Soxy

Either the stuffing or the potatoes--go carbs!!!

:rolly Sweet, sweet, irony.... :rolly

Sorry, this is a distraction--but Anthrax in your sig it says "to smart" and I just wanted to point out that it should be "too smart" sorry, that's been bothering me this whole thread.

Happy to birthday!!!

Just thought I'd see what everyone is doing for Thanksgiving....

Actually no. Castration is usually the cutting off of the testicles, not the actual dong. ;-)

Well, for everyone that hates it--another one loves it. I'm asking my parents for a membership for Christmas.

For all of us single ladies out there... This story is so funny! I heard about it from the NY Times--very cool..... OFFBEAT BEAUTY PAGEANT 'Miss Spinster' crowned in Thailand Posted: 9:43 PM (Manila Time) | Jun. 16, 2003 Agence France-Presse BANGKOK - A bevy of mature beauty contestants locked horns at the weekend to see who would be crowned Thailand's first-ever Miss Spinster. The pageant, aimed exclusively at single women aged 28 or above, named 37-year-old Saowapa Thephasadin, a private entrepreneur with a talent for sign language, as Thailand's "Miss Khanthong" on Sunday. The two-week event saw an original 128 contestants, all university graduates aged up to 51 years, whittled down to 21 participants who engaged in sportswear, short dress and evening gown competitions. Among the contestants was a niece of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose connections to Thailand's richest man apparently were not enough to secure her a place in the final round. Saowapa, who also won the award of Miss Personality, told judges she would immediately dedicate the year of her reign to helping Thailand's deaf people. Runners-up included a former member of the national volleyball team and a college professor. "The contest is to show that single females who are old can live happily even if they don't get married," said Jetset Productions spokesman Withan Kamutchat on the pageant's opening day. Saowapa took home a prize of 50,000 baht (1,190 dollars) as well as her crown, which she would hold for a year provided she fulfills her commitment to stay unmarried during her reign. Thais are great fans of beauty contests - two women from the kingdom have been crowned Miss Universe - and have quite a penchant for launching offbeat pageants. Last month the country held its popular Jumbo Queen contest, an annual pageant for large-sized women designed to highlight the plight of Thailand's diminishing numbers of wild elephants.

I really like the picture with the caption: Take that...We beat the Armada... Ahhhhh, the Sun, best paper in the UK... But I can't say I'm surprised by the fans though....They take fanaticship to a really disturbing level....

Happy birthday!

We have a Border collie--she's too smart for her own good. She learned to unscrew gatorade and water bottles and drink from them afterwards. Smart dog.

He might be a fan draw. I might buy a ticket just to see him play for a team I usually wouldn't watch.

Probably the opium again....

Hurray I am Belle! I am loving and giving and can always see the good in others. I love to read and spend time with my friends..... Awwwwwww

I'm getting an apple slicer and garlic press and chopper thing for Christmas.... Very exciting.

Isn't addiction to ANYTHING destroying lives? Isn't that kind of the nature of addiction?

Wow, that's even more amazing--I thought Lucy was around 6 or 7 mill--but it's been a looooooong time since I studied that. I can't get over how cool this is.

Interesting Trib article. One of the warned about drugs is Accutane--a couple of years ago they prescribed that like nothing to people with Acne. Yikes.... Expert Warns Against 5 FDA-Approved Drugs By DIEDTRA HENDERSON AP Science Writer Published November 18, 2004, 10:10 PM CST WASHINGTON -- At least five medications now sold to consumers pose such risks that their sale should be limited or stopped, said a government drug reviewer who raised safety questions earlier about the arthritis drug Vioxx. In testimony Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee, Food and Drug Administration reviewer David Graham cited Meridia, Crestor, Accutane, Bextra and Serevent. Drug makers defended the use and safety of their products. Graham contended the country is "virtually defenseless" against a repeat of the Vioxx debacle. Dr. Steven Galson of the FDA rejected that comment as having "no basis in fact." Merck & Co. pulled Vioxx from the market on Sept. 30 after a study indicated the popular painkiller doubled the risk of heart attacks and stroke when taken for longer than 18 months. The committee chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, suggested an independent board of drug safety may be needed to ensure the safety of medications after FDA approval. An "awful lot of red flags" were raised before Vioxx was withdrawn, said Grassley, R-Iowa., and the agency disdained, rather than listened to, its own reviewers. Graham contended that FDA has an inherent conflict of interest that triggers "denial, rejection and heat" when safety questions emerge about products it has approved. In his view, the five most worrisome drugs that demand speedy action: * Meridia, a weight-loss drug. He said the agency should consider whether its benefits outweigh the risks of higher blood pressure and stroke among people taking it. "I don't think Meridia passes that test," Graham said. * Crestor, an anti-cholesterol drug. He said the government should evaluate the occurrence of renal failure and other serious side effects among people taking Crestor. Two of three other statin competitors prevent heart attack and stroke and do not cause renal failure, he said. * Accutane, an acne drug linked to birth defects. Graham said the drug represents a 20-year "regulatory failure" by the FDA and sales should be restricted immediately. * Bextra, a painkiller. Graham said the drug poses the same heart attack and stroke risk as Vioxx. He recommended designing studies to look at the drug's cardiovascular risks. * Serevent, an asthma treatment. He said the drug was shown, with 90 percent certainty in a long-term trial in England, to cause deaths due to asthma. GlaxoSmithKline, told by the FDA to do a large, clinical trial, begged off. "We've got case reports of people dying, clutching their Serevent inhaler," Graham said. "But Serevent is still on the market." Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said the agency already has taken steps to alert consumers to those drugs' safety concerns. That includes heightened warnings for Serevent; a tougher risk-management plan to ensure pregnant women don't use Accutane; and an upcoming advisory committee hearing regarding Bextra. "Each of these do have special safety issues, but they're under evaluation and we're watching them carefully," Galson said. Tim Lindberg, a spokesman for Abbott Laboratories, said "science continues to support the safe use of Meridia to treat obesity." AstraZeneca PLC, maker of Crestor, has confidence in the drug, spokeswoman Emily Denney said. "To date, the FDA has not given us any indication of a major concern regarding Crestor," she said. Carolyn Glynn, spokeswoman for Roche Holdings AG, a maker of Accutane, acknowledged that the drug carries risk and said it is reserved for serious cases. "This drug is extremely beneficial as long as it's used safely and appropriately," she said. Susan Bro, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said Bextra did not increase the risk of serious cardiovascular events in a recent analysis of nearly 8,000 arthritis patients who took the drug from six weeks to 52 weeks. She said Bextra has been found to be safe and effective when used as indicated. GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Serevent, issued a similar statement about its product. In his testimony, Graham said the FDA's Office of New Drugs unrealistically maintains a drug is safe unless reviewers establish with 95 percent certainty that it is not. That rule does not protect consumers, Graham told the Senate committee. "What it does is it protects the drug," he said. Grassley accused the FDA of attempting to intimidate Graham. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., urged President Bush to name a new leader at the FDA, where Lester Crawford is the acting commissioner. Graham said he fears continued intimidation. "I was frightened before," he told reporters after the hearing. "Senior management at the FDA did everything in their power to intimidate me prior to my testimony," he said.

That is awe-some. That fossil predates Lucy by several million years doesn't it? Absolutely incredible....

So, after years of my dad talking about this movie I finally watched it. Oh my goodness. It was seriously one of the best movies I have ever seen. How, how, how did I live 22 years without seeing it. Wow. So good. Although all the talk about inside jobs and corruption made me soooooo homesick for Chicago. If you haven't seen this movie, see it.

When I had my nose pierced one of my friends went with and said, "Do you think I should get my hoo-hoo pierced." I must have laughed for 15 minutes. That's got to be the worst one I've EVER heard.

Standardized 8th grade math test is at 2nd-3rd grade level. Study Finds National Math Test Easier By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer WASHINGTON - The national test of student math skills is filled with easy questions, raising doubts about recent gains in achievement tests, a study contends. On the eighth-grade version of the test, almost 40 percent of the questions address skills taught in first or second grade, according to the report by Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. The test for fourth-graders also has "false rigor," Loveless says: More than 40 percent of questions gauge first and second grade skills, two levels below the students tested. The central fault, Loveless contends, is that too many problem-solving questions rely on whole numbers, with too few challenges involving fractions, decimals and percentages. Such instruction sets students up for trouble in more advanced high school classes and in daily life, where tasks such as shopping and measuring rarely involve neat, round numbers, he said. "If we want kids to be sophisticated problem solvers, they've got to be able to think beyond whole numbers," Loveless said. "That's just not good enough." Known as the nation's report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress is the most widely respected measure of the skill levels of U.S. students. Given to representative samples of students, it is offered periodically in many subjects, including math in 2003. A leader of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets the test content, strongly disagreed with the findings, saying the study is flawed because it is based on a questionable formula of what kids should know when. The study, being released Thursday, analyzed questions from the 2003 math tests, and then determined a grade level for those questions based on the Singapore math textbook program. Loveless said he chose that program because of its clarity and strong international reputation, and he said it compared well to the math-class sequences used in states such as California and North Carolina. But using Singapore as a model presents skewed results, said Sharif Shakrani, deputy executive director of the assessment governing board. Math is taught differently in that country, with heavy concentration on computation early before other topics are introduced. U.S. schools go for breadth, he said, with more math skills to cover each year. Overall, he said, the questions on the national in fourth grade and eighth grade are commensurate with what's being taught in those grades. "I contend that if we do what he suggests, moving to much more complex skills, it would be akin to giving a test in Russian," Shakrani said. "We already are not doing well. If you increase the cognitive function of the math concepts and the way you test them, you will end up with scores so low you will not be able to make sense of the results." Some questions — about 20 percent of them — are intentionally the same on the fourth-grade and eighth-grade tests to help track growth in achievement over grades, Shakrani said. A fair number of questions, he said, involve percentages and fractions. But others avoid them to isolate whether students have problem-solving skills regardless of the complexity of the numbers. Loveless said that approach is shortsighted. "Boosting students' competency in arithmetic and the ability to solve problems are not contradictory goals," he wrote. "Neither one need be denigrated in the pursuit of the other." Scale scores on the math tests have risen sharply for fourth-graders and eighth-graders since 1990. Loveless said it is not clear whether that reflects true gains in math knowledge, particularly since the gains have not translated into more enrollment in high-level classes. Overall, more than seven in 10 fourth-graders and almost as many eighth-graders are now achieving at a basic level or better on math, according to the latest federal scores. But more than two-thirds can't do math at the more challenging "proficient" level they should.

:headshake Although ten points for using my favorite cooterism.

So, he set himself on fire, ran around spreading the fire and then fell on a bunch of broken bottles... Wowzer.

*yawn*