Month: February 2004

(Copenhagen, Denmark-AP) Some sex ed goes a little too far, even for open-minded Danes. The Danish government is pulling the plug on C-D-ROM's intended for ninth-graders.

The computer programs had information about threesomes, bestiality and partners relieving themselves on each other while having sex. Distribution of 60-thousand discs was supposed to start next week. The nation's health minister says the questionable information had nothing to do with the intended purpose of educating young people about birth control.

So Conan O'Brien is in Toronto and having a ball. Triumph the insult dog is tagging along. This made the news this morning:

Living down to his four-word moniker, Triumph paid a visit to Quebec and promptly insulted any French Canadian in sight. Insulted? That doesn't cover it.

If the Official Languages Commissioner found it necessary to launch an investigation into Don Cherry, they may well issue a fatwa on Triumph. The dog's virulent assault made Cherry's hockey visor rant seem like a Mary Poppins song about raindrops and kittens.

teehee. Original link: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1076627413776&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630

Can bags of pig fat deter suicide bombers?

Jerusalem – Israeli police have come up with plans to place bags of pig lard on buses in a bid to deter Palestinian militants from carrying out suicide attacks, the Maariv daily reported on Thursday.

Rabbinical authorities have given the idea its approval on the grounds that it could be a life-saving measure even though pigs are also considered impure by Jews.

Authorities believe that the move could discourage Palestinians from carrying out attacks as pieces of their exploded body could come into contact with the pig fat, prejudicing their chances of entering into paradise.

Original link: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/opinion_0442326e064c624b0099.html

The Bush administration has decided that people with bad hearing have bad judgment, too, and need special guidance from the federal government.

So the U.S. Department of Education is declaring about 200 television programs inappropriate for closed-captioning and denying federal grant requests to make them accessible to the hearing-impaired.

My favourite quote is this one: The government is refusing to caption Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, apparently fearing that the deaf would fall prey to witchcraft if they viewed the classic sitcoms.

WITCHCRAFT?!?!?!?

Other shows that aren't CC'ed include Law & Order, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Robin Hood, The Simpsons, Scooby Dooas well as NASCAR, NFL, NBA, MLB and PGA sports events!

Sigh. It just warms the heart to see that the Bush administration has its priorities in the right place.

A few weeks ago, I got some really abusive comments on my blog, by anonymous posters (though I prefer the AC nomenclature of Slashdot, but it's not really important). Anyway, as I was saying. I really wondered what caused all the kerfuffle. I was browsing through the server logs when I noticed this little gem.

Apparently, a website I run made it on to something awful :)

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=900782

I'm so proud :D

Amusing comments:

Though some people apparently have more than half a brain:

Now don't get me wrong. I couldn't care less what these people think. I got into it for the fun of putzing in photoshop :) If someone wants to think less of me for doing that, they can just go screw themselves :D

Berlin – A German pop star is trying to salvage his marriage after his wife left him when he moved a monkey into their marital home.

Werner Boehm was introduced to the 10-year-old female baboon while filming a music video.

He said: “It was love at first sight. The monkey is extremely musical and can even play the piano. We're on the same wavelength.”

But his 31-year-old wife Susanne was not amused and moved out after Boehm allowed the pet to share his bed and dismissed the animal's demolishing of the furniture as “harmless fun”.

She said: “I gave him the choice: The monkey or me. He chose the monkey. It's incredibly painful to know that some baboon is more important to him than I am.”

Boehm, 62, says he wants his wife back – but on condition she accepts the monkey.

He said: “Susanne is welcome to stay. But only if she accepts the monkey.”

But the relationship may be short-lived, as animal protection officials want to remove the monkey which they say will become lonely without contact with other baboons.

Wolfgang Poggendorf, head of the Hamburg animal protection agency said: “We have made a complaint to police, and they will take the animal away.”

Boehm's mix of traditional folk and modern pop has seen a resurgence in popularity since he returned from filming the German version of I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here. — Ananova News

Original link: http://www.nature.com/nsu/040202/040202-19.html

Fat used to boost breasts
Doctors hope stem cells might flesh out cosmetic surgery.
9 February 2004
HELEN PEARSON

A clinical trial in which stem cells from women's fat are used to revamp their breasts is starting in Japan. But some experts warn that such studies must proceed with caution.

Surgeons frequently shuffle handfuls of fat from the hips up to the face for cosmetic reasons – to smooth out wrinkles or cover up scars, for example. But they have been wary of moving fat into the breasts.

In the 1980s, doctors found that a proportion of grafted tissue tends to die and form hardened areas. If fat has been transferred to the breast, these hardened areas can show up on mammograms and might be mistaken for tumours. So using fat to increase cup size is “kind of taboo”, says plastic surgeon Adam Katz of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

But Kotaro Yoshimura of the University of Tokyo and his colleagues think they might be able to avoid this problem by using a mix of fat cells and stem cells. The stem cells should create fresh fat cells and coax blood vessels to grow into and nurture the new tissue, says Yoshimura. This should boost tissue survival.

Yoshimura carried out the procedure on his first patient on 21 January, and he plans to do 30 more operations after obtaining approval from a review board. The women are undergoing the surgery for cosmetic reasons.

During the operation, the team suck fat cells from the woman's stomach or thigh. By separating cells based on their density, the team enrich the slurry for special stem cells that are able to generate new fat cells. They then inject 300-400 millilitres of these stem cells mixed with normal fat tissue into the woman's breasts.

More natural than silicone

Around 240,000 women underwent breast augmentation in the United States in 2002. Most breast enhancements are done by implanting packets of saline water. Silicone implants are now banned in the United States because of concerns that they can leak, causing serious side effects. Around a third of implants are removed within ten years because of complications.

Using a person's own fat is an attractive alternative to these artificial implants because it does not provoke the immune system and looks completely natural. Also, women are rarely sorry to donate a few pounds of their own fat to the cause. “There's no other tissue you can take that amount of,” says Marc Hedrick of the University of California, Los Angeles, and chief scientific officer for MacroPore Biosurgery in San Diego, California.

The idea of using stem cells from fat isn't completely new. Two other groups have tried transplanting fat stem cells to rejuvenate the faces of a small group of patients, says Hedrick. Yoshimura's stem-cell trial is the biggest so far, he adds.

Katz says he would like to see more trials on animals and in other areas of the human body before trying the technique on breasts. But Hedrick is more optimistic: “There's a good shot that this will work,” he says.

Hedrick believes that fat stem cells will one day find a broader use in repairing heart muscle and bone fractures and in other developing stem-cell therapies. But it is not yet clear how to coax such cells into becoming muscle, bone or blood, he says.

In preparation for future therapies, MacroPore Biosurgery are already offering people who have had liposuction the opportunity to bank their fat stem cells. “I think it's crazy to throw them away,” Hedrick says.

Went to have drinks with Simonshit +1, Sven and Mekez last night. Drinks turned out to be dinner, but with my allergies, I stuck to booze and bread (with a dark chocolate aero for dessert). It was a fun night, with lots of laughing and stories and merriment. That was cool. It's been a while since I spent a nice night like that.

Got home, checked my email. Date for tonight cancelled on me. Considering she was driving from Ottawa, it's understandable, but it still sucks.

So now, I have a headache, I'm hungry, and my baseline blues are above-average (je suis bleu fonce, comme dirais Mekez).

Yay.

Sparrow says:
  sometimes you have to take your own psyche and smack it around
Sparrow says:
  force it to behave.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1516&ncid=1516&e=5&u=/afp/20040205/od_afp/us_knitting_lifestyle_040205152140

Hey strychnyn, could you teach me? I'm in dire need of a way to relax :)

Do you know that it's been months since I was last kissed?

Rc says:
  i miss it
Rc says:
  so much
Rc says:
  you wouldn't believe it
Sparrow says:
  yes I would
Rc says:
  how'd you deal with it?
Rc says:
  I'm going bonkers
Sparrow says:
  I don't think about it.
Rc says:
  especially since all the people around me are falling in love, and telling me all about it. 
Rc says:
  don't get me wrong, I'm super thrilled for them
Rc says:
  but it's making me really, really blue
Sparrow says:
  I don't dwell on it because I know that everytime I dwell, that when I am the least likely to be able to get out of it
Sparrow says:
  no one wants to date someone who's desperate.
Rc says:
  i know, but I'm dwelling right now, and I can't seem to shake it
Sparrow says:
  Well, keep trying I guess.

Keep trying… Easier said than done. Sparrow found someone to make her toes curl, Nh has an active interest in someone, eniran is gaga abour her girl, strychnyn is not much farther off with her boi. I love all these people. I'm really happy for them. The boi seems to genuinly care for Sb, so that's a good thing, and he seems like a nice guy. The girl seems as smitten about Sn as she is about the girl, so that's also good.

I'm just … depressed? horny? unloved? All of those are partly true, but it's not that … bad. I dunno. I know I have friends that care for me, and that's really helpful. I also know that it's a cyclic thing, and that'll also pass. I also know that it'll happen in its own damn time, and can't be forced.

I finally also know that I'm tired of sleeping alone, and I miss intimacy.