Why Are Trace Chemicals Showing Up in Umbilical Cord Blood?

Why Are Trace Chemicals Showing Up in Umbilical Cord Blood?

For me, that proves once again that natural scientist's complacency about progress and technology is based on self-delusion (or a social construct if you will). Technologies that are meant to improve our lives in fact ruin them. There are no long-term case studies for most synthesized materials we are using. It took half a century to figure out that freon and leaded gas were bad to us, what next?

Clint Eastwood speech at GOP convention: unqualified opnion par excellence

Clint Eastwood really should stick to acting and stop making an ass out of himself. So should all other celebrities, just stick to singing, acting, juggling, etc. We know who you are. We don't expect anything smart from you.

Atonement: review

Atonement: your run-off-the-mill BBC period costume drama until Vanessa Redgrave descends from the Parnassus or wherever actors of her calibre dwell and with but a few minutes of monologue yanks the whole pretty but trite shebang to the Oscar and BAFTA wow-heights.

TV is a Hitler in your living room

Except it's not just "state" sponsored propaganda. That's vulgar Marxism. There are more players in the filed vying for your brain synapses.

The 10 signs that I've become a Londoner (the joie de vivre version)

1. I still admire the city I live in, how handsome and charming it is. It never ceases to amaze me: just turn around the familiar corner for some quirky discovery, be it a pretty Victorian mansion, ethnic restaurant, or a view of the City's skyscrapers from a most unexpected place.
   
2. I still feel overwhelmed with how much goes on daily in this city: exhibitions, premières, musicals, openings, concerts, demonstrations, seminars, public lectures. Sometimes, I just have to stop reading mail-lists with yet more new announcements: I just don't enough hours a day to visit all that takes my fancy!
   
3. I avoid the Tube except for emergencies and "long-haul" travel. Buses are the most civilised means of commuting: you get a seat, a nice view and another free city tour. Most places in Central London are easier to walk to anyway, especially when you are versed in the quintessentially British idiosyncratic shortcuts through buildings, back lanes and car parks.
   
4. I take it for granted that no street is straight here (save for Oxford Street and Edgware Road) and getting from point A to point B can take any amount of turns and changes of direction. That has helped me reconcile mentally and emotionally with the irrationality of existence.
   
5. I have finally discovered where to go shopping for affordable stylish clothes. I can't buy garb on the Stateside any more, in London it would look like peasant's pajamas.
   
6. I spell the British way by default now. My Microsfot Word yet needs to learn that too.
   
7. I got used to the "hard-core, fuzzy-edges" English attitude to appointment-keeping, project management and weekend-planning. I allow a bit of leeway for everything and that, in fact, makes my life much easier and enjoyable.
   
8. The sight of the Shard lit up at night excites me no end. I think the Gherkin is iconic. The Royal Festival Hall is still an abominable monstrosity on the outside but I love hangung out inside.
   
9. The East End accent does not baffle me any more. Now I find some North American accents completely incomprehensible.
   
10. The sight of London from the airplane's window makes my heart melt. It's good to get back home!

Idols and mobs

Every time I see someone engrossed in reading a newspaper with a picture of an orange lady with glued-on eye-lashes and inflated boobs being peddled as a role model for the nation thanks to her uncanny ability to climb from one highly affluent cock onto another, well, I just cackle a bit. Earthlings are peculiar critters.

Work hard, play hard

The 'work hard, play hard' slogan is utter hogwash because it glorifies slaving yourself into the ground in exchange for retail therapy and party drugs.