So I finally have some news about what’s been causing the intense abdominal pain I’ve been experiencing for the last several months and wanted to update you all on that.

I had a HIDA scan, the Friday before last, which is a nuclear imaging test to see how my gall bladder actually functions. I have a very low ejection fraction (how much bile is ejected from the gall bladder) - Average is 30-35% and mine is 6%. It also reproduced the pain I’ve been dealing with exactly and with great severity. From what I’ve been reading, these results are common with folks with Biliary Dyskinesia, but I have NOT been given an actual diagnosis by anyone, I’m just doing some research on the gall bladder to try and understand what it does a bit better.

That said. I’m getting an appointment with my general surgeon again, and my primary care doctor says it’s likely that they’ll want to remove the faulty organ. Having not undergone any serious surgery like this so far I’m feeling pretty stressed out about the prospect of it.

But on the other hand, I’m just very grateful that they’ve been able to determine that something is actually not working correctly, that it is probably the cause of the pain I’ve been experiencing, and that if it is the cause, there is something that they can do to make the pain go away. All-in-all I’m just very grateful that this has happened and that it’s not too serious. And that there may be a future where I can go without this pain.

Also, as a bonus from what I’ve been reading, this might also be the cause of my worsened acid reflux and severely worsened asthma issues that all started around the same time as this pain.

Anyways. That’s the news in Davin Land. I hope you all are doing well.

Roughly 7 Hours Ago XKCDPosted the Following Comic:

By about 4:00 AM (somebody’s time) The count for “Died in a blogging accident” Had gone up to 83 says one blogger.
Musecumulus’ Post

At 7:05 AM EST, Darcy and I found that the results for “Died in a Blogging Accident” Had gone up to:
770

While I was writing this, the count went up to:
840

Bloggers are dropping off by the hundreds. I have to go before I’m next!

So, it’s 2008. Day 3 of 2008 in fact. So far, things are going pretty well.

I just finished my 3rd month at Ciena Corporation. Things are well here. Like any job I figure it’s got its ups and its downs. There are days I come home hating my job, and days I come home loving it. The benefits are very good, and the people I work with are smart, fun, interesting people. As the new Corporate Unix Admin, I seem to be getting integrated pretty well, a good number of people seek out my opinions and my advice and thoughts, which is quite affirming. I’m pretty happy with that.

Desiring to own my own company though, I have conspired with friends Darcy, Kyle, Erich, and Jared to start a holdings company. I can’t give a lot of details now, but we are looking for investment and capital, and if you’re interested in learning more, or how you might be able to help us get off the ground, while earning profit yourself, send me an e-mail.

In other news, I’ve also joined the Columbia Association here in MD. This gives me access to some really incredible gym equipment at truly low costs, as well as Raquetball, Tennis, and Basketball courts, and swimming pools, a golf course, and discounted prices to other events and venues. All at a very reasonable cost.

I also should say that 6 months out of college, things are going very well. I’m loving living with Rachel, Darcy, and Steve in our own place. Having my dog at home has been wonderful, she’s crazy, but I missed her when I was at school. I also should say that I’m very happy to be able to really spend time immersing myself in the current events of the world. I’ve been able to keep up to date on a good deal of the worlds news. That hasn’t translated so much into me writing about it. But I’m going to be working on that. Hopefully Rachel and I will be able to start posting about important news stories soon enough.

As resolutions go, I’m looking to this year to help me spend less money and bring in more. I would like to become more politically active and vocal, and wish to get in touch somewhat more with my spirituality. I have not communed with Eris in far too long, and I’m in some need of some good meditatin’. I’m also hoping to loose a little weight and get in better shape. My goal is to get to the gym 3 times a week and do a good Cardio workout as well as do a circuit of the many weight machines available to me at my new gym. I’m averaging about 2 times a week right now, but as we move out of the holiday season, it’ll make it easier for Rachel and I to get there I think.

I have high hopes for this year for myself, my friends and the country. So be positive, be frugal, and don’t let Republicans or Conservative Democrats (I’m talking about you Lieberman!) Into the white house, or into congress. It’s time for some serious progressive liberal rule in this country. Seriously.

I’m going to update the logo, but go ahead and vote on what you think of the new theme. I’m curious as to what you think. Use the poll below to tell me what you think.

[poll=1]

Just got in my new Dell 24″ Christmas Present to myself.

This thing freakin’ rocks. Here’s the link!

UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC

Neat story in Ars Technica yesterday. Apparently Google has added roughly 30 bots to their Talk client that will allow you to get something translated with some degree of accuracy (not always much) from one language to another without having to load up a language translation website like Altavista’s Babelfish or something like that.

There are 24 bots currently available: ar2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fr2de, fr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, zh2en

I know I won’t really use it. But it’s kind of neat at least.

From Cryptome dot Org (Some scary shit!) :

Subject: NSA-affiliated IPs/DNS as of 19 Dec 2007 05:57hrsGMT
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:40:38 -0700 (MST)

Just learned following within the past few days:

Certain privacy/full session SSL email hosting services have been purchased/changed operational control by NSA and affiliates within the past few months, through private intermediary entities.

Hushmail: now fully owned by private entity NSA affiliate; has had informal relationship with NSA for a number of years that effectively provided NSA with real time access to Hushmail’s hosting servers.

Safe-mail.net: Israeli-based, ironically privately lauded by NSA and US military several years ago for its sound implementation of SendMail with SSL webmail GUI frontend. Now provides mail server info to NSA in real time.

Guardster.com (SSH/SSL proxy): NSA contractors have “bought” full access rights to Guardster servers a few days ago. Separate but related: faciliated port sniffing of hosting servers at Everyones Internet, on NSA affiliates’ behalf, has been ongoing for a number of months now.

More info on industry Windows security software:

Zone Alarm, Symantec, MacAfee: All facilitate Microsoft’s NSA-controlled remote admin access via IP/TCP ports 1024 through 1030; ie will allow access without security flag. Unknown whether or not software port forward routing by these same programs will defeat NSA access.

I will continue to provide more info on the above and related topics upon discovery.

Passed in the House of Representatives as HR 1955
Now in the Senate as S 1959

If you haven’t heard of these bills, they are very disturbing. What they call for is the creation of a congressional commission to determine the sources of Homegrown Terrorist threats, as well as a new Homeland Security Center of Excellence for the study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism.

These two new “thought” agencies would have the power to determine where they feel that homeland terrorism generates and what can be done about them. I don’t want Congress or Homeland Security deciding these things. I believe that this opens the door to preemptively arresting anybody with dissenting opinions about how the government should be doing its job. As anybody might be pushed to the limit and attack us internally if they start out disagreeing with what the administration is trying to do.

It’s a scary path. I don’t like it at all.

NY City Independent Media Center
Open Letter to ACLU from Jane Harman
Progressive Democrats of America
Center for Constitutional Rights
Democracy Now
The Indypendant

A plane that was apparently used between 2003 and 2005 by the CIA to transport prisoners from Europe and the US to Guantanamo Bay crashed on September 24th on it’s way to Ft. Lauderdale Airport. In the wreckage, investigators found 3.6 TONS of Cocaine. This is the most recent statement of the quantity of drugs. The first reports stated that there were 6 Tons of Cocaine and 1 Ton of Heroine. Makes you wonder who got rich that thanksgiving?

Links:

Daily Kos
Narco News
Pocamadre News
Poresto dot Net

Check it out. It looks like the Owner of the jet was likely a CIA operative. To top that off, it is suspected that the plane picked up it’s cargo in Medillen, Colombia, which is where the president of Columbia lives and used to be the home of one of the largest drug cartel’s in the country (likely still is under different management). Tying the incident to our government a bit more is the friendship between the Bush administration and the Columbian President. Could it be because they’re making each other richer off of Cocaine? It’s like Iran-Contra all over again.

After the Bush Administration, through the Justice Department (Which is not to be confused with the Judicial Branch, as the Judicial Branch does not report directly to the President like the Justice Department does), tried to stop the investigation into the tapes by saying that the incidents weren’t happening in Guantanamo and therefore were unprotected by previous orders to not destroy any evidence of torture.

This was overturned today by a US Federal Judge.

You can read more about the story in these articles:

Al Jazeera

More will be coming as they show up.