Yesterday I was in the Golden lapidary and picked up something that was labeled "Iceland Spar Calcite," from Brazil. The oddness of the origin vs. the name aside, it was fascinating to play with due to its double refraction (basically it creates a double image of things viewed through it). After a bit of research, I found out that it has been hypothesized that the Vikings used this stone (called, to them, a "sun stone") to navigate on cloudy or foggy days due to its polarization properties.

There was this fascinating bit of research that indicated that it was at least plausible mechanism on cloudy and some foggy days. So while it is uncertain whether they did use the stone in such a way, it is at least possible to facilitate navigation using something that the stone provides.

The Llama has been rescued and the owner has been found.

Mate debate: Is monogamy realistic o_O

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is trying to get Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed and has launched an online petition to try and help influence congress.

Sen. Gillibrand is the junior senator from New York.

An excellent essay On Starting Big Projects.

1. Open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. New question– press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool


( Because it has been a while since I've done this... )

Moonvoice has just updated her artwork availability and price list. There's some truly amazing stuff in there, so go check it out if you get a chance!

Do You Want to Date my Avatar?

Brought to you by:
- Felicia Day (Guild creator and lyric writer)
- Jed Whedon (who created the video and music)
- Maurissa Tancharoen (dancer/singer, writing for Dollhouse, groupie of Dr. Horrible)

Ignoring for a moment Palin's ranting about "Death Panels," the mistaken "limiting value of human life" claims, and standard erroneous claims of abortions being covered, two statements about health care recently have just made me boggle. They reach a level of denial of reality that almost seems pathological.

First there is Arthur Laffer, the Economist behind the Laffer Curve saying:

I mean, if you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait until you see Medicare, Medicaid, and health care done by the government.

For those playing at home: Medicare and Medicaid are already "done by the government." We'll ignore that most Americans like the US Postal Service, and that most people on Medicare are satisfied with it.

Then we have this gem courtesy of an editorial in Investor's Business Daily, where it is claimed that:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Hawking was born in Oxford, is a resident of England, and is a professor at the University of Cambridge. He even recently has suffered an illness and they have yet to say that "because of his physical handicaps [he] is essentially worthless."

There's making stuff up, and there's making stuff up.

We, as a country, are faced with extremely serious issues. Just on this issue alone: We have a health care industry in bad need of reform, with a ton of misinformation being propagated by both sides. We have a huge public debate over whether to include a "public option," but with seemingly no one able to provide details about what that public option would look like (details matter here, folks). We have astroturfing in an extreme going on, and people outright lying about the content of the discussion. We have people continually conflating "health insurance" with "health care" to the point where it is difficult to even have a technical discussion about it.

...and that's just health care.

We simply do not have time for shenanigans where it is clear the individual in question has a pathological need to deny reality.

Arizona v. Gant was decided earlier this year. It basically says that you cannot simply arrest someone, search their vehicle, and then use whatever evidence found for unrelated charges against them.

This is a Good Thing™, especially since it will cut down on the phenomena of arresting someone so you can search their car.

Somewhat interesting to me is the breakdown in the court:

Stevens, Scalia, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg were for it; Breyer, Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy were against it. Scalia made the indication that he believed the ruling did not go far enough, and that it should throw out a previous precedent on the matter that was "badly reasoned" but that he joined with the court to avoid a 4-1-4 decision, considering leaving the door open at all to this sort of thing to be the "greater evil."

The statements wrung from Mr. Jawad in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo during
more than fifty interrogations—even if accurately reported in the Government’s unsworn hearsay
summaries and interrogation reports—do not remotely meet the standard for admissibility in a
federal habeas proceeding.

Al-Halandy et al v. Obama et al. with some further analysis around the Administration's handling of the case at SCOTUSblog that is worth reading. Basically, the Obama administration said it wouldn't try to block the attempt by the lawyers for suppression in this case.

Would it be too much trouble for writers of news articles, be they Huffington Post or NYT, to INCLUDE THE FRACKING NUMBER OF THE BILL?

I am tired of seeing a piece of legislation that I'm interested in the results of, only to find that they didn't include the < 10 letters and numbers it would take to communicate a wealth of information on the actual content of the bill, what its status is, who voted for it, etc.

I never thought I would be one to eat salads for lunch on a regular basis o_O However, I am trying to change my diet around a bit and there is a great place down the street from where I work.

Today: Spinach, mozzarella, tomatoes, grilled sweet onions, green onions, and a little olive oil.

I gotta say, Palin has found the most unusual definition of "not quitting" I've ever seen....

Today we just saw a ruling in Safford Unified School District v. Redding. In short, on suspicion that she was hiding headache medication, the assistant principle conducted a strip search of a 13 year old girl. Not that anyone cares what my view is on this, but at least I might raise some interest in the case ^^;;

The court ruled that the search of her outer belongings (turning out her pockets, outer garments, backpack, etc) was reasonable but that the strip search was in violation of the 4th amendment (Thomas dissenting). The court also reversed the lower courts ruling that the administrators did not have qualified immunity (a concept whereby those who violate the constitution in ways that have not been previously ruled on are immune from civil action), and thus her family could not sue the administrators for their conduct (Ginsberg and Stevens dissenting).

After having read through the decision, I agree that this constitutes an unreasonable search and I can't figure out what Thomas is smoking. He stated that the Courts should return to the doctrine of [i]in loco parentis[/i] and didn't interfere with the way schools run their business and appears--at least on a superficial inspection--to want to throw out existent jurisprudence on the matter.

Qualified immunity is there to shield officials for when the law is vague or ambiguous. As is the way of it, I can see both arguments on this one. Though I find some resonance with the 7th circuit statement--quoted by both the 9th circuit and Stevens--that:

It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a thirteen year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude. More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity.

Ginsberg's dissent on this topic is excellent, short, and worth reading.

Just flipped through "The Essential Family Guide to BPD" by Kreger (author of walking on eggshells). It looks like a fantastic book, with more up to date information than Walking on Eggshells had, and discusses a variety of different therapy options along with their plusses, minuses, and effectiveness rates (including dialectic and schema therapy). Very good stuff.