Leftonline

The Conservative Voice can be a very good thing

''Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,'' O'Connor wrote. ''The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.'' --Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Regarding Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108

Shame on the 'liberal' side of the Supreme Court. If a private corporation puts money in the pockets of your locally elected elder/councilperson/commissioner, your house can be taken away for the 'good of the community.'

The power of the money holder is astonding these days.

Thanks to pseudo liberals who no longer represent the people.

The libertarians will rise.

Mi Gato, Frigga

I love this cat.

Frigga does not like to be held, but loves being outside. She's wearing her full-body harness that allows her to go outside without killing anything.

(latent) Tuberculosis | Get your PPD

Last week in the course of a couple of tests in order to enroll in grad school again (yes, I'm going back to school part time beginning this Fall), I found out that I now have a positive PPD.

I hadn't been tested since college. So give or take 15 years and somewhere in there I got exposed to Mycobacterium tuberculosis and it remains somewhere deep inside, not bothering me or anyone else (yet).

Because I'm 'young' and my liver still works, I'm going on Isoniazid (ai-so-NAI-e-zid) for 9 months. I decided to do so because diabetes and cancer are both in my bloodlines and I don't want my stubborn youthful will to bite me in the ass when I'm facing something difficult to fight like that in the future. TB waits until it can/might rise again during a situation in which the body becomes immuno-compromised.

So in learning this, I found out that my current physician, a close family friend and a life-long friend all have the bug. They, of note, are all physicians themselves. They all told me the same thing--that either the Thoracic Society recommends going on INH or that they did themselves and also still recommend it.

SIDEBAR: I have never been on a prescription drug save for an antibiotic way back in childhood. Oh and a few Toradol when I had an avulsion fracture. I only took one of them and felt so blithely out of control that I scared my friends. I so get that I could be an addict. The desire to leave this mind of mine is very strong. A dark joke in my history is the consideration of death by fainting or death from needle phobia. I'm a vasovagal type. I've tried to make friends with the various phlebotomists in my life, but alas, I'll still faint on them.

So. Now I'll get blood work done every month to check the liver numbers, etc.

I thought that I'd overcome this thing having a few tattoos, but alas. Just thinking about it draws up the queasy spirits and back tilting head. I just want to get down to the cool, hard ground. Fast. It's the needle, man. The NEEDLE that is related to medical care, not an inking or piercing.

Sigh.

Patricia Schroeder | NY Book Expo | What she said on BookTV

President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, Patricia Schroeder, was interviewed briefly by Book TV at the Book Expo in New York City (she was interviewed on June 3rd, 2005).

"Everybody is worried about what digitization is doing to this."

"Google is an issue." Regarding the Google Library: "That is very dangerous because once you have digital copies, they can go anywhere."

"I think that the college textbook people are like the canary in the coal mine." "Cause what is happening to them is going to happen to everyone else."

"People are digitizing their books and putting it on e-reserve so that no one has to buy it. And that is illegal. We're going to have to do something about that, I fear." "It really is cutting in to textbook sales."

"People see the textbook as the one discretionary part of higher ed. You can't do anything about tuition, you can't do anything about your room, but maybe you can get away without buying a book. You really can't. What's going on is illegal, so we're going to have to really take that on."

Are libraries prepared to be taken on?

Yale U. Bomb Threat

This morning (Friday, June 17th, 2005) the Connecticut State Police received a bomb threat. So we were evaculated and I snapped this shot. We got to come back inside to pretend to work about an hour later.

Christopher Hitchens in midstream of his talk

NYC - Christopher Hitchens

Last night I headed in to NYC to see Christopher Hitchens at the 92nd St. Y. His talk was on Thomas Jefferson and thanks to David Bloom we included also some discussions about Alexander Hamilton and Burr and Washington.

Wonderful talk and NYC in June is always so very lovely.

Sleater-Kinney | The Woods

Go out and get this one. Dude. Grrl.