30 Sep 2009
Routine urine tests for exam students

Take a whiz quiz before the SAT? Unbelievable...

The increasing use of smart drugs or "nootropics," to boost academic performance, could mean that exam students will face routine doping tests in future, suggests an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

21:08 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

No Change Available

Well, no change is possible. Those of you who know us know of our hassles with phone and data service over the years - my AT&T cell phone, which I'd had for nearly ten years, never did work out here. So yesterday I tried Verizon, and it doesn't work either. No signal for phones or data. And since my AT&T cell phone is broken (physically), and my contract is up, I canceled the service. No cell phone for me.

Which is kind of a problem - the cell phone was the only way we could call long distance. Unless I want to pay nearly 50¢ a minute from my home phone. You see, the only kind of broadband available out here is ISDN, and because it's a "business service" you can't put a calling package on it. No discounts.

I'm so frustrated I could scream. But I think I'll go eat dinner instead.

16:33 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

29 Sep 2009
Change Is On The Way

We're in the process of rearranging our phone/Internet services, so if things go quiet on the blog (they shouldn't, but I've done enough network hacking to know that it's a distinct possibility) that's what's happening.

For those interested, my cell phone number will make the move, but the home number will change. I'll try to get new numbers out by email, but in case I don't, just drop me a note.

19:56 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Homeless find temporary haven in tent camps

Hoovervilles. Here. In the 21st century. I've lived to see a lot of things I'd never have believed possible in my youth, but this takes the cake. Depression, indeed.

In cities across the country, people with nowhere to live have done what many would have thought unthinkable before the economic crisis: moved into tents.

(link) [CNN.com]

19:12 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Sep 2009
Nation's parents prepare to be vetted

If you think the US is the world champion nanny state, think again.

Ofted has blown a hole in Home Office claims that deciding who needs to be vetted is a simple matter, after the education quango tarred parents who share childcare arrangements as "illegal childminders" and potential criminals.

(link) [The Register]

Update: On second thought, maybe we are - State to mom: Stop baby-sitting neighbors' kids

21:27 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Mad genius: Study suggests link between psychosis and creativity

Crazy? I used to be crazy once. They put me in a cell. It had rats. They ran across my feet. It drove me crazy.

Crazy? I used to be crazy once. They put me in a cell. It had rats. They ran across my feet. It drove me crazy...

Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven. History teems with examples of great artists acting in very peculiar ways. Were these artists simply mad or brilliant? According to new research, maybe both: volunteers with the specific variant of neuregulin 1 were more likely to have higher scores on the creativity assessment and also greater lifetime creative achievements than volunteers with a different form of neuregulin 1.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

21:21 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Sep 2009
Nestle milk link to Grace Mugabe

Wanna do something about the disgrace that is Zimbabwe? Remember this the next time you go for a candy bar...

Swiss multinational Nestle buys milk from a farm seized from its white owners and now owned by the wife of Zimbabwe's president.

(link) [BBC News]

19:27 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

The Myth of the Rule of Law

This is simply the most important political essay I've ever read. And I've read lots of them. The teaser:

The reason why the myth of the rule of law has survived for 100 years despite the knowledge of its falsity is that it is too valuable a tool to relinquish. The myth of impersonal government is simply the most effective means of social control available to the state.

Read this. You will not be disappointed.

09:51 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Eco Pyres

Religion, even in it's ritual aspects, does not and cannot remain static.

In India's remote north-east, the people of the state of Bihar have devised a novel and environmentally friendly way to cremate their dead.

(link) [BBC News]

08:45 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

$529M Gov't Loan To Develop $89,000 Hybrid Sports Car

I'm shocked, shocked I say, to discover that "green" stimulus money is going to political cronies based offshore. Shocked.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. We got fooled again.

The WSJ reports that a tiny car company backed by former VP Al Gore has just gotten a $529M US government loan to help build an $89,000 hybrid sports car in Finland. The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive follows an earlier $465M government loan to Tesla Motors, purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Fisker's other investors include the Al Gharaffa Investment Co., a Cayman Islands corporation.

(link) [Slashdot]

08:36 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Sep 2009
Property In Landmark Eminent Domain Supreme Court Case Never Used

I've blogged about this theft before - nice to see how it turned out for the thieves.

While we're on the subject, have a gander at this piece from Wisconsin Law Journal - it seems as though somebody else sees the whole Clunkers for Brains madness for what it is: theft.

Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters have replaced the knot of aging homes at the site of the nation's most notorious eminent domain project.

(link) [Huffington Post]

09:50 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Environmentalists Seek to Wipe Out Plush Toilet Paper

Had to go into 'Humor', thanks to the headline writer for the Post... but I really do have to wonder what the obsession is with toilet paper?

Wasn't there some celeb a year or so ago urging us to use only one square of paper per visit? Humpf! Whoever it was had never visited Squealer's BBQ Pit!

We can't use the ultra soft squishy paper out here anyway - we're on a septic system and things can get clogged pretty easily. But we don't use the recycled stuff, either - I call it "John Wayne Toilet Paper". It's rough, it's tough and it don't take shit off nobody!

It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).

(link) [Washington Post]

09:30 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Sep 2009
Fears over 'internal' terror bomb

So how could this work? Perhaps some explosive that detonates when hit by stomach acid? Will the TSA start cramming Rolaids down passengers to slow it down?

Or will the DHS start hiring proctologists like mad? Can you imagine giving every passenger a full body cavity search before boarding?

This is going to be giving security folks some serious heartburn...

Experts are worried after it emerged that a suicide bomber who targeted a Saudi prince hid a bomb inside his body.

(link) [BBC News]

21:57 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Man downloads brain into 'e-memory'

Good grief. I though M$ Research was supposed to have some pretty smart folks, not the kind easily confused by analogy and metaphor. He's not "downloading" anything - he's keeping a journal. This is just a really big electronic diary. Nobody claims that your diary is the same as your memories - diaries may be records of your thoughts, but they are not the thoughts themselves...

"E-memory" is not "my memory". A photograph is not a memory. Nor is a recording, a transcript or a video. I don't remember photos, transcripts, recordings or videos. I remember events and things. A memory is unique unto itself, and is in fact a thing itself. It is more than the mere representation of an event - it is colored by our internal emotional feelings about the event or thing that we remember. Memories, therefore, are things unto themselves.

Things are not the same as their representations.

For the past decade, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been moving the data from his brain onto computers -- where he knows it will be safe.

(link) [CNN.com]

16:15 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

CA City Mulls Evading the Law On Red-Light Cameras

Void Bill of RightsGosh, why don't we just makes all kinds of crime "adminstrative infractions"? Think of the money we could save on judges and courts and the like!

TechDirt is running the piece on Corona, CA, where officials are considering ignoring a California law that authorizes red-light cameras — cutting the state and the county out of their portion of the take — in order to increase the city's revenue. The story was first reported a week ago. The majority of tickets are being (automatically) issued for "California stops" before a right turn on red, which studies have shown rarely contribute to an accident. TechDirt notes the apparent unconstitutionality of what Corona proposes to do: "The problem here is that Corona is shredding the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution, the right to a trial by jury. By reclassifying a moving violation... to an administrative violation... Corona is doing something really nefarious. In order to appeal an administrative citation you have to admit guilt, pay the full fine, and then apply for a hearing in front of an administrative official, not a judge in a court. The city could simply deny all hearings for administrative violations or schedule them far out in advance knowing full well that they have your money, which you had to pay before you could appeal."

(link) [Slashdot]

16:09 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link