please come breed with me

via routes game
discover the secrets in YOUR genes
(and i'm telling you breeding is addicting)

my breeder is at the bottom of this web page OR you can befriend me on facebook (i'm actually trying to get MORE friends than stink bomb who is a stuffed animal i might add) where i am known as rose bush (yes, i am)

found via wonderland

here's the press release

Routes is an eight week cross-platform game that debuts online from Channel 4 Education. Routes, produced in partnership with the Wellcome Trust, takes players on an immersive journey into the world of genetics, evolution and the human genome, in a bid to find out what makes us human.

Embedded in the game, award-winning comedian Katherine Ryan explores her own genetic make-up, and tests her DNA to find out whether it is her genes or her environment that define who she is. Can genes make you fat? Do they hide critical information about disease? Can Katherine blame her genetic make-up for the fact that she gets drunk on two beers?

As players delve deeper they are forced to explore these questions by solving puzzles, playing mini games, trading tips and collaborating on challenges, and as the broader game unravels the players will uncover a compelling mystery that lies at the heart of Routes itself. Who owns your genes? What are the pros and cons of exploring your genetic make-up? Do your genes determine who you are, or does our environment play a greater role?

The Routes website goes live in January 2009 at www.routesgame.com

a shout out to

the goshen volunteer fire department AND dr katherine skiff kane!

Harrowing Horse Rescue
By LAUREN PETTY
Kim Garcia snuggles the horse she used to call Smoky. Now she's nicknamed him Frosty, after a nearly fatal fall through the ice.
"I could just see his nose and eyes," her husband, Bob Garcia said.

It was Bob who found the horse Tuesday night nearly submerged in a pond on their property. The horse had fallen through a beaver hole. "I just ran over and grabbed him and started screaming for my wife," Garcia said.

Kim called 911 and Bob held on until Goshen Volunteer Firefighters arrived and helped pull the horse out of the water.

They put the 450-pound horse on a big red tarp and dragged the horse 150 yards to the barn.
"My wife and firefighters started rubbing him down with dry comforters off the beds in the houses," Garcia said.

The rescuers tried to warm the horse by covering him with blankets until the veterinarian, Dr. Katherine Skiff Kane, arrived. ...........











picture:

Goshen Fire Department
A six-month-old horse, pictured here, was rescued from an icy pond in Goshen on Tuesday.

it's blog for choice day

it's also the anniversary of roe v wade.

the topic this year is:
What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

i'll tell you what mine is, if you tell me what yours is!

first off, i'm going to start by saying (as i always start off by saying.....) i am NOT pro-abortion. what i AM is; PRO-CHOICE. my body and my sisters' bodies are our own. it's OUR decision.

as we used to say back in the day, KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF OF MY BODY

here we go

my hope for president obama and the congress (and everyone else) is: (and this is THE most important thing regarding choice. when one is WELL informed and WELL education about ALL OF THE CHOICES, one can make THE BEST decision possible)

STOP WASTING MONEY ON ABSTINENCE ONLY EDUCATION. not only does it NOT work (how many times do studies have to prove that i ask you?) it also stops our children and our teens from learning about birth control and safer sex practices. both are absolutely essential for a healthy society and culture. since abstinence does NOT work, would you rather have your sons and daughters practicing birth control and safer sex than getting pregnant and/or contracting stds? i know what my choice is: teach our children well. teach our children thoroughly. teach our children ALL of the options NOT just the ONE THAT DOESN'T WORK.

comprehensive sex education for all (and yes, this includes all the nations we help with this. hiv/aids funding. when we dish out that dough we make ABSTINENCE ONLY preaching a condition. that is RIDICULOUS)

blog for choice 2009
pro choice america

aha!

thanks to truthout we have another copy! yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh

wow

i can't IMAGINE sending home a permission slip on this one.

like helen outlines, we used to watch that crappy tv that was rolled into our classroom(s) for important events. space launches, perhaps an important figure coming to america and absolutely FOR SURE A PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION. this IS america NO? (this is america YES). what bullshite about some religions don't 'believe' in elections. fine don't vote BUT AS A STUDENT IN AN AMERICAN SCHOOL ONE MUST LEARN ABOUT OUR GOVERNMENTAL PROCESSES. of course i'm NOT buying the religions reason 'excuse' by one bit. i'm also with helen on this one, even if it was ANOTHER bush in the white house, it is IMPERATIVE our children watch the inauguration. period

don't they have civics? hmmmmmmm
do we need permission slips to teach our children american history? wtf??????????????

Schools Don't Need Permission To Let Kids Witness History
Helen Ubiñas
Erin Scafe has signed so many permission slips for her kids it's become almost automatic. Yes, they can go on that field trip. How much? Sure, they're in for a bag lunch.

But the slip she recently got from Windsor's Clover Street School was different.

After some information about Tuesday's bag lunches, there was a question about fourth- and fifth-graders watching the presidential inauguration.

The school offered two options: I give my child permission. I don't.
Scafe was confused. Permission?

Shouldn't children be expected to be interested in American politics?

She scribbled her disappointment on the slip and suggested that it was a horrible mistake and very disturbing. It's not that she thinks it's racially or politically motivated, she later told me. She just can't imagine what the motivation could be. It's not a districtwide policy or anything.

"This is not a choice. This is what I expect from my educators. This is a public school."

Scafe's an unabashed Obama supporter. But, she said, she would have expected her children to watch the inauguration at school even if John McCain had won.

After we spoke, I was equally puzzled. Have we gotten so PC or partisan that we've completely lost our perspective?...........

i've seen the promised land

MLK: Why I Cannot Be Silent

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us............