Monthly Archives: April 2007

Friday Ark #133

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging Weekend Cat Blogging Weekend Dog Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn’t Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 158th edition , 4/1, is up at IMAO. The 159th edition will be hosted on 4/8 by Bad Kitty Cats . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #96 hosted on 4/7-8 by What Did You Eat . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 46th edition is up and hosted by lovely dark and deep. The 47th edition will be hosted on 4/19 by Bell Tower Birding.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 19th edition is up and hosted by Burning Silo. The 20th edition will be hosted at the end of April by, well, it could be you.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat’s Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Fructan You

This entry was posted in Biology Economics Health Care Physiology on by

Or, how to get medications into your colon when needed.
Oral delivery of drugs to treat colon ailments is made problematic by the normal actions of the stomach and small intestine. There is a promising new approach to solving this problem:

Researchers at the University of Guadalajara, in Mexico, have discovered that fruit compounds taken from the blue-agave plant used to make tequila can be employed as an effective method of delivering drugs to the colon. …
It has been known for many years that the blue-agave plant contains a polysaccharide known as fructan, a polymer of fructose. The compound is not hydrolyzed in acidic environments, such as the upper digestive tract, and it’s therefore able to reach the intestine fully intact.

They do not say whether the new medication delivery systems will work better with or without salt and lime.
Hmmm, and will increased demand for the blue-agave for medical purposes drive up the price of tequila?
You bet!

Incarcerated Without Charges

This entry was posted in Health Care Law on by

Most folks, with the notable exception of the bush administration, think it is wrong to incarcerate someone without filing legitimate criminal charges against them. It turns out that there may be others:

County health authorities obtained a court order to lock him up as a danger to the public because he failed to take precautions to avoid infecting others. Specifically, he said he did not heed doctors’ instructions to wear a mask in public.

Radly Balko asks what we should make of a case where it appears that just such an injustice may have occurred:

Now this guy softened the hard question a bit by refusing to take what I’d say were relatively unobtrusive precautionary measures. But I’m curious, what do H&R readers make of the collision of individual rights and the state’s arguable (I’d say convincing) duty to protect us from highly-communicable, untreatable fatal diseases?

The idea that someone who’s done nothing wrong could be condemned to an isolation cell for the remainder of his life is pretty horrifying.

Nothing wrong? The guy has a drug resistant strain of tuberculosis and apparently will not take precautions to protect others from the disease.

His behavior appears to fall into a category like attempted assault, reckless endangerment, etc. If so, charge him, prosecute him and incarcerate him.

There needs to be a set of court vetted rules of law that apply in cases like this and due process needs to apply.

Once convicted and incarcerated then the normal rules of incarceration for this type of behavior need to apply. This may be a bit unacceptable:

He said sheriff’s deputies will not let him take a shower — he cleans himself with wet wipes — and have taken away his television, radio, personal phone and computer.

There is no reason to provide convicted felons televisions, phones, radios or computers. But this guy is not a convicted felon and there should likely be different rules in this type of public health case.

Access basic hygiene should be mandatory.