Bosco-d-gama

Evidently the effects of global warming is of no consideration in this environmental quarrel? If the science is correct our weather will continue to greater extremes in a very short time frame. Perhaps some enterprising company will field the technology to help manage greenhouse gasses and mitigate these dire predictions. But as it stands the planet is experiencing record heat and cold and more frequent and aggressive storms. Again the wealthy stand to survive.......... the near term. But with no change in the course of pollution the long term could get ugly. We need a pandemic or a meteor/comet to cull the populace ASAP.

Considering that earth now houses ‘billions’ the human toll of a modern dark age would necessarily be ginormous, quite unthinkable in fact. The victor and arbiter must invoke some harsh and draconian rules........ a ‘tone’ honestly better suited to the historically demonstrated Chinese intellect.

Regardless of politic and above any particular leadership styles reality seems to be vectored towards environmental collapse and sooner than most expected. The primary planetary pollutant is humanity. There are just too many of ‘us’ to sustain at any acceptable level w/o continuing to swirl down the drain at an ever faster pace. Debating any regional power struggle is moot looking at the bigger picture. Prevention is quite likely already in the rear view mirror. No single country could effectively alter the course. If there is any cure it will require deep sacrifices and real commitment, a level of universal cooperation atypical for our species. The common cause of planetary survival may unite us all in the next few decades............ or not?

Have a close friend who just retired from d.o.d. work. He relates that China is less of an immediate military threat because their culture is ancient and patient. They are willing to wait for long term goals unless imminently under direct threat. China sees more peril from Russia as it is less predictable and more proximal and shares similar tactical geographies. Per my friend Iran stands to be a greater destabilizing entity due to its intransigent religious zealotry and because historically its leadership is more ephemeral. Iran has relatively recently demonstrated its willingness for warfare and acceptance of massive losses. China aims to be around forever and knows any serious conflict with the west would be catastrophic to all of their goals. What we see with China is saber rattling.

Interesting. I felt as though my last name was fairly unique until one day back in the ‘80’s’ when an inpatient had the same name, spelling, etc. We found some common lineage 2 generations in our past. Then some enterprising relation I’d never met did the whole family tree and published the data. Turns out that we came to colonial America in 1680 and we can be found all over the country. Have yet to do the DNA testing. One of my adopted sons did his and found his birth parents and a small horde of new relatives. Small world if we choose to look - methinx.

Guessing this has been discussed before but would like to know more if anyone knows more. Watched a ‘Time Team’ (Britain) episode that excavated a ww2 era spitfire crash site in France. The plane was shot down on May 23rd, 1940 and was piloted by a Sgt Paul Henry Klipsch who did not survive. He lost his life on his 1st combat mission. Apparently he was dead before his plane hit the earth at a full throttle 400 mph. So he can be counted among the ‘few’ to whom ‘so many’ owed ‘so much’. He’d have been contemporary to PWK. Cousin? Any ideas?

I own a Frigidaire induction cooktop/range. It has 4 elements offering different sizes. The problem is that there are only 2 induction coils that serve 4 sites, one pair left, the other right. So if you use both elements on one side (using 1 coil) they do not work as efficiently as when used singularly. If you use all 4 then your cook timing must adjust accordingly. It maybe that my unit is older and they make them differently now. If it’s not too late make the inquiry. As for induction heating it takes some getting used to. I doubt if I'd go back to any direct thermal mode. They heat evenly and never burn spillovers. They leave no burn residue on the cabinets above or adjacent to the stove. They can bring a huge pot of water to a roiling boil very quickly and can keep a very nice low simmer for hours w/o burning the food. Once you get acquainted with cooking on them you will be pleased. Also, they do not heat up a kitchen. Recently we started using those copper colored enameled pans you see on QVC and elsewhere. The pans are inexpensive and work perfectly on my rig. Clean up is idiotically simple even for large meals. Good luck with the new house.

I would take issue with the notion of a 2 channel being set - up for just 1 person. Live music is not for just a single person audience. Some systems work exclusively to a singular best sweet spot. They are ‘beamy’ and when you leave the sweet spot the quality of sound drops. This is not so with corner horns. You can have a sound stage with definition and it remains immersive and from another room sounds as though there’s a live performance in close proximity. Yes, I do run separate systems for AV and stereo mostly because of where I choose to deploy television versus music. I would think the 2 could be commingled if I chose to to so.

Up @ 0430 as usual. Gonna be a nice day in Idaho.

Guess it is inevitable - but - why steer these ‘over’ digitalized youngsters into even more computer exposure? Isn’t English and language arts at this grade level more foundational about grammar and perhaps the lexicon that any particular application let alone one that often promotes further truncation of these very skills? In jr high I also recall becoming exposed to group speaking instead of hiding behind a screen. It just seems like the true ability to make brief commentary that is as impactful as it is informative requires more command of English than most 8th graders typically demonstrate. Teach a person how to swim before teaching them how to water ski.

If alcohol usage, past or present, was not evaluated then their conclusions can be considered suspect. Given the character of the ‘bleeds’ ignoring alcohol consumption is akin to ignoring the elephant in the room. Another interesting point is that they allowed the participants to use other types of NSAIDs during the study period. Some of those products also cause gi distress. I can use ibuprofen and aspirin w/o and troubles but gimme 1 naproxen tablet and my gut immediately sours. Given the efforts involved in this work the ‘take aways’ need to be applicable. I think I could accept the notion that - if you are, or were an alcoholic - that such a daily anticoagulant therapy could cause more problems than benefits. On the other hand another recent study implied that the same regimen helped prevent some cancers, so who knows.

Examining the papers showed that the study demonstrated that daily aspirin did result in lower cardiovascular dz but that the incidence of ‘major hemorrhage’s’ was greater for the group on the daily baby aspirin regimen. Thus their conclusions that the risks outweighed the benefits. Upper gi bleeds and strokes constituted most of these ‘major hemmorages’. The study did attempt to consider some lifestyle risk factors including smoking, obesity, and others. I did not see where alcohol consumption was weighed as a confounding variable. The study population was gleaned from Australia and America neither of which are famous for ‘not’ drinking. Drinking and gi bleeds is very prevalent and the risks for strokes with excess drinking is also increased. For such a thorough study it seems odd that I was unable to see where alcohol consumption was addressed one way or another. Did I miss something? BTW Bayer did somewhat sponsor this work so we can expect some additional interpretations of the data.

I too live in the Pacific Northwest. You need to find a reliable handyman and stick with that person for all your projects and still plan on them taking a long time. My personal experince has been that ‘mediocre’ is normal so finding a ‘good’ resource is paramount. That said you too need to be willing to get into each project. If you’re waiting for carpet why not lay wires? If there’s old carpet - remove it yourself (assuming you’re healthy enough to wield a knife). If you choose to rely upon tradesmen where they are few and far between you’ll be begging for frustration in this neck of the woods (pun intended).

2 hunters shoot a deer. As they are celebrating the kill clouds gather, then part and and angel comes down from heaven and scolds the 2 men for needlessly killing one of God’s innocent creatures. The 2 men heave their guns as far as they could, drop to their knees and beg for mercy, the angel assents and vanishes. Amazed and awestruck the 2 head back to camp. Along the way they see a bear and the bear gives chase. It wasn’t long before they knew the bear was winning so they stopped dropped to their knees once again and prayed, “Lord make this bear a Christian”. At that moment the bear stopped and stood erect, it’s paws reverently reaching for heaven and the bear said, “Lord thank you for this meal I am about to eat”.

Research in cellular regeneration is an ongoing endeavor and more of our brains do regenerate than was previously understood. Insofar as an individualized ‘soul’ separate from a physical entity we see that animal clones do not retain character or personality traits. Your newly cloned pet will not be the same pet it was cloned from. I assume it would be the same for humans. People do not see themselves in how they interact with the environment. When we gain or lose weight much of the variance comes from gaseous co2. We pull co2 from the environment when we gain mass and add co2 to the environment when we lose mass. Gaseous carbon dioxide is actually quite heavy and humans exhale tons of the stuff. Homochirality is another scientific enigma. Amino acids are the building blocks of all life. Amino acids come in 2 physical states, one spirals leftward the other is a mirror image that spirals to the right. When we make amino acids in the lab we always get an even mix of both types but everywhere we find them in nature the ‘left’ spiral dominates. They have looked at amino acids found in comet samples and found the same disparity. When it comes to organisms practically all living things on earth are made from only left handed amino acids. Right handed amino acids exist but are rarely found in living organisms (this includes all plant life too). Science wants to know where the right handed amino acids went to and why they are incompatible with life. Theories exist but none are proven. There are lots of mysteries to be solved and many new ones yet to be defined. So far we cannot examine what occurs after death. We only know what can be witnessed in life. We do place humans in short term suspended animation for certain types of surgery. No beating heart and no circulation for quite sometime, and then we reanimate the patient. Some frogs and fish freeze solid for winter and return to life in the spring thaw. We fear death because it is an unknown and perhaps because for sometime we’ve been inculcated with the notion of a judgemental consequence for our living earthly actions. If there’s any fun to the conundrum it is in the human conscious ability to ponder it deeply.

Very interesting thread. It is worth noting that as humans age they replace their cells. Literally we are entirely ‘new’ every 7 years, meaning that all of our cells at the start of that period have died and have been replaced. Of course the ‘replacement’ cells are inexact replicas as we grow so we grey and wrinkle as we age. Even though we replace all of our physical selves every 7 years our psyche somehow remains. We do not normally lose our sense of self, or identity, or our memories as we age. Then at some point we do expire. Our physical body ceases. This vessel we call a human is done. The mental ‘self’ who knows if that transcends to anywhere. This mental ‘self’ survived intact the many physical iterations we have during life - so is this premise enough to presume it has some future beyond the bounds given to it by a body? By this same set of facts what were we before we were alive? Does having a life inaugurate a soul from nothing to an eternity of purposes? Remove the empty spaces in a human body and there’s roughly a teaspoonful of atomic matter. All emotions, pains and so forth are whimsically ephemeral. Do we truly exist at all?