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Judge Upholds Barring Unvaccinated Students During Illnesses
Under state law, parents claiming religious exemptions do not have to prove their faith opposes vaccines, but they must provide a written explanation of a "genuine and sincere" religious objection, which school officials can accept or reject. One plaintiff, Dina Check, says that the city had improperly denied her 7-year-old daughter a religious exemption. Check says she rejected vaccination after her daughter was "intoxicated" by a few shots during infancy, which she said caused an onslaught of food and milk allergies, rashes and infections. Combined with a religious revelation she had during the difficult pregnancy, she said, the experience turned her away from medicine. "Disease is pestilence and pestilence is from the devil," says Check. "The devil is germs and disease, which is cancer and any of those things that can take you down. But if you trust in the Lord, these things cannot come near you."
Ohio, which granted more than three times as many religious and philosophical exemptions to kindergarten students last year as it did in 2000, is struggling to contain a measles outbreak that has recently spread to 339 Amish people who were largely unvaccinated. The outbreak began after Amish missionaries returned from the Philippines. The Philippines is experiencing a large, ongoing measles outbreak with more than 26,000 cases reported, according to CDC.
Chinese Signal Jammer Vendor Fined $34.9 M
"Signal jamming devices (also referred to as signal jammers) operate by transmitting powerful radio signals that overpower, jam, or interfere with authorized communications. While these devices have been marketed with increasing frequency over the Internet, they have no lawful consumer use in the United States. Jammers are not only designed to impede authorized communications and thereby interfere with the rights of legitimate spectrum users and the general public, their operations also place the safety of the public at risk," per the FCC document.
There are numerous jammers offered on the CTS site, ranging in size from handheld to a rolling suitcase. One handheld model, made in Guangdong, China, and priced at US$240, is advertised as having a range of 20 meters, "ideal for a large room, restaurant, cinema ... Or whilst having a conversation and you want to eliminate others from using mobile telephones." A larger, stationary model with eight antennas is said to cover "all of the popular wireless RF signals including, 2G/3G/4G mobile phone, WiFi Bluetooth, UHF, VHF, GPS, LoJack, remote control and so on."
Can Obama Save the Bees?
Friends of the Earth says that the US needs to immediately ban the use of neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides chemically similar to nicotine that has been linked to bee deaths. "The administration should prevent the release and use of these toxic pesticides until determined safe," says Erich Pica whose organization is conducting a campaign and has collected more than half a million petition signatures asking Home Depot and Lowe's to stop selling plants treated with neonicotinoids (neonics). So why isn't the US moving more quickly to ban neonics? Neonics play "a major role in pest management for pest control, agriculture and the ornamental plant protection industries. They serve as a group of highly effective insecticides with low risk to people and birds, which can be applied systemically to the soil," notes a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension blogger. This is a safer, better pesticide than many alternatives.
Another reason to hold off on a ban: There are still doubts that neonics are the principal cause of bee colony collapse. "In other words, while neonics might be one of the precipitating causes, they might not be the principle cause of CCD in the US and Europe," says David Clark Scott. "Saving the honey bees may require a more complex solution than banning one group of insecticides. And it may require more investigation into other possible causes of CCD, including parasites, viruses, climate change, bee nutrition, lack of genetic diversity and bee keeping practices."
Mars, Ho! Chapter Twenty Five
Note: There will be a chapter inserted between chapters nine and ten. Chapters have been renumbered in the manuscript.
Animals
Destiny was already awake and dressed when I got up the next morning. I'm glad she was there or I might have overslept.
"Are you going to sleep all day? Your breakfast is going to get cold. I'm eating."
I groaned, rolled out of bed, put on a robe and followed her to the dining room. She'd made coffee and had the robots make French toast, bacon, and tater tots. I didn't feel like tater tots. "What time is it?" I asked.
She laughed. "You need a clock right there on the wall! Computer, what time is it?"
The computer said "The time is seven twenty eight." Good, plenty of time. I finished eating and took a quick shower and started my morning chores about five minutes early. This time two of the computers disagreed with the other two. Two said "systems were nominal", one said that engine sixty four was getting three volts too much and the other said number sixty four was two volts short. Oh, well, I was going to have to walk the stairs anyway, so I decided I'd get engine and generator inspections out of the way first. Even though two or three volts was almost nothing when you're talking terrawatts.
As I passed the commons Lek walked up, the one that talked English kind of okay.
"Captain Knolls?" she said, which confused me because the whores usually called me "Joe" even though my name is John.
"Lek?" I said, "how can I help?" I read Tammy's book, I didn't want to piss these dropheads off.
"Look, Captain, you surely know what not having drops does to us by now."
I almost said "I ain't got no drops, bitch" but I didn't. Instead I said "You're short of drops? Look, talk to..." Damn, I almost screwed up and gave Tammy away. Damn it, John!
"Uh," I continued. "You need drops? Look, Lek, I finally get it. I do inspections and can confiscate..."
"No," she said, "It's Sparkle. She going to..." she hung her head. "Buddha, but I really hate myself. I not human without drops! What has happened to me? But Sparkle need drops or she be dangerous wild animal."
I really felt sorry for these women. I didn't think of them as whores any more, life had really kicked their asses. Tammy's book had really opened my eyes. Poor women. I called her on my fone, but she was already on it.
"Tammy, could you get some..."
"Drops to Sparkle?" she interrupted.
"Yeah. Is she..."
"She's okay. Now, anyway. But John, even though I knew, thanks. Please, if it comes up again call me, don't hesitate!"
"Jesus, Tammy," I said, "Of course I will, after I read your book I know how dangerous a dropless drophead is."
I finished walking down the hall to the stairs, then down that five damned flights. Most of this boat is engines. Second is generators, the generators take up more space than quarters and storage, and storage is as big as quarters.
I checked number sixty four first, of course. It read normal. I almost logged that, but it suddenly dropped two volts, then immediately to a two and a half volt overvoltage. Bill told me once that that usually meant a bad connection, he's kind of a nerd.
It's good to know nerds.
I shut sixty four down like the book says, then inspected the rest of them. I don't know why I have to check the port generator, since it's broke, but I do so I did.
The starboard generator was fine.
The damned alarm went off. Fire in cargo seven. I didn't know whether to cuss the damned whores or the damned stupid engineers who design shit that catches fire and have emergency drills when there's a real emergency.
I fucking hate it when there's an emergency upstairs when I'm downstairs. I have to run up five flights of stairs. Yeah, we're at half gravity now but it goes down slow, after the first day you don't really notice it dropping. The droppers hadn't complained, except when it had sudden changes like when we sped up to beat the rocks. I'm just glad I didn't have to run up the stairs that day I was climbing around outside. Oh, wait, I did, didn't I?
I wished we were at zero G, I could have made it to the top in seconds. But then, of course, the women would kill me.
The red light was flashing on cargo seven. "Computer, is there anybody in there?"
"Parse error, please rephrase question."
God damned computer. "Is cargo seven, uh, occupied?"
"Negative." That was a relief; not only does the company get pissed off when cargo was damaged, these weren't just cargo, they were people. Human beings.
At least, they were human when they had their drops. What Lek said was spooky, like one of those old horror movies Destiny likes, the old two dimensional ones with werewolves and vampires and no colors. I kind of shivered a little.
The flashing light went out and I went in. There was a burned up maid in the room. Hell, was it noon already?
Another burned up... wait, what was the number on that thing? R2? That's the same maid that burned up before. Whoever programs the robots that repair the other robots needs an ass kicking, or at least an ass chewing.
I pulled out my fone. "Computer, take R2 out of service until the Martian maintenance."
"Acknowledged." Another robot dragged it off to storage, and a third started noisily cleaning up the mess.
I went to the commons, which right now was a restaurant with robot waiters and robot cooks and about a hundred naked women. I thought "I'm going to start inspecting cargo at meal time!" Not that these girls eat much, except the fat blonde with the German accent. They slept more than anything.
"Attention," I yelled. They ignored me, the din continued. I pulled out my fone and addressed the PA, they can't ignore that.
"Attention, ladies, who lives in number seven?"
"That's Crystal," one of them said.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know. Oh, there she is," she said as another woman walked in.
"Where have you been?" I demanded. "You're supposed to go to the commons when your quarters catch fire."
"What?" she said, startled. "My quarters caught fire? I was in Leslie's cabin and got hungry. Is my stuff okay?"
What stuff? "Yeah, the only thing that burned was the maid."
"Good, I hate that noisy damned thing! Robot, I want a ham and cheese sandwich and a chocolate shake."
I finished inspection by one thirty and was starved by then. Destiny called. "Where are you? I'm starved," she said.
"Walking back to our apartment," I said. Oh, shut up you two, that's what I said. I told you I don't want that "professional" shit, I ain't no God damned professional.
We had pizza and beer and watched an ancient comedy called Blazing Saddles and I didn't understand a lot of it, but some parts were funny. Destiny thought it was hilarious, and told me to read some history.
Orbital mechanics problem solved!
First, I want to thank you folks for your suggestions, although I didn't see them until I logged in this morning. The answer came to me last night when I was sitting on my porch with a beer in my hand and several in my gut.
The answer was simple and I don't know why I hadn't already thought of it, maybe I should drink more. I hacked out maybe 500 words, about half a chapter that will go between the present chapters 9 and 10. I'll post it when there's more than a skeleton, tomorrow is chapter 24.
And the answer was something you guys have probably seen way too many times at work -- corporate bureaucracy and lack of communications. What I wrote last night had the CEO chewing out the head of scheduling, a women with a BS in math who had only taken one physics class, and the head of finance, who held an MBA.
Stopping the boat a couple of times (like to help Captain Kelly) and detours around meteors didn't hurt.
As to the CEO, I have to apologize to you folks for something that may be a bit confusing; I'm changing the CEO's name.
The first germ of an idea for this book came last spring when I was sitting in the beer garden at Felber's talking to a couple of guys about Nobots. I hadn't realized that the patrons there were more literate than the general population, probably half of them read Nobots when I published it.
A few crack whores were walking down the street (it's a pretty bad neighborhood with plenty of characters who make fodder for fiction), and Dewey laughed and said "you ought to write a book about whores in space." I'd never seen a book with space whores, so it might be a unique idea, and writing a book about whores without it being pornography was a challenge.
A few days ago, Dewey said he wanted to be in the book, so I named the CEO after him, even though the Dewey Green in the story is nothing like the real Dewey.
Ask Soylent: Orbital Mechanics
I'm having a math and physics problem: math and physics is getting in the way of the plot in Mars, Ho!
I originally thought it would be a six month trip, but math got in the way since they were getting gravity from propulsion. So I shortened it to a two month trip, and to do that I had to have Earth and Mars on opposite sides of the sun -- but orbital mechanics makes waiting shorten the time.
The best bad way around it I can see is a little hand-waving, with the captain wondering why the company didn't wait a week to launch. But I'm not satisfied with this. Does anybody have any ideas?
Nanodegrees: A Smart Way to Skip College in Pursuit of a Job
"We are designing nanodegrees as the most compact and relevant curriculum to qualify you for a job," says Udacity. "The sole goal is to help students advance their career: whether it's landing their next job, their next project, or their next promotion. It should take a working student about 6-12 months to complete without having to take time off. We will teach all the necessary skills together with why those skills matter along with career guidance. In other words, you won't just learn *how* to code, but also *why.*"
Teaching Creationism as Science Banned in UK
The United Kingdom's position on creationism in the classroom and public discourse is an interesting contrast to the United States', where celebrity scientist BIll Nye engages in public debate about the validity of creationism and two states, South Carolina and Missouri, saw anti-evolution bills proposed in the last month.
Patent Office Strips Redskins of Trademark as 'Disparaging'
Team owner Daniel Snyder has been standing firm. In a statement, Bob Raskopf, a trademark lawyer for the team, pointed to a similar decision in 1999 that was reversed years later. "We've seen this story before," he said. "And just like last time, today's ruling will have no effect at all on the team's ownership of and right to use the Redskins name and logo. We are confident we will prevail once again, and that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's divided ruling will be overturned on appeal."
Mars, Ho! Chapter Twenty Three
Junk
I felt pretty good the next day when I woke up. Destiny was still asleep, so I started coffee, told the robot to make breakfast and no robot coffee, damn it! And took a shower.
Huh? Bacon, eggs, and hash browns for two. Destiny would be awake by the time I got out of the shower. Huh? Why? Over easy. Christ, guys! What difference does it make how the God damned eggs are cooked?
She was just waking up as I got dressed. "Hungry?" I asked. "I made coffee and the robots are making breakfast."
"I'll probably be hungry when my stomach wakes up. What time is it?"
"About seven thirty, we have a half hour before I have to go to work."
"Is the coffee done?"
"It should be by now, I started it before I got in the shower."
"Well, I guess I'll get up, then," she said grinning, and got up.
She put the news on the video... or is that "olds" since it's the same old shit? There was something on it about pirates, they had arrested thirty after a firefight on Earth, and fifty pirates and twenty policemen died. Hell, I killed hundreds of the bastards just throwing rocks at 'em. And only the bad guys died.
Stupid news.
Destiny I weren't paying attention to it anyway. Five 'til eight I went to the pilot room to make sure we weren't going too fast or too slow or the wrong way and started my inspections.
There was arguing coming from the commons, damn it. I stopped and called Destiny. "Hon, could you call Tammy and have her handle these crazy women?"
"Sure, what are they doing?"
"They act like they need drops."
"Okay, I'll call her."
I decided to inspect the commons last. I didn't need a dropless whore.
For once the cargo didn't give me any trouble in inspection; they were all asleep and the doorbells didn't wake them up.
Odd, what with the commotion in the commons.
When I went into the passenger section there was a funny smell in number eighteen. Burning insulation, it smelled like. I got out fast and pulled out my fone; systems should have seen that and fixed it already.
"Computer, fire in number eighteen."
"There is no fire in cargo eighteen."
"PASSENGER eighteen you stupid computer!"
"There is no fire in..." There was an explosion in eighteen! Shit!
"Computer," I said as alarms went off. "Report."
"Fire in passenger eighteen" it said as the door light flashed red. "Fire suppression technologies in play."
Damned computer. "Cause of fire?" It had smelled like an electrical short circuit to me, ozone and burned plastic. They don't make these boats like they used to. This was the third damned fire on this ship! It wasn't a brand new boat, thank God, or the damned robots would talk. But the ones with three generators, the old ones that got retrofitted with fusion generators, almost never had electrical problems.
"Unknown at this time," the stupid computer said. Stupid computer, something shorted out and a fuse should have blown but didn't. Same as the port generator, it should have shut itself down before it caught fire and melted lots of the parts.
I decided to investigate later. "Computer, do not repair until ordered by me. Continue fire suppression and keep the door locked.
"Acknowledged," it said. Why do them damned things talk like that? I'm glad my robots are old, I hate talking robots.
Well, except that the old ones catch fire. That's never any fun.
I inspected the good generator, the ion engines, and the messed up generator. One robot was working on engine One Thirty Two and I noted it in the log.
Back at P18 the light was no longer flashing, so I went in. Yep, a burned up panel. I opened it, it was fried; something had shorted. I logged it.
This shit didn't use to happen on old boats.
I went to the commons and finally inspected it. The commotion was over.
I went home and had lunch with Destiny. "What was going on in the commons?" I asked.
"Thieves. You read Tammy's book, most of these girls had criminal parents and stealing is normal for them. Well, there were about fifty of them that had all their drops stolen and were in the commons accusing each other of stealing, when the thieves were all asleep. Tammy took care of it."
"I'm sure glad we have her," I said.
"Me too," she agreed. "Do you have to work this afternoon?"
"I hope not. Not unless something breaks or the whores act up or pirates attack or..."
"Okay," she said laughing. "I get it. Want to watch something?"
"Sure. Pick something."
"How about..." she started before an alarm went off.
"You jinxed me," I said, grinning. "Damned dropheads!"
It was another fire, this time in P19. Why in the hell are unoccupied quarters powered? It don't make no sense. It's a fire hazard, especially the shitty way they build boats these days, glad I didn't get a brand new one. I'll bet they're even worse than this one, and it's only ten years old.
But it wasn't a real fire, just a drill, there only to waste my free time and annoy me. I have enough real emergencies that I don't need no drills. The company's programmers are idiots.
