combust is a weird word. combustion looks better. maybe that is because combust isn't a word. apparently, according to ubuntu linux's auto spell check thing that underlines unknown words. or maybe it is from firefox. i don't know which software it is, because i only use firefox on linux. i use internet explorer on windows. so i changed two variables and got a new result. therefore, i can't tell which is the real cause. it's bad science. but it doesn't matter which it is. because it doesn't even detect itself as correct word. i type ubuntu linux and i get underlines. i type firefox, and i get underline. so its not a very smart spell check.

poor quality posts the last few times. not even posts at all! just news reports about china and how horrible it is! not really. china is the greatest country of all. i can't wait for it to become a world power. maybe. but anyways, avian flu is always from china. oh, i thought of the brilliant idea about how to end all infectious diseases! quarantine and let infect! it's how they did it before medicine and everything was invented, and it seemed to work okay. now its medicine, vaccine, treatment for everything, so everything evolves and never leaves. plague is pretty much gone, only comes back a little every now and then. because it killed everyone off and so theres no one else to live on and it's gone. except in animals. so if one year, the cdc stops making flu vaccine, everyone can just die from the flu and then flu can't propagate and there would be no more push for mutations and it wouldn't really mutate anymore! and so it would all be gone. if they quarantined everyone with HIV and let them do their own thing, eventually they would all be dead. but they wouldn't let the virus spread into the general population! so everyone is safe and HIV is eliminated like small pox! too bad theres this annoying aspect of ethics. always gets in the way. lots of flawed logic, but all of science is flawed logic.

more chinese laughs.

its really bad though. how are they supposed to last until the olympics start? everything is wrong. such low standards.

China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope
They Didn't Truly Run With a Train to Tibet; Xinhua Agency Recants
By JANE SPENCER and JULIET YE
February 22, 2008; Page A1

HONG KONG -- It turns out that train tracks in Tibet aren't where the antelope play.

Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train.

The deception -- uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture -- has brought on a big debate about media ethics, China's troubled relationship with Tibet, and how pregnant antelope react to noise.

The antelope imbroglio began in the summer of 2006. The Chinese government was celebrating its latest engineering feat, and an enthusiastic wildlife photographer from the Daqing Evening News was camped out on the Tibetan plateau eating energy bars and waiting for antelope to pass.

On July 1, 2006, in an event scheduled to coincide with the Communist Party's 85th birthday, Chinese President Hu Jintao hosted the launch of China's train to the "roof of the world." The $4 billion Qinghai-Xizang railway -- a remarkable system that transports passengers to an altitude (16,000 feet) so high that ballpoint pens can explode en route from the air-pressure change -- traverses 1,200 miles of rugged terrain to connect the rest of China to the remote Tibetan plateau.

The train, which soon brought many visitors to the pristine homeland of Tibetan Buddhists, became a flash point for China's long simmering tensions with Tibet. During construction, it drew fierce protests from environmentalists who said it would threaten the breeding grounds of the chiru, an endangered antelope species found mainly in China.

When the train service began, a remarkable photograph appeared in hundreds of newspapers, and it eased environmental concerns. The picture, captioned "Qinghai-Tibet railway opens green passage for wildlife," featured dozens of antelope galloping peacefully across the Tibetan landscape, unfazed as the gleaming silver train raced beside them.

The photo was the work of Liu Weiqing, a 41-year-old photographer who had been camped with his Jeep on the Tibetan plateau since March, as part of a highly publicized series by the Daqing Evening News, a regional newspaper, to raise awareness of the rare Tibetan antelope. Mr. Liu was also under contract with Xinhua to provide photos for China's largest government-run news service.

"One man, one car, one year...and a campaign to protect Tibetan antelope," he wrote on his blog describing the project.

Once nearly wiped out by poachers who made shawls from its wool, the chiru's numbers have increased in recent years, and the knobby-kneed bovid has emerged as a symbol of China's environmental-protection efforts. Yingying the Tibetan Antelope is one of the five official mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Some antelope lovers knew from the start that something was wrong with Mr. Liu's photo. "I was really shocked when I first saw the photo," says Yang Xin, of the antelope protection group Green River. For starters, he says, many of the antelope in the picture appeared to be pregnant and there were no young with the herd. That was a tip-off because many antelope would have given birth before late June when the photo was supposedly taken.

In late 2006, Mr. Liu's picture was declared a top 10 "photo of the year" by CCTV, China's state-run television network. Mr. Liu appeared in fatigues on national TV and described waiting in a pit for eight days for the antelope to pass at precisely the same moment as the train.

"I wanted to capture the harmony among the Tibetan antelope, the train, men and nature," he told the audience, standing on stage in front of a big projection of the photo.

Media critics say the photo's deeper message was hard to miss. "It's such a perfect propaganda photo," says David Bandurski a researcher at the University of Hong Kong China Media Project. "They don't tend to give journalism prizes to reports that rock the boat."

Other photographs that took home awards that night included "Facing a harmonious future," a picture of Chinese President Hu posing with world leaders, and a "A trip to apologize," a picture of a Japanese monk apologizing to China for Japanese atrocities in World War II. CCTV didn't reply to inquiries about its criteria for photo awards.

Suspicions about the photo became public last week after Mr. Liu's photograph was displayed in Beijing's subway system. An anonymous Chinese Internet user going by the screen name Dajiala raised questions about the photo's authenticity on one of China's largest photography Web sites. Dajiala, a photographer who claimed to idolize Mr. Liu, said he was studying a copy of the photo posted on Beijing's Line 5 subway platform when he rubbed some dust off it and noticed something odd.

"At the bottom of the photograph, there was a very obvious line," he wrote. "I examined it very carefully and it was obviously the stitching of two different images....Was this decisive moment just a simple Photoshop trick?"

His post created an online storm. Photographers blew up the image and analyzed each out-of-place pixel. Animal behaviorists weighed in, explaining that antelope are shy and noise-sensitive, and would scatter in panic at the sound of the high-speed train. When the chat-room controversy spread to China's largest Internet portals, the Chengdu Business Daily confronted Mr. Liu.

Cornered by the mounting evidence, Mr. Liu admitted he had indeed used Photoshop to blend two pictures, according to the newspaper.

Mr. Liu resigned from the Daqing Evening News and posted a statement on his blog. "I have no reason to continue my sacred career as a newsman," he wrote. "I am not qualified for the job." His editor then resigned, too, and the newspaper posted an apology on its Web site. The newspaper didn't respond to repeated calls to its office. Mr. Liu didn't answer calls to his cellphone.

Some of China's Internet users expressed outrage that a photo easy to spot as fake had been widely circulated by major organizations. "We need an apology! This is very important for journalistic photography in China," wrote one Internet user on a photography site.

It isn't clear what was behind Mr. Liu's deception. Some suspected he was the victim of his own ambition, and doctored the photo knowing that its patriotic message would appeal to China's news agencies. "Liu knows how to please his master," wrote one anonymous poster on the Internet.

His friends say he was dedicated to his job and determined to raise the profile of the embattled antelope. "He was a good guy," says Zhou Zhuogang, an environmental activist from Shenzhen in southern China who met Mr. Liu in the summer of 2006 when the two men were at a volunteer station on the Tibetan plateau. "He loved photography, and he loved the antelope. I don't know what pushed him to do this."

Some suspect pressure to create the photo came from above. "When everybody points a finger to the photographer, we actually missed the real core problem here," says Wang Yangbo, editor of Wen Wei Pao, a Hong Kong Daily. The photographers "are nobodies in the scheme of things here," she adds.

Earlier this week, CCTV posted a statement on its Web site saying it was revoking Mr. Liu's award. On Monday, Xinhua, China's largest news organization, and several other government news organizations published an apology for circulating the photo. The companies said they would delete all of Mr. Liu's images from their databases.

"We call on the public to work together with us to uphold the authenticity principle of news reporting," the statement said. Xinhua didn't respond to requests for comment.

central air conditioning / heating sucks because i smell spaghetti. and i am hungry now. sigh.

Exclusive: Secret Trade in Chinese Bodies
Body Exhibit Inventor Says He's Stopped Using Bodies From China Because Some of Them May Be Those of Executed Prisoners

(ABC News) By BRIAN ROSS, RHONDA SCHWARTZ and ANNA SCHECTER
Feb. 14, 2008

The German doctor who invented the process that led to hundreds of human bodies being put on display around the world, says he has stopped using bodies from China because some of them may be those of executed Chinese prisoners.

The body shows, which have drawn millions of paying customers in more than 30 cities, show human bodies that have been preserved with a liquid plastic process. The bodies are shown skinned and trimmed, in a variety of poses, including throwing a football, playing poker or at a chess board.

In an interview to be aired Friday on the ABC News program "20/20," Dr. Gunther von Hagens also says an underground black market is providing bodies to Chinese companies that export them to the U.S. and Europe, despite a 2006 Chinese law prohibiting the export of human bodies for commercial purposes.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was investigating the allegations.

Von Hagens says he had to cremate several bodies he received in China after detecting injuries that led him to suspect they had been executed prisoners. He says those bodies were given to him by a medical school in China to plastinate for teaching models. He said he only used Chinese bodies, all of which he received from the Chinese university, for teaching models, but has never put Chinese bodies on public display.

"There is now no way for me any more to work with specimens in China," said von Hagens, who says his company in China now only deals with animal specimens.

The German doctor, labeled Dr. Death by some European newspapers, said, "I am concerned that public exhibitions are being hijacked by corporate interests."

Von Hagens says the bodies he uses in shows currently running in Baltimore, Milwaukee and elsewhere are from European donors who voluntarily consented prior to their deaths to have their bodies put on display.

Von Hagens provided "20/20" with documents of donors to back up his claim.

"The donors know exactly what is the scope of what we are doing," he said in the interview, conducted at his body factory in the German town of Guben, on the Polish border.

Von Hagens says he invented the "plastination" process initially, in 1975, to prepare body specimens for medical schools.

In 1995, he opened the first public display in Tokyo and has since made millions of dollars with shows around the world that have provoked considerable controversy.

"You're going to be entertained by looking at dead bodies, by looking at cadavers that have been put in the most atrocious poses for our entertainment," said Rabbi Louis Feldstein of Atlanta.

Feldstein says it violates a standard of "respect for the life that was lived."

Earlier this month, the California Assembly passed and sent to the Senate, legislation that would require body shows to have proof that each body had been donated with "informed consent."

"As a person of Chinese descent, I just don't believe any family would consent to have their kin shown this way," said the bill's author, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma.

"The skin is ripped off; body parts are exposed so that someone else could be making millions of dollars looking at them," she said.

Dr. von Hagens says he strongly supports the California legislation and says it should be the standard worldwide.

"Especially as a German, with [our country's] Nazi past, I have to refrain to avoid the tiniest, little strand of any doubt that I am guilty of unethical conduct," he said.

there was this guy in 1928 named georgi karpechenko and he studied genetics. he crossed a radish and a cabbage. most of the time they were sterile and useless. but sometimes he would get fertile ones! but it wasn't that useful because the mixed thing had leaves like the radish and a root like a cabbage, so everything good was gone. oh well. was a good experiment.

i just realized that my physical chem book's cover has a bunch of methanol ball and stick models everywhere. what a random, useless molecule to choose. fullerenes or benzenes or amino acids would be much more interesting. although benzenes and amino acids would fit better for an organic chem book. hm. i'm doing a lab report on naphthalene, so maybe benzene would be okay, since naphthalene is just two benzenes stuck together.

work work. don't feel like it. keep getting distracted. must have add. overdiagnosed. no one has it. it's just a state of mind. should just snap out of it. but everyone has to be special these days. which means everyone must be disabled somehow. i'm obese. i'm special. give me special treatment.

i was watching a live video of mono. and i think that its funny because they have microphones on stage. because they are a purely instrumental band. and they don't ever talk to the crowd ever. they just walk up, play their music, and leave. they talk to the fans after the show. so i was like why do they have microphones? then i realized they were pointed at the speakers. so i guess that is how they get all their feedback effects. brilliant! but they could have just got computers to do the feedback.

apparently there's music for dogs now. a song that is recorded at a frequency that is too high for humans. but okay for dogs. which is lame. they dont even know what they are recording. unless they just took a song and made the frequency over into some high region, with the same notes. but its lame. they could still make songs for dogs in the normal listening region, because everything a human can hear, a dog can hear also..

New Zealand record charts go to the dogs

Mon Feb 18, 12:00 AM ET



WELLINGTON (Reuters) - It's a doggone chartbuster -- a song audible only to dogs has topped New Zealand record charts, and is looking to go global.

A Very Silent Night, recorded at a frequency only dogs can hear, was so popular among owners it hit number one at Christmas, but has been receiving mixed responses from listeners.

"The most violent one was a dog that physically attacked the radio when it was played and went quite berserk and totally destroyed it," said Bob Kerridge, chief executive of animal welfare group, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

"On the other side of the scale, they just lie down and did nothing." The charity CD, priced at NZ$4.99 ($3.93), contained an instrumental and a vocal version of the song, but Kerridge said he did not know what kind of music dogs would hear.

"Never having heard it myself, I don't what they'll hear and of course I don't know how dogs hear music," he said.

Kerridge added dogs in Australia and the United States could soon have a listen.

Around NZ$22,000 ($17,300) has been raised by the disc's sale.

(Reporting by Kazunori Takada; Editing by David Fox)

went to san francisco today, so there must be an obligatory picture involving sea lions. anyways, here is a fat seagull. makes the whole platform sink.



don't know how birds that dense can fly. oh well. they are bad birds.

the hardest part about experimental pchem is writing the lab reports. because thats most of the class, besides the experiment. the hard part about the lab reports is finding the tabulated data. because internet doesn't find that stuff. and even in books, who tabulates heats of ionization!? and the specific case of second ionization of sulfurous acid. sulfuROUS acid. not sulfuric acid. SO3 instead of SO4. WOWOW. who plays with sulfurous acid? useless acids.

whenever i cut and paste, it feels like i can only paste once. because where do the other pastes come from!? its more like cut, copy, paste. not just cut, paste. the terms should be renamed. its really irritating. i'm always afraid to cut and paste. scissors are scary.

only in biology is distance measured in minutes. its pretty funny though. i like this measuring distance in minutes. its interesting.

kaela kimura says 'forget the nightmare. dive into shallow.' makes good sense to me. especially since she's half british. since british people invented the english language, that must make sense. us americans are just lousy at everything, except being fat. its funny that us looks like U.S. (because it is. its just lowercase.) i wonder if that was intentional. probably not. things usually aren't intentional. except the intentional ones. that is all. have a nice day.

japanese indie bands have the weirdest names ever! "AFRICA EMO".. what kind of name is that!? and its like happy rock and weird stuff. talking really fast type music. lols. you should click on that link and listen to them. because africa has a lot of things to be emo about.

its funny. my ipod. i got my ipod a while ago, so it came with firewire plugs instead of usb plugs or whatever. so my old computer used to have firewire and all was fine. now computers don't really come with firewire. so i could never update my ipod again. and its been like a 2 years since the last update. my ipod is filled with all this random music that i don't even remember. its weird that things like this change so much. i need to get a usb cable for ipod. or something.

another thing i forgot to write. i now have had 3 white hairs. its annoying. i had 1 from before. and apparently now i have 2 more. they are gone now. but omgomg. i'm going to have all white hair before i finish school. oh well.

OH YEA. more important news. godspeed you! black emperor. that band has now officially broken up. GY!BE went on hiatus a few years ago. and then everyone had their own side projects and everything. and then they were like loloolol. lets meet once a year to see if we should do anything. so they do. and they don't do anything. and now they are like loll let's break up. so they do. they are supposed to be anarchists to. how can they agree on these things? must be because they are also canadian. nevertheless, it is sad news. kind of. because they are pretty famous. at least in my world. and the post-rock avant-garde music scene or whatever it is classified as.

i am fat. i'm not exercising. and i'm eating a lot. so much food. so bad. oh well. i guess that is just what is supposed to happen. miserable life. but food is so tasty! not really. not worth it. but lazy. busy. whatever excuse.

so brilliant. people are so smart these days. theres an error on dell's website. 160 gb laptop harddrives for $12. maybe a typo. whatever it is, i am quite satisfied. bought 3 of them. hopefully they go through. then lots of cheap harddrives to sell. i think. maybe i'll keep one of them. then i have to buy an enclosure or something. annoying stuff. its only annoying because it will cost more than the harddrive. things are like that. if it was cheaper, then it wouldn't be annoying.

year. new year. happy new year. rats. cause plague. when i read this again, i won't understand it. too bad. i hope you understand it now.

an environmentalist asked me today if i wanted to support them. i said no. she asked if i was with them on the cause, i said no. because they just get money to clean up places. they dont use that money to help companies develop cleaner waste. so companies still make waste. and environmentalists still get money to clean it up. and then everyone gets annoyed. where do they put the cleanup waste? we'll run out of room for waste. the world is for waste. its large.

oh. and that 13 character in house. she's pretty crazy. bisexual. AND maybe has huntington's disease! what a brilliant combination! too bad the writers went on strike. so i'll never find out anymore.

i am not into politics at all. but it is quite fun to see old presidents. and famous people. it's still going on right now. i left early because i don't really care about universal health care. and free stuff for everyone. and that stuff. and being economically independent. it's all nonsense anyways. just claims. put health care companies out of business if theres no more universal healthcare. supposed to be adding new jobs. putting everyone in college. doesn't mean everyone is going to get jobs. maybe it is oversaturated already. college degree people might still work at mcdonalds. and not trading is no good. oh well. everyone is quite excited and stuff.

Former President Bill Clinton will visit the Stockton campus of University of the Pacific on Monday, Feb. 4, Pacific officials were notified today. The doors to the Alex G. Spanos Center, where the event will take place, will open at 2 p.m. President Clinton will be in the community as part of an election tour to speak in support of Hillary Clinton’s run for president.

The University anticipates heavy traffic and limited parking. Those who need to visit the campus should arrive early. Also, security measures around the Alex G. Spanos center will be in place. The Secret Service has notified the University that no bags or backpacks will be allowed into the facility prior to or during the event. Small handbags will be allowed. Student athletes should access the athletics building through the south doorway off the Mendocino Avenue lot on Monday.

According to the Clinton Campaign staff, which is coordinating the appearance, the event is free and open to the public. Seating in the Spanos Center is limited to approximately 6,000 people. Doors will open at 2 p.m.

The Clinton campaign approached the University about using the Spanos Center and is covering the full expense of building use and security. University of the Pacific does not endorse any political viewpoint or candidate, and serving as the venue for this event should not be construed as an endorsement.

haircut. is windy. lots of wind. no more warm hair to block. houses here are cheap. some are like $6000. its cheaper than paying for housing at school.

lol its groundhog day today.

whoever invented personality tests and learning tests and stuff like that is a genius. the idea is brilliant. have people answer questions about themselves and then reword it and read it back to them. and then people will think it's learning so much about themselves and pay money for it! i wish i was so brilliant.

i like drawing benzenes. whenever i draw them, they turn out to be sad faces.



my smelly aromatic friends.