Friday, July 13, 2007

Ron Paul - My YouTube Question For The Hon. Ron Paul (R) Texas - Zennie Abraham

CLUES! - J.J. Abrams' Cloverfield - New Third Photo Appears At 1-18-08 Site

As promised by producer J.J. Abrams, the Cloverfield project would have a number of online clues. Here's the latest one: an ominous photo of two women walking in what appears to be soot.

What?

For more information, click here to check our main post on Cloverfield.

PT-141 - New Drug You Sniff For Sex - New York Magazine

Man. If this story's really true, then sex is totally revolutionized. I mean just think about it. One sniff and you're ready to do it. Well, I guess it's one sniff. I really don't know yet. I'll let you know. But this woman says it really has no effect at all.

Is the World Ready for Libido in a Nasal Spray? - New York Magazine

Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colorful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry—a small white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odorless, colorless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works.

And it’s coming to a medicine cabinet near you. The drug will soon enter Phase 3 clinical trials, the final round of testing before it goes to the Food and Drug Administration for review, and with the FDA’s approval it could reach the market in as soon as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: Putting that inhaler up your nose and popping off a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as few as fifteen minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel “genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,” not to mention “a strong desire to have sex.” Among men, who’ve been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is, shall we say, richer:

“With PT-141, you feel good, not only sexually aroused,” reported anonymous patient 007, a participant in a Phase 2 trial, “you feel younger and more energetic.” Said another patient: “It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire. . . . You get this humming feeling; you’re ready to take your pants off and go.” And another: “Twice me and my wife had sex twice in one night. I came in [to work] and I just raved about it: ‘Jesus, guys . . . 58 years old and you don’t do that.’ ” Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don’t typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire of humming, throbbing, tingling, and double-dipping. Or as patient 128 put it: “My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.”

The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: Where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes straight to the brain itself. And there it goes to work, switching on the same neural circuitry that lights up when a person actually, you know, wants to.

“It’s not merely allowing a sexual response to take place more easily,” explains Michael A. Perelman, co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a sexual-medicine adviser on the PT-141 trials. Though he cautions against jumping to conclusions, he’s hopeful that the drug represents a breakthrough. “It may be having an effect, literally, on how we think and feel.”

Palatin Technologies, the New Jersey–based maker of PT-141, has hopes of its own. Once the company gets FDA approval for the drug, Palatin plans to market it to the same crowd Viagra targets: male erectile-dysfunction patients. Approval as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction may follow, perhaps bringing relief to postmenopausal and other women with truly physiological barriers to sexual happiness. In the wake of Pfizer’s failed attempts to prove Viagra works for women, and amid growing recognition that it doesn’t even do the trick for large numbers of men, these two markets alone could make PT-141 a pharmaceutical blockbuster.

But let’s face facts: A drug that makes you not only able to but eager to isn’t going to remain the exclusive property of the severely impaired. As with Viagra, there will no doubt be extensive off-label use of PT-141. Fast-acting and long-lasting, packaged in an easily concealed, single-use nasal inhaler, unaffected by food or alcohol consumption, PT-141 seems bound to take its place alongside MDMA, cocaine, poppers, and booze itself in the pantheon of club drugs. If the chemical is all it’s cracked up to be, the perennial pharmacological dilemma of the pickup scene—namely, how to maximize the fun when the drinks required to set the mood are always more than enough to dull the senses—would appear to have found its solution.

You’ve been there yourself, after all: a third or fourth date, a late night of rich food, hard liquor, mildly exhausting erotic tension. Can you admit to yourself now, however hungrily you may have anticipated the evening’s scheduled consummation, that there was a part of you, when the moment arrived, that really would have rather been at home watching CSI?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Sen. Clinton & John Edwards "Our Guys Should Talk" - Said On Live Mic At NAACP Convention

Wow. This is a blockbuster story for several reasons: 1, it points to a collusion between two presidential candidates to deliberately cause the exclusion of of other candidates they perceive as weak, and 2, the conversation was intended to be private, but the mic was live.

Apparently, according to Fox News , this is what happened:

Clinton, Edwards Want to 86 Gravel, Kucinich?

At the end of an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit in which fringe candidates Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich repeatedly upstaged the top two tiers, John Edwards approached Hillary Clinton at her podium and, perhaps forgetting that microphones were still on, can clearly be heard saying "we should think about at some point... maybe some time in the fall, we'll try to have a more serious debate with a smaller group of people."

Hillary agreed with Edwards, saying “We’ve got to cut the numbers of these, because they are just being trivialized.” Edwards responded “And they’re not serious. They’re not serious,” then walked away. Hillary caught up to him to add "I think there was an effort by our campaign to do that, but it somehow got detoured," saying "We’ve gotta get back to it." While shaking Dennis Kucinich's hand, she added “our guys should talk.”


This is a serious breech of the idea that all presidential candidates are serious and should be given air time. Moreover it reveals what the Clinton and Edwards camps actually think of their opponents. Plus, particularly for Senator Clinton, it's just plain bad PR. It reinforces the perception of some observers that she's calculating and can't be trusted.

Here's the video:



I'll stay tuned to this story.

Seahawks CB Rich Gardner Released To Make Roster Space - Seattle Times



From the Seattle Times.

Hawks CB released for roster space
By Jose Miguel Romero

The Seahawks moved closer to finalizing their training-camp roster Wednesday, releasing injured cornerback Rich Gardner to make room for sixth-round draft pick Courtney Taylor, whose signing was made official.

The team has apparently agreed to terms with seventh-round pick Steve Vallos with contract terms unconfirmed, leaving three more picks to sign — second-rounder Josh Wilson, third-round choice Brandon Mebane and the first of two fourth-round picks, Baraka Atkins.

The Seahawks might have to release three players before camp in July to make room for the unsigned draft choices on the roster.

Five former NFL Europa players are also part of the current roster and signed as free agents June 28. They are cornerback Omowale "Wally" Dada (a former Washington State player), quarterback Erik Meyer (formerly at Eastern Washington), offensive guard Jonathan Alston, running back A.J. Harris and wide receiver Robert Ortiz.

The five were added when NFL Europa ceased operations at the end of its season in June.

Gardner, who came to the Seahawks at the end of the 2006 regular season when the team was beset with injuries at cornerback, was on the roster to open the May minicamp. But he suffered a serious left leg injury on the first day of practices and didn't participate in the June camp.

Slingbox | Slingmedia At The MLB All Star Game, San Francisco



This isn't online marketing, but it's still interesting nonetheless. It's good old-fashioned ambush marketing. Now, what is that? It's defined as "when a brand pays to become the official sponsor of an event and another brand tries to connect itself to the same event, without paying the sponsorship fee and without breaking any laws" according to a Wikipedia listing.

In this case, Slingmedia put t-shirts on a bunch of employees and headed out to the All Star Game Home Run Derby, or more accurately, went to have cocktails at MoMos next to the ballpark. I caught them on camera and Slingmedia's Director of PR Brian Jaquet was good enough to give me a demonstration of how the technology works. Then I got a $50 certificate.

NFL - ATLANTA FALCONS SIGN JAPANESE WR-PR-KR NORIAKI KINOSHITA

From NFL Media.com

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
280 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
(212) 450-2000 * FAX (212) 681-7573
WWW.NFLMedia.com
Joe Browne, Executive Vice President-Communications
Greg Aiello, Vice President-Public Relations


FOR USE AS DESIRED
7/5/07

FALCONS SIGN JAPANESE WR-PR-KR NORIAKI KINOSHITA

Kinoshita seeks to become first Japanese player in NFL history

The Atlanta Falcons have signed wide receiver-return specialist NORIAKI KINOSHITA, a native of
Osaka, Japan, the club announced today.

The 24-year old Kinoshita spent the past three seasons playing in the NFL Europa League and was
selected to the All-NFL Europa team as the National return specialist in each of the past two years.
In 2007, Kinoshita led NFL Europa with a 15.9-yard punt-return average and ranked third with a 23.2-
yard kickoff-return average. He also added 23 receptions for 364 yards and two touchdowns.

“I’m excited to see Nori compete in training camp with us,” says Falcons head coach BOBBY
PETRINO. “He has good experience playing in NFL Europa and he deserves a chance to be in an
NFL training camp. We’ve already had stiff competition at the wide receiver position throughout our
minicamps and offseason workouts, and Nori’s presence now adds more to that position. We are
also interesting in seeing his return skills.”

Prior to playing in NFL Europa, Kinoshita played three seasons at Ritsumeikan University and helped
the team win two national championships (2002 and 2003).

“I am very excited to compete at the Falcons’ training camp with other great players,” says Kinoshita,
who hopes to become the first Japanese player in NFL history. “It is exciting as a Japanese player to
compete with American players, and I want to appeal to the fans in Atlanta. At the same time, I want
to show the Japanese people how exciting the great game of football is.”

American football has been played in Japan since 1934. Today more than 100 high schools and 200
universities field tackle football teams and nearly 200,000 youth participate in Flag Football programs
in approximately 2,000 elementary and junior high schools. The X-League, Japan’s corporate league
which was founded in 1985, features 18 teams from around the country.

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