New Doctor, New Diet, but Still No Cookies

Dr. Agatston — whose office is not in South Beach, by the way, but the older, tamer neighborhood to its north — is not far from that giant of diet doctors, the late Dr. Robert Atkins, in his belief that refined sugar and white flour are the villains behind the nation's climbing obesity rate. Like the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet strictly limits bread, potatoes and other carbohydrates, especially during a two-week initiation period, and allows the dieter to eat red meat, eggs and cheese.

But while the Atkins diet allows just about any fatty food that is not also starchy, Dr. Agatston advocates mostly unsaturated fats, like those in olive oil, nuts and oily fish like salmon. Butter is nowhere in the South Beach diet meal plans, nor is bacon or anything fried. The South Beach diet also differs from Atkins in that it allows carbohydrates — though only those high in fiber, like multigrain bread and wild rice.

Dr. Agatston's premise is that most carbohydrate-rich foods are so processed that they immediately turn to sugar in the body. That, Dr. Agatston says, forces a quick spike in blood sugar and nearly as quick a decline. The spikes lead to more hunger, he says, and — this is the part that many experts dispute — to inevitable weight gain.

"Nobody in the history of man ever ate complex carbohydrates like we have," Dr. Agatston said last week during an interview squeezed between a photo shoot and a meeting about his new heart-imaging center, set to open in December.

The diet revolves around the glycemic index — the amount that a carbohydrate increases sugar in the blood compared with the amount that the same quantity of white bread raises it. The concept of the index as crucial to weight gain or loss has been around since the early 1980's, when it was used to help people with diabetes choose proper diets. But skeptics — including the American Diabetes Association, which has not endorsed the index — say a food's glycemic index fluctuates depending on how much is eaten and what other foods are eaten.

Foods with a low glycemic index, like lentils, soy milk and low-fat, artificially sweetened yogurt, do not raise blood sugar as quickly and sharply as high-numbered items like gnocchi, baked potatoes and pretzels.

High-glycemic-index foods cause the body to release a lot of insulin, which quickly lowers the blood sugar again and causes hunger to recur, the theory goes. Those with low indexes break down into sugar more slowly, for longer-term energy.

Carrots are shunned, for example, because the body absorbs their sugars rapidly. But Dr. Marion Nestle, chairwoman of the department of nutrition and food studies at New York University, said it would take over a pound of carrots to spike the blood sugar as high as the index warns.

"What it comes down to is that this is a standard 1,200- to 1,400-calorie-a-day diet, so of course people are going to lose weight," Dr. Nestle said. "I do think there's something to the glycemic index, but I just don't think it's the be-all and end-all, and that it's the root of obesity."

Dr. Nestle and other experts said they preferred South Beach to Atkins because it promotes only healthy foods. Several studies suggested the high-fat Atkins diet was safe for the heart in the short term, though Dr. Gary Foster, an author of one study, said the South Beach diet seemed "more informed."

"If this approach says: `Guess what. We think saturated fat is a bad idea,' it will get a greater mass acceptance," said Dr. Foster of the weight and eating disorders program at the University of Pennsylvania.

"If you compare the two menu to menu there is very little difference" between the strict first phases of the Atkins and South Beach diets, said Colette Heimowitz, director of education and research for Atkins Nutritionals. "It's a myth that Atkins is all about meat and discourages healthy fats."

The first two weeks of the South Beach diet are the most difficult, according to testimonials in Dr. Agatston's book, because they allow only foods with the lowest glycemic indexes. Fruits, juices, alcohol, caffeinated coffee and most dairy foods are forbidden. Dessert is part-skim ricotta cheese mixed with cocoa powder or almond extract. The closest thing to starch is "Surprise South Beach Mashed `Potatoes,' " otherwise known as puréed cauliflower.

The goal is to stabilize the blood sugar, and with it, the appetite. The book promises weight loss of up to 13 pounds in the first two weeks, which some dietitians see as a red flag.

Yet Ms. Jackson said she liked Phases 2 and 3. In those, fiber-rich carbohydrates and unsaturated fats are gradually reintroduced. Participants are supposed to stay in Phase 2 until they reach their desired weights, then move on to Phase 3 indefinitely. But it's back to Phase 1 if they regain pounds, a step Ms. Jackson warned verged on the unhealthy.

"If you don't read it for Phase 1 and just look at the healthy menu plans in Phases 2 and 3, it's a good book for that," she said. "It's definitely healthier than Atkins, but at the end of the day, if you are losing weight on this diet it's because you're eating fewer calories than you did before."

Dr. Agatston agrees, but says people consume fewer calories because his diet has banished their cravings by stabilizing blood chemistry.

"The measure of whether the diet is working is, Are you getting cravings in the late afternoon and in the evenings?" he said. "People who do really well lose 40 pounds and perhaps gain back 5 to 10, but their blood chemistries continue to do well and they don't get the cravings."
The Atkins diet puts people into ketosis, a condition in which the body converts stores of fat into energy because it has been deprived of sufficient carbohydrates. While ketosis is not dangerous for healthy people, Dr. Agatston said, he did not want his diet to induce it because the patients he designed it for had hypertension.

Dr. Bonnie Brehm, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati who has studied low-carbohydrate diets, said both Atkins and South Beach dieters should be monitored long term for the effects on kidney function, since high-protein diets make the kidneys work harder. High protein intake can also strip the body of calcium, Dr. Brehm said.

But Ms. Jackson, the Chicago dietitian, said Dr. McGraw's focus on changing attitudes toward food and toward exercising more made good sense.

"The idea of `Don't look to a diet book to fix everything but make small changes to what you're already doing' is one I'd like to see more of," she said.

Search for the best book prices including shipping at ISBN.nu.

They also have a page on current specials at each company.

This has some bad links now so I wonder if it is being maintained. The book search works well.

Black tea may fight bad cholesterol

Black tea consumption may lower bad cholesterol levels and could one day be used to help reduce the chance of heart disease for those at risk, U.S. researchers said Tuesday.

SCIENTISTS WITH THE U.S. Department of Agriculture said they found consumers who drank black tea for three weeks experienced a decrease of between 7 percent and 11 percent in their low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or so-called bad cholesterol.

There was no effect on the level of high-density lipoprotein, or the good type of cholesterol, according to the study of a small group of individuals.

Separately, scientists also tested another group to rule out the effect of caffeine. In that group, 12 of the original 15 individuals were given water-flavored-like tea with caffeine levels similar to what is found in tea. Those who had regular tea saw their LDL levels drop about 11 percent compared with the caffeine placebo.

New Cheap Solar Cells

A major European chip maker said this week it had discovered new ways to produce solar cells which will generate electricity twenty times cheaper than today's solar panels.

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest semiconductor maker, said that, by the end of next year, it expected to have made the first stable prototypes of the new cells, which could then be put into production.

Most of today's solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, are produced with expensive silicon, the same material used in most semiconductors.

The French-Italian company expects cheaper organic materials such as plastics to bring down the price of producing energy. Over a typical 20-year life span of a solar cell, a single produced watt should cost as little as $0.20, compared with the current $4.

The new solar cells would even be able to compete with electricity generated by burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas, which costs about $0.40 per watt, said Salvo Coffa, who heads ST's research group that is developing the technology.

"This would revolutionize the field of solar energy generation," he said.

Doctor Who returns to TV

Cult science fiction series Doctor Who is returning to TV, 14 years after it was axed.
The much-awaited comeback will be written by acclaimed TV dramatist Russell T Davies - a self-confessed fan.

Davies' credits include hit dramas like Bob and Rose, Queer as Folk, The Second Coming, Touching Evil, and The Grand.

A Radio Station that Listens To You - Yahoo Launch!

As you listen to songs rate them, eventually you will train it to the sounds you like.

My Radio Station

Private X-Prize space race nears its climax

The X Prize trophy - and $10 million - will go to the first team to send a privately developed, piloted craft to the edge of space, then do it again in two weeks' time.

In a race to achieve the first privately funded manned spaceflight, two teams of rocket engineers are poised to compete for the $10 million X Prize by launching people to the edge of space and bringing them back safely twice within a two-week period. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, said he expects that one of the two teams will launch within the next few months.

The Failure of NASA Management

Excerpts from long New York Times article.

New interviews and newly revealed e-mail sent during the fatal Columbia mission show that the engineers' desire for outside help in getting a look at the shuttle's wing was more intense and widespread than what was described in the Aug. 26 final report of the board investigating the Feb. 1 accident, which killed all seven astronauts aboard.

The new information makes it clear that the failure to follow up on the request for outside imagery, the first step in discovering the damage and perhaps mounting a rescue effort, did not simply fall through bureaucratic cracks but was actively, even hotly resisted by mission managers.

In interviews with numerous engineers, most of whom have not spoken publicly until now, the discord between NASA's engineers and managers stands out in stark relief.

Mr. Rocha, who has emerged as a central figure in the 16 days of the Columbia's flight, was a natural choice of his fellow engineers as a go-between on the initial picture request. He had already sent an e-mail message to the shuttle engineering office asking if the astronauts could visually inspect the impact area through a small window on the side of the craft. And as Mr. Rocha was chief engineer in Johnson Space Center's structural engineering division and a man with a reputation for precision and integrity, his words were likely to carry great weight.

Mr. Rocha's experience provides perhaps the clearest and most harrowing view of a NASA safety culture that, the board says, must be fixed if the remaining shuttles are to continue flying.

For Mr. Rocha, the Columbia disaster began on the eve of its final liftoff. That afternoon, he and other engineers were stunned to learn of new tests at a NASA laboratory showing that a ring attaching the rocket boosters to the external tank had not met minimum strength requirements. As he watched, managers hastily considered the problem at a prelaunching meeting beginning at 12:10 a.m. on Jan. 16.

Instead of halting the launching on the spot, Mr. Rocha said, the shuttle manager, Linda Ham, granted a temporary waiver that reduced the strength requirements, on the basis of data that the investigation board later found to be flawed. Mr. Rocha would draw on an old rocketry term — "launch fever" — to describe what had happened at the meeting.

The launching went ahead that Thursday morning. The ring held, but an unrelated problem turned up when insulating foam tore away from an attachment to the external tank 81.7 seconds after liftoff and struck the orbiter's left wing.

Mr. Rocha said that when he learned of the foam strike in a phone call on Friday afternoon, he gasped. All weekend he watched the video loop showing the strike, and at 11:24 p.m. on Sunday, he sent an e-mail message to the manager of the shuttle engineering office, Paul Shack, suggesting that the astronauts simply take a look at the impact area.

On Wednesday, an official Mr. Schomburg had spoken to — Ms. Ham, the chairwoman of the mission management team — canceled Mr. Rocha's request and two similar requests from other engineers associated with the mission, according to the investigation board. Late that day, Mr. Shack informed Mr. Rocha of management's decision not to seek images.

Astonished, Mr. Rocha sent an e-mail message asking why. Receiving no answer, he phoned Mr. Shack, who said, "I'm not going to be Chicken Little about this," Mr. Rocha recalled.

"Chicken Little?" Mr. Rocha said he shouted back. "The program is acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand."

On the day he talked with Mr. Shack, Mr. Rocha wrote an anguished e-mail message that began, "In my humble technical opinion, this is the wrong (and bordering on irresponsible) answer." He said his finger hovered over the "send" key, but he did not push the button. Instead, he showed the draft message to a colleague, Carlisle Campbell, an engineer.

"I said, `Rodney, that's a significant document,' " Mr. Campbell said in an interview. "I probably got more concerned or angry than he did at the time. We could not believe what was going on."

But Mr. Rocha still decided he should push his concerns through official channels. Engineers were often told not to send messages much higher than their own rung in the ladder, he said.

The next day, Mr. Rocha spoke with Barbara Conte, a worker in mission operations, about spy telescopes. In a written response to reporters' questions, Ms. Conte said her colleague "was more keyed-up and troubled than I had ever previously encountered him."

"We informed LeRoy of the concern from Rodney" and offered to help arrange an observation by military satellites, Mr. Oliver wrote on March 6 — a month after the accident — in a previously unreleased e-mail chronology of shuttle events. The message continued, "LeRoy said he would go talk to Linda Ham and get back to us."

About two hours later, at 12:07 p.m. that day, Mr. Cain sent out his own e-mail message saying he had spoken with management officials, who had no interest in obtaining the images. Therefore, Mr. Cain wrote, "I consider it to be a dead issue."

It was not over for Mr. Rocha, though. On Thursday afternoon, Jan. 23, he encountered Mr. Schomburg, the expert on the heat-resisting tiles, on the sixth floor of Building 1, where most of the managers had offices. They sat down in the anteroom of an office and began arguing about the need for imaging, said Mr. Rocha and the investigative board's report.

Mr. Schomburg insisted that because smaller pieces of foam had broken off and struck shuttles on previous flights without dire consequences, the latest strike would require nothing more than a refurbishment after the Columbia landed. Mr. Rocha maintained that the damage could be severe enough to allow hot gases to burn through the wing on re-entry and threaten the craft.

As their voices rose, Mr. Rocha recalled, Mr. Schomburg thrust out an index finger and said, "Well, if it's that bad, there's not a damn thing we can do about it."

On Jan. 24, eight days into the mission, engineers and managers held a series of meetings in which the debris strike was discussed. At a 7 a.m. meeting, Boeing engineers presented their analysis, which they said showed that the shuttle probably took the hit without experiencing fatal damage.

Those results were hastily carried into the 8 a.m. meeting of the mission management team, led by Ms. Ham. When a NASA engineer presented the results of the Boeing analysis and then began to discuss the lingering areas of uncertainty, Ms. Ham cut him off and the meeting moved along. The wing discussion does not even appear in the official minutes.

Mr. Diggins, the accident board investigator, said it should not be surprising that such a critical issue received short shrift. A mission management meeting, he said, is simply "an official pro forma meeting to get it on the record." The decision to do nothing more, he said, had long been made.

Being There for Re-entry

On Feb. 1, the last day of the Columbia's flight, Mr. Rocha rose before dawn. He wanted to be in the mission evaluation room, an engineering monitoring center on the first floor of NASA's Building 30, by 6:45 a.m., well before the shuttle fired its rockets to drop out of orbit. Normally, he would just watch the landing on NASA-TV, the space agency's channel, but he said he wanted to see the data from the wing sensors.

Mr. Rocha recalled that Ms. Hansen, trying to console him, said, "Oh, Rodney, we lost people, and there's probably nothing we could have done."

For the third time in two weeks, Mr. Rocha raised his voice to a colleague. "I've been hearing that all week," he snapped. "We don't know that."

He was instantly ashamed, he said, and thought, "I'm being rude."

The next days passed in a blur. Mr. Rocha was assigned to the team to investigate the mission. At the same time, he was working with the team that was looking into the attachment ring problem that nearly scuttled the mission the night before liftoff, while handling his other duties.

At one point he got to ask Ralph Roe, a shuttle manager, why the photo request had been denied. He got no direct answer, he recalled. Instead, Mr. Roe replied: "I'd do anything now to get a photo. I'd take a million photos."

Mr. Rocha's sleep was still troubled — now, by nightmares, he said, describing some: he was in the shuttle as it broke up; his relatives were on the shuttle; "Columbia has miraculously been reassembled, and we're looking at the wiring and it's got rats in there."

Since the accident, Mr. Rocha said, engineers and other colleagues have thanked him enthusiastically for speaking up, saying things like, "I can't imagine what it was like to be in your shoes." His immediate supervisor has been supportive as well, he said, But from management, he said: "Silence. No talk. No reference to it. Nothing."

Except, that is, from the highest-up higher-up. One day Mr. Rocha read an interview with the NASA administrator, Sean O'Keefe, who wondered aloud why engineers had not raised the alarm through the agency's safety reporting system. This time, Mr. Rocha broke the rules: he wrote an e-mail message directly to Mr. O'Keefe, saying he would be happy to explain what really happened.

Within a day, he heard from Mr. O'Keefe, who then dispatched the NASA general counsel, Paul G. Pastorek, to interview him and report back. In a recent interview, Mr. O'Keefe said Mr. Rocha's experience underscored the need to seek the dissenting viewpoint and ask, "Are we talking ourselves into this answer?"

NASA, following the board's recommendation, has reached agreements with outside agencies to take images during every flight. And 11 of the 15 top shuttle managers have been reassigned, including Ms. Ham, or have retired.

Evidence of Pre-Columbian Civilisation Found in Amazon

Relatively large pre-Columbian societies dramatically modified one of the least-known areas of the Amazon Basin, the Upper Xingú River, along the Brazilian Amazon's southeast edge, says a study published last week by Science magazine.

The study, directed by archaeologist Michael Heckenberger, of the University of Florida, debunks the notions that the Amazon was a virgin forest when the Europeans reached the Americas in the 15th century and that barren soils had made massive human settlements impossible.

The Upper Xingú, in Mato Grosso state, was settled by Kuikuro Indians in the 9th and 10th centuries, according to evidence in ceramics, organic materials and other objects that archaeologists have uncovered.

The discoveries indicate the existence of ”large villages, surrounded by ditches and palisades, forming a defensive structures” during the 14th and 15th centuries and the early 16th century, Brazilian ethnologist Carlos Fausto, a member of the research team, told Tierramérica.

The scientists have uncovered an ”astonishing plan” of 19 pre-Columbian villages linked to small settlements around them.

”The villages were always three to five kilometres apart and connected by remarkably straight roads,” which measured up to 35 meters wide, according to the Science article.

The American Coupling -- Tonight.

Picture

'Coupling' Reaches America with Brit Accent Intact

There are few clues in the new NBC sitcom "Coupling" premiering
Thursday night to tell you that the show is virtually a carbon copy,
word for word, line for line, of one of Britain's most popular
sitcoms.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the initial U.S episodes and
its British version is the time difference. Eight minutes had to be
chopped off the original scripts to fit American network commercial
time.

Fun with fusion: Freshman's nuclear fusion reactor has physics faculty in awe

Wallace, a baby-faced tennis player fresh out of Spanish Fork High School, had almost the entire physics faculty of Utah State University hovering (and arguing) over an apparatus he had cobbled together from parts salvaged from junk yards and charity drops.

The apparatus is nothing less than the sine qua non of modern science: a nuclear fusion reactor, based on the plans of Utah's own Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television.

The reactor sat on a table with an attached vacuum pump wheezing away. A television monitor showed what was inside: a glowing ball of gas surrounded by a metal helix.

The ball is, literally, a small sun, where an electric field forces deuteron ions (a form of hydrogen) to gather, bang together and occasionally fuse, spitting out a neutron each time fusion occurs.

"Here I am with this thing here," Wallace mused, looking at his surroundings. "Who'da thought?"

Wallace and Farnsworth are much alike. Both are (or were — Farnsworth died in 1971) tinkerers. While Wallace was in grade school, his mother got a flat tire while he was riding with her. He fixed it. For his part, Farnsworth began improvising electric motors at a young age. Both went on to bigger and better things.

"He was never motivated to take science," said Wallace's father, Allen Wallace. "It was really the tinkering that motivated him."

When Craig was a sophomore in high school, browsing the Internet he discovered that Farnsworth had come up with a way to create deuteron ion plasma, a prerequisite to fusion.

While it was not good for production of energy (the source of much embarrassment to the University of Utah in the cold fusion debacle in the late 1980s), Farnsworth's design did emit neutrons, a useful tool for commercial applications and scientific experimentation.

"He (Farnsworth) was after the Holy Grail of excess energy, but everyone agrees that it's mostly useful as a neutron generator," Allen Wallace said.

About 30 such devices exist around the country, owned by such entities as Los Alamos National Laboratories, NASA and universities. ("I bet I'm the only high school student that has one," Craig Wallace said.)

EL - this is another low temperature, low pressure fusion reaction device as the mostly fringe scientists have taken to calling "cold fusion".

Spider Robinson -- Why are our imaginations retreating from science and space, and into fantasy?

I'm not knocking fantasy, but if we look only backward instead of forward, too, one day we will find ourselves surrounded by an electorate that has never willingly thought a single thought their great-grandparents would not have recognized. That's simply not acceptable. That way lies inconceivable horror, a bin Laden future for our grandchildren.

I take heart that SF still exists, 50 years after the first Hugo was awarded. My wife's family are Portuguese fisherfolk from Provincetown, Mass., where every summer they've held a ceremony called the Blessing of the Fleet, in which the harbour fills with boats and the archbishop blesses their labours. The 50th-ever blessing was the last. There's no fishing fleet left. For the first time in living memory, there is not a single working fishing boat in P-town . . . because there are no cod or haddock left on the Grand Banks. For all its present problems, science fiction as a profession seems to have outlasted pulling up fish from the sea.

I believe with all my heart that the pendulum will return, that ignorance will become unfashionable again one day, that my junior colleagues are about to ignite a new renaissance in science fiction, and that our next 50 years will make the first 50 pale by comparison, taking us all the way to immortality and the stars themselves. If that does happen, some of the people who will make it so were in Toronto.

People still believe that men fished the Grand Banks, once. Some even dream of going back. SF readers have never stopped dreaming. We can't, you see. We simply don't know how.

Another response here in Thieves and Kings.

The need for stories examining all the possibilities of science and technology isn't really there anymore either. Everybody is fairly well tuned in now. Future vision is no longer a kaleidoscope of science dreaming. Not the way it once was. Sorry, Spider. The job is just about done, and the workers are rolling up the drop cloth and heading for the van. The wild flights of speculation, the story-telling party of the century, is over.

Or perhaps I should say, the party has moved into the kitchen. (After all, there's always work of some sort which needs doing somewhere around the ramshackle house of humanity!) --People's minds are traveling over different terrain these days. And while some might look at the Orwellian vision and sink in their chairs with growing despair, I see a great deal more than just the backwards, corrputed, polluted and violent dystopia we were all warned about time and again. There are new and spectacular things afoot in the world! And all the millions of minds are seeking answers to these new kinds of problems. New possibilities!

What possibilities?

Oh, but that part is easy! Just look at popular fiction. Peer into your own headspace at the questions you find yourself asking. Or perhaps. . , the questions you are avoiding. --Remember, Science Fiction was also, for many years, a most shunned area of literature. A large number of people have a strong tendency to not want to look too closely at things which promise to change their lives in Big (with a capital 'B'), ways. How did Bilbo Baggins put it. . ?

'We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them,'

It's all about escapism! They said the same thing about Science Fiction, and they were right! However, the question nobody ever asks is, "Escaping to where?" --Think carefully, because the stories we read today are but kaleidoscope shadows of the places we'll be living in tomorrow. Our subconsciouses are generally much smarter than we are, after all. They speak to us through the stories they make us want to read.

NASA to smash Galileo into Jupiter



NASA plans to crash its $1.5 billion Galileo spacecraft into Jupiter next weekend to make sure it doesn’t accidentally contaminate the planet’s ice-covered moon Europa with bacteria from Earth. After Galileo’s orbit carries it behind Jupiter at 12:49 p.m. PT Sunday, the aging probe will plunge into the planet’s stormy atmosphere at a speed of nearly 108,000 mph.

Waht is wonrg wtih tihs snetecne? Hiw cmoe msot ploepe can sltil raed it?

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deos n't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are , the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe."

Letters page of The Age.

Houston Middle-of-the-Night Munchies?

Chapultepec 813 Richmond Ave. The tacos are right on, and many a Chapulte-pecker has sang the joys of the Queso Flameado

Mai's 3403 Milam St. The deep-bowled Bun dishes, beds of vermicelli noodles with various accompaniments, are winners, both flavorful and deceptively filling. A trip to Mai's isn't complete without ordering the Goi Cuon (spring roll appetizers that feature shrimp, pork, vegetables and vermicelli wrapped in rice paper). Iced coffee or soy milk!

Bibas One's A Meal 2019 W. Gray True to diner form, breakfast is champion here, and the cooks make some mean home-fries (ask for extra onion). The burgers and pies are mediocre, but that's easily forgotten once you order the stellar shakes, especially chocolate.

La Jaliscience Taqueria 1308 Montrose. I was impressed with the quality of the hastily-prepared meal of Huevos con Papas: eggs and potatoes with rice, beans and tortillas. Be sure to try the Pollo Jaliscience, grilled chicken with Monterey jack cheese, mushrooms, guacamole and tortillas.

Spanish Flower 4701 N. Main (In the Heights). The Margaritas here are among the best in town. The Enchiladas Verdes are great anytime, the tomatillo sauce a perfect accent to the succulently moist chicken, and the fajitas leave you blissfully full. Breakfast here is also original. The memorable Spanish omelets and pork chop plates make the wait worth it.

Andy's in the Heights 1115 East 11th St.. I was impressed with the Bistec a la Mexicana, loin cubes with peppers and onions.

Charlie's Diner 1102 Westheimer. You'd be crazy to do anything but breakfast here. The biscuits are bigger than the coffee mugs, and the hash browns make you want to run home to Mom with the recipe.

House of Pies 3112 Kirby Dr. Monte Crisco sandwichs, though even my mother has been here and knows that French Silk pie is where it's at.

Also many Denny's, International House of Pancakes, and Waffle Houses. Skillet's is also a local chain, wait for after 10 PM and get their breakfast buffet.

The Futile Pursuit of Happiness

How do we predict we'll feel about purchasing jewelry, having children, buying a big house or being rich? And then how do we regard the outcomes? According to this small corps of academics, almost all actions -- the decision to buy jewelry, have kids, buy the big house or work exhaustively for a fatter paycheck -- are based on our predictions of the emotional consequences of these events.

The happiness forecastors have determined that people are terrible at it.

This empathy gap in thought and behavior -- we cannot seem to predict how we will behave in a hot state when we are in a cold state -- affects happiness in an important but somewhat less consistent way than the impact bias. ''So much of our lives involves making decisions that have consequences for the future,'' Loewenstein says. ''And if our decision making is influenced by these transient emotional and psychological states, then we know we're not making decisions with an eye toward future consequences.''

Loewenstein, along with his collaborator Dr. Peter Ubel, has done a great deal of work showing that nonpatients overestimate the displeasure of living with the loss of a limb, for instance, or paraplegia. To use affective forecasting to prove that people adapt to serious physical challenges far better and will be happier than they imagine, Loewenstein says, could prove invaluable.

There are downsides to making public policy in light of this research, too. While walking in Pittsburgh one afternoon, Loewenstein tells me that he doesn't see how anybody could study happiness and not find himself leaning left politically; the data make it all too clear that boosting the living standards of those already comfortable, such as through lower taxes, does little to improve their levels of well-being, whereas raising the living standards of the impoverished makes an enormous difference. Nevertheless, he and Gilbert (who once declared in an academic paper, ''Windfalls are better than pratfalls, A's are better than C's, December 25 is better than April 15, and everything is better than a Republican administration'') seem to lean libertarian in regard to pushing any kind of prescriptive agenda.

Building the Perfect Slurpee

What emerged from the research competition was a caffeinated, zero-calorie, nonfat product with 2 grams of sugar in an eight-ounce serving, 25 milligrams of sodium and 2 grams of carbohydrates.

Even as makers of frozen carbonated drinks work on the next diet flavor, none is ready to give up on the sugar-laden slushes that have made the category popular.

"In most of our locations we have two valves, two different purchase options for consumers," said Susan Woods, the vice president for marketing at Icee, based in Ontario, Calif. "To devote one of those strictly to diet is giving up a lot. There's less people who are looking for a diet than there are who are looking for a cherry."

How Rich Are You?

Three decades ago, the people in well-to-do countries were 30 times better off than those in countries where the poorest 20 percent of the world's people live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times.

Find out where you rank.

Tips For Public Speaking - Style Over Substance

In survey after survey, he says, public speaking is ahead of rats and snakes on the list of things that people fear most. So Kevin R. Daley and his oldest daughter, Laura Daley-Caravella, 46, have codified the dos and don'ts of effective communicating, be it on a dais in front of hundreds, or at a lunch in front of one. Their book, "Talk Your Way to the Top: How to Address Any Audience Like Your Career Depends on It" ( McGraw-Hill), arrived in bookstores this month.

Some of his tips — know your subject, do not read woodenly from notes, hold important lunches at restaurants where past tipping has made you a favored customer — are pretty obvious. And many sound like orders from drill sergeants and schoolmarms: Hands out of those pockets! Elbows unglued from those sides! Distribute weight evenly on both legs, and stop moving around so much! Do not keep opening and closing your hands, and, for goodness' sake, try not to stare at your shoes!

But Mr. Daley offers a formidable list of eye-opening pointers, too:

• Gesture with one hand. Waving both looks fidgety and distracting; using one looks natural and emphasizes a point.

• Speak up. Speaking low may force people to listen harder, but it will make you sound boring.

• Focus on one member of the audience to keep your eyes from darting around. But change to another person often, so you don't stare.

• Don't ever be in total darkness, even if that means audience members must squint at visuals. You want them riveted on you, not on the slides.

• Apply the same rules to one-on-one meetings as to keynote speeches, but just tone them down. "Make the gestures smaller and the voice more modulated, but never forget that an animated person is more interesting," Mr. Daley said.

If it sounds like a top-heavy emphasis on style over substance, that is because it is. Mr. Daley cites many studies that indicate that, as long as you are not announcing a cure for cancer, more than 90 percent of the impact of communication rests on how you look and sound, not on what you say.

"Information by itself, unless it's genuinely startling, is boring," he said. "Conveying it through stories and gestures and analogies makes it interesting."

Shakespeare and his Co-Authors

In "Shakespeare, Co-Author" (Oxford University Press, 2002), Professor Vickers, 65, shows how numerous tests by many generations of scholars demonstrate substantial work by other playwrights in five Shakespeare plays. Examining factors like rhetorical devices, polysyllabic words and metrical habits, scholars have been able to identify reliably an author of a work or part of a work, even when the early editions did not give credit.

The plays are not the top five in the Shakespeare canon. But the overwhelming evidence in the book shows that George Peele, not Shakespeare, wrote almost a third of "Titus Andronicus"; Thomas Middleton, about two-fifths of "Timon of Athens"; George Wilkins, two of the five acts of "Pericles"; and John Fletcher, more than half of "Henry VIII." "The Two Noble Kinsmen," originally published in 1634 as the work of Shakespeare and Fletcher, is shown to be about two-fifths Shakespeare's.

One Cosmic Question, Too Many Answers

Why is the universe the way it is? Scientists leaning toward the anthropic principle. There are many universes, this is the one we can live in.

When You Go Korean Get The BBQ

Even the BBQ squid.

Korea Garden Restaurant
Details: Bulgogi - marinated rib eye bbq: $13.95
Bulgalbi - marinated boneless short ribs bbq: $14.95
Seafood combo - shrimp, scallop, and squid bbq: $14.95
Stir-fried squid: $10.95
Lunch special: $5.75
Where: 9501 Long Point, 713-468-2800.
Hours: daily, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Before the barbecue items arrive, we get the spread of treats. This miniature smorgasbord is one of the best things about eating in Korean restaurants. At Korea Garden, there are eight items, which alternate depending on what's going on in the kitchen. Tonight's complimentary sides are spicy kim chee, crunchy bread and butter pickles with garlic and chile, slices of dense dried tofu marinated in a spicy sauce, some little silver dollar-sized scallion pancakes, chewy seaweed salad, cold seafood omelet, cold grilled sweet potato slices and thin white shreds of pickled daikon. There is also a dish of garlic chile paste to use on the barbecue.

All three barbecue dishes arrive together. The raw red meat is marinated in a spicy sauce. I have a feeling that once we start cooking it, the fish will get neglected. So I throw all the marinated seafood on the hot grill right away. It sizzles and pops and smells like burning seaweed. The scallops are a real pain. They stick to the metal grill elements and end up coming apart in shreds. The shrimp are much easier to deal with. But the squid turns out to be everybody's favorite.

Squid is one of those barbecue meats that Thelma's, Drexler's and Goode Company all seem to have overlooked. Marinated as it is here at Korea Garden in lots of chiles and garlic, it develops a spicy coating in the grilling process. The tangy barbecue sauce along with the blackened edges gives the chewy cephalopod a surprising depth of flavor.

Not that the bulgogi and bulgalbi aren't big hits too. After grilling the thin boneless meat strips, we fold them up in big fresh Romaine leaves with chile garlic sauce and condiments. The lettuce and bulgogi wrap has much in common with a fajita taco, and it's better for the Atkins diet.

Perry, Texas - Texas Ghost Town


My Uncle George Lester has another short travelogue at the bottom of this page.

Lack Direction? Evaluate Your Brain's C.E.O.

You can be truly smart and still struggle in life if you lack the ability to plan, organize time and space, initiate projects and see them through to completion, and you cannot resist immediate temptations in favor of later better rewards.

When those capacities are damaged or underdeveloped, even people with intelligence and talent may flounder. They are often misunderstood as being willfully disorganized or lazy, possessing a bad attitude or, from a parental viewpoint, "doing this on purpose to drive me crazy."

More and more, however, neuroscientists are saying such puzzling underachievers may suffer from neurological abnormalities affecting "the brain's C.E.O." This control center, really an array of "executive functions," orchestrates resources like memory, language and attention to achieve a goal, be it a fraction of a second or five years from now.

Thursday night I am going to Inner Loop SF Book group meeting at U of H after eating at Jenni's Noodle House.

I need to go to my Dad's to see Mars through my telescope there.

Using neural-net programming to crack languages fast.

FROM UZBEK TO KLINGON, THE MACHINE CRACKS THE CODE

Statistical machine translation - in which computers essentially learn new languages on their own instead of being "taught" the languages by bilingual human programmers - has taken off. The new technology allows scientists to develop machine translation systems for a wide number of obscure languages at a pace that experts once thought impossible.

Dr. Knight and others said the progress and accuracy of statistical machine translation had recently surpassed that of the traditional machine translation programs used by Web sites like Yahoo and BabelFish. In the past, such programs were able to compile extensive databanks of foreign languages that allowed them to outperform statistics-based systems.

Traditional machine translation relies on painstaking efforts by bilingual programmers to enter the vast wealth of information on vocabulary and syntax that the computer needs to translate one language into another. But in the early 1990's, a team of researchers at I.B.M. devised another way to do things: feeding a computer an English text and its translation in a different language. The computer then uses statistical analysis to "learn" the second language.

The original NYTimes article looks pay only now.

~~~~

This is really neural-net learning. If I was still at Quest I might have had the opportunity to use neural-net software for marketuing research studies. Right now I use it in a game I am playing. The computer learns from previous moves what things are more likely to work in what circumstances. In fact, it is released with the code from analyzing 140 automated player's actions for 100 turns in 100 games. It was advised if possible to run the learning program on your machine but it would take weeks to complete and takes over the entire machine.

A chemical from red wine resveratrol - may help people live 10 - 50% longer.

So far, Dr. Sinclair and his colleagues have shown that resveratrol prolongs life span only in yeast, a fungus, by 70 percent. But a colleague, Dr. Mark Tatar of Brown University, has shown in a report yet to be published that the compound has similar effects in fruit flies. The National Institute of Aging, which sponsored Dr. Sinclair's research, plans to start a mouse study later in the year.

Despite the years of testing ahead to prove that resveratrol has any effect in people, many of the scientists involved in the research have already started drinking red wine.

"One glass of red wine a day is a good recommendation. That's what I do now," Dr. Sinclair said, adding he hoped the finding would not lead people to drink in excess. "One glass of wine is enough," he said. However, resveratrol is unstable on exposure to the air and "goes off within a day of popping the cork," he said.

Oh, so it's only fresh red wine. I'm gonna have to get smaller bottles!

Online Search Tips and Tricks

A good article at The New York Times.

All major search engines allow you to limit searches by ruling out pages that might contain specific words. To do so, put a minus sign directly in front of the word you do not want to see. A search for "chocolate fudge recipe -marshmallows" will enable you to dodge the Rocky Road.

If you want to widen your search instead, you have the OR command at your disposal. Be sure to type it in capital letters. A search for "fudgy (icing OR frosting)" on Google doubles the caloric options. You can also use the tilde shortcut that Google unveiled earlier this month. If you put the tilde symbol in front of your keyword (try "fudge ~ icing"), Google will search for icing and its common synonyms.

As popular as Google is, it does not measure up when it comes to two other strategies beloved by expert information retrievers. One is truncation - the ability to chop off a word and put an asterisk in place of whatever was chopped, thereby searching for all variations of that word with one search query.

To many experts, AltaVista wins at this game. Plug "fudg* brownie recipe" into the search box and you will find fudge brownies, fudgy brownies and fudge-nut brownie cake.

The other trick is called proximity searching, in which you can search for two words in close proximity, instead of simply on the same page or within the same phrase. AltaVista has this licked, using the NEAR command. Type in "substitution NEAR chocolate" or better yet, "substitut* NEAR chocolate" and you get advice on substituting bars of unsweetened chocolate with semi-sweet, or how to use chocolate substitutes like cocoa powder.

Most search engines give you a break when you cannot remember every single word in a phrase or name that you are seeking. They allow you to use a wild card, an asterisk in place of the word that escapes you. Type " Nestle * cookies" as a phrase and Tollhouse appears (along with Rolo, Quik and Raisinet goodies, too).

Sometimes it seems like overkill to search the entire Web when all you really want is an academic or noncommercial take on a topic. Say you only want results from the .edu domain. Try using the syntax tool called "site:" and restrict the results to those in the .edu domain. (This works with Google, AlltheWeb.com and Teoma, among other engines.)

When using a syntax like "site:" be sure that there is no space between the colon and the next word. If you accidentally put a space there, the search engines will think that "site:" is a word you're looking for.

If you are digging deeply into a topic, it may help to know which sites are linking to the page that you are reading. Knowing those connections can bring you a step closer to understanding the community that has coalesced around your subject.

For example, by typing "link:www .chocoholic.com" into Google's search box, you'll find other sites like the Chocolate Corner and a list of "Choco-Links."

At AlltheWeb, you do not need to remember to use "link:" syntax. Simply plug the URL into the search window and you will get a link to a list of the 391 pages that link to Chocoholics. But you will also be pointed to sites that contain the URL in their text, pages that are indexed under that URL, information on who owns the URL and an image of how the page used to look. That last option is a link that takes you straight to the WayBack Machine, a service of the Internet Archive, where you can view pages as they were rendered as far back as 1996.

AltaVista and Google News (news.google.com) offer the ability to search for news articles by time and date, whether your range is the past hour, the past day, the past week or the past month. Google News has more sources (4,000-plus), but while AltaVista has fewer (3,000-plus), its database is deeper, with more than a year's worth of material available. Other options are AlltheWeb, which carries multilingual newspapers; DayPop (www.daypop.com), which logs blogs; and NewsNow (www.newsnow.com), which offers a live feed - the closest thing to watching the wires free.

To find the number (or address) for a Bread & Chocolate bakery in Virginia, type "phonebook:bread & chocolate va" (note the lack of space between "phonebook" and "bread"). Remember to put a state abbreviation after the query; otherwise, Google will give up.

A Veggie Restaurant Robb Walsh likes:

Bombay Sweets & Pure Vegetarian Restaurant
Details: Hours: Daily, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Bombay Sweets & Pure Vegetarian Restaurant Buffet: $4.50
Chaat: $2.50
Lassi: $1.99
Pound of mixed sweets: $5.49
Where: 5827 Hillcroft, 713-780-4453

After my meal, I usually get a mango lassi, and not because I'm still hungry. As a Pakistani cab driver once explained, you drink this whipped yogurt drink after eating spicy food on a hot summer day because it calms your stomach and prevents heartburn. And after considerable experimentation, I've concluded that he's right. A tall glass of lassi is more effective than Pepto-Bismol, and it tastes better, too.

ROBB WALSH has a review more on vegetarians than the Vega-Nazi restaurant he goes to.

Soya Cafe
Details: Penne: $6.99
Soya pocket: $7.99
Soya yummy platter: $16.99
Soya hamburger: $6.29
Soya kabobs: $5.99
Where: 1304 Blalock, 713-464-2926. Hours: Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

We also get some deep-fried Soya nuggets, which taste like hush puppies stuffed with carpet padding -- but in a good way. Our efforts to get some other appetizers are denied by the Chinese woman who waits tables, does the cooking and generally runs the place.

"That's already enough food," she says, waving off our attempt to order more.

Dave Berry is on vacation but before he left he got oodles of people to become Freemont and send bad poetry about the dog ate mother's toes to the poetry contest website.

A Sad Day

i am sad, so very sad,
the tears run down my nose
it was a happy day until
the dog ate mother's toes

Anything else - Gigli looks like the kind of bad movie I usually like, a guilty pleasure. Seabiscuit is supposed to be real good.

I've read two fantastic SF novels recently, The Truth Machine and The First Immortal. These are almost mainstream but generally very good except for the standard bad job of forecasting timing. The First Immortal mentions several things from the first book but can be read independently.

This and That

Some problems with Google mentioned in Digging for Googleholes.

1. If you're searching for something that can be sold online, Google's top results skew very heavily toward stores, and away from general information.

2. Categories that don't have central, well-known sites devoted to them will fare poorly when they share a keyword with other categories - Apple computer or apples?

3. Books aren't online, articles are which slants research/ Similarly sites that block links to archives lose authority.

There was a study in Pasadena on library usage. The results were that just among people with library cards the library returns more value than the taxes paid for it. To the tune of $1.20 in benefits for every tax dollar they invest. This understates the value because of non-card holder benefits and the value of attributes without a direct immediate monetary value.

It's nice going into Houston just to talk to some normal people who can't stand Bush. I went to a Democratic Meetup at Taco Milagro. There are book meetups and clubs I go to as well.

Me and Dean Recently.

From an email about me: Here is a recap from Gary Denton about his July 4th effort in Pasadena. He did it on the spur of the moment with almost no organizational assistance. This is excellent initiative that I welcome from everyone, although please let me know what is going on. Missteps come all to easily. Read his report.

You can tell from Gary's report that numerous problems came up. Pay attention: Mr. Murphy (the one who created Murphy's Law) rides in every campaign truck. Note that Gary did not let problems stop him. Perseverance pays off.

Dale Napier


Subject: Recap: Pasadena Fairgrounds July 4th

Janette Sexton and I were at the Pasadena July 4th / Family Day celebration from 12:45 to 8:45. Fair opened at 2:00. We decided to leave while it was still light enough to see when putting the canopy and stuff away. The canopy purchased earlier at Academy because it looked like an easy setup wasn't, it took four people, two of them vendors with lots of experience with canopies, over an hour in the rain. We eventually found solutions and thanked the Republicans. We marked it for easier set-up next time - hopefully with four volunteers. After the downpour that opened the Festival the weather gradually improved but with intermittent rain which kept the crowd below expectations.

We only sold one sticker but gave away more than 80 handouts - nearly all from the three doublesided position papers.

With few coming to the booth we approached people walking by the booth. "Are you registered to vote?" If no, I explained I would give them a voter's registration card but the library, post office and county clerk's location where I registered my car did not have any forms yesterday. By the way, a number of people complained of getting a new driver's license and they don't know if they are registered because they were never sent anything. I said they should have been sent a card but with the Republicans in charge now they seem not that interested in registering new voters.

"Are you a Republican or a Democrat or does it depend?" If Republican I said I was educating people about a Democrat running for President who would balance the budget and improve the economy and mentioned the debt tax all taxpayers and children will pay.

If 'it depends' I give handouts and explained Dean's fiscally conservative but socially progressive platform.

If Democrat I explain that Dean has the most volunteers, is raising the most money and seems best organized and would they like to sign the petition or volunteer or just collect more information for now.

This evolved over time as well as my deciding to approach more blacks and Hispanics. It rained a lot, when it was not raining it was good. Minor incident when my car key battery went dead and my alarm wouldn't turn off for a good while.

A lot of GOP there, but Democrats and uncommitted as well.

Comments:

One person said Dean was"un-American."

Republicans don't have an answer for the economy or the budget except that it is not Bush's fault.

Two women with a little girl were surprised to see a Dean booth in Bush country Texas, Pasadena even,
which had a small KKK storefront twenty years ago. She took a couple of brochures but said she would download most of the other material and photographs. She was very impressed when I said nothing existed yesterday morning except the bumperstickers (I forgot the large signs which I had laminated), everything else had been downloaded or emailed and then run off or produced at Kinko's.
...

Last Sunday I was at a fund raiser for Dean instead of my family reunion. I missed the chance for a photograph with him or to shake his hand as I was helping a woman who was donating $1350. I also wanted a chance to talk more about mapping software with the staff but never had a good time.

Interesting what Dean said about gay civil unions. When he signed the bill six months before the election there was a storm of very loud protest. It seemed like nearly all the ministers and bishops denounced him and long time supporters called up to yell and complain. Yet he won the election despite that. Now, two years later even before the Supreme Court validated his position nobody mentions it in Vermont. It is hard to sustain a cause that just says I don't think these people should have the same rights I do.

Normally this would be in my liberal news digest but this seemed more about me.

Speaking with the Dead
Philip K. Dick

A "new" interview with the great writter.

Marriage and Age Reduce Genius

Creative genius and crime express themselves early in men but both are turned off almost like a tap if a man gets married and has children, a study says.

Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, compiled a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists, noting their age at the time when they made their greatest work.

The data remarkably concur with the brutal observation made by Albert Einstein, who wrote in 1942: "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so."

"Scientific productivity indeed fades with age," Dr Kanazawa says.

"Two-thirds (of all scientists) will have made their most significant contributions before their mid-30s."

But, regardless of age, the great minds who married virtually kissed goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their CV.

Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of married scientists had made their last significant contribution to history's hall of fame.

Hurricane Claudette II

After picking up speed and spinning into a hurricane overnight, Claudette made landfall over Matagorda today, flooding houses and peeling off roofs before lapsing back into a tropical storm.

Historic buildings crumbled in Port Lavaca, and homes collapsed in Surfside. Large swaths of Galveston's westside beaches were swept to sea, stranded beach residents who tried to stick it out in Bolivar asked the Coast Guard to help them evacuate, and shrimpers had to be rescued off Sabine Pass. Trees were blown over as far south as El Campo and as far north as Houston.

Claudette's eye swept across the Matagorda Peninsula with at least 80 mph winds before noon, and the National Weather Service passed on unconfirmed reports of sustained winds of 94 mph and a gust of 104 mph at Point Comfort as Claudette made landfall.


See also Weather Underground Tropics and the naval research laboratory tropical cyclone pages.

Spirited Away

Salon, worth paying for.

Wizard of light and shadow
At last American audiences are being spirited away by the wondrous and subtle visions of Hayao Miyazaki. He's more than an eccentric Japanese fabulist -- he's the greatest animator the movies have ever seen.

I mention this because I have three of his fine family films on DVD.

Spirited Away - "Chihiro, a little girl trying to rescue her parents from a spell that has turned them into pigs." This holds the record for the biggest grossing film in Japan.

Kiki's Delivery Service - "She's the Mary Tyler Moore of 13-year-old witches."

Castle in the Sky - Indiana-Jones-style exploits as a young Welsh orphan tries to help a girl who fell overboard from a huge, zeppelin-like airship and is pursued by pirates.

I am anxiously awaiting when they will finally release "Porco Rosso", my favorite animated film. This last is about an enchanted Italian naval aviator set in the 1930's.

Next summer Disney will release his adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones' children's fantasy novel "Howl's Moving Castle."

Franks - home of some of the best breakfasts I've ever had is reviewed by Robb Walsh.

Frank's Grill
Details: Steak and eggs: $6.50
Chicken-fried steak and eggs: $4.90
Two eggs with bacon or sausage: $3.95
Three pancakes with bacon or sausage: $3.05
Belgian waffle with bacon or sausage: $2.95
SOS: $3.50
Hamburger: $2.50
Where: 4702 Telephone Road, 713-649-3296.
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 5 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.; Sunday, 7 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Chicken-fried steak and eggs over easy is my strategic breakfast choice. Frank's CFS, which is served on a separate plate, is the extra-crunchy crumb-coated variety. It's served with very plain white cream gravy over top. I slice off a large wedge of the breaded meat patty and transfer it to the plate with my eggs and grits. I've also asked for grilled biscuits in lieu of toast. This special biscuit treatment is available only before 8 a.m. Frank's biscuits are very tall and a little dry and doughy in the middle, so griddle-toasting the half-biscuits with butter improves them dramatically. Like a conductor tapping his baton, I shake the Tabasco bottle preliminarily a few times over the breakfast ensemble. Then I begin composing forkfuls. Runny yellow egg yolks combine rhapsodically with different combinations of fluffy grits, crunchy CFS in cream gravy, and toasted biscuits. It's a lot of food, but if you're going to eat a big meal, you might as well do it while it's cool outside.

My dining companion, who has a sweet tooth, has opted for buttered Belgian waffles with bacon. The waffles are thick and crunchy and absorb every drop of syrup. It's a pleasant breakfast dish, though not in the same league with Frank's serious egg-and-meat combos.

Frank's offers a choice of grits or hash browns, or half and half if you can't make up your mind. My breakfast companion was thrilled to discover that the hash browns were gently crisped and remarkably grease-free. I was thinking they were too grease-free before she made that observation.

My tablemate giggled to find SOS on the list of side orders. "When's the last time you saw that on a menu?" she asked. "My dad loved that stuff. My mom used to make it for him sometimes when I was a little kid," she said. I seem to remember my mom attempting to re-create that boot-camp delicacy for my father as well. SOS, "shit on a shingle," was once common in military mess halls. It was officially known as creamed chipped beef on toast. If you've ever seen the brown gooey stewed meat on a toasted bread slice, it's easy to understand the creative moniker. But despite the revolting name, many military retirees found themselves craving the stuff.

Unfortunately for veterans, the SOS at Frank's is just a name for biscuits and gravy, which is made here by mixing sausage chunks with the bland cream gravy and pouring it over split biscuits.

A stack of three fluffy pancakes made up for the floury biscuits. The high-rising hotcakes were light and airy, with none of that dense cake texture that can make a short stack feel like a lead weight in your stomach. The bacon was sliced thick, cooked just crisp enough and spread flat with a bacon press.

While everything at Frank's Grill wasn't perfect on that first visit, we developed an immediate affection for the place. It's pretty easy to predict that I'm going to love a funky joint with lots of great food. But I was surprised that my picky friend was enthusiastic, too. Old diners that I love, like the Triple A on Airline, she finds depressing. So why did she like Frank's?

"There's a difference between cheery tacky and hang-yourself-in-the-ladies'-room tacky," she said cryptically. "This place is fun tacky."

I wish Houston businesses would adopt the four-hour lunch break so we could all eat hearty and nap in the heat of the day. But until that happens, the Marlin Roberts summer [Big] breakfast strategy [and skip lunch] is a great way to keep from falling asleep at the wheel.

Huge amounts, cooked while you watch in an extreme old-fashioned diner with a very mixed crowd.

I should be here and here and...

July 8th Tonight
Central Market Cafe, 3815 Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX
on Tuesday, July 8 @ 7:00PM

http://bookcrossing.meetup.com/
http://www.bookcrossing.com/

JULY 9th, 7-10 PM (Wed.)
- First run of the card game 1000 Blank White Cards. Curious? Then join us at Kenny J's Coffeehouse (Nasa Rd. 1 near Clear Lake Park).


Thursday, July 10, 07:00 PM
SE Texas Regional Organizing Meeting
Schlotzsky's, 2929 Kirby
State Coordinator Glen Maxey will visit from Austin to help us review Phase 1 of the campaign, and prepare for the next 3 phases through the state convention.

and a movie Saturday and Church Sunday and I need to go back up to Conroe soon.

Water causes roof collapse at local steakhouse

Three people suffered minor injuries when the roof caved in at the Texas Land & Cattle Steak House, near the Gulf Freeway and Beltway 8 about 12:30 p.m. None of those hurt required transport to a hospital by ambulance.

The roof first fell about five feet into the building, but all occupants escaped before it caved in completely.

Water began leaking from the light fixtures just before the collapse, said Russell Childs, who was making a financial management presentation to about 45 people -- many of them senior citizens -- in the restaurant's meeting room, where most of the damage was centered.

"One leak started, then two, then three. We were trying to move the computer equipment and projector, then the roof came down. It was a deep boom," Childs said.

This had been always a possibility for a CLSFBook group meeting but we decided it sounded too expensive. It has been raining a lot lately. The building was pretty new and there are a lot more new places around there opening.

Shuttle wing breach had happened before

Superheated gases breached the left wing of shuttle Atlantis during its fiery return to earth in hauntingly similar fashion to the demise of Columbia nearly three years later, according to internal NASA documents.

Unlike Columbia, Atlantis suffered no irreparable damage during the May 2000 episode and, after repairs, returned to flight just four months later. NASA ordered fleetwide changes in how employees install protective wing panels and sealant materials.

Engineers found the damage on Atlantis while investigating the mystery of a partially melted insulating tile. Removing two protective wing panels nearby and peering inside the wing structure, they determined the dislodged seal had created "a substantial flow path," according to NASA's internal reports. The gap measured just over one-quarter inch, about the width of a paperclip or a No. 2 pencil.

The protective panels, insulators and other hardware inside the left wing "shows various signs of overheating," NASA reported. Photographs showed charred and scorched components, including parts made from titanium and inconel, two of the most heat-resistant materials on the shuttle. Titanium melts about 3,000 degrees; inconel melts about 2,550 degrees.

Investigators examining Columbia's breakup remain uncertain over the size of the gap that permitted hot gases to penetrate that shuttle's wing. But they believe it was as small as a one-inch slit running vertically up the wing for nearly 30 inches. In a test Monday, a chunk of foam blew open a dramatic 16-inch hole in parts of a mock-up of a shuttle wing.

1000 Blank White Cards

Discordian Rules Here- similar to Fluxx but you have to draw the cards.

A String of Bad Days

I had a wasted trip up to see Dad and Jean Sunday, I called Friday but should have called Sunday morning, I guess. I had offered to take them out to eat near Conroe when I called on Friday but Saturday Dad left a message they would be up at Trinity for the weekend. After the bad traffic and missing a turn I got there a little late and they weren't there. I went out and had dinner and came back but they must have returned to Conroe. There wasn't anything I need doing in Conroe so I figured I'd just wait for next weekend.

Did get a chance to try a new cafe for me, Riverside on Hwy. 19 near Trinity. It is run by granny behind the register and some other family members around with high school kids serving and bussing tables. I got the recommended hamburger steak, very good. It came with mashed potatoes and a mug of dark brown gravy. I had the cheese cake and asked if they had made it. Granny said no it was Sara Lee Institutional - better, bigger, and thicker than you get in stores. The meal came with one bowl from the salad bar and they had congealed pea salad which I like. When I described it to her it seems Pat never heard of it. It's a country pea salad unlike the one I make with peas, onion, cheese and mayonnaise. I've had it many times, must be a southern thing. Hamburger steak meal $7.95, tea $1.00, cheese cake $2.00. I could have had just as good a meal in Pasadena though and saved over four hours travel time.

Saturday members of the two book groups went to the Contemporary Arts Museum to see modern art related to cartoons. They also had another exhibit of large pencil drawings by an astronomer who had made some of them into large paper globes. Afterwards seven out of nine eventually wound up at Souper Salad on Wesleyan. I found out that Brent can get very annoyed when he is hungry. The idiots in the other car were making the decisions and passed many closer places including another Souper Salad.

For Saturday afternoon I saw the Hulk at the $3.00 matinee (stadium seating). I only saw it because of Ang Lee directing and it is a failure. He is a great director and had a lot of money but he failed to learn a lesson from comic books - give the people what they want. You have to wait for half the movie for the Hulk. The movie just didn't work. I would have been really pissed if I paid $8.00 to see it. A lot of stupid movies coming according to the previews with only T-3 and Second-Hand Lions looking decent.

Today I had a call about some charges on my credit card the last few days. I said Fry's and the gas and dinner yesterday were OK but I had not been to Austin or Missouri City and was definitely not spending hundreds of dollars at Home Depot or Lowe's. They had send a new card a few days ago and someone else has it. What is really annoying is that spending that much money at a retail store they should have some type of ID as well.

Great.

Speaking of the Terminator, as I was to someone last night - here is a new X-ray scanner coming soon to an airport near you. Total Recall with the same star had a long scene of people walking by X-ray scanners before a fight broke out.

Susan Hallowell, the director of the Transportation Security Administration's security laboratory, allows her body to be X-rayed by the 'backscatter' machine at the Transportation Security Administration in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., Wednesday, June 25, 2003. The machine bounces X-rays off the skin, left, producing a black-and-white image. To the eye, she is dressed in a skirt and blazer in dark, businesslike colors. On the monitor she is naked, except for a gun and a bomb that she hid under her outfit. The government is considering using the technology at airport security checkpoints because the magnetometers now in use cannot detect plastic weapons or substances used in explosives. (AP Photo/Brian Branch-Price)

I have used this a couple times recently so I should post it here.

There is a new name for smart fashionable straight men in cities - Metrosexuals come out.

Getting pedicures and participating in other traditionally female rituals is a matter of pride for the style-conscious straight urban men known as metrosexuals.

Mr. Martinson likes wine bars and enjoys shopping with his gal pals, who have come to trust his eye for color, his knack for seeing when a bag clashes with an outfit, and his understanding of why some women have 47 pairs of black shoes. ("Because they can!" he said.) He said his guy friends have long thought his consumer and grooming habits a little . . . different. But Mr. Martinson, who lives in Manhattan and works in finance, said he's not that different.

"From a personal perspective there was never any doubt what my sexual orientation was," he said. "I'm straight as an arrow."

Harry Potter Book craze hits Pasadena

Only minutes before midnight on Friday, the anticipation was palpable at the Pasadena Barnes and Noble. Hundreds of people pressed toward the front cash registers, knowing the prize for which they had waited so long was almost within their grasp.

"Everybody's got to be civil about this, all right?" a bookstore employee standing atop the counter called out.

When the clock hit 12:01 a.m., the lucky first group rushed to the registers, wallets open. A payment of $17.99 plus tax got them what they desperately wanted - "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth book in J.K. Rowling's best-selling series about the wizarding world.

The Muggles, as Rowling calls them, hung around the store all day to be first in line for the magical book they had preordered possibly months ago. Since noon, Shauna Parsons' sister had stood in line, making 18-year-old Shauna one of the initial people to happily walk out of the store.
She just as happily waited, however.

"All the people and all the little kids over a book - it's fun," she said. "Not selling it until 12:01 just adds to the excitement."

There is a contest on my other game site but you almost have to know Civilization 3.

You can win a free copy of World Wargamer Pack - a collection of some of the best wargames available. The collection includes:

Return to Castle Wolfenstein - "A must have game of the year"
Steel Panthers: World at War - "Best 20th Century Era Computer Wargame"
LGeneral - A modern Panzer General successor

To get your free World Wargamer's Pack, all you need to do is to find out and send us the building costs for 7 (seven) city improvements used in the World 2003 scenario.

For each city improvement, you will need to cite 2 Internet sources, along with valid addresses (NO BOOKS/JOURNALS/NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET SOURCES ONLY!). If information for a particular city improvement has already been submitted, you will be notified within 48 hours of your submission.
This competition closes on 30th June 2003. If you submit building costs for 7 unique city improvements by that date, you will be sent a copy of World Wargamer's Pack - at no cost.

More details here.

Pabst is finally on an upswing again as the beer for people who hate marketing.

How do you market a product to people who hate marketing?

The most interesting theory is that P.B.R.'s fan base grew not despite the lack of marketing support, but because of it. The beer industry as a whole spends about $1 billion a year to pitch its product. Most of this advertising, through huge TV campaigns and relentless logo-slathering, is devoted to image-building (not surprising, since Consumer Reports concluded a few years ago that even devoted fans of the megasellers Budweiser and Miller Genuine Draft could rarely tell them apart by taste). Long-neglected P.B.R. had no image. It was just there.

Understanding why some people might find this attractive is easy. The hard part is figuring how to exploit it. The answer that the Pabst Brewing Company has come up with involves cash payments to rowdy bike messengers. And the brewer may be onto something.

Real Vietnamese - Cuttle up to some tasty fish at this heavenly Vietnamese hideaway

Cuttlefish and jellyfish, oh my.

A Dong
Details: Cuttlefish salad: $8.75
Bo luc lac: $7.95
Summer delight: pork, shrimp and jellyfish: $8.75
Summer delight: seafood and jellyfish: $13
Curry goat with baguette $7.75
Where: 10780 Bellaire Boulevard, 281-498-8810. Hours: Daily, 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Scientists gene map Y chromosome - discover more about evolution.

In today's issue of the journal Nature, a 40-person research team describes in detail the "male-specific region" of the Y, which makes up 95 percent of the stubby chromosome. The portrait they paint is of a Yoda-like entity that has physically shriveled over the eons but nevertheless has found a way to keep its unique powers.

Specifically, the Y chromosome has evolved a way to correct harmful mutations -- or preserve and promote useful ones -- without the benefit of having a nearly identical partner with which to trade DNA, as all other chromosomes do.

First, the Y is a "rotten" autosome. Its molecular landscape is littered with the remnants of genes that have not been functional for millions of years. Like hundreds of ancestral Y genes that have disappeared, these fragments may eventually be lost, too.

Sixteen of the genes are in what the researchers call the "X-degenerate region." This is what is left of the ancient pair of autosomes from which the X and Y evolved, and all 16 genes have counterparts that can still be found on the X chromosome. Most have to do with "housekeeping" functions in cells in many organs, not just those involved in reproduction.

Two of the 78 genes are in what the researchers call the "X-transposed region." This is a long stretch of DNA that closely resembles a chunk of the contemporary X chromosome. It was grafted in from the X recently, about 3 million years ago, sometime after chimpanzees and humans diverged. How it got there and why it has proved useful is unknown.

The remaining genes -- about 60 in all -- are located in a number of regions called "ampliconic" because their contents have been amplified and duplicated over time.

The palindromic stretches of DNA can fold back on themselves, lining up the gene pairs in a kind of mirror image. In that position, one of the genes "overwrites" the other, making the two identical if they happen to be different. This can either get rid of a mutation or reproduce it. Natural selection will determine which is better.

H-Town bloggers have an active schedule right now:

Important Dates for their site.

:: JUNE 18th @ 7 PM (Wed.) Tonight!
- International Blog Meetup Day at Brian O'Neill's (5555 Morningside Dr.)

:: JUNE 21st @ 8 PM (Sat.)
Coffee Corner Mike's a cappella group, Lager Rhythms performs at Anderson Fair (Their site has a map to their location)

:: JULY 9th, 7-10 PM (Wed.)
- First run of the card game 1000 Blank White Cards. Curious? Then join us at Kenny J's Coffeehouse (corner of Nasa Rd. 1 and Kirby).

1000 Blank White Cards is relately to Fluxx which I played a couple times last year. Each turn you draw and play cards which change the rules of the game. Same thing with 1000 blank white cards, but you create the rules.

I would like them all but I don't know if I'll go tonight or Saturday and the 9th is too far off.

I have been busy helping with a a new scenario: World 2003 for Civ 3 PTW lately.

I am still Left-Liberal with a personal self-governmnet score of 90% an economic self-goverment of 40%.

Recently

Well, I drove Pat to the airport and agreed to take care of her cats. Since they are down to three from a peak of fifteen years ago and I had recently taken care of my sister and parents animals it was hard to say no. That wasn't too bad. I did stop at Fry's after dropping her at the airport and get the new Pyro Cakewalk Music software - which is not working - it won't rip songs from CDs and the label maker from another company hangs up when trying to load.

While she was gone, I drove Jim and Amy up to my Dad's for a couple of days. The cats only need feeding every other day. We didn't do much. Going there I stopped at Sonic and Sonic had their huge Route 44 limeade with strawberries for 81 cents including tax. We went out to a real good BBQ by Trinity and when leaving a good place for catfish near Huntsville.

His hot tub at Trinity is too shallow and the holes for the bubble jets are too big. Jim, Amy and I played minature golf. I was one behind my brother until he had a hole-in-one on the last hole. That was fun, I couldn't find my Dad's putter so we were playing with a six iron or a wedge. Jim is also left handed and my Dad isn't which I thought was a fair handicap. Spend hours at his house at Seven Coves on the way back trying to figure out why his computer wouldn't open the control panel and then discovered other problems - most of his virus software wouldn't work, on the internet he could not leave his home site, generally slow. Bugbear.

I left saying I would look into corrective actions at home. After dropping Jim and Amy home I went to 1/4 price books with my 20% off card and also dropped over to BookStop which is not nearly as good as it was years ago. I am still protesting $25 for a discount card so I don't go to any B&N stores as much anymore. Bookstop used to be a discount bookstore without the card.

I looked up and tested out the Bugbear fix for Dad and called him. He had got internet working. I found Blogger was mostly down for a couple additional days. Called him back, he says control panel and some of Mcafee virus checking still not working but is not a big deal. I am gonna have to go up Sunday and run the fix again and then do a reinstall of the operating system. Just reinstalling the format file for the control panel didn't work when I was up earlier.

Friday - Sunday I should have been at San Con game con but I just didn't feel like it. Or I could have gone to see Core and the Saturday book club meeting at Fuddruckers. I didn't feel well and curled up with new books and caught up on my news blogger. I have also been helping on this world military situation scenario with some people. I'm supposed to update my links on 3 of these blogs now. They have a contest and will give free game software to people who look up what things cost, like an airport or an entertainment center or a religious center.

Picked Pat up at the airport and paid some bills, my landlord was going to give me a $10 a month incentive to stay from their normal one year rate but her boss had nixed that idea.

Best thing recently was going to the Mucky Duck Tuesday night and having their salad and poppers while listening to Emily Dugas. Great voice and she sang mostly a cappella or with a hand held small drum. Kevin (?????) accompanied her on bass sometimes. She did have a guitar for two songs.

She had big announcements, she had just turned "almost 30" and was pregnant. One of the songs is now in my poetry section.

Send Me to Glory in a Glad Bag

People tell me that I ought to save my money
So that I could be laid away in style,
In a walnut box with all the fancy trimmin's
Vacuum sealed to keep me fresh a while.

cho. But Send me to Glory in a glad bag.
Don't waste a fancy coffin on my bones.
Just put me out on the curb next Tuesday
Let the sanitation union bear me home.

She had played a song based on Stephen Kings Firestarter which is a SF connection, logical since I heard about this performance at the Inner Loop SF Book Club. A big variety of songs; I really like Hold On a spiritual I had never heard - You can’t plow straight an’ keep a-lookin’ back I can't find an online source with her lyrics which is almost expected with some folk songs and spirituals. Still a good time, the irish coffee with chocolate didn't hurt either.

After the performances she offered a chance to sign up on her mailing list but she needs a website. She was the only artist headlining at the Mucky Duck without one.

The Mucky Duck is like that hidden lake where I used to live in Pasadena. For years, twice, I lived within walking distance but it is hidden and I didn't know where it was.

The "100 Greatest Songs of the Past 25 Years," as chosen by VH1.

This made me feel older than normal. Considering that I like the songs I recognize I should listen to the others.

1. Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

2. Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean"

3. Guns N' Roses, "Sweet Child O' Mine"

4. Eminem, "Lose Yourself"

5. U2, "One"

6. Run-D.M.C., "Walk This Way"

7. Prince, "When Doves Cry"

8. Whitney Houston, "I Will Always Love You"

9. The Police, "Every Breath You Take"

10. Madonna, "Like a Virgin"

11. Van Halen, "Jump"

12. Alanis Morissette, "You Oughta Know"

13. TLC, "Waterfalls"

14. Sinead O'Connor, "Nothing Compares 2 U"

15. Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"

16. No Doubt, "Don't Speak"

17. Def Leppard, "Photograph"

18. R.E.M., "Losing My Religion"

19. Public Enemy, "Fight the Power"

20. AC/DC, "You Shook Me All Night Long"

21. U2, "With or Without You"

22. Cyndi Lauper, "Time After Time"

23. Prince, "Little Red Corvette"

24. Celine Dion, "My Heart Will Go On"

25. Rick James, "Super Freak"

26. Bon Jovi, "Livin' on a Prayer"

27. Grandmaster Flash, "The Message"

28. Britney Spears, "... Baby One More Time"

29. Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the U.S.A."

30. Janet Jackson, "Nasty"

31. Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang"

32. Pearl Jam, "Jeremy"

33. Tina Turner, "What's Love Got to do With It"

34. Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes"

35. The Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight"

36. Joan Jett, "I Love Rock 'n Roll"

37. Alicia Keys, "Fallin'"

38. The Clash, "London Calling"

39. Tom Petty, "Free Fallin'"

40. Michael Jackson, "Beat It"

41. Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Under the Bridge"

42. Blondie, "Heart of Glass"

43. The Go-Go's, "Our Lips Are Sealed"

44. Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"

45. Aerosmith, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"

46. Queen and David Bowie, "Under Pressure"

47. Shania Twain, "You're Still the One"

48. Naughty By Nature, "O.P.P."

49. Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'"

50. Lenny Kravitz, "Are You Gonna Go My Way?"

51. George Michael, "Faith"

52. The Rolling Stones, "Start Me Up"

53. Marvin Gaye, "Sexual Healing"

54. Goo Goo Dolls, "Iris"

55. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"

56. Sheryl Crow, "All I Wanna Do"

57. Eric Clapton, "Tears in Heaven"

58. The Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy & Mase, "Mo Money Mo Problems"

59. Meat Loaf "Paradise By the Dashboard Light"

60. Santana feat. Rob Thomas, "Smooth"

61. Backstreet Boys, "I Want It That Way"

62. Pretenders, "Brass in Pocket"

63. Beck, "Loser"

64. The Knack, "My Sharona"

65. Nelly, "Hot in Herre"

66. Squeeze, "Tempted"

67. John Cougar Mellencamp, "Jack and Diane"

68. Chic, "Good Times"

69. Mary J. Blige, "Real Love"

70. Culture Club, "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me"

71. Dave Matthews Band, "Crash Into Me"

72. John Lennon, "(Just Like) Starting Over"

73. LL Cool J, "Mama Said Knock You Out"

74. Hall & Oates, "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"

75. The Ramones, "I Wanna Be Sedated"

76. Eurythmics, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"

77. Missy Elliott, "Work It"

78. Green Day, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"

79. Destiny's Child, "Say My Name"

80. Duran Duran, "Hungry Like the Wolf"

81. OutKast, "Ms. Jackson"

82. Soft Cell, "Tainted Love"

83. Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas"

84. Radiohead, "Creep"

85. Eminem, "My Name Is"

86. Tracy Chapman, "Fast Car"

87. The Who, "Who Are You"

88. Metallica, "Enter Sandman"

89. Pat Benatar, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

90. The Police, "Roxanne"

91. Melissa Etheridge, "Come to My Window"

92. Salt-N-Pepa, "Push It"

93. Nine Inch Nails, "Closer"

94. Cheap Trick, "Surrender"

95. Oasis, "Wonderwall"

96. Beastie Boys, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)"

97. Devo, "Whip It"

98. Hanson, "MMMBop"

99. Norah Jones, "Don't Know Why"

100. Madonna, "Ray of Light"

NY Times -- Costs and Risk Clouding Plans to Fix Shuttles

NASA is already working to fix the hardware problems that contributed to the shuttle's fiery break-up on Feb. 1. But the independent board that is investigating the accident has made it clear that the space agency itself also needs fixing. And that will be much harder to do.

Engineers are moving swiftly to prepare the remaining three shuttles to return to space, pressing ahead with a redesign of key components of the external fuel tank and discussing new ways to apply foam insulation and to repair the orbiter in flight.

The board has determined, however, that the accident was largely caused by failures of decision making and communications at NASA that amount to systemic trouble in the space agency. The board is getting ready to call for changes that would require a major infusion of money to rejuvenate the program.

Once the 'Eighth Wonder,' Astrodome Now a Relic (washingtonpost.com)