..:. Cracking My Vainpot .:..

California Overturns Ban on Same-sex Marriage

2008-05-15T23:30:06-05:00

[NRP: California Court Approves Gay Marriage by a 4-3 vote]

* You don't have to be a Cal resident to get marry there.

* This ruling takes effect in 30 days.

YES! Thank you!

Finally, *all* Californians are equal.

Something that neither Hilary Clinton or Barrack Obama dare to even think of. John McCain? Forget it.

Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis, thank you for fighting the battle for all of us. I wish you both a long and happy life together.

"It is a basic civil right to marry someone you love, which include all Californians whether they are gay or hetersexual"

"Our recognition that the constitutional right to marry applies to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples does not diminish any other person’s constitutional rights."

- California Supreme Court 5/15/2008

"Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry."

"I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry."

- the late Mildred Loving, a black woman who successfully challenged Virginia's ban on interracial marriage at the Supreme Court in 1967, despite an overwhelming opposition from the general public.

2 States down. 48 more to go!

[CNN Breaking News]

[Historic Court Ruling]

[A Moment to Remember in SF]

[Across America: Same-sex Marriage]

[Freedom to Marry]

[Equality California]

Help? Because You Can!

2008-05-15T01:07:42-05:00

It took so little time to cause so much deaths, grievance and destructions.

If we can justify spending $100 on a pair of jeans, we can donate $100 to help those in desperate need.

Burma Cyclone Rising Death Toll: 63,000 (UN), 1.5m w/o clean water

Chinese Earthquake Rising Death Toll: 12,000

Don't have any relatives in Sichuan and have never met anybody from Burma. But I still feel their pain, it's human nature.

Charity Navigator

Red Cross

Oxfam

World Vision

Feed the Children

Direct Relief

Foundation Burma

Help... because you can!

Funny Mummy

2008-05-11T20:58:08-05:00
Guess what care package my mum sent me after I came out to her.

Beef jerky lol

I do love her :)

Freaky Little.. Cucumber!

2008-05-13T02:15:28-05:00
What has a cucumber got in common with you and me?

Not that much, I thought. Well ok. All living organisms share the same DNA, using genetic codes that are almost identical. But still... cucumber!?

One good thing about studying biology is that everyday it reminds you how narrow-minded people are.

Time to take a closer look at the 1st revolutionary concept in biology, the cell.

It turns out that the epithelial cell layer that covers the surface of a cucumber look exactly like, for instance, the ones line our gut or those on the wing of a fruit fly.

Although these cells can have different number of sides, most are hexagonal.

Just like in cucumber, you can tell which of your epithelial cells will divide next simply by their shapes.

As these cells age, triangles will become a square, and then, a pentagon, hexagon, etc.

Thanks to some eccentric mathematicians, we now know that heptagonal and octagonal epithelial cells are most likely to divide, whether it's in human being, fruit fly or the humble cucumber :)

The significance of this? Give it another 20 years!

Best of KC (2)

2008-05-16T00:18:50-05:00

Well well well. I'm starting to think there's really nothing that can't happen here in Kansas City.

At a new Paul Taylor dance performance couple of months ago, I saw 2 boys kissing on stage at a high school theater.

Last weekend, this dizzy girl showed me her p*ssy at a straight bar.

This week, we got to see some flag burning at the world premiere of John Brown.

Not in a million years could I have imagined an opera about 19th century Kansas.

But there it was, a 3.5 hour-long brand new production narrating the anti-slavery efforts of controversial abolitionist hero John Brown, who would probably be labelled as a terrorist had he lived in post-9/11 modern days.

Never mind the "God created one race to lead and another to follow" singing dialogues.
Never mind the parades of Warren Jeffs Mormon-like prairie dresses.
Never mind the Arias praising the "lovely appearance of death".
Never mind its complete lack of musicality.
Never mind the fact that this tedious premiere may also be its last showing!

I'm just amazed to find out that the Kansas City region was right in the middle of the anti-slavery tipping point in American history!! That John Brown led a series of murders and raids that eventually triggered the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

To see this story playing out on stage in KC itself was just a unique experience.

This shit hole is special~ :)

Where do they go when it's stormy?

2008-05-05T02:35:59-05:00

Best of KC (1)

2008-05-12T23:29:00-05:00
Out here in the Great Plains, you just can't escape from the angry power of nature.

Honestly, I think that's why people here are so religious. Every time you step out of the house, it feels like some god is trying to punish you with extreme weather.

If we had thunders, the windows would shake so hard it keeps you awake all night long. When there are multiple lightening forks dancing around, the night sky turns into a nonstop laser spectacular. (Didn't know they can run horizontally~!) In fact, I love watching them so much that I moved upstairs to the penthouse :P

Our local weather forecast, is practically a geography text book. The kinda alien vocabulary they use is eye opening:-

Freezing rain, slurry mixed snow, ice storm , arctic air, sleet, black ice, ping pong-sized hail, 170mph wind, mile-wide twister, etc.

You name it, we have it! (with one notable exception, of course. ~the tsunami~)

Oh and did I mention our extreme temperature that loves to yo-yo between sub-zero and three-digits?

Anyway. Checked off one more item from that list today. I just finished grocery shopping when this rather dull siren came on.

May Day TORNADO~!

My 1st warning ever!! That was actually quite cool. Funny that people on the street all looked a bit confused. Surely they couldn't have believed the urban myth that tornados only strike on Sunday afternoons around 4pm?!

Feeling determined, I dragged my saggy arse to the gym as planned, and MY Oh MY!. It was *choke full* of gorgeous men! Never has that place been soooo packed b4. Aren't we supposed to hide in a windowless basement rather than flexing in front of mirror walls? Is this a male thing?? Some whirling charged-clouds induced, Y-chromosome-dependent animal phenomenon?!

Needless to say, I'm already looking 4ward to the next one :)

... well ok, as long as nobody dies.

Connections

2008-04-30T22:32:36-05:00

Just had a lovely work dinner. Our charming guest of honor Dr Bargmann gave a fascinating talk this afternoon. Amongst a dozen of achievements, she discovered a gene that makes worms sociable.

!!

A glass or 2 later, I was bullshiting as usual, about kindergarten philosophy, fruitfly free will and worm consciousness. I even asked her about those flatworms!

It was only *afterwards* that we figured out she was Richard Axel's wife! Lucky I didn't say anything too far out :P

Freaky Little.. Flatworm!

2008-05-13T02:15:48-05:00
Imagine you're clipping away, scattering toe nails everywhere.

Then slowly, each of these filthy (ex) parts of you spontaneously grow into your identical twins.

Freaky.

Well that's flatworm for ya.

Flatworms are truly wonderful creatures, despite their reputation.

If you cut their heads off, they'll just grow a new one back.

In fact, you can put one on a chopping board, dice it into hundreds of little pieces, and each bit will grow back into a full worm~!!

But that's not all.

Some guy back in the 1950s trained flatworms to avoid light by pairing light with electric shocks. He then chopped the buggers into 2 halves and let them grow back into 2 whole worms.

The old tail grew a new head... AND knew it should avoid light!!

Memory storage *outside* the head??!

Totally crazy stuff.

You could even transfer such learning and memory by mincing trained students and feed it to new students!

No kidding. I was hysterical after reading this.

Funny how scientists just sorta "forgot" about these experiments, cos hardly anybody under the age of 75 are aware of them now.

Well may be in 50 years' time, the next next generation too would look back at my work and go, Jez what a nut case what was he thinking!

Source: Durham University

It's Complicated~

2008-04-24T00:55:13-05:00

I never quite trust my eyes, not that I could see very well in the darkroom.

Propping my X-ray film up against the red light bulb, I searched and searched.

Nothing.

There was nothing on it. Where is that signal I saw last time?!

Why?

I couldn't swallow it. There was no chair in the room, so I sat on the floor.

Damn it.

5 minutes later, I picked up myself and did another round of film development.

Still nothing, even the positive control was blank.

Pheww..ww...ww.

The experiment didn't work. That was a false negative!!

Repeat again~