Strange Spam

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Not that I look at all the spam I get, but I do like to occasionally look to see if the amount is abating or to see the email addresses that are receiving the spam. Just recently I started to get some really strange ones. In order to try and bypass spam filters, spammers are attempting to mask the spam with pictures, crazy spellings, “hidden” poetry or meaningless phrases, etc. It seems the more they try to obscure the fact that it is spam, the harder it gets to actually attempt to understand what they are selling. The latest spam was sent to one of my email aliases. Why anyone would buy the stock this guy is pumping, I have no idea.

R’umor N.e.w’s+:

Onco-*logy M,e+d+. I.n.c_. (OT C: ON CO) a Can cer Tr.,eatment Solutio+n’s Gro_up is s a.i.d to h a+v-e
ex-per’ienced o*v,e-r a 1*000% in crea.se in re,ven.ues f,o+r t*h_e fi.scal 3_r+d quar’ter end.ing J’u*l-y-,

2.0+0.7 comp are*d w_i+t.h t.h*e p,rior y e_a r w+hile fisc*al fou*rth quart*er r*esults f+o*r 2 0*0-7 a r,e on
t*rack to e’xceed t_h+i’s yea+r’s t_hird q’uarter result’s.

O-N+C,O a_ddi’tionally plan s to incre-‘ase serv.ice offe.ring_s whi’ch a-r’e cur*.rently underway +.
Do*n’t w a i,t f.o’r t+h’e n_e-w’s to c+o-m-e o.u-t a+n_d l_o_s_e t*h-e opport_un,ity to g*e,t in fr_ont of the

g eneral inve_s.ting publ’ic. On’colog-y M e’d is in a mu-ltibilli+on do*llar in.du’stry w_h_e_r+e

t-h+e y a r*e g aining mar-ket sha+re rapidly*.

C,a l’l y+o,u r brok,er n’o w f_o-r O+N.C O*.

I’ve received this email multiple times with these subjects: nglawyer; avedevir (Google search brings up some strange sites full of random text); ergytihw; and tsetuats.

If you work really hard you can just barely read about the stock.

What is Russia doing?

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Or I guess I could say, “What is Putin doing?”

Vladimir Putin dropped two bombs this week. One, literally, tested a ferocious explosive device. The other – his naming of a virtual unknown as prime minister and potential heir – was a political shock. The flash from both illumines his own power, and his quest to restore Russia’s greatness. Unpredictable Putin

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This is all about elections next year. Putin is not allowed to run again. So what does he do? He picks his prime minister, a complete nobody–he was a crony in St. Petersburg, and he is a loyalist–to become the prime minister. And he might be a candidate next year.

The way that Putin entered office was that Yeltsin at the end of his second term appointed Putin, also obscure at the time, as the prime minister, and then in about a year he became the president.

The most important event in Russia in the last few weeks was the release of the Putin vacation pictures, the ones we saw a few weeks ago, which all of a sudden exploded on soviet Russian TV, which Putin controls, showing him shirtless on vacation in Siberia like the Marlboro man.

This is essentially saying to the Russians here is a young, vigorous president with good abs. Why would you not want to have him returned? Even though the constitution says he can’t, unlike Yeltsin, who was old and dying and decrepit at the end of his second term.

This is all about how Putin holds on to power. And, presumably, he might have a factotum like, this new guy, this unknown guy in office for a couple of years. He resigned and Putin is allowed to come back and run again, and almost indefinitely. Special Report Roundtable: Putin’s Russia

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Now, about that other bomb, the world’s most powerful nonnuclear bomb. That display of force, dubbed the “father of all bombs,” was meant to show up America’s weaker “mother of all bombs.” It’s part of Putin’s push to restore Russian “greatness,” especially militarily.

The 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and the subsequent expansion of NATO put Russia on the defense. Putin tired of that. He’s pouring petro rubles into the military. He’s standing up to the West: using fuel supplies as a political weapon; pulling out of a NATO conventional arms deal; planting the Russian flag on the Arctic seafloor, and last month, suddenly resuming air-bomber patrols over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic. What will Russia pull next? As at home, unpredictability is at work abroad. Unpredictable Putin

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And he is also done things that revive cold war tensions. They are now flying the old fashioned bear bombers. They are obsolete, but nonetheless they are flying against our air defenses in Alaska and against Japanese air defenses in Japan, testing them out. Checking out to see–it is all the old stuff again. Special Report Roundtable: Putin’s Russia

Kind of scary, huh?

A comment on the Iraq troop surge

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How to think about conditions in Iraq, General Petraeus’ testimony before Congress, and what we need to do next – Sep 13, 2007 (comment by William C. Martel, Assoc. Professor of International Security Studies)

The Iraq war is the most critical foreign policy issue facing the American people. For moral, political, and strategic reasons, we cannot afford to suddenly, prematurely withdraw U.S. forces without plunging Iraq into a genocidal sectarian war for which we would be responsible.

For the first time, there are tangible signs of progress.

First, violence is down across Iraq, as virtually all studies show. In General Petraeus’ testimony yesterday, his chart “Iraq Violence Trends” shows less violence in Baghdad and several provinces. The number of “High Profile Attacks” is down. Overall, the number of daily attacks against US/coalition forces and Iraqi civilians declined between August 2006 and now.

Here at home, violence in Iraq is the primary measure used by policymakers and citizens to judge conditions in Iraq. With the US troop surge, there are signs — tentative, but nonetheless promising — that something positive might be happening in Iraq.

Second, when we compare General Petraeus’ briefing to Congress with other studies on Iraq, the differences are not significant. Despite differences — reflecting disagreements about data or interpretation — the general consensus is that violence in Iraq is down but still too high, the surge in US troops has helped, while political progress by the Iraqi government remains disappointing.

Third, signs of progress in Iraq give us an opportunity to end political warfare at home. While progress is less than what everyone wants, it provides the basis for a consensus among warring US political factions. For the good of the country, Democrats and Republicans must forge a national consensus on Iraq.

Morally, we cannot leave Iraq without being responsible for a sectarian bloodbath. Politically, we cannot abandon a state to which we committed ourselves. Strategically, we cannot afford chaos in the Middle East, which produces 20 percent of the oil we use every day.

Where do we go from here? With signs of progress, the right thing is to give Iraqis a “decent interval” for reconciliation. We must end America’s national spasm of partisan politics and do the right thing for Iraq.

Source

Why I love my homepage

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For the last few years my homepage has been Google News. It provides a quick, simple, unbiased look at the most important news issues. It scours news sites from all over the country and world, from small town newspapers to major news groups like the Associated Press and the New York Times. They’ve recently updated their site to decrease redundancy by linking to original stories from the source. So, “instead of 20 ‘different’ articles (which actually used the exact same content), [Google News will show] the definitive original copy and give credit to the original journalist.” By removing the duplicate articles, more space on Google News will be taken up with original stories and viewpoints from around the world.
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Photon Propulsion Breakthrough

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Bae’s Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) demonstration produced a photon thrust of 35 uN, which is sufficient for several space missions currently envisioned, and is scalable to achieve much greater photon thrust for future space missions. Applications for PLT include: highly precise satellite formation flying configurations for building large synthetic apertures in space for earth or space observation, precision contaminant-free spacecraft docking operations, and propelling spacecraft to unprecedented speeds greater than 100 km/sec.

Bae, looking forward with anticipation, observes, “This is the tip of the iceberg. PLT has immense potential for the aerospace industry. For example, PLT powered spacecraft could transit the 100 million km to Mars in less than a week.” Several aerospace players have expressed intent to collaborate with the Bae Institute to further develop and integrate PLT into civilian, military, and commercial space systems.

Source: Photon Propulsion Breakthrough Could Cut Mars Transit From Six Months to a Week
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Should Google Go Nuclear?

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Google Tech Talks November 9, 2006

ABSTRACT This is not your father’s fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional … all » thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that’s been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects.

Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), has spent 17 years perfecting IEC, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal… until now.

Dr. Bussard will discuss his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the scanning television).

Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google’s annual electricity bill? Come see what’s possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd.

Source (link to video): Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really)

Message board thread: Interesting fusion talk at google with space related aspects

I haven’t finished watching the video yet (it’s over 1 hour 30 mins) but what I’ve seen looks very interesting. This is not some creating energy from nothing free energy technology, but actual science. I’d love to see his further research get funded.

Diluting medicine: Homeopathy

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Homeopathy is a controversial form of alternative medicine that aims to treat “like with like”. Substances that cause symptoms similar to the disease in large quantities are heavily diluted, with shaking at each stage of the dilution. Homeopaths contend that the shaking causes some imprint (or memory) of the diluted substance, despite the fact that at many common homeopathic dilutions, no molecules of the original substance are likely to remain. Homeopathy is based on a vitalist world view, which sees the underlying causes of sickness as imbalances in a hypothetical vital force and claims that homeopathic treatment can harmonize and re-balance the vital force in the body, so restoring health, which is unsupported by modern biology or medicine.

Source: Wikipedia

Disclaimer: I am a student of allopathic medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. (The allopathic doctor is an MD, while a similar legally-recognized medical doctor of osteopathy receives a DO.) Since allopathic medicine is a term for scientific, research-based orthodox medicine, I am inherently biased against “medicine” that does not have a scientific basis.

Article that got me started reading about homeopathy: Diluting the scientific method: Ars looks at homeopathy

Homeopathy “works” in the sense that it won’t hurt you (unless it limits access to necessary medicine or treatment) since you are drinking pure water as a cure and its “official” recognition in the past (and surprisingly even today) offers a strong placebo effect. When homeopathy became popular, the other main medical treatment was bloodletting. It makes sense that drinking pure water would be more beneficial than bloodletting in most cases. Homeopaths believe that “like cures like.” Therefore, they find a chemical that is felt to cause the illness and then dilute it in water. They feel that the greater the dilution, the greater the benefit of the chemical. So, substances in strong concentrations are bad, while the more highly diluted a substance is, the better it is for you. (Arndt-Schulz rule) The funny part is that the dilutions are so great that it is impossible (with today’s technology) to detect any trace of the substance in the water. Homeopaths claim that the shaking after each dilution imparts the substance’s properties into the water. The water supposedly retains a memory of the substance and this is how the medication works. “Water memory” is shown in the second video below to be false. You’ll also see in the video that the “weaker” dilutions are so great that it is equivalent to adding one drop of the substance to all the oceans of the world. The “Homeopathy Explained” video explains it with an even more incredible analogy. How anyone can believe this I don’t know…
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