Eff'ing brilliant

Salad Spinner Centrifuge

I spotted the above article this morning and said "Eff'ing Brilliant!" and decided to post the link.

In rural, under-served and impoverished parts of the world, a positive diagnosis for anemia is a critically important clue when looking for other health problems such as malnutrition, or serious chronic infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. Until now, blood samples taken in the field would have to be sent to a distant location complete with expensive laboratory centrifuges and electricity, while patients would be left waiting for the results — a lapse in time that can be deadly. Being able to diagnose the condition in real time with "Sally Centrifuge" would allow appropriate treatment to begin before before an illness progresses and a patient's condition deteriorates too drastically.

Congratulations to Lila Kerr and Lauren Theis, inventors of what they call "Sally Centrifuge". Well done!

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Editing because I totally forgot:

Moon Landing

Is something Top Secret

if 854,000 people are in the know? Bizarre.

I am not surprised by the article.

Your Government At Work

The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

Feel safe now?

The following paragraphs are enligtening:

SCIF size has become a measure of status in Top Secret America, or at least in the Washington region of it. "In D.C., everyone talks SCIF, SCIF, SCIF," said Bruce Paquin, who moved to Florida from the Washington region several years ago to start a SCIF construction business. "They've got the penis envy thing going. You can't be a big boy unless you're a three-letter agency and you have a big SCIF."

SCIFs are not the only must-have items people pay attention to. Command centers, internal television networks, video walls, armored SUVs and personal security guards have also become the bling of national security.

"You can't find a four-star general without a security detail," said one three-star general now posted in Washington after years abroad. "Fear has caused everyone to have stuff. Then comes, 'If he has one, then I have to have one.' It's become a status symbol."

(ps: if memory serves top secret is the lowest classification... but still!)

See Top Secret America

You learn something new everyday

With Sketchpads and Guns, Semper Fi

The NYT article, by Carol Kino, is about the United Stated Marine Corp Combat Art Program. It's really amazing - I had no clue there were artists covering wars in the 20th/21st centuries (not including photographers).

“We’re not here to do poster art or recruiting posters,” Sergeant Battles, 42, said. “What we are sent to do is to go to the experience, see what is really there and document it — as artists.”

The program is not the only one of its kind in the United States military, but many regard it as the one most deeply committed to its artistic mission. Like those in the other services, it began after the attack on Pearl Harbor and scaled back after Vietnam. Somewhat unusually, however, it has kept at least one artist in the reserves ready to deploy. And while most of the services have reactivated their art programs since the start of the Bush administration’s “global war on terror,” the Marine Corps’s has been the only one to cover most of the major conflicts.

and

One thing that sets the Marine Corps program apart from those of other services is its focus on human subjects and experiences. That’s what has always appealed to Anita Blair, chief strategist at the National Security Professional Development Integration Office, who got to know the program when she was acting assistant secretary of the Navy for a year (2008-09). “When you go over to the Air Force,” she said, “the art is all airplanes. In the Navy it’s all ships. Army art tends to be more about the battle, and the Army loves trucks. They’re fixated on vehicles. But the Marine Corps is fixated on Marines.”

Unites States Marine Corp Museum

I'm just a cranky old lady

living on a farm. I tend towards being cynical even on Happy!Happy!Joy!Joy! dancing in mud puddle days... but this story about Bristol and Levi getting married strikes me as more about stickin' it to Mom than lovin' Levi. I hope I'm wrong and they stay happily married for 100 years.

I'm betting it lasts less than two.

When Nina Garcia twittered (yes, I'm on twitter) she was expecting baby number two my womb contracted. YIKES! We're the same age and I wouldn't want to be having a baby in my advanced years. But, I'm happy for her. I hope all goes well and both baby and Mama are safe, healthy and happy. Better her than me!

Editing to Add

Wanna bet it's true?

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Rest in peace

George Steinbrenner has died at the age of 80.

... who rebuilt the New York Yankees into a sports empire with a mix of bluster and big bucks that polarized fans all across America, died Tuesday. He had just celebrated his 80th birthday July 4.

Steinbrenner had a heart attack, was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Fla., and died at about 6:30 a.m, a person close to the owner told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team had not disclosed those details.

How sad. First Bob Sheppard and now Steinbrenner.

IPO & What dreams may come

Amazingly, even in this current economic climate, there are IPOs being launched. I guess I'm a pessimist; to me that's akin to shoving a help message into a cracked bottle and tossing it into a sea and hoping someone finds it.

Vera Bradley has launched just such a bottle. Their revenues last year were US$289 million and the IPO is hoped to garner US$175 million and I just don't think this luxury product does well enough outside it's niche to warrant an IPO. There aren't enough people who will be willing to buy US$68 tote bags when you can get something very similar at Walmart or Target for US$19. Of course I have no clue what the business model at VB is - they could well be launching a low-cost line which would be very profitable. Some of the IPOs, like this one, just don't make much sense to me under the current economic conditions.

But it was in tough economic times like these that Microsoft and other companies were founded and funded.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Unemployment & Other News

Who is LeBron James and why does anyone care where he'll be working when the US National Unemployment rate is over 9.5%?

And 19 nominations for Glee? I've never watched it. Is it that good or is it just because it's new? No noms for NCIS but the season was a bit lack-luster so I'm not surprised.

Hot July

Lawds I can't believe I haven't blogged since Saint Patrick's Day. Life, hectic as usual, plus some.

And yet, there is very little to report. The only important, and painful, thing to report, is that Raven died last month. He had developed stomach cancer and I just couldn't allow him to suffer. Gawds how I miss him. I can't talk about him

Pewter doesn't seem to really notice or care that he is now a single child... though he is enjoying his extra cuddle time. And, perversely, this insane heat spell. I found him lying in a patch of sunshine yesterday afternoon when I got home. It was 110 at the farm yesterday! I can't believe he didn't give himself heatstroke. He really doesn't like air conditioning but still!