What has Heap Big Lying Squaw been up to lately?

From Townhall.com:

Friendly Reminder: Elizabeth Warren is a Clownish Hypocrite...

By Guy Benson


Quite a headline, I realize, and I won't even mention the screaming conflict between her status as a celebrated Social Justice Warrior and her decision to perpetrate a racial hoax -- whether through reckless sloppiness or willful intent -- in order to advance her own career.  She was never a Native American, but nevertheless, she persisted in claiming that false origin story. Until she became a tenured professor at Harvard, that is.

 As I've discussed at greater length elsewhere, it turns out that celebrity leftists who violate certain lefty pieties are eligible for waivers to wash away their cultural appropriation and privilege-stealing sins. But we won't get into all of that right now. In this post, I'll focus on Sen. Warren's words versus deeds on two other fronts: Equal pay for women, and judicial filibusters. On the former issue, which is often distorted and exploited by Democrats for political gain, Warren has her outraged schtick down to a T. Feel the indignation course through your veins, Liz:


Elizabeth Warren

✔ @SenWarren

#EqualPayDay isn’t a national day of celebration. It’s a national day of embarrassment.

4:51 PM - 12 Apr 2016

• 2,781 2,781 Retweets
• 3,670 3,670 likes

A modest response from yours truly:

    Guy Benson

✔ @guypbenson

 

You paid women on your staff 71% of what the men made last year, based on your own party's demagogic standards:

https://www.google.com/amp/freebeacon.com/issues/elizabeth-warrens-female-staffers-made-71-less-male-staffers-earnings-2016/amp/ …

https://twitter.com/senwarren/status/719991365174734853 …

11:23 AM - 4 Apr 2017

  

Elizabeth Warren’s Female Staffers Made 71% of Male Staffers’ Salaries in 2016

The gender pay gap in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) is nearly 10 percent wider than the nation

freebeacon.com

    925 Retweets

   1,704 likes

I got that data from a Washington Free Beacon review, which used the same parameters they've employed in exposing hypocrisy from the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton:

Women working for Warren were paid just 71 cents for every dollar paid to men during the 2016 fiscal year, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis. The median annual earnings for women staffers, $52,750, was more than $20,000 less than the median annual earnings for men, $73,750, according to the analysis of publicly available Senate data. When calculated using average salaries rather than median, the pay gap expands to just over $26,051, or about 31 percent. Consistent with previous Free Beacon analyses of Senate salary data, only full-time staffers who were employed for the entire period in question were included in the calculations. For example, Warren's former chief of staff Mindy Myers and her male replacement Dan Geldon were not included because neither worked the full year. Among employees employed the entire year, only one woman, Warren's director of scheduling, earned a six-figure salary, at $100,624.88. Five men—Warren's director of oversight and investigations ($156,000), legislative director ($149,458), deputy chief of staff ($119,375), Massachusetts state director ($152,310), and deputy state director ($113,750)—earned more than Warren's highest paid woman staffer in 2016.

When such inconvenient truths are rudely noted by awful people, it's fascinating to watch liberals rediscover the nuances than lurk behind hiring and salary statistics. When a nuance-free blunt object is needed to make a clumsy and misleading political point, they're all about the crude calculations. When they're defending the actions of one of their own, context suddenly becomes more important. Meanwhile, Warren is predictably one of the most enthusiastic participants in the tactically-moronic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch. Because resist, etc. Republicans, she says, are "bullying" Democrats. But here is 2013's Elizabeth Warren, insisting that Democrats must change the Senate rules in the face of (non-historic, not-unprecedented) GOP tactics modeled after Democrats' previous obstructionist inventions:

She also suggested in 2012 that she'd favor nuking the filibuster more broadly, including on legislation, in order to stand up to the banks and oil companies, and other fill-in-the-bank ghouls.  The ends always justify the means.


Editor's note: Though Ms. Warren's position on the filibuster appears to have bounced around from 2012 to 2013 to 2017, one factor that remained constant throughout those years -- and her entire life -- is her race. Warren is a white woman.

Hee-hee.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

During the campaign, Orange Wisdom held that Syria was none of our business and we should let the Russians handle it. Does anybody remember that?

If you think the Orange Clusterfuck really gives a damn about poisoned Syrian babies, you might be a dumbass...


U.S. opens new military front in Syria, launching cruise missiles - LA Times ...



From Fox News:

Syria airstrikes: Mr. Trump, don't forget, those American cruise missiles rely on parts from China...


I'll bet you $20 that sooner or later it will tweet: "Trade is very complicated."

President Trump’s decision to launch Cruise missiles against Syria was made without informing other world leaders, including his guest at Mar-a-Lago, Chinese President Xi Jinping. Does Trump know he wouldn’t have those missiles at his disposal without China?

He should.

The guidance systems on the Tomahawk Cruise missiles used to destroy the air base at Al-Shayrat, rely on rare earth elements (REEs) that are made almost exclusively in China.

Those substances are used to make permanent magnets, which oscillate in the tail fins of the Tomahawks, guiding them accurately to their target. They are also used in fighter jets, precision guidance, radar and antimissile defense systems. Highly developed magnets have proven more reliable than electronic guidance systems.

But just like commercial consumers, the Pentagon is wholly reliant on China for imports of the 17 metals and minerals that are collectively called rare earths because they are usually found together. Having demonstrated his willingness to use military force, Trump must now think about how to ensure that force is always available.

“This is a reminder to the Pentagon that rare earths are used in expendable weaponry,’ says Jeff Green, a defense industry consultant. “And those munitions are used in a shooting war, when supplies are most likely to be cut off.”

It is unlikely that President Xi will suspend deliveries to the United States because of Trump’s action Thursday night in Syria. But the U.S. administration is also talking tough about North Korea, which  recently tested its own version of a Cruise missile and other weapons, in contravention of U.N. sanctions. China is North Korea’s sole patron and keeps it afloat with economic aid.

Should Trump signal to Xi that he is considering military action against North Korea at their Florida summit, China might decide to flex its own muscle. Cutting off America’s supply of REEs might be one way of doing that...

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

From The Deep In The Heart Of Darkness Department comes the official [Seriously. Nobody could make this up.] motto of Washington's other newspaper!

DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS!


The one thing the fascists at the Wa-Po won't ever scream at you is this truth: The blind loyalty of cretins like them is what creates and feeds the darkness that murders freedom and renders the word "democracy" meaningless.

Fuck the AmeriKKKaLast media.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

What bathroom would the female Romeo choose? Answer that, Mz. Wolanin, you coward!

Seriously? A school production of a lesbian version of Romeo and Juliet? The terrorists have indeed won, kiddies, and we pay them to molest our children's minds for good measure.


Forbidden love in 'Romeo and Juliet' at Lancaster Country Day School ...

In “Romeo and Juliet,” love is forbidden because Juliet is a Capulet and Romeo is a Montague.

Many in Verona think these two young people should never have fallen in love. But love is not a choice. It overwhelms you and simply is.

Now, change the pronouns

Make Romeo — still a Montague — a she instead of a he, and watch the tragic story unfold.

That will be the scenario this weekend at Lancaster Country Day School, where the school and Theater of the Seventh Sister are collaborating on a production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

In half the performances, Romeo will be male in a heterosexual romance. In the other half, Romeo will be female in a lesbian romance.

“It’s really been fascinating,” says Kristin Wolanin, director of theater at Country Day and of this production, who’s also playing Lady Capulet. “We are approaching it from different angles within the text.”

Lily Delle-Levine will play Juliet for all four performances.

Cole Stevenson plays the male Romeo on Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. Madison Brown plays the female Romeo on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

“The cool thing about the two casts is, when it comes down to it, it’s the same love story,” Wolanin says. “It’s the same struggle: We can’t be together.”

The idea came when Wolanin was working out themes for the show.

           

“I was looking at the idea that in politics, everyone is fighting with each other. Nobody is respecting other opinions.”

Brilliant!

Nothing quite like hammering conventional group-think into impressionable minds. Obviously a Teacher Of The Year candidate.

Then she started bouncing ideas around with her students.

“(One student said), ‘We need to do something to wake people up, to learn to love each other. Who would care if they were gay?’ ”
Wolanin remembers. “And I wondered, ‘Can we?’ And we decided to have two different stories to tell.”

And, she adds, she knew she had a cast of young actors who could handle the two versions.

“They have been stellar — responsible, responsive, mature, willing to try something new,” Wolanin says. “They are perfect.

       

When the nurse (Cynthia Charles) tells Juliet that female Romeo is a bad choice, she is questioning Juliet about her sexuality as well as her choice of Romeo.

Early in the play, before Romeo has met Juliet, he/she has a crush on Rosalind and tells his/her cousin, Benvolio, that he/she is a victim of unrequited love and that Rosalind does not care.

In the traditional telling, Romeo is simply feeling sorry for himself. But when Romeo is female, the stakes are higher.

“Romeo is coming out to her best friend. She makes the decision to tell Benvolio she is in love with a woman,” Wolanin says. “It’s insane how well this works.”

Oh! So close to the truth, Kristin, and yet still completely clueless. "Insane" indeed.

The story is set very loosely in the 1950s, though Wolanin says it is just a nod to the era.

“It’s a time of repression,” she says. “They wear Converse shoes and Donna Reed-ish dresses as a subtle hint for the actors to work with. But this can happen anytime, anyplace.”

How about some non-Euclidean sexual verisimilitude, you dumbass? Why not dress them in flannel, cover them in tattoos, and make them depressed and angry at everything?

At least you got the suicide thing right. [See My beloved brothers and sisters, you are murdering yourselves! ]

Wolanin is thrilled with her students’ ability to be so flexible: “They are willing to explore, to be in the moment,” she says.

Let's find some Shakespeare DNA, clone him, and wait for him to grow up and slap this educatrix silly.

One other thing is essential to remember in the story of Romeo and Juliet: They are young. “We’ve made Juliet 16,” Wolanin says. (Juliet is 14 in the original play.)

Faced with a setback “when you are that age, you think your world is over, that you have no one to talk to,” she says. “You make rash decisions.”

Teenage suicide is a serious issue, one that they are portraying in a sensitive way, Wolanin says..

I'll bet she watched the movie "Heathers" fifty times when she was a kid.

Romeo and Juliet “have no therapists, no health groups. That is their world, and we have to respect that,” she says.

Everyone would be better off dead rather than wasting an evening watching you rape a great work of art to satisfy your feckless political agenda, you cow.

Both Romeo and Juliet feel as though life is worthless without each other.

“We bring it back around to the theme of the play. Their love is so intense, so deep.”

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Don Rickles, Requiescat in pace.

"The Merchant of Venom" has left us, and the world can no longer laugh at itself.

I shall say one thing about Mr. Rickles: I would have given my left nut to have him call me a hockey puck in front of a live audience...





If any of Mr. Rickles' jokes offend you, know that you are either a pansy, a prude, a dumbass, or a poor soul bereft of humor. Whatever the case, you have my sympathy.



Don Rickles, Equal Opportunity Offender of Comedy, Dies at 90 - The Old Gray Whore ...

Don Rickles, the acidic stand-up comic who became world-famous not by telling jokes but by insulting his audience, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.

The cause was kidney failure, said a spokesman, Paul Shefrin.

For more than half a century, on nightclub stages, in concert halls and on television, Mr. Rickles made outrageously derisive comments about people’s looks, their ethnicity, their spouses, their sexual orientation, their jobs or anything else he could think of. He didn’t discriminate: His incendiary unpleasantries were aimed at the biggest stars in show business (Frank Sinatra was a favorite target) and at ordinary paying customers.

His rise to national prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s roughly coincided with the success of “All in the Family,” the groundbreaking situation comedy whose protagonist, Archie Bunker, was an outspoken bigot. Mr. Rickles’s humor was similarly transgressive. But he went further than Archie Bunker, and while Carroll O’Connor, who played Archie, was speaking words someone else had written — and was invariably the butt of the joke — Mr. Rickles, whose targets included his fellow Jews, never needed a script and was always in charge.

One night, on learning that some members of his audience were German, he said, “Forty million Jews in this country, and I got four Nazis sitting here in front waiting for the rally to start.” He said that America needed Italians “to keep the cops busy” and blacks “so we can have cotton in the drugstore,” and that “Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.”   He might ask a man in the audience, “Is that your wife?” and, when the man answered yes, respond: “Oh, well. Keep your chin up.”

As brutal as his remarks could be, they rarely left a mark. (“I’m not really a mean, vicious guy,” he told an interviewer in 2000.) Sidney Poitier was said to have once been offended by Mr. Rickles’s racial jokes. But in “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project,” a 2007 documentary directed by John Landis, Mr. Poitier sang Mr. Rickles’s praises.

Recalling the first time he saw Mr. Rickles perform, Mr. Poitier said: “He was explosive. He was impactful. He was funny. I mean, outrageously funny.”

Mr. Rickles got his first break, the story goes, when Sinatra and some of his friends came to see him perform in 1957 — in Hollywood, according to most sources, although Mr. Rickles said it was in Miami. “Make yourself at home, Frank,” Mr. Rickles said to Sinatra, whom he had never met. “Hit somebody.” Sinatra laughed so hard, he fell out of his seat.

Mr. Rickles was soon being championed by Sinatra, Dean Martin and the other members of the show business circle known as the Rat Pack. Steady work in Las Vegas followed. But he was hardly an overnight success: He spent a decade in the comedy trenches before he broke through to a national audience.

In 1965, he made the first of numerous appearances on “The Tonight Show,” treating Johnny Carson with his trademark disdain to the audience’s (and Carson’s) delight. He also became a regular on Dean Martin’s televised roasts, where no celebrity was safe from his onslaughts. (“What’s Bob Hope doing here? Is the war over?”)

Mr. Rickles’s wife, who he said “likes to lie in bed, signaling ships with her jewelry,” was not immune to his attacks. Neither was his mother, Etta, whom he referred to as “the Jewish Patton.” But off the stage, he didn’t hesitate to express his gratitude to his mother for unflaggingly believing in his talent, even when he himself wasn’t so sure.

“She had a tremendous drive,” he recalled in “Mr. Warmth.” “Drove me crazy. But she was like the driving force for me.”

He shared an apartment with his mother and did not marry until he was almost 40. After marrying Barbara Sklar in 1965, he saw to it that his mother had the apartment next door. His wife survives him, as do a daughter, Mindy Mann, and two grandchildren. Mr. Rickles’s son, Lawrence, died in 2011.

Donald Jay Rickles was born in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens on May 8, 1926, to Max Rickles, an insurance salesman, and the former Etta Feldman. During World War II, he honed his comedic skills while serving in the Navy. (“On the ship that I went over to the Philippines,” he told The New York Times in 2015, “out of 300 men I was the class comedian.”) After being discharged, he followed his father into the insurance business, but when he had trouble getting his customers to sign on the dotted line, decided to try acting.

He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, an experience that he later said gave him a greater sense of himself. But he found it difficult to get acting jobs and turned to stand-up comedy.

For a while, he pursued acting and comedy simultaneously. He did his stand-up act at Catskills resorts and in strip clubs, and his movie career got off to an auspicious start with a small part in the 1958 submarine drama “Run Silent, Run Deep,” starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. But the bulk of his film work in the 1960s was in low-budget beach movies: “Bikini Beach,” “Muscle Beach Party” and “Pajama Party,” all in 1964, and “Beach Blanket Bingo” in 1965.

By that time, his comedy career had begun gathering momentum. Focusing less on prepared material and more on interaction with his audience, he had found his voice. He was not the first insult comedian — and in fact an earlier master of the comic insult, Jack E. Leonard, was known to complain that Mr. Rickles’s act was too similar to his — but he soon became far and away the most successful.

Bookings in the late 1950s at the Slate Brothers nightclub in Hollywood and the lounge of the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas spread the word. During his Slate Brothers engagement, Carl Reiner recalled in “Mr. Warmth,” the biggest names in show business felt that “if they hadn’t been insulted by Rickles, they weren’t with it.”

His appearances insulting celebrities on the Dean Martin roasts and his sparring matches with Carson cemented Mr. Rickles’s reputation, but his unscripted brand of humor proved an uneasy fit for weekly television. A variety show in 1968 and a situation comedy in 1972, both called “The Don Rickles Show,” were short-lived, as was “Daddy Dearest,” a 1993 sitcom in which he and the comedian Richard Lewis played father and son. The closest thing to a hit show he had was “CPO Sharkey,” a Navy comedy, which aired from 1976 to 1978.

Critics were often not sure what to make of Mr. Rickles. John J. O’Connor of The Times wrote in 1972 that for some his humor “will always remain tasteless,” while for others “it has its delicious moments of madness.” Tom Shales of The Washington Post, 26 years later, was more enthusiastic, praising him as “mythic, timeless, fearless — endowed by the gods with some absurd miraculous gift.”

No critic, however thoughtful, could quite explain Mr. Rickles’s durability in show business, given that until the end of his career he was peppering his act with slurs and stereotypes long out of favor. And yet he not only got away with it, but he also flourished.

His own theory was that he was being rewarded for saying things others wanted to say but couldn’t. “I’m the guy at the Christmas party,” he said more than once, “who makes fun of the boss on Friday night and still has his job on Monday morning.”

Although Mr. Rickles sometimes expressed regret that he did not have more of a career as an actor, he did enjoy unexpected cinematic success late in life. In 1995, Martin Scorsese cast him in “Casino,” with Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone, and that same year he found a new audience as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the hugely successful animated feature “Toy Story,” a role he reprised in its sequels. “Toy Story 4” is scheduled for release in 2019, but it is not known whether Mr. Rickles had done any recording for it before his death. In 2011, he was the voice of a frog in the movie “Zookeeper” and played the long-lost husband of Betty White’s character on the sitcom “Hot in Cleveland.”

In 2007, Mr. Rickles published a loosely structured memoir, “Rickles’ Book,” and was the subject of Mr. Landis’s documentary, shown on HBO, which was built around a performance at the Stardust Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas shortly before it was torn down.

In 2014, he was the subject of an all-star tribute (inevitably, it turned out to be more like a roast) broadcast on the Spike cable channel. That show included appearances by David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart and Bob Newhart, whose soft-spoken style of comedy could not be further removed from Mr. Rickles’s, but who he often said was his closest friend in show business.

Health problems inevitably slowed Mr. Rickles down, but even after a leg infection in 2014 affected his ability to walk, he continued performing, making occasional concert and television appearances. In May 2015, he was one of the last guests on “Late Show With David Letterman.

As recently as 2007, the year he turned 81, Mr. Rickles had been working, by his count, about 75 nights a year.

“The only way I would stop is if my health goes, God forbid, or the audience isn’t with me anymore,” he told The Times that year. “Besides, I got to keep going. My manager told me he has to put his kid through college. His kid is 10 years old.”

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Nope. Lots of folks refuse to listen to the best of news.

NJ teen admits assassination plot against Pope Francis during Philly visit ...


LINDENWOLD, NJ — A teenager from Camden County has admitted to trying to have Pope Francis assassinated during the pontiff’s 2015 visit to Philadelphia.

Santos Colon Jr., a 17-year-old borough resident, pleaded guilty as an adult to a charge of attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Colon also goes by the name Ahmad Shakoor, federal courts records show.

Federal prosecutors say Colon plotted to get a sniper to shoot the pope and set off explosives.

Colon tried to hire a sniper who in fact was an FBI agent. Colon engaged in “target reconnaissance” with an FBI informant, and instructed him to buy bomb-making materials, officials revealed Monday.

People cheer as they gather along Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Sept. 27, 2015 in Philadelphia. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Colon was arrested in 2015.

The arrest appears to be the incident referenced by a Texas congressman in 2015. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told reporters that authorities had “disrupted one particular case” of potential terrorism before the pope’s visit.

Colon faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced.

Colon was represented by federal public defender Richard Coughlin, did not immediately return a request for comment.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Pope Francis is trying, God bless him, but is anyone listening?

Pope Francis praises British Muslim leaders | world-news | Hindustan Times...

www.hindustantimes.com/.../pope-francis.../story-lFbjW4nYFsXpKr96YUetzI.html

Pope Francis met briefly Wednesday with a delegation of four British ... an imam who heads the British Muslim Forum, Ibrahim Mogra of the ...

Dialogue is essential, Pope Francis tells British Muslim leaders ...

www.catholicnewsagency.com › News › Vatican

Pope Francis met Wednesday with a delegation of Muslim leaders from ... Shahid Raza, chairman of the British Muslim Forum; Ali Raza Rizvi, ...

Pope Francis to meet British imams at the Vatican | CatholicHerald.co.uk

www.catholicherald.co.uk › Latest News

Pope Francis is scheduled to meet with four British imams on ... The head of the British Muslim Forum, Muhammad Shahid Raza, said in an ...

Imams say meeting the pope is “one of the most powerful messages ...

www.romereports.com/.../imams-say-meeting-the-pope-is-one-of-the-most-powerful-...

Chairman, British Muslim Forum. "We will be thanking him [Pope Francis] for his great support that has always been received by the Muslim ...

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Guess what your friendly neighborhood bomb squad does when it isn't saving your ass from bombs...

Good Eggs: Prince George's County Bomb Squad Makes Easter Eggs For Visually-Impaired Children ... - NBC Washington

A Maryland bomb squad is serving as the Easter Bunny for visually impaired children this year, infusing a set of Easter eggs with technology that will let them join the holiday hunt.

Prince George’s County Bomb Squad drill members and bomb techs used their expertise this week to make 48 beeping Easter eggs for visually impaired children.

Kids in a typical Easter egg hunt rely on their eyes to find the goodies, but since these eggs trigger their hearing, the visually impaired will be able them.

The eggs were specially made to allow for multiple uses and rough handling.

“Whenever I think about the Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department Bomb Squad I envision our members with nerves of steel, skilled hands, quick thinkers, patience and focused vision to the task at hand,” Chief Spokesperson Mark Brady said. “I see the large protective suits, robots and portable x-ray machines being used to render safe a suspicious package. Our Bomb Squad is all that and much more but above all they are compassionate humans that began their careers as firefighters.”

The plastic eggs and their components were donated by the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators. 

The completed beeping eggs were donated to the “Vision Program,” part of Prince George's County Public Schools' Department of Special Education.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Think of CEM this way: It is comparable to standing on the moon and watching a tennis match on Earth.

Cryoelectron microscopy

Cryoelectron microscopy is a method for imaging frozen-hydrated specimens at cryogenic temperatures by electron microscopy. Specimens remain in their native state without the need for dyes or fixatives, allowing the study of fine cellular structures, viruses and protein complexes at molecular resolution.

From the Van Andel Institute:

Why we're betting on cryo-electron microscopy - VAI

We just invested in a new Cryo-Electron Microscope (Cryo-EM) Core facility, including installation of one of the world’s most powerful microscopes and recruitment of several outstanding scientists. Here’s why.

The imaging resolution available with the FEI Titan Krios from Thermo Fisher Scientific, the largest of our microscopes, is akin to watching a bouncing tennis ball on Earth from the surface of the moon. The possibilities with that kind of visual power are immeasurable. We believe cryo-EM has the potential to usher in a wave of discovery that parallels a handful of crucial developments in the history of science.

Consider the X-ray. Invented in 1985 by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, the first X-ray machine was bulky, expensive and technically difficult to build. However, early adopters of these machines, delivered groundbreaking and prolific contributions to our understanding of the human body.
Suddenly, scientists could see kidney stones passing into the ureter, phalanges of hand deformities, food moving through the digestive system, and a penny lodged in a child’s throat.

Similarly, the first compound microscopes led to discovery of several fundamental tenets of biology. Dutch scientists discovered cells by observing the honeycomb structure of a sliver of cork. They offered visual confirmation of bacteria, which were teeming in a droplet of lake water. They revealed the stunning complexity of tiny insects like fleas, lice and gnats.

Analogous breakthroughs in imaging abound. The first telescopes offered irrefutable visuals of the sun as center of our solar system. Electron microscopes allowed for the first images of DNA and viruses.

Now, the latest generation of cryo-electron microscopes are revealing the atomic and molecular interactions at the foundation of life. Scientists can see, for the first time, the exact size, shape, and function of profoundly complex proteins and enzymes.

We can watch as chemicals inside a nucleus assemble and begin the process of DNA replication. We can visualize the atom-by-atom structure of α-synuclein proteins, which are thought to impair the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. We can image cell-signaling pathways thought to encourage tumor growth. The list goes on.

We believe these discoveries are only the beginning. And we believe cryo-EM represents a critical component of our unwavering commitment to improving the health and enhancing the lives of current and future generations.


There is at least one reason for Berkeley to exist...


Cryo-Electron Microscopy Achieves Unprecedented Resolution Using ...

newscenter.lbl.gov/.../cryo-electron-microscopy-achieves-unprecedented-resolution-u...


Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM)—which enables the visualization of viruses, proteins, and other biological structures at the molecular level—is a critical tool used to advance biochemical knowledge. Now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have extended cryo-EM’s impact further by developing a new computational algorithm that was instrumental in constructing a 3-D atomic-scale model of bacteriophage P22 for the first time.

Complete capsid of bacteriophage P22 generated with validated atomic models that were derived from a high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy density map. (C. Hryc and the Chiu Lab, Baylor College of Medicine)

Over 20,000 two-dimensional cryo-EM images of bacteriophage P22 (also known as the P22 virus that infects the common bacterium Salmonella) from Baylor College of Medicine were used to make the model. The results were published by researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University and Berkeley Lab in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences earlier in March.

“This is a great example of how to exploit electron microscopy technology and combine it with new computational methods to determine a bacteriophage’s structure,” said Paul Adams, Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging division director and a co-author of the paper. “We developed the algorithms—the computational code—to optimize the atomic model so that it best fit the experimental data.”

Pavel Afonine, a Berkeley Lab computational research scientist and paper co-author, took the lead in developing the algorithm using Phenix, a software suite used traditionally in X-ray crystallography for determining macromolecular structures.

The successful rendering of bacteriophage P22’s 3-D atomic-scale model allows researchers to peek inside the virus’ protein coats at resolution. It is the culmination of several years of work that previously had enabled Baylor College researchers to trace out most of the protein’s backbone, but not the fine details, according to Corey Hryc, co-first author and a graduate student of Baylor biochemistry professor Wah Chiu.

“Thanks to this exquisite structural detail, we have determined the protein chemistry of the P22 virus,” Chiu said. “I think it is important that we provide detailed annotations with the structure so other researchers can use it for their future experiments,” he added. Chiu’s lab has been using cryo-EM and computer reconstruction techniques to build 3-D molecular structures for almost 30 years.
And the findings could have valuable biological implications as well.

Thanks to the 3-D atomic-scale model, it’s now “possible to see the interactions between the pieces making up the P22 virus, which are critical to making it stable,” Adams said. This helps researchers figure out how to make chemicals that can bind to certain proteins. Adams underscores that the ability to understand the configuration of atoms in molecular space can be used to generate new insights into drug design and development.

The National Institutes of Health funded this work.

Golly, NIH, I hope you still have enough money left over to buy each AmeriKKKan a gross of rubbers.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

An exclusive from your old pal Fyodor!

As you might have heard, America's favorite TransFascist Germaine Greer In Drag lost her/his/its gig at the National Security Council and I'm going to tell you why. The following is a small excerpt from an interview GGID did with Rash Dimbulb that was never meant to see the light of day. Apparently, the two corpulent fascists spent a drug and booze fueled weekend somewhere in Florida recently and between bouts of truly disgusting sex they produced this horror show. Yep, you heard me right. This is what passes for pillow talk with our moral and intellectual superiors. Just pray the video never gets out.


Rash Dimbulb: So, babe, what's shaking? Besides that sweet ass of yours, of course.

GermaineGreerInDrag: "Well, Rash after much genital-searching I am proud to proclaim myself a Bi-Fascist American! It means I can and do and will literally and figuratively screw anyone anywhere anytime and for any reason. I'm inclusive like that."

"However I cannot absolutely rule out evolving toward Pan-Fascism which means I would get to screw anything as well. But that's a bit much for a simple girl like me at this point in my life. I'll leave that up to Great Men like Big Orange. (Giggles.)

RASH: Do you really get to call him Big Orange?

GGID: Oopsie! I guess the pussy's out of the pouch!

RASH: Speaking of pussy...did you know that Germaine is my 47th favorite babe name and my 211th favorite dude name?

GGID: Talk about inclusive! I didn't know you swung that way.

Rash: After last night, you're one to talk.

GGID: Oh Rash you know I'm married to the cause. There is only one set of genitals that will ever satisfy the fascist in me!

Rash: Don't sweat it babe. I've got all kinds of wives coming out of my glorious naked formerly nicotine stained ass.

GG: (giggles)

Apparently, this thing has been circulating on Liberty Net for days. I'll keep checking for more. You'll need to bring your own vomit bag, kiddies.


TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

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TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Lee Baker, Jr., Requiescat in pace.

"Symbol" my eye. Lonnie Brooks could flat out play. I know what I'll be listening to for the next few days.


Lonnie Brooks, a symbol of Chicago blues, dies at 83 - Chicago Tribune



When Chicago blues giant Lonnie Brooks appeared with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble in 2005, he dazzled the audience, but not with fast finger work alone.

He picked up his guitar and began playing it with his teeth and tongue, proving more skilled with his mouth than many competitors are with their hands.

More important, the music that thundered from Brooks' instrument and voice on this occasion — and uncounted others — shook the room. His sound was so huge and delivery so ferocious as to make everything alongside him seem a little smaller.

Brooks died Saturday night at age 83 in Chicago, said his son, Ronnie Baker Brooks, a blues guitarist who toured prolifically with his father.

"He had his own sound, his own style," said Chicago blues singer Shemekia Copeland, who grew up in Texas and knew Brooks and his family from when they lived there.

"Something about that Texas thing made him different than the other blues artists here in Chicago," added Copeland. "They grew up listening to country music.

"There was just a different type of a swagger to their music."

Brooks certainly came to the blues circuitously. Born Lee Baker Jr. in Louisiana, he focused on the guitar comparatively late in life, when he was in his 20s. But he learned fast, soon playing for zydeco king Clifton Chenier and scoring a Gulf Coast hit in 1957 with "Family Rules," which he recorded under the name Guitar Junior.

Soul singer Sam Cooke invited the emerging guitar phenom to come to Chicago with him in either 1959 or 1960 (reports vary), whereupon the young guitarist discovered that Luther Johnson already was performing under the name Guitar Junior.

So he anointed himself Lonnie Brooks and discovered a sound that changed the course of his music and life: Chicago blues.

"I would see guys like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker for $1, and I always wondered how they got all that soul into their playing," Brooks told the Tribune in 1992.

"Then one night, I saw Magic Sam in a little blues club on the South Side. He went on stage right after he'd gotten into a big fight with his girlfriend, and it was like he was taking it out on his guitar. I seen how it came from the heart, so I went home to the basement, and got into that mood that Magic Sam had been in, and the blues came to me."

Brooks' journey to the blues produced a singular, dynamic sound that made him an increasingly important figure on the Chicago scene in the 1970s. The scorching tracks he recorded for Chicago-based Alligator Records' "Living Chicago Blues" series led to a long run of albums for the label under his own name, including classics such as "Bayou Lightning" (1979), "Hot Shot" (1983) and "Lone Star Shootout" (1999).

Over time, the explosive energy of Brooks' live performances, searing intensity of his guitar playing and rough-and-ready character of his vocals made him an international attraction and a living symbol of Chicago blues. Appearances in the Dan Aykroyd film "Blues Brothers 2000" and alongside Paul Shaffer's band on "The Late Show with David Letterman" only heightened his profile.

"Lonnie Brooks was a Chicago blues legend with a towering talent and soulful style that won him legions of fans across the country and around the world," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement. "His celebrated career inspired generations of music lovers, garnered numerous awards and brought him from the clubs of Chicago's west side to the concert halls of Europe and beyond."

Brooks explained his larger-than-life performance manner in a 1997 Tribune interview.

"It's almost like (being) a comedian," he said. "The one that can make the people laugh the most is the one that they like the most. So that's why I do (it), to get the people interested."

He brought sons Ronnie Baker Brooks and Wayne Baker Brooks, both guitarists, into his music from the time they were children, and he regarded them as the future of his music.

"I'm looking for my kids to take it even further," he said in a 1998 Tribune interview.

Said Ronnie Baker Brooks: "My father taught me everything I know, but not everything he knew. He was my best friend, my mentor and my father. He taught me and Wayne.

"My dad loved his family, and he loved his music. He did a hell of a job at maintaining both."

Funeral services are being planned, Ronnie Baker Brooks said.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.