djnightgaunt

Linguistic question for you medical history experts:

I'm aware that "the dose makes the cure", etc., but is there a technical term in any language, even if it's archaic, for "medicine derived from a poison", like atropine, digitalis, or snakebite serum? I'm looking for any phrase that encapsulates the idea of something helpful or lifesaving derived from something commonly known to be harmful or lethal. It would be especially helpful if you could link to etymology.

Thank you!

Does anybody have a source for instructions on how to use a sewing machine to attach a wire hook/eye fastener? All this fine little black-on-black hand-sewing is making me crosseyed.

Sarah Palin fired a librarian after she refused to censor the Wasilla Public Library's inventory in favor of Palin's fundamentalist morality. Does anybody know specifically what books were in question? My first assumption would be anything dealing with sex education, as that would jibe with her (ironic, now) abstinence-only position, but that's just speculation. Anyone on Y!A who was there at the time?

"Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article."

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03wa...

Is there a proper name for the railing around the main deck of a tall ship?

Read:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ail4I...

I'm not in absolute agreement with everything presented in the movie Zeitgeist. (www.zeitgeistmovie.com) Regardless, the first segment, elegantly describing how and why solar and stellar movements gained such importance to humankind that cosmic bodies were enshrined in myth, is a fantastic encapsulation of the major evidence against the claim of a historical Jesus and a unique spiritual status for Christianity. It's laid out in the movie and the sources are cited and, in some cases, linked to on the site.

If a halfway-intelligent sounding Christian can't shake his brainwashing long enough for the facts to get through, what is the point of even trying to reason with them? How do you present a logical argument to somebody who only needs a reassuring pat on the head from his fellow dupe to make him close his eyes again? How can we penetrate that kind of willful denial?