Autism, Mercury and Vaccination

On the connection between Autism and Vaccinations
From www.skeptic.com-


Science has told us unequivocally that mercury is bad for our bodies. In sufficient doses, mercury kills cells that it contacts, causes neurological damage in humans and other animals, and generally wreaks havoc on living things. Yet since the 1930s, thimerosal has been used as a preservative in vaccines. One of the breakdown products of thimerosal is ethylmercury, which is an organic form.

Ethylmercury is not the same thing as its cousin, methylmercury. Cumulative and high doses of methylmercury can produce renal and neurologic damage. It can build up in the brain and stay in the body for a long time. Ethylmercury is more, well, mercurial. It is expelled rapidly from the body and it does not accumulate.

In New York everybody is a comedian, even train conductors

Conductor: This is the 2:40 local train to Babylon. For those of you who have not passed out, this train makes all local stops. For those of you who have passed out... I'll see you in Babylon...
--LIRR train leaving Penn Station


Conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, we are being held here because the drawbridge is in the open position, and I don't think I know how to swim.
--Metro-North


Conductor: This train goes straight to Newark-Penn Station. Newark, the pride of the Passaic river!
--NJ Transit, Penn Station


Conductor: For those of you that are interested, Penn Station is next. For those that aren't, it still is.
--LIRR

Goodbye to the Wizard

"Don Herbert, who unlocked the wonders of science for youngsters of the 1950s and '60s as television's Mr. Wizard, died June 12, 2007 at his home in the Bell Canyon section of Los Angeles. He was 89."

"His relaxed manner and the quality of his demonstrations made him a household word. David Letterman had him on his first show, because Letterman grew up with Watch Mr. Wizard. Don Herbert’s techniques and performances helped create the United States’s first generation of homegrown rocket scientists just in time to respond to Sputnik. He sent us to the Moon. He changed the world.

When you watched Mr. Wizard, it was as though you were visiting him at home. At the start of each show, a kid just like you would stop by his house and together the three of you (it felt like you were right there with him) would go through a series of household science demonstrations. Looking back, these might seem simple, but they were elegant. Their apparent simplicity rendered them all the more compelling — we all just had to see what happened."

Prediction is hard. Especially about the future.-YB

In America, we have Thanksgiving meal of turkey every year. The farmer raises the turkey, taking care that the bird is well feed, healthy and comfortable. From the turkey's point of view, life looks good. Day after day, all the bird's needs are met without effort from the bird. Then just before Thanksgiving day it all ends suddenly;the bird is killed and eaten as a Thanksgiving meal. The farmer's family has a good dinner. Not so good from the bird's point of view.

Don't tell this story to impressionable children.

from Taleb and Russell

Steven Wright lines

"Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now."

"I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything."

"Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them."

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."

"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"

We are No. 1

The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida:

One in five U.S. homes entering the foreclosure process last month were located in Florida. It's not the sort of ranking that makes you want to shout, 'We're No. 1!'

Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia, cites two key reasons why the state stands out today: An abundance of properties owned by speculators. The relative ease and speed with which mortgage lenders can obtain a court-ordered foreclosure here.

Vitner was surprised to learn, after the fact, just how much speculation took place in Florida during the recent boom. Many buyers told their lenders they planned to live in the homes they were buying. "The truth is, people lie,"Vitner says.

James Grant's 1996 book, The Trouble with Prosperity, describes the tendency towards folly and delusion in Real Estate.

The Trouble with Prosperity

Henry V battle speech

Battle of Agincourt Speech

The Ethnically Correct Nose Job

The Ethnically Correct Nose Job

As More Minorities Seek Plastic Surgery,
Doctors Aim to Preserve Racial Features

By JAY KRALL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Linda Parker never liked her nose. She thought it was too flat, too wide and too big for her face. She considered having plastic surgery. But she feared the results would be even worse.
"I didn't want it to look like a Caucasian nose," said Ms. Parker, a 38-year-old Dallas office manager, who is black.
Plastic surgeons long worked according to an Anglo-Saxon ideal of beauty. Medical schools and textbooks never gave the slightest nod to racial distinctions, instructing students only in how to produce, for instance, a classically Roman nose.


http://www.asiansurgery.com/articles/press_1_wall.htm

Salty

In today's mail, I received a note from a guide dog foundation in Yorktown Heights near NYC. They had a story about a blind man named Omar Rivera whose guide dog Salty was trained at Guiding Eyes. The dog helped Mr. Rivera safely escape from the World Trade Center Towers on September 11. The dog guided Mr. Rivera down seventy floors to the street and then all the way to Grand Central station, several miles away from the attack.

Amazing. The picture of Salty reminded me of a black Lab I had when I was a kid. Some Labs have a goofy expression and some are serious and dignified. Salty is definitely goofy. Goofy, but a hero.

THE TOILET SEAT- Up or Down - Mathematical Analysis

THE SOCIAL NORM OF LEAVING THE TOILET SEAT DOWN: A GAME THEORETIC ANALYSIS


By Hammad Siddiqi
The issue of whether the toilet seat should be left up or down after use seemingly generates a lot of passion among the parties concerned.

Conclusion-
For “mankind”, the analysis in this paper has the following appeal: Once again, it has been found that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down is inefficient; hence, “mankind” may feel vindicated.

For “womankind”, the analysis in this paper is appealing for the following reason: It has been shown that the social norm of leaving the seat down is a trembling-hand perfect equilibrium. Hence, this norm is not likely to go away, at least in the near future.

the-toilet-seat-game-theoretic-analysis/