From CNN.  This is exciting stuff:

The first major study of an experimental vaccine to prevent cervical cancer found it was 100 percent effective, in the short term, at blocking the disease and lesions likely to turn cancerous, drug maker Merck & Co. said.

[…]

A second analysis, including hundreds more women participating in the ongoing study, showed that after just one dose the vaccine was 97 percent effective.

All of the old posts and pages that referenced the gallery or pointed to pictures in the gallery have been updated.  I've removed the gallery links and have redirected all of the gallery photos over to the new image repository.  That means it's time to start going through the rest of the pics in the old gallery and getting them optimized and posted to the blog.

Hey, it's yet another item I can mark off my list.  Sad thing is the list is a mile long.  Argh!

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes — and it will come — may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.

— Jane Smiley

graceful
snowy white
elegant
poised as if ready to flee
yet waiting and watching
cold breeze aroused
wings beat upon the water hopelessly
gunshot fired
white plumes stained crimson
in an instant
life was shattered

[circa 1986]

Slacker sent me a quick e-mail today asking if I had an opinion on Andy Bell's new solo album Electric Blue.  Most of you know Erasure is my favorite music group, even when they're singing other people's songs.

Andy's most recent piece with Erasure just came out in January.  Nightbird was released shortly after Andy revealed he had been living with HIV for more than six years.

It's nice to see his solo debut is already on store shelves (I thought, as did Slacker, that it came out next week; oops).  As I told him, I listened to the song excerpts on Andy's site and liked what I heard.  It's very Erasuresque yet different.  I've already ordered my copy.