Category: In the News

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Pirates of the Seas …. yep, they’re out there!

Pirares in dez waters, me hardy!

 

I don’t know how much anyone ever follows Piracy on the high seas… but it really isn’t a thing of the past and although the number of confrontations doesn’t come anywhere close to what happens on land… it is obviously horrific for the civilized gentry caught in a robbery.

A modern day Piracy may be a simple robery… but as they say in the movies …’dead men tell no tales’ and unfortunately… the sea is a great place to bury your dead.

Here’s one example of a Piracy at sea:

“Further details of the two incidents in the northwest of the Malacca
Strait off Sumatra have now emerged, revealing that they took place in
broad daylight, not at night as first reported, and that the pirates were
armed with AK-47 rifles and grenade launchers.” (July 2006)

Pirates as pictured in SailInteresting? SAIL magazine did an excellent job of pointing out some of the risks and providing it’s middle aged audience with practical advice…. but I think I would be more impressed if it gave a list of where one could buy ‘stuff’ to repell such attacks.

Here’s what SAIL lists are the ways to spot pirates ( I will paraphrase):

1) Pirates use small boats traveling fast (gas is expensive and local fisherman seldomm travel fast)

2) Most fishing boats have a crew of 3… if there are more in a boat or more boats… trouble is brewing

3) If you don’t spot fishing gear… then the boat may be after ‘bigger game’

4) If the boat that is following you is far from their government’s fishing grounds….

5) Birds normally flock around fishing boats… no birds = no fish = pirates.

6) Regardless of crew size… if you see weapons… avoid these folks… duh

By the way, I would like to thank North Sails for the complementary copy of Sail Magazine… it is fascinating.Plus, I couldn’t resist buying some sale items from their shop.

So, what are other folks saying about sailing?

What about Bob?

Valencia Sailing

Florida Boating

Royal Yaulting Association

 

Roger Freberg

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Tribute to Stargate SG 1

from the Stargate siteWhy is science fiction so appealing?

Some folks have noted that science fiction is a interesting way of discussing current social issues without the accompanying emotion. Sometimes, it seems to be just another way of visualizing how life and society could have unfolded.

One of the best current shows — in my humble opinion — has been Stargate SG 1. The homepage of the series is worth the visit! In reading through some of the many pages, it appears… sadly… that season 10 ( Wikipedia lists Gunsmoke at 20 years) is going to be their last. The good news for those of us who are fans of the series… is that they will be producing 2 movies for direct distribution to dvd. Supposedly, we will find the evil ‘Ori’ ( aliens who will kill you if you don’t worship their religion… sound familiar?) finally get theirs.

Science fiction sites and blogs:

Sci-Fi Weekly
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Star Wars
Star Trek

I am sorry to see Stargate go… and I wish Kurt Russell had been along for the ride…

Roger Freberg

 

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Cancer Cure or false hope?

offering hopeOne of the more interesting magazines on my rack is called the New Scientist… and leave it to them to have some of the most current and interesting articles out there. I had searched everywhere and finally found the famed video of the ‘prehistoric’ ancient ‘frill shark’ caught alive off Japan on a site in New Zealand… but all I really needed to do was go to newScientist.com.

However, another diddy caught my attention… the title of this New Scientist article was “Cheap , Safe drug kills most cancers”. If the title of the article doesn’t grab you… the first few words of the article will….

“IT SOUNDS almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.”

ScienceDaily from which I have linked the picture of the DCA molecule has an interesting take on the issue.

Shands Hospital at the University of Florida has looked at using DCA in other metabolic disorders.

Hero Award... given to those who make a positive contributionCongratulations to all who have found this promising drug… forgive me for being a little ‘corny’… but you are heroes to many…. because you bring hope … and just maybe… a cure.

Roger Freberg

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Got football?… or do Sumo? Takes a big man & a big heart!

Well, many folks in our world are really afraid of big men. Fear drives some of the stranges actions by those less challenged by gravity.

Just another Big Guy... besides I love Watching Sumo Wrestling when I can find it!I often find myself most comfortable with men my size… larger men… because we understand each other. We don’t fall into the ‘normal range’ of the BMI (body mass index) because our bones are bigger and denser and we are more thickly muscled…. and we ride Harley’s.  That’s the way it is.

We do get strange looks from smaller men — not all — but some generally act with  what we jokingly refer to as ‘castration anxiety.’ As for me, personally, I prefer fried bull testicles… so there should be no worries.

So, here comes a study about ‘overweight’ young football players from the athletically challenged:

“Researchers at Iowa State University found nearly half of the offensive and defensive linemen playing on Iowa high school teams qualify as overweight, and one in 10 meet medical standards for severe obesity.”

Read on and you will discover that they worry about who will be our children’s ‘role models’ and they fret impotently about the ‘obesity’ epidemic in America. However, the real worry shouldn’t be about these big athletic young athletes… because they are at least ‘active’…. one should be concerned about why others are going fat… and this is highly correlated with the limitation or elimination of physical education in high school and the reduction of recess in the lower grades. 

If this wasn’t bad enough, all too many sports have been banned on the playground in schools today… from the ‘high bars’ to swingsets to dodgeball to anything ‘competitive’, it really shouldn’t shock us that kids are inactive…. because these same sorts of people are encouraging them to be this way…. it’s ‘cooperation not competition’ taken to extremes.

There is a real lesson here. Years ago, a heart specialist told me … he was one of my workout partners at UCLA while I was an athlete there… “you can never rebuild your cardiovascular system in middle age if you neglect it in your youth”. The morale is simple: we are doing far greater harm by not insisting on a vigorous athletic youth than criticising — say football players — for being naturally bigger than the average soccer player… which — as we know — is a non sport.

So, let’s encourage our youth to participate in a sport… any real sport… they’ll thank you for it later.

Roger Freberg

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Time for ‘Peta’ to go the way of the Dodo

The group called Peta or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals appears to be anything but. Wikipedia gives us a whitewashed but amusing history of Peta. Peta’s own site presents itself with a little bunny in the browser.

If you check out Peta’s site , you can find links like “10 reasons to go Vegetarian in 2007”. I always thought that these wacked out vegetarians were really after getting the rest of us to stop eating meat… pleeeeease, get a life, folks. One of the reasons to become a vegetarian is ‘meat is gross’… not very convincing, honey…. maybe they didn’t find the right seasoning.

Mug shots of Peta Employees

A couple of their folks are now on trial for butchering a bunch of animals and throwing them in a local supermarket dumpster. Outside of the obvious problems of animal disposal now becoming someone else’s problem, the lack of these folks having anything resembling a moral center is truely disturbing.

An interesting site bringing some light on this rather secretive and — in my humble opinion — obusive and wacky organization called Peta is petakillsanimals.com. It is clear — to me — that Peta is a vegetarian, anti-intellectual and anti-scientific organization… much like another infamous group in history… the Schutzstaffel! They didn’t like people either.Big, Fat and Stupid is no way to go through life... 

 

So, who said Peta vegetarians are thin?

Gosh, after reading all of this stuff it makes me want to rush right out and attend a Peta rally… of course, I gotta bring some of my favorite Colonel Sander’s Fried Chicken!

Eat Meat, wear furs & Enjoy your fried chicken!

Roger Freberg