Weed, Booze, Cocaine and Other Old School "Medicine" Ads

From Pill Talk we have some great ads that were run in the past...

Lloyd Cocaine Toothache Drops
In the US, cocaine was sold over the counter until 1914 and was commonly found in products like toothache drops, dandruff remedies and medicinal tonics.

Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but some awfully strange substances have been used for pharmaceutical purposes in the past -- and some might argue, continue to be used today. Here are some more vintage advertisements touting items that we might balk at taking today.

images via Pill Talk

 

Life is a mystery not to be solved, but to be experienced...

image via AMO

Radioactive wasps are nesting at Hanford reservation

I know. The following story almost sounds like prelude to an old B Movie. As a matter of fact I found this movie poster with it's wasp/human woman "getting her man!"

After reading it I'm also left wondering what "fairly highly contaminated" really means? It wouldn't be very comforting to me if I lived anywhere near those toxic wasps. Then again, it wouldn't be very comforting to me if I lived anywhere near a nuclear reactor!

 From the Associated Press...

 Workers cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation are going after radioactive wasp nests.

The Tri-City Herald reports 6 to 12 inches of top soil are being dug up this month from 6 acres near the H Reactor.

And, workers will dig up more individual mud dauber wasp nests over about 75 acres of the nuclear reservation in southeast Washington.

The contractor handling the clean-up, Washington Closure, says the nests were all built in 2003 when water was used to dampen dust during demolition of an H Reactor basin.

That attracted the wasps that used the mud to make tube-shaped nests for eggs.

Spokesman Todd Nelson says the nests are "fairly highly contaminated."

 image via Google Images

The Ice Age Cometh for the Republican Party...

From Search Time...

By Mike Murphy

Despairing Republican friends have been asking me what I think we should do to rebuild the GOP and begin our certain and inevitable comeback. My answer disappoints them: "Build an ark."

I say this because I've made a career out of counting votes, and the numbers tell a clear story; the demographics of America are changing in a way that is deadly for the Republican Party as it exists today. A GOP ice age is on the way.

Demographic change is irritating to politicos, since it works on elections much as rigged dice do on a Las Vegas craps table: it is a game changer. For years, Republicans won elections because the country was chock-full of white middle-class voters who mostly pulled the GOP lever on Election Day. Today, however, that formula is no longer enough. (See pictures of Republican memorabilia.)

It was a huge shock to the GOP when Barack Obama won Republican Indiana last year. The bigger news was how he did it. Latino voters delivered the state. Exit polls showed that they provided Obama with a margin of more than 58,000 votes in a state he carried by a slim 26,000 votes. That's right, GOP, you've entered a brave new world ruled by Latino Hoosiers, and you're losing. Click here to read the rest of the article.

image via searchtime.com

My great uncle was freed in the famous WW II Guerrila Raid on Los Banos with the author of this terrible experience

My Great-Uncle Leo Stancliff from Bakersfield (who I never got to meet), was a civilian POW during WW II.This account also mentioned someone from Hydesville (here in Humboldt County).

His name was Herman Beaber and he (with foot notes from his son John) wrote a book about his experiences titled: "Deliverance! It Has Come!" Click here to get more detailed information on Herman Barber.

In late 1941 war broke out in the Philippines with the Japanese. Many endured imprisonment, including some ministers who were interned at the Los Baños Internment Camp located about 40 miles south of Manila in the Philippines.

They were Willie Jamieson from Chirnside, Scotland; Ernest Stanley from England (internment at Santo Tomás); Leo Stancliff of Bakersfield, California; Cecil Barrett of New Zealand; and Herman Beaber of Hydesville, California, who kept a diary during their time as prisoners of war (1942-1945).

On January 6, 1942 Herman and his fellow ministers were picked up by the Japanese and were taken first to the Rizal Memorial Stadium where they were registered. Then they were bundled back into the car and taken to Santo Tomás University grounds.

They later were released and allowed to continue their church work. (with the exception of Ernest Stanley who chose to remain in Santo Tomás as an official interpreter for the Internee Government). They were allowed to have religious services (Sundays only), from January 15, 1942 until they were taken to prison at Los Baños on July 8, 1944, along with all the other American missionaries in the area.

"Los Baños was the former University of the Philippines, the Agricultural School at Los Baños was located in a town on the island of Luzon.

It had been converted into an internment camp. It was a plot of about 55 or 60 acres with a barbed wire fence around it, for more than 2,000 civilians who had the misfortune of falling into Japanese hands at the beginning of the war.

As time passed and as the Japanese began to lose the war, things became very desperate at the Los Baños prison camp. While Herman Beaber's diary does not record that they were tortured, they nearly starved, and many in the camp died from disease and slow starvation.

Herman wrote in his diary... "Naturally there is theft of food in camp. It is considered a major crime. We see people (respectable people) looking into garbage cans for banana skins, etc. (If you want a real delicacy... Fry some banana skins in rancid coconut oil.) People going to points in camp several blocks away will have to sit down to rest. Fights occur in the food lines. Some have eaten bugs and beetles - so they say."
Herman left from the United States for the Philippines in 1940 weighing 202 lbs at 6'3" and he weighed 140 lbs when he was finally rescued on February 23, 1945. On that day American soldiers freed over 2000 prisoners at Los Baños in a daring guerrilla and paratrooper rescue, just one day before they were all to be executed by the Japanese. Army Chief of Staff General

Herman left from the United States for the Philippines in 1940 weighing 202 lbs at 6'3" and he weighed 140 lbs when he was finally rescued on February 23, 1945. On that day American soldiers freed over 2000 prisoners at Los Baños in a daring guerrilla and paratrooper rescue, just one day before they were all to be executed by the Japanese.

Army Chief of Staff General Colin Powell (now former Secretary of State) proclaimed- "I doubt that any airborne unit in the world will ever be able to rival the Los Baños prison raid. It is the textbook airborne operation for all ages and all armies."

Herman Beaber wrote..."Let me say that you who have never been deprived of seeing Old Glory and all she stands for, for three long years, cannot understand what that sight would mean. We feel heavily indebted to our rescuers. (No greater love has a man, than to lay down his life for another) We are mighty proud to be citizens of a great country like the United States. On the other hand, we are grateful to God for His care and protection, and now that He has spared our lives... we feel more inclined than ever to give Him our best."

My Great Uncle Leo passed away on Oct.29th, 2005. Herman Beaber passed away on Feb. 5th, 2001

6,000-Year-Old Tombs Found Next to Stonehenge

 From SciTech this morning...

A prehistoric complex, including two 6,000-year-old tombs, has been discovered by archaeologists in Hampshire.

The Neolithic tombs, which until now had gone unnoticed under farmland despite being just 15 miles from Stonehenge, are some of the oldest monuments to have been found in Britain.

Archaeologists say they will hold valuable clues about how people lived at the time and what their environment was like.

The discovery is also close to Cranborne Chase, one of the most well researched prehistoric areas in Europe.

Click here to read the rest.

 image via AP/National Graphic

One of my favorite poems by Robert Frost...

The Road Not Taken

 by Robert Frost
 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood 
And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
      Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
      Though as for that the passing there
      Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

photo via Read Print

Scientists are working on a fat enzyme that would allow everyone to be skinny

• I'm not sure how I feel about the possibility of everyone being skinny someday. I personally don't think skinny is sexy. But, like you, I do associate thinness with health. Right or wrong that's the general impression. So when I stumbled across this article I thought it would be interesting to share and see what you think.

•  From Discover Magazine we have this interesting tidbit...

Remember the guy from Super Size Me who ate about 23,000 Bic Macs and never got fat? Ever wonder how he did it? Turns out he may have been born without the “fat enzyme.”

The enzyme MGAT2 is found in the intestines and determines the fate of our food by regulating how it is metabolized: It either makes fat go straight to your waistline, or converts it into energy. Scientists in California have discovered that when mice are missing the gene for MGAT2, they can eat whatever they want and never have to worry about getting fat.

The University of California at San Francisco knocked out the gene in experimental mice to see how their bodies grew after feeding them different diets. When the normal and experimental mice were fed a diet low in fat, both sets of mice grew the same way. But when the mice were eating a 60 percent fat diet (i.e., a typical American diet), the experimental mice weighed 40 percent less and had 50 percent less fat than the normal mice.

Not only does decreasing MGAT activity in mice reduce their chances of packing on the pounds, it also prevents them from developing other obesity-related problems such as fatty livers and glucose intolerance. While the researchers are unsure of precisely how the experimental mice kept the weight off, they think that when the mice are missing the MGAT2 enzyme, their body ultimately doesn’t store or use the fat.

Still, don’t go on a Big Mac binge just yet: Until scientist can figure out how to manipulate this gene to create the magic skinny pill, we will continue to metabolize food like we did when we were hunters and gathers.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Fat
DISCOVER: Killer Fat
DISCOVER: Fat Is Not The Enemy

image via Google Images

Animals made from old computer parts previewed

 

 

Click here to see more of these works of art made from recycled computer parts.

Images via artsdesignblog.com 

Solar powered hatchback van hits the streets in Europe!

I wonder if American manufacturers are going to be turning out vehicles like this in the near future? A worldwide vehicle revolution is currently underway, and the good news is that renewable energies are leading the way! I sure wouldn't mind having this van.

From Inhabitat.com this morning...

Starting this coming spring, a slick new solar-powered electric vehicle will be hitting the streets of Europe. Italian car designer Pininfarina and French battery manufacturer Bolloré have officially announced that the five door Blue Car hatchback is now ready for production. A fully-electric vehicle with solar panels by 2010!

Previously unveiled at last years Geneva Show, the Blue Car is a fully-electric vehicle that comes equipped with solar panels on the rooftop. The vehicle is 3.65 meters long, 1.6 meters high and 1.72 meters wide, and features a 50kW electric motor that provides an acceleration of 0-60mph in around 6 seconds and a top speed of 80mph.

The solar panels on the vehicle’s roof provides some power to the vehicle’s systems. It comes with regenerative brakes and a Lithium Metal Polymer batteries, and has a range of 155 miles per charge. According to the manufacturer, all the materials in the construction have been made to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

Photo via Inhabitat

Classic Crime Comic Books of the 1940s and 1950s...

 

From CrimeBoss.com

Welcome to my gallery of crime comic covers. Crime comics from the 1940s and 1950s have some of the best covers ever created. It’s a good thing, too, because oftentimes the interior content (especially the Fox titles) is terrible. 

Check out favorite covers, too. It includes “thumbnail” images of some covers.  Image via Crime Boss.