Maybe I'm not hip, but this stuff just scares me. The top video is Shatner doing some sort of rock and roll poetry reading about a woman who wants to sleep with 'common people.' Normally I'd be tittilated over such a relevant topic to my lifestyle, but it rubbed me the wrong way and paradoxically caused my cat to become epileptic.

The bottom video is Shatner's poetic love advice for all you selfish men out there who don't realize your woman doesn't want to feed you chicken noodle soup when you're sick, she wants to ditch you and practice brain surgery.

Love her. Simply love her, he says.

Posted by: Feisty at 08:15 AM | Comments (40)
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Well. LauraW primed the pump, I'll add some more.

Zarqawi was alive and suffering from internal injuries when coalition forces arrived on the scene of the bombing.

The official cause of death? Internal injuries to the lungs secondary to the blast waves from the bomb.

According to the timeline, the first bomb dropped at about 6:12 p.m. Baghdad time and the first American troops were on the scene about 6:40 p.m. A U.S. medic began treating Zarqawi on the scene as other military members attempted to identify him, Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell said. The terror leader's breath was "shallow and labored" as his pulse faded, Caldwell said, with death coming at 7:04 p.m.

A Saturday autopsy found Zarqawi had died of internal injuries, with "death occurring as lung functioning deteriorated," officials said. The blast waves of the explosions caused tearing and bruising of the lungs and bleeding, all injuries visible only internally, they said. The nature of the injuries, they said, also led them to believe Zarqawi had been inside the house at the time of the airstrike. A medical examiner said Zarqawi had been fit but heavy before his death.

The bomb scored a more direct hit to Zarqawi's "spiritual advisor", perhaps a sign that God was none-too-happy with the type of spiritual advising he was doing:

An autopsy on Sheik Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, found different injuries, they said. His injuries, including major head bleeding, were more severe than Zarqawi's and resulted in instantaneous death, they said.

To hear Major General William Caldwell's statement, click here.

Allah compares wildly different newspaper accounts of Iraqi witness Ali Abbas' statements which range from a beating to offering him a bottle of water while interrogating.

Additionally, al-Qaeda has named some dude called Abu Hamza al-Muhajer ("al-Muhajer" meaning "the immigrant") as its new Iraqi leader. Nobody has ever heard of the guy, but industry insiders claim he has jihad experience and good references. Or something.

Guest blogger Feisty blogs at Feisty Republican Whore.

Posted by: Feisty at 06:48 AM | Comments (39)
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OK, let's see how I do with the timeline.

We bombed the guy. Twice, to make sure the job was done.

Then we showed up and said, "Oh dear, are you hurt? Can we get you anything? MEDIC! Man down!"

Despite the best efforts of our coalition medics, he perished 24 minutes later. Which was a total of 52 minutes after we deliberately bombed him with the express purpose of killing him so that he would die.

Somebody explain the reason for the autopsy to me please.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:15 AM | Comments (35)
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Put down your joystick, and quit jiggling it back and forth so much; it disturbs your mother.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- An addiction center is opening Europe's first detox clinic for video game addicts, offering in-house treatment for people who can't leave their joysticks alone.

They have nicotine gum for those addicted to cigarettes; I wonder what those poor joysticks addicts do instead?

Bakker already has treated 20 video game addicts, aged 13 to 30, since January. Some show withdrawal symptoms, such as shaking and sweating, when they look at a computer.

In other words, the same symptoms that Dave in Texas experiences when both ace and rightwingsparkle have guest bloggers simultaneously.

It can start with a Game Boy, perhaps given by parents hoping to keep their children occupied but away from the television. From there, it can progress to multilevel games that aren't made to be won.

Those Game Boys are the gateway drug to a lifetime of addiction. Soon you need to beat harder and harder levels to get the same high. You need to build bigger and better houses for your Sims; one TV and one bathroom is no longer enough. You need the Expansion Packs just to keep the shakes away.

In short, your whole life is spent looking for that first high you got when you were 6 and playing your first round of Tetris by the fireplace at Christmas.

Tim, a gamer who is under treatment, agreed to discuss his addiction on condition that his last name not being used. He said he began playing video games three years ago at age 18. Soon, he wouldn't leave his room for dinner. Later, he began taking drugs to stay awake and play longer. Finally, he sought help and picked up other hobbies to occupy his time.

Soon thereafter, he became a knitting addict. "Just one more row," he'd say. But soon, the one row would turn into the arm of a sweater and before he knew it, there would be another new, completed sweater in his closet.

"If it's not Grand Theft Auto or knitting, it'll be cross-stich. I just can't stop," he said.

Posted by: Feisty at 03:58 PM | Comments (18)
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What the hell is that? Did you just throw a toadstool at me? A toadstool? What is that, some kind of crack about my hat? You know where I got this hat? I took it off a mouthy princess. ThatÂ’s right. She irritated me and I ripped her stomach lining out through her left nostril and made a hat. You might want to think about that before you start messing with me, pretty girl. more...

Posted by: Mrs Peel at 01:37 PM | Comments (16)
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At some point in our education, many of us were required to read “The Most Dangerous Game”, a short story about hunting people as sport. There’s a rancher in Texas who seems very enthused about the idea of hunting The Most Cunning Game – Jews. Or should that be The Most Money Grubbing Game? The Shadowy Worldwide Conspiracy Game? The fun starts 1:12 in to the clip.

The friendship shown to me on this blog by Dave in Texas, Mrs. Peel, and other Texans is now suspect. IÂ’ve become convinced it that it was all a charade, an attempt to lure me to their hunting grounds. Once I was there, they would drug me and I would wake up in a dry gully with nothing but an animal skin loincloth. Of course drugs and leather loincloths are part of my normal Saturday nights, so it would take me several minutes to realize something was amiss. IÂ’d have to run for my life while my shipmates watch from orbit powerless to interfere. My only chance for survival would be to build a primitive cannon using bamboo and minerals I gathered while evading my enemy.

Of course, I’m only half Jew, so they wouldn’t let men hunt me. I’d be used for the Ladies Auxiliary hunt, or maybe for a 12 year old to get his first kill. Mrs. Peel – I know you have a .22, but you’ll probably want something more powerful. I’m a big guy, and you might have a hard time stopping me with the pea shooter. A thick layer of blubber protects my heart, and my brain is walnut sized and encased in heavy bone.

Posted by: steve_in_hb at 11:53 AM | Comments (33)
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Exposure to jet fuel and other toxins may have caused an unusual number of cancers in otherwise healthy 9/11 responders.

David Worby, a lawyer for 8,000 World Trade Center responders, including cops, firefighters and construction workers, said the cases include blood-cell cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's and myeloma.

Doctors say the cancers can strike three to five years after exposure to toxins such as benzene, a cancer-causing chemical that permeated the WTC site from burning jet fuel.

"One in 150,000 white males under 40 would normally get the type of acute white blood-cell cancer that strikes a healthy detective," said Worby, whose first client was NYPD narcotics cop John Walcott, now 41. Walcott spent months at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill. The father of three is fighting leukemia.

"We have nearly 35 of these cancers in the family of 50,000 Ground Zero workers. The odds of that occurring are one in hundreds of millions," Worby said.

Sigh. So apparently, we have an airplane attack, and what likely amounts to a secondary chemical attack which is taking out those who wanted to help. In total, 283 World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have been diagnosed with cancer, and 33 have died.

Posted by: Feisty at 10:55 AM | Comments (13)
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Howdy, folks. My name is Mrs. Peel, and Ace invited me to guest-blog this weekend (which doesn't make him responsible for anything I write, incidentally). I'd like to take advantage of the opportunity to reach a larger audience to discuss the new "cervical cancer vaccine" that has just been approved by the FDA.

First of all, to explain my scare quotation marks, the vaccine is actually against four strains of human papillomavirus (HPV). Not all cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV. According to Science Daily, the four strains against which this vaccine protects include the two that cause roughly 70% of all cases of cervical cancer. All four strains cause about 90% of cases of genital warts. So, referring to this vaccine as a "cervical cancer vaccine" isn't entirely accurate, and is somewhat misleading, as it implies that the vaccine completely prevents cervical cancer in the same way that the mumps vaccine completely prevents mumps.

By the way, I'm not suggesting that Merck is deliberately attempting to mislead the public. Merck is not responsible for the phrasing reporters and editors choose.

I've found that the news articles on the vaccine are somewhat lacking in scientific depth, so I've been checking the science news for more information. In the New Scientist article, I ran across something I hadn't noticed before:

Four different clinical trials involving 21,000 women around the world demonstrated Gardasil was "nearly 100% effective" in preventing HPV-caused precancerous cervical, vaginal and vulvar lesions. It also prevented genital warts effectively, the FDA said.

"While the study period was not long enough for cervical cancer to develop, the prevention of these cervical precancerous lesions is believed highly likely to result in the prevention of those cancers," the FDA said. [Emphasis added.]

This was a fast-track clinical trial that lasted six months, according to that same article. Merck, as I've read in several articles, is going to continue to perform follow-up testing and study the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine, including evaluating the need for booster shots. They will also be testing the vaccine in men.

I have a number of questions, most of which were answered in Merck's prescribing information, and some of which will be answered by the long-term studies. But some remain unanswered.

Update: Craig answered these in the comments, so I'm putting his answers here, in italics. Thanks, Craig!

1. As the FDA acknowledged above, the study wasn't long enough for cervical cancer to have developed. On what is the belief that prevention of precancerous lesions equals prevention of cancer based?
   The reason we know that precancerous lesions lead to cervical cancer is through many studies that have followed these cells. The proof is in the pudding of pap smears preventing cancer by detecting these early lesions. Carcinoma type cancers usually evolve from an abnormal cells in the single cell lining of the cervix that multiplies, then it can become a carcinoma in situ or CIS, a precancerous lesion. When it moves into the cervical tissue, below the single cell lining it is then a cancer. It can get access to other systems and spread.


2. Considering that thalidomide, for example, is teratogenic in humans and in rabbits but not in rats, why was teratogenicity studied only in rats?
   The chances of the proteins used in vaccinces causing mutations like thalidomide, are very low since they are protein based and not small chemicals.


3. The patient populations are large enough (roughly 8500 in each group, drug and placebo) to suggest that we can assume similar levels of sexual activity in each group, and therefore similar levels of HPV exposure. However, I would like to see the statistical analysis that validates these assumptions.
   Yes, it would be nice to have the measured sexual activity, but it is pretty safe in this large sample to assume the groups are similar.


4. Reading the study, I see that the populations were tested for the relevant strains of HPV via PCR and serum testing prior to vaccination, and through the series of shots (there are three, costing $120 apiece) up to one month after receiving the last shot. There's no reference to further PCR and serum testing being performed thereafter - just examinations for warts and lesions. Considering that HPV can remain dormant in the human body, with what statistical certainty does the lack of warts and lesions over the duration of the study signify a lack of HPV?
   PCR after the vaccine would show that a virus got into the system, which may still be possible after having the vaccine. As someone else pointed out the virus may be knocked down better with the vaccine and not eliminated. Serum tests would probably be for antibodies, which the vaccine would result in, so they wouldn't mean much about infection.

I should clarify that I'm not a medical professional or a statistician, and the decision to be vaccinated or have your children vaccinated should be based on your discussion with your doctor. But as a woman in the target age group, I'd want these questions answered before I got vaccinated.

Posted by: Mrs Peel at 10:40 AM | Comments (48)
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Apparently, the members of the Al-Rahman Islamic Center were really desperate for good janitorial help since they 'tolerated' Canadian terror suspect Qayyam Abdul Jamal's hate speech in exchange for those services.

In 2003, [teenage Canadian terror suspect Saad] Khalid's mother died in an accident. In the following years, he became more strident about his Muslim faith. He formed athe Religious Awareness Club to preach Islam during lunch hours at the Meadowvale school. He spent time with two older classmates, Fahim Ahmad, now 21, and Zakaria Amara, 20, the government contends....

Khalid and the others began attending a mosque together, teacher Ahmed Amiruddin told CBC Radio last week. "They would enter into the mosque to pray. They would come in military fatigues," he said. "It looked to me like they were watching a lot of these Chechnyan jihad videos online."

I don't know how someone can 'look' like they're watching a certain type of online video unless they---oh, I dunno---showed those videos to others in the mosque. I haven't heard anyone tell me 'Hey, Feisty....you look like you've been watching technoboyjustin on YouTube a lot', that's for sure.

Gradually, they gravitated to the Al-Rahman Islamic Center, a storefront mosque in a small strip mall in Mississauga. There they met Qayyam Abdul Jamal, 43, a taciturn Pakistani native with an angry view of the world. He cleaned the rugs and took out the trash at the mosque. For those services, the directors tolerated his vitriolic speeches that portrayed Muslims as oppressed by the West, according to people familiar with the mosque.

Robert at JihadWatch questions the authenticity of the janitorial work for jihad barter-system employment arrangement:

He took out the trash, so we let him preach jihad. Imagine the press reaction if a church let the guy who unlocked the doors preach hatred and violence to the youth group because, well, he unlocks the doors. It's amazing that so many reporters seem to pass this on with a straight face.

Yeah, I'm SURE the mosque really disagreed with mass murder of Westerners, but the decent job that dude did on the rugs totally outweighed the need to tell him to stop it.

Posted by: Feisty at 07:46 AM | Comments (16)
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So yesterday, Abu "Sand Fertilizer" Zarqawi was guest bloggin' at Iowahawk, and I must say the opening paragraph piqued this commentator's curiosity.

Howzit swingin', fagsicles? Yeah, I know all you bitzoches all seen the pictures by now. Go on and laugh it up chump, like your drivers license photo is all George fuckin' Clooney. Personally I think I'm lookin' straight GQ, seeing as I just got a 500-pound laser guided curb stomp. Shit cuz, y'all should see Kahlid, a.k.a. "Ceiling Spackle." But, hey, whateva. You kuffar haters can finally step off my nuts, 'cause I. am. outtahere. Y'all can just suck it, 'cause Zarkman got his free pass to Allah's celestial Disneyland.

I was wondering what this celestial Disneyland would be like, especially for a chum like Abu, who is a supreme follower of Allah, the Great One.

Sources from inside the 7th Circle of Hell (I have my space reserved, thanks) have informed me that this celestial Disneyland is, in fact, modeled after Alexandria, Egypt's kid-friendly tourist haven known as Fantazy Land: Corrupt, run-down, and complete with a random concrete fun-box.

Worst. Theme. Park. Ever.

Posted by: Feisty at 06:34 PM | Comments (22)
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