W_L

Just look for two characters and you can tell the difference: Alexis of Dynasty Versus Dallas, J.R Ewing: Plus, I want to know what happened to Steven Carrington and his boyfriend, did it work out? Is he relapsing back to Sammy Jo's evil twin (Hey it could happen, if she threatens him with the kid and Sammy Jo had an evil twin)? If they restart Dallas, please restart Dynasty, I didn't catch the show until I grew up, but it's still fun show on reruns. Just make sure, you don't go to Maldavia again

I think I read it too on nifty a long time ago. Have you looked over there?

Thinking critically is fine, but there's a difference between "informed consent" and endless polemic debates. People will go around in circles a dozen times over one issue, until someone takes the initiative and makes the decision. As for a machine versus a human being, why keep employing people to do the same things over and over again, when a machine can do it faster? People have this really flawed notion that machines are stealing their jobs, but you don't need to fear the machine or fight them. Learn about the machine, work with it, and understand how it is doing the things that you did by hand, get certified in its functions, and you're now its partner, not the replaced worker. Man and Machine outside in science fiction stories are sometimes partners and equals, not adversaries like Terminator series. I see artificial intelligence as mankind's future children, not our tools or our foils. When our species becomes extinct as all species do eventually, what will we leave to carry on our legacy? We may have probes and other objects floating through space, but they really hold nothing more than a static image of mankind. I see silicon based life forms as something more if we can allow our creativity to grow and not allow our fear to cloud our judgment. Basically, Ash, give the machine a chance to be your friend. As for genetically altered food, wonder if that means I can grow gills Seriously, I do know, which is why I buy food from farmer's markets. Meat though, I buy from a local place that's cheap and caters to the college crowd in Cambridge. I still go to Shaws and Stop & Shop for things, if they are cheaper. As for the Stem Cells, while blood transplant stem cells have the potential to not be compatible and fatal if complications occur; we should continue this research line and maybe even offer AIDS patients with compatible physiology to a donor an experimental option. It might be dangerous, but in a world without a cure for AIDS, a 1 in 10 risk of death can be an option for patients, if they choose it. In medicine, your goal should be to offer patients a chance for a better life, it's not cheapening life, it's embracing hope by choice. Think about Penicillin and the lives it touched, because scientists and doctors took to the course of fighting bacteria to save lives. They did not always succeed, but they gave their patients a better chances. I think in terms of medical technology, there's a need to give people options that should be part of treatment if applicable. I think beyond debate, knowledge should not be held up, nor repressed due to erroneous fears. As I told you before, there are many types of stem cell research, this particular line is based on blood, which comes from a living donor.

The risk in that is over-analyzing and inhibiting research due to our fears. I think the term you are looking for Ash is Bioethics, something I brought up with Phoenix a while back about the nature of passive euthanasia, which in my view should be fine with consent of the patient. However on the flip side, I am a pro-life person based on choice (Don't want this to turn into an abortion topic, so let's not start up that here, it's merely my statement of mindset.) Ethics serves the needs of the greater good with the individual person's consent. The peripheral blood stem cells that the AIDS patient got was from a live consenting donor, not what you imagine that Stem cell research sounds like based on horror stories of media. Stem cell research is not about unborn fetuses, but people make this dangerous mistake in assuming it is. Here's part of the study Human constraints and fears are reasons why we do not progress further with artificial intelligence, why we have the ability to cure many diseases though cannot open up vaccines or drugs to more people, and why fossil fuels are still dominant, when hydrogen fuel sources are more plentiful. We're limiting human endeavors, because of the immediate needs of human social constraints, we fear machines will overthrow us (I actually welcome seeing artificial intelligence take over and try to become better than its creators, but that's my inner Asimov talking).. Pharmaceutical companies are actively inhibiting drug mass production from generic research firms trying to create low cost alternatives to the expensive brand names, which would cut down their profit margins. As for Fossil Fuels, we've got more than enough hydrogen to breath, swim, and even consume, it's the most abundant resource in the universe, so why are our research focus in the billions of dollars focused so solidly on fossil fuel efficiency and dependency, when hydrogen research is significantly smaller in comparison. Beyond morality, science should be operating under the concept of exploration beyond taboos or constraints. While there should be limits to human experimentation, I agree with that, but we cannot be driven by our fears in science and technology. Our future is not back in the stone halls of our ancestors, but in the titanium will that we establish today and will last for a thousand years to come.

I'll pass, I am waiting for them to redo "Dynasty", if you want trashy 1980's TV drama with good cat fights, I'd rather see that (Alexis is my favorite TV power woman from that time period, when sitcoms dominated the TV landscape, she broke out and made bad scheming cutthroat bitch awesome for 90's and 00's television.) I thought the UK has a version of TV land for old soap operas, too. I can spoil you with the answer to, "who shot JR Ewing?" hehe!

It was this song that got me into liking classic rock: I heard the real Chuck Berry song later and it got me hooked into classic rock. I saw the movie in the 1995 on my local cable station, it is one of my favorite movies of all time. As for non-rock and roll oldies: http://youtu.be/1gewTWM6fH0 Yes, I am a fan of the Bee Gees' soft Ballads

Since banger got sidetracked, I'll have to be the one to point this out. Those British boys were hot !!! (drooling ) Thanks to all the athletes and good events. Rio will be interesting, does anyone know whether the Olympics was ever done South America?

Well, you do know I am a science fiction writer, so I do take my scientific research as deeply as I can get it. I am a huge fan of scientific development. I noticed there was a strange correlation in SIV infections of primates with AIDS like symptoms in Asia and India, not Africa where it originated, so perhaps there is an environmental factor that has led to a genetic factor in Asian populations that could be part of HIV origin into AIDS after centuries of SIV dormancy in primates in Africa without issue. Maybe, we might cut down the time to find a working cure for AIDS (the current prototype is based on a limited and prohibitive research development of stem cell blood treatment) I think prohibiting stem cell research is ludicrous, when it is currently the best means we have to fight AIDS. Of course, I also am writing a science fiction story with the idea as background, so there's a reason why I do know an amount about viral origin theory and some AIDS research.

You need to move to the big cities on the east coast, we'll bend you right Anyone know if TMZ is getting sued by the UK for exposing Prince Harry?

Well, he has a future in playgirl magazines covers Myr is still a gay guy, beneath his admin hat; we all need to be reminded of that from time to time.

Looks like it affect autoantibodies and blocks chemical interferon gamma for the body. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/aids-like-disease-asians-immune-system_n_1823296.html (Yes, I will use Huffington post outside the Soapbox ) My thinking is more along the lines of viral origin for HIV. Viruses are still mysterious. Under most theories right now, retroviruses, specific to the group which HIV is part, are believed to be a RNA based chemical entity (no, it's not living; though it shares similarities to life), it is possible for RNA to transcribe incorrectly and create DNA that holds the incorrect chemical keys for a human bodies natural functions i.e. the immune response as HIV does. The articles also said that the disease was misdiagnosed as TB, so I wonder how many other times have people made that mistake. Maybe, the disease is far older and more chronic than 2004, when it was first identified. The origin theory right now on HIV is that SIV or Simian Immunodeficiency Virus was the starting point for HIV from Africa due to human beings eating monkey meat infected with SIV (West Africans have been doing that for centuries with no issue and the apes are not affected by SAIDS originally, which makes me wonder.). The species of primates in Africa that were infected with SIV did not get AIDS like syndromes and lived normally. However, outside African primates, Asian and indian primates would get AIDS like symptoms, if they were infected with SIV. For me, it was just a hypothesis, sorry to get everyone into angry protest.

May the passage to what lies before you in death be as bright and monumental as those steps that you took in life RIP Neil Armstrong,

I did say it's a long-shot hypothesis. I work with doctors, but I am not a doctor. I am simply an upper management accountant, who doe doesn't sit in his office waiting for people to deliver numbers to me I like hearing them debate medicine and information between disciplines. It would be fascination, since we spent several hundred billion dollars on African HIV research and experimentation thinking it was a cross species viral mutation based on a evolutionary link with chimps, when this disease was present in Asian population and it could have been a inter-species viral transcription issue. I am not discounting evolutionary theory that SIV to HIV are linked under standard origin ideas, but posing a possible alternative that it was a inter-species.

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=120006S9RJMO This is really fascinating, it's a rare disease that only affects Asians, is not communicable through a virus or other carrier agent, and yet it bears a striking resemblance to the bane of GLBT people, AIDS. As a gay Asian male, it hits close to home on two fronts. Also, due to the misdiagnosis of the disease to Tuberculosis, there could have been many people of Asian descent, who suffered. Seeing a natural form of the HIV-AIDS issues, any type of religious connotation about the disease being God's wrath on gays should never have been levelled. I know this might seem like a long-shot hypothesis, but what if AIDS did not originate in Africa as infectious disease experts believe for the last 30 years, what if AIDS was naturally formed, then a virus copied genetic codes within Asians, who held the immunity issue. If this disease has been present in the Asian population under the misdiagnosis of Tuberculosis, then there could have been a large base for a rogue virus to work with. This isn't a conspiracy theory (I've read the stuff about the US government secret genocide against gays, too, which I am skeptical towards), it is plausible alternative to the African theory. Biologist have been trying to link up West African chimps to humans for years through SIV (SIV however when in human bodies dies very quickly and cannot manifest the AIDS symptoms that we see today), but cross species infection might not be the real reason.

Boxers and undershirts, my dog jumps on me in the morning to wake me, naked leave marks. On vacation, i could sleep in a lot of ways depends on weather and air condition.

Well, we can try setting them up As for the questions: yes, he does go on long walks and see other dogs. However, most boy dogs ignore or are too rough for him and he ignores girl dogs except to bark. His best friend was the dog across the street who was around his size and could wrestle with him. They would bark at one another at night driving us crazy. As a reference, my dog is a cross between a pure bred pomeranian and mixed beagle. He's not small like a toy poodle, but he's smaller than a Labrador retreiver He likes cats, boy and girl, even working with them to chase little squirrels. He has personally caught two mice in our house, so we sort of think of him as a cat.

Hi new pups and welcome to GA Enjoy our stories and our eccentric personalities !

I've noticed he's been very lonely recently, He no longer humps stuff or runs around much anymore (No I will never have my dog neutered, I personally think it is cruel to castrate your best friend). Anyway, it coincided with a neighbor moving away with their dog (a boy dog, who's three years younger than him. As I said in my blog entries a few years back, my dog isn't exactly heterosexual), who just lives across the street. I know he's getting on in years at age 12, but I don't want him to feel left out and lonely. Does anyone know how to help with Doggie depression? With all the big discussions and stuff, I know this topic is fluff, but I'd like to hear what you guys think I should do.

Not really, we'll all become Google OS based cyborgs before Bing can even become a common term

I hate to say this, but I agree with Zombie, where did I focus on the teacher? I focused on the kid and then I focused on the education system. I come from a family of teachers, who were working under even worse condition during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, so Wildone, I think you misunderstand my point.

Zombie, are you copying my points from two weeks ago in the Soapbox? I already said my part about education reform and the need for specialized track education, which do not exist by in large around the world. In addition, this kid is like the Mozart of Oncology, why not give him a helping hand? Einstein was great at math and science, but sucked in language and other studies. The only real generalist genius in recorded history without a tint of the religious iconic figure (unless your Dan Brown) was Leonardo Da Vinci and we haven't seen another generalist like him in centuries.

Nope I want to see the front too... For comparison Daniel radcliffe disappointed me after his expostion.

Some of us enjoy boggling the royal jewels He's a young guy, who picked up some girls and had fun playing private games. Why is that so scandalous? Now if he picked up some boys, we would just be jealous not to be part of his group.

my point exactly, awhooooo! Thanks for sharing

So, how do you explain the unexplained? Is there life after death? Is there such a thing as extra-sensory perception? Or, can everything be explained by science and observation, i.e. we see ghosts, because we think they are ghosts rather than people. My example may not even be a premonition, but just my mind anticipating outcomes, perhaps I saw the old man before and noticed something about him in my subconscious that he did not know about his health. Maybe, the civil war spirit was simply a re-enactment actor, who was disoriented and drunk after a show, then the humidity and bog in your area generated a mist that made him appear translucent. The paranormal and supernatural are great topics of discussion, for skeptics and believers.