The opinionated fool declareth:

Well, I was waiting for the ran to slowly inch by so I could cycle up to work, and I cam across the following story at BoingBoing.net: Italy considering gov't regulation of bloggers . I have no idea if this would have any support in the Italian government, and I know free speech isn't as precious in Europe as it is here in the U.S., but sheesh, that seems like such a bad idea to me (understatement).

Where else can you find hard-hitting stories about toilet paper theft that's going on in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin? From CNN , of course.

Yeah! I feel great! Okay, I wrecked out my beater-car last week, so I have no car. But now I'm thinking that I may not actually bother to find a replacement car right away. I would have never thought that I'd say this, but living 10 miles from my place of work actually doesn't require a car. I've come up with a great way to save money, not have a car, and get in some bitchin' exercise, all from biking to work. I'll be rich and good-looking, right? Here's a Google Maps version of the route that I take to/from work: Google Map . View Larger Map This yields about 1-1.5 hours of good aerobic activity (depending on how hard I ride) for every day that I do it. Now that I'm really trying to eat better in order to lose "the man-bewbs," this is a really great thing, and will complement the evening lifting I've been doing in the garage with Eric's weight bench. The negative to all of this (actually, there are a few things): it takes about ...

It's almost official: Hugo Chavez is a despotic dictator. Telegraph story

We all know that I'm a virgin, right? Well, if anybody has evidence to the contrary, step forward. :P Here's more proof of my virginity. Haha. Interesting, to say the least. They don't really establish causality, as it would be most difficult to do so, but, yeah. Interesting nonetheless. (Link from slashdot's site.)

This song: Collusion , by Psycorps... ...that's what I need for my Friday night.

I guess I'm tired of giving out my opinions on things.

I laughed.

So, I haven't updated in 2 weeks. Sorry. I know - being the coolest freakin' guy on the planet, everybody has probably been biting their nails wondering that the heck Chris has been up to. Not much, really. Things are copacetic. Trying to work more, get a side project finished here in the lab by the end of summer so my name will actually return a hit on PubMed.com. Also trying to get the pwg stuff back in gear. WoW play is in effect, but under control, unlike a while ago. My iPod is broke, and being an incredibly dumb idiot, I waited until it lapsed from it's 1-year-warranty to register a repair request with Apple. Now I'm sending it to a third-party company for repair. Probably going to be a hundred bucks to get it fixed. Good thing I'm filthy, stinking rich. I'm going to buy another soccer ball. The Feroni isn't holding air anymore. In case you're wondering, The Feroni is a soccer ball that I stole from a 10 year old a few years ago. I believ...

Last week Sony debuted a new, flexible, paper-thin display system. Take a look at it here . That is damn sexy!!

NewScientist has published and made available online an article "debunking" 25 misconceptions that muddy the waters of discussion on whether or not global warming is an actual phenomenon or not, and whether or not at it's root cause lies Human activity. You might want to read it here . Then, you might want to watch The Great Global Warming Swindle , which contains an interview with the former headman of NewScientist. This video is over an hour long, but it strongly changed some of my views on the reality of man-made global warming. (As always, it's important to remember that as new information gets made available, we can find out more about what's actually going on. This video convinces me that, at this time, it does not appear to be a human-driven process. But one of the good things about this video also is that it frankly allows for the discovery of new information, making the point that it appears to be the "global warming" advocates that are jumpi...

The NY Times has a pretty moving story that you may want to read. Love is weird, am I right? Weird, but strong? We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. “She’s our daughter,” I said. “We love her.” Hope everybody has a bitchin' Tuesday.

Not sure if anybody else heard about this, but there was an extremely intriguing research report and analysis released last month that suggests (lack of) Vitamin D and it's related pro-forms (D2, D3, D4, etc.) has a very high correlation to increased risk for several cancers. Specifically, this report showed that, of a study of 1200 women, there was a 60% reduction in the appearance of cancer in subjects taking Vitamin D supplements compared to those not taking supplements. I believe I heard on NPR news that this 60% difference is actually a higher level of difference between similar cancer-rate studies comparing people who smoke to those that do not. Interesting to say the least. Anyhow, I was reading up about it (again, because I'm supposed to be working on a data set... and we all know that frequent breaks help facilitate brilliance and creative thinking) and found another, older, but interesting article about how cancer patients respond much better in the summer than wi...

While sitting here (ideally to work on making a kick-ass phylogenetic tree for a meeting with the Bosserino tomorrow morning) eating some Smartfood popcorn (the best freakin' popcorn ever - oddly enough, I have this memory of going to the waterways in downtown Las Colinas for some carnival and getting free bags of the stuff... this was probably when I was in elementary or middle school) I happened upon an ArsTechnica article about the ominous July 15th date for the royalty hike that's supposed to be introduced, and kill, Internet streaming music. (For some backstory, check out this Wiki entry on the proposed changes. I was pleasantly surprised that the bill to overturn this royalty hike - which is unreasonable, and should be overturned - was introduced by one of my favorite politicians, Sen. Brownback (of pro-life fame/infamy). I like that dude. So, good job, Mr. Brownback.

This CNN article makes me pretty mad. It's such a paradox, that someone who is pro-life should attempt to kill another to achieve their "pro-life" ends... Although there is some logical appeal to the argument that killing is justified during war, and in this case, the thousands of abortions each day constitute a war on the unborn... ultimately I think this notion has to be rejected, since the 'battle' isn't so blatant as to be fought on any declared battlefield with any declared enemy. As corny and stupid as the term sounds, it's more of a 'spiritual battle' that needs to be prayed for, actions taken within the system to decrease and eliminate either 1.) the need for thousands of abortions each day (ie - giving mothers a respect for their unborn fetus, providing them aid during and after pregnancies, etc) 2.) end the legal option that parents possess today to abort their unborn. As it is, bombings and loud, yelling protest have very distasteful (...

Don't look, actually - or else you'll get bitch-slapped by reality as the EU passes legislation covering all 27 member-states making it illegal (1-3 year jail sentences) to "incitement to violence or hatred “against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin." You see, the iron fist reaching out to bitch-slap you and enforce measures against thought-crime and cerebral-immorality cometh not from the ultra evil Jesus-loving Right of cowboy America but the friendly and subtle and sophisticated and oh so enlightened leftist European elite . Trent Reznor is wrong about who we need to fear.

This was my finest gaming hour. This is my old guild - Forsaken Deathknights (FDK)- killing Ragnaros back in November '06. It's hard to grasp the scale of this fight (and the video capture is done through a different player) if you don't play World of Warcraft very much, but there are 40 of us FDK members in there all killing the huge fire-demon in the middle. You can see the damage spells hitting Ragnaros from all directions. Matt will laugh at this, mostly because Ragnaros, the final boss in Molten Core, was pretty much extremely easy for most advanced guilds (such as Skull Squadron) long before FDK even stepped foot in the Molten Core area. Yet we worked our way through it as a casual guild over the course of 5 or 6 months, working a steady 1.5 nights each week, and this progression and the teamwork, drama, bitching and moaning, more drama, dealing with prima donnas , strategy-learning and even more needless social drama that all went into making this boss kill was rea...

It seems like this tragedy will be history-making. My heart and prayers go out to my friends in Virginia, to those 31+ killed by the gunman, and especially for the gunman who was killed (or killed himself)... what a terrible waste. Now, finally to get up to school and work.

Don't worry, Dan. You might not like the content of this communication with my Representative, but worry not - I jotted this down between lab activities (aka - "work") a few minutes ago. Dear Representative, Howdy from Rice University! I'm a graduate student studying vertebrate embryology here at Rice. I'd like to first thank you for your part in funding our lab's research! Being in my position, I have a keen understanding and appreciation for the funding of our country's great scientific programs. However, I am writing to you this morning to let you know my strong disagreement with the bill that was just passed by the Senate allowing for funding of embryonic stem cell research. It seems like this bill (or this issue, in some form) is likely to be brought before Congress again in the near future. I believe that embryonic humans should be in full possession of their human rights, starting immediately at conception. Since somatic cell nuclear transfer (...

You know, Espers .