marshac

Cruise- especially in Hawaii. Each day you wake up on a new island ripe for exploration!

Especially true considering affirmative action policies which exist at nearly every higher-ed institution. A classmate of mine was applying for medical school- she was rejected post-interview, but a week later got a phone call from the center for academic diversity... a quick phone interview and she was in. Guess what it was about her application that got her in after the screening process that's applied to every other applicant weeded her out... My point is- higher ed bends over backwards to get minorities into school- my wife is a native american and her education was 100% free due to grants/scholarships given to her from her school.

Tetracyclines- the fear is of developing fanconi syndrome edit: to fix the typos my phone's autocorrect made.

why???

It wasn't Pam was it? I've heard she lives in UT and drives a car.

We take that same route to get to UT from Washington- I think it's a very pretty drive. Glad you enjoyed it!

There's also the argument that civilizations progress past 'radio' communications fairly quickly (on a cosmological time span), so the window of time that they're actually emitting signals is brief. Before folks are like "what? nothing beats radio!" consider that neutrinos were recently utilized to transmit a message- considering that they could travel through the entire planet without much attenuation, such communication systems would offer many advantages over RF. There's also the possibility of using entangled particles ('spooky').... and possibly other ways we haven't even thought of yet. Hopefully someday we figure out some method to send messages FTL- otherwise colonization of planets (let alone nearby star systems) would have really really horrible internet latency.... no sense even attempting to play Team Fortress2....

Since nobody has done it yet... The website grabs a photo of you via your webcam, and compares you to different types of dogs- it's made by NEC and put on by the Pedigree adoption drive- so what are you ? I'm apparently a Mastiff mix.

Doggelganger Hilarious!

BBC employee criticised after PRs hand deliver Mormon documentary complaint | Media | guardian.co.uk So two people show up to delivery a complaint letter... which is then described thusly A journalist should know better than to describe what happened as an invasion- Yeah... sensationalism at its best. Clearly this guy has an ax to grind against the church- especially with his comparison to scientology. It's possible i'm missing something here (more facts perhaps?), but I just don't get it...

Hala- don't stay in UT for too long... although it sounds as though it may be too late for you too! My wife and I have visited UT several times now and have fallen in love... UofU is my #1 residency choice for Internal Med. We're determined to live there someday... so much to do, and (unsurprisingly) so many family-centric activities.... the icing on the cake is the fact that you can set off fireworks TWICE in the month of July....

So my pregnant wife just had a doppler ultrasound, and the pain that she has been having is due to varicose veins of the round ligament... treatment is pain killers, but she hates the pregger-safe narcotic drugs, so i'm wondering if anyone has any home remedies for this condition?

I personally don't think so- considering how old Genesis is and how scientifically advanced we were at the time, it seems as though it's a story told to children incapable of actually understanding (or believing) the truth. From the perspective of someone that long ago, simply saying "God did it, and this is the crude progression" is much more digestible (and believable) than going into the details of how creation was actually performed. Take Genesis 1:1 for example- God creates the heavens and the earth.... with light appearing in Genesis 1:2. So what's going on here? I view this as- Genesis 1:1-2- stellar gasses are condensing, aggregates of mass are forming, and our primordial solar system is taking shape. The earth in a crude sense is born. Genesis 1:3- Nuclear fusion begins and the sun is born. I also find it interesting that the "Heavens" in their completed form don't officially arrive on the scene until Genesis 1:8... considering the vast distances of space, it quite literally take some time for the first photons of light from adjacent systems to arrive- the heavens (stars?) would not instantaneously twinkle into existence at the moment of their creation as viewed from earth. So again- telling this to someone thousands of years ago... it would have been a lot easier to simply say "God created the earth, then he made day/night" and omit the details. A few other things- the Hebrew "Bereshith bara elohim" found in 1:1 talks about God 'creating' as in an act-in-progress rather than 'created' which carries with it the idea that the task has been completed. Using Young's Literal Translation of the Bible makes this a bit more clear as it reads "In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth" Personally I wouldn't want to use YLT as a daily reader, but it is nice to reference sometimes in order to get some idea of potential alternate translations of the underlying scripture.

I fear you're right of course. My wife would disagree, especially if you're talking about shoes.

I seriously hope that this is hyperbole on their part in order to illustrate how abortions are sick. I only say this because they use terms such as "acceptable life" which then demands a discussion on how that term is defined, or who is even qualified to determine what that is. In any extent, if they are legitimately arguing this, then they are essentially arguing to redefine what a person is to a fairly narrow definition- someone who is cognizant and capable of leading an 'acceptable' life. So obviously the very old, very young, schizophrenics, drug users (to name a few) are potentially at risk of being denied personhood or the 'right' to live... I was really hoping they weren't saying these things, especially using Down's syndrome as an example- I know several Down's kids and they are the sweetest kids ever... I still cling to hope that it's all hyperbole since they raise the point- if it's OK to abort these kids minutes before birth, why not minutes after birth? It all revolves around the argument of "it's OK..." so logically if it's no longer "OK" minutes before birth, then their whole argument falls apart. Hoping...

+1 on leaving out football =P

The problem when you simplify terms as I did, is that much meaning and nuance is lost. In frustration I was attempting to simply the meaning of "palliative" and strip it down to the cold action while jettisoning the compassionate qualities that the term generally cares with it- it's not representative of my views on it, and i'm sorry you now view me in such a cold light- I actually cry with people fairly regularly.... which is odd since I never really cried growing up or even as a young adult. Again- I wish I could read the actual article before rendering judgement on the authors or what their proposed ethical framework is. Until I can do so, I will still provide them the benefit of the doubt and believe that they weren't advocating the killing of unwanted kiddos.

Black and white is deceptively easy until you find out that the world is full of gray. It's like when President G.W. Bush said "If you aren't for us, you're against us"... it really is a false dichotomy that's so characteristic of binary black and white thinking. Also, no I don't know what the authors were trying to put forth at all- as I said- it wasn't available to read. All that was linked to was a piece with an obvious slant on the issue- I want to see what the authors themselves were advocating, not what someone else says they were... it would be like convicting someone based on the accusation alone, and never allowing for a defense.

Of course not, just as I wouldn't perform an elective abortion either- killing is indeed killing, and it's wrong. My point with my original post was that there isn't necessarily a black and white on what is killing is. Yes, pushing a drug in order to end a life clearly is, but then again withholding nourishment that you could otherwise provide results in the same end with effectively the same goal in mind. Even with palliative care, the end goal is STILL death, just with minimal suffering. So where does one draw the line on what is right and what is wrong in cases like this? I did try and read the original article, but it has actually been taken down... the link in the OP is unfortunately to a sensationalist piece with a photo of a perfectly normal healthy baby- until I can read the actual underlying journal article myself, i'm not going to believe that they were indeed advocating killing kidos such as those depicted in the photo.

100% behind the firecrackers for July... you guys get them TWICE that month! So jealous... I like beefche's idea for Aug- that's still a pretty hot month. Maybe a grill? BBQ tongs? Steak? I'm hungry...

I fail to see the distinction- what's the difference between administering a drug to kill, or using a pair of scissors? The outcome is the same and in nearly the same timespan.

On the bright side, it's forcing more discussion on the topic of abortion, and if/when it's ever moral to do it. Fortunately the horrific procedure of elective "late term" abortion is now illegal. Sickening. We just got some new ultrasounds of our n00b today, and even at 25 weeks... yeah, there's a whole kiddo in there sucking on his hand and yawning (it MUST be boring in there). Some recent news came out that a lot of elective abortions are done strictly for the purposes of gender selection... and it's usually in preference of male fetuses. You can imagine the women's groups saying "that's wrong!" while at the same time rallying behind "it's a woman's right to choose!"..... oh really? It's her "right to choose" so long as she doesn't "choose" to have a male kid? The smell of hypocrisy...

in·fant/ˈinfənt/ Noun: A very young child or baby. Denoting something in an early stage of its development: "an infant science". Nope, I too was describing an infant. Not all infants are pink lovable adorable looking little kiddos. By sticking to the later and ignoring the former, you're prejudicing the argument. edit to add: Since you couldn't decode what I was writing, i'll write the options again more planely- Do you use lots of other people's money to keep the kid alive for an extra month or two? Drug the kid until it dies on its own? Starve/Dehydrate the kid until it dies? Kill it now with drugs? Seems to me that these options very much cross over into the article.

How do you feel about organ donors then in states that are "out-out" rather than "opt-in"? The criteria of "brain death" is what's used to trigger donation, and having failed to develop a brain is much more certain than an EEG, reflex testing, etc.... and not to put too fine of a point on it, but the organs are ideally harvested while the patient still has a pulse, is breathing, etc... so if that's your definition of being alive, then they are quite literally harvested while alive. This isn't to say I disagree with your position- actually, I agree- in med school we had to write our own oath, and mine included language against taking a life, and although i'm positive I was talking about abortions, I'm less certain if I was considering physician assisted suicide... this isn't relevant to this discussion, but since I can hear some of you saying "why?" here's a quick answer... If someone is dying and they want to "end it" simply because they are in too much pain, etc, they will do it. If they don't "do it" "correctly" they might actually live through it and end up in a much worse position... overdosing on Tylenol comes to mind- it's actually a pretty horrific way to die*. So is immoral to provide them with a bottle of medicine that they still choose to take at some later date that will assure death and in a non-unpleasant way? I'm undecided.

Sounds like I should put it on some toast instead!