rePost::The price exacted by the anti-vaccine movement : Respectful Insolence

The most shocking part of this video is that the dead girl’s doctor didn’t believe much in vaccinations and in fact encouraged her parents not to vaccinate. My recommendation: Sue the doctor for malpractice. Given that I’m one of the “tribe” and have just as intense a loathing for malpractice attorneys and malpractice suits as any other physician, you can be sure that if I say that about another doctor I really mean it and really consider the offense to be egregious. Any pediatrician who discourages recommended vaccines is very likely committing malpractice. In this case, a girl died as a result; so there is demonstrable injury as a result of this physician’s negligence. Sue his ass. Maybe if more parents started doing this when their children suffer or die from vaccine-preventable illness because their doctors discouraged vaccination fewer doctors would be so cavalier about such advice not to vaccinate.
via The price exacted by the anti-vaccine movement : Respectful Insolence.

This is

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rePost::OAP: " Top 5 Awesome Travel Experiences in 2010!" | OUR AWESOME PLANET

There are only two types of Pinoys in the country: those who prefer to travel to Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong Disneyland for vacation because it seems more economically convenient to do so, and those Pinoys who have fallen in love with the Philippines and have committed to discovering its beauty and hidden gems, proud to put local exploration before foreign travel. So, which one are you?
via OAP: ” Top 5 Awesome Travel Experiences in 2010!” | OUR AWESOME PLANET.

Excellent list of places to visit in the Philippines!

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RIP::Optimnem Blog: The Blog of Daniel Tammet: A Tribute to Kim Peek (1951-2009)

The memory I most treasure of Kim is of our mutual feelings of joy and excitement at finding someone who understood, in some small way, what it was like to think and feel and perceive the world very differently. We spent a long time swapping facts and figures with the kind of affection normally reserved for the gossip and reminiscences of old friends. And it really did feel as if we had known each other for years. There was a warm and wonderful ease and intimacy between us. I was and remain profoundly moved and inspired by the experience.
Meeting Kim and Fran helped me to learn much about what it means to be a savant, and a man. Kim faced his condition, its blessings and its burdens, with great courage, humour, and dignity. I must also pay homage to the tremendous and untiring dedication of Fran, on whom Kim depended and of whom he famously said: “We share the same shadow.”
via Optimnem Blog: The Blog of Daniel Tammet: A Tribute to Kim Peek (1951-2009).

If you’ve seen rain man. Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond Babbitt Character is based on Kim Peek!

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rePost::Super Strength Substance (Myostatin) One Step Closer to Human Trials | Singularity Hub

As with all animals we’ve seen with myostatin inhibition, the monkeys at NCH enjoyed some serious boosts in strength. The macaques exhibited enhanced muscle growth for 12 weeks after treatment, beyond which muscle mass stabilized. The average circumference of the animals quadriceps increased by 15%. Using electric stimulation (you can’t order a monkey to lift weights) scientists were able to observe profound increases in leg strength. One specimen demonstrated a 78% increase over control results.
The next step for NCH is toxicology and biodistribution tests as outlined by the FDA. After that, further rounds of testing will be necessary before human clinical trials can begin. Still, considering the lack of negative side effects, and the profound need from the Muscular Dystrophy community, one hopes that those trials will begin in the next few years. If ultimately successful, follistatin gene therapy could treat the symptoms of MD while different genetic therapies could affect the causes of some forms of MD. And let’s not forget the weight-lifting 800 pound gorilla in the room. Along with MD treatments, and therapies for muscle loss in old age, the defeat of myostatin could lead to an effective way for all of us to get fit fast. No workouts necessary, eat almost all you want, and have a body like Adonis. This research is taking us one step closer to that goal…but it still sounds too good to be true. We can’t all be Superman, can we?
via Super Strength Substance (Myostatin) One Step Closer to Human Trials | Singularity Hub.

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Elink Video:What's Playing: The Swell Season – Low Rising

I wanna sit you down and talk
I wanna pull back the veils
And find out what it is I´ve done wrong
I wanna tear these curtains down
I want you to meet me somewhere
Tonight in this old tourist town
And we´ll go

Low rising
´Cause we´ve gotta come up
We´ve gotta come up
Low rising
´Cause I fear we´ve had enough
Low rising
´Cause there´s no further for us to fall
Low rising
Oh for the love of you

I wanna take you to the rock
I wanna jump right in
And see what that big ocean´s got
I wanna turn this thing around
I wanna drink with you
All night till we both fall down
Till we go

Low rising
´Cause we´ve gotta come up
We´ve gotta come up
Low rising
´Cause there´s no further for us to fall
Low rising
And I fear we´ve had enough
Low rising
Oh for the love of you

Low rising
´Cause we´ve gotta come up
We´ve gotta come up
Low rising
And I fear we´ve had enough
Low rising
´Cause there´s no further for us to fall
Low Rising
Oh for the love of you

For the love of you

Low rising low rising

I wanna sit you down and talk

I wanna sit you down and talk about it now

Downloaded From http://www.6lyrics.com

rePost::Understanding The Blueberry Muffin – Ta-Nehisi Coates

I used to cook everyday. It was a great way to end the day. Of course this meant that I slept very late preparing the meal for next day, and that I was spending more on food compared to other people and compared to me when I eat out (without factoring the time spent on cooking). But I loved cooking. Sadly our stove and oven conked out and it has been over a year and a half and I’m still getting by with an electric stove. I hope (I will) I can get my stove/oven fixed and start cooking again. In a way it personalizes food. It also is a way to de-stress.

My family, like most families, generally lives on the go, and we rarely get to have a decent breakfast in the morning. So most weekends I make twelve muffins (a different flavor each week) as breakfast for the week. I’m sure that someone, somewhere is scolding me for feeding my kid a muffin for breakfast. But here’s what I know. When you make Mocha Chip Muffins, as I did this weekend, and see the ingredients going in–the copious amounts of butter, dairy and sugar–it makes you think long and hard about what you’re eating, and what you should eat the rest of the day. It’s one thing to know that a muffin is fatty. It’s another thing to actually add the fat in yourself. Moreover, it’s another thing to see the size of your muffins, and then see the gargantuan muffins that are sold in the stores.
Cooking–and really cooking from scratch–creates a consciousness about food. It creates a respect, an understanding of what, exactly, you’re putting in your body. It’s not that cooking is magically healthier. I’m not convinced that, say, my fried chicken has less calories than KFCs. But that isn’t the point. The point is doing the actual work of frying a great chicken. It’s actually having to see all the oil and eggs (depending on your recipe) used in the process. For me at least, doing that, has made it unlikely that I’ll fry chicken every day, or even every week.
via Understanding The Blueberry Muffin – Ta-Nehisi Coates.

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Elink Vid:UKG Mindanao: PGMA hands over ancestral domain titles to Higaonon tribe

I used to believe that this would set a bad precedent and would fracture the Philippines;  but recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that if we want to survive the modern world as a nation we better really learn to embrace our differences while we embrace our similarities. I use to doubt we could. I do not know what has changed either within me or outside of me but I am more hopeful now that we can.
Good job PGMA , we almost never see eye to eye but praise to whom praise is deserved.

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rePost:Mexico rePost:Legalizes Drug Possession – NYTimes.com

Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 21, 2009
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.
The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.
via Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession – NYTimes.com.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/americas/21mexico.html?_r=1

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Love To Read :: Making Light: Pushing back

Pushing back
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 06:36 PM * 31 comments
I gather from the Interwebs that August is going to be a heavy month for health politics. The fight back against any change to the way that America deals with health care and health insurance is starting now, and it’s going to be intense.
They’re going to say it can’t be done, that health insurance and health care are inevitably expensive. They’re going to shriek about rationing, and ignore the fact that the US already rations health care on the basis of ability to pay—one of the most barbaric and obscene metrics conceivable.
And they’re going to say that health care in the rest of the world isn’t really that good. That the American system, for all its flaws, is the best there can be.
via Making Light: Pushing back.

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Learned Today!-The bigger the ego, the harder the fall – how self-awareness buffers against social rejection : Not Exactly Rocket Science

The results are clear – people (or at least, children) with the most exaggerated views of their popularity have further to fall emotionally when their social status is challenged. As Thomaes says, “These results support the view that distorted self-views promote emotional vulnerability and that realistic self-views promote emotional resilience.” It’s better to deal with the reality, bite though it may, than to whitewash over it with an ultimately vulnerable facade.
via The bigger the ego, the harder the fall – how self-awareness buffers against social rejection : Not Exactly Rocket Science.

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