That’s the name of the website which has documented the carnage the Wii has inflicted upon people’s electronics. You can click it here.
You never had to worry about the Atari 2600 breaking your 42″ LCD TV, you just had to worry about it ruining your social life. Ahh, good times.
If you haven’t heard, the Yellow Wiggle, Greg, has had to step down due to a chronic health condition that was preventing him from performing. He has orthostatic intolerance, which is a syndrome which causes pain & fatigue in Greg’s body when he stands up. Essentially he has poor circulation which can cause blood pressure changes which can cause him to faint. Think of it as he gets dizzy and nauseous if he stands for extended periods.
I’m sorry to see him go. The Wiggles are a lot of fun. He’s got a new replacement, Sam, who’s been adopted by the group. I never thought I’d say this, but I worry for the future of the Wiggles. Sam looks like a nice guy, but one vibe I always got from the Wiggles was that all of these guys were fathers, they loved their kids, and they were a bunch of fun to be around. With Sam, I get the immediate impression he’s a stage performer first rather than a dad who took his act on the road. We’ll see how he fits in.
(That’s Greg on the Left in yellow, and the new Sam is above.)
With a crane.
If NASA’s 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) reaches the red planet’s surface in one piece, the agency will owe a debt of gratitude to the Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane heavy-lift helicopter.
Like its namesake, NASA’s Sky Crane carrier platform will hover above its drop site—albeit with retrorockets rather than rotor blades—and lower its payload, the compact car-sized MSL rover, to the surface using a winch and tether. As soon as the rover is ready to roll, the tether connection will be severed and the Sky Crane will fly off and crash land a short distance away.
The MSL will be the first NASA mission to employ this planetary landing scheme, but it might not be the last. Adam Steltzner, lead engineer for MSL’s entry, descent and landing system at the Pasadena, Calif.-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the Sky Crane approach makes sense for any destination where the terrain is not well understood or when it is especially important not to unduly disturb the landing site. Early lunar lander missions are one possible application, Steltzner said. Mars sample return missions are another, he said.
You can’t use a rotor on Mars because the atmosphere is way too thin, so they’re going to use rockets to hover while they crane down the MSL. If they manage to get it work, I will seriously send JPL a fruit-basket. Getting 3 or 4 rockets to fire simulatenously and at constant force to allow for a crane delivery of a vehicle, then have it disconnect safely, maneuver and crash land nearby is one enormous engineering feat. One reason the Sky Crane can do what it does is that the rotor is a single vector of upwards thrust, so you don’t have any directional components. But with rockets, if there is an imbalance, the whole thing could flip. You have to be incredibly precise with the thrust of each engine.
Good luck with that one, guys. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
If you haven’t read Ahmadinejad’s letter, you really should. It moved my heart. I was touched and impressed and I’m sure people will start calling him a Rovian Plant in the Middle East.
Why? Well, let’s break down some of the letter.
The first part is platitude. We all think evil things are bad, and good things are good. Except the Bush Administration, of course.
The second part, which I’ll call “Common Pains”:
We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people. Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine. In broad day-light, in front of cameras and before the eyes of the world, they are bombarding innocent defenseless civilians, bulldozing houses, firing machine guns at students in the streets and alleys, and subjecting their families to endless grief.
Zionists is a red-flag. It would be like saying, “Persistent aggressions by those ‘negroes‘ are making life more difficult.” It’s a word that’s totally loaded with subtext. In addition, Ahmadinejad totally glosses over suicide bombings, car bombings, rocket attacks by Hamas & Hezbollah, and actions such as the dismantling of Israeli settlements, release of prisoners, and the general giving the Zionists have been doing for the past 20 years to achieve a lasting peace in the region.
For 60 years, the Zionist regime has driven millions of the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes. Many of these refugees have died in the Diaspora and in refugee camps. Their children have spent their youth in these camps and are aging while still in the hope of returning to homeland.
Last I checked, the residents of Palestine were offered a chance to return but instead sided with the armies of Nasser. Egypt, Syria, and Jordan launched wars to conquer Israel and the Zionists, but were turned back at every stage. And if you pick the losers in a war, you live in refugee camps. Or you assimilate in sympathetic countries that offer you citizenship. The question I have– after 60 years, why haven’t the compassionate nations around Palestine absorbed the refugees into their borders? Why do they insist to forcing the Palestinians into lands that most of them have never lived on? Why is it always Israel that must grant the Palestinians the “right of return” when Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Yemen all have economies which could support displaced peoples?
Let’s take a look at Iraq. Since the commencement of the US military presence in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, maimed or displaced. Terrorism in Iraq has grown exponentially. With the presence of the US military in Iraq, nothing has been done to rebuild the ruins, to restore the infrastructure or to alleviate poverty. The US Government used the pretext of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but later it became clear that that was just a lie and a deception.
Iraq. That’s funny. If Iran was serious about peace in the region, they’d be leaning on Sadr and his goons to straighten up and work with the new government. But they don’t. No words are offered, no admonition. Ahmadinejad says he abhors terrorism, but we don’t hear him condemning suicide bombers in Iraq. You don’t see him calling for Osama Bin Laden’s head.
In Iraq, about one hundred and fifty thousand American soldiers, separated from their families and loved ones, are operating under the command of the current US administration. A substantial number of them have been killed or wounded and their presence in Iraq has tarnished the image of the American people and government.
Ahmadinejad makes it sound like the US Soldiers just walk around, pining for home, getting blown up while occasionally torturing an innocent Iraqi. It’s all one-sided. It’s propaganda. Never does he acknowledge the good that’s being done in Iraq. (Wow, kind of sounds like the AP.)
But, Christmas comes early. It’s Ahmadinejad’s belated Ramadan gift to us.
You have heard that the US administration is kidnapping its presumed opponents from across the globe and arbitrarily holding them without trial or any international supervision in horrendous prisons that it has established in various parts of the world. God knows who these detainees actually are, and what terrible fate awaits them.
You have certainly heard the sad stories of the Guantanamo and Abu-Ghraib prisons. The US administration attempts to justify them through its proclaimed “war on terror.” But every one knows that such behavior, in fact, offends global public opinion, exacerbates resentment and thereby spreads terrorism, and tarnishes the US image and its credibility among nations.
The US administration’s illegal and immoral behavior is not even confined to outside its borders. You are witnessing daily that under the pretext of “the war on terror,” civil liberties in the United States are being increasingly curtailed. Even the privacy of individuals is fast losing its meaning. Judicial due process and fundamental rights are trampled upon. Private phones are tapped, suspects are arbitrarily arrested, sometimes beaten in the streets, or even shot to death.
He’s been reading DailyKos! But wait, there’s more!
Now that Iraq has a Constitution and an independent Assembly and Government, would it not be more beneficial to bring the US officers and soldiers home, and to spend the astronomical US military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of the American people? As you know very well, many victims of Katrina continue to suffer, and countless Americans continue to live in poverty and homelessness.
It’s like reading the PuffingTons Host! And the third part, which I’ll call “Dear Speaker Pelosi”
I’d also like to say a word to the winners of the recent elections in the US:
The United States has had many administrations; some who have left a positive legacy, and others that are neither remembered fondly by the American people nor by other nations.
Now that you control an important branch of the US Government, you will also be held to account by the people and by history.
If the US Government meets the current domestic and external challenges with an approach based on truth and Justice, it can remedy some of the past afflictions and alleviate some of the global resentment and hatred of America. But if the approach remains the same, it would not be unexpected that the American people would similarly reject the new electoral winners, although the recent elections, rather than reflecting a victory, in reality point to the failure of the current administration’s policies. These issues had been extensively dealt with in my letter to President Bush earlier this year.
So, Ahmadinejad wants the US to change its direction, to stop doing what it’s doing. It wants to Democrats to change the direction of US foreign policy. If the Democrats do change policy now, the Right can simply say, “Hey, you’re caving to the demands of that crazy guy who runs Iran!”
So what do the Democrats want to do? Side with Bush, or side with Iran? Which makes them more likable? Hmmmm?
Somehow I missed this story, which is a great insight into Pope Benedict, but is also a great insight to some morons who are history professors.
The Pope has shocked theologians and opened a chink in the theory of papal infallibility by saying that people should feel free to disagree with what he has written in his latest book, a meditation on Jesus Christ.
And later…
“I really believe this is the first time this has ever happened,” [Professor Giuseppe Alberigo, a professor of the history of the Catholic Church at Bologna University] said. “It is an extraordinarily important gesture. What it means is that the Pope is not totally infallible. As well as being the Pope, he is a common man, hugely studious in this case, but like all men he is subject to debates, arguments and discussions.” He added that Pope John Paul II “could never have made a distinction between ‘official’ Pope and ‘ordinary’ Pope”.
This guy is a professor of the history of the Catholic Church, but unfortunately, he knows little about the dogma of the Catholic Church. And the author of the article, Malcom Moore, is equally daft in following Alberigo’s lead.
The Pope is and has never been infallible. Over time he has issued infallible statements on Catholic teaching. These statements are not taken lightly, and are usually statements regarding a universal truth. It is also a statement that has been rigorously examined by cardinals, bishops and theologians.
Benedict won’t come out and state in an infallible way, “The sun revolves around the earth.” It doesn’t have anything to do with dogma. It has no proof. It’s not an infallible edict. However, saying that the Virgin Mother was conceived free of original sin is an infallible statement as it is an accepted tradition of the Church. Others will say that’s poppycock, but it’s an argument that belongs in the realm of philosophy. As Catholics, we understand it and respect it as truth. It’s built into our dogma.
But that doesn’t mean everything Benedict says is infallible. If he says, “I like eggs,” it’s not an infallible edict. If he writes a book on the origins of the Holy Family, it’s not an infallible text– it’s an historical analysis by Pope Benedict and is open to academic scrutiny.
How frustrating these two idiots are. One’s a supposed expert on the Catholic Church and he doesn’t get the idea of infallibility? And the other is reporting on the Vatican from Rome? I can’t understand why the Pope’s words get mangled all the time.
EDIT: Rereading this, it may be that Alberigo may be “misquoted”. For his sake, I hope he is. He may have said “infallible” but not in the dogmatic way. But his words have certainly been taken for a ride by Moore.
EDIT: There is more on infallibility here.
Newt Gingrich suggested that some restrictions be put on the First Amendment to prevent our rights from being used against us by terrorists.
Here’s what Newt said:
My view is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that we use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us, to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.
It’s an unfortunate statement, especially if Newt wants to run for President in 2008. But while unfortunate, Newt has it right. Terrorists use the freedoms of free society to attack that society. Of course, nobody’s going to see it that way. All we’ll hear is “break up their capacity to use free speech”.
So Newt is in the wrong about disrupting speech that could foster attacks against Americans and other innocents around the world by Jihadis.
Now let’s look at a story by Cinnamon Stillwell over at SFGate.com.
America’s college campuses, once thought to be bastions of free speech, have become increasingly intolerant toward the practice. Visiting speakers whose views do not conform to the prevailing left-leaning political mind-set on most campuses are at particular risk of having their free speech rights infringed upon. While academia has its own crimes to atone for, it’s the students who have become the bullies as of late. A disturbing number seem to feel that theirs is an inviolate world to which no one of differing opinion need apply. As a result, everything from pie throwing to disrupting speeches to attacks on speakers has become commonplace.
Yes, it’s shocking to hear this from someone living in San Francisco. Sit down, take a breather.
Cinnamon’s article reveals a right time, perceived by the Left, to stifle free speech. Go to the PuffingTons Host and you’ll find people who want Dick Cheney to have a heart attack or scientists to be muzzled. The take home message: it’s bad to curtail free speech to stop terrorism, but it’s good to stop right-wing blowhards from speaking at all.
And Keith Olberman has the gall to say “If you’re going to destroy freedom of speech, bub, you’ve already lost all the cities.” Well, it’s obvious we’re losing all the colleges.
On a personal note, I recently attended a sensitivity seminar on cultural diversity. It was a seven hour ordeal that was rather condescending. The worst part was one of the workshop leaders (obviously the driving force behind the meeting) kept make snide remarks, insensitive remarks, towards white conservative men. Effectively, it’s bad to be moronically insensitive to any minority group, but it’s OK to be that insensitive if the group is white males.
So much for equality in education.
(Cinnamon Stillwell has a blog, too. Read it here. )
We all remember what Hillary Clinton, presumable 2008 Presidential Candidate, said about abortion:
We come to [the abortion] issue as men and women, young and old, some far beyond years when we have to worry about getting pregnant, others too young to remember what it was like in the days before Roe v. Wade. But I think it’s essential that as Americans we look for that common ground that we can all stand upon. [Our] core beliefs and values. can guide us in reaching our goal of keeping abortion safe, legal and rare into the next century. Source: Remarks to NARAL, Washington DC Jan 22, 1999
Ms Furedi said there had been a shift in public opinion about parenthood. The stigma of abortion had diminished but there was now concern about being a poor parent. “Parenting is considered to be very important and is taken seriously these days,” she said. “The idea of just drifting into unplanned motherhood is seen not to be a good thing and you could argue that among many groups of people in society abortion is seen as a more responsible response to being a victim of uncontrolled fertility,” she said.
[...]
Abortion figures continue to rise year on year. Latest figures show that there are about 165,500 abortions for British residents a year.
Now, if you read the article, there really isn’t any evidence which suggests abortion is “losing its stigma”. The closest it gets is this:
Asked if a woman should not have to continue with a pregnancy if she wanted an abortion, 63 per cent agreed and 18 per cent disagreed.
However, the preceeding paragraph contradicts any meaningful “loss of stigma” data as less people think abortion should be free & legal everywhere:
The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,000 adults found that slightly fewer adults agreed that “abortion should be made legally available for all who want it” than five years ago. In the survey in May, 59 per cent agreed with the question compared with 62 per cent in 2001.
The only person thinking that there’s a global shift in abortion’s stigma is the author of the article, as the evidence presented is not global or conclusive.
But the fact that abortions are on the rise is not a good sign. It contradicts the mentality that having “safe & legal” access to abortion clinics decreases abortion.
There’s another myth that’s debunked in this article:
Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said one women in five was now childless at the age of 45 and an increasing number were making the choice not to have children at all.
Ms Furedi said there had been a shift in public opinion about parenthood. The stigma of abortion had diminished but there was now concern about being a poor parent. “Parenting is considered to be very important and is taken seriously these days,” she said. “The idea of just drifting into unplanned motherhood is seen not to be a good thing and you could argue that among many groups of people in society abortion is seen as a more responsible response to being a victim of uncontrolled fertility,” she said.
So people are afraid of not being a good parent so they get abortions. Who would be worried about this? The poor? The underclasses? No, it’s the middle class and the rich. A baby would impose on their lifestyle so they abort it. They want to wait until they are good and ready before they have a baby. Before that– abortion, if they get pregnant.
These childless jet-setters have now revealed that “keeping abortion safe & legal” isn’t for the lower-class, as it is often argued. It’s for the middle and upper classes. And even worse, it’s a case of convenience! The women don’t want to change (notice I didn’t say “give up’) their lifestyles to cater to the needs of a child. Here is the real, ulgy truth of abortion.
That’s what the city of Chicago is saying to a display of the upcoming movie “Nativity” at a Christmas Nativity Scene.
According to the article:
“Our guidance was that this very prominently placed advertisement would not only be insensitive to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts, but also it would be contrary to acceptable advertising standards suggested to the many festivals holding events on Daley Plaza,” Jim Law, executive director of the office, said in a statement.
Merry Chr– oh, wait. Can’t say that. Happy holidays? No, that will offend the depressed. I’ve got it.
According to a new paper being published in Astronomische Nachrichten, the amount of life in the ocean varied with cosmic ray exposure.
According to the story:
The stellar baby boom period of the Milky Way sparked a flowering and crashing of life here on Earth, a new study suggests.
Some 2.4 billion years ago when the Milky Way started upping its star production, cosmic rays—high-speed atomic particles—started pouring onto our planet, causing instability within the living. Populations of bacteria and algae repeatedly soared and crashed in the oceans.
The researchers counted the amount of carbon-13 within sedimentary rocks, the most common rocks exposed on the Earth’s surface. When algae and bacteria were growing in the oceans, they took in carbon-12, so the ocean had an abundance of carbon-13.
Many sea creatures use carbon-13 to make their shells. If there is a lot of carbon-13 stored in rocks, it means life, the origin of which is still unknown, was booming. Therefore, variations in carbon-13 are a good indicator of the productivity of life on Earth.
The researchers found that the biggest fluctuation in productivity coincided with star formation, which had an affect on Earth’s href=”http://www.livescience.com/climate/”>climate and therefore on the productivity of life on our planet.
Now, I find one particular part of this story odd. And since I don’t have access of that journal, I’m sort of at a loss. Let me explain where I’m having the trouble.
Carbon-13 is a naturally occurioccurringpe. It is stable and comprises about 1.1% of all carbon in the universe. As you sit there reading this, 1.1% of your body’s carbon is carbon-13. As the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 is constant, I’m not sure how these scientists can claim the C-13 is all from natural sources. If C-13 amounts are constant, then all carbon everywhere, regardless of source, will always have the same ratio of C-13 in it.
I’m not sure if counting the C-13 is representative of the sea life. It could very well be compressed methane (methane hydrate), a possibility as early earth had a methane-rich atmosphere.
Eh, I’m just musing at this point. If anyone can get me the pdf of this journal article, that would be great.
Hopefully you have all heard about the six Imams who were removed from a flight due to suspicious behavior. The way the story was disseminated earlier made me believe that the imams all got on a plane after doing some praying and some Islamophobe passed a note to a flight attendant that made her call the cops on the imams. And then the cries of racism started coming from CAIR, and subsequent protests followed.
Well, according to the Washington Times, it looks like the imams may have been doing more than just praying. From the Times story:
Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted “Allah” when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.
On it own, it’s not frightening. But:
Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks — two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.
“That would alarm me,” said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. “They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane.”A pilot from another airline said: “That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry.”
It would alarm me, too. Especially if another pilot is saying that their behavior mimicked the actions of the 9/11 terrorists.
But the imams who were escorted off the flight in handcuffs say they were merely praying before the 6:30 p.m. flight on Nov. 20, and yesterday led a protest by prayer with other religious leaders at the airline’s ticket counter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, called removing the imams an act of Islamophobia and compared it to racism against blacks.
“It’s a shame that as an African-American and a Muslim I have the double whammy of having to worry about driving while black and flying while Muslim,” Mr. Bray said.
Here’s an eye opener for you, Mr. Bray. If you don’t pray loudly and then rearrange your seats in a suspicious manner, you won’t get thrown off an airplane.
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks “cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans.”
And there’s the PC mentality that’s eventually going to get a lot of us killed. Sheila, we’re fighting a global war on terror. And Buddhists, Animists, Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Wiccans, Atheists and Agnostics around the world are not strapping bombs to themselves to kill as many civilians as possible.
It’s just the Muslims. So if we didn’t have an extra level of scrutiny when dealing with Muslims, especially a group of Muslims acting in a suspicious manner, then we are living in a PC fairyland.
Stopping a black man in a Mercedes just because he’s black is racist. Stopping 6 imams from flying on a plane after they were praying overtly and rearranging their seats is reasonable diligence.
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