JamesSavik

Dallas in Muscle-land. hot tubs and saunas and showers, oh my!

Writng off the Saints this year. They rebuilt their defense with a bunch of guys that can't tackle and their offense couldn't handle Cleveland.

What's keeping me up till 3am? I know too much. I did a job back in the old days and I learned a lot more about biological warfare than any sane person wants to know. Every serious biowarfare program in the world has looked at the viruses that cause hemorrhagic fevers. There are some very scary ones but Ebola is the one that has gotten the most press coverage and even exposure in popular culture. Ebola starred in the big Dustin Hoffman thriller OutBreak and was key to the plot of Tom Clancey's Executive Orders . I can tell you that it a no shit full blown nightmare . Nothing on earth kills like Ebola. It hits you like a hurricane. You get so sick, so fast that there is a very limited window of time for you to walk around spreading it. Once you get sick with it, you are down and too sick to do anything. CDC Now the WHO (World Health Org) thinks that the outbreak in Africa may kill upwards of a 1.5 million people. Holy shit. I have had my doubts about the way this outbreak has turned out. It's not easy to pass Ebola person to person. It takes bodily fluids. In past outbreaks people got so sick, so fast that the outbreaks burned out relatively quickly. I have to wonder- is someone experimenting with using it as a bioweapon? The current outbreak is so atypical of past outbreaks, one has to wonder. Bio warfare has been going on for a very long time. In the dark ages plague victims would be thrown into cities by catapult to break sieges. Smallpox infected blankets were given to indians by British soldiers in the French and Indian Wars. China still has outbreaks from bioweapons the Japanese used against them in WWII. It wouldn't take a Manhattan Project type effort to develop a bioweapon and Ebola is so nasty to start with, it doesn't need much in the way of weaponization. If someone is playing games, field testing this bug and getting their act together for a major attack somewhere in the world, it's time to build a bunker.

Viruses use their RNA and DNA to hijack the nuclear material (chromosomes) in a cell for replication. In doing so they slice, dice and splice the DNA strands that they are playing with. They also insert their own RNA/DNA strands into the host cells DNA. There are strands of unused DNA strands called entrons which in many species have sequences identical to those of common viruses. That CAN'T be coincidence. I'm not suggesting that viruses are the only mechanism of mutation. I'd bet a big bill that they do play a role.

It could be his sister or gal pal. Hope springs eternal.

One of the enduring mysteries of evolution is how species make the change into a completely new creature. Such a process is often called mutation or a change in the genetic characteristics of an organism which makes it essentially different from the base species. Exactly how this works has long been a point of speculation and debate. One of my professors said, "there's a flash, some magic happens and you have the new improved trilobite". In matters scientific, we tend to frown on magical processes. What process occurs to make an evolutionary mutation happen? We know of lots of things that cause chromosomes to change or mutate: radiation and chemicals for instance. We know that stars change throughout their lifetime. One theory is that evolutionary spurts like the so called Cambrian Explosion may have been caused by a period of instability in our sun. It's difficult to prove and there's very little in the way of ancillary proof. There is something else that acts on chromosomes: viruses use them in their replication process and viruses are one of the most basic and ancient life forms. Is it possible that evolutionary mutations may be associated with errors in viral transcription? Consider the process: a virus attaches itself to a cell. Usually a very specific cell with know receptor sites on the cell wall. Many types of differentiated cells in complex organism have similar cell walls. Virus X attaches itself to a cell that's similar but not quite right. It goes about its business of viral transcription but these chromosomes are different. The viral transcription attempt leaves the cells chromosomes a hash of their original state. This might be the genesis of cancer and then again- it might simply be Genesis. Many types of damage to the chromosomes leads to cell death. The editing function of DNA may clean up errors in others. Others may be just different enough and yet not impede the function of the cell. This process occurs under various conditions quadrillions of times over eons of time until it happens to the right cell in the reproductive organs and then we have a blueprint for something new. A new organism. Is this the missing link of evolution? Are viruses responsible for mutations that cause evolutionary leaps- and dead ends? Someone a lot smarter than me will have to figure this one out but it makes sense in all sorts of ways. Viruses have been around since the beginning. They have been hijacking and replicating themselves using the genetic material of all sorts of cells. It may turn out that viruses are the catalyst that drive evolutionary processes filling in a very large blank space in the theory. ---------------------------------------------- I wasn't the only person thinking this: The role played by viruses in the evolution of their hosts: a view based on informational protein phylogenies. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12798227 Evolution of DNA polymerase families: evidences for multiple gene exchange between cellular and viral proteins. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12029358 This is still highly theoretical but there is some convincing evidence in the papers. -JS 9/25 19:43CST

Just saying- There's probably THIRTY stories here that made into screenplays and shot as a movies that would be better than anything that came from Hollyweird this summer. Dom or Comicality's stuff easily. And any number of others.

< Say what?

After 8 years of Bush and 8 years of O'bozo, I wonder if the Queen will take us back.

I addressed this a few weeks ago in my blog. I think it stands up fairly well.

< FREEDOM! Might not be all that it is cracked up to be. A divided United Kingdom will have a lot less influence on the world stage.

I'll be a week dead before I lose interest in p0rn.

There's a saying: Even a blind squirrel will find a nut occasionally. Godzilla, the Replacements 3, Lets be Cops, Persecuted, Think Like a Man 2, As Above/So Below, the Giver, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Step it Up:All In, If I Stay, Wish I was Here, Male-itch-ifant, Jersey Boys, Spider Man 2, the Purge:Anarchy, Hercules, Lucy, the Rover, What If, the Neighbors, The Fault is in Our Stars, 22 Jump Street, Calvary, Dawn of the Planet of the Raped, Snowpiercer... Are we noting a trend here?

You used to think that it was so easy You used to say that it was so easy But you're trying, you're trying now Another year and then you'd be happy Just one more year and then you'd be happy But you're crying, you're crying now

Sometimes words are wasted when music is the correct language for a mood. Sit back, turn it up and burn one if you feel like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi3OnJT4Qjw Out on the road today, I saw a DEADHEAD sticker on a Cadillac A little voice inside my head said, "Don't look back. You can never look back" I thought I knew what love was What did I know? Those days are gone forever I should just let them go but- I can see you- Your brown skin shinin' in the sun You got that top pulled down and that radio on, baby And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong After the boys of summer have gone Morning found us calmly unaware Noon burn gold into our hair At night, we swim the laughin' sea When summer's gone Where will we be

We often talk about Summer Movie Season. Not this summer. With few exceptions, the movies sucked balls. They were boring, politically correct horse shit, lame assed comedies that laughed at their own jokes or avant-garde film skool bullshit. What went wrong? When the most interesting character of the whole summer is a talking raccoon and his buddy, a tree with a mono-syllabic vocabulary, you have to know that the creative side of Hollywood has obviously caught the zombie virus. It appears that now Hollywood is a brain dead zombie lurching from bad sequel to bad sequel moaning no brainz, we have no f-ing brainz. You could tell that many of these summer so called movies weren't released. They escaped. Like the rabid, diseased animals that they are, should be tracked down and shot.

I'm not found of insecure hipster douchebags. They should all be tossed out in the thunderstorm and hit by lightning.

Maybe you are thinking about the Foxfire Books? http://www.foxfire.org/thefoxfirebookseries.aspx

B4 I quitz drinking: After I quitz drinking:

One of our newer members was discussing coming out. I put together a post that I think addresses the topic rationally and succinctly. This is my response: ______________________________ Coming out is a very much an individual thing. It can be very tricky but it is something that you get to decide for yourself. You owe it to YOURSELF to do it right. You DO NOT owe it to the mythological "gay community" to come out at all costs and injure yourself and your future in the process. You could either be in Canada or California. Both places have very liberal attitudes right beside very conservative ones. I remember a guy whose Mom was very liberal and gay friendly until he came out. She said that's fine for other people but no son of mine is going to be a f-ing faggot. While there are tons of happy happy, joy joy coming out stories, there are a lot of shitty ones too. It's a process and you need to think it through because you can only do it once and there can be permanent consequences. There are some points to seriously consider: At this point in my life is it right for me? How will my family react How will my friends react How will the effect my work/school At this point in my life is it right for me? You have to think about where you are. A 16 year old living at home will have concerns that a 25 year old colloege grad living on his own does not. How will my family react The problem here is that you might not guess right. How will my friends react If you are in high school, trusting the wrong people can set you up for a lot of misery. How will the effect my work/school A serious consideration. Will you become the school fag and the butt of all sorts of bullying and humiliation or are you in a school that wouldn't tolerate that sort of rubbish? There's a lot to think about. DON'T PANIC. There's no time limit. You get to do this at your own pace or even not at all if you are uncomfortable with it. The best plan is for you to be completely comfortable with it beforehand because I guarantee- the more confident you are, the better it will go. ________________ PS- Never, ever, ever say I think I'm gay. This implies that you aren't sure and those that aren't with it will want you to go to quack doctors to be fixed. The right thing to say, with confidence, is that I am gay. That doesn't leave wiggle room for quacks. You aren't broken. You don't need to be fixed. Best of luck, James

If I could only have 5 books... I would find and murder the tyrant that made such a idiotic rule. I'm up to 3-5 books a WEEK.

Welcome Mattie! Bet you do.

One of the problems with US politics is that it has become so polarized. If you are a democrat, that tells the other side that you hate God and want to kill babies. If you are a republican, then you must be a drooling religious fanatic that thinks the second coming is at hand and we can destroy the environment for a buck and have no compassion for anyone. Oh and BTW- they hate gays and want to see them all stoned. There no room for a spectrum of beliefs, no room for the actual 10,000 shades of gray that actually define humanity. There are a lot of reasons for it and it's NOT just at this site. The rancor is so angry and bitter that it is all over the US parts of the internet and points far beyond. I blame the media and particularly the party mouthpiece whores like FOX and pmsNBC. They are practically the propaganda arms of the two parties. The other networks aren't much better. You would be surprised and disgusted if you knew how inbred the current administration and the media are. If you've any wits at all you have to know that there's very bad stuff the media is not talking about in deference to the administration. It goes much further than that. On the right you can't be a moderate and discuss common sense gun control reform. God knows I would LIKE to. If you do, then you are a sell out. On the left if you are queasy about the all abortions all the time policy the Man Hating Lesbian wing of the party will burn you at the stake. The problem is even INSIDE the parties. I don't know what the answer could be. I've often wished for a 3rd party. I even voted for one last time out. However- you've got to win if you want to accomplish anything and unless there is a D or an R after your candidates name, it's not happening.