Commonplace book - FP Dunne

"Don't ye think th' United States is enthusyastic f'r th' Boers?" asked
the innocent Hennessy.

"It was," said Mr. Dooley. "But in th' las' few weeks it's had so manny
things to think iv. Th' enthusyasm iv this counthry, Hinnissy, always
makes me think iv a bonfire on an ice-floe. It burns bright so long as
ye feed it, an' it looks good, but it don't take hold, somehow, on th'
ice."

You're having a lend of me, aren't you?

So I have a Basal Cell Carcinoma or two removed, and being a good wikinerd look it up on Wikipedia, and find that

Basal-cell carcinoma also develops as a result of... Gorlin Syndrome.... The cause of the syndrome is a mutation in the PTCH1 tumor-suppressor gene at chromosome 9q22.3, which inhibits the hedgehog signaling pathway. A mutation in the SMO gene, which is also on the hedgehog pathway, also causes basal-cell carcinoma.

 Hold it, hold it, where do the hedgehogs come in?

The hedgehog signaling pathway gives cells information that they need to make the embryo develop properly. Different parts of the embryo have different concentrations of hedgehog signaling proteins. The pathway also has roles in the adult. When the pathway malfunctions, it can result in diseases like basal cell carcinoma.... Mammals have three Hedgehog homologues, of which Sonic hedgehog is the best studied. 

At this point I really need to be convinced that someone hasn't been slack about cleaning up after April 1.

Sonic hedgehog homolog (SHH) is one of three proteins in the mammalian signaling pathway family called hedgehog, the others being desert hedgehog (DHH) and Indian hedgehog (IHH). SHH is the best studied ligand of the hedgehog signaling pathway. .... It controls cell division of adult stem cells and has been implicated in development of some cancers.

Well, they've certainly been very thorough.

LaoTuoJia

And a shoutout to the LaoTuoJia restaurant at 19 Glenferrie Road Malvern, a Chinese restaurant that has things that other Chinese restaurants don't, such as deep fried lamb ribs and deep fried lanb legs (the latter, to be sure, we haven't yet tried - it sounds more the sort of thing for a party).  It's a Xinjiang cuisine, up north next to Russia. 

Age bin

The government's view of the drugs war is best summed up in the judgement of Franklin Adams on Prohibition:
"Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It don't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we're for it."
For Australians, the Age of Reason was something that happened to other people.

Media Watch

Last night's Media Watch was hauling the NSW Minister for Disability over the coals for  misrepresenting a unit that had been closed as a currently functioning  unit, saying that this made it look dirtier than it was and less furnished. Perhaps, but the parents' group that complained got off without questions - and the open bathrooms without privacy (that doesn't change in four months) , and the rooms without privacy (that doesn't change in four months), AND THE FACT THAT TOTAL INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN DISCREDITED FOR THIRTY FUCKING YEARS (that certainly 
doesn't change in four months), would have moved me to ask why the parents were trying so hard to defend the decisions they originally took to institutionalise their children.

Benificent

There's another one.  Spellcheck tells me what I've been writing all my life as 'benificent' is, more logically, 'beneficent'.

Lifted from Crooked Timber comments

At http://crookedtimber.org/2012/04/01/autism-a-public-discourse-blaming-teachers-and-parents/#more-23859

Well, yes, of course autism is overdiagnosed: what the hell did people think that DSM was for?

The purpose of diagnostic manuals is to ensure that nobody who enters a psychiatrist's office will lack a diagnosis that will enable them to claim the cost back on their medical insurance.

This is perhaps seen most clearly in the diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder in children, where the criteria are
A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful or vindictive
Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.

(The note itself might conceivably be helpful if it offered some information on what frequency of these behaviours was typically observed, which of course it doesn't.)

Autism in DSM is a Chinese restaurant menu diagnostic system - two from column one, three from column two, one from column three - that mathematically allow something like twelve thousand different ways to be autistic.

Though, come to think of it, the 'Chinese restaurant menu' idiom is American; here in Australia Chinese restaurants have never had it.  We don't do fortune cookies, either.