Funmurphys: the Blog

News Great and Small

Andrea Dworkin passed away. While I disagreed with her views about most everything, her firebrand should have burned for years more.

We may be planting trees too deeply. On trees that aren't pines, you should be able to see a flare just before the tree goes into the ground. If you can't, it's too deep and the roots (and therefore the entire tree) will suffer.

China and India are talking about resolving their long standing border disputes. This is big news, and may represent each country using the other as a counterwieght to the US. I think though that the trend of the US and India growing closer is too big to stop as it's fed by the growing similarities in the two countries. Now if China would also throw of the political shackles as well as the economic ones, we'd be getting somewhere.

A team at the University of Liepzig claims that they can isolate "embryonic quality" stem cells from adult blood. They use the stretchiness of stem cells to isolate them from the rest of the blood cells and they use a drug called G-CSF to fill the blood with stem cells from bone marrow so there are enough to harvest in the first place.

Scores are being settled with John Bolton in his confirmation hearings as old foes are complaining bitterly about him. I had to laugh when Joe Biden, who's not a bad Senator, said that anytime a senior official calls in a lower-level one "and reams him a new one that's just not acceptable." Somehow I think Joe has reamed a few new ones himself, but I doubt the press will be out looking for current or ex subordinates who've been so reamed. I don't know that much about Bolton, but the idea that the UN needs a sympathetic nudge to get back on track is just ludicrous - it needs a few swats with a two by four to get it's attention and then a series of hefty kicks in the pants to get it pointed in the right direction. Non metaphorically, it needs major structural change that isn't going to happen without strong and unrelenting accountability.

Nick Krisof has discovered that the American people don't trust the news media. Tom Maguire discovers one set of error's Nick makes, and Pendagon discovers a whole nuther set. See Nick, this is how the newsroom you want works - same story, two viewpoints.

Vladimir Putin says he won't seek a third term in office in 2008. Well, a nice democratic change in leadership would be a sign of growing maturity in the democratic process and help acustom Russia to the practice of democracy. Davids Medienkritik has more on Putin's trip to Germany.

Wisconsin is seriously considering a feral cat hunting season. I think they don't have enough Asian restaurants is all. (It was just a joke people.)

Apple has announced that Tiger, or OS X 10.4 (yes, I know the X and 10 are redundant, but Apple doesn't) will ship April 29. This is the first OS upgrade I've ever planned on buying , let alone actually buying. Hopefully it won't break any of my favorite games.

Omaha is home to a military anti-terrorism think tank. Good. Maybe Geitner could led them a hand.

AP took a poll and discovered to their amazement that "Many Dread Preparing Taxes." No kidding. It sounds like the winning entry in a Wizbang most obvious headline contest. Soon they'll be running articles about how it gets hot in the summer.

It's official - humor is good for you. How long before Sienfeld is being prescribed as an anti-depressent?