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What seibu is reading, watching, and linking to today...
Jun 28
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A new method of attacking cancer cells, developed by researchers in Australia, has proved surprisingly effective in animal tests. The method is intended to sidestep two major drawbacks of standard chemotherapy: the treatment’s lack of specificity and the fact that cancer cells often develop resistance. In one striking use of the method, reported online Sunday in Nature Biotechnology, mice were implanted with a human uterine tumor that was highly aggressive and resistant to many drugs. All of the treated animals were free of tumor cells after 70 days of treatment; the untreated mice were dead after a month.
Jun 07
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What does Toyota really think about plug-in hybrid cars? It’s probably not a stretch to say the company has mixed feelings. The Japanese automaker was a sponsor of the third annual “Meeting of the Minds” on a broad range of environmental issues in Manhattan last week. Two of its executives made presentations — one backed up with an extensive PowerPoint — to demonstrate the major challenges facing the company as it prepares to lease a fleet of 500 Prius-based range-extended hybrids around the world. Irv Miller, Toyota’s group vice president of environmental and public affairs, said in New York that after the batteries are depleted on a plug-in hybrid they become a heavy “boat anchor” until the car can be recharged from a wall outlet. He also expressed reservations about achieving the level of battery durability that can be guaranteed with a long-term warranty.
May 01
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I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, “We don’t torture,” when the entire British — all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And then the reason was that Churchill understood — you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s — what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.
Apr 28
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Apr 21
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Fox News is simply not conservative. The fact of the matter is, I find NPR and even News Hour more conservative than Fox - but in a different sense, I suppose, than the standard boiler plate conservatism that has so infested American politics. What I mean to say is that the conservatism of Fox News tends to be wrapped up in loud, divisive, trashy television that is cheap and ugly and reactionary and essentially all things distasteful that conservatives should look at with scorn and antipathy. The measured, reserved, thoughtful and culturally sensible tone of NPR is far more conservative. I’d rather my kids listen to it than watch Glenn Beck. I’d rather they listen to Fresh Air than Rush Limbaugh. Why have conservatives let go of the high culture war? Why have they conceded defeat there - in the arts, in literature, in music - trading it instead for trash television and cheap rhetoric?
Apr 20
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A study from the BI Norwegian School of Management has found that those who download free music from services like BitTorrent are also the biggest legitimate consumers of downloadable music.

In fact, among all 1,901 (global?) study participants (all of whom were over the age of 15), it was found that those who downloaded “free” music were 10x more likely to download pay music. In other words, music pirates are the music industry’s largest online consumers.

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Moreover, it is worth pointing out that even if you accept the preposterous notion that waterboarding isn’t torture - something no legal authority in human history ever has before Dick Cheney came along - and even if you accept the amazingly detailed limits that Bradbury placed on the frequency and severity of waterboarding to make it “legal,” even then, we now know that the CIA violated those standards.
Apr 19
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While you can create as many bike lanes and safety measures and ordinances as you want, nothing will change unless drivers start to wake up and realize that they are not alone on the road, and that they are not entitled to it any more than cyclists.
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Apr 17
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Apr 16
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Apr 15
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Matt Taibbi takes on Glenn Beck