This isn’t an anti-smoker post. Mostly. The target of my indignation isn’t the folks who keep buying the cigarettes – it’s the corporations that are making billions of dollars exploiting people. Folks on the political left attack walmart and home depots for destroying economies and ruining diversity… but I really don’t see a lot of folks on the left decrying the business practice of the tobacco industry.

I think it *might* have something to do with the disproportionate number of folks on the left that happen to smoke… but that’s speculation based on personal observation, on account of my lack of data on the subject.

Anyhow, it turns out that the Tobacco industry has been increasing the level of nicotine in cigarattes over the last several years. Paritcularly, cigarettes known by the industry to be purchased most by teens and minorities. Isn’t that nice.

More details here: at my site.

For those of you who pay attention to such thinks (okay, say geek!), the body Pluto has been demoted from planethood. Big deal, right??!

Some of you may know, I am an astrologer. I have been writing a book that specifically ties Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to history so it should be a big deal.

Believe or not I am not concerned about the demotion. I am not sure what Pluto is and neither do scientists. We do know that its is a Kuiper Belt body that shares its orbit with a “moon” Charon. But my study does convince me that Pluto is important.

How it matters takes an explanation too long for this media, but the synopsis highlights how the times between Uranus-Pluto, Uranus-Neptune and Neptune describe periods that history changes in similar matters. The conjunction of Neptune and Pluot and related angles tie together the Axial Age, Hellenism, the Dark Ages, The Fall of the Roman Empire, the birth of Islam and the Age of Reason. Also in play are the French, American and Industrial Revolutions. Pluto is central to all of these findings so shouldn’t I be worried?

No, as long as the orbital calculations remain the same, the connections between outer planetary movements and history will stay cogent. I know most of you are scratching your heads, but don’t mock what you don’t know. Google, Uranus-Neptune or Neptune-Pluto or Palden, Uranus, Neptune and keep an open mind.

Pluto, no matter what. I still love you!

Not sure if you guys have heard about this yet, but the FDA just approved the use of a bacteriophage (bacteria-eating virus) as a food addative. It’s virus that meat-packagers will begin to spray onto meat to destroy the type of bacteria that kills about 500 people a year.

A virus.

On our meat.

Anybody else want to join the vegan croud besides me? Because really… the war on food has just stepped up from chemical to biological, and the civilian casualties are going to be regular folks like you and me.

newprotest.org

I recently wrote a post over at my blog regarding the recent foiled alleged blow-up-some-planes plot, and about the US and UK’s response. Specifically, I’m among the school of thought that believes that imposing restrictions on average-joe-citizen doesn’t make things more difficult for would-be terrorists, but rather just makes things more difficult for average-joe-citizen.

Here’s an exerpt:

And I guess that’s the problem, really — laws and policies restricting freedoms don’t really stop terrorists who generally look for ways to get around those policies. Next year, people will be required to board planes naked and drugged, and terrorists will insert bombs into one orifice or another set to a timer… there’s not much you can do. It’s like gun control — taking away guns from law abiding citizens doesn’t do a thing to stop criminals. Tracking the purchase of Sudafed doesn’t stop the production of meth. These solutions simply don’t work, and yet it’s the only solutions governments use… and in the end, it’s average joe that suffers.

I’d like to fly without having to worry too much if somebody on the plane wants to kill everybody to make some statement about his or her beliefs. I think something should be done, but I’m at a loss for reasonable solutions to the problem.

The administration hasn’t done anything to make me feel safer. Any ideas?

I spent Friday night having a mini-party at the royal compound and drank more than is healthy. In my defense, I was drinking vodka tonics in an effort to ward off any chance of having malaria from my recent jungle adventures. So I spent Saturday laid out with what I thought was a massive hang-over. For future reference, rice is no fun coming back up.

But now it’s Monday and I am still feeling awful. I don’t think hang-overs come with a fever and fevers in the middle of summer really suck. I have bonded with my sofa, shut off my phone(s), and am holding onto my bottle of Advil for dear life.

Is it malaria:

With malaria, you develop a high fever, which comes and goes every other day or few days. How often a fever returns varies with each species of malaria. Many infections do not show this classic pattern of returning fevers at all.
In many people the infection will seem more like the flu with high fever and body aches. People also will complain of headache,
nausea, shaking chills (rigors), sweating, and weakness.
As the infection progresses, the fevers get less severe and you seem to recover. But the infection can hang on in many people for several years, particularly for those with a long history of exposure to malaria. These people can develop some immunity and may be infected for many years while only rarely having symptoms

Or is it just the run of the mill flu? Remember me when I am on my deathbed folks.

PS Jovial- I will totaly give you the OK to post. But I think you should have to do a funny monkey dance first. Dance monkey! Dance! Oh and I need your email addy to send an invite to post.

I keep meaning to write a long, ranty open letter to Israel about Lebanon, but I’m feeling a bit of nostalgia at the moment and I have someone on my mind and they won’t get off.

Maybe it’s the letdown from being on vacation and coming home to large range of crappy problems. See, I dealt with crappy problems everyday on vacation, things like “Oh my god it’s Friday night and we only have 50 pesos (5 bucks) till the bank opens on Monday” and “What do you mean you want 450 pesos for a room with no hot water or air conditioning” and the most frequent of our problems (because the naughty prof is a veggie) “Can we see a menu? Do you have anything without meat? No, without chicken or pork too- sin animales por favor? Are your beans made with oil or lard?” I never thought I would have to know the name for lard in Spanish- but if you’re wondering it’s manteca. Mantequilla (which is butter) is kinda like little lard.

But those are fun problems really. I like the feeling of throwing yourself to the wind in a place where your normal language skills and cultural knowledge have to be stretched and pushed to their absolute limits, like silly putty on newspaper. But being home means a list of time consuming, mundane problems that that just keep coming. No amount of creativity or brain power will solve them. I have to use the skill I suck most at- patience.

So in the midst of all this I distract myself with thoughts of someone I shouldn’t be thinking of. So to distract myself from my distraction- I am planning next year’s trip. Eastern Europe and all it’s glory of pickled veggies and potato dishes, vodka that is not the craptastic stoli (which made the kick in my nightly malaria tonics- the only thing that has kept my royal ass from winding up laid out like a tropical heroine in a trashy romance novel) and somewhere- a church made entirely of human bones. I’m so excited. I made the suggestion of visiting all the cities considered to be the new Prague, but that would take a year.

So far the intinerary includes: Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, somewhere in Slovenia (naughty prof has a friend there) and maybe Dubrovnik, Croatia. And if we are going to be in Slovenia, then a quick trip to my favorite, non-touristy small Italian city is in order- Trieste- where coffee is brought into Europe and roasted and where James Joyce conceived Ulysses.

But thinking about Italy makes nostalgic thoughts worse- so maybe I will think of Fidel keeling over and travel restrictions finally being lifted. Cause if that happens- Eastern Europe will wait but Cuba is screaming my name. Until then- espero y sueno por Cuba libre (I wait and dream of free Cuba).