before release. If there are, they probably don't test for HIV.

Is it a problem with political backlash? Do we let HIV spread so that we don't "promote" homosexual sex? Face the facts, homosexual sex occurs in prison. Most of this sex is unprotected. HIV is spread via homosexual sex in prisons. This should be no surprise to anyone. There are plenty of jokes about homosexual prison sex, and it was even glorified touched on in an episode of HBO's Oz.

I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is, but it sure sounds like there are some easy ways to check the spread of HIV in our prisons. This would be beneficial to all Americans: black, white, asian, prisoner or free.

My friend Dan

So I have this friend Dan. If you go through some of my photo albums, you will find him a few times.

This is Dan:

Here he is again, dancing this time:

Cheers mate!

Anyone for some lobster?

Some American led divers have discovered a new crustacean. Not only is it a new crustacean, but it's so different, that they've created a new family and genus for it. They found the crustacean in 2300 meter deep water 900 miles south of Easter Island.

Don't worry though, it's only about 6 inches long. Well, this Kiwaida anyway.

Surgeon Generals Warning: Soda can make you fat

It's coming. Well, it might.

Scientists and nutritionists are lobbying for an increased awareness of the effects that drinking soda can have on you. According to the article, 1 of every 5 calories is liquid.

In fact, the Science Daily reported last year that the BULK of a person's caloric intake is from soda and/or sweet drinks.

Maybe that's why since I joined the gym, I've gained about 10 lbs. I generally drink about 32 ounces of Gatorade while I'm at the gym. Time for me to get some water.