coquina

There has been a series on the Today Show about Autism - I hear the blurbs advertising it on my way out the door, but have not been able to see any of the programs. Anyway - one of the blurbs said that the frequency of Autism has increased ten fold in the last decade or so. Is this true, or is it perhaps that the disorder is recognized more readily? If true - what is thought to be the cause - something in the environment?

Here's a fact sheet about them from The National Institute of Allergy and Infectios Diseases: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/stdhpv.htm A pap smear is only going to detect the warts if they are on your cervix, whether you have visable genital warts or not.

When I was a kid we used to cut daffodils and put them in water stained with food coloring. In a day the daffodil would have stripes the color of the dye all over the blossom.

Out of my league here, but does it have anything to do with the fact that a rope will stretch (if it is nylon, it will stretch a lot) a twisted multiwire cable will stretch a minimal amount.

I think the Harvest Moon looks so big as opposed to the full moons of the warm months because the air has gotten a lot clearer than it was in the summertime. You not only see its size, but you see the detail. The same is true when you are on a boat in the late fall - you can see so much farther than normal and with such clarity that distance can be deceiving. So, what about the "blue moon" the second full moon in the same month, as in "once in a blue moon".

The movies that starred Micheal J. Fox... go rent them. There's all kinds of weirdness that happens - here's the plot of the first one. As the people above said, you only have to go back in time far enough to stop your parents from meeting. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/plotsummary The further back in time you went, the more people would be affected. For example, if someone had gone back in time and sank the Mayflower, I wouldn't be here. My 8th Grandfather back, was George Soule, who was a passenger on it . There were 102 passengers - assuming they all drowned, none of any of their descendants would be around. http://www.mayflower.org/pilgrim.htm

Though I recently got rid of the mane - hair is now chin length.

Take a deep breath and start over. There are things that are worth arguing and making enemies over, and there are things that aren't. Trust me .. this one isn't. Try to state your viewpoints. If you disagree with someone else's, point out where you believe they are in error, but be civil about it. Some of you have had many jobs, a lot of you are starting out. One of the things you have to learn is to express your opinion without being nasty. Your employer will never look favorably on a childish attitude, even if you are right. So - straighten up and fly right, or I will fly right out of your monitor and snatch you bald headed.

Read my posts, please... when it comes to employment law, as far as the US, I know the drill. If you haven't been there, done that, and ended up paying for the damn T-shirt to be made in China for ten cents on the dollar, you ain't got a clue. You guys are arguing with each other, and not a one of you has really got a dog in this fight.

I've read that the appendage on the other end is the size of a baseball bat too. Definitely a NoGo situation, rhetorically and physically.

I did read that there was a resort in the Bahamas whose beach area was frequented by a male dolphin, and that it had to be removed elsewhere when it had obviously amorous intentions towards the female swimmers. I think that was in a past issue of "Sea Frontiers".

I had an experience with a sound sort of like a sonic boom, but it was shorter in duration, sort of like a sonic pop. Some people in the immediate neighborhood were wakened by it. It was early in the morning, and I was up having coffee, sitting close to a window - but not looking out of it, however, it seemed to be accompanied by a flash of light. I think it may have been a small bolide exploding in the atmosphere.

There are still a few functioning "communities", there is one near Bedford, Virginia that started in the 60's. People come and go (my daughter was a part of it for a while), but it continues. I don't think any of the people in that particular community do drugs. They try to live in harmony with nature, with a minimum of technology. They farm and produce organically grown foods, which they sell in the cities close by.

http://www.earthpulse.com/science/taoshum.html The article is called "Sourcing the Taos Hum" It's an interesting read. It seems there is some credible research, however, it is a .com site, and there is reference to a patented device. There was also a copywrite notice at the bottom, so I didn't quote anything directly from the article.

Yes, it would.... I wonder what the dolphins would make of a machine that could talk to them? I have this picture in my mind of the machine launching a fish at them when they do what it wants.

The best English teacher I ever had was for 10th grade American Lit. I really enjoyed learning about "the lost generation". That year was the first year our school was integrated, and there was a single black kid in the class. One of the things we had to learn to do was to read, think, and speak in dialects other than our own. We had to read our stories to the class. She assigned me one of the Uncle Remus stories ( which I bet are not taught in school today - has anybody here read about Brer Rabbit & Brer Fox? - "Doan you go throwin' me in that there briar patch?") Anyway - the black kid was assigned to read, "To a Mouse", by the Scot poet, Robert Burns. She didn't cut any of us any slack, but we were all crazy about her.

I also read that in order to sleep without drowning 1/2 of their brain remains awake at all times, so that they can keep their blowhole out of the water, be aware of danger - ie collisions with ships or accidental grounding. This leads me to wonder if both sides of their brain are equally dominant, as opposed to humans. It would seem logical that if the right side stood guard on Tuesday night, the left side would have the duty the following night... so that both sides of the brain got an equal amount of R&R.

But, there are different rules that apply depending on how many employees you have. Here is a fact sheet about Federal laws that prohibit job discrimination: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html When you get down to the bottom, and read what companies it applies to, you will see that it covers companies with 15 or more employees. Part of the reasoning behind this is that you need one employee just to file all the paperwork that shows you are in compliance. Most of you know I own a machine shop - it is located in a very rural area - there is no public transportation. Several years ago, before the Challenger disaster, we had about 30 employees. Everytime I had a job opening, I filed it with the state employment commission. I would have happily hired any person who could do the job, even if they were purple with yellow polka dots. One of the problems we ran into was that many people were eliminated, not by us, but because they did not have their own transporation, and the end of the bus line was more than 10 miles away. When one mandates laws that include hiring "quotas" of minorities, one must assume that there are sufficient people available that have the training required, and that they have means to get to your job site.