harleyk

Dude, in case you haven’t heard: it snowed in DC this past weekend. It snowed a lot.

I was able to spend some time in doors away from school, work, and people. I was with the ones I love and I’ve come to the realization of five things.

1) I love the snow. I never could live in a state where it doesn’t snow (see-ya Arizona). Even when I have to dig my car out from under 2 feet of snow I love it (see-ya SoCal). Even when the threat level of skidding into oncoming traffic is nuclear white I can’t think of precipitation I’d rather drive in.

2) I hate housework. Leave me home alone for a few days and the house withers and dies. I should be ashamed of my entropic ways, but the clean-house process is not worth it.  There was nothing free about my free day today. I was a prisoner made to dance to the jailhouse rock of a capricious 2-year old and a hormonal wife. As far as my Preg-o-meter is dialed correctly, my wife is still 3 months away from nesting, yet I scrubbed like she was due yesterday. Spring cleaning came early despite DC white out conditions. Before you get all permalinky on me and reply comments like, “Whatevs, jerk, she’s carrying your baby,” and “She should clean you out to the curb,” please know I kid. Mildly.

Wendy does do a lot of stuff around the house when I’m not around but it doesn’t take a PhD to notice a proportion: the pregnanter my wife gets the harder I work. I am Winterella; just compare our lists.

My list:

bathroom floor, tub, toilet, bedroom, vacuum, child entertainment, dishes x 3, dishwasher x 2, kitchen floor

Her list:

Organize maternity wardrobe, blogging (notice the time stamp), come up with more stuff to clean

3) I love napping. Put a gun to my head and ask me to choose between death and the prospect of no napping and I would probably have to sleep on it. Napping is life. It is beauty draped in a snow-feather white blanket and tucked carefully into droopy eyelids. How can anyone choose to work a full day without one? The thought of a full-day’s work exhausts me. I know napping’s salubrious benefits, but health or no I must pay obesience to Lord Circadian Rhythm. Lest ye think I laze remember my biology may have something to do with it.

I once had a job. I once had a full-time job and periodically I would slip away when the world needed me most to a men’s bathroom shower stall to find a 3-foot vinyl dressing bench to catch a 20. Even now my current lab was selected not only on the excellence of the research, or the sanity of co-workers, or the availability of funding, but on my proximity to anything reclining or semi-plush carpeting. Just writing about it makes…me…so <yawn>…

…

4) I could play the gi’tar all day. All day long.

5) I love the fam. Nothing makes me happier than putting up with shinanigans and pots and pans esp. when they belong to these two:

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Common ground between abortion sides has always been to reduce the number of abortions and increase the love.

But when an pro-choice organization feels compelled to speak out about the Superbowl commercial below, they paint themselves a little less love and a little more death.

Sally Jenkins well-written article at WashPo sums it up well.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

 

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No secret. I want to live as long as possible. And I want you to come with me. In fact, if Dan Buettner’s ideas are right, I need you to live long.

What blows my mind is how little a role genetics play in longevity. 10%? Seriously, 10%? I thought it would be higher. That means how you live is more important than what you’re given.

Don’t have time to watch the video? Here are the quick notes:

• This guy and his team find 3 populations where old people are plentiful and healthy: Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; and Loma Linda, CA.

Characteristics of these 3 populations:

• Include natural exercise into everyday life (bike to work vs. car, stairs vs. elevator)
• Have friends who live into old age
• Grow a garden
• Be wise about eating:
  • Eat a lot of fruits, vegetables
  • Eat colorful vegetables
  • Stop when 80% full

In addition to the recommendations found in the bible, modern day recommendations in this scripture are also illuminating.

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Wish us luck.

BIO-1130 Principles of Biology: Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior 4 Credits

Evolution, ecology and behavior, including Mendelian genetics, population genetics, natural

selection, coevolutionary relationships, ethology and contemporary issues. (Formerly BIO

1040. Students may receive credit for only one of the following BIO 1130, BIO 1010, or BIO

1040). 3 class/3 lab hours.

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Even at 30 it’s hard not to giggle.

Source: Online Education

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Unfortunately, the natural recourse for failure in this country is a call for greater regulation.

Witness Barney Frank’s new financial oversight committee in December. Seriously? Is a new financial agency really the panacea of the financially-illiterate American? Now Mr. Bernanke wants greater Fed control.

“Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders’ risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates,” Mr. Bernanke said in remarks to the American Economic Association.

Source

While increased regulation will aid some financial weak points mostly it is a patch for something more problematic. Elder Christofferson hit the problem on the head in a recent conference talk.

The societies in which many of us live have for more than a generation failed to foster moral discipline. They have taught that truth is relative and that everyone decides for himself or herself what is right. Concepts such as sin and wrong have been condemned as “value judgments.” As the Lord describes it, “Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god” (D&C 1:16).

As a consequence, self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments. One columnist observed that “gentlemanly behavior [for example, once] protected women from coarse behavior. Today, we expect sexual harassment laws to restrain coarse behavior. . . .

“Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.”

In most of the world, we have been experiencing an extended and devastating economic recession. It was brought on by multiple causes, but one of the major causes was widespread dishonest and unethical conduct, particularly in the U.S. housing and financial markets. Reactions have focused on enacting more and stronger regulation. Perhaps that may dissuade some from unprincipled conduct, but others will simply get more creative in their circumvention. There could never be enough rules so finely crafted as to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone. In the memorable phrase of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, “We would not accept the yoke of Christ; so now we must tremble at the yoke of Caesar.”

Source

Listen to the talk here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

No amount of regulation will ever be enough to capture all loopholes. Evidence A. Look how Wal-Mart saves itself from taxes.

source

Behind every crappy law there’s a well-meaning politician. And lately I feel like there are a lot of politicians. Especially when it comes to childs and child seats.

This video will blow your mind. I’ll cut to the chase: child seats are no safer than seat belts.

Car seats = overregulation (Steven’s got the data to prove it).

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I liked this.

budget planner – Mint.com

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Dirty deeds are done dirt cheap in downtown Bladensburg. I know because where we live we get to hear most of them being done.

Check up on the dirty deeds in your neighborhood with these three sites.

1) Crimereports.com
This site is awesome. All crimes and stats for your area are overlaid on a Google Map. You can search for the following info:

Here’s a map of our area:

2) bestplaces.net

This is more for the home buyer, but the site does helpful overall statistics. On a scale of 1 to 10, Bladensburg is a 6, double the national average. Good to know if, you know, you’re going to sign a two-year lease.

3) Your local police department

Use your GoogleFu to find your local police department. Many of them report crime statistics for the area. Bladensburg’s are below.

http://www.bladensburg.net/html/statistics.html

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Is it just me or is tv getting better? Really better.

I use Hulu to catch up. But has anyone else noticed Hulu slipping in more commercials? And they’re not 10 sec anymore; they’re 1 min mood killers. And if I have to watch Brooke Shields flaunt her new lashes one more time I’m going to stop watching tv.

At least until next week.

Seriously, four commercials for 20 min? And the second one is a minute long?

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I should be happy and I am, but there’s a part of me that rolled my eyes when I heard Pres. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m a little embarrassed I don’t celebrate this award as much as telomerase research, but I think I feel like Michael Russnow:

The Nobel Peace Committee has been accused in the past of trying to make a political statement, and perhaps, because they admire Obama and his groundbreaking presidency, in addition to his earlier anti-war statements and recent speech to the Muslim world, they are, by this action, hoping to jump start his ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, at the moment, I believe it is enormously premature for Obama to be getting this great tribute, which to a certain extent cheapens the prior recipients and the work all of them performed over so many years.

I hear the Swedish Academy saying “We don’t think Pres. Obama deserves this prize as much as Pres. Bush didn’t.”

In some ways I should be happy because if the Academy is beginning to present the awards based on hope because you can bet your Nobel dollar I’ll be earning mine soon for medicine.

I’m good for it, you know my experiments will be awesome.

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