Leon

I have a nicotine patch that says it will deliver 7mg of nicotine over 24 hours. This averages to 291 micrograms per hour.

However, is it really a constant, steady release that's at or close to that average, or does the absorption follow a curve of some kind, where it is released in larger quantities when first applied and then declines as it reaches the 24-hour mark? That would make more sense, but I can't find any information on it anywhere. How much could I expect to absorb in the first hour?

I've found plenty of interesting stories out there about Salvia divinorum, plus many videos of people doing it. Overall though, most of them revolve around simply "getting high" for poops & chuckles sake. What I'm wondering is, has anyone heard of or experienced any true positive benefits by using this herb? Has it treated any conditions of yours, or given you any new positive insights on life?

Mainly curious, but also it'll just be a matter of time before the Salvia ban wagon comes by my state, and to yours too (if it hasn't already), or to Congress, and would wonder what could be said in defense of keeping it legal as far as risk/benefit goes.

I know, these questions are a dime a dozen already, but mine may prove a bit more challenging.

I've been talking to, and been on one date so far with, a girl that I really like and every indication are is that she likes too, and I plan to ask her to be my official girlfriend this weekend and . Her friend told me she doesn't want to be alone for Valentine's day (since she has been for every Valentine's day in her life so far... and so have I), so I really want to do something special for her.

However, we've only just begun to date, and I don't know her that well. I want to do something special and different for her beyond the same-old card, chocolates and/or flowers thing, but at the same time I don't want to scare her off by doing something too extravagant either. I can save that for next year, if things continue to work out well.

Our first date was lunch & a movie, and that was only this past Sunday, so while I'm not opposed to moving up to getting her some dinner, a movie again so soon doesn't seem right either. I considered writing her a poem, but she has dyslexia so I don't think she would be able to understand it very easily; I'm not used to what her comfort zone is with that yet, and my handwriting could be difficult for her to discern. I don't currently have a printer that I could use either.

So I pretty much have eliminated all of my non-cliche ideas with those considerations. Does anybody have any suggestions? Thanks!

If it helps, I'm 25 and she's 24, though we both still live with our respective parents.

First off, I'm not a smoker, never have been and never plan to be. But I am a recreational dreamer, and read many reports of nicotine patch wearers (smokers), where they fallen asleep with the patch on and have extremely long and vivid life-like dreams. The patch's packaging even warns that vivid dreams are a side-effect.

However when I bought and tried on the patch myself (lowest I could find was 7 mg delivery per 24 hours), I had to rip it off after an hour; had extreme nausea, hot flashes, cold sweats, heart racing, etc. the usual effects of too much nicotine. It took about 3 hours until it wore off and I could sleep. But that night, even with that small dose, my dreams weren't necessarily more vivid, but were longer lasting and had more coherent plots, so I was encouraged to try again.

Second attempt, I cut the patch (it was the clear type, nicotine is in the glue I believe), applying to my skin about one-sixth of it to my arm. This time, I only lasted 15 minutes before I had to remove it; my arm was too itchy. And while I had some dream enhancement yet again in the same manner as before, I couldn't fall asleep for another 2 hours.

Third attempt, I tried 1/8th of a patch, and applied it to the top of my foot, and with it took 25mg of Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) to counteract the itching from last time and to knock me out. There was no itching, but after 30 minutes of still not being asleep yet, felt my heart rate increase and realized I was still getting too stimulated, so took it off. Couldn't sleep for about 2 and a half hours after, even with the intense Benadryl drowsiness. Dreams again were longer, more coherent... but those effects alone aren't worth the insomnia!

Each attempt was 7 days apart from the other, and I have a strict rule to NOT use it more frequently than that; though none of these experiences brought me the least bit of pleasure, I still fear getting addicted.

So my major roadblock is being able to overcome the stimulation.

Should I use even smaller patch portions? Should I increase my Benadryl dose, or use some other kind of sleep-aid to knock me out before the nicotine takes hold? Should I put the patch on a few hours before bed instead of immediately beforehand, in order to build up a tolerance (if such tolerance can come about in just a few hour's time?) Or is there another way I haven't thought of yet? I've got a whole box of patches, so I've got to do something with them so they don't go to waste.

I've just been confused in this area between politics and religion, whereas most Evangelical Christians that I know are fanatical about supporting Israel, to the point where when it comes to who they'll elect for President, they refuse to vote for anybody that won't put Israel first. They believe that Iran must be bombed by the United States pretty much NOW, or else next week they might have a nuclear bomb, and with this bomb they'll "wipe Israel off the face of the Earth", and then conquer Europe, invade America, etc.

The assumption always seems to be, that Israel is completely helpless if left alone. But I thought the Bible made it clear that the Jews were God's chosen people, and would be protected by him (indeed, I regularly hear how Israel always triumphed against all enemies whenever they were on God's side.) But then whenever the Jews strayed from God, he would allow them to be punished, conquered, etc.

So if that's true, then isn't whatever happens to Israel going to be God's will anyway, be they safe or destroyed? Why do those evangelical Christians put so much faith in a human (President) to affect that outcome?

And also, since the Bible does mention in the end days, Jerusalem and Israel as being so very important, then isn't the destruction if Israel impossible anyway if the Bible is true? Why are the Evangelical Christians acting like God isn't there and won't do anything, so America has to do everything for Israel instead?

Wikipedia says "A paper street is a road or street that appears on maps but does not exist in reality. Paper streets generally occur when city planners or subdivision developers lay out and dedicate streets that are never built. Commercial street maps based only on official subdivision and land records may show these streets, which are legally public rights of way though usually undriveable."

Since paper streets are "legally public rights of way", does that mean one could walk on them in the middle of the night (so long as they're not disturbing anybody around) and not be trespassing?

I'd like to get some small random items (mostly minerals, seeds and glass samples) irradiated by gamma rays in an amount far exceeding the doses I can obtain with any license-exempt sources.

Is there any service at any university or private company with multi-curie radioactive sources (like Co-60 or Cs-137) that (I would presume for a fee) accept items from private individuals in the mail, irradiate them, and then mail them back? I haven't been able to locate any on my own and wonder if anyone else knows of any. Thanks!

Randomly looking at some polished rounded quartz crystals on a chandelier, the thought occured to me that quartz could be made into round spheres (indeed I've probably seen them before at occult stores). Also quartz is a well known piezoelectric crystal, that produces a voltage when pressure is applied. So I'm thinking, if you were to, for example, take an implosion nuclear fission bomb design and replace the plutonium core with a quartz core instead, would the conventional explosives produce pressure enough on the quartz to produce an electromagnetic pulse?

I'm not seeing any reasons why it wouldn't work, besides maybe being too weak (i.e. only knocking out electronics within or just outside the blast radius of the explosives), but I couldn't find any information on it ever having been tried before.

Thanks!

It's something my father says a lot, since he used to doubt the Bible and stuff a while ago, but now he claims that any and all doubt is really just the Devil putting those thoughts into your head, and that the only right thing to do is the pray those thoughts out of your mind, rather than consider them any further.

He's a Young-Earth Creationist, so any time confronted with scientific evidence that conflicts the Earth-is-6000-years-old dogma he's accepted, he either accuses Scientists of all being lying atheists, or if he catches himself considering their evidence as genuine, decides it's Satan making him think that way and cancels further thought of it.

So just wondering if there's anything in the Bible that actually says Satan can put thoughts into your head like that.

I'd like to put down some cardboard for weed control in my garden this year, and the place I work at gets plenty of scrap cardboard that I can use. Problem is, nearly all of our items come from China, including the cardboard. I know the USA and EU have environmental laws that make cardboard from those places safe, but China does not.

Read also in a mycology book never to use 3rd-world cardboard for mushroom growing since they contain dioxin. I won't be growing mushrooms, and I'm pretty sure they concentrate toxins very intensely anyway hence the book's warning.

But long story short, will it harm my plants and myself to use Chinese cardboard in the garden? Is it safe to till into the soil at the end of the season?

(In New Jersey)

Suppose I had a spring water bottle with the label ripped off, and instead of water in it I'd instead put some home-made tea in it, and I had it in my car while driving in plain view. If an officer pulls me over and sees that there, is the possibility that the bottle's contents contain alcohol probable cause in itself for him to enter the car to sniff the liquid? If he takes the bottle, does that constitute a search? And if he merely asks for me to hand him the bottle without him entering the car, or if I offer for him to sniff it if he asks about it, is that automatically consenting to a search?

And on that vein of thought, is there such thing as consenting to a partial search, like letting the officer search a bag I have on the front seat but not consenting to letting him into my trunk, or are searches pretty much all-or-nothing?

This scenario is hypothetical; I visit friends frequently that live in a town with police who regularly harass drivers out of boredom and I'd rather not give them any easy excuses for them to search me all the time. Thanks!

I obtained a bulb, G15T8, which on the box contained this correct number printed on the box along with "UVC Germicidal" and "Protect Eyes and Skin" as properly expected. Printed on the lamp itself is only "G15T8 Caution: Protect eyes and skin from rays." No indicators of who the manufacturer is.

When I turn the lamp on, the filaments light as expected and I get the expected lavender glow inside of the lamp (as viewed through UV-protective goggles for safety), all things giving the appearance that it's in proper working order. However I've been unable to find any evidence of the lamp producing the wavelength of light responsible for its germicidal effects. I have several fluorescent minerals, mainly willimite and calcite, which with my old, failing and smaller germicidal lamps, produce a green and red glow that is visible even without needing a filter to remove the visible light. The lamp I bought produces no such glow, even when filtering visible light out.

Another test was to expose a portion of a philodendron house plant to the rays for 6 minutes at a distance of 1 inch from the lamp. I learned from previous experiments with my other germicidal lamps (again of much lower size and power) that a mere 1 minute exposure at 6 inches distance is sufficient to kill the plant, with exposed parts of it turned brown and withered within 12 hours following the exposure. Yet 6 minutes at 6 times closer of a distance left the plant completely unharmed, thus giving even greater evidence that there is no germicidal effect produced by this lamp.

I also tested the lamp against a phosphor screen that glows bright under UVC rays to ensure that the Tuff Coat and/or the glass weren't absorbing the desired wavelengths of the rays, and turns out both of those things are transparent to the UVC rays. So for some reason I can't resolve, the lamp simply isn't producing the wavelength.

The only possibility I can see where I might be failing here is that this wavelength could only be emitting UVC rays at 253 nanometers, whereas my previous lamps I've been more familiar with emitted at both 253nm and 185nm. All of the effects regarding mineral fluorescence, damaging plant tissue and producing ozone may only occur at the 185nm wavelength that is absent from this lamp, while it could be producing plenty of 253nm light that I cannot test for by any means I have now, but nonetheless still are capable of killing bacteria, viruses and mold spores. If that's the case, then the lamp works fine and I can still use it, I will just need to buy another lamp that can produce the 185nm wavelength. But as it stands right now, I have no means of knowing either wavelength are being produced. Some confirmation that it is designed only for producing 253 nanometer germicidal light would be good.

The way I see it, the way things are going with the worsening budget and trade deficits and the Federal Reserve's new crusade to cause inflation via "Quantitative Easing", the economy is going to get a LOT worse before much longer, as early as 2011. This has been building for many years and has been worsened by the past 2 years especially, but it isn't something that can be realistically expected to be stopped legislatively, even if the Republicans regain the majorities in both House and Senate.

That being said, the Republicans and especially those backed by the Tea Party are said to represent small Government, Free Markets & the Constitution. Of course this isn't followed up by the actions of most of the current ruling GOP Congressmen and Senators, who will almost certainly continue to lead the GOP in the Neoconservative fashion that defined the Bush years.

In that case, since the economy is (in my view) certain to fail before the 2012 elections, and the Republicans at least in name represent many positions I believe in, would it be better for the GOP to lose this current election and fail to regain control of Congress, such that it won't be the Free Market, ect. that is blamed for the collapse when it occurs?

I can see the left saying "As soon as we let your party control Congress, you wrecked the economy like Bush in months! Clearly this discredits [Capitalism, Free Markets, Constitutional Governance, etc.] and only [Democratic-Socialist] reforms can save us, since we were recovering when the Democrats controlled everything!" I'd rather give them 2 more years of control and let the collapse happen on their watch then to give them this opportunity to frame freedom for it.

Any other Republicans agree?

By "wrong", I mean ruling in blatant disregard of the Constitution. Hypothetically speaking, if the Court's majority ruled that the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech "doesn't apply to cases where the speech is opposite to popular political views", or otherwise speech against the ruling party in Government.

What can the People do about this?

That is, if I start off with some chemically and isotopically pure Uranium-238 and have it in a form where no Radon escapes, how many years must go by until the radioactivity from all of its daughter isotopes are equal?

I understand Stevia is a great plant to sweeten with (as I grow it myself and love to eat its leaves right off the plant), but all of the information I can find about it are completely focused on its sweetness. I am wondering what other vitamins/minerals are in the leaves that it is a good source of, if any? Could it be used to substitute lettuce or even spinach?

I understand that the first batch the Curies had made that was easily seen to be self-luminous was 100 mg (or about 100 mCi of activity). But what would be the minimum amount of Ra-226, assuming it is concentrated in the smallest area possible, that would produce a visible blue luminous glow from its ionization of the air?

If nuclear decay rates vary with distance from the Sun, as outlined by the following paper, how is it the decay rates of isotopes of Cobalt (56Co and 57Co) measured from supernova such as SN1987A, match those found on Earth?

http://www.fusor.net/board/getfile.php?bn=fusor_fi...