Calling All The Balls And Strikes

As some of my 3.2 regular readers know, I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh.  A lot.  But my daily schedule changed.  And my tastes changed.

I moved on.

I recently happened across a Facebook page called "Rush Babes for America".  I thought "Che cosa è questo?"

What indeed.....

You might think that such a page might feature "babes" in some small way.  This is Facebook after all, so one shouldn't expect too much, assuming that this is an area where one might have "expectations".  Perhaps I should say no more.

After all, it was one Robert Stacy McCain, no relation to the more widely known Senator, that once observed in his glorious treatise regarding the accumulation of visits to one's site that periodic paeans in appreciation of the distaff tend to generate the requisite amount of web traffic.  Were I that sort of whore, then you might have been treated to far more bikini shots.

But I'm not.  Lucky you. 

They call it "Rule #5" in the industry.

So what did I find on this Facebook page that is theoretically devoted to "babes" that are fans of the self-proclaimed Doctor of Democracy?   Were there photos of these "babes"?  Links?  Allusions?  Illusions?

Nope.  It is nothing but a gutless attempt at self promotion with nary a woman in sight.

Obama In History/Obama Inhistory

It was noted a while back that someone on Mr. Obama's staff had apparently been mucking around in the official biographies of past Presidents as presented on the official White House website.  This unnamed person added little factoids to the biographies of past Presidents; Republican and Democrat alike.

While this episode was moderately interesting in the past, it really wasn't worthy of mention here until now.

When I found this website.  Enjoy!

Boys Vs. Girls

That is just about how it works.

In Which Offense Is Taken

The inter-tubes are all abuzz over the news that some leftish entertainment network had the audacity to include an image of former President George W. Bush's likeness poised atop a pike.  I am sure that Vlad the Impaler is having a modest chuckle over this episode.

I must admit to having twin responses to this story.  One response was "oh no" expressed with modest bit of appreciation for this mischievousness involved.  The other was "oh no" with a more serious and negative emotion attached.  Is it possible to have such divergent responses simultaneously?  I did.

Observations about the lack of outrage emanating from the media over this incident when compared to the (thus far theoretic) notion of an entertainment company doing the same thing to the likeness of Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton, or John Kennedy are accurate, cogent, and appropriate.  Our leftish dominated media reserves such moments of outrage solely for those occasions when their oxen are being gored.

The discovery of this singular act of poor taste and crass partisan ship was revealed on the audio commentary portion of the DVD.  A screen shot of the frame where Mr. Bush's likeness appears does not overtly suggest that his countenance, although the resemblance is obvious once it is pointed out.

Despite reports from some theoretically professional quarters, [coughCNNcough] this was not discovered by an astute viewer, but instead was more closely examined upon hearing the aforementioned comments.  A small lesson here...folks, sometimes it is better not to tell all you know!

From the audio commentary:

“The last head on the left is George Bush,” the producers say in the audio commentary. “George Bush’s head appears in a couple beheading scenes. It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. It’s just, we had to use what heads we had around.”

After a modest amount of complaining, the producers offered:

“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.”

And this is where I get offended.  Precisely how stupid do they think I am?

Given that their program has precisely nothing to do with U.S. national politics, how did they come to be in possession of Mr. Bush's likeness?  What other visages do they have in inventory?  Is their inventory of faux heads an assortment of known faces, or is it a collection of the nondescript with a Presidential profile added just to spice things up?

I'm willing to bet that the real story is that Mr. Bush's likeness was needed for some other production; for good or for ill.  When that show ended, someone saw the head and thought "I've got to save that for something special", and not in a good way.  When this program came along, they saw an opportunity to exercise a bit of codology and went for it.

Understanding that this is an entertainment oriented [and therefore more skewed politically to the left] environment, they saw no harm in letting others in on the gag.  One reasonably suspects that this modest bit of tomfoolery actually enhanced their reputation at the time.  Not so much now.

They were acting from within an environment that is known to accept that sort of behavior.  They were safe.

Was it a choice?  Hell yes.

Was it a political statement?  Hell yes.

The producers and anyone else responsible need to man-up and accept responsibility for their actions that further coarsen our political discourse.  Of course, making a couple of heads roll would probably help as well.

Kum Phuc

Do you know the story behind this photo?

Nick Ut / The Associated Press

If you think that this image has something to do with war-mongering Americans dropping napalm on innocent civilians, then perhaps it is time to reassess.

It Didn't Work Then

Periodically, I have moments where I enjoy my online reading preferences.  One of those was a couple of days ago when Mr. Obama's campaign began pushing the idea that Mr. Romney favored fewer firemen, teachers, etc.

The Blogfather had the perfect quick take on the subject.

As my father-in-law once said, when they talk about taxes it’s always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you never heard of.

As Reason noted, a lot of the stimulus money was advertised as going to help local government jobs like teachers, cops, and firemen, but on those few occasions when the money actually supported those jobs, those people got laid off anyway after the gravy train ran empty.  Not exactly the sort of jobs program that was advertised up front.

From Mr. Romney's campaign:

“President Obama fundamentally believes in raising taxes to grow government. He believes that we must hire more government workers to fix the economy. Every day, we learn why President Obama has not been the leader to take us out of this economic crisis. President Obama wants to stimulate government, Mitt Romney wants to stimulate the real world economy.” 

It's good to understand the talking points before they come out so I can just bypass the conversation altogether later on.

Go South Young Man

In the "news you can use" category comes an assessment of energy consumption based on various regions of the United States.  Do you love Mother Earth?  Then perhaps you ought to be moving south!

Perhaps the blue model politicians whose tax and spend policies are driving businesses and residents out of their states are smarter than they look. They could be green activists, steadily working to save the earth by driving people out of the northeast. We look forward to green activists introducing legislation in Congress to levy new taxes on those whose choice to live in cold states imposes costs on the more virtuous and eco-friendly inhabitants of Texas and South Carolina.

Here She Comes

Apparently, Michigan is in the prime viewing window for tonight's unique solar event; Venus transiting the sun.  I'm not sure how one goes about viewing such a thing without all sort so of high priced fanglery.  But it sure seems like something to watch if one safely can.

You Know The Prosecution Is In Trouble

When you find something like this on a website like TalkLeft.

Zimmerman should prevail on classic self-defense at trial regardless of stand your ground. Raising stand your ground before trial gives him the possibility of a quicker win, and the opportunity to preview the state's strategy before it gets to a jury.

Lots more at the link.  A whole lot more.  But the general take-away is that based on the available evidence, Mr. Zimmerman was acting reasonably and in self-defense.

As I've said before, there is a whole lot more that I need to know before drawing a conclusion.  And since I'm not in the jury pool, it isn't likely that I'll ever know enough to satisfy myself, much less others.

But the more I learn, the more the conclusion of justifiable self-defense (regardless of Stand Your Ground) seems reasonable.

A Little Foolish Consistency

Given the amount of flack that I toss towards the NY Times, WaPo, NPR, and others, I would be remiss in not also pointing out the recent incident of bias by Fox News (as opposed to one of their opinion shows).  So in case you were wondering, the Fox News staff does apparently lean to the right.  That sort of bias has no business being associated with the presentation of news/facts.

Also for the record, that makes the score:

News organizations that lean to the right - 2
News organizations that lean to the left - hundreds if not thousands

NEWSFLASH: Stopped Clock Accurate Twice Per Day

For all the ball-busting that I give the New York Times' Paul Krugman, I feel obligated to highlight those rare moments when he is right.  As the recent US$2,000,000,000 loss by the bankers of JPMorgan suggests, there really are good reasons for our nation to have banking regulations.

Mr. Krugman is correct; regulating banks is generally a good idea.

That should not be taken to mean that I think that all of his ideas on banking regulations are good.  Some are.  Some aren't.

Also, the article belies his real intent; to criticize Mitt Romney.  The fact is that the recent US$2B loss can came after the enactment of banking reforms by the Democrats and theoretically enforced by Mr. Obama's team.  Those reforms and their enforcement failed in this case. 

Perhaps there is more to this issue than whether or not a politician has a "D" or an "R" behind their name.  Perhaps the kind of regulation that is enacted and enforced is more important that just having any old regulation on the books.

The Wise Dr. Laura

I totally ripped this off from a friend on Facebook.  But he ripped it off from someone else!

Read this recently and quite like it (it has been around the internet for a few years):

"Laura Schlesinger is a US radio personality, who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. She recently said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination, according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura which was posted on the Internet.

Let's Ignore Some More Inconvenient Facts

Social Security edition.  Using personal accounts for a national retirement system really does work.  The charts at the link are quite telling.

And yes, I understand that there is a modest amount of apples and oranges going on with the units.

Greatest Hits?

The web is chock full of stuff that will horrify and captivate you all at the same time.  Things like....train collisions!

So Not Cannon!

Sinfest is always a treasure.  Why aren't you reading it daily?

Pure Genius

One common complaint of the comic strip industry is that it is cluttered with "zombie strips" as well as strips that have grown stale.  Examples of zombie strips would be B.C., Prince Valiant, and Sally Forth.  Those strips have since passed beyond the ken of their creators and have been continued by a series of artists.

Those strips are also poor examples of strips that have grown stale.  Johnny Hart's daughter and two of his grandsons now draw B.C. and their perspective has made it a strip worth reading after decades of stale writing.

The larger point is that the limited real estate of the weekly newspaper makes it terribly hard for new comic strip artists to break into the business.  An example of a strip that is just dying to make the jump and most assuredly never will is XKCD by Randal Munroe.  The humor is quirky.  More importantly, it makes you think and takes you places you might not go on your own.

This strip from last week is a classic.  I was only barely able to contain myself from whipping out a calculator to check each and every approximation.  You never know when you might need a good approximation!  Not only was a laughing at myself for being so obsessed, I was simultaneously awed by Randall's genius and amused at the utter waste of brilliance and effort required for him to create this strip.

As an added bonus, place your pointer over the image to read the alt text.  The many layers of humor that Randall routinely rolls into his work is nothing short of brilliant.

When Is An Apple Not An Apple

When it's an orange.

Despite the many protestations to the contrary, voter fraud is real in the U.S.  An ongoing investigation in Virginia has revealed hundreds of instances of registration fraud.  The state police have concluded that some of those fraudulent registrations resulted in illegal ballots being cast.

As a side note, I disagree with states that auto-magically remove voting rights from felons as a part of their conviction and sentencing.  Most certainly such folks should not be voting while they are in jail or prison.  But once they have "done their time", is it really appropriate to completely suspend their voting rights?  It ought to be one available element of any sentence, but should it be automatic?

Sadly, it looks like a bunch of felons got screwed by voting advocacy groups...like ACORN...who had workers lie to the felons about their eligibility to vote.

In any case, we now have hundreds of examples of fraud in the voting system to point to the next time some fool decides to claim that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than for any sort of voter fraud to occur.

Victims Of Communism Day

Lacking a pre-programmed entry for today, I will simply note that Loyalty Day (as practiced in the U.S.) is also a great candidate for Victims of Communism Day.  The Volohk Conspiracy also has more.

That Just About Uncovers It

Potentially NSFW but probably safe enough for your better half to be looking over your shoulder.

Momentary Zen

By John Cox of Cox and Forkum fame.  I am continually in awe of his work.

The Most Dangerous Of Nipples

NSFW in some quarters.

Civilians Just Don't "Get" Us

I think the word "isolation" is most appropriately used.

Civilians do not understand the isolation that Veterans feel.  How can they?  What possible comparison can they make in their life to what its like to do even a peacetime hitch in the Army, let alone go to war.  I have nine medals and ribbons for 6 years.  Even explaining an ARCOM or an AAM is grating, or why I take so much pride in a piece of ribbon and brass.  They can't understand how I laugh at the ASR out mandatory Gay Pride awareness ribbon.  To them its just a bunch of pretty colors.  To me it is quite literally blood sweat and tears.  Nor can I easily explain what the CMB is, let alone how much that little badge means.  Long after I am gone, I will still be apart of 225th Brigade Support Battalion's history, being one of the first in that unit to receive a combat badge of any kind.  Long after I have gone to senility I will still have been recorded on the rolls, of 2-16 in the hellish time that was the Surge.  With all that in mind, is it any wonder so many civilians just don't "get" me?

 Read the rest of the story about a soldier's departure from the Army and the feelings that come with that separation.  Those feelings fade very little over the years.

Trust me.

A Charge Gone Wrong

Along with the rest of the country, I have been watching the unfolding events of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman tragedy.  While I have more thoughts to share, I'm trying to stick to my relatively new rule of watching a while before making up my mind.

A couple items worth sharing include this note about Alan Dershowitz's criticism of the indictment affidavit of George Zimmerman.

The arrest affidavit did not mention the photograph, or the bleeding, gashes, and bruises on Zimmermans’ head. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School stated upon release of the arrest affidavit that it was “so thin that it won’t make it past a judge on a second degree murder charge … everything in the affidavit is completely consistent with a defense of self-defense.”


After the release of the photo, however, Dershowitz went much further, telling Breitbart News that if the prosecutors did have the photo and didn’t mention it in the affidavit, that would constitute a “grave ethical violation,” since affidavits are supposed to contain “all relevant information.”


Dershowitz continued, “An affidavit that willfully misstates undisputed evidence known to the prosecution is not only unethical but borders on perjury because an affiant swears to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth, and suppressing an important part of the whole truth is a lie."

Astute readers will recall that Mr. Dershowitz is not exactly known as a firebrand for right-of-center politics.

Update - It may be that Mr. Dershowitz's comments were misinformed.  I haven't had the time to look just yet.  His comments are not the only ones I've heard/read along those lines, so the criticism may still be appropriate.  Now returning to your regularly scheduled post....

Just One Minute goes on to point out that the prosecution displayed a depressing level of incompetence at the bail hearing.  Fair warning, JOM was not depressed by the lack of competence on display.  However, I think they make some valid points about the presence of exculpatory information that is readily known and yet being ignored by the prosecution.

I don't have a conclusion to offer based on the above.  I do think it is useful information to be assimilated as we all follow the unfolding events.

Moving Madness X

Ok.  This isn't really a marble run.  But it is cool and has a great jazz tune.  You too can count to twelve!

The DiploMad

We now welcome The DiploMad to our blogroll.

The Diplomad is written by....ummm....DiploMad.  He originally blogged during the early years of our Iraqi campaign in the War on Terror about internal State Department attitudes towards people of the region, the DoD, President GW Bush, and pretty much anyone that was not from the State Department.  It was an interesting view behind the curtain.

Now he has returned.  He has retired as a diplomat and can offer the perspective of his years of service on the events of our day.

I hope you enjoy The DiploMad.

Colour You Can Live In

From the PJ Lifestyle section of PJTV comes the 15 best skits from that classic comedy show, "In Living Color".

Corporations Are Not People

While the current driving force behind the desire to make corporations not the legal equivalent as a real person [is the concern over political contributions], there are other issues in play as well.

A person has a finite number of years of life to spend.  So investing is based on a much shorter horizon.  Companies can last for centuries and make investing decisions based on a completely different perspective.

As a result, fractions of a penny have more long term power for companies than for people.

Then we have the stilted political playing field where a company can massage the law to their advantage over time.  A company isn't trying to feed a growing family, or save for a retirement.  In contrast, people have other uses for the money they earn.  Political campaign contributions are not high on the priority list of real people.

Another fiscal difference is the way debts are handled.  If a company goes under, then the assets are sold and someone loses money.  The people in charge of that failure are free to move on to another venture without any person fiscal repercussions.  When a person goes under, they are hounded into bankruptcy and are thereafter victimized with usurious interest rates for decades.

Needless to say, I have some sympathy with the idea that when the "rights" of corporations (and other legal entities like labor unions, churches, veterans groups, etc.) are in conflict with those of real people, the real people should win.  But I am not sure of the best way to solve the problem.  One option is the "People's Rights Amendment":

Section 1. We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons.

Section 2. People, person, or persons as used in this Constitution does not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state, and such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected state and federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.

Section 3. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people’s rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.

The Volokh Conspiracy suggests that this may not have all of the great benefits that its' supporters envision.  I think they are right.

But that means that we still have a problem in need of a practical solution.  One that places all legal entities in a secondary position when it comes to their "rights" relative to the rights of real, live, oxygen-breathing people.

Depressing Musical Trends

While I certainly realize that the size of the music market has changed, that doesn't really mitigate these unfortunate truths.

12 Extremely Disappointing Facts About Popular Music

Just...erg.

A Pearl For You

Having a majority of people on one's side does not make one right. It makes one popular.
- Dann Todd, 2012 


Something to keep in mind not only this election season, but every other one as well.  Consider this my Hobbit-style birthday gift to you.

Art History - Post Script

While researching the work of Guido Cagnacci for by post of a couple days ago, I came across this image.

Fool that I am, I wondered why a baroque era artist would create such a wonderful work of art.  Sadly, he didn't.

Marta rebuking Mary for her vanity - Courtesy of WikiCommons

Amazing Canadian Boobies Kept Under Wraps

I am astonished.  Canadian Muslim women have boobies!  Who knew!

Or rather, who doesn't want you to know.

Just give it a read as I couldn't do anything but harm at this point by trying to add anything.

Art History - Dangerous Conclusions

Suicidal women are frequently exhibitionists?  Guido Cagnacci had a thing for Cleopatra?  Or dead women in general?

Potentially NSFW in some universes.

The Hills Are Alive....

with the sound of music.  Julie Andrews with the original Maria Von Trapp.  How cool!

Moving Madness IX

Another creation from Eddie Boes.  Wave Rider.  Located at Temecula Pediatric Dentistry in Temecula, Ca.  I used to live within an easy drive from there!

Knowing When To Hold My Tongue

I think I am a reasonably bright guy.  But I also think that I generally know when I am in the company of people that are truly gifted. This is such at time.

A collection of former astronauts and the NASA employees that put them in space have signed an open letter calling on NASA to stop endorsing/encouraging opinions that suggest that we are on the cusp of catastrophic global warming. 

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

The letter is longer, but the above gets right to the point.  Climatology has been inhabited by pseudo-scientists for far too long.  The computer models that such folks have developed have invariably predicted temperature changes that have far exceed reality.

Traditional scientists would have sought to adjust their theories...as expressed by their models...to fit the facts.  The more extreme and vocal climatologists do not follow such a traditional scientific method.

The former astronauts and NASA employees do not say that global warming isn't happening.  They do not say that CO₂ isn't a factor.  They do not say that humanity isn't responsible.

They are saying that process of studying the climate has deviated from the strong scientific basis that used to be the hallmark of NASA endeavors.

I Am Tempted To Post This Once A Day

...until we elect a Congress capable of limiting spending until the deficit is eliminated.

And to respond to the query before it is offered, we can't afford to pay more than 20% of GDP without crippling our economy worse than it already is.  So..no new taxes.

Healthcare Denied

When you hear that people are concerned about government health care systems denying coverage to patients, understand that there is a rational basis for that concern.

When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat.

Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age.

So we are just talking about one case, right?  It has to be an outlier, right?

This kind of ‘professional opinion’ appears to be costing more than 14,000 lives each year, thanks to routine discrimination by doctors who assume older patients are too frail for surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. 

This is according to experts at Macmillan Cancer Support, who warned last week that every day up to 40 elderly cancer sufferers are dying needlessly because they are being denied the best treatments. This is particularly true, it says, for patients over the age of 70.

The charity estimates that if the treatment of older patients matched that on offer in the U.S., as many as 14,000 lives could be saved every year.

Nope.  There are rational reasons for not granting government any more power over our lives than it already has.

Josh - Quilt #7

I believe this gets me pretty well caught up with respect to getting all of my quilts migrated from the old blog to this one.  Enjoy!

My beloved bride and I have had the occasion to travel to Battle Creek from time to time over the last couple of years. That city isn't one of our usual destinations, but time changes.

While visiting Cereal City, we poked our noses into the usual collection of stores and found a couple that sold fabric. I realize this must be a shocking development in my tale.

We found this black and white checkerboard.....or is that chequerboard...pattern at one store and I grabbed several yards of it. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I grabbed it nonetheless. As you can see, the lines for the checkerboard do not run parallel or perpendicular. The pattern sort of looks like someone dipped their fingers into the wet pattern and moved things around just a bit before the colors dried.


For a while I was playing around with a tessellation quilt pattern. M.C. Escher happens to be one of my favorite artists. He experimented heavily in tessellation patterns using wood block printing techniques as well as the usual ink and/or painting modes. You can learn quite a bit about M.C. Escher and see many tessellations here.

I was going to use pattern called Tessellating Stars by Gyleen Fitzgerald. You can see the general pattern here.

The trick I was going to pull on that pattern was to start with all of the stars being white at one end of the quilt and all of the stars at the other end being black. Then I was going to fade the entire thing from white to black...or vice versa for the contrarians among us....by randomly changing the blocks in each star from white to black. I thought that the checkerboard pattern might make that process more interesting.

As my 3.87 regular readers can attest, I've been working on other quilts and thus didn't really have to commit to anything for some time. But then Shane's quilt was finished and I was ready to start something new.

At about the same time, I found a different tessellating pattern. The pattern named "Under the Sea" was originally developed by Sandi Irish. My well seasoned quilting lady-friends tell me that the other name for the pattern is "snail". Her design started with one fabric in the middle with the colors gradually shifting with each concentric ring. The example in the Fons and Porter magazine I was working from used a type of fabric known as batik. The fabric looks a bit like someone put droplets of water on the colors that caused the colors to run or fade like a watercolor. You can see some examples of batiks here.

The finished quilt by Ms. Irish looked like this:

Sadly, my link to a photo of Ms. Irish's work has gone dark.  However, you can read the entire article and see her quilt in this electronic version of the magazine.

Instead of using so many colors with such a gradual color shift, I decided to be bold. If one can be bold with only two colors in the entire quilt.

My version of the quilt is below. Click for a larger view.


The interesting thing about this pattern is how it appears to spill out over the border at each corner. In reality, the border runs underneath those corner pieces that are instead sewn into position as appliqués. I usually detest appliqué work. But I put up with it this time. Here is a larger view of the corner pieces. Click for a larger view.


This quilt goes to our youngest son, Josh. Although he may have to wait until after the county fair is over. I might enter this one just for kicks.

The Thinnest Of Threads

Makes this illusion possible.  Located at the BMW museum.

Climate Change - Microdata Edition

The news has been filled with reports about how March 2012 was the warmest on record since 1895 or some such thing.

For the record.  It is snowing in southern Michigan right now.  At noon.  Our long term average high is north of 50 degrees F.

And it is snowing in southern Michigan right now.  Brrrrrrr!!

Also for the record, I don't think an April snow indicates anything further than the current temperature.  It certainly is not enough of a trend upon which one might hang their scientific hat.  But I think the same thing about our admittedly warmer than usual March, too.

Into The Great Beyond

Ion propulsion systems have long been a technological daydream.  But now, they may the future of space exploration.

Ultimately (and not too far in the future) the same concept could reduce the cost of trips beyond the moon. Slow electric tankers could go ahead of human missions to Mars or asteroids, dramatically reducing the amount of propellant needed to launch crews to those destinations. Eventually, propellants could be manufactured on-site (for example, manufacturing methane and liquid oxygen from the Martian atmosphere). But early propellant caches could create an "interplanetary highway system," similar to the gas stations that allow the terrestrial interstate system to function—and hasten the day that travel throughout the inner and outer solar system becomes routine.

Freedom Works....

....each and every time it is tried.

That is particularly true when one considers the impact of freedom...including free market economics...on the percentage of people living in poverty.  A small hint: the more freedom there is, the fewer people living in poverty.

"Nations in the top quartile of economic freedom had an average per-capita GDP of $31,501 in 2009, compared to $4,545 for those nations in the bottom quartile," says Cato. The rate of extreme poverty is 2.7 percent in the top quartile and 41 percent in the bottom one.

Among many people a generation ago -- and among a few today -- free markets and private property were seen as the cause of poverty. But the number of adherents has dwindled in the face of repeated refutation.

The latest cover story in The Economist magazine is: "Cuba hurtles toward capitalism." Cuba! Even communists eventually have to make peace with reality.

Stanley Fish - Authoritarian - Progressive

If Stanley Fish is a typical "progressive", then apparently being "progressive" and being "authoritarian are not substantially dissimilar positions.  Via Protein Wisdom -

“Progressivism” is, as Fish notes — and as I’ve spent years on protein wisdom demonstrating through my various discussions of identity politics and language — a belief system that, once its kernel assumptions are adopted, will lead fundamentally and inexorably to tyranny. Fish doesn’t call it such, of course. He chooses “might makes right.” But there is no difference. Tyranny and authoritarianism — when lorded over by the “liberal” — is, by virtue of the adopted morality of those running it, both moral and good.

Shane

Originally titled "Ultimate Proof That The Ruskies Have Taken Over Yale", this quilt was made for one of our daughter's former boyfriends.  Shane had studied Russian while at Yale and even made a trip to Russia a few years back.  He remains a really decent person.  We wish him well wherever life takes him.

We came across a series of quilting fabrics that had a Russian theme. The four fabrics are shown below. Click for a larger picture.

   

   

The only problem with buying such fabrics is that you eventually have to find a project where you can use them. Enter our daughter's significant other. Shane is a nice young man on scholarship to Yale who also has an interest in Russia. He reads a lot of Russian novels and for a while was attempting to learn to speak the language. He's even been to Russia as part of a Yale program.
So now that we have a connection from the fabric to a person, we had to fill out the colors for the log cabin pattern. As it happens, Yale operates on a college system. There are colleges within university that have their own separate colors and traditions. You should be able to figure out Shane's college colors from the completed block sample.




My boss's wife is a quilter. He frequently accuses her of cutting up perfectly good material into tiny pieces only to sew it back together into a quilt. Apparently, I'm guilty of that sort of thing.
Once we have all of the modestly garish panels completed, then comes the task of figuring out how to arrange them into an interesting pattern. We opted for the following layout because it reminded me of a Slavic wall hanging that used to be in my grandparents house above the fireplace.




Unfortunately, we gave Shane the quilt for Christmas before I could get some photos of the finished product. So I assigned our daughter to a secret agent mission to obtain the forgotten photos.
In honor of Shane's studying at Yale, I had the lady that quilted the quilt....that's how we say it....stitch a block letter "Y" in the middle of each block. The back is a black sheet. Honest! The flash must have washed out the sheet.




And here is the whole thing. Sadly, Shane is apparently too shy to appear on my blog. Given what else gets posted here, I can't say that I blame him.




The final quilting was done by The Village Quilter in Grass Lake, MI. Give Sue a call if you ever have need of a professional quilting services. (517) 206-5154.

Moving Madness VIII

Ah, the look of hand finished wood.  A classic!

Gavin

Here is one quilt that I was especially pleased to complete.  Not only was it for some good friends, but it also presented a unique challenge. From 2008 we bring you another bit of quilting history.

I was pretty excited to get this next quilt done for a variety of reasons.

One reason is because of the material I used. The pattern of the material included a series of teddy bears, books, and smiling moons that looked a bit like a stuff set up on a child's shelf. This pattern ran along one edge. Above all the clutter was a broad expanse of deep blue with yellow stars. Then the bear/book/moon pattern ran along the opposite edge. You could fold this material down the middle and both sides looked the same.

Silly me, I took a perfectly good material pattern, cut it into strips, and sewed it back together.

The first cut was along each edge. I used those strips for the outside of the block.

The next cut was through the bears. That got used for the next strip towards the center.

The third cut went through the top of the bears. At that point, I started to get some of the stars and the night sky.

The fourth cut was mostly stars, but with enough bear head tops that I just put it in the scrap pile. That left a whole bunch of blue sky and stars from which I made the other half of the blocks.

Here's a picture of the material with the first cut already removed. I used all of the edges for the quilt. There's lots of other stuff left over.

The resulting block ended up looking like this. A close inspection reveals that I left off a couple of strips. The resulting blocks ended up being 12" x 12" rather than 14" x 14". That worked out well for the backing material.

The final result is below with the proud mama and papa to be. The border material was designed by the same person that designed the material used for the panels; Patty Reed. The blocks in the border material were almost the perfect height to provide a 2 inch border.

The second reason I was excited about this project is the stitching used to "quilt" everything together. I was getting kind of bored with just running straight lines down the seams....otherwise known as stitch-in-the-ditch....as well as straight lines across the corners.

To ease my boredom, I bought an 18" wooden embroidery hoop and a chalking tool. I used the chalking tool to trace the inside of the hoop. I then connected each of the circles by drawing in a line tangent to each adjacent circle. Once that was done, it was pretty easy to stitch the cloverleaf/Celtic knot pattern that you should be able to see in the picture below.

Here is the hoop and chalking tool.

And here's the finished quilt. Notice the material used for the back? As it turns out, Lindsey...on the left....has a new sewing machine and took a stab at quilting. Denis...on the right....and yes, I'm spelling his name correctly....brought it in for me to check it out. I noticed right away that she had used a similar material that was light green instead of light blue. I didn't draw any blood biting my tongue, but it was a close thing. And her quilt was a pretty nice looking quilt, too!

The most important reason that I was excited about this project is that it was for Denis and Lindsey. Just take a look at those two. Don't they look like they are a lot of fun. They are. Trust me. It was great to be able to do something nice for them at this special time in their lives.

Blowing In The Wind

As a part of checking out a number of kinetic sculptures, I came across this interesting piece of work.  If you feel the need, you can purchase one here.

Check Out The Balls On These Guys

Now here is a version of soccer worth watching!

From The Dustbin - Teachers For GWB?

Hrmmm....

A Virginia middle school teacher recently forced his students to support President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research in class against the Democratic presidential candidates.

The 8th grade students, who attend Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County, were required to seek out the vulnerabilities of Democratic presidential hopefuls and forward them to the Bush campaign.

“This assignment was just creepy beyond belief — like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,” one frustrated father, who asked for his family to remain anonymous.

Would this seem creepy if it ever happened in the future?

Moving Madness VII

Kind of an ear-full.  But also kind of fun!

Cayden

Yet another in the series of quilts.  This one was for my young nephew.  He is a bit older now, and a pretty cool kid, too!

Along with other things that keep me busy, yes folks, I'm still quilting. As always, click the pic for a larger version.

This quilt was done from my nephew Cayden. We got to meet him a month early in January. The little shaver was scheduled to stay in the oven until February....which is when this quilt was completed.

My beloved bride picked out the pale blue materials. They were a pretty good match, but she was
having a rough time figuring out what to put with them. I decided to go bold with the dark blue and white materials. I think it came out pretty well.

Here's a closer view of one panel.

Historic Power Grab

I have seen quite a few posts about the supposed power grab the Obama administration is attempting via "natural resources preparedness".  As Glenn Reynolds points out, this is nothing new.  Presidents...and heck Congress, too...have been exceeding their Constitutionally limited authority for decades.

Rutherford B. Hayes

In case you missed it, Mr. Obama...or his speechwriters... flubbed a bit of history.

Speaking about the need to develop new sources of American energy in Largo, Md., Obama used our 19th president as a failure of forward-thinking leadership.

"One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: 'It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?'" Obama said. "That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore."

"He's looking backwards, he's not looking forward. He's explaining why we can't do something instead of why we can do something," Obama said.

It fact, President Hayes was astonished and impressed with the telephone.  For his era, he was a bit of a technophile.

This whole kerfuffle has introduced some entertaining bits flotsam and jetsam.

Lots more here.

Disgusting

I'm not sure which bothers me more.  Having the media follow the President's pre-teen daughter on vacation, or having someone black hole the media reports about the vacation.

Both represent trends that are not in the best interests of our nation.

Even Sluts Deserve Healthcare

While religion has motivated progress in many areas, it has also exercised repressive and oppressive influence from time to time.  Which is why I question the wisdom of extending some sort of "religious exclusion" for health insurance.

I suppose that a church could elect to not cover abortions for preachers if church doctrine is opposed to such things.  However, they should be compelled to list all of the activities that violate their doctrine and adjust their coverage accordingly.  Opposition to alcohol use comes to mind.

But the line I would draw would be at clergy.  For those that go in for such things, staff and students ought to be considered sinners along with the everyone else.

For those that don't like it, I suppose that we could move to a national a la carte system that separates employment from health insurance.  There are lots of options to be considered.

But allowing religious exemptions?  Next thing you know some "church" will refuse to pay their minority staff as much as their white staff and cite Scripture to justify their actions.

Link for the strip below.  Thanks to my friends in RACS for the pointer.

And since incendiary language appears to be the only way to elicit traffic and comments, expect more in the future.  I respond to incentives!

Hearing Motion

The Singing, Ringing Tree is a very cool piece of art that uses the wind as well as its appearance to make an impression. This sculpture is located near Burnley, in Lancashire, England.

Alyssa

In our continuing series of quilt blogging, we bring the brief tale of Quilt #3.

As my 2.74 regular readers can attest, I took up quilting this year. I have just completed quilt #3 for my nephew, his wife, and their new baby girl. Joe is currently serving in the Marines at Camp Lejune, NC near Jacksonville. He's doing pretty well for himself. I don't know if he is going to make a career out of this, but they seem pretty happy right now.

Following up on my work last summer, I made a baby quilt for the new addition to the family. Once again, I'm using the Log Cabin design. This quilt pattern allows me to run strips of material through the sewing machine rather than having to hand piece everything together. The whole project takes much less time that way.

Seeing as we have a new young lady in the family, I used a bit more pink in this quilt. As always, click for a larger view.

Here is a close-up of one panel:

And finally, here is a close-up of the corner piece:

I had a local stitchography shop machine embroider the logos on a piece of material. I had hoped for more separation so that I could put the chicken, ball, and hooks on a 45° angle. But what I received from them worked well enough.

On to the next one! Only 17 days left until Christmas!!

Are Women More Than Just A Vagina?

I think so.  Others apparently don't.

Moving Madness VI

Another loud one!

Ah The Details

In a continuation of the series on quilts that I have made, we offer the following.

In response to popular request...note the singular usage...we offer the following content for all 5.2 of our regular readers. Also note the recent uptick in readership. I am the envy of every newspaperman in the United States.

As reported a couple of days ago, I finished my second quilt. Two in one year! I hear that is considered to be a pretty decent production rate in certain circles. The photo of quilt number two didn't really give much of a view of the individual panels. Therefore, we offer the following:
 

Click for a larger view.

A couple of mildly interesting notes about these panels.

First is the green and white striped material. As the larger view shows, I cut half of the strips perpendicular to the striped pattern while the other half were cut parallel to the striped pattern. Aside from making sure that the parallel cuts were as parallel as I could get, I didn't do a lot of fussing around with where the cuts were made.

When I was assembling the panels, the strips cut perpendicular to the stripes were put in place before the ones that were cut parallel to the stripes. The result...I hope....is a sort of optical illusion that makes you think that those two pieces are cut from a single section of cloth.

Secondly, take a good look at the yellow material. You probably ought to click on the picture to get a better view. It looks a bit like clouds in the sky. Look a bit closer and see if you see anything in those yellow clouds.

Why Yes! I Want Somebody To Love!

Just a little bit of fun.  Grace Slick probably looked just as good back in the day.

Life Jackets Float

Do you?

Rights From Where?

The folks at Hot Air are taking Markos “Kos” Moultisas to task for his ahistoric perspective on Rick Santorum and the source of rights.  He apparently believes that our rights are created by our government and that "God" isn't mentioned in the Constitution.

The founding fathers clearly believed that rights existed before any government existed and that they...and we...were creating a government to defend those rights.

This is the underlying weakness among many on the left.  They worship government power and believe that the government is therefore omnipotent.  The land of milk and honey was created by government fiat!

What many on the left fail to recognize is that individual rights supercede (or should) governmental whims.  That is why we have a First Amendment to acknowledge our right to protest the government.  Our rights exist despite the best efforts of government, not because of it.  Our Constitution exists to restrict government exercise of authority, not to give it ever greater control over our lives.

Rooster Rings

Located at the deCordova Sculpture Park, Rooster Rings is an absolutely fascinating piece of work.

Gorgeous

 Work from the incomparable John Cox.

Speaking of Quilt Number 2....

In another series of updates, we bring my faithful 2.3 readers....and 59 spam-linkers...the story of my very first quilt.  Brought to you via my personal way-back machine, a story from 2007.

Speaking of Quilt Number 2....


....did I mention Quilt Number 1.

My beloved bride. She's number one in my book. So she ended up being number one as far as quilting goes as well. The following photos are of my very first quilt made for the very first person in my life.

Moving Madness V

Another piece from Eddie Boes.  This one is at Orthodontic Arts in Lynchburg, VA.  Where were all these cool dentists when I was a kid!

I'm Being Followed By A Frost Shadow

Clicky.  Enjoy!

The Difference

As a long time proponent of civility in public discourse, I find the current primary season to be a helpful reminder of how uncivil we tend to be.  The primary case in point is Mr. Gingrich and his use of the name "Obama".

"Obama" does this.

"Obama" does that.

"Obama's policies" caused this.

Etc.

Long time readers of this blog will readily understand that I am not a big fan of Mr. Obama for a variety of reasons.  But for at least the next few months, he is President of the United States.

It behooves one who seeks high office to treat that office with the respect they expect to receive should their candidacy be successful.  It is too bad that Gingrich hasn't figured that out.

The Wind Revealed

Kinetic sculptures in Vail, CO.  Enjoy!

A Different Study

John Cox has posted a series of studies that he wants to use to create a much larger watercolor piece.  I hope he manages to complete this work as the smaller studies are tremendous.

See them all here.

Our Medical Future?

Consider Product X.  It costs a store owner $95 to get Product X into their store.  They sell Product X for for $100 and make $5 per sale; less the cost of their building, staff, electicity, etc.

What happens when they can only get $90 for Product X?  Most store owners would stop selling it.

What happens when someone needs Product X to survive?  Not a very nice question.

But this is precisely what is about to happen in California where the state has decided to cut Medicaid prescription reimbursements by 10%.  It isn't a 10% cut in the margin that the store owner earns.  It is a 10% cut in total reimbursements.


What does this bode for our nation's future?  Nothing good.

I hardly need to point out that we can expect a lot more stories like this one in the future.  Reimbursements currently have some give in them, which allows the highest-cost providers to operate, and the lowest-cost providers to make some profit.  The natural political tendency is to squeeze reimbursements to the level where the lowest-cost providers are pinched--or even beyond.  And the best-case result of this is that in the long-run, the lowest-cost providers get bigger, while in the short term, the disruptions among the higher-cost providers compromise at least some patients' access to care.

Are we willing to put up with that short term disruption?  Not so far, unless the service exclusively benefits the very poor.  Maybe we'll get more willing as the tax bite goes deeper.  But either way, with a dramatic Medicaid expansion on its way, and more and more of the rest of the health care system under the control of the government, the fights are going to get uglier.

A modest warning for language at the link.

New Commandments For A New Age

Victor Davis Hansen has a list of new commandments for our modern age.  Summarize below, but worth a full read.


1) Wealth and poverty are now more relative, than absolute, conditions.

2) Regulators are never the problem; a dearth of regulations always must be.

3) Debt is a mirage.

4) In our new age of diplomacy, being liked trumps being respected.

5) Collective national wealth is natural; private wealth is unnatural.

6) Medieval exemption is not medieval.

7) Victimhood is always sought, never questioned.

8) Neanderthals need nerds.

9) Ideology, for all the protestations of the zealot, is now not to be taken too seriously - not in this age of global leisure and affluence.

10) Owing in our new millennium shall be less stressful than saving.

Now? Really?

Megan McArdle has all the details...you...might...want..about the recent dump of documents from the Heartland Institute.  And I want to point out that on the subject of human induced global warming, Ms. McArdle is a believer.

But the tidbit I want to focus is from Mr. Gleick's mea culpa.

Given the need for reliance on facts in the public climate debate, I am issuing the following statement.

...

I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed.

But we have been told that the debate is over.  We have been told that the only "rational" scientists are those that enthusiastically endorse the theory of human induced climate change that results in a global catastrophe.

Only now that this guy's boy-parts are in a vise does he find it necessary to talk about a "rational public debate" and "facts".

He could have had that without shredding his credibility if he'd be willing to have an adult conversation with people that are of a different point of view.

Marble Madness IV

The first in a series from Eddie Boes of Eddie's Mind.  You can check out his YouTube stream for more.

 

This piece of kinetic art is on display at Columbia Basin Pediatric Dentistry in Kennewick, WA.

How Rich Is Too Rich?

Megan McArdle had a recent post regarding income inequality that is worth reading.  She offers no conclusions, but I think her perspective is worth considering.

The Price Of Discovery

So what is the price for discovering new drugs? 

$43 million?  Probably too low.

$800 million?  Sounds plausible.

Between $4 and 11 billion?  Per drug.

Read the whole thing from Megan McArdle.

Then think about why drugs cost what they do.  Don't forget that all those folks living in countries with nationalized health care systems don't pay anything to cover research costs.  Just production.  Imagine how much less we would be paying if they were paying their fair share.

War Is Ugly

I was reading the news at the gym last week.  They had a story about a reporter that had died in the fighting in one Syrian city.  She only had one eye.  I don't know her name.

The point of her reporting was that the Syrians were pummeling the city and killing indiscriminately.  She said something the the effect that there were no military targets there.  Specifically, she said there was no "base" there.  The stateside reporter reminded her that the Syrian Free Army was in the area.  The reporter in Syria blithely dismissed that and went on protesting that they were killing innocent civilians.  After all, the SFA didn't have a "base".

Why was she surprised?  This is a war.

The wars of the 20th century were truly civilized when compared with the rest of human history.  It was common practice to kill and enslave until all your enemies were dead or enslaved.  The line from the original Conan the Barbarian movie was the rule.

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

There was no letting up.  There was no avoiding civilians.

This is the sort of war that non-Western, non-democratic cultures routinely practiced.  The stark difference between the two is what should make the practice of war by Western, democratic cultures all the more unique.

Do they not teach history in journalism school any more?

Uniting Citizens

The discussion about funding political campaigns and the recent Citizen's United case contains a couple of important myths.

Myth 1:  The Citizen's United case invalidated the reporting requirement for political contributions.

Those requirements are still in place.

Myth 2:  The Citizen's United case unleased wealthy individuals to give unlimited amounts of money to political groups/campaigns.

Truth:  The Citizen's United case let corporations give unlimited amounts of money to political causes.  That is new.  And I'm not convinced that it is good.

But we ought to have a national discussion that is based on the facts.  Not the myths.

Wishing

A modest check behind the scenes.  I have removed the sailors trying to sail around the world.  Their attempts have been completed and I have yet to find others worth following.  I wish the current batch of sailors all the luck in the world on their travels.

I have added a link to my Amazon wish list.  Hopefully, my family will figure this out soon!

Putting The Pieces Back Together

Just what can a putty made from stem cells do?  Mend broken bones.

In days.

Living with access to modern medicine is truly amazing.

Moving Madness III

I remember watching this one as a kid.  How cool is this!  Everyone love Sesame Street.

Spring Or Fall

The recent events of the so-called Arab Spring have been heralded as an age of advance within the Arab world.  I remain skeptical of such predictions due to the significant influence of jihadists, Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and similar terrorist/extremist groups across the region.

Is this really the dawning of a new age?  Is this really an Arab Spring?  Or perhaps it is an Arab Fall, complete with an Indian Summer's false promise of warmth before the deep cold of winter.

A United Nations delegate from Libya’s newly formed government told a human rights panel that gays and other groups threaten “reproduction of the human race,” drawing a stern rebuke from leaders of the international body.
...

But the harsh stance against gays voiced Monday has some critics wondering if the new government ushered in by the so-called Arab Spring is any more tolerant than its predecessor.

"Today's homophobic outburst by the new Libyan government, together with the routine abuse of prisoners, underscores the serious questions we have about the new regime's commitment to improving on the dark record of its predecessor, and about its pandering to Islamists in its ranks," U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said.

Now after listening to the news from Washington State on NPR over the last few days, I think it should be obvious that we in the U.S. still have issues with respecting the right of gays to be treated as equal citizens. Not everyone is overjoyed at the prospect of the gay marriage law just signed by their governor.  Pure as the wind driven snow, we ain't.

But we are headed in the right direction.  While the Middle East appears to loping along in the wrong direction at a fairly fast clip. 

Dive Right In?

 It is always worth the time to see where we've been so that we can know where we are going.  Read the whole thing.

Black athletes were playing for Clair Bee at Long Island University by 1933, but KU didn’t put a black player on the court until LaVannes Squires joined the team in 1952. McLendon admitted to Katz that skin color wasn’t the only obstacle standing between him and a spot on the Jayhawks—though quick and cerebral, McLendon had been cut from his high school basketball team three times. He was a former lifeguard and an excellent swimmer, though, and he expected to ace the mandatory swimming test required for his degree. But when McLendon showed up at the on-campus pool to work out, he found it half empty. He was told it was drained every Wednesday.

McLendon came back on Thursday, and found the pool empty again. Nobody had told him the pool was segregated, perhaps because no colored student had tried to swim there before. The school’s passive-aggressive trick exposed a weakness he could exploit—a fear of direct confrontation. “You’re going to have a pretty big water bill,” McLendon told the attendant. “Because I’m going swimming every day.”

Quilt #2

A side note, this is actually a post from August of 2007 that was first published in my Dain Bramage blog.  I am trying to get all my quilts onto the new blog for easy reference, sharing, etc.  You will see more of this in the coming weeks.  I hope.  Garrett's a few years older now and a pretty cool kid.

One of my co-workers got married last year. And this year he's a brand new dad. Funny how that sort of thing works, isn't it?

At any rate, as a modest token of congratulations, I made this quilt.

Click for a larger view.

Update: We finally have photos of the little squab and his quilt. This is Garrett. He's sleeping on the quilt.....which is pretty obvious. I'm told it makes a great play area, too. As always, click the photo for a larger version.

And this is Garrett, laughing his fool head off. He's one happy little baby.

Saving The Future - Saving The Past

We all have personal perspectives and interests that motivate our efforts.  One of my personal perspectives is Alzheimer's or old age dementia.  I watched my grandmother disappear before my eyes.  I watched the husk that remained live on for close to five years.

If you can call that living.

I see the early signs of the same thing happening in my dad.  I experience some early-early signs of the same thing in myself.

It is not possible to look forward to the day when long honed perception and perspective disappear in time's grey haze without experiencing an inexorably rising sense of terror.

We do not currently have a cure for dementia.  One of the reasons why I so urgently advocate for a free market for health care is that other health systems stymie research and innovation.  The first costs to be cut in every nationalized health care system are those associated with the research of new technology.  The cost of providing existing technology to existing patients naturally declines over time as patents expire and product efficiencies are identified.

Future patients needing future technologies?  Current patients being maintained by current technology but hoping for a cure?  Lives unborn in need of a cure that does not yet exist?  Nationalized health care systems have a one size fits all response.

Fuck 'em.

Yet I still have reason to hope that our recently enacted plethora of federal boards, committees, directors, chairpersons, and other august personnel of medical wizardry may yet move slowly enough that a cure for my small concern may arrive before the gates of innovation are closed.

Via Glenn Reynold's Instapundit comes word of a recent discovery of a new application for an old anti-cancer drug.  The WSJ has a decent write-up as well.

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer's disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing their Alzheimer's started to disappear within hours, said the research in the journal Science.

"We were shocked and amazed," lead author Gary Landreth of the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio told AFP.

"Things like this had never, ever been seen before," he said.

Faster, please.