MBD

Pentagon Seeks Screaming Pain From Above Ability

2009-07-23T21:31:00.002-06:00

I'm sure you've all heard of the Active Denial System before, or as I prefer to call it, the Pain Ray. If we are to make martial technologies, we must at least be honest about it. The Pain Ray is usually mounted to a truck or ground or what have you and is meant to disperse crowds, demoralize the enemy and ask the really, really tough questions of knowledgeable persons.

Now, the boys at the five-sided war machine seek an airborne version of the pain ray. An air-to-surface pain ray, if you will.

Five years, max, before the pain ray sees domestic application.

2009-04-27T10:01:00.001-06:00

Posted via Pixelpipe.

2009-04-05T13:25:00.001-06:00

This vacuum will be the end of you, crap on the rug

2009-04-03T23:43:00.001-06:00

I am seriously digging the new apartment layout. It looks like the easy level of racing games. Gentle loop.

2009-04-03T23:41:00.001-06:00

is in a feng shui optimized apartment.

2009-04-02T17:21:00.001-06:00

testing, one two, testing

Rocket Scientists Annihilate Mosquitoes with Lasers

2009-03-16T18:31:00.002-06:00

Neo-Luddites and Modern Primitives are big fans of saying that technology is intrinsically dangerous, a dehumanizing force leading us to an inevitable nightmare scenario equal parts the nightmare futures of Terminator, the Matrix, Gattaca and Pluto Nash. But today, science showed that it is still and always can be a force for good.

How good? How about shooting goddamn mosquitoes out of the air with a laser? That's awesome, I don't care what you say about it.

Naturally, there are better reasons for this technology then reducing one of the most annoying, anti-BBQ insects on Earth into scorched bug bits. It can help with the 1 million deaths every year caused by mosquito-spread malaria.

Which is something we can all get behind. Unless, of course, you're a peak population adherent. But we can't please all of our doomsdaycults, can we?

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Now playing: various artists - Music That Matters, Vol. 139 - Shake Well After Using
via FoxyTunes

More Vapid Materialism

2009-02-24T19:36:00.002-07:00

This is going to be the best spent $16 ever.

DOOM

2009-02-20T12:00:00.001-07:00

Everyone else has these obama renderings and I've never seen a crowded bandwagon that I didn't mind elbowing onto.

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Rump Roast Beef

2009-01-29T17:27:00.003-07:00

This is what I'm having for dinner tonight:

1 rump roast
1 can beef broth
1 can cream of onion soup
1/4 can water

Freakin' awesome.

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Now playing: The Killbeat Podcast - Episode #18
via FoxyTunes

Tide Turning in Evolution Debate

2009-01-23T16:29:00.002-07:00

One of the most heated theaters of battle in the Culture Wars has been Evolution vs. Intelligent Design/Crazy Invisible Man Science-ish Stuff. Conservatives in Texas have lost a fight to include critiques of evolution in school curriculum.

from the Austin News:

The Texas vote on evolution was in the crosshairs of both state and national media this week because textbook publishers cater to Texas because of its high-volume purchases. If Texas chose to make significant changes to the science standards, other states would likely be forced to follow suit. The standards, once approved on final reading in March, will stand for 10 years.

Is this a fringe benefit of President Obamas' ascendancy? Signal of a change in the tide? The death knell for the Religious Fanatic control of America and its' society? Maybe me overreacting to common sense prevailing finally? Who knows?

Troyvision 1/10/09

2009-01-10T19:26:00.001-07:00

This edition of Troyvision has a little bit of everything. Failed pole dancing, stampeding dolphins, Robocop rap, kittens on a slide, kazoos, botnets, Darth Vader, bean burritos, blast knuckles and weird dresses.

What more could you want?

Denise Juneau and Montana Becoming Less Backward

2009-01-10T15:50:00.001-07:00

I'm buying into the hype. At New West, I have a new blog post up discussing the recent swearing in of Denise Juneau. There's been a lot of talk about a New Day for Native Americans and Montana, and I'm drinking the kool-aid on this one. Mostly because it's a good thing, but I think you can read the post to get that idea.

-Troy

Different from the Old Boss

2008-12-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

I've posted an article at New West. It's about the new position within our Administration-Elect, the First Americans Public Liaison. Nifty title, isn't it? We don't know much about the position yet, but it's already a hint of what the Obama administration has in mind for Native Americans. Read on, read on...

-Troy

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Now playing: John Sakamoto - Anti-Hit List - Dec. 13
via FoxyTunes

Neanderthal Genome Half Sequenced; Prepare for Gen Mods

2008-12-09T19:54:00.002-07:00

It's a well known fact that some of the first things that modern technology becomes equipped for is porn. It was probably some the first public contributions to internet, was some of the first stuff you could find on those hand held mini-laptops and a major force in character design on Spore.

So when I heard that half of the neanderthal genome has been sequenced, I knew that mankind would want to get fresh with this failed branch of the human tree, or get fresh as this long-dead stick of genetics.

Get ready for the hybrids folks. They'll be the ones involuntarily hunting strays and having resource wars with the homeless.

from New Scientist:

Half the Neanderthal genome has been decoded and the rest should be sequenced by year's end, a scientist involved in the project told a human evolution conference last week.

Culture Warriors On the Atomic Scale

2008-12-09T19:31:00.003-07:00

Culture Warriors on the "NO!" side of Prop. 8 may take up their morally inflamed arms against nanotechnology, according to a new study.

The Cultural Cognition project at Yale Law School found that people who learn about a new technology often become deeply polarized along cultural lines. I know that this sort of behavior is as ingrained as breathing, but it's still disheartening.

Nanotech! The Devil's Science, or Johnny Jihadi's micro-terror pal?!

from Physorg:

The determining factor in how people responded was their cultural values, according to Dan Kahan, the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor at Yale Law School and lead author of the study. "People who had more individualistic, pro-commerce values, tended to infer that nanotechnology is safe," said Kahan, "while people who are more worried about economic inequality read the same information as implying that nanotechnology is likely to be dangerous."

Fast Food Rots Your Brain

2008-11-29T18:37:00.002-07:00

The fine cuisine of McDonald's, Taco Bell and White Castle are taking a hidden toll on bodies. Well, outside of the hidden toll that is a ruined digestive track, diabetes, weight issues and being covered in grease.

You're more likely to get Alzheimer's if you eat at your favorite fast food joint.

from The Local:

“Our hypothesis is therefore that a high intake of fat and cholesterol, in conjunction with genetic factors like apoE4, can lead to several substances in the brain being adversely affected and that can be a contributing cause to the development of Alzheimer’s,” said Akterin.

Fast food is one of the most egregious malefactors of Western society. Low in nutrition, tasteless, addicting, unhealthy and designed for an impatient civilization, it only seems appropriate that it also steals your mind from you.

Grapes won't give you alz, by the way.

Internet Killed the Terrorist Star

2008-11-29T02:02:00.003-07:00

When it comes to the War on Terrorism, tough choices have been made on who to ally with. Trying their best to side with organizations and governments who share their interests, the State Department as teamed up with tribes in Northern Alliance to Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi.

So it only makes sense that the new allies in the War on Terror are Facebook, Google and MTV, amongst others.

from Global Research:

They will forge an "Alliance of Youth Movement," said James Glassman, under secretary of state for public diplomacy.

"The idea is put all these people together, share best practices, produce a manual that will be accessible online and in print to any group that wants to build a youth empowerment organization to push back against violence and oppression around the world," he told reporters.

Now, I'm not going to criticize strategies that have had effectiveness against groups like FARC, but the situation in Colombia is light years away from the situation here in America.

Starting a facebook group called "Terrorism Sucks!" and getting a bunch of people to join it isn't exactly winning the War on Islamic Fundamental Militancy. Google bombing Osama Bin Laden doesn't have the same effectiveness as actually bombing him. MTV has never been cool.

This is a pointless exercise in media warfare where it isn't going to have much effect. But whatever. If you want to ostracize Al Qaeda online, be my guest. I just can't help but think that there might be more intelligent uses of that counter terrorism cash.

Trying out some video

2008-11-27T20:14:00.002-07:00

So I figured, instead of posting throw off videos every couple of hours, why not make it one simple, easy to watch package? Meet Troyvision:

I'm planning on doing this relatively frequently. A major goal I've created lately is to create some kind of content out of what is otherwise pointless websurfing. I think I'm off to a good start.

Thanksgiving Day

2008-11-27T18:09:00.001-07:00

I don't plan on giving much facetime to the Americana Creation Myth beyond this:

Eat up.

Steven Seagal Seeks Small Screen

2008-11-25T00:14:00.005-07:00

You can't keep a B-rate action movie star down.

Or is he C-rate? I don't even know anymore.

Not content with the world of urban action movies starring rappers, chopping arrows down the middle or looking like a douchebag in a silk kimono wherever he goes, Steven Seagle has set his sights on television and territory largely claimed as Dog the Bounty Hunters.

from Reuters:

"Steven Seagal: Lawman" will follow Seagal and a team of deputies as they respond to crimes in progress and also focus on Seagal's off-duty ventures, including musical performances and philanthropic efforts in Jefferson Parish and New Orleans.

Is it bad that I want to see this? That doofus Seagle trying to bust out some non-confrontational flow based throw on a knife wielding methhead is just the sort of thing I want to watch on the tube. Why not have some kind of crossover with Dog the Bountyhunter? That sounds appropriately damaged enough for me to get some laughs.

Seriously. He doesn't want to watch Seagle try to use action movie one liners in everyday conversation? Or for some drunk biker to stomp his ass?

I can't wait.

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Now playing: 7 Seconds - True Roots Show
via FoxyTunes

Happiness

2008-11-13T10:50:00.001-07:00

Happiness
Originally uploaded by spiraltwist

The Secret is elusive.

2008-11-02T20:00:00.001-07:00

I find your lack of faith...disturbing.

Force choking the bastard.
First reaction

This is how i react when someone tries to grab my chest: I go for their eye.
Where's my popsicle?!

He wants that damned frozen sugar.
Wups

Alisson can't smash right.
Luchadore Rotura

He too can smash, often for cheaper then everyone else.
Troy Smash!

I love hulk gloves. If there was ever a product that justifies much of human existence.
How he drank all night

Cotey refused to take his mask off all night. He called it 'identity protection.
M-16 guides your hitchhikers

We told him to look cooler.
Hitchhiker's Guide to an M-16

Aaron went as Arthur Dent from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series. Again, pointless posing with loose guns.
Out of Context Picture

I was going as Bruce Wayne for Halloween, but we all know Batman doesn't use guns. So we were just pointlessly posing with spare guns we found at one of the parties we visited. Looks cool, though.
Alison Smith as Herself

This is Alisson, Coteys' girlfriend, going as herself.
The Unknown Luchadore

This is my friend Cotey as the Unknown Luchadore, a man with violence issues.
Posted via Pixelpipe.

2008-11-01T23:26:00.001-06:00

Amand Palmer Goes Postal

My girlfriend's costume for this H-ween. She looks awesome.
Posted via Pixelpipe.

Al Franken on the Rez

2008-10-23T00:30:00.000-06:00

Another week, another blog post that I bug everyone about in hopes of using you all to get me more money.

This latest post marks a small change in my approach to 'Off the Reservation.' As much as I love the long, involved op-eds, they're simply too time demanding to consistently write and still expect to get anything of a profit from New West. So I'll try out smaller posts with links to stories as my main content.

But you're not reading this for my scintillating blog post theories. If you are reading this, it's because you want a link to and brief summarization of my blog post. It's quite simple: I don't think Republicans care about Indians. Am I wrong? Let me know.

My editor made some trims and changes that I'm not the biggest fan of, but whatever. It's still a good piece.

Get with the clicky,
-Troy

American Dream Scientifically Impossible

2008-10-21T18:55:00.002-06:00

According to a major nueroscientist, the pursuit of the American Dream through securing our own chunk of the pie is actually not going to make us any happier in the long run. The consumer society is a beast doomed to fatten and depress itself. Our very genetics make the quest for the American Dream a quixotic disaster. Screening for a replacement should begin immediately.

from Wired:

"We've been taught, especially in America, that happiness will be at the end of some sort of material road, where we have lots and lots of things that we want," said Whybrow, a 2008 PopTech Fellow and author of American Mania: When More Is Not Enough. "We've set up all sorts of tricks to delude ourselves into thinking that it's fine to get what you want immediately."

And if we aren't seeing the effects of immediate gratification on a national level now, then I dread to see what happens when the real consequences of a superpower Id nation take hold. It's not all doom and gloom for the shattered American Dream, though. There are ways to work our way out from the false land of plenty.

"America has always believed that it was the perfect society. When you have that mythology driving your culture, it's hard to look around and say, 'Is someone else doing it better than us?'" said Whybrow. "But you can trace the situation we're in to our evolutionary origins. Now that we find ourselves in the middle of this pseudo-abundance, we're in trouble. And the fantasy that we can restart the American dream just isn't true."

It's In The Game for Obama

2008-10-15T14:47:00.002-06:00

One of the most impossible to reach swing voters include gamers. Amazing, considering how close the information needed to make a decision is to their fingertips. That aside, Barak Obama has fired the first shot in getting the attention of these sedentary couch surfers: He's bought ad-space in game.

Damned clever, I say. Inevitable, to boot. Will McCain fire the next shot and put ads for him throughout the bombed-out backgrounds of Gears of War 2?

from The Sydney Morning Herald:

Nine video games from Electronic Arts, ranging from the extremely popular Madden 09 football game to the street racing Burnout: Paradise, feature in-game ads from the Obama campaign. The ads - they appear on billboards and other signage - remind players that early voting has begun and plug a campaign website.

The idea of embedding advertising temporarily inside a video game is relatively new, having only begun about 18 months ago, and Obama is the first presidential candidate to buy space, company officials said.

If You're Not Pure, Then Fuck Off?

2008-10-15T14:23:00.005-06:00

Racial purity is a touchy to the point of taboo. To discuss it, you're either a racist, or debating the merits of tribal blood quantum, or a conservationist.

It seems that some of the quintessential North American species are spreading their love around, much to the dismay of preservationists. This raises a lot of questions on just which species get the support of wildlife preservation programs, and just what pure is.

from New Scientist:

Conservationists are debating, for example, whether the western grey wolf should have been removed from the Endangered Species list because genetic studies suggest some of them are wolf-coyote hybrids.

Grey wolves are not the only ones mixing up their historical genomes. Six of the 15 bison herds in the US have pieces of cattle DNA. Meanwhile, polar bears are mating with grizzlies, resulting in hybrid "grolar bears".

Taking Columbus Day Off (the Calendar)

2008-10-13T15:17:00.000-06:00

It's Columbus Day, everyone! Unsurprisingly, I'm not only displeased with this, but I also made a post about it.

Click, voice opinion, spread awareness. If my last entry was any sign of the atmosphere on these topics, there will be people who will fight tooth and nail against things that make sense.

-Troy

Learn Judo the KGB Way

2008-10-09T17:16:00.003-06:00

He may be a shifty tyrant with a penchant for totalitarian activity & violence, but damn, isn't Vladimir Putin the most entertaining head of state nowadays?

When he's not getting frisky with Olympic gymnasts, shutting down newspapers, shooting tigers or invading former Soviet Bloc countries, he's honing his judo skills to crush people & getting paid to show you.

from the Independent:

In Let's Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin, a 90-minute film shot over the past year-and-a-half, the former Russian president shares his favourite judo moves with viewers, who are intended to be young Russians learning the Japanese martial art.

You have admire the chutzpah of Putin. Outside of Sarkozy, there isn't a world leader this cool (even if it's cool in a douchebag kind of way). I don't see George Bush releasing any instructional vids...Cheney might release "How to Shoot Your Friends In the Face (And Get Them to Apologize)"

New Post @ New West

2008-09-27T13:39:00.002-06:00

New blog up at New West. Click on it, get me paid a bit.
Yeah, it's a bit late for it to be relevant for native american day, but that's the way it goes when you're damned busy and can't put out the press release on time.
Is that what I'm calling these? Press releases? I guess. Whateva.
Comments, criticism appreciated.
-Troy

You Can Keep Your License to Kill in It

2008-09-23T15:36:00.002-06:00

I want this bag. Not bad enough to buy it, mind you.

On a related note, none of the Bonds' could really carry anything but a gun with their tuxedos. You look foolish with anything but a gun with a tuxedo.

A Re-Conceptualization

2008-09-23T15:34:00.001-06:00

Some changes here, some changes there, am just barely an online journalist now.

Was I ever? Was that label really important in the end? Getting paid was nice, but it was getting in the way of doing things.

Fuck it. Thus begins my attempt at lifeblogging this site.

Segways of Death

2008-08-30T21:27:00.001-06:00

chinaparamilitarysegway
Originally uploaded by warrenellis

You can't say much about this picture that isn't already stated by it.

Useful Advice

2008-08-28T10:01:00.001-06:00

28/08/2008
Originally uploaded by warrenellis

Morning, all. I have grandiose designs for these old blog. I'm amazed that it hasn't crawled under the porch and died yet, so I think it needs some preferential treatment.

More to come.

train depot (hexagon exoskeleton)

2008-08-14T13:32:00.002-06:00

train depot (hexagon exoskeleton)
Originally uploaded by bldgblog

It's a big metallic bubble. You can't help but love it.

Mercenaries to Lose Immunity

2008-07-06T12:40:00.005-06:00

The days of treating Iraq like a first person shooter may be numbered. Seems that the Iraqi people were getting tired of being shot by trigger happy psychopaths for little to no reason.

from the BBC:

The US embassy in Baghdad has not confirmed the announcement, which comes as the US and Iraq are negotiating a controversial security pact.

Foreign firms employing thousands of guards won huge contracts in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion, but were not subject to Iraqi or US military law.

Iraqi frustration became fury last year when guards killed 17 people in a day.

Racial Profiling May Be Okay for FBI

2008-07-06T12:25:00.004-06:00

The FBI might be allowed to investigate Americans without any evidence of any kind or even the smallest legal infraction. In lieu of evidence, a terrorist profile could be used. Not surprisingly, it's based on racial and ethnic characteristics.

The natural target for this policy are Muslims and Arabs, but the weapons of the domestic war on terrorism have not only erred, but have been blatantly misused. With new, racially motivated weapons like these, anybody with a darker then beige skin tone can be conceivably smacked with a terrorism investigation.

from the Los Angeles Times:

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Root out terrorists before they strike.

Although President Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on race or ethnicity, the new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation.

Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons -- such as evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated -- to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.

Texas Excorcism Massacre

2008-06-30T17:04:00.003-06:00

If you must perform an exorcism in America, aim for Texas. Its apparently open season for exorcisms over there, now. Just wait until we have Texan style witch burnings or maybe even an Inquisition or two.

It looks like Pope Benedict XVIs' exorcist squads might have somewhere to camp in America.

from MSNBC:

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices found that a lower court erred when it said the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God's First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion did not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a "hyper-spiritualistic environment."

Police Raid, Detain Innocent Citizens

2008-06-22T12:33:00.004-06:00

I thought the logo on the doors said "Protect and Serve," not "Don't Fuck With Us." I do hope that the law enforcement community can take constructive criticism better in the future. Otherwise, no knock warrants maybe become punishment for the slightest disobedience, maybe at random, somtimes with more nefarious intentions.
My favorite quote is at the end, where the Police Captain calls them a hate group and seems outright pained at having to let them go just because they didn't do anything legally wrong.

from the Philadelphia Daily News:

Four young residents of a North Philadelphia house who circulated petitions questioning police-surveillance cameras were rousted from their home Friday and detained 12 hours without charges while police searched their house.

Daniel Moffat, 28, a co-owner of the house, said police had no warrant when they entered. The house was examined by officials from several government agencies and then shuttered by the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections.

"This leaves me homeless, without access to things I need. My whole life is disrupted," Moffat said yesterday.

The raid on the property on Ridge Avenue near Parrish Street was led by 9th District Police Capt. Dennis Wilson, who was quoted in an online story by the City Paper as saying of the residents: "They're a hate group. We're trying to drum up charges against them, but unfortunately we'll probably have to let them go."

Journalist Covers Own Murderer Beat

2008-06-22T12:24:00.003-06:00

Serial Killers are a damaged, despicable lot who don't deserve the idolatry heaped upon them by a society almost numb to shock. That said, damn! The guy covered his own murders? Ballsy. I've worked with a few reporters in my time, and that would've been seen at the very least as unprofessional. Conflicting interests, man.

Have fun in prison, Taneski.

from the BBC:

Police in Macedonia have arrested a journalist on suspicion that he is behind three murders he reported on.

The journalist, Vlado Taneski, is accused of raping, torturing and killing three elderly women in the south-western town of Kicevo.

Macedonian police began to suspect him after he included details in his reports that they had not made public.

Guantanamo Bay on the Open Seas

2008-06-03T08:44:00.001-06:00

The U.S. continues to dig itself into even deeper holes. Experts reckon that the U.S.s' reputation is somewhere in the lower Stygian depths. It wasn't enough that we had an off-country base, or a network of black prisons, or even an even shadier network of third connection countries that are more then willing to do the torture for us. No, we weren't satisfied with those impossibly questionable places of confinement.

We needed to put them on black prison cruises, too. At this point, I think it's not out of the question to prepare for things like Moon Prison Colonies and Detention Cells in Alternate Planes of Reality.

From The Guardian:

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

Billboards shove us toward surveillance state

2008-06-03T08:29:00.003-06:00

The lengths to which advertisers will go to get to us are ingenious. The War to Part Us From Our Money is being fought by some of the most clever, unscrupulous bastards not in politics.

It's odd how the tactics seem to mirror one another, that's damned sure. Big Brother has an economic side as well. That said, where is stuff like this going? The evolution of advertising is putting us on a road toward increasingly invasive, hostile and omnipresent advertising campaigns. I see a future of hard light logos eviscerating themselves in the air above us, the winner shaking broken shards of his foe from his corporate defined war form, then shifting to his advertising form. His advertising form, cuter by far then the razor lined puma, tells us that Coke is better then Pepsi in taste, not just combat.

From the New York Times:

Now, some entrepreneurs have introduced technology to solve that problem. They are equipping billboards with tiny cameras that gather details about passers-by — their gender, approximate age and how long they looked at the billboard. These details are transmitted to a central database.

Behind the technology are small start-ups that say they are not storing actual images of the passers-by, so privacy should not be a concern. The cameras, they say, use software to determine that a person is standing in front of a billboard, then analyze facial features (like cheekbone height and the distance between the nose and the chin) to judge the person’s gender and age. So far the companies are not using race as a parameter, but they say that they can and will soon.

The goal, these companies say, is to tailor a digital display to the person standing in front of it — to show one advertisement to a middle-aged white woman, for example, and a different one to a teenage Asian boy.

Fast Food Restaurant Want You Additcted

2008-05-07T22:04:00.002-06:00

When you need a snack, you aren't too far apart from drug addicts.

From New Scientist:

When volunteers received a dose of a natural hunger-inducing hormone called ghrelin, their brains responded to pictures of food in the same way that addicted people's brains do to cigarettes or drugs, says Alain Dagher, a neurologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who led the study.

This mechanism probably helped humans to load up on life-saving calories when food was scarce – a likely scenario during much of evolutionary history. But with well-stocked supermarkets and a fast-food outlet on every corner, such brain signals can make food addicts of us all.

Science censored at EPA

2008-05-05T15:47:00.002-06:00

Scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency are complaining about political manipulation affecting their work. A lobby group dug up just how widespread the censorship is.

From New Scientist:

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a lobby group based in Washington DC, surveyed 1583 EPA scientists and found that many feel unable to speak openly for fear of retaliation from senior officials appointed by the Bush administration.

Over half said they were not allowed to talk freely with the media, while a quarter said they would not be allowed to publish results that contradicted the agency's official line. Researchers were often pressured not to publicly discuss issues linked to climate change, such as the coastal erosion caused by rising sea levels. The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

But the survey does note some small victories for free speech. When one researcher was barred from talking about climate change at a conference, the meeting's organisers told the EPA that they would hold a 20-minute silence in place of the missing talk. The agency reversed its decision.

Gas Prices To Destroy You With More Price Hikes

2008-04-28T15:06:00.004-06:00

You thought gas prices were bad now? Some analytical energy industry trackers foresee, extrapolating from current rising oil prices, gas prices to rise up even as high as $10 a gallon.

from the New York Sun:

Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.

In Manhattan, at a Mobil gas station at York Avenue and East 61st Street, premium gas is now $4.03 a gallon. Two days ago, it was $3.96. Why such a high price? "Blame the people at STOPEC (he meant OPEC) and the oil companies," an attendant there told me.

These increases are taking place before the all-important summer driving season, signaling even higher prices ahead.

That's also the outlook of the Automobile Association of America. "As long as the price of crude oil stays above $100 a barrel, drivers will be forced to pay more and more at the gas pump," a AAA spokesman, Troy Green, said.

Life expectancy dropping in some parts of US

2008-04-28T13:04:00.003-06:00

According to a new study, life expectancy for certain Americans has either stagnated or fallen. Perhaps new criteria needs to be designated for a country to count as a superpower. Healthy citizens would be a good criteria to judge by.

from New Scientist:

Majid Ezzati and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston studied mortality rates in all US counties between 1961 and 1999. They found that the inequality between counties' rates had been narrowing until the 1980s, when the trend reversed and the gap began to widen again.

Although average life expectancy in the US rose steadily over all four decades, the researchers found that it declined significantly in 11 counties for men and 180 for women. Such trends signal a healthcare failure, say the authors.

Many of the counties with the worst decline were in the Deep South and the Midwest. Smoking, obesity and high blood pressure appear to be the causes, the researchers say.

Lawsuit filed to cease CERN activities

2008-03-30T15:23:00.003-06:00

An eccentric botanist filed a lawsuit in Hawaii hoping to stop experiments by the Large Hadron Collider. He cites the threat of space-time continuum ripping, so on, so forth.

from The Register:

Walter L Wagner and his fellow Hawaiian Luis Sancho, according to a report on MSNBC, filed suit in the Hawaii federal court last Friday. The men are worried about one of several planet-busting physicists' nightmares being unleashed in the LHC's bowels deep beneath the Franco-Swiss countryside. (According to Wagner's website, as of publication, the LHC is located "near Geneva, Switzerland".)

Firstly Wagner is concerned that careless atom boffins might slip up and create a miniature black hole. This would then suck in surrounding mass, gaining unstoppably in size and power in a runaway process until it had engulfed the entire Earth and packed it down inside its swelling, unescapable event horizon.

----------------
Now playing: Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra - Africa Challenge
via FoxyTunes

Airport spies on your face

2008-01-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd see the day when counter-terrorism tactics could be foiled by a good poker face and some chipper conversation. Behold, the new crime of the year: Facecrime!

from the Seattle PI:

Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.

TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program -- called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) -- that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.

But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.

"In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip," said Maccario from his office in Boston. "When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, ... there are behavior cues that show it. ... A brief flash of fear."

Advertising can break into your crainum

2007-12-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

It's official. There's not a place on Earth, or your very body, that's free from advertising now. They can beam commercials into your very living brain meats now.

I remember, after a long and memorable walk in the woods with some friends, we were making our way back to civilization. The silence and tranquility of nature was slowly but surely giving way to the glaring lights and noises of the city. It was then that I said to a friend, "Civilization...all they're trying to do is sell you stuff." Didn't think that I'd be so philosophical and utterly correct in the same breath.

From Advertising Age:

The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an "audio spotlight" from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium. The technology, ideal for museums and libraries or environments that require a quiet atmosphere for isolated audio slideshows, has rarely been used on such a scale before. For random passersby and residents who have to walk unwittingly through the area where the voice will penetrate their inner peace, it's another story.

U.S. can kidnap whoever they damn well please

2007-12-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

Now imagine what they can do to Americans.

from the Times Online:

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

Lobbying kills superior anthrax vaccine

2007-12-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

It's who you know, not what you can do. Keep that in mind. The War on Terror has many corrupt and incompetent sides, and that also applies to anthrax defense. The War to Line Pockets rolls on.

from the Los Angeles Times:

The manufacturer, Emergent BioSolutions Inc. of Rockville, Md., prevailed in a bitter struggle with a rival company that was preparing what federal health officials expected to be a superior vaccine. The episode illustrates the clout wielded by well-connected lobbyists over billions in spending for the Bush administration's anti-terrorism program.

Firefighters now part of War on Terror, Privacy

2007-12-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

The Department of Homeland Security has a new idea. Surprise, surprise, it's a very bad idea.

from CBS5:

Unlike the police, firefighters and paramedics do not need warrants to get into private homes and buildings - that is why there's a new push to make them an important part of the war on terror and crime.

The Department of Homeland Security is testing a program with New York City firefighters - the idea is to give fire departments a way to share intelligence information with the appropriate agencies - a system that did not exist before.

According to the AP, Homeland Security is training New York firefighters to spot unusual or dangerous chemicals, surveillance equipment, maps, photos, blue prints, and also firearms or weapons.

Police secretly test flying surveillance drones in America

2007-12-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

Don't be too surprised. It was only a matter of time. Have complete and utter surveillance control over your e-mails and phone conversations wasn't enough. They want to watch you from the skies.

from click2houston:

Houston police cars were surrounding the land with a roadblock in place to check each of the dignitaries arriving for the invitation-only event. The invitation spelled out, "NO MEDIA ALLOWED."

HPD Chief Harold Hurtt attended, along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and dozens of officers from various police agencies in the Houston area. Few of the guests would comment as they left the test site.

News Chopper 2 had a Local 2 Investigates team following the aircraft for more than one hour as it circled overhead. Its wings spanned 10 feet and it circled at an altitude of 1,500 feet. Operators from a private firm called Insitu, Inc. manned remote controls from inside the fleet of black trucks as the guests watched a live feed from the high-powered camera aboard the 40-pound aircraft.

"I wasn't ready to publicize this," Executive Assistant Police Chief Martha Montalvo said. She and other department leaders hastily organized a news conference when they realized Local 2 Investigates had captured the entire event on camera.

Billion light-year wide hole discovered in the universe

2007-12-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

The universe is porous. A void exists in our reality, close to a billion light-years wide, and what's stranger...it may be another universe overlapping with us.

from National Radio Astronomy Observatory :

"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe," Williams said.

The astronomers drew their conclusion by studying data from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), a project that imaged the entire sky visible to the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, part of the National Science Foundation's National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Their careful study of the NVSS data showed a remarkable drop in the number of galaxies in a region of sky in the constellation Eridanus.

"We already knew there was something different about this spot in the sky," Rudnick said. The region had been dubbed the "WMAP Cold Spot," because it stood out in a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched by NASA in 2001. The CMB, faint radio waves that are the remnant radiation from the Big Bang, is the earliest "baby picture" available of the Universe. Irregularities in the CMB show structures that existed only a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

Damn straight

2007-11-23T12:25:00.001-07:00

Get a Cash Advance

Feds react to hearsay, rumours

2007-11-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'm keeping this in mind for practical jokes and revenge tactics. Apparently, all it takes to sic the Feds on someone nowadays is an e-mail with the right keywords thrown in.

from AFP Yahoo news:

The 40-year-old son-in-law and his wife were in the process of divorcing when the husband had to travel to the United States for business.

The wife didn't want him to travel since she was sick and wanted him to help care for their children, regional daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet said without disclosing the couple's names.

When the husband refused to stay home, his father-in-law wrote an email to the FBI saying the son-in-law had links to al-Qaeda in Sweden and that he was travelling to the US to meet his contacts.

He provided information on the flight number and date of arrival in the US.

The son-in-law was arrested upon landing in Florida. He was placed in handcuffs, interrogated and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being put on a flight back to Europe, the paper said.

Just in case you forgot

2007-11-04T15:42:00.001-07:00

Pretension is thick in the air
Originally uploaded by troy_doney

Who's running this show.

Hantenoy

2007-11-02T14:55:00.001-06:00

Hantenoy
Originally uploaded by troy_doney

Found in an alleyway in Vermillion, South Dakota. Not sure what that name means.

Oil supply goes downhill from here

2007-10-29T15:06:00.000-06:00

Start putting together your Mad Max mobile. Read up on some literature so you can expect what comes next. Global petrol supplies reached the highest they can get, and it can only plunge from here.

from New Scientist:

EWG analysed oil production figures and predicted it would fall by 7 per cent a year, dropping to half of current levels by 2030. The announcement comes as oil prices reached record highs last week, at more than $90 a barrel, and contradicts optimistic projections by the International Energy Agency in Paris, France.

Kangaroo burgers can help stop Global Warming

2007-10-16T14:22:00.000-06:00

Greenpeace says that one way we can help stop global warming is to stop eating beef, and start devouring Australia's national symbol. Here's a few tips on how to get started.

from the Herald Sun:

The eat roo recommendation is contained in a report, Paths to a Low-Carbon Future, commissioned by Greenpeace and released today.

It also coincides with recent calls from climate change experts for people in rich countries to reduce red meat and switch to chicken and fish because land-clearing and burping and farting cattle and sheep were damaging the environment.

They said nearly a quarter of the planet's greenhouse gases came from agriculture, which releases the potent heat-trapping gas methane.

Report author Dr Mark Diesendorf said reducing beef consumption by 20 per cent and putting Skippy on the dinner plate instead would cut 15 megatonnes of greenhouses gases from the atmosphere by 2020.

Kevin Ferguson signs with MMA organization

2007-10-12T15:53:00.000-06:00

I've never tried to hide my enjoyment of the Kimbo Slice phenomenon. A fan of his backyard brawl videos, I rejoiced when he won his exhibition match against Ray Mercer. Now, the Beast is going pro. I'm totally joining Team Kimbo.

from MMA weekly:

Representatives of ProElite, Inc. on Thursday confirmed that the company has signed Kevin Ferguson (commonly known as Kimbo Slice) to a long-term contract. Exact details as to the length and terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Mental incompetents ruin legitimate trade in Netherlands

2007-10-12T15:11:00.000-06:00

After a few accidents of high repute involving people whose common sense was impaired while they were sober, the Dutch government is banning the sale of psilocybe mushrooms.

For more on this topic, I forward you to the esteemed, late Mr. Hicks.

from the BBC:

Calls for a re-evaluation of the drug grew after a 17-year-old French girl jumped from a building after eating magic mushrooms during a school trip to Amsterdam in March.

Other incidents involving the drug have included an Icelandic tourist jumping from a balcony and breaking both legs and a Danish tourist driving his car wildly through a camping ground, narrowly missing sleeping campers.

"It's a shame, the media really blew this up into a big issue," said Chloe Collette, owner of the FullMoon shop, which sells magic mushrooms in Amsterdam.

She said all the incidents had involved magic mushrooms in conjunction with other drugs.

Boot camp murders ward

2007-10-12T13:07:00.000-06:00

It seems that giving carte blanche and highly effective restraint/strangulation grapples to barely trained personnel isn't a good idea. Does anybody remember the Stanford prison experiment?

from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The death has been ruled a homicide, the autopsy report says.

Bruce P. Levy found that Leach had "multiple hemorrhages" of his neck muscles from a clash June 2 with two staffers at the Chad Youth Enhancement Center outside Nashville.

TroyVision: Atheism: Jonathan Miller's Brief History of Disbelief - Shadows of Doubt

2007-08-18T13:59:00.000-06:00

Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur ... Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic.

parts 2 and 3

External Short Term Memory 8-18-07

2007-08-18T13:48:00.000-06:00

Estevan Oriol photography of street life in Los Angeles, amongst other interesting topics.

Human/Neanderthal interbreeding (what?)

The Mysteries of Marilyn Manson's Mansion

The City in the Crosshairs: A conversation with Stephen Graham (pt. 1)

Could cosmic dust actually be a life-form?

Troy Vision 08-04-07

2007-08-04T17:12:00.000-06:00

In the coming months the most complex scientific instrument ever built will be switched on. The Large Hadron Collider promises to recreate ... all » the conditions right after the Big Bang. By revisiting the beginning of time, scientists hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our Universe.

Pot-heads can now join the FBI

2007-08-04T16:34:00.000-06:00

Truly a proud moment in the War on Drugs.

from USA today:

"Increasingly, the goal for the screening of security clearance applicants is whether you are a current drug user, rather than whether you used in the past," said Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "It's not whether you have smoked pot four times or 16 times 20 years ago. It's about whether you smoked last week and lied about it."

Sci-Fi writers latest recruits in War on Terror

2007-06-07T11:44:00.000-06:00

Homeland Security has figured out what we need to be safe. Science fiction writers! From Nerd to Jack Bauer...9/11 changed everything.

from USA Today:

"Fifty years ago, science-fiction writers told us about flying cars and a wireless handheld communicator," says Christopher Kelly, spokesman for Homeland Security's Science and Technology division. "Although flying cars haven't evolved, cellphones today are a way of life. We need to look everywhere for ideas, and science-fiction writers clearly inform the debate."

National Guard for the 'Net

2007-05-28T13:24:00.000-06:00

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has called for a national volunteer organization of trained and well-coordinated units of IT professionals from U.S. technology companies. Tasked to quickly recreate and repair compromised communications and technology infrastructures during national emergencies.

from atnewyork.com:

"What this country needs is essentially a technology equivalent of the National Guard: a National Emergency Technology Guard - NET Guard - that in times of crisis would be in a position to mobilize our nation's information technology, or IT, community to action quickly, just as the National Guard is ready to move during emergencies."

Salem seeks standard test for psychics

2007-05-28T12:44:00.000-06:00

City councilors are trying to set up a bar exam for local psychics, to control the rampant flow of unlicensed, unscreened, and oddly enough, untrustworthy amount of clairvoyants new to the city.

from the Salem News:

"There has to be criteria or you're going to get garbage coming here," Barbara Szafranski, the owner of Angelica of the Angels, predicted. "Everybody here is a legitimate person who's worked for years and years. ... When you do a reading, you hold a person's life right in your hands. We have people come to us who are willing to commit suicide, who won't go to a psychiatrist, so they come to us."

"What are the criteria?" asked a baffled Councilor-at-large Joan Lovely. "Is there schooling?"

Police can raid your home without "absolute certainty"

2007-05-25T18:18:00.000-06:00

Cops can force you out of bed, point guns at you (while you're naked), and look for seven guys who haven't lived there for three months. They can do this, and not violate your rights.

I'm putting in a moat.

from the Los Angeles Times:

In December 2001, Los Angeles County sheriffs were looking for four black suspects in an identity-theft scheme. One of them was known to have a gun. When the deputies set out to raid a home in Lancaster, they did not know the suspects had moved three months earlier. Rettele had bought the home in September and lived there with Sadler and her 17-year-old son.

Quasi-martial law enacted in Baltimore

2007-05-18T12:33:00.000-06:00

Large chunks of Baltimore are undergoing a process very similar to martial law, all in an attempt to curb a high homicide rate.

from the Baltimore Sun:

The legislation - which met with a lukewarm response from Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration yesterday, and which others likened to martial law - would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks and halt traffic in areas declared "public safety act zones." It comes as the number of homicides in Baltimore reached 108, up from 98 at the same time last year.

"Desperate measures are needed when we're in desperate situations," said City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran, the bill's author. "What I'm trying to do is give the mayor additional tools."

Russia engages Estonia in cyberwar

2007-05-18T12:28:00.000-06:00

Russia apparently unleashed the internet hounds of hell upon Estonia. Is this the next form of state-vs-state warfare?

We can't we all just sit down to a good, fair, high stakes game of pong?

from the Guardian:

A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications.

While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of last month over the Estonians' removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies.

SWAT team raids wrong house, woops

2007-05-18T12:20:00.000-06:00

A North Carolina woman is filing a complaint after a SWAT team erroneously raided her house, forcing kids to the ground at gunpoint.

from citizen-times.com:

Sandra Braswell said the officers threw two smoke grenades into her house at 208 N. Oak St. around 1:30 a.m. Saturday while her 16-year-old grandson and six of his friends were having a party on the back porch.

She said the officers, with guns drawn, told the teenagers to get on the floor. When some of the teenagers tried to run, the officers forced them to the ground and pinned their hands behind their backs.

“They didn't show no warrant,” she said on Monday. “They didn’t have no warrant for this house. They made me lay in the floor, though. I couldn’t say nothing, with my hands up in the air and all these kids in here on the floor. One of the kids laying across form me, cop got a gun pointed to his head.”

Kyoto Protocol endorsed by U.S. mayors, bypass President Bush

2007-05-18T12:04:00.000-06:00

About 500 US mayors signed the Kyoto Protocol, a snub to the anti-Kyoto President Bush.

from Seed Magazine:

"Mayors took action because we have to, because the federal government was silent," said Douglas Palmer, head of the United States conference of Mayors.

A total of 514 US mayors attending an environment summit of world city leaders signed the accord to slash pollutants to below 1990 levels by 2012.

The United States Conference of Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement is the only climate protection agreement of its kind among US elected officials. Bush has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.

School holds mock gun attack, terrify children

2007-05-15T17:17:00.000-06:00

The staff of an elementary school used 'poor judgement' and staged a mock rampage, neglecting to mention to the children that it wasn't mock.

from CNN:

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.

"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."

Canadian Gravity Mystery Solved; What?

2007-05-15T16:53:00.000-06:00

Apparently, Canada has had a weird dip in gravity around Hudson Bay. I wasn't aware of that. There's a certain surrealism to this whole story.

from LiveScience:

"There are many uncertainties about the last ice age and its impact on the Earth," said one of the study’s researchers Jerry Mitrovica, a physicist at the University of Toronto. “We are able to show that the ghost of the ice age still hangs over North America."

Cold War's hidden casualties

2007-05-12T13:00:00.000-06:00

The laborers who helped build America's nuclear weapons are getting a raw deal. Exposed to radiation on a ridiculous level, these workers are much older now, and very sick with cancer. The cherry on top to this yellowcake is how they're getting the run around for deserved benefits from the Dept. of Labor.

from the Washington Post:

"They couldn't scrub the radiation off my skin -- even after four showers," McKenzie, 52, recalled of his most terrifying day at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, S.C. "They took my clothes, my watch and even my ring, and sent me home in rubber slippers and a jumpsuit."

Later, when doctors discovered the first of 19 malignant tumors on his bladder, McKenzie followed the same torturous path as thousands of nuclear weapons workers with cancer: He filed a claim for federal compensation. It was denied.

Unable to access secret government files, or even some of his own personnel records, McKenzie could not sufficiently prove that he was exposed to something that may have made him sick. Nor can most of the 104,000 other workers, retirees and family members who have sought help from a federal program intended to atone for decades of hazardous working conditions at scores of nuclear weapons facilities around the country.

Genetic discrimination to be made illegal

2007-05-09T18:06:00.000-06:00

If you wanted to deny anyone a job or insurance just because they have unfavorable genetics, you'd better do it soon.

From New Scientist:

On 25 April, the House of Representatives voted 420 to 3 to pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The Senate is expected to endorse the act within a few weeks, which is also supported by President Bush. "I am so stunned by the majority," says Sharon Terry, president of the Genetic Alliance, a charity lobbying for the rights of people with inherited illnesses.

"Clearly the House finally understood the incredible significance this has. The American public can now access genetic tests, feel safe about their genetic information not being misused and participate in research that involves genetic information."

Pentagon promises cyber binoculars in 3 years

2007-05-09T17:26:00.000-06:00

The Pentagon is saying that it can put out a rather impressive piece of collaborative technology. Reading brain signals and everything. I hope there are applications for this tech beyond shooting people more efficiently.

From Wired:

In a new effort dubbed "Luke's Binoculars" -- after the high-tech binoculars Luke Skywalker uses in Star Wars -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is setting out to create its own version of this science-fiction hardware. And while the Pentagon's R&D arm often focuses on technologies 20 years out, this new effort is dramatically different -- Darpa says it expects to have prototypes in the hands of soldiers in three years.

Bush wants privacy lawsuit immunity for phone companies

2007-05-09T17:05:00.000-06:00

President Bush wants to help phone companies out with pesky lawsuits over violations of privacy.

href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302323.html">Washington Post:

The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass a law that would halt dozens of lawsuits charging phone companies with invading ordinary citizens’ privacy through a post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program.

The measure is part of a legislative package drafted by the Justice Department to relax provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that restrict the administration’s ability to intercept electronic communications in the United States. If passed, the proposed changes would forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the program’s details through Congress or the court system.

The proposal states that “no action shall lie . . . in any court, and no penalty . . . shall be imposed . . . against any person” for giving the government information, including customer records, in connection with alleged intelligence activity the attorney general certifies “is, was, would be or would have been” intended to protect the United States from terrorist attack. The measure, which has not yet been filed, is contained in a proposed amendment to the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill.

Abstinence Sex Ed Useless

2007-04-16T23:57:00.000-06:00

Sexual abstinence class is about as effective in preventing premarital sex as those who didn't attend the classes at all, according to a recent study.

It's funny. It's mostly religious social conservatives who back abstinence sexual education. These people are largely aware of the story of Adam, Eve, the Apple, and how making something mysterious and forbidden leads to undesirable results.

from the BBC:

The students in this study, which was ordered by Congress, came from a range of big cities across the United States, such as Milwaukee and Miami and from rural communities in Virginia and Mississippi.

They were 11 and 12 years old when they entered the abstinence programmes, which lasted one to two years.

The researchers also looked at the behaviour of their peers from the same communities who did not attend the classes.

The findings show that those who attended first had sex at about the same age as their peers - at 14 years and nine months.

The Bush administration has warned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study.

Spy chief wants to spy exponentially

2007-04-15T16:49:00.000-06:00

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is peddling a bill that would expand the government's surveillance authority. Because too much is never enough, especially with phone taps.

From the AP:

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has circulated a draft bill that would expand the government's powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, liberalizing how that law can be used.

Known as "FISA," the 1978 law was passed to allow surveillance in espionage and other foreign intelligence investigations, but still allow federal judges on a secretive panel to ensure protections for U.S. citizens — at home or abroad — and other permanent U.S. residents.

The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The court-approved surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives.

Bio-Crops can escape, kill

2007-04-15T14:08:00.000-06:00

An article from the New York Times on bio-engineered crops. A bit of an eye opener, as I'm ignorant on this topic. Rather scary. I don't read horror novels or sci-fi anymore, you know. I just read the news. The need for fear and strange is filled nicely.

From the New York Times:

Despite science-based concerns voiced by farmers, environmentalists and even its own researchers, the United States Department of Agriculture has approved more than 100 applications to grow so-called biopharma crops of corn, soybeans, barley, rice, safflower and tobacco in the United States.

Developers say these crops are the best way to achieve the economies of scale and cost savings that will let them meet rising demand for drugs like human insulin.

They acknowledge that growing pharmaceutical crops is riskier than making drugs in factories. They know that the plants contain potentially toxic drugs and chemicals, and because they look like ordinary crops, they can be mistaken for food, both before and after harvest.

The most important thing, then, is to keep biopharma plants, pollen and seeds confined to the fields where they are planted. Otherwise, they may contaminate other crops, wild relatives and the environment.

Insurgents capture bomb disposal robot; why?

2007-04-11T10:38:00.001-06:00

It's not exactly a major point of the linked story, but I found it terribly interesting nonetheless. Just what on Earth are they doing with that bomb-bot? Conversion doesn't mean the same thing for machines as it does for humans. More of a software process, really.

from CNN:

A spokesman for al-Sadr said Saturday that militia fighters in Diwaniya had destroyed three American vehicles and captured a robot used to detonate roadside bombs, AP reported.

Conneticut's State Polka and Punk Rock songs

2007-04-11T10:38:00.000-06:00

So, shall we soon see state rap and death metal songs?

from the Hartford Advocate:

Currently, two bills are being considered by the state government that would shore up our state’s musical heritage. Proposed Bill No. 5328 is also known as “An Act Concerning the State Polka.” Ansonia native Peter J. Danielczuk, a radio DJ who hosts polka shows on Bridgeport’s WDJZ 1530 AM and WNHU 88.7 FM, has been lobbying members of the legislature to make “Ballroom Polka” the state’s official polka song.

and...

The polka song proposal led to another music-related bill. When State Planning and Development Committee Clerk Eric Stroker heard the bill, he decided Connecticut needed to be the first state to adopt an official punk-rock song.

“I’m dedicated to the idea of expanding the scope of how government looks at youth and culture,” Stroker said.

Blood flow, movement power nanogenerator

2007-04-08T18:33:00.000-06:00

I can't help but think of mice on excercise wheels powering light bulbs.

from physorg.com:

Researchers have demonstrated a prototype nanometer-scale generator that produces continuous direct-current electricity by harvesting mechanical energy from such environmental sources as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow.
Based on arrays of vertically-aligned zinc oxide nanowires that move inside a novel “zig-zag” plate electrode, the nanogenerators could provide a new way to power nanoscale devices without batteries or other external power sources.

“This is a major step toward a portable, adaptable and cost-effective technology for powering nanoscale devices,” said Zhong Lin Wang, Regents’ Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “There has been a lot of interest in making nanodevices, but we have tended not to think about how to power them. Our nanogenerator allows us to harvest or recycle energy from many sources to power these devices.”

Brain logs subliminal images

2007-03-26T12:22:00.000-06:00

Subliminal images register in the brain, UK researchers report. Keep in mind that while it was banned in the UK, it's still legal in the United States.

from the BBC:

Dr Bahador Bahrami, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: "What's interesting here is that your brain does log things that you aren't even aware of and can't ever become aware of.
"The brain is open to what's around it. So if there is 'spare capacity', in terms of attention, the brain will allocate that resource to subliminal activity.
"These findings point to the sort of impact that subliminal advertising may have on the brain.
"What this study doesn't address is whether this would then influence you to go out and buy a product."
Dr Bahrami is set to carry out more research to evaluate the further impact of subliminal words and images.

Digital Immortals

2007-03-26T10:46:00.000-06:00

A new research project between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Central Florida in Orlando are aiming to create historical archives of people's knowledge combined with lifelike representations.

From PhysOrg.com:

"The goal is to combine artificial intelligence with the latest advanced graphics and video game-type technology to enable us to create historical archives of people beyond what can be achieved using traditional technologies such as text, audio and video footage," said Jason Leigh, associate professor of computer science and director of UIC's Electronic Visualization Laboratory. Leigh is UIC's lead principal investigator.

EVL will build a state-of-the-art motion-capture studio to digitalize the image and movement of real people who will go on to live a virtual eternity in virtual reality. Knowledge will be archived into databases. Voices will be analyzed to create synthesized but natural-sounding "virtual" voices. Mannerisms will be studied and used in creating the 3-D virtual forms, known technically as avatars.

At the moment the project sounds a lot like a library with a hologram man talking to you. Though I could see this getting interesting as time goes on. Imagine: Everyone signing up for immortal digitization! Heads of state! Religious leaders! Ex-Girlfriends! Z-List Celebrities! Pets!

Can we use this for fictional people perhaps?

Channel Troy 2-25-07

2007-02-26T00:13:00.000-07:00

Yet another new type of post here at Man Bites Dog. Posts that are just about the videos I come across on the internet. Enjoy.

Right Wing Mobius strip

2007-02-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

I should first mention that I loathe the elitist terms Mainstream Media and Old Media. It sounds like scenester nonsense jargon, and until blogging really gets its wings, I don't think that it should be integrated into actual news.

Another reason why we should hold off on blogging joining broadcast news is that nobody seems to know how to use it right. CNN had people reading computers on screen. Faaaaaascinating. Now, Fox News will have a show reacting to blogs that are in turn reacting to news. A closed circuit of closed minds.

I'm really looking forward to their version of the Daily Show, though. Conservatives have never been very funny, and Joel Surnow's 24 writing never struck me as laden with humor potential.

From Variety:

"It's Out There," a half-hour of stories derived from blogs, will get a half-hour test run following Joel Surnow's satirical take on news.

Show, fronted by conservative blogger-columnist Michele Malkin and former Clinton administration operative Kirsten Powers, will take on political and cultural issues enflaming the blogosphere.

Hyper Intelligent Legos

2007-02-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to be a writer, and science fiction was a genre I was particularly in love with. I just find it hard to write about it, what with all of the weird things already going on in our world today. A good example of this science fiction realism is the Superbot. Be sure to check out the many videos of this odd machine at work.

From PhysOrg:

"Superbot consists of Lego-like but autonomous robotic modules that can reconfigure into different systems for different tasks. Examples of configurable systems include rolling tracks or wheels (for efficient travel), spiders or centipedes (for climbing), snakes (for burrowing in ground), long arms (for inspection and repair in space), and devices that can fly in micro-gravity environment."

Weird Science

2007-02-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

A very interesting interview with the director of DARPA, the military technology agency.

from Wired:

"We're on the verge of having computers with densities approaching a monkey's brain, and it won't be long before we'll have a computer with the density of transistors, or equivalent to neurons and almost human. What we're missing is the architecture."

Breeding requirement for married couples under Wash. initiative

2007-02-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance have a thing for irony. Would this be called putting your money where your womb is?

from NWCN.com:

Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.

“For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation ... The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine," said WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. “If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage."

external short-term memory 2-04-07

2007-02-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

I don't think I really explained what the point of the external short-term memory posts was.

In a nutshell, there are things I find on the internet that, while interesting, aren't particularly worthy of an individual post. It can also be described as blogging that's even more ADD friendly.

Without further ado, more external short-term memory:

The Ad Generator
Oddly addictive and hypnotic impromptu web-art. From the site:
"A generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly."

How to be a Cryptozoologist
A how-to. Useful, until the X-Files calls me back about my application.

Things To Come
A 1936 British SciFi film, directed by William Cameron Menzies, but more importantly, written by H.G. Wells. It's old school, and I'm a huge fan of old school.

Michael Crichton invented

2007-02-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Rarely do I see a change in the direction of George Orwell's 1984 and not cringe so badly. The change this time is literary rather then political. I do appreciate something other then another visible push towards draconian authoritarianism, but I still grumble about the further diluting of creativity.

Enough pedantic nonsense. Here's your auto-novel.

From Discovery News:

The program, called MEXICA, is the first to generate original stories based on computerized representations of emotions and tensions between characters.

Another Go At It

2007-01-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

It's a new semester, a new year, and other things that metaphorically inspire a person to give blogging another go.

I'm not disillusioned, but I was slightly burned out.

I'm not terribly sure where I'm going to be going with the blog, since I want to try out new things. But believe me, you'll still get your weird news and other oddities.

I guess I want to make this blog a bit of a middle ground between blogging on what little of print journalism I've learned thus far. I'm sure this unholy Frankenstein will stumble about like someone hit in the head, break some of your more important valuables, and awkwardly pass out on your bathroom floor.

If it doesn't, this could prove to be somewhat interesting.

Temporary Hiatus

2006-07-30T10:41:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted, yes.

But give it time. Man Bites Dog is going to get a massive content influx soon. It's just that it needs to be thought out quite a bit first.

Until then, if you're actually reading this site, leave a message.

I think I have a readership of 2, so I'll be very impressed to get three messages.

external short-term memory 3-17-06

2006-03-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

AI, Inner-Life, and the Multiplayer World

Capragas Syndrome

Technology, Language, and Imagining Tomorrow

Human Genome Still Evolving

Quantum information can be Negative