Technicalities

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Meteor!

It seems that in the suburbs of Auckland New Zealand a house has been struck by a Meteorite.

The hit is a billions-to-one event which adds thousands to the value of the grapefruit-sized rock which plummeted through the tiled roof of Phil and Brenda Archer's Ellerslie home at 9.30am.

Well, if you hit the link and see the picture - it looks a bit bigger than a grapefruit to me - but what do I know?

The rock hit her leather couch and bounced back up to the ceiling before rolling under the computer.

Oddly enough the insurance company is going to pay for damages. I would've thought they'd be looking for a way to say it wasn't covered - so good for them! Plus, it looks as if they'll be able to sell it to a collector for a substantial sum.

Even if they make a bit of profit from it, I would not want the hassle of getting things patched up. They'll earn every penny of the windfall before things are back to normal.

Hat Tip : Slashdot

Want to Know What Sarin Will Do?

Maura - has the scoop on Sarin. It's not long and it's not complicated AND you will find out why the talking heads in the politically bent, mainstream news media are so wrong to dismiss this weapon find.

As for the soldiers with the "minor" exposure...

Chronic, even lifelong respiratory, eye (including blindness), skin (constant oozing, crusting, and scarring), and neuropsychiatric problems, cancer (head, neck, respiratory tract, skin, gastrointestinal, leukemia/lymphoma, breast and ovarian), infertility, birth defects, miscarriages, stillbirths, neonatal and infant deaths, and long-term ecosystem/environmental destruction.

This is what they have to look forward to - for the rest of their lives. Didn't hear THAT from the news now did ya??? Please pray for them and their families.

Decisions, Decisions

The EU is in a quandry. To Kyoto or not to Kyoto. It seems that they are finally having to admit that implementing the treaty is going to have a huge economic impact.

The projected costs, as well as the likely loss of economic competitiveness with the United States, has the EU wondering if it can virtually go it alone in implementing the Kyoto Protocols on climate change. The protocol has yet to take effect as a binding treaty since the US and Russia won't sign on, and China and India were given a pass for now.

This was apparently fine with the EU as long as the treaty was going to hit the US harder. Since we were smart enough to question the real reason for this treaty - putting the US at an economic disadvantage as opposed to the stated concern over the environment - the EU finds itself in a dilemma. Can they afford to stick with the treaty? Looks like they're going to try - and France is leading the way, showing us all how to win friends and influence people...

In Germany, the EU's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the government has been in a crisis over details of its plan. Last week at an EU summit, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder asked the body to slow down implementation but was rebuffed by France. All he won was a request for a cost-benefit study on "environmental and competitiveness considerations" in meeting Kyoto's strict targets

As far as I know, no one has even proved that the provisions of the Kyoto treaty would work to make the world cleaner and more pollution free. But it sounds really good.

From the "How can we scare up some funding today" Department

Fox News is carrying a story about a study that purports to link Antibiotic use to Breast Cancer. On analyzing the study, Steven Milloy is finding that it was so poorly conducted, that this claim is completely bogus. For instance:

The average study subject was about 60 years old. But study subjects who had taken antibiotics had been enrolled in the health plan for only about 20 years on average. Since the sole source for data on antibiotic use was the health plan’s records, about 40 years of data, on average, about potential antibiotic use were missing for each study subject.

Even more data is missing for the 18 percent of the study subjects who supposedly never took antibiotics. These women had only been in the health plan for about 10 years on average.

It's blatant sloppiness like this that gives cancer research a very black eye. One day a true cause for cancer will be found, when it is, we'll very likely find that much of what we believe to be true today, is completely inaccurate. We won't look much better than our ancestors who blamed all ills on a "traveling liver".

In the meantime, keep an eye on JunkScience.com whenever a new claim like this is made.

I'm wondering how many women have been scared spitless by this stupid study? These authors have much to answer for!

UPDATE: And right after I post this, I hit Instapundit for the first time today and he's blogging about a promising new Lung Cancer Vaccine. For the sake of all those this vaccine can help, I hope it's not too long before this is proven out and becomes available for all.

First it was SARS now it's Bird Flu

Apparently Asia is dealing with an outbreak of Bird Flu that has managed in at least 6 cases to jump to humans. Might be something to keep an eye on.

Chicken anyone?

Life the Universe and Everything

Harvey has grafitti currency that gives us the approximate answer to the ultimate question. But my question is....

Is Harvey distracting enough that if I throw myself to the ground, I'll miss?