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sirgabrial

Taking Marriage Private - New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...26coontz.html

shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Taking Marriage Private
  • WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry?
  • For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.
  • In 1215, the church decreed that a “licit” marriage must take place in church.
  • But people who married illictly had the same rights and obligations as a couple married in church: their children were legitimate; the wife had the same inheritance rights; the couple was subject to the same prohibitions against divorce.
  • Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices. In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.
  • until the mid-19th century, state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage.
  • the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and exert more control over who was allowed to marry.
  • By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks, “mulattos,” Japanese, Chinese, Indians, “Mongolians,” “Malays” or Filipinos.
  • Twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict or a “mental defect.” Eighteen states set barriers to remarriage after divorce.
  • governments began relying on marriage licenses for a new purpose: as a way of distributing resources to dependents.
  • The Social Security Act provided survivors’ benefits with proof of marriage.
  • health insurance
  • Courts and hospitals
  • granting couples the privilege
  • Half of all Americans aged 25 to 29 are unmarried, and many of them already have incurred obligations as partners, parents or both.
  • 40 percent of America’s children are born to unmarried parents.
  • A woman married to a man for just nine months gets Social Security survivor’s benefits when he dies. But a woman living for 19 years with a man to whom she isn’t married is left without government support, even if her presence helped him hold down a full-time job and pay Social Security taxes.
sirgabrial

Cuba Embargo Reasons to End - Portfolio.com - 0 views

www.portfolio.com/...Cuba-Embargo-Reasons-to-End

shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Dump the Cuban Embargo
  • We trade with the tyrants of Beijing and Damascus, so why not Havana?
  • in 2006, when the bearded one became ill and transferred power to Raúl, nothing happened, despite expectations that Communism would fall without Fidel's charisma.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • They have seen a rise in literacy and health-care standards
  • The American embargo of Cuba is one of those things that most of the political elite in Washington privately acknowledge as a failure.
  • We'll talk about easing the embargo if the regime agrees to dismantle itself.
  • Under current law—the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which strengthened the embargo—the next American president is actually forbidden from ending the embargo until Fidel and Raúl are out of power.
  • initiated in 1960 as Fidel Castro's regime began confiscating U.S. assets. During the past 47 years, the embargo has evolved into a slew of restrictions on travel and trade (see slideshow), all designed to bring down Castro.
  • it is hindering opportunities for American industries from travel to banking to agriculture, which is why there's no shortage of U.S. business groups lobbying to ease it.
  • While we grouse, the world sells. Italian telecoms, French hotels, and Korean automakers are more than happy to trade with an island 90 miles off our shores. Of course, Cuba is not a huge market: The island is the size of Pennsylvania, but its population is only 11 million and its G.D.P. a mere $46 billion.
  • By comparison, Vietnam, the last Communist country with which we ended a dubious embargo, is 85 million strong, with a G.D.P. of $262 billion.
sirgabrial

7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren't - Chew On This- msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/22027686

shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Are you going to eat that?
  • 7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren't
  • GRANOLA BARS
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Many granola bars are dipped in sugary syrups or loaded with chocolate chips, highly processed or artificial ingredients and aren’t much better than high-calorie candy bars.
  • TEA DRINKS
  • Many bottled varieties contain little brewed tea, but plenty of added sugars — enough to rival soda.
  • A recent Consumer Reports review found that all bottled tea beverages had fewer antioxidants than brewed teas.
  • PRETZELS
  • Pretzels are mostly nutritionally empty.
  • One serving provides nearly a quarter of the sodium a person needs each day.
  • MUFFINS
  • Years ago, one muffin was 150 to 170 calories, 5 grams of fat and about the size of a racquetball. Today, a muffin averages 500 calories, 20-plus grams of fat, and are closer to the size of a small planet.
  • RICE CAKES
  • You won’t find much on the nutrition facts label beyond calories and sodium. Even those that boast whole grains typically remove the germ, one of the more nutritious parts of a whole grain kernel.
sirgabrial

7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren't - Chew On This- msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/...2

shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • FRUIT-FLAVORED SNACKS (gummies)
  • The first ingredient listed is a fruit, but it’s often a concentrate made from boiled-down juices fairly rich in sugar and lacking the phytonutrients and vitamins found in whole fruits.
  • Added sugars overwhelm any of the fruit benefits.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • FROZEN YOGURTS
  • Some contain live, active cultures, others do not. Unless labeled fat-free, many frozen yogurts contain nearly the same amount of fat as a reduced-fat ice cream, as well as the same number of calories.
sirgabrial

Nanosolar's Breakthrough - Solar Now Cheaper than Coal » Celsias - 0 views

www.celsias.com/...gy-solar-now-cheaper-than-coal

shared by sirgabrial on 26 Nov 07 - Cached
  • reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt.
  • solar power cheaper than burning coal.
  • Although the underlying technology has been around for years, Nanosolar has created the actual technology to manufacture and mass produce the solar sheets.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The Nanosolar plant in San Jose, once in full production in 2008, will be capable of producing 430 megawatts per year.
  • more than the combined total of every other solar manufacturer in the U.S.
  • Nanosolar, Inc. prides themselves on being the “Third Wave”
  • The “First Wave” began over three decades ago with the introduction of silicon wafer based solar cells.
  • This technology bore high material and production costs with poor capital efficiency.
  • The “Second Wave” came about a decade ago with the first “thin-film” solar cells.
  • This established that a cell 100 times thinner than the solar wafers can work just as well. >
  • This established that a cell 100 times thinner than the solar wafers can work just as well.
  • the cells semiconductor was deposited using slow and expensive high-vacuum based processes.
  • the thin films were deposited directly on glass as a substrate
  • metal foil substrate
sirgabrial

Creator of hurricane intensity scale dies at 90 | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSN2332373420071123

shared by sirgabrial on 26 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Creator of hurricane intensity scale dies at 90
  • Herbert Saffir, co-creator of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, has died in Miami. He was 90 years old and a structural engineer by profession.
  • died of a heart attack on Wednesday night at South Miami Hospital.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Their system for rating the destructive potential of hurricanes on the basis of wind speeds and storm surge moved into common usage in the mid-1970s.
  • Category 1 storms being the weakest and Category 5 storms the most dangerous.
sirgabrial

Pirate Bay faces Prince pressure, private investigators in foreign cars - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...stigators-in-foreign-cars.html

shared by sirgabrial on 26 Nov 07 - Cached
  • In addition to facing the wrath of content owners around the world, The Pirate Bay's administrators have recently been facing a much more local threat: camera-toting investigators following them around in cars marked with Danish plates.
  • He has declared himself out to "reclaim the Internet," and The Pirate Bay is at the top of his list (fan sites appear to be on the list as well).
  • Peter Sunde, a Pirate bay admin, tells Ars that the Purple One's legal team has already started leaning on some advertisers to drop support for the site. "We're not even worried, since the Internet is too big for morally upset people to get it their way," Sunde said in an e-mail. "I'm just sad that Prince—whose music I really like—can't understand that he's the new Metallica versus Napster. And we all know who lost that..."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • investigators following Pirate Bay members around in cars with Danish plates.
  • Sunde says that the investigators are taking pictures from inside the car "with a flash, so I'm not sure how smart they are." He notes that something similar happened last year before a police raid on Pirate Bay servers.
sirgabrial

Santa Claus banned from Ho Ho Ho | NEWS.com.au - 0 views

www.news.com.au/...0,23599,22738300-2,00.html

shared by sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Santa Claus banned from Ho Ho Ho
  • SANTAS working in shopping centres across Australia have been banned from bellowing "ho ho ho" because it might frighten children.
  • Westaff national operations manager Glen Jansz said the company's Santas had been urged to tone down their use of the "ho, ho, ho" phrase.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "The reason behind that is we find that in some cases the little kids can get a little bit scared of the deep 'ho, ho, hos' and we ask them to be mindful of keeping their voices to a lower level," he said.
  • instructed to replace the traditional Christmas greeting with "ha, ha, ha".
  • "We were told to say 'ha ha ha Merry Christmas'," he said.
  • "Let's just concentrate on the kids having a good time."
sirgabrial

Pasta theology: Scholars mull Spaghetti Monster - USATODAY.com - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...7-11-16-spaghettimonster_N.htm

shared by sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Pasta theology: Scholars mull Spaghetti Monster
  • When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.
  • Flying Spaghetti Monster
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • American Academy of Religion's annual meeting
  • first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design should be taught in public school sciences classes.
  • Supporters of intelligent design hold that the order and complexity of the universe is so great that science alone cannot explain it. The concept's critics see it as faith masquerading as science.
  • Oregon State physics graduate named Bobby Henderson
  • sending a letter to the Kansas School Board
  • every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage."
  • There's no more scientific basis for intelligent design than there is for the idea an omniscient creature made of pasta created the universe.
  • If intelligent design supporters could demand equal time in a science class, why not anyone else?
  • members dress up as pirates
  • The title: "Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody."
  • is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?
sirgabrial

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...main.jhtml

shared by sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything
  • An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists.
  • Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • does not require highly complex mathematics.
  • not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts.
  • may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles
  • Large Hadron Collider atom smasher
  • Einstein also began his great adventure in theoretical physics while outside the mainstream scientific establishment, working as a patent officer
  • "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything"
  • completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.
  • old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.
  • Lisi's model also takes account of gravity
  • string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.
  • called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings
  • he could find a way to place the various elementary particles and forces on E8's 248 points.
  • So far, all the interactions predicted by the complex geometrical relationships inside E8 match with observations in the real world.
    • sirgabrial
      sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07
       
      -ill add a link for the article as always and also a link to his actual paper.
  • Lisi is now calculating the masses that the 20 new particles should have, in the hope that they may be spotted when the Large Hadron Collider starts up.
sirgabrial

Politics | AT&T gave feds access to all Web, phone traffic, ex-tech says | Seattle Time... - 0 views

seattletimes.nwsource.com/...2004001159_spying08.html

shared by sirgabrial on 12 Nov 07 - Cached
  • AT&T gave feds access to all Web, phone traffic, ex-tech says
  • he stumbled upon documents that, he said, show the agency gained access to massive amounts of e-mail, Web search and other Internet records of more than a dozen global and regional telecom providers.
  • AT&T allowed the agency to hook into its network and, according to Klein, many of the other telecom companies probably knew nothing about it.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • grant legal immunity to telecommunications firms that helped the government in its warrantless anti-terrorism efforts.
  • retired
  • carried no security clearance
  • documents in his possession were not classified
  • without obtaining a court order.
  • government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists
  • usage patterns and for content.
  • "AT&T is fully committed to protecting our customers' privacy. We do not comment on matters of national security,"
  • The diagram showed splitters glass prisms that split signals from each network into two identical copies
sirgabrial

Swiss Study Finds Marijuana Use Alone May Benefit Some Teens, U.S. Doctor Disagrees - H... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...0,2933,308258,00.html

shared by sirgabrial on 12 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Swiss Study Finds Marijuana Use Alone May Benefit Some Teens, U.S. Doctor Disagrees
  • Teens that use cannabis may function better than teen tobacco-users, and appear to be more socially driven and have fewer psychosocial problems than those who do not use either substance, according to a Swiss survey.
  • Researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland surveyed 5,263 students, including 455 who smoke marijuana only, 1,703 who smoke marijuana and tobacco and 3,105 who smoked neither one.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • found that marijuana-only smokers had better relationships with friends, better grades and were more likely to play sports than teens who smoked tobacco and those who abstained from both substances.
  • teenagers’ brains are still developing at this time.
  • age of 21.
  • More likely to be male
  • Play sports
  • Live with both parents
  • Have good grades
  • Cannabis-only smokers were also less likely to have been drunk in the past 30 days
  • before the age of 15
  • less likely to use marijuana more than once or twice in the past 30 days.
  • cultural reason for this happening
sirgabrial

Nanotechnology storage breakthrough proclaimed - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...e-breakthrough-proclaimed.html

shared by sirgabrial on 12 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Nanotechnology storage breakthrough proclaimed
  • Arizona State University's Center for Applied Nanoionics (CANi) has announced a major breakthrough in the creation of nanotechnology-based memory
  • increased memory performance, battery capacity, and reduced power draw, and would serve as a suitable basis for practically all digital storage needs.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • wall beyond which it will be impossible to increase Integrated Circuit (IC) density due to high heat and power dissipation.
  • trap groups of electrons in specific areas of a semiconductor.
  • Flash RAM
  • actually moving the ions themselves.
  • to dope silicon with copper in order to create what Kozicki refers to as a "nanoscale switch."
  • difficult materials
  • difference between what the ASU researchers claimed
sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Lab creates 'long-distance mouse' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7074831.stm

shared by sirgabrial on 04 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Lab creates 'long-distance mouse'
  • A genetically modified "supermouse" which can run twice as far as a normal rodent has been created by scientists working in the US.
  • It also lives longer, and breeds later in life compared with its standard laboratory cousin.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • The mice were produced to study the biochemistry at play in metabolism and could aid the understanding of human health and disease.
  • five to six kilometres at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill, for up to six hours before stopping.
  • they utilise mainly fatty acids for energy and produce very little lactic acid,"
  • many more mitochondria.
  • 10 times more
  • The mice over-express a gene responsible for the enzyme phosphoenolypyruvate carboxykinases (PEPCK-C). Normal expression is in the liver, in the production of glucose.
  • eat twice as much as normal mice - but weigh half as much.
  • athletes resorting to gene therapy to try to improve their performance.
  • rather aggressive
sirgabrial

In Rare Attack, Malware Targets Macs - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB119401479695380513.html

shared by sirgabrial on 04 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Hackers have launched a rare and troubling attack on Apple Inc.'s computers.
  • Apple on Thursday confirmed reports of pornography Web sites where hidden software, once downloaded, could take control of an Apple computer. Apple did not immediately respond to claims that it is the first instance of a Trojan horse attack on Apple's Macintosh platform.
  • "Apple has a great track record for keeping Mac OS X users secure, and as always, we encourage people to install software only from trusted sources."
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The timing of the Trojan horse suggests there are more to come, say some computer and Internet security professionals.
  • As Apple's popularity rises, "the bad guys are taking Macs seriously now,"
  • Symantec's Web site of suspicions that a wave of attacks and viruses are due.
  • "If we see a rise in Mac malware, then we will have to assume that there are profits to be made in malware for Macs as well,"
sirgabrial

5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen | Cracked.com - 0 views

www.cracked.com/pse-could-actually-happen.html

shared by sirgabrial on 04 Nov 07 - Cached
  • #5. Brain Parasites
  • toxoplasmosa gondii
  • bug infects rats, but can only breed inside the intestines of a cat.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • the parasite takes over the rat's freaking brain, and intentionally makes it scurry toward where the cats hang out.
  • that half the human population on Earth is infected with toxoplasmosa
sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | UK | Organic food rule change warning - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7061004.stm

shared by sirgabrial on 31 Oct 07 - Cached
  • Organic food rule change warning
  • Food flown into the UK will be stripped of its organic status unless it meets new stricter ethical standards, the Soil Association has warned.
  • he association, which certifies 70% of the UK's £1.9bn organic food sector, says firms must show trade brings real benefit to developing world farmers.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • It wants all air-freighted food to meet tough "ethical trade" standards.
  • could harm African farmers.
  • The rules will affect the 1% of the organic food market in the UK which is flown in from abroad, about 80% of which comes from low to lower-middle income countries.
  • overseas producers would find it impossible to meet the standards.
  • eliminate the casual use of air freight,"
  • It says it aims to balance the importance of the organic market for developing countries with rises in CO2 emissions.
  • "African companies and cooperatives want to trade internationally. To get value-added organic foods on to retail shelves, they have an overwhelming amount of standards to meet.
  • Meeting these standards costs money - laboratories, audits and more. Too many standards will hurt African farmers, which is just the opposite of what British consumers want.
  • "Unless teleportation becomes viable in the next few years there is no other alternative for them to get their fresh produce to market in good time."
sirgabrial

The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World | Cracked.com - 0 views

www.cracked.com/terrifying-foods-in-world.html

shared by sirgabrial on 31 Oct 07 - Cached
  • The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World
  • Mexico.
  • Escamoles are the eggs of the giant black Liometopum ant, which makes its home in the root systems of maguey and agave plants.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • taste: buttery and slightly nutty
  • The eggs have the consistency of cottage cheese.
  • eat them is in a taco with guacamole,
  • Sardinia, Italy.
  • Casu Marzu is a sheep' milk cheese that has been deliberately infested by a Piophila casei, the "cheese fly." The result is a maggot-ridden, weeping stink bomb in an advanced state of decomposition.
  • requires eye protection while eating.
  • pass through the stomach undigested, sometimes surviving long enough to breed in the intestine, where they attempt to bore through the walls, causing vomiting and bloody diarrhea.
  • This cheese is a delicacy in Sardinia, where it is illegal.
  • Norway.
  • Lutefisk is a traditional Norwegian dish featuring cod that has been steeped for many days in a solution of lye, until its flesh is caustic enough to dissolve silver cutlery.
  • lye (potassium hydroxide/sodium hydroxide) is a powerful industrial chemical used for cleaning drains, killing plants, de-budding cow horns, powering batteries and manufacturing biodiesel.
  • Korea.
  • Baby mice wine is a traditional Chinese and Korean "health tonic," which apparently tastes like raw gasoline.
  • Little mice, eyes still closed, are plucked from the embrace of their loving mothers and stuffed (while still alive) into a bottle of rice wine.
  • Iraq.
  • It' a sheep' head. Boiled.
  • The Philippines
  • Balut are duck eggs that have been incubated until the fetus is all feathery and beaky, and then boiled alive. The bones give the eggs a uniquely crunchy texture.
  • sold by street vendors at night, out of buckets of warm sand.
  • When you've looked death in the face at breakfast time, what the hell else can the day throw at you?
sirgabrial

Cancer-Killing Virus Modified to Deliver a One-Two Punch - 0 views

www.wired.com/...cancer_virus

shared by sirgabrial on 31 Oct 07 - Cached
  • Cancer-Killing Virus Modified to Deliver a One-Two Punch
  • Scientists hacking a smallpox-like virus into doing battle with cancer have given a new weapon to their microscopic warrior.
  • "This is a very powerful and potent approach," said Dr. Antonio Chiocca, a professor at Ohio State University and a specialist in oncological neurosurgery, who was not involved in the study. "You can think of each of these viruses as a new drug."
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Gene therapy has generated much hype but little clinical success.
  • Modified viruses have been used in experimental gene therapies to "fix" faulty inherited genetic code.
  • Researchers at Stanford University and Jennerex Biotherapeutics have tweaked the cancer-killing vaccinia virus JX-963 so that it also stimulates the body to generate cancer-fighting white blood cells.
  • cold, herpes and smallpox viruses.
  • These viruses infect and kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
  • Until now, virus therapies have had limited success targeting and killing all the cancer cells in the body, and not just some. With the new JX-963 therapy, the virus doesn't have to do the work alone -- it elicits the body's own defenses to mop up cancer cells.
  • The chemical that the virus secretes, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, or GM-CSF, is a protein that stimulates the production of white blood cells.
  • not to overstimulate the immune system
  • virus might mutate into a deadly form
sirgabrial

NPR : Maine Middle School to Issue Birth Control Pills - 0 views

www.npr.org/...story.php

show

shared by sirgabrial on 23 Oct 07 - Cached
  • Maine Middle School to Issue Birth Control Pills
  • School officials in Portland, Maine, voted to make birth control pills available to students at one of the city's middle schools.
  • The contraceptives would be available to girls in the seventh and eighth grades, with their parents' permission.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The move, sanctioned late Wednesday in a 7-2 vote by the Portland School Committee, follows a spate of pregnancies among middle school girls.
  • King Middle School will be Maine's first school to have a full range of contraception available, including birth control pills and patches. Condoms have been available at King's health center since 2000.
  • Parents must consent to their children using the school's health center
  • student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner
  • as young as 11.
  • reatment is confidential under state law
  • students can decide whether to inform their parents about the services they receive.
  • 17 pregnancies at its three middle schools in the last four years
  • not all these kids have a strong parental advocate at home."
  • does not clearly define the services being offered.
  • kids already having sex need better access to birth control.
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