Gossip Friday

Friday afternoon, time to ramble... here are a few interesting things for you to read:

• I tried to embed comments on my blog - this is a new Blogger feature - and for some reason, the comment form just doesn't show. Great. I guess we are back to the ugly comment page, as per usual
• I have added another feature, which also does not seem to work, though I might be wrong. You will soon be able to rate posts, just to give me an idea of what you like to read, and what bores you out of your mind.
• Did you know that "kids" up to 18 years of age are being abandoned in Nebraska hospitals, following the passing of a safe-heaven law which did not impose an age limit on the children that could be left in hospitals without having to fear legal repercussions? The abandonments are reaching worrying numbers, so that Nebraska will now have to consider re-wording the law.
• A few exoplanets have been not only identified, but imaged, very recently. The images are amazing, and they make me wonder how many more fantastic things one could discover with all the money that goes to armaments and maintaining outdated nuclear heads.
• Countries of the Eurozone are now officially in recession. How does this matter... well, I am from there, and my family is still there, that's how. It is not good news my friends... apart from the fact that we can expect oil prices to fall. I say, certain countries in the Eurozone have been in recession for a long time, just that nobody wanted to see it.
• There have been rumors that bone marrow transplants can cure HIV, since it has been reported that a man previously affected by both leukemia and AIDS managed to get both to disappear after a bone marrow transplant. I say: even if you can imagine a world where everyone had that lucky compatible donor with the mutant version of CCR5, a third of those undergoing the transplant would still die, in a matter of months. Does this look like a cure to you?
• For more crappy news, a Lancet study on the Merck HIV trials vaccine was published. Basically, scientists cannot figure out why in the world the vaccine did not work. I don't blame them. I am starting to wonder whether asking infected T cells to kill other infected T cells is a viable strategy in the fight against AIDS.
• I know, now you are craving for good news. Or just for something fun to read. Here it goes then. "Behind every successful woman, there's an astonished husband." Words of the first female four-star general of the United States. This in a country where "women are barred from combat roles but have been allowed in the last two decades to serve in a wide variety of other positions." And they say the gender gap does not exist -- hell, women should have the same right to die as men...
• It's a gloomy day around here, it's cold, and I feel like things haven't be going the way I wanted them to go. But I think I am just confused...like this:

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