Zombie

"Josh is one of those friends that you know bring out the best in you, and that you can talk deep shit with. I don't really have too many of these in person these days." No-one does - they're life's treasure

Yeah, Hitler wasn't too happy when Jessie Owens rubbed his nose in it either

Yes it's a good joke, Mike

No, thanks for the concern but it was Westie's blog about the benefits of turmeric and how it might be used as an alternative to some medications reminded me about this, which I'd read about a while ago https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/blog/292/entry-14241-life-update-into-the-new-year-and-beyond/

Grapefruit can kill Are you taking prescription drugs? If so you should avoid grapefruit, grapefruit juice, limes, pomelos and marmalade which contains Seville oranges [sweet orange, such as naval or Valencia oranges are fine] until you've spoken to your doctor. This is because these fruit contain a class of chemical called furanocoumarins. Furanocoumarins inhibit an enzyme, cytochrome P450 3A4, that is responsible for the inactivation of approximately half of all drugs. What this means is if a drug that is normally broken down by cytochrome P450 3A4 is taken at the same time as grapefruit, juice containing grapefruit or the other fruit mentioned, then more ‘active’ drug will be absorbed by the body, as less will have been inactivated by the enzyme. The result is that the level of the medicine in your blood can be increased which may increase the risk of side effects or alter the effect that the medicine has. Clearly this would have serious health side effects where dosages are critical. The links, below, to the NHS website contain details of those drugs that are known to react badly with these fruits which include commonly prescribed drugs like statins, calcium channel blockers, Ciclosporin and immunosuppressants, Entocort and Cytotoxic medicines. So its best to avoid these fruit and all juices containing these fruit until you are satisfied that there are no risks with the drugs that you are taking - which might not be easy to do as a lot of medics don't seem aware of this despite the risks being published more than 20 years ago. I have never had a doctor warn me whenever I've been prescribed drugs and I'm not aware that any of my family has either http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/11November/Pages/Prescription-pills-and-grapefruit-a-deadly-mix.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2474.aspx?CategoryID=73

Exciting news about the wedding Interesting about turmeric too - reminded to post an item about the dangers of grapefruit and marmalade with prescription drugs.

The Pink Panther Something more mainstream jazz, Henri Mancini's original and brilliant movie theme with sax player Plas Johnson

What's happened to Detroit has probably shocked many Americans, but it's nothing new or unusual. When you look around the world it's surprising how common it is for cities to simply die. Main reasons seem to be natural disasters, economic, social upheaval or war. Things just change. It's the pattern of human history. So if regeneration doesn't take off the good news is "lost cities" get a new life as tourist attractions and, for Detroit, as a dystopian sci-fi movie set Future archeologists will then be sifting through the rubble looking for artifacts of Motown and those weird "automobile" thingies...

"Northern Lights aurora borealis sightings could be even clearer in UK tonight" "US organisation the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an 85 per cent chance of activity tonight." "head for higher ground away from urban areas to avoid light pollution and look for somewhere with a good view of the northern horizon." "Weather conditions will be key this evening, with clear skies needed to be able to see the lights." "This year's first significant Northern Lights can be seen in parts of Scotland, northern Scandinavia, southern Wales and parts of southern England on 10 January." "The initial structure of this CME has been relatively weak in strength, but that said, it generally takes on the order of 24 hours or more for the full event to transpire and stronger storming is certainly still possible," "We're not sure how strong the storm will be but if it follows predictions there's a good chance of seeing it southern Britain," http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/10563240/Northern-Lights-aurora-borealis-sightings-could-be-even-clearer-in-UK-tonight.html http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/northern-lights-2014-where-watch-aurora-borealis-uk-1431735

Which is why Gareth Edwards coming out as an international top flight rugby player was so significant, because rugby is regarded as a very masculine game - so the message was clear: gay men are as masculine as straight men That's why, for me, Gareth Edwards is the most significant public person to have come out so far.

If some players now feel able to come out, and win at Sochi, that would be a powerful "Jessie Owens" moment on the podium

*notes the Denver firemen have now been re-posted four times - twice by rustle! ...meanwhile addy has been busy with his mop *

I thought they'd linked up with You Can Play in April last year? And what are they saying about the Sochi Olympics, Russia being so gay friendly and all?

This Is How It Feels To Be Lonely - Inspiral Carpets Manchester United fans sing this to taunt rival Man City supporters... "This is how it feels to be City/This is how it feels to be small/This is how it feels when your team wins nothing at all/Nothing at all.." ... and Man City fans sang it back at them in 2011 when they won the League "This is how it feels to be City / this is how it feels to be small / You signed Phil Jones we signed Kun Aguerro, Kun Aguerro"

It's a shame that he couldn't do this until he'd retired, like every other major team sport player that's come out. Except one. You should add Gareth Edwards to your list. He came out in 2009 while he was still a professional international rugby player at a high level. This is from wiki "He represented Wales in both rugby union and rugby league. He is the third most capped Welsh rugby union player, with 100 test match appearances for Wales and 3 for the British & Irish Lions. He is currently ranked 12th among international try scorers and is the second highest Wales try scorer behind Shane Williams. He also won 4 rugby league caps for Wales, scoring 3 tries." As far as I am aware there was no negative response from his teammates or within the game. Maybe that's because rugby is a "bigger" game. It's certainly a very family friendly game - in my view the most dynamic, continuous flowing action and masculine sport. Forty minutes action, a ten minute break, then forty minutes action again. All over and done with in under two exhilarating hours. Wimps need not apply

me agrees some seem definitely interested, rustle

I pointed out in my earlier posts "we don't fully understand climate mechanisms and we cannot currently predict what changes will occur and when" but "Global warming is about averages". 1. the planet's average temperature has been increasing over the last 100 years [if you dispute this then share your data] 2. this coincides with a rapid increase in human population [if you dispute this then share your data] 3. this coincides with a rapid increase in human greenhouse gas "production" [if you dispute this then share your data] 4. greenhouse gases cause warming [this seems to be agreed] To put it simply - we see an effect: warming - we have a cause for that warming, not the only cause, but a material cause As for your request "Please do not use Venus as an example, or I will use Mars as a counter example, as it has an atmosphere with a much higher concentration of CO2 than Earth's" , well I'm very happy to use Venus as an example because Earth and Venus both have thick atmospheres (14.69 psi and 1,330 psi respectively). Mars's atmosphere, on the other hand, is so thin and tenuous (0.087 psi) that it's CO2 atmosphere - about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure - has no measurable warming capacity

But there is no "overall climate" Graeme. There are many climates for the various countries and regions across the planet. That's why I used the word "localized" because climate is localized to countries and regions, it is not global. Also, we don't have the luxury of waiting until all the "long term data" over geological time are in. We, as a species, have only lived for a very short timescale BUT we can and have changed our environment dramatically in our very short time on this planet. The evidence is there wherever you look. So it is not fanciful to conceive we can do the same with global warming and climate change. Because we have already done it before - as I pointed out, we've already caused a damaging global effect on the planet's atmosphere. That's why we had to change our behaviour two decades ago and bring in a global ban on CFCs. You state that "Globally, however, our impact is much reduced, given that 70% of the Earth's surface is ocean and not populated" yet it is rising sea temperatures and sea levels - due to thermal expansion - that have been measured over 100 years. You also state that "Current theory states that the increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere will result in rising temperatures" and "the correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures is getting poorer each year" but the reality is that the "greenhouse" heating effect of CO2 is not theory it is measured scientific fact. As for clouds possibly reducing warming, take a look at Venus. Er, actually, you won't see it because of its clouds. But it's surface temperature has been measured at around 460 degrees Celsius. We know that humans and human activity generate significant amounts of atmospheric CO2 and methane. We know that CO2 and - especially - methane cause warming. There is good observational science that has measured global warming of land and the sea - even though the sea is, as you say, "not populated" - over decades. Science proceeds on the basis of likelihood and probability, and continual testing. We believe in Einstein's equations because no-one has come up with a convincing alternative way to explain the space/time effects that we observe. In the same way we have measured global warming AND we have identified human causes of warming. If someone has come up with a convincing different explanation - then speak up! And I haven't even started on the Precautionary Principle

That's a good question, Ron, because the answer's probably no. There'll be winners and losers. And human winners are not so good at sharing their fortune with human losers. So desertification of fertile land, loss of fresh water, inundation of low lying countries - where are those people going to go when their lands become uninhabitable? Where's the global plan? Because we're all in this together. One of the most important outcomes of the space program is seeing ourselves for what we are - all existing together on a tiny vulnerable blue dot in space [click on any part of the pic to zoom in]

Space weather update "Yesterday, Jan. 7th, an X1-class explosion in the sunspot's magnetic canopy hurled a coronal mass ejection [CME] in our direction. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Jan. 9th when the cloud arrives. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of strong geomagnetic storms" "The X1-flare that hurled the CME toward Earth also accelerated a swarm of high-energy protons in our direction... The source of all this activity is AR1944, one of the biggest sunspots of the past decade. The sprawling active region is more than 200,000 km wide and contains dozens of dark cores. Its primary core, all by itself, is large enough to swallow Earth three times over. To set the scale of the behemoth, Karzaman Ahmad inserted a picture of Earth in the corner of this picture he took on Jan. 7th from the Langkawi National Observatory in Malaysia:" This mass of highly charged particles is travelling towards us at around 8m kph and is due to impact Earth's upper atmosphere around 8.00am GMT tomorrow. Due to the intensity auroras may be visible at lower latitudes during darkness for a day or so and Canada and parts of northern USA may be well placed to see it. Also auroras may be visible across parts of Northern Europe and possibly southern parts of the UK tomorrow night. Because of this "Orbital Sciences Corp. scrubbed today's launch of the company's first resupply mission to the International Space Station due to an unusually high level of radiation following yesterday's solar flare. A launch at 1:10 p.m. EST Thursday is still being considered, but no decision has been made." http://spaceweather.com/ http://www.nasa.gov/

Actually, Mike, global warming has nothing to do with Al Gore but everything to do with observational science

No, I agree with you, AJ. The cold weather that's been happening in the US recently is of no particular significance - well, obviously it is for those caught up in it - but I specifically referenced it simply because it has been used by "strong reactors" as a reason to bash global warming and this blog was motivated by those and to correct that "message". So, for the avoidance of doubt, the record US cold weather is of no particular significance to the science of global warming. It may or may not be symptomatic of localized climate change but taken in isolation it is irrelevant

These Denver firemen?

Yes, variability is the nature of weather. But the science tells us: - average sea temperatures have been rising over the last 100 years - so have sea levels, not because of ice melt but due to thermal expansion - carbon dioxide is a heat trapping greenhouse gas - heat is the engine for powerful storms like the record US tornadoes and Philippines typhoon last year - the rate and nature of new extreme weather records like these and in other parts of the world such as Australia - even the UK! - all the carbon dioxide emitted by our industry, transport and energy generation - humans have been removing carbon locking forests throughout human history and replacing them with carbon dioxide and methane emitting farmed animals - human population, and therefore human impact, is growing on a compound basis [merely a slower rate than exponential] - even if the population were stable, the percentage of of the planet's human population switching to carbon dioxide generating lifestyles is also growing on a compound basis. Taken together these are all engines for global warming - raising the average temperature of the planet. The way in which these result in localized climate change is, of course, much more complicated, and new extreme cold records - localized conditions - are not inconsistent with global warming - average global temperature. But just because we don't fully understand climate mechanisms and we cannot currently predict what changes will occur and when, does not alter the science. And we already have accepted evidence of human caused change to the Earth's atmosphere - the ozone layer - which led to the agreed ban on CFCs.