A podcast about books & life — not necessarily in that order
Off to Sweden, where I’ll be meeting up with execs from Biovitrum, Pfizer, Recip, BioTech Valley, the Swedish Center for Bioprocess Technology, Sweden Bio, Galenica, Novozymes Biopharma, and BioInvent, over the course of three days.
I’ll try to write and post pix from there.
Astronomers claim to have discovered a “super earth” about 50 lights years away.
oday’s been designated a “Day of Conscience” by people who are trying to stop the genocide in Sudan. If you’re interested in helping save the citizens of Darfur, there are plenty of regional events today that you can participate in.
For more information on the on the genocide in Sudan, you need to go here.
Also: Salim Mansur, a columnist for the London Free Press, discusses the genocide and how it demonstrates the racism of the Arab Muslim world:
This silence is also revealing of culturally entrenched bigotry among Arabs, and Muslims from adjoining areas of the Middle East.
Blacks are viewed by Arabs as racially inferior, and Arab violence against blacks has a long, turbulent record. The Arabic word for blacks (‘abed) is a derivative of the word slave (‘abd), and the role of Arabs in the history of slavery is a subject rarely discussed publicly.
Here, the contrast between the Arab treatment of blacks, irrespective of whether they are Muslims or not, and the Israeli assimilation of black Jews of Ethiopia, known as Falashas, cannot go unnoticed.
Article in Forbes about the artificial hurdles that satellite radio faces. Seems that the National Association of Broadcasters actually argues, in front of Congress, that competition would be bad for radio. The NAB also has a history of messing with innovation and stifling consumer choice:
In 1945 many AM incumbents, ostensibly concerned that interference related to sunspots might endanger their rivals in FM, encouraged the feds to uproot the FM dial and move it to a higher frequency band. This rendered half a million FM radios useless and forced the nation’s FM stations to start over. A congressional investigation in 1948 found that the interference fears were bogus and that a Federal Communications Commission report had been conveniently altered to disguise that fact. Too late–the shift helped inferior AM technology remain dominant for the next 25 years. The coda: In 1954 the inventor of FM radio, Edwin Armstrong, frustrated by repeated setbacks and all but bankrupt, penned a suicide note to his wife and leapt out the window of his 13th-floor apartment.
Perhaps the need for clean public toilets will lead to an Iranian counter-revolution. As the Brooding Persian sez:
“A country, I keep telling everyone, which finds it practically impossible to keep its public restrooms clean has no business pursuing nuclear power.”
A Marine helicopter pilot in Najaf wrote an opinion piece in the NYTimes today. Read it.
Norman Podhoretz writes a long neocon interpretation of modern history and World War IV in Commentary. Read that, too.
Watchmen remixes, link courtesy of Bookslut.
Pity this guy didn’t get wasted up at SUNY Albany. He probably could’ve rushed a couple of frats during his visit.
Looks like that ring of Jesus fire didn’t follow Andy Pettitte down to Houston, huh?
Rick James, Fay Wray and now Julia Child. I used to love her show, as well as Dan Ackroyd’s great impression of her on SNL.