...A new analysis of satellite data showed that an area the size of California melted and then re-froze -- the most significant thawing in 30 years, the U.S. space agency said...

-- Big area of Antarctica melted, satellite finds (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

 Now might be a good time to sell off your beachfront property.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to blog in awhile... there's just been so much going on my life.  I've got a lot of things I'd like to talk about, but any one of them would be a full blog article I don't have time to write.  So here's the "Cliff Notes"...

My Health
I visited the doctor about 2 weeks ago.  My TB test came back negative, as expected.  I woke up with the area around the injection on my arm completely flat and showing no reaction other than a slight redness.  I could tell it was a negative result, but still I had to get to the doctor and have a nurse stare at my arm for two seconds and say "yep, negative."  Did I mention it was snowing?  A lot?  The doc informed me that the plan at that point was to let the antibiotics run out, and then monitor myself very carefully, watching for fevers.  I was to take it easy and not exert myself once off the antibiotics.  I took my last pill the day my Dad had his aneurism.  So I was getting almost no sleep, no regular intake of food, a high amount of exertion and stress, exactly at the time we were hoping my body would be able to cope with the remaining infection.  By March 7th I was having fevers and my doctor extended the antibiotic.  By March 8th the fevers had reached 102, and I was having painful chills in the night.  On March 9th the fevers subsided and I haven't had any since.  I had another visit with the doc today and she began to speak very frankly about having a surgeon go in and "break up" the scar tissue, or using a needle to drain out the infected area so it could heal.  I spoke very frankly about how disturbing those prospects were to me, and if sixty days of antibiotics would solve the problem, I'd rather go that route.  For now, we are on a middle ground.  The doc has given me a script for 10 more days of the antibiotic, but I am to repeat the "wait and see" experiment when the current batch runs out (Sunday).  If the fevers return I can start the next script.  Next week I will have another CAT Scan, and then based on the results we will make a decision.  The doctor said I could come in and speak with the pulmonologist at that time if I liked.  At this point I'm beginning to feel resigned that a surgical solution is going to be necessary.

Mr. Deity
If you haven't seen the "Mr. Deity" videos yet, check them out, they are hilarious.  A warning to my theist readers, these movies are created by humanists, and are therefore pretty irreverent.  Don't check them out if that is going to bug you.

RSS & YouTube
Why doesn't YouTube support RSS in any obvious fashion that I can detect?  Why do I have to go to my subscription page on YouTube to see what is new.  If they are tracking what is new, then they have the information necessary to provide an RSS feed.  Bloglines tries to "fake it" for you, building an RSS feed out of a YouTube search, but that doesn't work well.  Partly because old videos keep popping up on it, and because jerks post movies on YouTube with the usernames of popular YouTubers in their keywords simply to bring in viewers.  The only YouTubers I subscribe to are ImpyTheRap (i.e. Nobody's Watching) and SuttSteve.  Yet my Bloglines is constantly telling me they have new videos when they don't, simply because the RSS feed is built from a keyword search, and some people are not capable of getting viewers on their own talent.  Does anyone have a good way to get a YouTube subscription as an RSS feed?  It's really bugging me.  I had to discontinue my YouTube "feeds" in Bloglines because it was a waste of time.

Texas and the HPV Vaccine
The Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has mandated that all girls entering the sixth grade in Texas schools must receive the HPV vaccine Gardasil, produced by Merck.  HPV, or Human papillomavirus, is a virus that can be carried by both men and women, but some strains of which are shown to cause cervical cancer in some women.  It is primarily transmitted sexually, but can be contracted in other ways (skin on skin contact, or being born from an infected mother).  Under Perry's plan, parents could choose to refuse the vaccine for their child, but it is not clear if the child would then be allowed to enter the public school system (any more than they would be allowed to refuse, say, Mumps and Rubella vaccines and still put their kids in school.)  The Texas legislature voted 118-23 to basically overturn this order.  The primary complaints were that (a) there are questionable connections between Perry and Merck, (b) parents should have the right to choose whether their daughters will be vaccinated, (c) the drug is new and needs to be further tested, and (d) Perry circumvented the legislative process.  On (a) and (d) I can't really comment, on (c)... well the FDA has approved it, so it has to have undergone some testing at this point, and on (b) I'm just mystified.  The mandate clearly has an opt-out clause... so what's the diff?  The thing I can't shake is that the early complaints about the possibility of making this drug mandatory that came out of Fundie USA was that it would encourage young women to have sex.  Which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  But I can't help feeling that because those who said it are realizing how stupid that sounds, we are now getting other excuses like a through d above.  I find myself wondering if HPV was transmitted in a nonsexual manner, would there be any outcry at all?

These are the Same People Who Said...
Tell me you haven't heard this one before: confronted with the latest news from climate scientists about global warming, a politically motivated skeptic will claim "These are the same people who said the world was headed for another ice age back in the 1970's... why should we believe them now?"  Like so much politically motivated rhetoric, there's little merit in it.  Between the 40's and the 70's a cooling trend was noted in the data available at that time.  Scientific journals noted that although such a trend could be the precursor of the cyclic ice ages that our planet goes through, there was not enough data or understanding of the climate to accurately predict when the next ice age would come.  The popular press on the other hand (i.e. those journals which are not peer reviewed) took the story and made a sensation out of it.  The scientific community never said another ice age was imminent, period.  Needless to say I hate hearing this stupid argument, especially when it is delivered by people who unfortunately are accorded undue credibility... like Michael Crichton for instance.  But if you want details refuting this particular bit of rhetoric, check "The Global Cooling Myth" on Real Climate.

Guess that's all I have for now.  Hope everyone else is well and happy...

Here's a few science-related news stories that have caught my eye in recent days...   more »

Though I couldn't find the movie playing anywhere near my home, I was delighted to spot a companion book that I wasn't aware of during a recent trip to the bookstore. It was nice to finally get an up to date and unbiased read on the scientific findings regarding global warming. Yes I said unbiased. It's high time people stopped trying to politicize this issue and started trying to do something about it...   more »

Here are a few news items that caught my eye today...   more »

My fellow Northeasterners, we are about to be hit with some very hot weather. Hottest days on record, some reports say. So please, over the next few days, for me, take it easy okay? I really don't want to find out that one of my friends suffered a heat stroke or something. Please chill for a bit? Thanks...   more »

It appears that a sudden onset of testicular growth has caused some in our government to finally take the administration to task for ignoring science for political ends. Will this amount to anything? Or are they just highlighting one of the administration's many flaws for political gain...   more »

That is all.

Uh, except of course, that there's no such thing as global warming.  Don't forget that.