A sort-of in depth article about the looming ABQ Health Partners and Lovelace split.

Watchdog group says a LANL weapons laboratory is dangerous. LANL says it's fine.

The U.S. Department of the Interior named the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad a historic landmark.

Putin said something inappropriate.

Even though he's been found guilty of massive tax evasion, rest assured that Silvio Berlusconi will remain in politics.

This senate candidate said in a debate that if you get pregnant after being raped, it's because God wants it to happen.

Video of a very large group of clowns at a convention in Mexico City.

Here's a bunch of hyperbolic and cliched statements from weathermen and others about Hurricane Sandy.

This large-scale man-made plankton bloom project reminds me of James DeMeo's cloudbusting experiments.

Hot Rod Rosie died.

The descendents of Hemingway's six-toed cats live on in great numbers and sponsored by Pfizer.

Is Beck's still Beck's if it's made in America and doesn't taste like Beck's?

James Bond the Mountie.

How Facebook works now.

Here is a website listing and rating New Mexico's ghost towns.

On this day in 1988 the L.A. Times reported that Larry Flynt allegedly hired a hit man to kill Hugh Hefner, Frank Sinatra, Bob Guccione, and publisher Walter Annenberg.

• health care (cliffdweller) [ Sun Oct 28 2012 4:05 PM ]
  
• health care (Yoga Pants) [ Mon Oct 29 2012 12:42 PM ]
  
• Visited the 6-toed cats in the Keys (genericabqfema​​le) [ Mon Oct 29 2012 2:06 PM ]
  

 

Anthropologist Hugh Gusterson, who self-identifies as “the Margaret Mead of the weapons labs” has written a thorough debunking of the myth that the disk-misplacing “cowboys and buttheads” (i.e., scientists) at Los Alamos National Labs live in a rarified “culture of arrogance.” (Either that, or he’s their sock puppet, as some have suggested.) What’s interesting is that he mostly blames the ham-fisted interference of the Bush administration. If you remember the series of embarrassing security-breach headlines that started with Wen Ho Lee and ended with a takeover of the lab’s management by a for-profit consortium, Gusterson’s brief three-act revisionist history is totally worth reading. (A tip of the hat to Slashdot for blogging this story in the first place.)

• Time Magazine (Carl Petersen) [ Fri Nov 11 2011 2:43 PM ]
  

UPDATE 2:30 p.m.: The town of Los Alamos is being evacuated.

Lab officials assured that radioactive materials are being protected from the almost 50,000-acre Las Conchas fire.

The fire has closed in on Los Alamos National Laboratory property—within a mile—but hasn’t reached the lab yet.

Spokesperson Kevin Roark said in an interview with the Alibi that there are a variety of nuclear facilities at LANL and several metric tons of uranium, plutonium, americium and others. These materials are kept in the most secure facilities at the lab, he said—deep inside vaults within concrete and steel buildings. “There is no threat from wildland fires,” he said.

During the Cerro Grande fire eleven years ago, the blaze ate up 7,500 acres of LANL property, Roark added, and there was no release of nuclear or hazardous material.

The Cerro Grande fire raged for more than a month in 2000, burned Bandelier National Monument and left 400 people in Los Alamos without homes.

There were concerns after the fire about the airborne release of contaminants, but Roark says monitoring showed that Cerro Grande was no more or less radioactive than any forest fire. Read a full assessment of the aftermath by the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and the Nuclear Policy Project.

The fire also caused erosion and runoff, and contaminants threatened the Rio Grande. But Roark assures: “There were not appreciable levels of radioactivity in the runoff.” After the Cerro Grande fire, LANL installed structures to prevent heavy runoff in the future, he added.

Comparing the two fires to try and predict impact is highly speculative, he pointed out. “The [Las Conchas] fire has not reached lab property.”

• Boycotting fireworks ... (Wednesday) [ Mon Jun 27 2011 5:24 PM ]
  

Not everyone loves a good Hitler joke.

Tunisian revolution changed slogan overnight from "Ben Ali OUT!" to "Ghannouchi OUT!"

China introduces measures to counter inflation, for the fourth time in two months.

Cowabunga! Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is being investigated for throwing bunga bunga parties featuring underage girls/prostitutes. This gets complicated as Italian age of consent is 14. Legal age for a prostitute, however, is 18.

Michael Steele is no longer Chairman of Republican National Committee.

Paranoid former Los Alamos National Labs scientist arrested after stand-off with police -which, in a twist of irony, he apparently wasn't aware of.

This is what Sarah Palin's Blood Libel speech sounds like in her native planet's tongue.

Fast sinking boat, tranquilized newscast, Prisoner: Cell Block H. Bisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Janet Napolitano has killed the U.S.-Mexico virtual border fence.

What would you do before running amok? Jared Loughner took photos of himself wearing only a thong and a Glock, and had them printed at Walmart.
Here's the newly released video from Loughner's MySpace page.

Excellent classic BBC documentary on L.S.D.

Speaking of L.S.D. check out The Pretty Things.

National Film Board of Canada has an online database. Start with The Mad Canadian. Then you're going to want to watch either Devil at Your Heels or Project Grizzly.

On this day in 1965 The Who's Can't Explain came out. Shindig!

“If you like good food, good fun, and a whole lot of crazy crap on the walls, then come on down to Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag.”

Mister Cog’s blog returns to life with a canning primer. A little late, but still welcome.

Patrick Nagatani exposes NM’s “Nuclear Enchantment” in far-away Ohio. I bet the Department of Tourism is psyched.

When is reading an 80s nostalgia flashback not like reading about paint drying? When Levi Eleven writes it.

Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.

LANL management in action: Step 1, conduct employee survey. Step 2, sit on the results.

Belen’s Oñate Theatre becomes on of those restaurants with “a whole lot of crazy crap on the walls.” Better than being torn down.