Japan: Expert Panel Warns of Collapse of Medical Services
Posted: April 3, 2020 Filed under: Breaking News, Health and Social Issues, Japan, Think Tank | Tags: Coronavirus, Health, Medical, Pandemic, Tokyo Leave a comment
The Yomiuri Shimbun – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a protective mask speaks at a task force meeting on Wednesday.
The Yomiuri Shimbun reports: With the number of people infected with the new coronavirus increasing in Tokyo and four prefectures, a government panel of experts on Wednesday expressed concern over the possible collapse of medical services.
The panel to consider measures against the virus, which is chaired by Takaji Wakita, director general of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, also called on the government to consider closing all schools at once even after the new academic term starts in alert areas where the number of infections rose sharply in the past week.
In its proposal to the government on Wednesday, the panel cited Tokyo and the four prefectures of Osaka, Kanagawa, Aichi and Hyogo and said, “Drastic measures need to be taken today or tomorrow as these areas have densely populated cities and their medical systems are becoming strained.”
In light of this, the panel called for not only designated medical institutions for infectious diseases but also local university hospitals and other medical facilities to accept patients, saying, “The utmost efforts are necessary to provide medical services in accordance with the role of each hospital.” It also pointed to the need to prepare an option for patients with mild or moderate symptoms to stay in accommodation facilities rather than at home.
The panel also urged the government to provide support for evaluating the effectiveness and safety of existing drugs and accelerate the domestic development of new vaccines.
As public fatigue over exercising self-restraint can be seen, the panel stated its concern that the sense of alert is fading more than expected among some people. On the other hand, it gave some leeway for playing outdoor sports and watching sports games in areas where no infections have been confirmed in the past week, on the assumption that appropriate measures against the virus are taken … (read more)
Source: The Japan News
[VIDEO] Brilliantly Mocks the ‘Magic of the Birth Canal’
Posted: June 6, 2018 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Science & Technology, U.S. News | Tags: Abortion, Birth, Choice42, Health, Logic, Magic, Medicine, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, science 4 Comments
… A few days ago, Choice42 released this deliciously sardonic video entitled “The Magical Birth Canal.” It is a searing take on the pro-abort narrative that says life begins at birth.
Quite simply, it is brilliant …
… Something within that canal confers humanity on a life that has been human from the moment of conception. But pro-aborts prefer to think of the unborn as a mass of tissue not worthy of protection. Read the rest of this entry »
If Only Fredo Corleone Mixed Chocolate with his Coffee, He Could Have Been Smart, Not Like People Say
Posted: March 22, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Food & Drink, Mediasphere | Tags: Chocolate, Cocoa, Coffee, Health 2 Comments
Participants showed quicker response rates from those who drank cocoa and those with the caffeine-cocoa concoction also had higher accuracy than those with the cocoa drink.
Adding the sweet stuff to your coffee may help you concentrate better, a study from the University of Georgia has found.
The study compared the “mental energy” effects of four different hot beverages, one with cocoa, one with caffeine, one with a combination of the two and the final as a placebo.
Each day, the participants drank one of the four drinks and were asked to complete a “mental energy test.”
‘It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!’
Participants showed quicker response rates from those who drank cocoa and those with the caffeine-cocoa concoction also had higher accuracy than those with the cocoa drink.
Along with…
View original post 67 more words
[VIDEO] ‘Like a Sack of Meat’: Hillary Clinton Faints At 9/11 Ceremony
Posted: September 11, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Americans, Health, Hillary Clinton, HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, National security, New York City, Secret Service, YouTube 1 Comment
Law enforcement sources tell us:
-HRC appeared to faint
-left behind a shoe
-was thrown in van “like a sack of meat”https://t.co/fzO8H7XaOt— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) September 11, 2016
#ClintonCollapse Hillary’s shoe speaks mountains. pic.twitter.com/zjXJrGTtID
— Tinfoil Hat Hillary (@candes2) September 11, 2016
Why did Hillary expose all these people to illness? pic.twitter.com/tLgZTgkBAO
— jon gabriel (@exjon) September 11, 2016
Source: YouTube
Capitalism is the Great Anti-Pollutant
Posted: April 26, 2016 Filed under: Economics, Global, History, Think Tank | Tags: Air Pollution, Bacteria, Capitalism, Disease, Economic planning, Environment, Free Markets, Health, Indoor air quality, Industrial Revolution, Life expectancy, Pollution, Sick building syndrome, University of California, University of Surrey Leave a comment
Contrary to popular myth, the environment over the past 200 years has become less polluted and toxic for humans.
In July 1924, Calvin Coolidge Jr., the Presdient’s 16-year-old son, died of an infection from a toe blister he got playing tennis on the White House lawn. The bacteria that took young Calvin’s life is staphylococcus aureus, known as “staph.” …
Were health-care products such as antibiotics, antibacterial ointments, and inexpensive clean and disposable bandages available 92 years ago, Calvin Coolidge Jr., would have escaped the bacterial pollution that killed him. Factories and vehicles used to produce and distribute these items use energy, and dispense waste. But capitalist production and consumption are not destroying a pristine Eden. Instead, capitalist production and consumption are replacing more immediate and more lethal forms of environmental pollution for less immediate and less lethal forms.
We denizens of modern market economies are today largely free not only of the filth of lethal staph infections, but also of other up-close and dangerous pollutants that our ancestors routinely endured, or died of. We sleep, in sturdy buildings, on beds that rest on hard floors beneath hard roofs. Our pre-industrial ancestors did not. Save for the tiny fraction of people in the nobility and clergy, nearly everyone slept in flimsy huts on dirt floors beneath thatched roofs. (Sometimes these dirt floors would be strewn with hay, thresh, to make them less unpleasant.)
Not only were thresh-strewn dirt floors obvious sources of regular up-close pollution of a sort that is unknown to a typical first-world person today, thatched roof themselves were ferments of filth. They kept out rain and cold less effectively than our modern dwellings. Worse, they were home to rats, mice, birds, spiders, hornets, and other animals, which would drop their own wastes onto the huts’ inhabitants. They were also highly flammable.
Of course these pre-industrial huts contained no running water or indoor plumbing. Daily bathing and other routines of personal hygiene that we moderns take for granted were largely unknown to most before the industrial revolution.
For heat in the winter families would bring farm animals into the huts, especially at night. To shield themselves from the droppings of these farm animals, each of these families would cut a trench in the floor across the width their hut. They’d sleep on the side of the trench opposite where the animals slept. Unfortunately, the trench did little to protect the family from whatever insects the animals brought into the huts with them. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Vampire Therapy’ Could Reverse Ageing
Posted: November 2, 2014 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Science & Technology | Tags: Aging, GDF11, Harvard, Health, Medicine, Vampire, Vampire Therapy 3 Comments
A transfusion of youthful blood may halt or even reverse the ageing process as two studies find that the chemical make-up of younger blood has surprising health benefits
Science Correspondent Sarah Knapton reports: It may seem the stuff of gothic horror novels, but transfusions of young blood could reverse the ageing process and even cure Alzheimer’s Disease, scientists believe.
“We all wonder why we were stronger and mentally more agile when young, and these two unusually exciting papers actually point to a possible answer….There seems to be little question that, GDF11 has an amazing capacity to restore aging muscle and brain function.”
Throughout history, cultures across the globe have extolled the properties of youthful blood, with children sacrificed and the blood of young warriors drunk by the victors.
“It was even rumored that the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il injected himself with blood from healthy young virgins to slow the ageing process.”
Now scientists have found that young blood actually ‘recharges’ the brain, forms new blood vessels and improves memory and learning.
“The ‘vampire therapy’ improved the performance of the elderly mice in memory and learning tasks.”
In parallel research, scientists at Harvard University also discovered that a ‘youth protein’ which circulates in the blood is responsible for keeping the brain and muscles young and strong.
The protein, known as ‘GDF11’, is present in the bloodstream in large quantities when we are young but peters out as we age.
Although both the discoveries were made in mice, researchers are hoping to begin human trials in the next two to three years, in studies which could bring rapid improvements for human longevity and health. Read the rest of this entry »
Time Cover: Never Offline
Posted: September 10, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Robotics, Science & Technology, U.S. News | Tags: Apple, Apple Watch, Futurism, gadgets, Health, iPhone 6, Medical Devices, Personal Technology, The Singularity, Transhumanism, Wearable, Wearable Tech 1 Comment
Neurobridge: Paralyzed Man Becomes First to Use Power of Thought to Move Hand
Posted: June 24, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Robotics | Tags: bionic, Burkhart, Health, Integrated circuit, Keanu Reeves, microchip, Ohio State University, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, prosthetics, Robotics Leave a commentOhio doctors insert microchip into Ian Burkhart’s brain allowing him to move hand for first time since accident
For the Telegraph, Rosa Prince reports: A young American paralysed in a swimming accident has become the first patient to move his hand using the power of thought after doctors inserted a microchip into his brain.
Onlookers described the moment he was able to move by the sheer force of concentration as like watching “science fiction come true” Photo: Youtube/ MediaSourceTV
“Physically, it was a foreign feeling. Emotionally it was definitely a sense of hope and excitement to know that it’s possible.”
Ian Burkhart was able to open and close his fist and even pick up a spoon during the first test of the chip, giving hope to millions of accident victims and stroke sufferers of a new bionic era of movement through thought.
Doctors at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center created the “Neurobridge” technology, whereby a microchip reads patients’ thoughts in order to replace signals no longer transmitted by their broken bodies, in conjunction with engineers from Battelle, a non-profit research centre.
While doctors have seen some success in recent years in getting stroke victims to manoeuvre robotic arms
Ian Burkhart uses the power of thought to move his hand, having had a microchip inserted in his brain (Youtube/ MediaSourceTV)
using their thoughts, Mr Burkhart is the first to move his own body.
Paralysed from the chest down during a swimming accident four years ago, the 23-year underwent surgery in April to drill into his skull and implant a chip into his brain.
At just 0.15 inch wide, the chip has 96 electrodes which ‘read’ what he is thinking and is housed in a port inside his skull.
After weeks of practice sessions, when Mr Burkhart focused intently on wiggling his fingers while the chip responded by moving an animated hand on a computer screen, the first proper test took place last week. Read the rest of this entry »
Greg Gutfeld Was Right: ‘Cool’ Kids More Likely to Have Problems Later in Life
Posted: June 11, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere | Tags: Chateau Marmont Hotel, Child development, Health, Hollywood, James Franco, Joseph P. Allen, Lindsay Lohan, Sixteen Candles, Substance dependence, Superbad, University of Virginia Leave a commentFor TIME, Eliana Dockterman writes: Growing up, movies taught us that being popular in high school wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The nerds and losers in Mean Girls, Sixteen Candles and Superbad may have gotten picked on, but they always got their happy ending and the assurance that one day they would grow up to be smarter, wealthier and happier than the cool kids.
Now, research suggests that the revenge of the nerds is no longer a pipe dream:
popular teens are more likely to have problems later in life.
[Order Greg’s book “Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You” from Amazon]
A new decade-long study published Thursday in the journal Child Development found that people who tried to act “cool” in early adolescence were more likely to have issues with drugs, their social lives and criminal activity later in life.
“It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behavior might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviors to try to appear cool, at least to a subgroup of other teens. So they became involved in more serious criminal behavior and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed.”
— Joseph P. Allen, a professor of psychology at UVA
Researchers at the University of Virginia gathered information from 184 teens, their peers and their families for ten years, beginning at age 13. The participants in the study all attended public school in either suburban or urban areas in the southeastern United States and came from a variety of racial and socio-economic backgrounds. Read the rest of this entry »
Black Bong Water for the 21st Century Connoisseur: Marijuana Infused Coffee
Posted: June 4, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Food & Drink, Health and Social Issues | Tags: Cannabis, Coffee, drugs, Health, Illegal, Marijuana, Mirth Provisions, Pro-Legalization, Recreation, Washington Leave a comment
DC News FOX 5 reports: A new product promises drinkers a jolt of something extra than your daily dose of caffeine.
[You can order all kinds of coffee supplies from Amazon
Washington state based Mirth Provisions plans to release a cannabis-infused cold-brew coffee called “Legal,” as the new product will only be available in markets where marijuana is legal.
Creator Adam Stites told My Northwest that each bottle will contain about 20 milligrams of THC, enough to create “an alert, creative, high,” but not too much as to make it an unpleasant experience, “especially for people that are just getting into marijuana.”
On the company website, Mirth Provisions proclaims their coffee is “ mighty refreshing poured over ice or just sipped straight from the bottle. Knock one back with your compadres and take on the day with a smooth buzz and a grin a mile wide.” Read the rest of this entry »
Reality Check: Following the Government’s Nutritional Advice Can Make you Fat and Sick
Posted: May 16, 2014 Filed under: Food & Drink, Health and Social Issues, Science & Technology, U.S. News | Tags: American Heart Association, City Journal, Farley, Good Calories Bad Calories, Health, National Institutes of Health, Steven Malanga, Thomas Farley 1 Comment
RADIUS IMAGES/CORBIS
For City Journal, Steven Malanga writes:
Last October, embarrassing e-mails leaked from New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene disclosed that officials had stretched the limits of credible science in approving a 2009 antiobesity ad, which depicted a stream of soda pop transforming into human fat as it left the bottle. “The idea of a sugary drink becoming fat is absurd,” a scientific advisor warned the department in one of the e-mails, a view echoed by other experts whom the city consulted. Nevertheless, Gotham’s health commissioner, Thomas Farley, saw the ad as an effective way to scare people into losing weight, whatever its scientific inaccuracies, and overruled the experts. The dustup, observed the New York Times, “underlined complaints that Dr. Farley’s more lifestyle-oriented crusades
are based on common-sense bromides that may not withstand strict scientific scrutiny.”
[Steven Malanga’s book Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer
Under Farley and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York’s health department has been notoriously aggressive in pursuing such “lifestyle-oriented” campaigns (see the sidebar below). But America’s public-health officials have long been eager to issue nutrition advice ungrounded in science, and nowhere has this practice been more troubling than in the federal government’s dietary guidelines, first issued by a congressional committee in 1977 and updated every five years since 1980 by the United States Department of
J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press
Agriculture. Controversial from the outset for sweeping aside conflicting research, the guidelines have come under increasing attack for being ineffective or even harmful, possibly contributing to a national obesity problem. Unabashed, public-health advocates have pushed ahead with contested new recommendations, leading some of our foremost medical experts to ask whether government should get out of the business of telling Americans what to eat—or, at the very least, adhere to higher standards of evidence.
Until the second half of the twentieth century, public medicine, which concerns itself with community-wide health prescriptions, largely focused on the germs that cause infectious diseases. Advances in microbiology led to the development of vaccines and antibiotics that controlled—and, in some cases, eliminated—a host of killers, including smallpox, diphtheria, and polio. These advances dramatically increased life expectancy in industrialized countries. In the United States, average life expectancy improved from 49 years at the beginning of the twentieth century to nearly 77 by the century’s end. Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, Saturated Fats Are Good: Undoing Decades of Government Misinformation About Health
Posted: May 13, 2014 Filed under: Food & Drink, U.S. News | Tags: American Heart Association, Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Cardiovascular disease, Fat, Health, Low-carbohydrate diet, Low-fat diet, Mehmet Oz, Saturated fat 4 Comments
Think a low fat diet is the key to health? Think again.
You can’t blame patients for being skeptical. After years of advocating low-fat diets, Dr. Oz recently declared that eating saturated fat might not actually be all that bad. And the month before that, the press hyped a new study that indicated there’s no good evidence that saturated fats cause heart disease. The American Heart Association
, on the other hand, continues to promote low-fat diets. So what should physicians tell patients now?
Check out the book: The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet
Most practicing doctors are poorly equipped to make sense of it all. (Even the doctors on the 2013 cholesterol guideline committee hired other people to read the literature for them.) What should doctors advise—stick with low fat or start cooking with lard?
In the new book, The Big Fat Surprise, science writer Nina Teicholz implies that we should do the latter. Like many people, Teicholz herself was once a disciple of low-fat diets—but after she took an assignment writing restaurant reviews, she found herself losing weight on a diet of heavy creams and fatty meats. Her curiosity was piqued, and she began a nearly decade-long critical review of the research on dietary fat. Her conclusion? Eating saturated fat can be the key to developing a healthy and lean body.
[Photos] ‘100 Iconic Photos That Forever Define..’
Posted: May 3, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Afghanistan, Art, Arts and Entertainment, Asia, Colorado, design, Health, History, Photography, Saint-Émilion, Taliban, typography, United States Leave a comment
First purchase of legal marijuana in Colorado, 2014
Astronauts go for a walk
A young Afghan woman shows her face in public for the first time after 5 years of Taliban Sharia law, 2001.
…100 Iconic Photos That Forever Define The 21st Century So Far
[AUDIO] NSFW: MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Goes Cuckoo-Bananas on Caller, Drops F-Bomb Before Censors Catch It
Posted: April 7, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Andrew Johnson, Ed Schultz, Health, MSNBC, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Politics, Radio, Schultz 1 CommentIf your computer volume is up and unsuspecting people are standing nearby, you might want to adjust the volume before hitting “play” on this YouTube clip. Schultz lets it rip.
From NRO‘s Andrew Johnson:
Censors failed to bleep out Ed Schultz’s profane outburst on his radio show when the MSNBC host lashed out at a caller during a heated discussion.
“I hope that they didn’t go out — did we catch that one? I need some direction! Did we catch that one? Yes or no?”
The fiery caller accused Schultz of “fascism” and for “capitulating” to people who are benefiting from the worsening state of affairs, prompting Schultz to say he hoped that caller didn’t “have a stroke…”(read more)
Vintage Illustration of the Day: Potato Pete & Doctor Carrot
Posted: March 29, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Food & Drink | Tags: Comics, design, graphics, Health, Illustration, Nutrition, typography, vintage 2 Comments
‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ Cure for Love: Should We Take Anti-Love Drugs?
Posted: February 14, 2014 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Science & Technology | Tags: Brain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Facebook, Health, Neurochemistry, Romance, Substance abuse, Substance dependence Leave a comment
Breaking up is hard to do. If drugs could ease the pain, when should we use them, asks neuro-ethicist Brian D. Earp
For your research, how do you define love?
We tend to think of love as a phenomenon grounded in ancient neurochemical systems that evolved for our ancestors’ reproductive needs. There is more to our experience of love than brain chemistry, of course, but those brain-level phenomena play a central role.
The idea of love as a drug is a cliché, but does it have any characteristics of addiction?
Recent brain studies show extensive parallels between the effects of certain addictive drugs and experiences of being in love. Both activate the brain’s reward system, can overwhelm us so that we forget about other things and can inspire withdrawal when they are no longer available. It seems it isn’t just a cliché that love is like a drug: in terms of effects on the brain, they may be neurochemically equivalent.
You have written about the possibility of using “anti-love biotechnology” as a treatment. When would it be warranted?
The idea of treating someone for an addiction to a bad relationship is something to be very cautious 
about. So we end up stacking the cards in favour of autonomy – the voluntary use of any “anti-love” intervention.
You can imagine a situation in which a person’s experience of love is so profoundly harmful, yet so irresistible, that it undermines their ability to think rationally for themselves. In a case of domestic abuse, that can be life-threatening. But even then, we wouldn’t recommend forcing drug-based treatment on someone against their will: non-biochemical interventions should be tried first.
So when would this type of treatment be ideal?
Some people in dangerous relationships know they need to get out, and even want to, but are unable to break their emotional attachment. If, for example, a woman in an abusive relationship could access medication that would help her break ties with her abuser, then, assuming it was safe and effective, we think she could be justified in taking it.
[PHOTOS] Hong Kong’s “Cage” Apartments
Posted: February 12, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, China | Tags: Asia, Associations, China, Health, Hongkong, Kowloon Walled City, New York City, Society for Community Organization 1 Comment
From architales’ blog: The Society for Community Organization (SoCO) has released these overhead photos showing how people live in tiny, cramped Hong Kong apartments to highlight the ongoing housing problems in one of the richest cities in the world. Equal opportunity for participation and fair distribution of social resources is the foundation of human rights. Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in caged homes and wood-partitioned cubicles.
SoCO took shots of the homes to show just how tight these living quarters are. The aerial perspective is not just an artistic choice; The apartments were so small that they had to be photographed from the ceiling to capture them.
Hong Kong’s Charlie Brown Cafe
Posted: February 11, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, China, Food & Drink | Tags: Asia, Cameron Road, Charlie Brown, China, Health, Hong Kong, Hongkong, Peanuts, Snoopy, Sunday, Tsim Sha Tsui, Victoria Harbour 4 CommentsA travel and food blog, Bitten by the Wanderlust Bug, has a great little photo series featuring an unlikely theme for a Hong Kong restaurant. The Charlie Brown Cafe. View the whole series, it’s fun. Here’s some samples:
The Culture of Heroin Addiction
Posted: February 4, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Health and Social Issues, Think Tank | Tags: Addiction, Drug overdose, Health, Kevin D. Williamson, Opiate, Opioid dependence, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Substance abuse, Theodore Dalrymple 4 Comments
Over at NRO, reflecting on Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s deadly overdose, Kevin D. Williamson explores the shallow romanticism of opiate culture:
Glamour Junkies
… Every few years I read about how heroin is making a comeback or about how there’s a new surge of heroin addiction, but I am skeptical. Heroin never makes a comeback, because heroin never goes away…
“The belief that there exists some kind of deep and invisible connection between artistic creativity and addiction (or mental illness) is one of the most destructive and most stupid of our contemporary myths.”
...taking heroin is, at least in part, an act of cultural affiliation. Connoisseurs of the poppy will go on and on about Great Junkies in History — William S. Burroughs, Sid and Nancy, Billie Holiday — though all in all I’d say that heroin addicts are less tedious on the subject of heroin than potheads are on the subject of pot. They do seem to have a particular fascination with the jargon of heroin, as though every conversation is taking place in 1970…
[See also: 50 Bags of Heroin: More Details Emerge on Drug Death of Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman]
I always have a sneaking suspicioun that I could talk people out of deciding to become junkies if only I could get them to read a couple of good books composed with such literary skill as to illuminate the fact that Burroughs was a poseur and a hack. The belief that there exists some kind of deep and invisible connection between artistic creativity and addiction (or mental illness) is one of the most destructive and most stupid of our contemporary myths. I’d blame Thomas De Quincey, author of the 19th-century tell-all Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, if I thought anybody still read him.
[VIDEO] Curiously, CNN Reporter Appears High on Weed During Segment on What? Where Were We? Oh yeah. Marijuana
Posted: January 15, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Anderson Cooper, Cannabis, CNN, Colorado, Contact high, Gawker, Health, Kaye, Marijuana, pot, Randi Kaye 2 CommentsFrom Hot Air: Allahpundit again…
Via Gawker, if you can’t watch the whole thing, skip to 4:00 to see why last night Anderson Cooper called this the greatest live hit the show’s ever done. My favorite moment is that big, bright, glassy-eyed smile at 5:15. (Second-favorite: The thoughtful explanation of the difference between sativa and indica.) The question here isn’t whether she’s high — the symptoms she describes are familiar even to non-users (losing her train of thought, finding things unusually funny, etc) — but whether she could have gotten this giggly from a contact high, i.e. from second-hand smoke without taking a hit herself. Answer: Yes, if she was around lots and lots of it. A single joint won’t do much to a bystander; 16 joints might. According to Kaye, she was riding around in the close confines of a limo all day with veteran potheads smoking blunts as big as cannons. Contact-high verdict: Plausible.
Academic Advantage: Chinese College Student’s ‘Sleep Prevention’ Invention
Posted: January 11, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Asia, China, Education | Tags: China, college, Education, Health, Huang, invention, Macbeth, Sleep Disorders, Studying 1 Comment
From RocketNews24, Master Blaster brings this viral phenomenon from Yahoo! Japan News, and writes: Necessity is the mother of invention, and for university students there is no greater necessity than staying awake for late night cramming when exams come about. Some students do whatever it takes to stay up and get that last bit of info committed to memory before the big day, even to the detriment of their own health. However, one girl known by her surname of Huang has found a cheap and effective way to keep her head up and has gone viral in China’s social media for it.
Her invention, titled “Test Studying Sleep Preventative” is a revolutionary… It’s just a clothespin hanger really. But such an item is easily found in homes and dorms all over China allowing for instant implementation once you figure out what to hang it from.
Although Huang seems to show a knack for engineering, she’s actually a second year student at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. Still, by simply putting clumps of her hair into the various clothes pins and letting the hanger keep her head up and alert she can learn all about aquifers without the risk of dozing off.
[VIDEO] Six The Movie — Helen Smith
Posted: December 10, 2013 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Documentary film, Health, Helen Smith, Kentucky, Libertarianism, Marriage, Mental health, murder, New York, PJ Media 1 CommentDr. Helen Smith writes:
“I often get requests to see my video Six about a group of teenagers who killed a family in East Tennessee. I am no longer selling the documentary, but PJM has been kind enough to upload it to YouTube so that PJM readers can watch it if they wish. It is now almost a decade old but much of the complexity of mass murder still holds true today. I hope my readers find it of interest.”
With recent crimes and mass shootings, the national debate has shifted to questions of mental health, parenting, and the ability of the legal system to deal with troubled youths. These are all issues that PJ Media contributor Dr. Helen Smith addressed in an award-winning 2003 documentary. Her film “Six,” featured in programming on A&E and WeTV, tells the story of a group of Kentucky teens who murdered a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses despite clear warning signs. Though many want to blame violence on guns, the factors involving violence are much more complex than simply blaming a weapon. Watch the documentary, and see what happens when the system fails, as it all too often does.
Hong Kong Tram Timelapse Video
Posted: November 17, 2013 Filed under: Art & Culture, Asia, China | Tags: Asia, Associations, China, Health, Hong Kong Island, Hongkong, Victoria Peak, Virtualdub 1 Commenthaonowshaokao writes: I’ve been editing videos from a few years back, trying to get to grips with the massive backlog, and I thought I’d have a go at fixing something I made when I returned to China in 2009 – a timelapse video shot from the front of a tram across Hong Kong Island.
[See also: Why Hong Kong never sleeps]
The original version was ok in terms of general concept, but the juddering effect of the tram’s movement made the thing difficult to watch. In order to fix it I spent an hour or so messing about with the deshaker plugin for Virtualdub and then another hour masking the resultant odd framing in Sony Vegas, brightening up the picture a little, making it look pleasantly odd.
The result is quite a bit better, I think, though it’s difficult to know if you’re improving things when you apply a series of minor changes one by one. Sometimes that just means you’re slowly ruining it.
…here’s the original, in case anyone wants to compare & contrast:
Related articles
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- Why Hong Kong never sleeps (punditfromanotherplanet.com)
- Speaking Japanese in… Hong Kong? (erikabroad.com)
BREAKING: Editor Takes Hong Kong Bar Exam, Survives
Posted: November 7, 2013 Filed under: Breaking News, China, Law & Justice | Tags: Asia, Associations, Dr Strangelove, Health, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Bar Association, punditfromanotherplanet 2 Comments
punditfromanotherplanet would like to take this opportunity to extend our warmest 
congratulations to fellow planet editor and co-founder Dr. Strangelove, who just completed the Hong Kong Bar exam. Well played, sir!
The amount of work and study required to pass this exam, I can only imagine, must be tremendous. It requires dedication, fortitude, and endurance. It’s not for the faint-of-heart. Even for high-achievers, it can take a toll.
We hope when he recovers he’ll file a report from our Hong Kong Bureau, or from his desk when he returns to the U.S.
Again, congratulations.
—The Butcher
Why is Coffee Good? Because, Reasons
Posted: October 31, 2013 Filed under: Food & Drink, Health and Social Issues | Tags: Adenosine, Alzheimer's disease, Brain, caffeine, Coffee, Cognition, Drink, Health, Neurotransmitter 1 CommentCoffee isn’t just warm and energizing, it may also be extremely good for you.
In recent years and decades, scientists have studied the effects of coffee on various aspects of health and their results have been nothing short of amazing.
Here are 7 reasons why coffee may actually be one of the healthiest beverages on the planet.
1. Coffee Can Make You Smarter
Coffee doesn’t just keep you awake, it may literally make you smarter as well.
The active ingredient in coffee is caffeine, which is a stimulant and the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance in the world. Read the rest of this entry »
Stoned Headline of the Day? CBS Seattle
Posted: October 31, 2013 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, The Butcher's Notebook | Tags: CBS, CBS Seattle, drugs, Health, KIRO-TV, Marijuana, media, Seattle, Stoned Leave a commentIf you scroll down (or click here) you’ll see a news item about Marijuana from CBS Seattle. We took the headline as is, without noticing the first word in the headline “Stake”, makes no sense. Yes, we missed it.
Here at punditfromanotherplanet, were pretty sure the CBS headline for this story was supposed to be ‘State“. Looks like someone on the night shift besides me let it slip right through. Catch it while it’s still there. I imagine it’ll be corrected by morning. In case it’s disappeared down the bunny hole, here’s a screen cap:
Keep it classy, Seattle!
Stake Taking Steps To Make Sure Marijuana Isn’t Used At Bars « CBS Seattle
Sex In A Haunted House
Posted: October 22, 2013 Filed under: Entertainment, Reading Room | Tags: Fear, Halloween, Haunted house, Health, Manhattan, New York City, NYC Leave a comment![Photo from Shutterstock]](https://punditfromanotherplanet.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/first-time-for-everything-sex-in-a-haunted-house-400x300.jpg?w=300&h=225)
Photo from Shutterstock]
Molly Ren writes: Let me be clear: this house wasn’t in any way meant to be spooky. Nor was it Halloween. Even worse, my host didn’t forewarn me that there might be anything even vaguely strange about his place. The only thing he did mention, while unzipping my skirt, was that he was planning to put in an outdoor jacuzzi, just to enhance the whole ’70s swinger vibe he was going for.
I was in the middle of a “fuck tour” of Manhattan: a long weekend that literally started with an orgy at my friend’s place and continued as I met up with other people. My friend, being a fixture in the NYC sex scene for years, had a very extensive contact list of people who were willing to help the new girl get as many notches on her bedpost as possible. After a sex-starved stint working as a temp in a stuffy office, I was ready to let loose. The boy who I later discovered had a haunted house, went by the self-appointed name “Byron,” and that was the only name I knew him by. He was tall and skinny with a British accent. That was enough for me to want to spend some more private time with him. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] UPDATED with English Subtitles: Hong Kong Alpha-Woman Scolding, Trash-Talkin’, and Bitch-Slapping her Beta-Boyfriend in Public
Posted: October 14, 2013 Filed under: Asia, China, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Asia, domestic abuse, Health, Hong Kong, Humor, infidelity 1 Comment
UPDATED 10/14/2013: Discovered at another blog, Basti in China, here’s an updated version of the video with English translation. The subtitles are imperfect, that’s part of the charm. Finally, a chance to hear their interaction, learn more what their little street spat is about. His crime? Seems he took another girl to his apartment, contrary to the expectations of the girlfriend, seen here delivering street justice, Hong Kong-style. For his alleged indiscretion, he takes a whipping, in front of strangers. Until the cops (not seen here) come and arrest his female abuser. As the French say….Cherchez la femme…
More via [VIDEO] UPDATED with English Subtitles: pundit from another planet
[VIDEO] UPDATED with English Subtitles: Hong Kong Alpha-Woman Scolding, Trash-Talkin’, and Bitch-Slapping her Beta-Boyfriend in Public
Posted: October 6, 2013 Filed under: Asia, China, Entertainment | Tags: Asia, Associations, domestic abuse, Health, Hong Kong, Humor, infidelity 3 CommentsUPDATE 10/14/2013: Discovered at another blog, Basti in China, here’s an updated version of the video with English translation. Finally, a chance to hear their interaction, learn more what their little street spat is about. His crime? Seems he took another girl to his apartment, contrary to the expectations of the girlfriend, seen here delivering street justice, Hong Kong style. For his alleged indiscretion, he takes a whipping, in front of strangers. Until the cops (not seen here) come and arrest his female abuser. As the French say….Cherchez la femme.
James Griffiths reports: The above video has received over 200,000 views in the two days since it was uploaded. In the video, a Hong Kong woman repeatedly slaps her kneeling boyfriend on a public street.
The 20 year old woman was arrested for assaulting her 23 year old (hopefully now ex) boyfriend. The ugly altercation came about after the man allegedly cheated on the woman, Oriental Daily reports.
His partner repeatedly shouts about him for ‘failing to treat her as a girlfriend’ while passers-by spoke out to the man, stating that the she “isn’t worth it”, calling for him to break up with her and disapproving of the beating. A female bystander engaged saying “stand up, ditch this ugly girl, you deserve better“, telling the woman that, whatever happened, “doesn’t warrant you slapping your boyfriend in the middle of the street“.
FAIL: Obesity up 25 percent in NYC, Bloomberg’s Nannytown Misadventure Exposed as Failure
Posted: September 30, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, U.S. News | Tags: Bloomberg L.P., Health, Health Department, Michael Bloomberg, New York City, Obesity, Soft drink, Sugar 2 Comments
Mayor Bloomberg discusses sugary drinks at a 2012 press conference.
Reduce the obesity rate in New York City? Fat chance!
More New Yorkers than ever are living large, despite Nanny Bloomberg’s war on sugary drinks and fast foods, statistics obtained by The Post reveal.
The city’s obesity rate among adults has skyrocketed 25 percent since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, city Health Department figures show.
That year, nearly one in five New Yorkers was considered obese. Now almost one in four is. Read the rest of this entry »
How To Grow a Replacement Nose: On Your Forehead
Posted: September 25, 2013 Filed under: China, Health and Social Issues | Tags: Fujian, Fuzhou, Health, Human nose, Plastic surgery, Reuters, Surgery, Yahoo Leave a comment
A new nose, grown by surgeons on Xiaolian’s forehead, is pictured before being transplanted to replace the original nose. Stringer / REUTERS
Laura Stampler reports: Chinese surgeons at a hospital in Fuzhou, Fujian grew a new nose on a 22-year-old man’s forehead after an accident left his original unusable, Reuters reports. Xiaolian had sustained injuries to his original nose after a traffic accident, which led to a severe infection and deformity. To craft the new appendage, doctors took cartilage from Xiaolian’s ribs and implanted it under skin tissue on his forehead. When finished growing later this month, the nose will be transplanted to its proper place. In January, British doctors grew a nose on a man’s arm after he lost his original to cancer.
Rare Disorder Gives Woman 50 Orgasms Per Day
Posted: September 21, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues | Tags: Conditions and Diseases, Disease, Health, Orgasm, Persistent genital arousal disorder, Pornographic film, Rare disease, Sex organ Leave a comment
It sounds like something out of an adult film; a woman has 50 orgasms in just one day. But for Gretchen Molannen and thousands of other women, the disorder which causes her to have to relieve her condition is a terrible disease. It’s called “Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder or “Restless Genital Syndrome” and, while rare, afflicts victims with constant, unrelenting sensations in the genital region, causing extreme physical and mental anguish.
For those with the most severe form of this condition, having an orgasm does little or nothing to relieve the pressure. They are forced to attempt to get relief by trying again, until sometimes, they are sore and exhausted. These women often find themselves debilitated; unable to work or maintain a relationship. Read the rest of this entry »
When Hong Kong is a Woman
Posted: September 18, 2013 Filed under: Asia, China, Global | Tags: Asia, Associations, Cheung Kong Holdings, China, Health, Hong Kong, iPhone, Louis Vuitton 3 CommentsThis isn’t the type of item I’d normally repost, I’m not usually drawn to media about fashion, but this enchanting video discovered by Happy-Go-Lucky really captivated me. Perhaps it will you, too.
“Hong Kong is one of the most amazing cities I had a chance to visit. It is bustling with life, exotic and extremely modern. This short movie by Louis Vuitton captured the city’s atmosphere so well that it took me back in time to days that I spent in Hong Kong.”
Peking University Needs The Blood of Virgins
Posted: September 13, 2013 Filed under: China | Tags: Beijing Normal University, DNA, Gardasil, Health, HPV, Human papillomavirus, Liu, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking University Leave a comment
The Peking University Cancer Hospital has set off a scandal by seeking out the blood of virgin females.
A recruitment notice by the hospital to collect blood from healthy virgin volunteers was designed to obtain serum for research on Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Published on campus bulletin board systems at Peking University and Beijing Normal University, the notice said that “To promote the prevention of HPV infection, our group is working on studies of serum antibodies to HPV. We need 100 healthy female college students as blood donors.”
“Any applicant should meet the requirements of being a virgin, and aged between 18 and 24 years old,” the notice also said. Read the rest of this entry »
Photos: Christian Aslund
Posted: September 7, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Arts and Entertainment, Asia, Health, Hong Kong, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Photography, Recreation and Sports, Stockholm Leave a commentshonnydutta writes: Stockholm-based photographer Christian Aslund payed tribute to retro 2D video games using the streets of Hong Kong as a backdrop. The photos were taken as part of an ad campaign for shoe brand Jim Rickey utilizing models who would lay flat on the streets or sidewalks to create the unique perspective. I really LOVE the ‘Thinking out of the box’ photography, and it goes to show that photography can be more than ‘Just taking snaps’, it can be fun and exciting too!!!
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Anti-Vaccination Crackpot
Posted: June 6, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Autism, Health, Instapundit, Kennedy, Neurodevelopmental, Robert F. Kennedy, United States, Vaccination Leave a comment
Robert F. Kennedy Jr…. attorney, a radio host…environmental activist...also, as it happens, a full-blown anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist.
And I do mean full-blown.
“RFK Jr. has a long history of adhering to crackpot ideas about vaccines, mostly in the form of the now thoroughly disproven link to autism. He’s been hammering this issue for a decade now, and his claims appear to be no better and no more accurate now than they were when he first started making them.”
Contrary to reputation, the Kennedys aren’t particularly bright.
via Instapundit & Slate
Related articles
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Anti-Vaxxer (yourcurrentaffairs.wordpress.com)
- Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Anti-Science? (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
- Can antivaccinationists knock it off with the autism Holocaust analogies already? (RFK, Jr. edition) (scienceblogs.com)
- RFK Jr.: GOP To Blame For IRS Scandal (huffingtonpost.com)
Vertical Hong Kong
Posted: June 1, 2013 Filed under: China | Tags: Arts and Entertainment, Asia, China, Health, Hong Kong, Photographer, Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze, Vertical Horizon 2 CommentsByRosa de Acosta
Hong Kong is famed for its skyline, but graphic artist and photographer Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze captures a different vision of the city: looking up.
In his “Vertical Horizon” project, the 26-year-old Frenchman photographs the city’s vertical angles through a wide-angle Sigma lens with a 10 mm focal length. The lens, he says, avoids distorting the urban landscape’s straight lines.
“Fisheye lenses bend the edges of the photos to make it curvy, while my lens doesn’t,” he said. “I think it fits better architectural shots and it’s more faithful to reality.”
Mr. Jacquet-Lagrèze arrived in Hong Kong in 2009 and bought his first single-lens reflex camera the following year. He started shooting vertical images in 2011, and in early 2012 decided to capture as much of the city as possible.
The project, now a book, comprises 80 photos taken between January and July of that year. A dozen of them are currently being displayed in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district as part of Le French May cultural festival.
Images were taken from the ground at eye level, a height that reinforces the viewer’s feeling of immersion and verticality. But, the photographer notes, looking up at the sky sometimes has its risks.
“Many times I have to stand in the middle of the road, but I’m cautious and haven’t suffered any accidents,” he said.
When he needs to hold his camera still, for instance for night shots, “I use what I find around me: a sign, a chair, a sidewalk fence,” he added. “I try to avoid using the tripod.”
As for what motivates him to take pictures?
“Hong Kong is an incredible source of inspiration to me,” he said, adding that photography is “the best way to share my feelings.”
“Vertical Horizon” is on view through June 24 at Hotel Panorama by Rhombus
via Scene Asia – WSJ.
Obamacares Slush Fund Fuels A Broader Lobbying Controversy
Posted: May 30, 2013 Filed under: Economics, Mediasphere | Tags: Barack Obama, Forbes, Health, HHS, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public health, Slush fund, Stuart Taylor Leave a comment
A little-noticed part of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act channels some $12.5 billion into a vaguely defined “Prevention and Public Health Fund” over the next decade–and some of that money is going for everything from massage therapists who offer “calming techniques,” to groups advocating higher state and local taxes on tobacco and soda, and stricter zoning restrictions on fast-food restaurants.
The program, which is run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has raised alarms among congressional critics, who call it a “slush fund,” because the department can spend the money as it sees fit and without going through the congressional appropriations process. The sums involved are vast. By 2022, the department will be able to spend $2 billion per year at its sole discretion. In perpetuity.
What makes the Prevention and Public Health Fund controversial is its multibillion-dollar size, its unending nature (the fund never expires), and its vague spending mandate: any program designed “to improve health and help restrain the rate of, growth” of health-care costs. That can include anything from “pickleball” (a racquet sport) in Carteret County, N.C. to Zumba (a dance fitness program), kayaking and kickboxing in Waco, TX.
“It’s totally crazy to give the executive branch $2 billion a year ad infinitum to spend as they wish,” said budget expert Jim Capretta of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Congress has the power of the purse, the purpose of which is to insure that the Executive branch is using taxpayer resources as Congress specified.”
The concerns are as diverse as the critics. The HHS Inspector General, in a 2012 “alert,” was concerned that the payments to third-party groups came dangerously close to taxpayer-funded lobbying. While current law bars lobbying with federal money, Obama administration officials and Republican lawmakers differ on where lawful “education” ends and illicit “lobbying” begins. Nor have federal courts defined “lobbying” for the purposes of this fund. A health and Human Services (HHS) department spokesman denies that any laws were broken and the inspector general is continuing to investigate.
Republicans in both the House of Representatives and Senate have complained that much of the spending seems politically motivated and are alarmed that some of the federal money went to groups who described their own activities as contacting state, city and county lawmakers to urge higher taxes on high-calorie sodas and tobacco, or to call for bans on fast-food restaurants within 1,000-feet of a school, or total bans on smoking in outdoor venues, such as beaches or parks. In a May 9 letter to HHS Secretary Sebelius, Rep. Fred Upton (R,Mich) wrote that HHS grants “appear to fund lobbying activities contrary to the laws, regulations, and guidance governing the use of federal funds.” His letter included the latest in a series of requests for more documents and complaints about responses to previous requests.
Some Democrats, including Obamacare champion Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa), are extremely unhappy with another use of Prevention Fund money. The Obama Administration plans to divert $453.8 million this year from that fund to use for administrative and promotional efforts to enroll millions of people in health insurance exchanges that are said to be vital to Obamacare’s success. Harkin calls this shift, which has not been authorized by Congress, “an outrageous attack on an investment fund that is saving lives.”
This extraordinary fund transfer coincides with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s much-criticized solicitation of health industry officials for large “voluntary” corporate donations — on top of hefty tax increases — to help implement Obamacare. Together, they give the appearance of a desperate Administration effort to avoid the kind of “train wreck” that Senator Max Baucus (D, Montana), a principal architect of Obamacare, recently said he fears. That’s also one reason why Republicans who want to kill Obamacare refuse to provide additional funding for the exchanges…
pundit from another planet 