Did you use training wheels when you learned to ride a bicycle? My dad was convinced they slowed down the learning process and taught bad habits, so he just held on to the back of the seat and ran down the street with me while I pedaled. Then he let go and I fell over. Rinse knees, repeat, until I caught on to the trick of keeping my balance.
At the Interbike show this weekend, Gyrobike demonstrated its battery-powered bicycle wheel, which has an internal flywheel. The gyroscopic effect of the spinning flywheel keeps the bike erect under even the wobbliest little kid, without training wheels. The speed of the gyroscope can be adjusted, to provide less and less stabilization over time until finally the student is balancing all by himself.
The wheel will be available in December via thegyrobike.com.
"
Transform mealtime into an educational, interactive construction zone! Construction-vehicle shaped fork, spoon, and pusher-scoop set makes learning to self-feed a fun activity.
* All materials FDA-approved, PVC/Phthalate/BPA-free
* Vibrant colors are stimulating and captivating
* An asset in the development of hand-eye coordination
* Dishwasher-safe
* Paint-free, lead-free
Our friends at Sci Fi Wire managed to find 17 sci-fi themed cakes to celebrate the 17th birthday of Syfy. This AT-AT is incredible, but the sight of Borg Cubes, the Battlestar Galactica and — holy crap! — zombie Spider-Man, all created in baked glory really got us drooling. Follow the link below to satisfy your sci-fi sweet tooth.
Via Sci Fi Wire
"
The Piet is an indoor fireplace that burns ethanol instead of wood. Featuring brass reflectors, it fills the room with warmth and light while staying safe with a layer of rock wool fire insulation. This allows it to be placed near walls or furniture. Plus, it looks downright beautiful.
Karen Burns will talk about the six most important things you need to know to get a job.............Burns has worked 59 jobs over a period of 40 years in 22 cities and four countries. All this experience taught her a lot! So she wrote a book, “The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use........
let me know when her book : How to Get a Job and Keep it comes out…
A new paper explains how they built the zombie insect
It’s hard to admit you’re wrong. It’s especially difficult if you are in a position of leadership, because when you’re wrong it’s often in front of a lot of people. Admitting you are wrong as a priesthood leader has an added degree of difficulty because you are ostensibly guided by the Spirit in the things that you do in relation to your calling, so admitting you are wrong can also carry the implication that you aren’t following the Spirit. So I’m always impressed to come across experiences where priesthood leaders have the courage and humility to admit error. One of the most impressive examples that I’ve come across recently is Joseph Fielding Smith.
In his essay “The Mormon Cross,” Eugene England recounts a remarkable experience he had with Joseph Fielding Smith when Smith was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (and, of course, before the 1978 priesthood revelation). Smith had written things affirming the notion that blacks were denied the priesthood because of things they had done (or failed to do) in the pre-existence. England felt strongly that this was not the case and was able to schedule a meeting with Smith to discuss the issue. He recounts the experience as follows:
I told President Smith about my experiences with the issue of blacks and the priesthood and asked him whether I must believe in the pre-existence doctrine to have good standing in the Church. His answer was, “Yes, because that is the teaching of the scriptures.” I asked President Smith if he would show me the teaching in the scriptures (with some trepidation, because I was convinced that if anyone in the world could show me he would). He read over with me the modern scriptural sources and then, after some reflection, said something to me that fully revealed the formidable integrity which characterized his whole life: “No, you do not have to believe that Negroes are denied the priesthood because of the pre-existence. I have always assumed that, because it was what I was taught, and it made sense, but you don’t have to believe it to be in good standing, because it is not definitely stated in the scriptures. And I have received no revelation on the matter.” (Dialogues with Myself, pp. 131-132)
I think lesser men would have been unwilling to admit error, and would have tried to find a way to justify or rationalize their position.
Another great example of this came from a friend of mine who was serving in her stake’s Young Women’s presidency. She told me about a lesson a counselor in the stake presidency gave to young women in a ward in her stake. The lesson was about chastity, and the counselor used terrible analogies and phrases in attempting to teach the young women (for example, comparing chastity to licking a lollipop and then offering it to someone and asking them if they’d like one that had already been licked; or “Don’t bring used goods to the temple altar,” just to name a couple). My friend was horrified and felt that she had to confront the counselor, since he would be teaching the same lesson to other wards as well. Bracing for the worst, she sat down with him and explained her feelings about how unhelpful and even damaging his lesson had been. To her amazement, the counselor very sincerely thanked her for letting him know and then humbly asked her for advice on how he could change and improve his approach. She provided him with a number of suggestions on ways to better approach the topic. He completely changed his lesson, and she informed me that what he taught in subsequent wards was incredibly positive and uplifting.
One thing that strikes me about both of these experiences is that the priesthood leader in question had not considered that he was wrong until someone sat down and discussed it with him in a civil, non-accusatory way. I realize not all priesthood leaders have the courage and humility to admit when they are wrong– and there are plenty of experiences out there to prove it– but I think we have an obligation to give them the chance.
I was telling my boss, Robert Sloan (former Baylor president and
current president of HBU), about Michael Moore's new film
Capitalism: A Love Story. We briefly discussed an
interview of Moore by the Wall Street Journal yesterday
in which Moore asserted that the auto workers should own 100% of
the auto companies.
'Mr. Moore, do you pay your workers a wage to perform their
functions or -- consistent with your philosophy -- do they own
the films you make along with you?'
It’s just a necessary step, so they’ll know where to look when they do decide to confiscate ‘em.
"[Toronto] police seize 400 guns in ‘Safe City’ project
The latest crime prevention project by Toronto police took aim at registered gun owners who opted to give up their firearms. Police have seized about 400 guns since March after knocking on the doors of registered firearm owners.
Many of these owners had their guns stashed in the closet or in a drawer though a condition of their registration mandates that all firearms are securely stored.
Police did not lay any charges but seized hundreds of weapons.
"I have previously communicated to ACORN my dissatisfaction with their lax supervision of employees and volunteers. The fact that people who were improperly registered to vote did not actually cast ballots in no way excuses the organization’s failure to exercise better control in this way. Further, the motivation of those who went to ACORN offices and initiated the discussions involving prostitution are wholly irrelevant to the fact that ACORN’s employees’ actions were outrageous and further indication of an organization that is at best poorly run in many regards. The defense against sting operations is not to ban them, but to behave properly so that they do not reveal as they did in this case clear evidence of gross impropriety."
Nothing goes together quite like drinking and playing cards, so it's natural that someone has created a flask that holds a pack of cards.
It's perfect for those times when you're out on the bus, minding your own business and drinking Jim Beam when someone challenges you to a game of 5 Card Stud. You don't even have to reach back into your pocket for cards, which gives you the intimidation advantage, allowing you to win this theoretical bus-based card game. And that's how well-designed products change lives.
R2-D2 always seemed to have the right tool for any odd job, whether it be projecting a message of distress or opening up a blast door. Now, thanks to Popular Science reader Brian De Vitis (and PAX attendee, from the look of it), Artoo will also be able to play video games from a long time ago in living rooms far, far away.
From those rows of controllers strewn out on the floor, it looks like Artoo is packing an NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Genesis, Dreamcast, Playstation, Xbox and — just a guess — PlayStation 2.
The sweetest part? It's also got a built-in projector for playing the games, which shines out of the same spot it did when Leia popped up and told Obi-Wan he was her only hope. There has been no greater legacy console mod than this, to be sure.
It can be seen in a recent copy of Popular Science, as pictured below.
" Kudos to the Pelican Institute for excellent research, and to
Deroy Murdock and our own Quin Hillyer for resurrecting the issue
of ACORN's tax cheating.
I had this story almost a year ago.
The piece, Lien on
Me, ran in TAS online on Oct. 28, 2008.
It begins:
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN) and its affiliates are content to impose crippling
big-government laws, regulations, and taxes on Americans, but
when called upon to obey those same rules, ACORN's network of
scofflaws and deadbeats simply refuses to comply.
The most egregious example is the fact that more than 200
federal, state, and local tax liens adding up to more than $3
million have been filed against the ACORN network since 1989.
All of these liens, which are only issued by creditor tax
agencies after a tax debt has become seriously delinquent, are
associated with ACORN's 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue address in
New Orleans, Louisiana. That address is the official
headquarters for nearly 300 ACORN-affiliated groups.
The most recent lien ($23,383) was filed by the IRS against an
ACORN affiliate, American Workers Associates Inc., on Sept. 9.
The largest lien ($547,312) was filed against ACORN itself by
the IRS on March 10. [...]
Murdock references a $548,000 lien. If in haste he rounded up, it
might be the $547,312 lien I discovered.
ACORN also
sold out its poor constituents in Brooklyn in exchange for a
cash bailout from Forest City Ratner, a wealthy developer trying
to build the Atlantic Yards project.
This looks like a lot more fun than air hockey: Four players use joysticks to control tiny wireless robots in MaruBot Football League, where each of the little guys seems to have a personality. Their LED eyes indicate happiness after a goal is scored, or sadness after a loss. Aww.
The game's makers also have a heart, claiming the MaruBot game inspires 'cooperation and partnership, minimizing individualism, isolation, violence of online games.' If a four-player game sounds like too much togetherness for you, there's also a two-player version. Now a big hit in Korea, the game could someday show up at an arcade near you.
You'd be forgiven if you thought former computer giant SGI (Silicon Graphics, Inc.) had gone extinct. But the California company responsible for the computing engines behind such special effects flicks as Jurassic Park and other 90s blockbusters is still alive and kicking, and proves it's still a T-Rex with its Octane III Personal Supercomputer.
You can stuff 80 cores' worth of Intel quad-core Xeon processor goodness into this beast, accompanied by advanced NVIDIA graphics and nearly a terabyte of memory. For more efficiency, you can slip 19 of those tiny, low-power single-socket dual-core Intel Atom processors inside. This 1x2-foot deskside workstation is said to be ultraquiet, too.
That $100,000-and-up pricing of the old SGI has also gone the way of the dinosaur — this hot box's pricing starts at $7995. Sure, the 80-core version will cost a lot more than that, but it'll still be a far cry from 100 grand. And it puts even the most powerful PC workstations to shame. Could this mean the old SGI is back?
The sci-fi writer's Mac is up for sale; what could be hidden inside?
The real treasure, though, is what could be on the hard drive. Here's our wish list:
1. A form fan-letter response titled 'That's-Star-Wars.doc'
2. A record of the bet he lost that let Shatner direct Star Trek V.
3. Transcribed notes from the set on the first day of shooting the original TV series including the stage direction: 'You NEED..to..E.NUN.ci.ATE....MORE!...clearly.'
4. Rejected audition tapes for the role of Jean Luc Picard from Ben Kingsley, F. Murray Abraham, and Carl Reiner.
5. A patent illustration for the transporter.
6. Documentation that proves The Borg is real, and lists Lindsay Lohan and Madonna among the members of the collective.
7. Hatemail from J. Michael Stracyzinski and Harlan Ellison.
8. A abandoned crossover script with the working title Tribbles vs. Ewoks
9. A folder called 'Uhura - PRIVATE!'
10. Brainstorming notes for the Top Ten Uses for Data's Disembodied Head
Did we forget anything? Tell us in the comments.
"
My friend David Knight
won second prize for his excellent video (he's got others) in the
Galen Institute's
'Do No Harm' contest a couple of months ago. Watch and learn
quickly why Britain's and Canada's systems are failures, while
ours needs an overhaul, but not of the kind the Democrats are
proposing.
President Obama, who opposed a health insurance mandate during
the campaign and has vowed not to support a middle-class tax
hike, has come out in favor of a mandate that would raise taxes
on those in the middle class who do are uninsured.
During an exchange with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday,
President Obama tried to deny that a mandate was the same as a
tax increase, even when confronted with a dictionary definition:
STEPHANOPOULOS: I -- I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam
Webster's Dictionary: Tax -- 'a charge, usually of money,
imposed by authority on persons or property for public
purposes.'
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's
Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me
that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you
wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the
definition. I mean what...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but...
OBAMA: ...what you're saying is...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics
say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics
say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know
that.
Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not
we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it's a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
Yet the idea of a mandate as a tax does not merely come from
Stephanopoulos, or critics, or Merriam Webster, but from language
in the current draft of the Baucus bill itself. In fact, on page
29, the Baucus proposal reads,
'The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise
tax....The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and
applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.'
Obama argues at another part of the interview that, 'right now
everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance.
Nobody considers that a tax increase.' But there are many reasons
why this is a flawed analogy. Most importantly, car insurance
mandates, which apply at the state level, only apply to people
who drive a car on public roads. If I don't drive, I don't have
to purchase car insurance. By contrast, the health insurance
mandate would apply, with few exceptions, to everybody in the
United States. Also, people aren't forced to report car insurance
in their federal tax returns, and fines are not assessed through
the federal tax code. And if car insurance mandates are the
model, then they certainly aren't effective, with an
estimated 13.8 percent of drivers going without coverage in
2007, according to the Insurance Research Council.
Obama also argued:
You and I are both paying $900, on average -- our families --
in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've
said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you
certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling
on.
If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up
an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down
the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can
afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know
what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus
and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care,
that's...
So, Obama is saying that nobody who can't afford health insurance
will be forced to buy it, but he has an odd definition of
'affordable.' Under the Baucus plan, individuals would face a tax
of at least $750 if they do not purchase health coverage. And
while the proposal would provide subsidies to lower-income
Americans, those subsidies would stop at 300 percent of the
federal poverty level. What that means is that a family of four
with a household income above $66,150 would face a tax of $3,800
if it does not obtain health insurance, while an individual with
income above $32,490 would face a tax of $950. While the proposal
would in fact waive the requirement for individuals who can prove
they can't afford a minimal health insurance policy as defined by
the government, to qualify for the exemption, premiums would have
to exceed 10 percent of adjusted gross income -- or somewhere in
the neighborhood of $3,000 for somebody with income of $32,490.
Then there's this larger idea of uncompensated care. While it is
true that some people end up showing up in emergency rooms
without paying and that imposes costs on others, there's two
things that Obama isn't taking into account. First, just because
you mandate coverage it doesn't mean you elimate the
uncompensated care. Second, if you have to spend hundreds of
billions of dollars on subsidies enabling people to purchase
insurance, then that costs far more than whatever would be saved
by reducing uncompensated care.
In a prior
article for our magazine, I looked at the Massachusetts
example -- the only state with a health insurance mandate:
In 2006, Massachusetts enacted a landmark health care reform
that increased coverage by expanding Medicaid eligibility and
providing subsidies for citizens to purchase coverage on a
state-run insurance exchange. As more people obtained insurance
to comply with a mandate, uncompensated care declined by 38
percent between 2006 and 2009 (projected), saving the state
$246 million. However, the Commonwealth Care subsidy program
created as a result of the 2006 reform is projected to cost
$820 million in 2009 alone, and during the same time period,
the state’s expanded Medicaid program saw its price tag swell
by $1.1 billion. So in other words, while costs declined by a
quarter of a billion dollars in one area, they increased by
nearly $2 billion in other areas.
The other thing to keep in mind is that while Obama likes to
describe those who are uninsured by choice as freeloaders,
there's a flip side to this. Many of those who are currently
uninsured simply have very low health care costs, which they are
willing to pay out of pocket when they get sick. The reason why
Obama supports a mandate is that he wants to be able to force
insurers to cover those with preexisting conditions, and the only
way to do that is to bring uninsured healthy people into the
system. So really, this isn't about eliminating freeloaders, it's
about forcing healthy people to pay for more health care than
they need to so that they can make premiums more affordable for
the sick.
I think candidate Obama had this one right when he talked about
mandates last year. 'In some cases, there are people who are
paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off
than they were,” candidate Obama
said during a February 2008 debate, referring to conditions
under the Massachusetts mandate. 'They don't have health
insurance and they're paying a fine.'
The students first analyzed the networks of people who publicized their sexual orientation on Facebook. Turns out that statistically speaking, gay men have more gay friends than straight guys do. So then, they used an algorithm to run the stats on men who kept mum about their sexual orientation on the site. Their computer program was able to correctly identify 10 men whom the students personally knew to be gay in the real world but who hadn't shared that fact on Facebook. (The algorithm didn't work as well with women or with bisexual Facebookers.)
The students completed the project for a class on ethics and the Internet, and hope to publish it in a scientific journal.
Their project is far from the first study showing that a simple computer program can sleuth out details you might prefer to keep private by looking at your social network on the Internet. Earlier this year, computer scientists correctly linked 30 percent of anonymous Twitter and Flickr accounts with a simple algorithm that compares who's following who on each site. And other researchers have used Internet social networks to correctly identify peoples' political affiliations or where they live.
It's a good reminder to take a look at your privacy settings. Because you might inadvertently be sharing things you'd rather keep to yourself. Even if you're only declaring to the world that someone's your friend.
[via Boston Globe]
While you’re at it, take advantage of other Google Voice services, like live call recording and free Web-based text messaging. It also supports Gizmo (gizmoproject.com), a Skype-like service that lets you make and receive calls from your computer for free using your Google Voice number. And if you’re a cell jockey, note that Google now has apps that integrate the service into your BlackBerry or Android phone’s dialing, address book and SMS functions.
"Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chairman of subcommittee on the Constitution, makes the case that the bill, if it's ever signed into law, may not stand up to court challenges.
The ACORN bill, he claims, is essentially a "bill of attainder," a measure targeted to benefit or penalize an individual or group which is prohibited in the Constitution, Article 1, Sections 9 and 10.
In a floor speech tonight, Nadler said:
A little while ago, the House passed an amendment to the bill that we were considering that says no contract or federal funds may ever go to ACORN, a named organization, or to any individual or organization affiliated with ACORN. Unfortunately, this was done in the spirit of the moment and nobody had the opportunity to point out that this is a flat violation of the Constitution, constituting a Bill of Attainder. The Constitution says that Congress shall never pass a Bill of Attainder. Bills of Attainder, no matter what their form, apply either to a named individual or to easily ascertainable members of a group, to inflict punishment. That’s exactly what this amendment does.The White House has been critical of ACORN but mum about the recent Congressional actions.
" Last year Geraldine Ferraro called Barack Obama's race an
advantage. 'If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this
position,' she said to a California newspaper, the Daily
Breeze. 'He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And
the country is caught up in the concept.' Now Jimmy Carter says
his race is a disadvantage. Which is it?
Bill Clinton cast Obama's early primary success in the South as a
Jesse Jackson-style fluke. Now the same liberals who defended
Clinton against race-baiting charges attribute Obama's lack of
success to racism in the South.
Carter says Americans don't think Obama is qualified to lead. So
did Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. So did her
feminist supporters. Gloria Steinem said Obama enjoyed an unfair
racial and gender advantage over Hillary: Black males, she noted
acidly, got the vote before women. George McGovern agreed, saying
'I have a feeling that in this country where we're at today in
our thinking, it's going to be harder to elect a woman than to
elect a black man.'
Where was Carter then? Obama faced more racial discrimination
during the Democratic primaries than he faces today. Conservative
opposition to him these days is based on policy differences, as
Obama himself acknowledges; liberal opposition to him during the
primaries wasn't.
Many liberals agreed with his policies, but out of a kind of
white liberal paternalism thought that he should wait his turn.
Hillary at one point condescendingly implied that Obama could
serve as her apprentice for eight years. And long before the
'birthers,' one of her chief advisers, Mark Penn, thought it
preposterous that America would elect someone with Obama's
foreign-sounding name and time spent in Indonesia.
If anybody saw Obama as an Affirmative Action president waiting
to happen, it was the running mate of Jimmy Carter's vice
president. If anybody is assuming the worst of a race
reflexively, it is Jimmy Carter himself. And how is it that one
of the most unsuccessful politicians of modern times could have
such an acute understanding of the people's moods and
preferences?
The left sees racism in conservative opposition to Obama's health
care proposal even as they cast it as an identical replay to
opposition under a white president, Bill Clinton. They have seen
it all before, yet somehow it is new and racist.
But then, almost anything qualifies as racism in their eyes. Even
that old opposition to Bill Clinton. Author Toni Morrison saw
racism in his impeachment proceedings, which transformed Clinton
into the 'first black president.'
In the left's 'conversation about race,' evidence is irrelevant.
Conservatism is automatically equated with racism. Jimmy Carter's
malicious and willful assertion would never be treated as
front-page news otherwise. Nor would NAACP President Benjamin
Jealous be able to say without any proof whatsoever to the
Washington Post that an 'ambiguous, uncommitted middle'
of racists exist in the country, which the 'Republican Party's
far-right-wing contingent is definitely fighting hard for.'
It says a lot about the twisted victimology of left-wing identity
politics that the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons are more
inclined to embrace Obama as a 'black president' in his failures
than in his successes. Recall that as Obama went from strength to
strength in the Democratic primaries, Jackson was caught in an
off-camera moment disparaging him as a sell-out upstart in the
crudest terms imaginable, a comment that makes Joe Wilson's look
tame. Now that Obama is failing they feel more comfortable with
him.
The Democratic primaries pitted feminists against racialists and
blacks of Jesse Jackson's generation against those of Obama's.
The nation had largely moved beyond race. But the Democrats
hadn't. They were still, as Ferraro revealed, 'caught up in the
concept.'
As my POLITICO colleague John Bresnahan reported a couple of days ago, ACORN's grassroots revenue stream has always been the source of their independence [and power], so today's House vote to defund them won't have a huge impact on their bottom line.
ACORN's Brian Kettenring:
“We’re disappointed that the House took the rare and politically convenient step of attempting to eliminate federal funding for a single organization, one that has been the target of a multi-year political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News, and other conservative quarters.
Fortunately, ACORN derives most of its income from its members and other supporters, so the decision will have little impact on overall operations. The only real victims of today’s vote are the families who have benefited from ACORN’s important work.”
You'll never have to look at each other again with the Athena sofa, equipped with two LCD displays that pop out of each armrest. Hidden underneath is a PC with an iPod/iPhone dock, and the thing is bristling with speakers in addition to an 8-inch subwoofer.
"From what I saw, the ACORN workers come across as earnest, caring and human. In the one I saw, the ACORN women kept explaining that what the hoax perpetrators were wanting to do was illegal, though they didn’t refuse them their service. All in all, it comes off as a sleazy trick played on earnest, helpful people.
You can't grasp the full craziness of Van Jones, Obama's
now-resigned 'green jobs czar' (actual job title: 'Special
Advisor on Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for the White
House Council on Environmental Quality'), unless you watch his
speeches on YouTube.
In a nutshell, along with his anti-capitalism, Marxism, and
anti-white racism, Jones' big idea is that we should knock down
our prisons and create green jobs by having the nation's
murderers and rapists come over to caulk our windows.
Jones describes U.S. prisons as 'slave ships on dry land,' a
'punishment industry' that's disproportionately victimizing
people of color and profiting from America's ongoing 'racist
war.'
One of the victims of that racist war, trapped unfairly on a
'slave ship' in Philly, according to Jones, is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
He's the former community organizer and 'Lieutenant of
Information' for the Black Panther Party who was convicted of the
Dec. 9, 1981, murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel
Faulkner.
Jones asserts that whites are the actual violent ones, shooting
up whole schools, not just one person at a time. 'You've never
seen a Columbine done by a black,' says Jones. 'Never.'
Perhaps. But the U.S. Department of Justice, totaling up all the
murders nationwide -- not just what happened on one day in 1999
-- reports that the offending rate for blacks who commit murder
is more than seven times higher than the rate for whites; the
homicide-victimization rate for blacks is six times higher than
the rate for whites; and 94 percent of black murder victims are
killed by blacks.
In any case, Jones' green-justice idea is to 'build a pipeline
from the prison economy to the green economy,' an innovative
solution that allows us to simultaneously achieve several major
goals. The 'historical victims' trade in their AK-47s for
caulking guns, the piggy public uses less energy, the polar bears
get back their non-melting ice, and the abused occupants of the
land-based slave ships will get out from behind bars and be
pocketing a public sector 'living wage' by applying
weatherstripping from a nonprofit government factory.
As Investor's Business Daily points out, Jones may not
have been truly original in coming up with this scheme: 'In his
2006 memoir, President Obama proposed government-subsidized green
jobs 'to hire and train ex-felons on projects' such as
'insulating homes and offices to make them energy-efficient.'
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who worked with Jones in California
as a congresswoman, has already put such plans into motion.'
Jones explains that it was in the aftermath of the Rodney King
riots in California that he became a communist. As he told the
East Bay Express in 2005: 'I was a rowdy nationalist on
April 28 (1992), and then the verdicts came down on April 29. By
August, I was a communist.'
In the same interview, Jones explains how he developed a soft
spot for felons, the future weatherstrippers of America: 'I met
all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical:
communists and anarchists. And I was, like, 'This is what I need
to be a part of.' I spent the next 10 years of my life working
with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a
revolutionary.'
And so we ended up with a self-described red as a 'green czar,' a
special adviser to the president, set to distribute some $30
billion or so of our tax dollars in ways that he determines would
save the world from an Earth-killing capitalist system.
Jones outlined his strategy for a green and collectivist utopia
last year during an interview with leftist Uprising Radio in Los
Angeles: 'The green economy will start off as a small subset' of
a 'complete revolution' against 'gray capitalism' and toward a
'redistribution of all wealth.'
And how's the mundane caulking of windows fit in? It's just the
way to get Van Jones into the White House as a 'czar' of
something that sounds nice -- a way to get guys like Abu-Jamal
back on the street with our money in their wallets, ready to do
some real community organizing on a grand scale.
In one of his more honest moments, Jones explains the ruse, the
use of 'green' as a deceptive maneuver to destroy the existing
American system: 'We are going to push it and push it until it
becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.'
Acorn -- plagued by scandal and under attack on the Hill -- has announced a series of steps to stem criticism, including the hiring of an auditor and an investigator to probe allegations that employees offered advice to conservative reporters posing as pimps.
Acorn's executive director Bertha Lewis, in a statement:“As a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees, I am, in consultation with ACORN’s Executive Committee , immediately ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN’s service programs until completion of an independent review. I have also communicated with ACORN’s independent Advisory Council, and they will assist ACORN in naming an independent auditor and investigator to conduct a thorough review of all of the organizations relevant systems and processes. That reviewer, to be named within 48 hours, will make recommendations directly to me and to the full ACORN Board. We enter this process with a commitment that all recommendations will be implemented.”
" Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) overhyped-to-the-endth degree 'you lie'
outburst during the Dear Leader's recent address to Congress, was
'based on racism.'
"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated
animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that
he is a black man," said the contemptible leftist who
embarrasses and marginalizes himself whenever he opens his mouth.
How dare he repeat the Stalin-style smear --now being
echoed by left-wingers across America-- that whoever opposes the
Obama agenda must be racist.
A couple of months ago, Sandia National Laboratory, in conjunction with Boston Dynamics (they of Big Dog fame) and DARPA, announced the creation of a robot that could jump 25 feet in the air. Designed for use in urban combat, the robot, named the Precision Urban Hopper (PUH), would give special forces troopers their own lightweight, easily deployable ground UAV.
Now, Sandia and Boston Dynamics have released the first video of the PUH in action. And what action it is. As you can see by the above video, the PUH makes short work of obstacles orders of magnitudes taller than the bot itself. Sandia said that they hope to deliver a finished model of the PUH by the end of 2010, and from the looks of it, they're well on their way.
[via BBC News]
" I saw back-to-back on a news site:
Obama warns Wall Street not to block tighter regs
Review finds anti-bullying laws are not being enforced
What is left over after stars collide?
The U.S. Air Force stated that a manned aircraft took 'proactive measures' to shoot down the Reaper, which ended up crashing into the side of a mountain. Reaper drones have typically engaged in hunter-killer missions over Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan by targeting enemies on the ground with Hellfire missiles.
More than one drone has fallen out of the sky over the past few days. Aviation Weekly noted that a smaller MQ-1 Predator crashed on September 11 at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, and another Predator just crashed today in Iraq for reasons other than hostile fire.
Such 'lost link' incidents actually represent common troubles for the two drone types. Predator pilots constantly update a set pattern for their drones, so that the plane will loiter in that pattern if it loses communication with its operator (which happens frequently). The drones are even programmed to automatically head toward home to reestablish contact if the link remains dead for too long.
- Julius is an homage to the famous chimp at the Kristiansand Zoo
- 'Arn' is a Swedish knight movie
- Elessar and Gimli are from 'Lord of the Rings'
- 'MacGyver', just the greatest Richard Dean Anderson show ever!
- 'Highlander' could refer to either the movie or TV show
- Chewbacka (aka Chewbacca) is from 'Star Wars'
A British company has come up with a universal TV remote that looks like a magic wand. With 13 gestures to master, the glorified stick changes channels, works the volume control and is compatible with most RC-enabled gadgets.
The Kymera Magic Wand remote is available from October 1 and will set you back $83. Cheap at the price for something so multi-talented:
ACORN founder Wade Rathke didn't have a problem with domestic
terrorists trying to kill delegates at the Republican Party's
national convention in 2008, former radical community organizer
Brandon Darby suggests at Andrew Breitbart's new website
Big Government.
Darby, who got to see how the ACORN crime syndicate operates
up close in New Orleans, writes that after he acknowledged that
he helped the FBI foil a plot to attack the RNC convention in
Minnesota Rathke denounced him on his blog. Darby writes
What does any of this have to do with ACORN? I wondered the
same thing on January 31st of 2009 when I was
reading an ACORN blog that is run by Wade Rathke (the man who
claims credit for founding ACORN). He devoted an entire page to
my work with the FBI. How did he describe the FBI's effort and
success in preventing innocent Americans, local
police and federal agents from being burned, maimed and/or
possibly killed by firebombs? He wrote that it's "one
thing to disagree, but it's a whole different thing to rat on
folks." That is what ACORN's founder had to say
about my role in stopping a bomb plot.
Indeed Rathke
did write that. He described Darby as "an FBI-informer
who had fingered some folks for mayhem designed for the
Republican National Convention in 2008 in the Twin Cities." Added
Rathke, "It seemed so, how should I say it, sixties?"
There it is in black and white. ACORN founder Wade Rathke
resented Darby working with the authorities to disrupt a
left-wing terrorist plot.
Here's another way to look at it: if you oppose ACORN's agenda,
you deserve to be murdered.
One of the neat features of the iPhone, is the way its display switches automatically from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate it. Therefore, it seems obvious that any dock should let you do the same thing; but most are fixed in the vertical portrait mode.
This very cool dock made by Steven Combs not only lets him rotate his iPhone, it also has an appropriate high-tech look made entirely from gray, black, and white Lego parts.
While there are a couple of commercially available rotating docks, you could always just copy Steven's design and make your own.
No points for presentation here, but the Remote Buddy is a $40 solution for keeping four of your remotes stored and tacked. The unit comes with four color-coded receivers, and pressing the corresponding button on the Remote Buddy will cause the receiver to chime — which means you'll probably hear it from between the sofa cushions. It also has space for a drink, if you're into that.
Of course, you could just avoid all the clutter with a universal remote, but, while plenty more awesome, those are also plenty more expensive.
Remote Buddy, via 7Gadgets
"
Named Noelle, she grunts, screams, yells at the doctors, pees, bleeds -- and yes, even gives birth (to a cute little robot baby named Hal).University of Arizona Medical Students Help Robot Give Birth to Baby Robot [phoenixnewtimes]
Paid for with a $40,000 grant from Miami-based Guarnard Scientific, the university bought Noell, baby Hal, and another, smaller robot-baby in January. Then Noelle was taken out of commission for a while when medical students (yelp!) broke her pelvic bone.
an average of 20 medical students a week diagnose all sorts of birth complications like cesareans and breach births. Noelle can even hemorrhage, all while screaming in pain and yelling things like 'don't touch me' at the medical students.
In yet another move to address Japan's rapidly graying population, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) recently unveiled a new robot designed for human interaction. Wrapped in soft, fuzzy material and topped off by a rather comical head fashioned to inspire good feelings, the robot will help the elderly and physically disabled by offering physical therapy exercise and overall rehabilitation instruction through examples.
In Japan it is common for exercises to be lead by an instructor (in the same style as an American aerobics class, for example) so the AIST robot, currently named 'Taizou,' offers the perfect strict, yet friendly exercise director in a cuddly package. Set to hit the commercial market in 2010, you can see video of the AIST robot in action here.
Via Impress Watch
"
The advantages of airless tires are obvious: they can't be punctured and they never go flat. But it clearly takes a lot of science to get the proper material that can stand up to the pressure of a multi-ton military vehicle sitting on top of it. I look forward to when these things are the standard on normal cars we see on the highways.They think this is better... air is free... cheep and for now, I can get it at the local QuickTrip.
Who does this man think we are? Does he think we are absolute
idiots, unable to use even the slightest logic? How can he
possible say his plan will not add a dime to the deficit? Sheer
common sense says that all his promises will cost a mint. Sheer
logic shows that his plans don't add up. And the Congressiaonl
Budget Office, which surely UNDERestimates the costs, says it
will add a mind-bending trillion dollars to the deficit.
He then says 'I will protect Medicare.' Oh, is that why he has
actually proposed half a trillion dollars in 'savings' from
Medicare? That number CANNOT be squared with anything other than
cutbacks of actual benefits.
If I had a chance to look Obama in the face and talk to him, I
would calmly but pointedly chew him out and call him out for the
liar he is."
Today the economy/business section of the Washington
Post has a news story that, in parts, reads as if it could have been
written by Art Laffer:
In this new era of frugality, well-to-do shoppers have gone
into hiding and stowed away their splashy logos. But they may
hold the key to a consumer recovery.
Affluent shoppers are the most important segment of consumer
spending, which in turn drives the national economy. The top 20
percent of the nation's households -- with income of at least
$150,000 -- account for 40 percent of all spending, according
to government data. That makes them a crucial spoke to any
turnaround.
Two years, $4,385, and some homemade ingenuity can get you this underwater ride
It hangs on the wall like an ordinary clock, and it's somehow connected to your power meter, probably wirelessly. Considering there are already wireless power usage meters already on the market, this beautifully designed prototype with its elegant graphical display could be close to reality.
Neat idea. Maybe if you see exactly how much energy you're using all day and night, it'll remind you to save some here and there. Take a look at two more pics:
"This is a bill that will be hard to oppose.
The agency that administers Social Security has said there will be no cost of living allowances for the next two years for seniors, citing a decline in consumer prices that has kept expenses flat.
Needless to say, this hasn't gone over so well with SS recipients or advocacy groups, who say that the COLA however small [say one percent] is a necessity not a frill. Also, needless to say, seniors vote.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) is introducing a bill to give seniors a one-time $150 payment to offset the loss of the COLA, citing hikes in Medicare co-pays and as drop-off in income from external sources.
The Kilobike, a concept by German firm Kilo Design, comes with swappable joints in the frame's top tube, which expand it out diagonally. When teamed with standard seat- and handlebar-height adjustments, these joints allow the bike to grow right along with a child's ever-lengthening limbs while ensuring they ride with proper ergonomics. Not to mention saving mom and dad a few dollars over the years.
It's one of those conceptual designs that seem so simple that they would have to have existed in the mainstream by now, right?
