David Kuo: October 2007 Archives

And now... Umbert the Unborn - "the world's most lovable unborn baby (next to yours!)"

A new thin place...

There is nothing quite like getting away to a remote part of the Amazon jungle. Add to that the hunt for our fine finned friend, the peacock bass, and you have an amazing trip on your hands...

The guide takes you to a perfect fishing hole. Some fish are lost having bent even titanium hooks. But once the hook is set the battle is on. In the case of my 21 pounder, he made a mad dash for cover under some brush. But that never stopped a good guide. He slips into dark water of the Rio Negro and disappears out of sight. Suddenly he emerges from under the water with fish in hand. The fish is weighed, photographed with all, and then returned to fight another day.

Some fish are consumed. Some fishermen are consumed with catching even larger, world record breaking fish. Just a game of deception played with a fish for sport. Thank God for the experience. Thank God He is not playing such games with us. There is no catch and release in the kingdom of heaven.

I just had to see what it felt like to type those words - President Hillary Clinton.

It doesn't seem possible that it is a possibility save for one thing - right now it is the most likely of all possible scenarios. And based on tonight's debate performance it is hard to see that changing. Don't take my word on it, take the word of conservative commentator John O'Sullivan over at National Review's "The Corner."

In Need of an Adult Beverage What depresses me about tonight's debate is not merely that Hillary Clinton is the strongest and most adult person on the stage—it's also the possibility that the same thing might at least look true if she were parachuted into the GOP debate.

All obligatory statements aside - it is early, in politics anything can happen, Obama or Edwards may catch fire, frontrunners always stumble, etc. - the current crop of Democrats don't seem capable of either taking her down or lifting people to a vision sufficiently compelling to bump her out of the way.

Barack Obama's "politics of hope" seems to have become the "politics of smacking Hillary." John Edwards is certainly trying to campaign based on a particular vision of helping the little guy. And he may be the most likely long-term foil to Sen. Clinton. But she is looking a whole lot like the New England Patriots right now - built to win.

A new poll from Zogby provides interesting insights into our use of and feelings towards, the Internet.

The Zogby/463 Internet Attitudes poll found that 24% of Americans said the Internet could serve as a replacement for a significant other. Not surprisingly, the percentage was highest among singles, of which 31% said it could be a substitute. There was no difference among males and females but there was a split based on political ideology. Thirty-one percent of those who called themselves “progressives” were open-minded to the Internet serving as a surrogate significant other while only 18% of those who consider themselves “very conservative” would consider it a substitute.

But wait, there's more.

Most Americans don’t think the Internet has had an effect on their spirituality. Ten percent said it made them closer to God, while 6% percent said it made them more distant. Those who call themselves “Born Again” were the most likely to feel it affected them spiritually. Twenty percent of Born Agains said it made them closer while 11% said it made them more distant from God.

And my favorite, of course:

Despite the hype surrounding the launch of the iPhone and the adoration that its biggest fans hold for the device, people still find other people more attractive. When asked who or what is sexier, the vast majority of Americans don’t think the Apple’s phone gets their blood flowing like Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson, or Patrick Dempsey does. In the face-off of good-looking stars versus smart-phone, Berry dropped the most jaws with 27 percent of the responses. Johansson got 17% and Dempsey 14 percent. The iPhone shared a spot with Derek Jeter at 6%. It hasn’t been a good year for the Yankees. (31% were too flummoxed to answer.) Johansson was the favorite of those age 18 to24 (30% ), but Berry was selected the most by every other age group.

I missed this yesterday and perhaps everyone has already seen it, but this made my jaw drop for several reasons. First, that scientists were able to put the pieces together to make this conclusion. That is just staggering to me. Second, so much horror came from that single source is more than I can comprehend. I've known, as we all have, about a 'patient zero' but somehow this news makes it that much more... horrifying.

The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday.

Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed.

The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognized by scientists as a disease in 1981. Many people had died by that point.

"It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses," Worobey said in a telephone interview.

The researchers conducted a genetic analysis of stored blood samples from early AIDS patients to determine when the human immunodeficiency virus first entered the United States.

They found that HIV was brought to Haiti by an infected person from central Africa in about 1966, which matches earlier estimates, and then came to the United States in about 1969.

The researchers think an unknown single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like Miami or New York, and the virus circulated for years -- first in the U.S. population and then to other nations.