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FDA does something really good!

Young ladies, time to get your paps smeared!

The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it has approved the first vaccine designed to prevent cancer. [source]

Bonus!

Gardasil also blocks infection by two other HPV types that cause about 90% of genital warts cases

Some questions remain about the best age for immunization with Gardasil, although the consensus is that girls should be vaccinated before becoming sexually active.

See also The Washington Post:

The vaccine, which works by building immunity against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, was found to be effective in preventing almost three-quarters of all cervical cancers.

The vaccine, called Gardisil and developed by Merck & Co., was approved for girls and women ages 9 and 26. It is most useful if given to younger girls, because the vaccine is ineffective once the virus — which is very common among sexually active people — is already present.

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Lady take it elsewhere!

LiveJournal wants women to breastfeed their babies in the bathroom.

Six Apart, creators of Movable Type and, more recently, owners of LiveJournal, have decided to harrass LiveJournal users whose default icons depict breastfeeding.

LiveJournal is even protected by law!

Lawmakers are beginning to understand …; California, where Six Apart is located, has express legal provision exempting breastfeeding from obscenity legislation.

The AAP recommends "Exclusive breastfeeding for approximately the first six months and support for breastfeeding for the first year and beyond as long as mutually desired by mother and child."

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Shots fired at the capitol

Here’s my totally unconfirmed account. I post this without researching right now simply because it is Friday and on Friday no blogs or reads blogs except my wife and I.

There are reports shots have been fired in Rayburn House Office Building across street from U.S. Capitol. Entire Capitol complex is locked down.

they are now putting yellow tape around the entrance

swat teams and bomb sniffing dogs going into the building

The AP article.

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Understand Net Neutrality

Understand that the Internet you know and love is being threaten. Take 6.5 minutes to watch this video to better understand net neutrality and why you should be in touch with your representative in Washington.

UPDATE: Be sure to watch this one also which presents the other side of the debate. Here’s a comment I just made at Say Uncle:

I think that link should be balanced with the other side.

Knowing the Internet on the technical side as intimately as I do, I think both videos leave out critical information. I’m still weighing my thoughts on the issue. Right now I think the 6.5 minute video in favor of regulation presents better arguments. The hands off video is more strongly deceptive in making people think that Google and the giants are getting a free ride which they aren’t. They have to pay for connectivity just like the rest of us and bandwidth at their magnitude can get expensive. Any small time publisher that has found the front page of Instapundit, Digg, Slashdot, BoingBoing or the rest knows the pain.

I still have to think this one over.

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Tennessee Makes Yahoo News! Yahoo!

Thieves Steal Trailer Filled With Red Bull

A truck driver reported last weekend that his 53-foot trailer containing containing $100,000 worth of Red Bull energy drinks (2,880 cases) was stolen. … A trailer containing $100,000 worth of Kraft sauces also was stolen in Dyersburg on Monday

Now what can you do with $!00,000 worth of Red Bull and a $100,000 worth of Kraft sauces at the end a college semester? I’m thinking if we see $100,000 worth of cattle and $100,000 worth of chickens disappear that someone is going to be throwing one heck of a finals craming party. This is what happens when you wait until the end of the semester to start studying!

[Source]

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Mexico ponders tougher immigration laws

Mexico’s Congress approved a bill Friday decriminalizing possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use – including cocaine, heroin and ectasy

With the latest announcement from Mexico, can we expect to see an onslaught of illegal US immigrants on Mexico’s soil? Is this a conspiracy with the US Right to get more of the Left out of the country? Wait, no! If that was true, they wouldn’t have included cocaine and heroin…

[Source]

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Heard any weird booms?

Have you heard any weird booms and then perhaps been knocked off your feet?

A series of strange window-rattling booms or rumbles have been heard and felt in recent months in Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, and, on April 4, in San Diego County. …nobody seems to know what the hell caused the disturbance. …"My garage door is double steel and it weighs about 500 lbs.," a man in University City wrote. "It was rattling back and forth like a leaf in the wind for about 3 or 4 seconds." … one of the leading explanations for the San Diego disturbance is that the military is testing a top-secret spy plane called the Aurora…

The military denies knowledge of such a plane. [Source]

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Up in smoke

Ah! My last piece of concentration is lit. My last stick of Satya Sai Baba Nag Champa Agarbatti is burning down. May we never go to war with Bangalore!

In a vaguely related topic, I heard on NPR this morning that our politicans put legalization of marijuana on the table as a possible tax revenue to help pay for health care.

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Backwards punishment

Honestly, instead of punishing him shouldn’t we give him a certificate for creativity and punish the girls for stupidity?!

MIAMI (Reuters) – A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer…
One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves…
At least two women, both in their 30s, let him into their homes and he fondled…

Read that closely. She let a strange man into her house, allowed him to fondle her breasts, then stripped naked for him and only after she allowed him to touch her genitals did she realize he wasn’t wearing gloves and only then did she become suspicious. [Source]

Since we are pointing out victomizations in the news, the woman found alive in a landfill should not go without notice.

A landfill employee … saw Huston’s feet sticking out from a garbage pile…
…she was driving to work Thursday morning when a man wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun climbed into her car, demanding that she drive south. The next four nights… they drove through Washington, Oregon and California. They stopped occasionally at rest stops and service stations. …
here was no indication she had been assaulted.

I understand fear does strange things to a person. I understand kidnap victoms take to their captors. I don’t understand how in 4 days during which the car jacker had to sleep, and past numerous state troopers that they must have driven by, that she couldn’t draw attention to her situation. Flip the bird at a cop. Tap out SOS with the brake lights. Do something!

I tried hard, without success, to get my daughter to take a self-defense class and all I got was "I know all that stuff." I would like to hope that I am not enabling her to be a victomvictim. [Source]

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Public Outcry Does Change Things – Safe to drink in TX again

A bit of news made the rounds not long ago. Texas was arresting drunks in bars (you know, fish in a barrel). They assumed these drunks would try to get behind the wheel of a car (guilty until proven innocent – doesn’t imply I want drunks on the road). After much ridicule and public protest, "Operation Last Call" has been "temporarily suspended."

[Source]