Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner (TGIF)

I am an <evil> father!

2009-12-16T20:52:55Z

Right now we're in the middle of Chanuka.

In addition to latkes (fried potato pancakes), another traditional food of the holiday is donuts - especially jelly donuts.

Last night I force fed my two sons who are at home a half-dozen jelly donuts each. (OK - there wasn't too much force involved.)

I had picked up two half-dozen packages to leave at two doctor offices that I had appointments at yesterday. As you have probably guessed, I left them at home by mistake. Since it's 50 miles from my home to where my appointments where, I wasn't about to go back to get them.

My wife is diabetic, I'm on a diet, and we both would not be able to resist if the donuts remained in the house. And wasting food by throwing them out is not acceptable. So what else could we do but call our two sons and tell them to start eating and not stop until every last donut was gone!

It was a bit more dignified than Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, not as messy as a pie eating contest (after all, there was no rush), and there weren't too many complaints.

I just don't understand why they had so little appetite for dinner.

A flash of sudden understanding (I can't believe I was that mistaken for so many years)...

2009-11-27T08:08:02Z

Have you ever had one of those moments of sudden illumination, where - while the world may not have suddenly turned upside down - something you've taken for granted for years or decades suddenly turns out to not only have been wrong, but so foolishly wrong that you can't believe that you ever believed it? This evening I had the second such event in my life.

Before I get to tonight's "how could I ever have been that dumb" moment, let me roll the calendar back a few years to my first sudden illumination of DUH experience.

As I need to do more often than I manage, I was taking my car through the drive-thru car wash.

As I had done every time since I learned to read as a young child, when the car neared the end of the track and passed the flashing "Polish Wax" sign, I yet again tried to figure out why they used wax from Poland (or nowadays, presumably wax like the wax that used to come from Poland) for car washes.

This time, unlike countless previous trips through the mechanical tunnel of cleanliness, I finally realized that the sign didn't say Pō·lish , instead, it said po·lish . Fortunately, I was still seatbelted, else I might have come to harm pounding my head on the windshield in frustration at all the time I had wasted in my life trying to puzzle out a problem that didn't even exist.

Alas, that was not the last time in my life that I was to be overwhelmed at the magnitude of my stupidity; that I was to suddenly discover that something that I thought was just "one of those odd things" that you run into every now and then, was in fact a total lack of my ability to understand something so fundamental, that I was quite possibly the only person in the entire world to be so deluded as to be confused in this matter.

Earlier today, as I have often done at this time of year, I was thinking about the term "Black Friday".

I had never quite figured out why they called it that.

I mean, black normally has very negative connotations. Black Tuesday and Black Thursday (called Black Friday in Europe due to time differences) were the two critical days when the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929. And Black Monday is when the stock market crashed in 1987.

And let us not forget about the Black Death.

So you can understand why I've always been a bit puzzled why they called the Friday after Thanksgiving "Black Friday". After all, there aren't that many people injured in the crush to get into stores first, so as to grab the "limited supply" bargains. Although there have been deaths, like the stampede last year at Wal-Mart, they are (thank G-d) the rare exception.

I don't know why this year's was different from previous years' musings on this subject. Maybe the fact that I have spent the last several weeks, desperately trying to get my family's budget to balance with the strains it is being placed under, that finally shed the proper light on the subject.

I finally realized that it was Black Friday as in "balance book" black. Also known as "in the black" versus being "in the red" (which is where most of the country is at the moment, but that's another story).

While not quite the same level of having the Earth fall out from under my feet shock as my previous experience with suddenly being filled with a flash of understanding, here too was the jaw dropping sense of "how could I have missed something so obvious". The only comfort I can take is that at least in this case, instead of having a totally wrong understanding of what was going on, I just had no understanding at all.

Fortunately, I have run out of things that I keep puzzling over periodically, so I should be safe from ever having to go though this again.

Then again, I may have things that I have so totally misunderstood that I don't even have a clue that I've misunderstood them. If so, if I ever manage to have a "flash of sudden understanding" regarding such, I'm going to feel so much worse than I did in either of these cases, that you will have to use power tools to extricate my head from whatever I manage to pound it into.

By the way, have any of you ever had a "flash of sudden understanding"? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Forget about fixing healthcare, let's fix the doctors first

2009-11-23T05:32:34Z

Even the top medical centers in the country get crazy doctors on staff from time to time.

I am a patient at one of the top pain clinics in the US. Regretfully, the doctor who has been managing my case for the last several years had to move out of state due to family matters, so they hired a new doctor to replace him.

I doubt this doctor ever read my chart. Mind you, my chart fills over two feet of file space, so it is a bit intimidating, but I don't think he even opened the cover.

I am dying of a rare medical condition, and when reviewing this with him during our first meeting he was very dismissive. He kept asking if there had been any definitive tests proving the diagnosis and I kept explaining to him that no such test exists, but that two doctors at the Mass General, five doctors at the Mayo Clinic, as well as others at DMC, U of M, etc., were all certain of this diagnosis.

I then reviewed a recent MRI with him, explaining that while the radiologist report had somehow missed it, my neurologist had found a blockage in a major artery to the brain (one that has a twin, else I wouldn't be typing this). Again, he was dismissive of what I "said" my neurologist "found", could not be bothered to call the neurologist's office, in essence saying that if it wasn't in the radiologist's report, it must not exist.

Later on, I had my neurologist send him a letter confirming his finding. So at my second appointment with this new doctor (where I had to remind him that he had received this letter), he decided that he would have to order further tests to see who was right about the blockage, the radiologist or my neurologist. I have no problem with this except the blocked artery is in the back of my neck and the tests that he ordered were for a scan of the arteries in the front of my neck. Not only does this doctor not listen to me, he can't even be bothered to fully read a letter in front of him. (I didn't find out this error until I had my neurologist review the test orders prior to having them done.)

At that point I filed a detailed complaint with the pain clinic. Apparently I wasn't the only one, since this new doctor has suddenly left "to pursue other interests" after being there only six months.

What bothers me (other than this doctor being totally unqualified to be practicing medicine with living patients) is that when he was hired, the pain clinic listed a long list of his qualifications and past positions, making him sound like he was the greatest thing since penicillin. Assuming that he was actually let go, will they give a negative job reference when called, or will they white wash it for fear of being sued?

I know in other fields, where lives are not on the line, we often are not allowed to give negative referrals for this very reason. Many companies give no referrals at all because of this, causing their excellent workers to lose out because of fear of litigious poor workers.

You would think that in a case where someone's job performance affects the health and well-being - let alone the lives - of people, that a full and honest disclosure of past job performance would not only be expected, but should be made mandatory, what we need is a shield law so that companies can give honest appraisals of former employees past performance.

tgif007 @ 2009-11-05T21:31:00

2009-11-06T02:37:46Z

After much difficulty, I finally managed to get vaccinated against the H1N1 flu today.

This was critical, since I am so weakened by MELAS that I could easily be killed by a bad case of the flu.

I missed the first clinic since it was held on a Saturday, my Sabbath. The second had huge lines they ran out long before I got near the front.

Today, I showed up three hours before they opened their doors. And while there were hundreds in front of me, I had no problems getting in (eventually).

I guess my user pic above is quite out of date, as you can see below. For whatever reason, the local paper decided to use a picture of me as the front page photo of their online edition:

I'm just glad the day is over and that I can sit down.

Latest stats in from the programming language popularity contests

2009-11-05T23:59:46Z

OK, so it's not really popularity contests, it's just an interesting job trends graph I built:

Since March 2008, the following has occurred:

Php jobs increased 150%
Perl jobs increased 104%
Java jobs increased 91%
C jobs increased 48%
Visual Basic jobs increased 42%
Cobol jobs increased 38%
Fortran jobs increased 33%
C++ jobs increased 19%
Html jobs increased 10%

Assuming that this data is correct, some interesting observations:

Despite being "obsolete" for years,procedural C still dominates over object oriented C++
Then again, this may be due to Java having stolen C++'s thunder
Despite our best attempts, Visual Basic still refuses to die
While not offering the most jobs, web oriented languages (scripting languages and java) as showing twice the growth rate of their nearest competitors.

Of course, with so many programming jobs going overseas, and so few Americans training in computer science any more, most of the above really doesn't matter except to old coots like me who have been around since since the days of punch cards.

Data provided by SimplyHired.com, a search engine for jobs.

Now even terrorists want to have OSHA!

2009-11-04T07:33:09Z

It seems that the terrorists digging tunnels between Gaza and Egypt have been having too many fatal accidents, so now a Gazan human rights group is demanding that Hamas step in and impose safety standards and health care for those digging and working in the smuggling tunnels.

And to add insult to injury, they complain, other than the gasoline, everything that is being smuggled in from Egypt is junk that the Egyptians don't want!

Gaza rights group criticizes Hamas over tunnel death toll

Nov. 3, 2009
Benjamin Joffe-Walt / The Media Line , THE JERUSALEM POST

If they're digging illegal tunnels anyway, the government has a responsibility to protect them…

A Gaza boy looks up from entrance of smuggling tunnel on Palestinian side of Rafah border.

This is the latest word from a Gazan rights group, which is demanding that the Hamas government take steps to protect workers digging smuggling tunnels under the border between Egypt and the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave.

The call comes after another two men died while working in the tunnels, one from an electric shock and another from suffocation, after a tunnel collapsed on him.

Mohammed Baraka, 23, was killed by an electric shock while working in a tunnel Sunday afternoon. Earlier that day, Ahmed Salah Abdeen, 35, suffocated to death inside a tunnel that collapsed under the As-Salam neighborhood of the Palestinian town of Rafah. Another worker sustained serious injuries in the incident and later that day, in a third incident, two additional workers were hospitalized after paint thinner leaked inside a tunnel they were working in.

"Our research on the ground has shown that after these incidents a total of 120 people have died in tunnel collapses," Samir Zaqout, Field Work Coordinator for the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, told The Media Line. "Another seven were killed inside tunnels as a result of Israeli aerial attacks."

Of the 120 deaths, four were children and 59 were killed since the beginning of 2009. A further 250 people have been injured while working in the smuggling tunnels over the last few years.

"No one cares about what happens in the tunnels," Zaquot said. "The government here in Gaza just wants to make money off the tunnel owners and that's it. They take money from the people but do not provide any services to them. They don't care about the conditions for the workers, whether or not it's safe or the quality of the goods coming in from Egypt."

"Most of the people who work in tunnels are from very poor backgrounds and have been forced to undertake this kind of work to provide for their families under the difficult socio-economic conditions caused by the Israeli siege on Gaza," Al-Mezan said in a statement, accusing Israel's closure of the Gaza Strip of driving the tunnel industry. "As tunnels represent an inevitable alternative for society to attempt to deal with the impact of the Israeli siege, Al-Mezan expects the Government in Gaza to monitor and regulate this industry... The tunnels' catastrophe must end."

The government vehemently denies any responsibility for the deaths.

"We are trying to decrease the safety problems by talking with the people who are working in these tunnels and asking them not to use children and to take all safety precautions possible," Ihab A-Ghu'sein, a spokesperson for the Hamas government's Interior Ministry told The Media Line.

"The responsibility for these dead people is with those who have imposed the siege and occupation," he said. "For now, these tunnels help the people and this is their only way to mitigate this crises, but they don't have advanced techniques for tunnel building. When the siege is lifted there will be no need for these tunnels in the first place."

Al-Mezan's Zaquot said that beyond worker safety, the government should also monitor the quality of the goods being smuggled in from Egypt.

"The facts on the ground are that with the exception of gasoline, very little quality products are coming from Egypt," he claimed. "For example, all the biscuits are dry, discoloured and fall apart and the Coca Cola we get comes in metal tanks and has a very odd color. Basically all the materials coming in from Egypt are trash that the Egyptians don't want."

Geeks revenge!

2009-10-27T18:04:43Z

Having given up on Windows in favor of Linux years ago (other than running Windows in a virtual machine when absolutely forced to), I found the follow three ad spoofs quite entertaining...

The first video is really just an intro to the rest of the series...

They can't even give away houses in Detroit

2009-10-25T23:13:43Z

Despite a minimum bid of only $500 dollars, over 80% of 9,000 Detroit homes up for auction had no takers...

Detroit house auction flops for urban wasteland

Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:07pm EDT

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property market was being picked over by speculators and mostly discarded.

After five hours of calling out a drumbeat of "no bid" for properties listed in an auction book as thick as a city phone directory, the energy of the county auctioneer began to flag.

"OK," he said. "We only have 300 more pages to go."

There was tired laughter from investors ready to roll the dice on a city that has become a symbol of the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, pressures on the industrial middle-class and intractable problems for the urban poor.

On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.

Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.

The tax foreclosure auction by Wayne County authorities also stood as one of the most ambitious one-stop attempts to sell off urban property since the real-estate market collapse.

Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days.

The county had no estimate of how much was raised by the auction, a second attempt to sell property that had failed to find buyers for the full amount of back taxes in September.

The unsold parcels add to an expanding ghost town within the once-vibrant town known worldwide as the Motor City.

Critics say the poor showing at the auction underscores the limits of using a market-based system to clean up property tax problems. They say the system has enriched a few but failed to deliver a way for Detroit to staunch its dwindling population and could worsen the vacancy crisis.

One proposed alternative would have officials take control of the tax foreclosure process through a land bank program of the kind being used to revitalize the nearby city of Flint.

The stakes in the debate are rising.

The number of Detroit properties in tax foreclosure has more than tripled since 2007 and seems certain to rise further. The lots for sale last week represented arrears from only 2006, well before the worst of the downturn for U.S. automakers.

"We have to keep in mind that GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy this year," said Terrance Keith, chief deputy treasurer of Wayne County. "Some people are going to be totally tapped out next year."

Detroit, already stuck with a $300 million budget deficit, is responsible in the meantime for cutting the weeds and responding to fire calls for thousands more abandoned lots.

'WHY AM I COMPETING AGAINST A BANK?'

Many potential homeowners that Detroit desperately needs said they felt penalized by the auction process.

They mostly found themselves outbid by deeper-pocketed investors from California and New York who were in a race to claim the auction book's relatively few livable properties.

Dozens of potential bidders, mostly local residents, were turned away on the first day of the auction by deputies after they failed to meet the morning deadline for registration.

Ross Wallace, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, turned in his check for $500 and waited on the auction floor in full dress uniform for a chance to buy a Detroit house on the cheap.

Wallace, 27, said he did not want to leave his fiancee and two children with a mortgage before shipping out to Iraq later this year.

"I still have student loans and I'm trying to be responsible. I don't want to leave debt," he said.

Wallace waited for the auction to roll around to Detroit's Boston-Edison district, a once stately area that was home to boxing legend Joe Louis and Motown founder Berry Gordy.

But he was quickly outbid. An unidentified investor at the front of the room who had scooped up several dozen properties took the home Wallace wanted for about $15,000.

"Why am I competing against a bank?" he said later. "It would be common sense to have a separate process for people who want to move back to the city or it's going to stay empty."

Nearby, a Dutch-born local woman, Riet Schumack, 54, knitted patiently through the auction for a chance to bid on a lot in Brightmoor, one of the most blighted neighborhoods.

Schumack, who runs a community garden near her home that employs 14 neighborhood children, said she had been battling through a maze of bureaucracy for years to try to buy an abandoned lot nearby to expand and plant fruit trees.

She learned the lot had been taken back from its previous owner -- an absentee investor with more than 100 abandoned lots in Brightmoor -- only because of her constant calls to city and county officials, she said.

When officials told her she would have to wait for a fourth day to bid on the property, Schumack broke down into tears.

"Anybody with a job is not able to sit here for days. So you are left with the sharks," she said.

Opinions were divided on whether the investors buying lots and homes by the dozen were a sign of better times ahead.

"They weren't here two years ago. So why are they here now? Unless, as speculators, they believe this is the bottom," said Keith of the Wayne County treasurer's office.

Bill Frank, a Detroit realtor trying to buy a small house for a just-married friend, found himself repeatedly outbid.

"Speculators are often not good for a city and, from my experience, they are going to lose a fortune," he said. "But there are no easy answers. It's a declining city."

(Editing by Peter Bohan and John O'Callaghan)

I knew I wasn't crazy! (More or less)

2009-10-25T21:57:54Z

I finally have vindication that I'm not crazy. Yet another study shows that people who are "Night Owls" are such due to genetics, that it is very difficult for them to change, and this is due to the coinciding of increased motor cortex and spinal cord excitability in the evening.

From a different article than the one behind the cut, it states: "Severe night-owl symptoms, also known as Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, are a condition characterized by extreme difficulty falling asleep before 2 a.m. and trouble waking early. When forced to rise in time for 9-to-5 jobs, they are rarely at their most productive."

Now if only society would recognize us as a class and then be required to make accommodations for us...

Study: Night owls may benefit from evening strength

Sometimes night owls are mislabeled as having insomnia
It's very difficult for a night owl to become a morning person
The part of the brain called the hypothalamus contains the body's "clock"
Even single-celled organisms do different tasks at different times of the day

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

(CNN) -- If you have a hard time crawling out of bed in the morning, it could be that your body is biologically programmed to start the day later.

Experts say a spectrum of natural sleeping and waking rhythms exists, ranging from extreme morning people to extreme "night owls."

A new study examines how morning people compare with night owls on a strength test and looks at what other physiological processes may contribute to their performance.

Researchers tested participants' leg muscle strength at various points in the day. They looked at nine "early birds" and nine "night owls," who were classified as such based on a questionnaire.

Surprisingly, morning people's strength tends to remain constant throughout the day, but night owls have peak performance in the evening, said researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada.

"We thought that morning people would be better at this in the morning, but they never changed," said study co-author Olle Lagerquist, a Ph.D. candidate in neurophysiology at the University of Alberta.

That may be because evening people show increased motor cortex and spinal cord excitability in the evening, about 9 p.m., meaning they had maximal central nervous system drive at that time, Lagerquist said.

Morning people, on the other hand, never achieve this level of central nervous system drive because the excitability of the motor cortex does not coincide with the excitability of the spinal cord. In other words, these two measures never peak at the same time, he said. Early birds' brains were most excitable at 9 a.m. and slowly decreased throughout the day.

Researchers don't know whether this means evening people who are athletes are necessarily better off.

Although night owls may maximize their strength in the evening, they are at a serious disadvantage if they have to compete in the morning. Morning people, on the other hand, would have the same average performance regardless of the time of the competition, Lagerquist said.

Based on the findings, Lagerquist recommends that people who struggle athletically in the morning try going to the gym at night, as they may feel more awake and perform better then, he said.

The study reinforces findings that athletic performance varies over the course of the day, said Dr. William Schwartz, professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts.

Although the study is small -- 18 people participated -- it highlights problems with being a night owl that sleep experts often see in patients.

American society favors morning people, because the typical work day begins in the morning and ends in the evening, said Dr. Nancy Collop, Medical Director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. Her sleep center tends to have many more night owls seeking help than early risers, she said.

Fairly commonly, people come to the sleep clinic at Johns Hopkins having been mislabeled as insomniacs when they are just night owls, Collop said.

"Their body clock is separate from what their work clock is supposed to be," Collop said.

It's very difficult for a night owl to become a morning person, Collop said.

At a sleep clinic such as the one at Johns Hopkins, people seeking to change their habits may be asked to sit in front of a very bright light early in the morning and to take melatonin to help them sleep earlier. Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate circadian rhythms, the daily rhythms that persist in the body within a period of about 24 hours.

The tendency to do certain actions at particular times of the day is a phenomenon seen across the animal kingdom.

Even single-celled organisms do different tasks at different times of the day, Collop said. More complex organisms also need a rest period built into the 24-hour cycle. In humans, light drives this cycle, she said.

The part of the brain called the hypothalamus contains the human body's "clock," Schwartz said. There is evidence that biological rhythms are dictated by genes, although people can train themselves to some degree, he said.

Teenage and young adult males have the highest risk for delayed sleep phase, or night-owl tendency, she said. But it's hard to know how much of that comes from genetics and how much comes from social pressures, she said.

CNN's Shahreen Abedin contributed to this report.

All AboutSleep Disorders

Do I have a business opportunity for you...

2009-10-22T05:58:50Z

I keep hearing about parents who are suffering terribly from empty nest syndrome.

Assuming that such people actually exist (my wife and I must be rotten parents - not only did we not feel bad when the youngest moved out (for as long as it lasted, we have two back home now), but we were actually enjoying living alone!), I have discovered a business opportunity for you.

This works best if you still have teenagers of your own at home, since all you need to do is to rent them out.

But if you don't, with a bit of extra effort you can manage it on your own. Just offer those poor sufferers of empty nest syndrome a weekly house messing service.

For a proper fee, you'll arrange for bathroom towels to be left on the floor, mud tracked though the carpet, a few random pieces of dishware broken, hairballs planted in showers and tubs, toothpaste tubes squeezed in the middle and left open oozing out over the counter, and so forth.

For a slight extra fee, you can offer additional services such as coming by late in the evening and playing music they hate at high volume, moving their mail and files around so that they can't find important documents except by the most thorough of searches, and if they sign a health waiver and make an appropriate damage deposit, you can even arrange for a full blown shouting match.

Yes, why should you leave people suffering the throes of despair from empty nest syndrome when you can not only help ease their pain but make a tidy profit too?

Internet access is not only a human right, but now it's a legal right too!

2009-10-16T09:13:00Z

Finland is the first country to make it a legal right to have access to high speed internet, having previously declared internet access a human right !

France's highest court has also declared access to the internet a human right!! Estonia and Greece have previously taken similar measures,

Additionally, the UN is attempting to pass a resolution making internet access a worldwide human right!! (I kid you not - this is too wild to make up.)

Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland

By Saeed Ahmed
CNN

(CNN) -- Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right.

Starting in July, telecommunication companies in the northern European nation will be required to provide all 5.2 million citizens with Internet connection that runs at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second.

The one-megabit mandate, however, is simply an intermediary step, said Laura Vilkkonen, the legislative counselor for the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The country is aiming for speeds that are 100 times faster -- 100 megabit per second -- for all by 2015.

"We think it's something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection," Vilkkonen said.

Finland is one of the most wired in the world; about 95 percent of the population have some sort of Internet access, she said. But the law is designed to bring the Web to rural areas, where geographic challenges have limited access until now.

"Universal service is every citizen's subjective right," Vilkkonen said.

It is a view shared by the United Nations, which is making a big push to deem Internet access a human right.

In June, France's highest court declared such access a human right. But Finland goes a step further by legally mandating speed.

On the other hand, the United States is the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote high-speed broadband, according to a study released in August by the Communications Workers of America, the country's largest media union.

Forty-six percent of rural households do not subscribe to broadband, and usage varies based on income, the study found.

In February, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to submit a national plan to Congress. The FCC says that expanding service will require subsidies and investment of as much as $350 billion -- much higher than the $7.2 billion President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package has set aside for the task.

Today's mega dose of irony

2009-10-07T03:07:42Z

In order to understand what had me laughing out of control for the first time in a long time, let me give you the background that preceded the trigger...

In the October 2nd issue of Science, a major revolution in paleontology was announced in 11 papers.

You can read a summary newspaper article here, or see the full set of downloaded articles here, but in essence, a new pre-human, more than a million years older than "Lucy" has been found, and they now believe that apes are descended from humans (or human-like creatures) rather than the other way around.

The irony that had me laughing out of control for several minutes?

In the October 1st issue of The FASEB Journal, which I read after having read the articles in Science, doctors were discussing a nasal spray that seems to help in the formation of long term memories.

One quote in the article from Gerald Weissmann, M.D., editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, had me laughing out of control wondering how he felt after the revelations in Science. His quote:

“If a nasal spray can improve memory, perhaps we’re on our way to giving some folks a whiff of common sense, such as accepting the realities of evolution.”

Oh yes - timing is everything in humor.

(And by the way doctor, it's not the reality of evolution but the theory of evolution.)

Police run amok

2009-09-08T08:35:27Z

This item thanks to sleepyjohn00

It seems the police have been running amok in a small town, terrorizing residents and visitors alike.

When the fire chief had had enough and was protesting in court, a cop shot him in court !!

Fire chief shot by cop in Ark. court over tickets

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer - Thu Sep 3, 7:41 pm ET

JERICHO, Ark. – It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn't hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.

The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.

Payne ended up in the hospital, but his shooting last week brought to a boil simmering tensions between residents of this tiny former cotton city and their police force. Drivers quickly learn to slow to a crawl along the gravel roads and the two-lane highway that run through Jericho, but they say sometimes that isn't enough to fend off the city ticketing machine.

"You can't even get them to answer a call because normally they're writing tickets," said Thomas Martin, chief investigator for the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department. "They're not providing a service to the citizens."

Now the police chief has disbanded his force "until things calm down," a judge has voided all outstanding police-issued citations and sheriff's deputies are asking where all the money from the tickets went. With 174 residents, the city can keep seven police officers on its rolls but missed payments on police and fire department vehicles and saw its last business close its doors a few weeks ago.

"You can't even buy a loaf of bread, but we've got seven police officers," said former resident Larry Harris, who left town because he said the police harassment became unbearable.

Sheriff's deputies patrolled Jericho until the 1990s, when the city received grant money to start its own police force, Martin said.

Police often camped out in the department's two cruisers along the highway that runs through town, waiting for drivers who failed to slow down when they reached the 45 mph zone ringing Jericho. Residents say the ticketing got out of hand.

"When I first moved out here, they wrote me a ticket for going 58 mph in my driveway," 75-year-old retiree Albert Beebe said.

The frequent ticketing apparently led to the vandalization of the cruisers, and the department took to parking the cars overnight at the sheriff's department eight miles away.

It was anger over traffic tickets that brought Payne to city hall last week, said his lawyer, Randy Fishman. After Payne failed to get a traffic ticket dismissed on Aug. 27, police gave Payne or his son another ticket that day. Payne, 39, returned to court to vent his anger to Judge Tonya Alexander, Fishman said.

It's unclear exactly what happened next, but Martin said an argument between Payne and the seven police officers who attended the hearing apparently escalated to a scuffle, ending when an officer shot Payne from behind.

Doctors in Memphis, Tenn., removed a .40-caliber bullet from Payne's hip bone, Martin said. Another officer suffered a grazing wound to his finger from the bullet.

Martin declined to name the officer who shot Payne. It's unclear if the officer has been disciplined.

Prosecutor Lindsey Fairley said Thursday that he didn't plan to file any felony charges against the officer or Payne. Fairley, reached at his home, said Payne could face a misdemeanor charge stemming from the scuffle, but that would be up to the city's judge. He said he didn't remember the name of the officer who fired the shot.

Payne remains in good condition at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis. He referred questions to his lawyer.

"I know that he was unarmed and I know he was shot," Fishman said. "None of that sounds too good for the city to me."

After the shooting, Martin said police chief Willie Frazier told the sheriff's department he was disbanding the police force "until things calm down." The sheriff's department has been patrolling the town in the meantime.

A call to a city hall number listed as Frazier's went to a fax machine. Frazier did not respond to a written request for comment sent to his office.

Alexander, the judge, has voided all the tickets written by the department both inside the city and others written outside of its jurisdiction — citations that the department apparently had no power to write. Alexander, who works as a lawyer in West Memphis, resigned as Jericho's judge in the aftermath of the shooting, Fairley said. She did not return calls for comment.

Meanwhile, sheriff's deputies want to know where the money from the traffic fines went. Martin said that it appeared the $150 tickets weren't enough to protect the city's finances. Sheriff's deputies once had to repossess one of the town's police cruisers for failure to pay on a lease, and the state Forestry Commission recently repossessed one of the city's fire trucks because of nonpayment.

City hall has been shuttered since the shooting, and any records of how the money was spent are apparently locked inside. No one answered when a reporter knocked on the door on Tuesday.

Mayor Helen Adams declined to speak about the shooting when approached outside her home, saying she had just returned from a doctor's appointment and couldn't talk.

"We'll get with you after all this comes through," Adams said Tuesday before shutting the door.

A white Ford Crown Victoria sat in her driveway with "public property" license plates. A sales brochure advertising police equipment sat in the back seat of the car.

This should brighten your day

2009-08-20T21:13:42Z

I ran into this photo series at Time Magazine, and it's sure to brighten your day!

Click here to see the series

Latest addition to the endangered species list: the busy signal

2009-06-24T06:55:47Z

It just struck me today how long it's been since the last time I've heard a busy signal.

Between call waiting, voice mail, call hunting, etc., I can't recall the last time a phone basically told me "I'm busy now. Go away and try again later."

What has happened to us that we have to be so constantly in touch that we can't allow for the possibility of missing someone's attempt to get in touch with us?

I remember when cell phones first came out, and my employer wanting to get me one. I absolutely wanted to have nothing to do with it. It didn't take too many brains to anticipate how it would be used to intrude on what little free time I might have during the day, and certainly would be used to chase me down during my personal time for so-called "business reasons" that really didn't justify interrupting me outside of work hours.

In the end I was tagged with a pager (do they even exist anymore?), which while intrusive, people somehow were less inclined to call than a cell phone.

How times have changed! Nowadays, if I am parted from my cell phone for more than a few minutes I start to get anxious that I might be missing an important call or text message. So far I have drawn the line and not turned on constant internet access from the phone, but I suspect that given the right device that even this final barrier to needing to be constantly connected will finally fall.

I think I could survive the withdrawal of going into deep woods where no signal could reach me. I'm not so sure about many of the younger generation if they were put into that same situation.

Apologies

2009-06-23T05:41:27Z

Sorry for dumping all of my frustration onto the net yesterday.

The week had just had too many things pile up on me at once, between doctors with bad news and a lot of stress in getting reading for the arrival of my daughter, son-in-law and four grand children for a month.

I'm afraid that I needed a good cry, and that rant was the closest I could allow myself.

Thanks everyone for your understanding. Hopefully I'll have lots of good news and photos to share next week once everyone is here and things have, G-d willing, calmed down a bit.

Things that bother me.

2009-06-22T05:07:27Z

Things have been very tough the last several years. And at this point I'm not sure what bothers me most.

Is it doctors who seem to take more delight in telling me how little time I have left to live instead of helping me fight and stretch to make the best possible odds in my favor?

Or better yet, when I beat their predictions of when I should have died, they manage to find yet another serious health issue that will kill me in a few years even if I manage to continue to miraculously survive the first condition?

Or I find a webcomic or online story that manages to help distract me from my constant intense pain, or even better manages to lift my mood (which for some strange reason is often depressed, despite my best efforts to fight it off), and don't you know, but it's guaranteed that the better it is and the more enjoyment I'm getting from it, the more likely it is going to reach a high point in the story only to never update again.

Or is it friends and family that tell me that I should be satisfied with what I have and with what I am able to do, that I should be thankful that things aren't worse.

Or, strange as it seems after the last paragraph, is it friends and family who come along - generally when I am doing my poorest - and tell me I should be trying to do more. I wouldn't mind this too much, except the ideas they come up with are so fantastically beyond what I could ever possibly do that it shows a total lack of understanding of my limitations.

I hate people expecting too little from me, as if I was totally incapable of doing anything, but at the same time I feel crushed if they expect way too much from me. (I don't mind people expecting a reasonable amount too much, just such an extravagant amount that it shows a lack of understanding of my limitations).

And what bothers me most is having a body, memory and mind that no longer enable me to do all of the things that I would like to do.

MRI/MRA and other medical results

2009-06-12T03:54:28Z

For the first time, in addition to the mitochondrial related strokes from my MELAS, I now have vascular problems too.

One of the major arteries in the neck supplying the brain is totally blocked. If it wasn't a twinned artery I wouldn't be here typing this. Not only am I now in essence having to live off of a spare, but I am at risk of severe vascular stroke if something breaks off of the blockage.

My homocysteine level is through the roof, putting me at risk of both stroke and Alzheimer's. Normally levels this high aren't seen unless there is a specific genetic mutation. Since I do not have this mutation the doctors are at a loss to explain why my homocysteine levels are so high. I am starting medication to try and bring this down.

Other things are out of whack too. For example, despite being on a high level of prescription vitamin D supplementation, my blood level of vitamin D has again become inexplicably very low.

The summary from the doctors was pretty grim. I had to remind them yet again that their job is to act as a conduit to bring G-d's healing into the world and not to act as prophets trying to predict the future.

But it is getting harder and harder to not give up.

End of an era

2009-05-24T16:48:18Z

My wife has put her foot down and is making me face up to the reality that I am not going to be returning to software development in the foreseeable future.

So it's time to clean out my office.

I'm donating about 150 programming related books to the college that I used to teach at, and clearing out a huge amount of outdated computers and spare parts that I don't really need any more, since I no longer am actively involved in fixing PCs for people in the community.

By the time I'm done (and this will take me a while), I will have emptied out about one and a half rooms.

It feels like I'm throwing out an old friend. :-( But I guess it's time to face up to reality and move forward.

And we need the room for the grandchildren when they visit this summer! :-)

Who am I?

2009-05-14T15:24:06Z

Normally I don't do these online quizzes, but the geek in me was really curious to find out who I'd be scored as.

I had to disagree with the "romantic relationships" part though. I've only ever had one, and thank G-d it continues to be great!

Your results:
You are Geordi LaForge

Geordi LaForge		75%
Spock		62%
Jean-Luc Picard		60%
Beverly Crusher		60%
Data		53%
Worf		50%
Chekov		40%
Uhura		40%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		40%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		35%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		35%
Mr. Scott		35%
Will Riker		30%
Deanna Troi		30%
Mr. Sulu		20%

You work well with others and often
fix problems quickly. Your romantic
relationships are often bungled.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Some (delayed) pictures from our trip to Australia

2009-05-11T05:55:25Z

For those who are interested, a few pictures from my trip to Australia

Devorah and me with a koala...

Lorikeets...

My wife and I enjoying our daughter, son-in-law, and four grandsons...

And the beat goes on...

2009-05-10T05:38:47Z

Several months before the first of my strokes, the company that I was working for, SDRC, was purchased by EDS. At the time we were told, in writing, that all of our benefits, including long term disability, would continue uninterrupted.

Due to an oversight when listing previous policy numbers in the new disability insurance contract, this turned out not to be the case, leaving me without LTD coverage since I left before being on the new policy for a full year.

The case against EDS for breach of contract has been winding through the courts for years now. I just found out that the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has rejected my case, since the Federal ERISA laws which control LTD insurance override state laws even on issues of breach of contract.

Thank G-d for Social Security Disability, or I would long since have been living in a box under an overpass.

I guess with everything else that is going on in my life, I'm already so wet that I can't get any wetter. In other words, yeah, this is bad news, but at this point it's insignificant compared to what else is going on.

What we need is a Federal law mandating seamless transition of all benefits just like that mandated seamless transition of health insurance benefits. Feel free to write your congressman and senator if you feel motivated.

Update...

2009-05-08T03:03:35Z

I saw the neurologist today.

It turns out that he is as worried by the numbness spreading to my tongue for the first time as he is worried by its spreading to my left side. As I understand it, this implies that the damage has not only crossed hemispheres, but is also spreading deeper into the brain.

He is also concerned that if indeed my hearing symptoms are related to my neurological damage, I am at significant risk of going deaf as this progresses.

I am scheduled for MRI and MRA scans Monday evening, May 18th.

Your prayers will be greatly appreciated.

I knew this was coming...

2009-05-06T19:29:22Z

I knew that my MELAS would continue to take more and more functionality away from me as I suffer further brain damage. Regretfully I have passed a milestone that I have been dreading.

Last weekend I had yet another mini-stroke. Unlike all of my past episodes which have only affected my right side, this one has left my left side severely numb, so now my entire body is permanently in a state of pins-and-needles and greatly reduced sensation. All this is in addition to my permanent severe headache from my prior strokes.

As a bonus, as of this weekend I am also now having impact on my hearing. It's as if someone turned the treble all the way up on what I hear, and also I have a very loud ringing in both ears (but louder on the left).

I have an appointment with my neurologist tomorrow, but it's more for his logging the progress of my deterioration, measuring how much more strength I've lost, etc., since there is nothing more that he can do to treat or even to slow down the progression of this disease.

It's long since reached the point that the only reason I keep living is because I am obligated to, and not because I desire to. This just makes things all the more grimmer.

Your prayers for Simcha Yitzchak son of Zeeslah Chanah will be greatly appreciated.

Hello from tomorrow in the land of Oz

2009-04-07T01:06:20Z

I've been in Australia for a week so far.

Other than breaking a crown in half while over the Pacific, the trip here was uneventful.

Preparing for Passover has been hectic, but we are in the final stretch now.

Wednesday morning we celebrate a once in 28 year event - the blessing of the sun. This is when the position of the sun in the sky corresponds to its position at the time of its creation.

There is going to be a broadcast of a variety of worldwide events in celebration of the moment. Here is Brisbane we will be broadcasting Wednesday 7AM local, which is Tuesday 5PM EDT. You can see us then at this web site (along with other locations later in the evening and into the morning).

Even though it is Fall here down under, I have been melting from the heat. For those who don't know, Brisbane is the penal colony that convicts sent to Australia were sent to if they committed more crimes in Australia. In other words, I'm spending Passover in a penal colony's penal colony!

Wishing everyone a kosher and joyous Passover!