As It Stands Proudly Presents a Survival Guide for 2012

    

     By Dave Stancliff/For The Times Standard

   Happy New Year!
   You did it. You survived, and hopefully thrived, for another year.
   Today you can throw out last year’s survival strategies and draw up a new one, or if I may suggest, use my Survival Guide to cope with challenges coming up in 2012.
   For starters, rip up that list of well-intentioned resolutions. You’re not going to keep them  anyway. With that pressure off you can relax and read some helpful tips for the year ahead.
   How to cope with the gathering of clowns known as Congress:
1) Clear your mind of any expectation of meaningful laws passed this election year.
2) Put your Congressman on an election hit list (they all come up for re-election at one time or another)  and vote for Daffy Duck if no credible candidate steps forward.
3.) Sit back, have some popcorn, and let the clowns entertain you. Laughter is good for your health.
   Things to avoid:
 1) Investing in the stock market unless you’ve had a full physical and mental evaluation, have money to burn, and don’t mind riding a financial roller coaster throughout the year.
 2) Buying Honey unless from a bee keeper or local source because 75% of what’s sold in stores is not technically honey. Most honey sold in the United States is processed through filtration that removes virtually all of the pollen naturally occurring in the product.
  In no particular order:
1) If you’re a woman planning to go on a holiday, don’t pick Aruba.
2) If you’re a man looking for a place to lose a pesky woman, pick Aruba.

  When on the internet:
1) Don’t feed the trolls.
2) If an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is. Beware of collecting prizes for contests you never entered.
   Getting along with fellow workers:
1) Always smile, even when you stab someone in the back, in order to maintain an air of professionalism at your workplace.
2) Bullied by your boss? Get a photo of your boss by whatever means. Drain the water out of your toilet and have an artist paint your boss’s picture (from the photo for reality) in the bowl. You’ll get even every day and not lose your job!

   Ways to pass time when bored:
1) Bungee jump off high bridges.
2) Watching people bungee jumping off high bridges and listening to their gut-wrenching screams! Especially first-timers.
    When followed around by a pesky sales clerk in a store:
1) Whip out a undercover police ID Badge (fake of course) and demand to know who they really work for?
2) Claim to be a long-lost relative in need of financial help and count the seconds it takes for the salesperson to disappear.
  How to know when to trust people:
1) If they’re a politician and their lips are moving, you know they’re lying.
2) If a person has no problem taking a lie-detector test with a list of questions you provide, it’s safe to say you can trust them. You may even want to marry them if you are single.

   Keys to coping with bad days:
1) Eat or drink chocolate while reading a good book or listening to music.
2) Use humor in any shape or form. For example, draw a funny face of whoever is ruining your day and use it as a dart board.
   Advice for controlling anger:
1) Think about funny things you’ve seen and heard…then smile and flip your tormentor the bird! 
2) Don’t be around rude or stupid people. Warning: this may mean staying in your house for the next 364 days!
    As It Stands,  this survival guide is list of suggestions. Please feel free to modify it for a more personal fit.

As It Stands Wishes you a Happy New Year and Positive Paths

We all must travel paths that will lead us to crossroads in our lives

Choices to be made challenges to accept

Some of you are on paths to destruction and others to enlightenment

Today we all set out on a new path… 2012

With all of the hopes and fears of prior years

That were full of laughter and bitter tears

Happy New Year’s!

 

‘May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions’

quote by Joey Adams

Previewing new laws – and new movies - for 2012

    Good Day Humboldt County!

As we prepare to say good bye to 2011 today, I thought a quick glance at some of the many new laws that will go into effect on January 1st, 2012, would be worth the read.

I also threw in some new movies to look forward to in 2012. Enjoy…

New laws toughen rules on abortions, immigrants, voters

About 40,000 state laws taking effect at the start of the new year will change rules about  getting abortions in New Hampshire, learning about gays and lesbians in California, getting jobs in Alabama and even driving golf carts in Georgia. Several federal rules change with the new year, too, including a Social Security increase amounting to $450 a year for the average recipients and stiff fines up to $2,700 per offense for truckers and bus drivers caught using hand-held cellphones while driving.

NBC News, the National Conference of State Legislatures, The Associated Press, and other organizations tracked the changes and offered their views on the highlights. Many laws reflect the nation's concerns over immigration, the cost of government and the best way to protect and benefit young people, including regulations on sports concussions. Jan. 1 is the effective date in many states for laws passed during this year's legislative sessions. In others, laws take effect July 1, or 90 days after passage.

       Movies to look forward to in 2012

The world's supposed to end in 2012, if you believe certain folks. But before it does, there's a boatload of big movies to eagerly anticipate. I tried to pick just one per month, but my resolve quickly fell apart there.

January
There's plenty of Oscar talk surrounding Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady." As an Anglophile as well as a person who doesn't mind getting often-grossly-error-ridden history from movies, I can't wait for this one. The hilarious FilmDrunk.com, though, disagrees, writing, "Can you imagine fast-forwarding through scenes about proper elocution lessons ('King’s Speech' much?) to get to the F***ING FALKLANDS WAR? This makes Ken Burns look like Michael Bay." I'll still be there, Union Jack in hand. (Jan. 13) (Read more here)

Time to walk on down the road…

‘A Bunch of Crock’: A look at the absurdities of our bullshit society

Graphic designer and satirist, Safwat Saleem, concocts a series of retro images and poignant words to highlight the absurdities of our bullshit society. He calls his creation: A Bunch of Crock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Time Soak

A helpful guide: Zombies vs Supermodels in the 21st Century

When sports fans attack, Combat Marine shot stateside, and Babysitter charged with murder

   Good Day Humboldt County!

 Thanks for stopping by. Today’s theme is violence in our society. I’ve selected three current stories that illustrate how much it plays a part in all of our lives.

 No matter where we go, or what we do, or how young or old we are, we all can become victims of random violence…

 

When Sharks fans attack… A teenager with a brain tumor

Fans behaving badly isn’t anything new these days, but sometimes there are stories that just make you shake your head. One such story concerns 16-year-old Canucks fan in California Maggie Herger. Herger was attacked by a fan during a recent Canucks-Sharks game in San Jose that resulted in her being taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a concussion.

That might not sound so bad until you consider Herger’s recent battle with a benign brain tumor. Attacking a teenager is one thing, but one that’s already dealt with a lot of crap in life? That just makes this whole thing a lot uglier. Fans in California have had a bad  run of late when it comes to doing awful things at sporting events. Bryan Stow was nearly beaten to death at a Giants-Dodgers game in L.A., some fans shot each other after a 49ers-Raiders preseason game plus a stabbing at a Raiders-Chargers game, and now this case.

As Herger told Mike Rosenberg of the Mercury News, ”I was just really disappointed. I didn’t think that hockey fans were as bad as the baseball fans,” she said, recalling the Stow attack, which drew national headlines. “I didn’t think that anyone would physically hurt me.” Sharks fans don’t have that reputation of being jerks the way others do, but having one of your own attack a girl with a brain tumor is a good way to earn a really bad rap.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

After surviving combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Karl Trenker came home to Deerfield, Florida and was shot three times. His training probably saved his life.

Babysitter charged with killing, dismembering girl

Prosecutors on Friday charged a babysitter with murder and two other felonies Friday in the bludgeoning and dismemberment of a 9-year-old girl just days before Christmas.

Michael Plumadore, 39, was charged in Fort Wayne with murder, abuse of a corpse and removing a dead body from the scene in the Dec. 22 killing of Aliahna Lemmon.

Time to walk on down the road…

When people pay for nothing you have to wonder…

A man in China, recently spent $16,000 for a virtual sword on a game that has not even been released yet. "Age of Wulin," by California-based company Snail Games, has not even been released on mainland China but that isn't stopping some from spending serious cash on the game.

The game is a role-playing one that is set in ancient China and is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or better known as MMORPGs.

article source

How a tooth got stuck in one man’s foot, and a man lives 80 years with bullet in his skull

                Good day Humboldt County!

Welcome to my humble abode/blog. Today I’ve got a couple of stories about unusual wounds. Sometimes people suffer weird injuries that they miraculously survive from, and then there are those with (shall we say) unusual wounds. Do you know of any incidents of wounds that would qualify as weird or miraculously? If so, please share them here. 

How a tooth got lodged in some guy's foot

Not much good can happen when you send a bare foot smashing into someone's jaw. But during a summer beach brawl, a kick to the face caused one man to get part of his opponent's tooth stuck in his right foot.

Published in the Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery, this case is the first to report a tooth "traumatically implanted in the foot." The case describes a 29-year-old Croatian man who came to the hospital emergency room complaining of swelling and severe pain in his right foot. At first, he claimed he had stepped on a piece of glass while walking on the beach.

The man had a wound on the sole of is right foot in the gap of skin between his third and fourth toe. When doctors x-rayed the foot, they didn't find a shard of glass but saw "an opaque object" that resembled a human tooth. So, they questioned the patient again and this time he came clean.

He admitted that two weeks earlier he had been involved in a fight with another guy on the beach. He had been wearing flip-flops but they flew off during the scuffle as he kicked his opponent in the jaw with his right foot. That strike to the jaw broke off one of his opponent's teeth, which then embedded itself beneath the man's right foot. (Photo)

Engineer lived with bullet in his head for 8 decades

When a Russian man was only 3, his older brother accidentally shot him with a pistol. More than eight decades later, the bullet was still there, according to a case report just published online in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The bullet hit the little boy right below the nose and eventually lodged itself in his foramen magnum, the opening in the bottom of the skull that allows the spinal cord to pass through and connect to the brain. The 3-year-old lost consciousness for several hours. At the time, a doctor examined the poor kid, but didn't remove the bullet for fear of causing more harm than good, says Dr. Marat Ezhov of Moscow's Cardiology Research Center, who examined the patient more than 80 years later. Incredibly, the boy recovered completely.

Time to walk on down the road…

Do you know what’s causing the waves in California to glow?

It looks like something from the movie "Avatar": ocean waters that light up like neon glow sticks when they splash. Beaches across southern California have recently been alight with eerie, glowing waves. What could be causing such an otherworldly phenomenon?

A recent report by Discovery News has provided an answer. According to marine biologist Jorge Ribas, the glowing is caused by a massive red tide, or algae bloom, of bioluminescent phytoplankton called Lingulodinium polyedrum. The microorganisms emit light in response to stress, such as when a wave crashes into the shore, a surfboard slashes through the surf, or a kayaker's paddle splashes the water. The result is a wickedly cool glowing ocean.  Photo: msauder/Flickr

Five top science journal retractions, and ‘Dino-chickens’ for pets

                  Hello Humboldt County!

Good day to you. I’m going to quit saying good morning,  because my posts of late, have been made in the afternoon. Maybe it’s a sign. Time for change.

With a new year around the corner, changes are inevitable. To make these changes, and to survive another year full of question marks, I’ve written up a Survival Guide for 2012. Look for it in this Sunday’s Times-Standard.

Here’s today’s offerings: 

     Top science journal retractions of 2011

Bad science papers can have lasting effects. Consider the 1998 paper in the journal the Lancet that linked autism to the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. That paper was fully retracted in 2010 upon evidence that senior author Andrew Wakefield had manipulated data and breached several proper ethical codes of conduct.

Each year hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles are retracted. Most involve no blatant malfeasance; the authors themselves often detect errors and retract the paper. Some retractions, however, as documented on the blog Retraction Watch, entail plagiarism, false authorship or cooked data.

No journal is safe from retractions, from the mighty "single-word-title" journals such as Nature, Science and Cell, to the myriad minor, esoteric ones. Here are the top five examples:

#1: Chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by a virus.

#2: Litter breeds crime and discrimination.

#3: Treat appendicitis with antibiotics, not surgery.

#4: Butterfly meets worm, falls in love, and has caterpillars.

#5: Los Angeles marijuana dispensaries lead to drop in crime.

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Dino-chicken: Wacky but serious science idea of 2011

Paleontologist Jack Horner’s newest idea takes iconoclasm to a new level. He wants, in short, to hatch a dinosaur.

Use the living dinosaurs among us to recreate creatures dead for millions of years. Anyone who's seen "Jurassic Park" knows that birds are dinosaurs, part of the evolutionary line containing those toothy Velociraptors.

LiveScience talked with Horner about his "chickenosaurus" plan and what sort of dinosaur he'd like to keep as a pet. [ Infographic: How to Make a Dino-Chicken ]

Time to walk on down the road…