I thought I’d do the reader blogs early today, before anyone dips into their Four Loko stockpile.
- Dolphin Kazoo wonders if the Greeks will become Godless communists like the Cubans.
- Emily Hauser reports back from the Holy Lands.
- Cheryl Rofer says meet the arsenic boss, same as the phosphorous boss.
- Libby Spencer is angry that OFA wants people to write letters in support of the federal worker wage freeze.
- WeSeeYou unearths a motherlode of live YouTube of the Reverend. If you don’t enjoy this, you hate America.
- Raked recommends a Daphne Zuniga Lifetime Christmas movie to enjoy over a cup of General Foods International Coffee.
Martin
You can’t make me!
freelancer (itouch)
@Martin:
And here I thought she was a Druish Princess.
williamc
Long time no comment, but I talked to the OFA organizer that runs my little neighborhood block of OFA here in Atlanta last night, and apparently a lot of my neighbors agree with Libby Spencer. She said that she could only recruit three people to canvas for the midterms, and that since the midterms were over, she has heard from almost all of the people that she was calling constantly in the fall that the Federal Pay Freeze was the final straw and is a symptom of why they wouldn’t volunteer to campaign: the WH seems to be validating all of the Republican complaints about Federal workers over the years, and why would they ask Democrats to campaign for Republican policies, blah blah blah, etc.
I can’t say I disagreed with that assessment.
S. cerevisiae
@freelancer (itouch): Funny, she doesn’t look Druish.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It’s Daphne Zuniga of Spaceballs Fame, not One Tree Hill.
Southern Beale
Jesus christ on a saltine I’ve tried to post something 4 times and get “awaiting moderation” every damn time.
Fuck it. It wasn’t that important.
dollared
I love the good Reverend. But I actually belong to the religion of this good reverend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz1rUZcBMEY&feature=related
And not only are you unAmerican if you don’t like it, if you can’t dance to it, you’re dead.
JC
What’s funny about the Wikileaks thing – which is not accessible, the .org, by the way – is that wikileaks IS accessible via Finland (wikileaks.fi), Germany (wikileads.de), and netherlands (wikileaks.nl).
But here in the states?
Nope.
You remember all that stuff about how China controls their internet, doesn’t allow people to see stuff?
Hmmm.
beltane
It would be wonderful if a mini-wave of godless communism spread across Europe. The first leader who makes the bankers sh*t their pants will have my undying admiration. Will any of us ever live to see such a thing? I doubt it.
beltane
@JC: The winter Olympics were like that too. In order to see most of the live events I had to go on to some sketchy site out of Russia as all the coverage from legit overseas outlets was blocked to protect NBC. Why do they hate our freedoms?
Rosalita
@JC:
and I was waiting anxiously for the document dump they said they had on one major American bank
Catsy
OT: Hillary Clinton rules out another run for president or further elected office.
That sound you just heard? It’s the sound of a PUMA’s heart breaking as a single emo tear slides down their cheek.
Won’t somebody please think of the firebaggers?
Martin
@Catsy:
You can’t make me!
Mike E
LMN gets my vote for best cable provider of awful movies. “Locked In A Box” and “His Looks Could Kill” seem to me as recent titles on there, but I could be totally making that up. At least SyFy has “Mansquito!” Now, that’s Yule Tide entertainment! Also.
Zuniga was in The Sure Thing, too, dammit!
Southern Beale
@Catsy:
That’s Okay, they’ll go running into the welcoming bosom of Our Lady of The Twitter, Sarah Palin. I’m sure they’ll feel quite at home there, since the genitalia is the same and that is all the PUMAs cared about.
ellaesther
DougJ, thank you so much – technically, of course, it’s Shabbat where I am now, and I shouldn’t be here, but the fire is still burning in the mountains of northern Jerusalem, and the television is on, and as I stare in horror, I just had to check my little virtual world, to touch base, and I found the pingback from your mention.
Thank you, thank you. You’re the best.
I won’t stay now (Shabbat, etc), but if anyone wants to ask any questions or respond or whatever, I’ll come back to this post when Shabbat is over in Jerusalem, about 11 am EST/10 CST on Saturday, and check in.
Thanks.
ee
fisher cat
Don’t hurt ’em DougJ.
They’s still in the game.
JC
Rosalita,
You still will be able to. just add the http://www, to the addresses above. Example: http://wikileaks.de/
should get you there fine. At least for now.
Ailuridae
If you keep refusing to link my blog I will be forced to be meaner to ED Kain. You are leaving me no options.
Crashman
We thank you for the shout-out, DougJ! May the Schwartz be with you!
Maude
@Ailuridae:
Are you going to hold ED hostage?
Ailuridae
Also, hot stove league is in session. White Sox add Adam Dunn and lose two of my least favorite Sox ever (Jenks and Linebrink). They got Kyle Cofield back in the Linebrink deal and he has Don Cooper reclamation project written all over him.
Good work from Chicago’s professional baseball team!
Fuck! A Duck
Maude: Why would anyone pay to get him back? Glibs are a dime a dozen . . .
. . . and you have to bow to the dictates of the free market.
MarkJ
@Mike E:
The Sure Thing was a fantastic Rom-Com. I love the bar scene.
Cowboy Guy: I went to Paris once with my wife. Boy am I glad she’s dead.
Admiral_Komack
@Maude:
One can only hope.
Cheryl Rofer
Thanks for the link, DougJ. Not quite the same, but maybe not as different as some of the news might lead one to expect.
hypusine
@Cheryl Rofer
Glad to see you here! I was just about to comment on your post*.
Actually the experimental outcomes you compare are conceptually very different. The reason isn’t that, as you point out, the mass ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (which is 2) approximates that of arsenic to phosphorus (2.2). The reason is that chemistry changes (or can change) dramatically when moving along or down the periodic table. In contrast, the chemistry of isotopes is in many ways indistinguishable. That’s not universally true of course, or else isotopes wouldn’t be particularly informative or useful.
The reason is pretty straightforward: valence electrons – those that participate in chemical bonding and therefore largely determine an element’s chemistry – experience a very different electronic environment as one moves down a periodic table column. The outer (valence) electrons are “shielded” from the nucleus to a greater degree as one moves down a column because the atom increases in size, with more electrons residing between those available to react and the nucleus.
This is not true for isotopes, which do not vary in proton content (and therefore maintain the same nuclear charge that helps determine chemistry of the valence electrons.
Bottom line: different elements in the same family = large differences in chemistry. Different isotopes of the same element = virtually no differences in chemistry.
*or, rather, DougJ’s link to your post I guess
Cheryl Rofer
Well, yes and no, hypusine.
The reason that elements fall in the same columns in the periodic chart is that they have similar electronic configurations, which give similar chemistry. Those configurations are in different electronic shells, which give differences in chemistry.
I’ll agree that those differences are more than one expects for isotopic differences, although the mass difference between H and D is significant and leads to different kinetics. Oxygen isotopes have also shown some surprising effects that may have something to do with “magic numbers” of particles in their nuclei. (I am absolutely not going any further into those obscure observations.)
Conceptually, the experiments seem to be quite similar to the earlier experiments with deuterium that I described: provide the abnormal nutrient to the exclusion of the normal one. (I’m just going by reading the press accounts, which could well be flawed.)
Getting those bugs to live on arsenic in place of phosphorus was an interesting feat. I tend to react badly to press overhype, and there certainly was some of that with this story. What I really want to see is some fully arsenic-substituted DNA.
Karen
At the risk of admitting my ignorance, what is OFA?
DougJ
@Karen:
Organizing For America, a group that helped Obama get elected in 2008.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
I’m back to check in and lo! I signed in yesterday as just plain old ellaesther! So it didn’t make any sense that I was saying thank you to DougJ. Oh well. I try my humble best…. Thanks again, DougJ!
Brighton
Thanks again for the shout out, DougJ.
Check out my holiday letter to the Tea Party, from a Liberal (humor)