Republicans are going to screw the blue northeast states over Irene

Update: Corrected.  I had Ohio on the brain this morning for some inexplicable reason.  My bad. So, we have devastating floods here in the Northeast and it’s particularly bad in NJ, NY and VT.  Only a few miles from my house, there are towns under water even after the flood control measures that were instituted [...]

Antibiotics, R&D and patent reform

I followed the link from Derek Lowe’s blog, In the Pipeline, to this abstract of a paper that was published in May of this year  about the dearth of antibiotics in big pharma’s pipeline: The world is running out of antibiotics. Between 1940 and 1962, more than 20 new classes of antibiotics were marketed. Since [...]

While NJ struggles with flood waters the White House tells us how to observe Sept 11

We’re still drying out here in central NJ. Route 206 now appears passable but Bound Brook, Manville, parts of Somerville and Neshanic Station are still flooded. I took a ride around town yesterday to see the extent of the damage. Despite the water in my basement (which didn’t even happen during Floyd in 1999), my [...]

Cleanup day

Hi guys, I have to clean up today. A lot of my stuff in the basement is ruined. It remains to be seen whether any of the furniture down there can be saved. There’s also a question of whether the DVR and media stuff were high enough above the water line. The nintendo accessories took [...]

Power out. Sump pump dead. Basement flooded. Now what?

Udate5: check out these pictures from Somervillle, NJ today. That’s where Brook is right now although she’s uphill from where these pictures were taken. Still no power. I have a solar lamp and my headband flashlight. But it’s still pretty creep in the dark. Update 4: Here’s a recent news item about my immediate surroundings [...]

irene

She’s coming in but it’s not bad yet.  Just rain bands.  A few minutes ago, the wind started to tune up outside the eaves.  If Irene is anything like Floyd, the badly named Bound Brook, NJ will be flooded once again.  I’m not too worried about flooding.  My basement is humid but it never floods [...]

Battening down the hatches

Update: A friend of mine is stranded in Atlanta until Monday. His connecting flight to Philly was cancelled. Does anyone in the Atlanta area have suggestions for a good night’s sleep? List them in the comments. Also, anywhere to hear good live music in Atlanta tonight? Recommendations for local cuisine? I should mention that he [...]

Hurricane Irene poised to take out Northeastern liberal elite bloggers

That’ll learn them dirty f%^&ing hippies.  Whoo-hoo!  We really should get together and throw a hurricane party.  My house is just above the label that says “2pm Sunday”. So much to do. Appetizers, beer, rum. Mostly get fresh water.  Natasha Chart tweeted a handy disaster preparedness list for those of us on the hit list. [...]

Malignant Christianity

Yesterday, Fresh Air with Terry Gross featured an interview with Rachel Tabachnik who recently wrote a post at Alternet about a new religious movement called the New Apostolic Reformation. Paul Rosenberg wrote a followup post titled “The Biggest Religious Movement You Never Heard of: Nine Things You Need to Know About Rick Perry’s Prayer Event“. [...]

Fantasies and Choices

Lambert has an extended conversation with Amanda Marcotte over whether Hillary Clinton would have made a better president. Amanda and many others, argue that it’s all speculation and we’ll never know and blah, blah, blah, {{rolling eyes at all of the Democratic party loyalists who are, once again, either complicit or getting sucked into spreading [...]