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Shamans can tie strings around a neck and wrist. A red string around the neck helps in healing, and a white string around a wrist maintains a soul during hospitalization. A shaman, or "txiv neeb" in Hmong, can ask the Mercy hospital staff for permission to do ceremonies that go beyond chanting. An example would be a request to sprinkle water over incisions. According to Mercy's policy, hospital staff are to try to make accommodations. The ceremonies can occur in patient rooms, in the emergency department or in surgery preparation areas. The hospital ceremonies are brief -- 10 to 15...

According to Democrats, health care reform must be passed this very moment even though it would not kick in until 2013. But don't worry, it would start taxing Americans in 2010, three years before you get nothing. All of this probably adds up to the most expensive dependency program yet devised.

...Patterns In Irrationality A first obvious common point in all the justifications for government: they all suppose that government somehow provides some kind of goods for free, without any costly counterpart. The existence of this pattern among statists is not anything new; we libertarians even have a mantra to dispel this pattern: TANSTAAFL [28]. However, what is remarkable is that all statist justifications include this pattern, albeit sometimes in a less than obvious way... ...Ultimately, what government is supposed to bring is some kind of a warranty that evil won't happen; some special sense of security.... ...A second pattern that...

He is back from the dead, literally. The former lover of Olivia Newton John, Patrick McDermott, is said to be alive and keeping well. McDermott had disappeared from the public eye abruptly, way back in 2005 and was assumed to be dead. Over the year, private investigators have been trying to sniff out his trail and it seems now they have achieved the feat. Patrick had gone missing after he had left for a fishing trip off the coast of California. His wallet, keys and boat were left behind but there was no trace of him. Though, at that moment...

Facilitated variation is the first comprehensive theory of how life works at the molecular level, published in 2005 by systems biologists Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart in their book The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma. It is a very powerful theory, is supported by a great deal of evidence, and the authors have made it easy to understand. It identifies two basic components of heredity: (a) conserved core processes of cellular structure, function and body plan organization; and (b) modular regulatory mechanisms that are built in special ways that allow them to be easily rearranged (like ®Lego blocks) into...

The Lakers win their 15th organizational title, and 10th in Los Angeles, in their 30th Finals appearance. They defeat the Orlando Magic, 99-86 in Game 5, and win the series 4 games to 1. Kobe Bryant was named MVP of the Finals.

Orlando defeats Cleveland 4 games to 2 and will travel to Los Angeles for Game 1 on Thursday.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Superman swooped in just in time. Dwight Howard scored 10 points in overtime and the Orlando Magic, raining down 3-pointers like a Florida thunderstorm, withstood 44 points and a last-second shot by LeBron James for a 116-114 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night to take a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.

Creation Essay Contest offers $1,000 in cash Jesus Created Ministries (JCM) is sponsoring a Creation Essay Contest with $1,000 in cash prizes. The goal of the contest is to motivate students to examine the claims of and debate between creation and evolution - including the logical implications of each claim with respect to one’s view of origin, purpose, morality and destiny. JCM will be awarding cash prizes of $500, $300 and $200 for first, second and third place. The contest is open to all Oklahoma students ages 12-18 (as of June 15, 2009) whose parent/legal guardian has completed a JCM...

I love the sound of a quiet Garden. Orlando 101, Boston 82. So the "Final Four" is set: Denver vs. LAKERS, starting Tuesday; Orlando vs. CAVALIERS, starting Wednesday.

Magic fan angry at 'raging' Davis Posted by Chad Finn, Globe Staff May 11, 2009 02:35 PM Orlando Magic fan Ernest Provetti, whose son, 12-year-old Nicholas, was nearly run over by Glen Davis after his buzzer-beating, game-winning shot last night, is demanding an apology from the Celtics forward.The Video

Thousands of Malaysian Hindus are seeking blessings from a group of wild boars believed to possess magical powers, shrugging off concerns about a global outbreak of "swine flu," a local newspaper reported Monday. The Sun reported a Hindu temple in the northwestern Malaysian state of Perak has been drawing a steady stream of thousands of visitors daily, eager to feed and touch dozens of wild boars. The boars, which started to appear near the temple about a year ago, are believed by devotees to possess magical powers and can bring good luck. Among the busloads of devotees and visitors from...

I say, Thank God Penn & Teller reveal the workings of their magic tricks. We’re all used to it now, but when they first got going they caused a lot of angst and delicate hand-wringing among the brotherhood. No one will watch magic if they know how the tricks work! went the standard lamentation. But it wasn’t shouted too loudly. Sympathy for secrecy wasn’t exactly on the wane when the boys showed up, but complaints against violations were reflexive more than strident. Penn & TellerThis is because magic had fallen into the doldrums. There were a plethora of exaggerated hand-waving...

Swine Flu, Viruses, and the Edge of Evolution A few years ago, the media was abuzz over the scare of the avian flu virus, which led me to write a post titled Avian Flu: An Example of Evolution?. At the time, it wasn't clear whether the avian flu would evolve and "jump" into a highly virulent form that easily infected humans. Had the avian flu virus made the jump, then we would have witnessed a sort of evolution where viruses swap genetic material in a process known as "reassortment" and can then more easily infect new hosts, such as humans....

Dinosaur Blood Protein, Cells Recovered (see article link for picture links!) April 30, 2009 — It’s official: soft tissue, including blood vessel proteins and structures resembling cells, have been recovered from dinosaur bone. Mary Schweitzer’s amazing claim in 2005 (03/24/2005) was subsequently disputed as possible contamination from biofilms (07/30/2008). Now, Schweitzer and her team took exceptional precautions to avoid contamination by excavating hadrosaur bone from sandstone said to be 80 million years old. A short description of her findings, and a picture of the tissue, was announced today by New Scientist. The paper was published in the May 1 issue...

Listening to the Today programme this morning, I was irritated once again by yet another misrepresentation of Intelligent Design as a form of Creationism. In an item on the growing popularity of Intelligent Design, John Humphrys interviewed Professor Ken Miller of Brown University in the US who spoke on the subject last evening at the Faraday Institute, Cambridge. Humphrys suggested that Intelligent Design might be considered a kind of middle ground between Darwinism and Creationism. Miller agreed but went further, saying that Intelligent Design was nothing more than an attempt to repackage good old-fashioned Creationism and make it more palatable....

Bacteria trapped for “millions of years” under Antarctic ice by Carl Wieland Published: 23 April 2009 Science news sites are abuzz with the discovery of an ecosystem trapped under an Antarctic glacier for an alleged time of “at least 1.5 million years”.[1] It was not that long ago that the world of science believed that nothing could survive in an environment that was not only near freezing, but totally dark and lacking oxygen...

Biblical creation impedes evangelism? Plus yet another uninformed atheist. Published: 4 April 2009 First, Matthew P, a Christian evolutionist from the UK asserts that young-earth creation is harmful to evangelism. Dr Jonathan Sarfati shows the opposite, and explains the baneful consequences to the Gospel of denying its foundation in Genesis. Then Nigel H, an atheist from the US, hurls elephants about science and asserts that God deceived us and set up Adam and Eve to fail. Dr Sarfati explains some of the science and why God did NOT entrap the first couple...

What does one TRILLION dollars look like?