Losing faith in the Euro

The regime in Iran, despite not being big fans of us, are unloading 45 billion Euros from their foreign currency reserve and buying up US dollars and gold.  I'd say that's a bad sign for the Euro.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 11:37 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I knew it would be his fault somehow...

Guess who was behind Algore and Tipper's divorce?

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 08:12 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Regrowing Teeth

This is a pretty cool technology that should be hitting the market in the next couple of years (barring extreme nanny state bullshit):

Dr. Jeremy Mao, the Edward V. Zegarelli Professor of Dental Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, has unveiled a growth factor-infused, three-dimensional scaffold with the potential to regenerate an anatomically correct tooth in just nine weeks from implantation. By using a procedure developed in the university's Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory, Dr. Mao can direct the body's own stem cells toward the scaffold, which is made of natural materials. Once the stem cells have colonized the scaffold, a tooth can grow in the socket and then merge with the surrounding tissue.

Dr. Mao's technique not only eliminates the need to grow teeth in a Petri dish, but it is the first to achieve regeneration of anatomically correct teeth by using the body's own resources. Factor in the faster recovery time and the comparatively natural process of regrowth (as opposed to implantation), and you have a massively appealing dental treatment.

Awesome.  Now, get moving on similar technology for organs.  My favorite part of the huge stem cell argument was that those opposed to fetal stem cells were saying, "there's got to be another way" and a bunch of closed-minded people said, "impossible!" 

There were, in fact, many better ways.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 11:12 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Jenny McCarthy: Call your office.

It appears that the doctor responsible for that bullshit autism from vaccination claims is such a shitty doctor he's not allowed to practice in England anymore.

I'd say we should ban Jenny from practicing in America but with her career, that hardly seems necessary.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 10:10 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Small Step Towards Kicking Cancer's Ass

In a very small preliminary study in Canada, four out of the five brain cancer patients given dichloroacetate showed "no further brain cancer growth after initial treatment". Isolated glioblastomas from 49 patients also showed improvement.  Good enough that the researchers are talking about more extensive trials.

Of course, the drug in question is generic, so funding for study had to be raised through private donations and government funding. 

Perverse as it is, it makes sense that drug companies would be reluctant to do expensive studies on drugs they can't patent.  But as the Slashdot summary asks, what's happening to all the money flowing to various cancer societies, if it's apparently not to research like this?

Posted by: JoeCollins at 09:08 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Make Hummus, Not Hamas

If only this were the standard method of conflict resolution in the middle east:

On Saturday, more than 300 Lebanese cooks established the latest record for hummus. Hummus is fervently regarded by the Lebanese to be their national dish. This assertion is despite Israeli declarations to the contrary. The Lebanese maintained that the hummus is their national dish in the company of a Guinness World Records delegate, who confirmed that the hummus prepared on Saturday weighed 11.5 tons. That is 23,042 pounds.

The culinary battle has been played out in public for years between Israel and Lebanon with two sides outshining each other for the designation of the world’s best or world’s largest hummus dish.

Now that's a weapon of mass digestion! AHAHAHAHA!!!

...

I'm precious.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 08:40 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Revenge of the Sestak

Joe Sestak finally made the Specter attack ad that we've all been waiting for. Behold!

Posted by: JoeCollins at 10:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I almost marked this as a Win!

Chinese Economy to Fail in Next 9 to 12 Months

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Investor :S:d1">Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.

OK I know in the short run this will probably hurt us but, in my completely uniformed economic opinion, in the long run it helps us by forcing some systemic changes in things like the artificially low peg of the Yuan to the dollar. I am still of the opinion that "creative destruction" or no that America's economy can never fully recover as a service economy. We need mid-range manufacturing jobs and those can't reappear as long as China keeps their prices artificially low.

Posted by: chad98036 at 11:30 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Breaking: Bomb Found on Pittsburgh Marathon Course

As SteveEgg says, two is a trend.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 12:54 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Breaking: Pakistani Taliban Take Blame For NYC Terrorist Attack

Allahpundit's Twitter.

"This attack is a revenge for the great & valuable martyred leaders of mujahideen

More like the appropriately punished boy-rapers of the mujahideen.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 11:36 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Put me some knowledge

Okay.  So.  I'm totally confused.  Can anyone tell me what the hell it is that Goldman Sachs is being charged with?  Heaven knows I'm not a financial genius, but there's nothing wrong with betting both sides of a market.  Hell, I think it would be a violation of fiduciary responsibility to NOT attempt to hedge investments.  A market, any market, will either go up or down.  There is nothing wrong with selling a fund premised on the market going up.  There is nothing wrong with simultaneously selling a fund that says the market will go down.  Someone will win, someone will lose.

Now, if GS did not disclose the true facts about those funds or if GS misrepresented the contents of those funds, that's fraud and throw the book at them.  But I cannot for the life of me figure out what the actual facts are beneath the screaming.  So put me some knowledge, what the hell did GS do? 

Posted by: alexthechick at 01:44 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Always Turn To Meet An Attack

L'audace, l'audace, tojours l'audace.

Never quit.
Never retreat.
Never run from adversity, despair, or trouble.
Always be fearless when trouble comes your way.
Always be the rock upon whom all pin their hopes and wishes for a better tomorrow.
Never equivocate.
Always stand in front of your charges and lead in the same fashion.
Always be willing to sleep coverless, cold, and wet to make sure your charges are warm and dry.
Always give your charges your portions to keep them sustained.
Always shoulder the blame and share the glory.
And never, ever, ever think that you or your cause are insignificant. Never let your fear of failure keep you from taking a risk.
And ALWAYS be bold and never run from a challenge, for the challengers will nopt anticipate a response.

Oh, and tell anything in your way that it better move, or it will get goatfucked so hard, the dried up juices will be squeezed out of it by the asskickingly asskicking boot of asskiciking.

So, be brave. Never quit, and fuck anything that tells you not to try something. Fuck them with a pair of rusty roller skates soaked in liquid hate.

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:10 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Specter: Might have helped the country if I'd stayed GOP

A year after he switched parties, Arlen Specter gives us this gem:

"Well, I probably shouldn't say this," he said over lunch last month. ''But I have thought from time to time that I might have helped the country more if I'd stayed a Republican.''

Specter mused that perhaps if he'd remained in the caucus he could have persuaded one or two of his GOP colleagues to support health care reform. Not one Senate Republican voted in favor of it, but he swears he would have regardless of party affiliation.

Posted by: JoeCollins at 08:58 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Breaking down the GOP Senate primaries

Hawkins has a good breakdown of the races, and his picks (and sometimes non-picks) in the primaries.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 09:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Breaking:  Al Masri, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Killed By Intelligence Team

Claimed by Iraqi Prime Minister, still breaking at Fox.  No link.

Update:  Link.

Update Part Deux:   There isn't too much detail but reports are that this was an Iraqi score which is great news.  Even if it was planned/organized by U.S. forces it would be a big win for the Iraqi intelligence agencies but if they did it all by themselves it would show a very impressive improvement in Iraqi capabilities and would do much to reassure me as to their ability to remain independent in the long run.

Either way, rot in hell you piece of shit.  Get Satan fucked.  Like a viking.

Update:  They got Baghdadi, too.  This is the biggest score since Udey and Qusay got blowed up. 

The U.S. military said Monday that Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Umar al-Baghdadi were killed early Sunday morning in a raid led by U.S. and Iraqi forces, after a week of operations led them to a safehouse where the terror chiefs were hiding.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki showed reporters at a news conference on Monday pictures of two dead bodies he identified as al-Baghdadi and al-Masri. 

The U.S. military said the two terrorists were killed in a nighttime raid just southwest of Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," the U.S. top commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, said in a press release Monday.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 08:32 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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What Really Happened At Brennan's In NOLA?

Apparently, a member of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's staff and her male companion were beaten fairly severely outside of Brennan's in New Orleans.
This is some ugly stuff, and I hope the couple recovers as soon as possible, and the criminals, regardless of motivation, get sodomized sans lube by the flaming sword of justice.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Good vibes, prayers, or whatever you can spare ...

... should be going out to the families of the 97 people who died in this plane crash, the Polish President included.  What a terrible tragedy.

Posted by: Ember at 01:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Only 28% Think Most Incumbents Should Be Reelected

Ka-ching.

The trend for previous midterm elections reveals that the 28% re-elect figure puts the sitting majority party in a danger zone. In the two recent midterm elections in which the congressional balance of power changed (1994 and 2006), the percentage of voters saying most members deserved to be re-elected fell below 40%, as it does today. By contrast, in 1998 and 2002, when the existing Republican majority was maintained, 55% or better held this view.

Still (not surprisingly) most people think that their incumbent should be reelected.

(h/t: Allahtwitter)

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:07 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Breaking: Thwarted Terrorist Attack

In case you haven't checked the Head Moron's place.

Update: Or not.  No explosives found.  Seems like it was probably a big misunderstanding.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:34 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Shake, rattle, and roll

As you've probably heard, we had a pretty big earthquake here in Southern California (the epicenter was actually down in Baja) this afternoon. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to have been any serious damage. But the local news is full of videos people took of water sloshing out of their pools in waves, so you can imagine the force of it.

And, here's the damnedest thing—I was standing out in the front yard having a smoke when it struck, and I didn't feel it at all.

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:01 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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