Isla

Dental Implants Could Be Grown Inside Patients' Mouth

Israel Attacks Aid Ship, Kills At Least Ten Civilains
"It hardly seemed possible for Israel -- after its brutal devastation of Gaza and its ongoing blockade -- to engage in more heinous and repugnant crimes. But by attacking a flotilla in international waters carrying humanitarian aid, and slaughtering at least 10 people, Israel has managed to do exactly that. If Israel's goal were to provoke as much disgust and contempt for it as possible, it's hard to imagine how it could be doing a better job."

Israeli Commandos Kill 10 During Raid on Aid Float
"I think they were trying to defend themselves with whatever they could grab. "Armed" is the wrong word to use for someone with a chair in their hands. "Arms" are items designed specifically for battle (unless you're talking about a human appendage). Any other use of the word is propaganda.

If the Israeli government was trying to avoid violence then why didn't they first send unarmed negotiators to inspect the contents of the ship before sending in heavily armed commandos? It doesn't add up. This seems more they were putting the world on notice. No aid ships to Gaza or we will kill you."

Edie

BP Spill Officially Worst in US History
BP's Slick Greenwashing
BP: The Worst Safety and Environmental Record of All Oil Companies Operating in the US
Revealed: The Real Cost of BP Profits

The Salt Book
Salt: A Culinary Exploration Event

The Hard Sell on Salt
"I think this is a case where we are our own worst enemy. I spent twenty five years in the food service industry as a chef (fifteen as an executive chef) which included three years with General Foods as a product development chef. Twenty years ago at the Culinary Institute of America I was taught that salt is a flavor enhancer, not a flavor. My experience is that the American palate has been corrupted to the point where everything must taste of salt. I use more salt to refill the shakers on the table than I do when cooking in the kitchen. Salt is an acquired taste and we can be weaned from it by simply not adding more to what we eat.

A simple rule that I follow is if you can taste the salt there is too much. (I do like to over salt my eggs, corn and potatoes, but I do that at the table, not in the kitchen.) We can reduce our taste for salt by using less. When dining out, taste your food before you add salt. When cooking at home don't add salt during cooking, reduction will increase the concentration, and something that tastes fine will turn out too salty after cooking for even a short time. Wait until the dish is ready to be served, taste it, and then determine if a pinch of salt will help or hurt. Don't add salt to pre-prepared foods.

It takes a little time to adjust your palate, so give it a try for a week or two and you will notice the difference. Acids like lemon or lime juice and vinegar (lots of flavored vinegars out there) can fool the taste buds. Use less as a rule and your taste buds will thank you. Your health may improve also."

Salt in Packaged Foods

Food Rehab
Melbourne food blogger currently in voluntary Food Rehab due to an excessive and uncontrollable gastronomical addiction: traveling the globe in search of great food. Cure is unknown and unwanted.
Mango and Soursop Jelly Jelly Crush
19 Bowls of What in 5 Hours?

Avery

QUOTE
"What you don’t see are the cameras shoved in my face and the bizarre intrusive questions being asked, or people falling over themselves, screaming and taunting to get a reaction. All you see is an actor or a celebrity lit up by a flash. Its so... The photos are so... I feel like I’m looking at someone being raped. A lot of the time I can't handle it. It's fucked. I never expected that this would be my life."
-Kristen Stewart to Elle Magazine

10 Days in a Carry-On
Block by Block: East 71st Street

Lizette

Louisiana Congressman Breaks Down Talking About Oil Spill: comments
"Stewardship is a two way street, but the people who control the traffic lights are fast asleep. The government is bleeding money like the gulf is bleeding oil and the buck stops at the President's desk.

I trust nobody currently in office, including all the Republicans."

Oil Reaches Louisiana Shores: gallery
Oligarchy: definition

Why the Kendra Wilkinson Sex Tape Should Make You Angry
"This isn't a sex tape, really. It's that thing we talk about that happens to our young women. That thing that we, as grown-ups, write about and research incessantly and condemn broadly, but don't remember so vividly. It's right here on video."

COMMENTS
"LET'S not pretend that releasing a sex tape of somebody without their consent isn't an abusive act. It is. It's a way of asserting power over somebody who should be free of you. It does not matter if the video was "consensual", or she once thought of releasing it herself.

The fact that men feel the right to do that just reinforces what the content of the video does. That the wants and needs of women, their level of comfort or whether or not they're enjoying themselves, doesn't matter. Not anywhere in life, and certainly not in sex."

"PEOPLE watching this tape are watching a young woman learn the same twisted lesson that so many young women are learning without cameras present: sex is not about women's pleasure; for women, sex is a performance.
And that lesson, absorbed by every generation of young people, IS the culture of rape -- and that includes everything from 'If you loved me' to 'It hurts? Just five more minutes...' to 'Shut up and take it'."

"IT'S some weird combination of dreadful and comforting to know that if you bring up coercion and/or assault in a room of only women, nearly all of them will have a story to share. And yet, it doesn't make sense to say that many men are sociopaths, does it? It has to be environmental, please G-d. It's like we are all drinking from a poisoned well."

"I FIND it strange that this video offended you, but porn does not. Because if you listen to porn stars talk about their first few experiences in the industry, almost all of them describe something very similiar to this situtation. That is most of them started at age 18, hardly out of childhood, were pressured by a director, producer, etc. into doing more than they signed up for such as full on porn as opposed to soft-core or stills, were completely uncomfortable and felt awful about it later, but ended up getting addicted to the money or atention and sticking with it

Or are you saying the first time someone pressures them into this it's wrong, but once their self-esteem is so damaged by that experience the pressure is no longer required, it's perfectly ok?

I guess I'm just wondering at what point being pressured and taken advantage of as a teen becomes empowering? When you get the first check?"

"KENDRA is coerced several times into doing something she clearly does not want to do. Because she consents, it is not rape, but it does qualify as sexual assault. It is still wrong. It is still awful.

I think the very worst part of this IS the fact that she's getting paid lots of money. She must know that the money she's receiving is coming from a video of a moment when she was being taken advantage of that millions of people will not only see but find sexually exciting. To be coerced, demeaned and disrespected like that is bad enough, damaging enough, but then for that experience to be denied as horrible and viewed instead as "sexy" or "erotic" would be devastating.

This worries me because I feel like it further promotes the idea that women have to kick, scream and fight for their lives in order to say no. Our voices become much quieter when men learn that all they need to do is PUSH A LITTLE HARDER to get what they want."

"THIS post is depressingly timely for me. I was reviewing my sexual past in my head recently, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that most of my early sexual experiences (including losing my virginity and the majority of the sex I had in college) either started off with me actively not wanting to be there or kind of resigning myself to it. I've been in so many situations where I asked a guy to leave and he wouldn't. Once I tried to push him off the bed and he just stayed put because he was bigger and heavier than me, which was a frightening revelation. Once a guy just crept into my room and lay down in my bed while I was drunk. Many times I had sex with a guy because we had had sex before and he just expected it now. I kept having sex with men I had long since stopped being attracted to because we were "such good friends" and I didn't want to "ruin the relationship." I was shy and anxiety-ridden and felt unattractive, and it was such a self-esteem boost to find out that someone found me attractive that I was afraid to lose their attention.

None of this is shockingly original stuff, but I guess I just found it strange that for most of my life I had thought of my sex life as one way, and all of a sudden it has revealed itself to be a whole lot sadder than I remembered it. God, it's so good to be older and not give a shit what people think anymore. It really improves your sex life!"

"HER making money off of the tape is so fucking irrelevant. It's the content that matters."

"ONE thing that really saddens me is that this post resonated not only with me but with so many other women on this board. This was college for me too. All of my sexual encounters had this sense of insecurity and ambivalence wherein I knew logically that I had a say. Yet underlying so much of the pressure from guys was this assumption, for some, that 'no' meant 'yes.'"

"I WAS with a man once when I was about 19 who I made wear a condom. He took it off right before he came. Slipped his hands down there and off it went.

Of course I figured it out, I thought the condom had broken or leaked. Nope, he took it off. I could have killed him. He rolled over like he was then going to sleep in my bed. I kicked his ass out of my bed and out of my apartment in his tighty-whiteys. I was livid.

But, I've been raped. That wasn't rape. It was a violation of trust, rude, disgusting, and scary, but I still had some power over the situation. I wouldn't have been able to kick him out if I hadn't."

"AFTER the 10th time my ex hit me, I still wasn't able to walk away from the relationship. Courage is a tricky thing in relationships."

"THE fact that I would want the money enough to agree to the commercialization of the rape hasn't got anything to do with the fact that young women like me don't always know how to say no, and that that sucks for us, and hurts."

"YOU'RE talking about a woman who has been taught that her sexuality is a commodity. No amount of dollars can repair that dehumanization."

"I HAVEN'T watched the video, but it's fairly obvious that men are turned on by power, and she could be using this knowledge to her advantage during the filming. Perhaps she was playing a coquettish role intentionally."

"HOW does this man not have broken legs yet?"

"I HATE when people say that women can just "say no and walk away." Rape is often a lot more complicated than that, playing on power and trust. I was not pinned down or physically beaten during mine, but I promise you, I was so freaked out I could not move. Don't be so sure it's black and white."

"JUST because the law has created a definition of something does not mean that that definition is accurate, complete, or necessarily just...To clarify my point: what I am saying is that the only person who is really authorized to judge Kendra's experience is Kendra. If she feels that her experience was not consensual, then it wasn't. If she thinks it was, it was."

Natasha

Actors I Dislike
"Ben Affleck - Almost didn’t make the list because he isn’t an actor. He’s just a lumbering oaf who rode Matt Damon’s coattails into inexplicable notoriety."
Hollywood's Top 10 Weight Loss and Gains

The Runaways: trailer
Trailer 2
Reviews
Review

Crimson & Clover: vid

Melody

In Defense of Food
"Pollan goes into depth to prove why the current North American diet is the absolutely worst diet humankind could have ever come up with."
Michael Pollan

Food, Inc.
"There is an effort to make it illegal to publish any photo of industrial food operation."

9 Food Label Lies
The Dirty Secrets of 6 Scandalous Foods
In E. Coli Fight, Some Strains Are Largely Ignored
Eating Food That's Better for You, Organic or Not
The New Dirty Dozen: 12 Foods to Eat Organic
The Clean 15: Foods You Don't Have to Buy Organic
The Superfood Diet: Real Foods for Real Health
Roasted Elephant Garlic Soup with Grilled Eggplant

You Are Being Lied To
The Book of General Ignorance

Ophelia

The Secret, 700-Million-Gallon Oil Fix That Worked - and Might Save the Gulf
Gulf Oil Spill Disaster: A Closer Look at the Clean-Up Options
Obama Biggest Recipient of BP Cash
Bullfrog Power
"Bullfrog's electricity comes exclusively from wind and hydro facilities that have been certified as low impact by Environment Canada under its EcoLogo program instead of from polluting sources like coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear."

Live from Pop!Tech: Photographer Chris Jordan Says: "Stats Ain't Cutting it"
Plastic at Your Peril
"When you recycle a hazard, you create a hazard."

Sorority Girls Drunkenly Trashed Underground Railroad Museum: comment

Helene

COMMENT
"I think you would rather be smug and think that your current position is all due to how wise and industrious you've been, and are just afraid to acknowledge all the unearned advantages you have.

I'm comfortable. And I have worked for it, yes. But there are people who work a lot harder than I do, and don't get where I am. I got a head start. I have a friend who worked harder than I did in school, and is every bit as smart as I am, but did not have the advantage of having a supportive family, a well-off family, of being white, or speaking English without an accent. I don't deserve to have anything more than she does, but I do.

I've made some good choices, yes. But they were choices that my friend never even had the opportunity to make. And I've made some really bad choices, but have not felt the effects as much as I would have if I did not have money or was not white.

I know that racism, sexism and class difference hold people back, because I've watched it happen. Cause and effect happens on a societal level as well, in the form of patriarchy, institutionalized white supremacy, heteronormativity and other power structures.

The only difference between you and people who do not have a 'comfortable' life is that you were lucky enough to be born to unearned advantage."
[TheAwl.com - Ask "Them": Why Don't You Feel an Obligation to Help the Poor? - 05.21.10]

Dominique

The 38 Essential New York City Shopping Experiences
New York's 10 Best Buildings

Case Study: Fifteen Large and Counting




Stop the Drill: petition
Louisiana Oil Spill: slideshow

Ava

First Truly Synthetic Organism Created
"The Ethical Implications: The creation of the world’s first truly synthetic organism throws up some serious ethical questions. In designing and creating life, they are “playing God” - something that is sure to concern those that believe such practices should remain the province of their deity of choice. The team’s work also challenges the traditional views of what life is and further blurs the line between living things and machines – the synthetic bacterium possesses features of both."

The Scribble: A Doodle Pad that Animates Your Drawings

French Team Smashes Five Year Efficiency Record in Eco-Marathon

Take it Outside: Best Patios in Toronto 2010
The Best Patios in Toronto (2009)

Google Turns Homepage Logo into a Playable Game of Pacman
92 Percent of Canned Goods Contain Bisphenol-A

"The Chinese average only 2 tablespoons a day of soy, as a condiment, not a protein source. Soybeans were field fertilizer until Asia invented fermenting tactics to rid the bean of numerous toxins.

The Chinese eat pork, not soy. The idea that soy is a miracle food was a massive and effective piece of propaganda that is damaging everybody's health. I bought it, too. The FDA in the States even lists soy as a poisonous plant." [NowToronto.com - Letter to the Editor - Aug.08]


Ritalin Linked to 500% Increased Risk of Sudden Death in Children

Scientists Developing Memory-Erasing Drug
Stinking Thinking
Common Thought Distortions
RHONY's Kelly Killoren Bensimon: Paranoid Personality Disorder
"People with paranoid personality disorder are highly suspicious of other people. They also are usually unable to acknowledge their own negative feelings towards other people in any realistic way. They generally do not work well with others, feeling as if they will be exploited or otherwise harmed. When paranoid people are in any way confronted or feel threatened, they tend to respond either by detaching emotionally or reacting with hostility that can even manifest in physical violence."

Portia

Rockstar Daughters
I Blame Coco: music
Caesar: music

Daisy Lowe

Tyler Shields

Kisai Round Trip Pocket Watch Blends the Old with the New

Megan Fox Dropped from 'Transformers 3'
"Please consult your physician when working under my direction because some side effects can occur, such as mild dizziness, intense nausea, suicidal tendencies, depression, minor chest hair growth, random internal hemorrhaging and inability to sleep. As some directors may be hazardous to your health, please consult your doctor to determine if this is right for you.”

Maxine

Tightrope: music
Many Moons: music
I Am, I Be: interview



Undercover Report from Foxconn's Hell Factory
Harvard Faker Was 'Sententious, Crypto-Tendentious,' and Pre-Law: comment
The 4 Hour Work Week: book
The Blog of Tim Ferriss
How We Became a Society of Gluttonous Junk Food Addicts
"It's adult baby food."
Brace Yourself: This is the Tip of the Iceberg for Oil-Induced Enviro Catastrophes
Where Did Wall St. Get the Attitude That it Deserved to Rip Us Off?
"But it is wrong to see the financial crash of 2008 as an isolated phenomenon of Wall Street rapacity. On the contrary. The mentality behind the financial crisis—that making money is the top priority, and that those who can may do whatever they wish to make more of it—permeates every corner of the top reaches of American society. And even if it can be argued that this attitude was tolerable while the U.S. economy was growing, it will clearly tear this society apart if we have now entered an era of prolonged economic stagnation or even decline. For if so, more for those at the top means less for everyone else—including cardiac care which can determine whether one lives or dies."

Noëlle

As the Rush Comes: music
The Drug War Next Door: comment
Comments of the Day: The Liars Club