Creepy and kooky: 5 months in jail for man who whistled THE ADDAMS FAMILY theme

Leopold Wrobel of Wingerforth, England has been remanded to gaol by the constabulary for a period of twenty weeks after being found guilty of harassment and violating an "antisocial behavior order" that was sought against him by his neighbors.

Apparently, what Michael and Kathleen Sharpe found so offensive is that Wrobel would constantly whistle the theme music from The Addams Family whenever he saw them.

In his defense, Wrobel claimed that he was only whistling at his dog. But "closed-circuit TV footage shown to the court depicted him repeatedly whistling when the couple left their house or arrived home."

I don't know what's more disturbing: this guy's whistling fetish, or the fact that England now has so many surveillance cameras that one was looking out for Wrobel's performance.

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Apollo astronaut Schmitt sez: Humans not causing global warming

Harrison Schmitt - geologist, former senator from New Mexico and one of the last men to walk on Moon during the Apollo 17 mission - has voiced his strong belief that global warming is not happening... or at least that it is not being caused by human activity.

And what's more, Schmitt also states that "global warming" is being used as a political tool to increase the presence of government in people's lives...

Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.

"They've seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming," Schmitt said.

Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."

Schmitt is a real scientist, and a former elected official. I'm far more inclined to trust his take on the "global warming" situation than many of the more current crop of either researchers or politicians. Sad to say: over the past few decades the trend has been that the science has increasingly become driven more by policy than it has been by empirical evidence. And in that regard, we simply do not have enough long-range climate data to satisfactorily proclaim that global warming is or isn't happening.

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Chris sings the praises of HandBrake 0.9.3!

A little over a year ago I posted the how-to tutorial on putting video content from a DVD onto an iPod. The workhorse program that I found perfect for my needs was HandBrake. When it came time to convert Lost Season 4 for my iPod classic ('cuz I like having all the Lost episodes hanging on my belt... along with my own movies, the Star Wars saga, etc.) I found that HandBrake had upgraded to version 0.9.3.

So if you haven't checked it out yet, I heartily recommend giving HandBrake a looksee, because it has become significantly more powerful since the last time I used it en masse. HandBrake 0.9.3 introduces universal video input: it can now convert practically any format of video into MPEG-4, including DivX AVI files (very nice for putting those bootlegged Doctor Who episodes on an iPod or iPhone or any other portable video device). The video quality has been greatly improved, with many more presets and options available. Syncing of video and audio is said to be fixed, but I never saw any problems with that to begin with. I have however found that HandBrake 0.9.3 is far more stable in Windows Vista: previously, I had to re-install the program every time I wanted to convert a new DVD. Version 0.9.3 has fixed that bug: I've "fired it at the walls" (my own terminology for probing software for its limits) quite a bit over the past several days, and it keeps coming back and asking for more.

If you are using a Windows machine, you will likely have to purchase and install SlySoft AnyDVD, which does the actual work of decryption of a DVD. But HandBrake itself is free and open-source, and is available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

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Federal government's fiscal obligations calculated to be more than WORLD's gross product

Jerome Corsi has published a wallopin' eye-opener of an essay. According to his figures, the United States federal government's runaway spending (like the "stimulus") combined with its already existing financial obligations, is more than the gross domestic product of the entire world.

There is no way we are going to be able to pay for all of this in our lifetime, the lifetime of our children, and quite possibly the lifetime of their grandchildren. Not if our politicians keep adhering to this insanity.

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"We're fine. We're all here, fine. How are you?"

Something screwy is amiss with this blog on the technical backside of things. It looked fine yesterday (so far as I can tell) but in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, stuff is missing.

If this place looks more whacked than usual, it's prolly just me monkeying around behind the scenes trying to get it all fixed :-)

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Immigrants can now fast-track to citizenship through U.S. military (and what this REALLY means about America...)

According to a story at The New York Times, the United States military is about to offer American citizenship to legal immigrants if they enlist in the armed forces. Some might be eligible for citizenship in as little as six months.

The reason for this, is that the American military is admittedly "stretched thin" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So let's go review what happened a little over a millenia and a half ago, when the cost of maintaining its vast empire utterly taxed Rome's martial capability. With not nearly enough proper imperial denizens to draw upon, the Roman government eventually acquiesced to enlisting barbarians from Germania and Gaul to bolster its forces. In many cases, the foreign soldiers were offered Roman citizenship as part of a package of incentives (which could also include some lucrative latifundia).

Fifteen hundred years later, and another great world-spanning power... is now doing much the same.

Don't anybody give me any harsh looks now. I'm just the historian here.

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It's the trailer for WATCHMEN's TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER with the voice of Gerard Butler!

If you've never read Watchmen (what's the matter with you? Go read it now!) then this requires some 'splainin'. In the graphic novel there's this kid who's reading a pirate comic book at a newsstand. The comic book, Tales of the Black Freighter, is shown to us the readers as a "story within a story" and it parallels a lot of what's going on in the greater scheme of Watchmen. Zack Snyder didn't have enough time to include it in the feature film adaptation of Watchmen, but it's important enough that it's coming to us next month as an animated feature on DVD and Blu-ray! And the word is that months afterward when Watchmen itself is released for home consumption, that an "ultimate edition" will be coming out that splices together the live-action movie and the animated Tales of the Black Freighter.

So with that said, here's the trailer for Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter, featuring the voice of Gerard Butler (Leonidas in 300) as the marooned mariner...

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter will also include Hollis Mason's autobiography Under the Hood.

Thanks to Phillip Arthur for the heads-up!

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The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was eighty years ago today

It was on this day in 1929 that the mob war between Al Capone and Bugs Moran came to a violent head inside the garage of the SMC Cartage Company in Chicago. Seven members of Moran's gang were ambushed in a well-executed plan by Capone's enforcers (some dressed as Chicago policemen) and butchered mercilessly by machine gun fire. Moran himself by some twist of luck managed to avoid being at the scene.

Read more about the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre here.

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...But where the heck are Spider-Man and J. Arthur Crank?!

This afternoon I finally got to watch the new version of The Electric Company on PBS. It's a revival of the very fondly remembered original series from the 1970s.

So what did I think of it? I watched many of the episodes of the original The Electric Company a few years ago when they ran on Noggin, and was surprised at how well the show had held up over the years. The Electric Company circa 2009 remains faithful to the purpose of its parent... but is a fresh and rapid-fire delightful update aimed at a new generation. And I was surprised at how many homages to the Seventies series there are: right down to paying tribute to Rita Moreno's immortal warcry "HEY YOU GUYSSSSSS!!!" Didn't spot an appearance by Letterman (no, not the late night TV host) but there was an animated spoof of 24, among other clever sketches. The one with the farmer and his mixed-up signs: can't help but wonder if the original show would have ever tried to be, dare I say it, "risque"? :-)

All in all, I thought that the new The Electric Company holds a lot of promise, and maybe even quite a bit of entertainment value for (ahem...) those of us among the "older" set. There's a lot of potential here for PBS to have another classic show on its hands.

Now all it needs is something on par with Morgan Freeman taking a bath in a casket...

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"Stimulus" file size: Is Congress TRYING to keep us from examining it?

ReadTheStimulus.org is reporting that the final language of the "stimulus" bill has been posted on the U.S. House website. But if you think you're going to get to exercise your right to easily pore over the legislation, think again. From ReadTheStimulus.org...

Final Language Posted
Posted at 11:00 pm on Thursday, February 12, 2009

The final language has been posted; you can find links to the various docs at the Speaker's website. Update: The speaker's website is apparently down. Imagine that. Docs are also available here.

The total size of the four major files is over 100MB, and consists of 1419 pages. Three of the four files are huge "scanned" PDFs, meaning they were created by printing the original document and then scanning it in again --- and therefore contain no real "text" that can be easily searched. This will make our parsing process difficult and more time consuming, so we most likely won't have our versions ready until midday tomorrow. But we'll see...

There is no reason at all why this bill, as bloated as it is, should not be in standard rich-text Acrobat format. 1,419 pages? In a document containing all text and no images, that would be extremely quick and easy to download, not to mention convenient to search and scan.

But instead, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has published the "stimulus" as unwieldy scanned images.

In my mind, either the House website staff is inept and incapable of fully grasping available technology, or this is a deliberate attempt to prevent the legislation from easily being scrutinized by the public.

I'm inclined to believe the latter.

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THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS trailer is online! Guess whose film you'll see a tiny part of???

Awright, I've been sitting on this for the past week or so, eagerly looking forward to when that e-mail would arrive with the official announcement and now... it's here!

Alexandre Philippe is a filmmaker who is currently working on an ambitious project called The People vs. George Lucas (here's the official website: PeopleVsGeorge.com). Tonight, Alexandre and his crew released the first trailer for their film.

Behold!

Want to see it drastically embiggened and high-deffed? Mash down here!

And at 1:29 into the trailer, there's a black and white clip showing "George Lucas" furiously typing. No, your eyes ain't deceiving you: that is Chad Austin from my first film Forcery (click here to watch THAT movie)! Alexandre contacted me about using Forcery awhile back, and all of us at KWerky Productions are thrilled to have been invited to take part in this project.

The People vs. George Lucas is scheduled for a 2010 wide release. As you can expect, it will be a pleasure to keep y'all posted about it in the meantime :-)

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Something I just caught from last night's LOST...

If you have "This Place Is Death" recorded, or from iTunes or whatever, then do yourself a favor...

...and listen very, very carefully to the scene early in the episode where Jin, Danielle and the rest of her team are on the beach. In particular, listen to the voice that's reading out "the numbers" on the radio.

It sounds like Hurley's.

As if this story isn't loopy enough already!

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Man apparently rid of HIV following radical stem cell transplant

Extremely exciting medical news coming out today: a 42-year old man who had previously been infected with HIV is now, apparently, completely free of the virus and is displaying no symptoms of further infection. This following a stem cell transplant from a person carrying a unique mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS.

The patient has now been without detectable HIV for two years now, and is not currently on any antiretroviral medication. However, researchers warn that the therapy is "too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment", and that a third of those who undergo it die from complications.

I'd still chalk it up as a victory for this kind of medical research, though. Who knows what kind of refinement might eventually come from such a development. And gene therapy is still a very new field: during the next ten or twenty years, we're likely to see even more powerful advances.

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Nite Owl and Silk Spectre in MINUTEMEN scrolling arcade game (coolest WATCHMEN viral site yet)

The marketing for Watchmen never ceases to amaze me. This time it's an Eighties-style scrolling street fighting arcade game based on the Minutemen. Plunk in your virtual quarters and play as either Nite Owl or Silk Spectre as you clean up New York City of the 1940s.

Maybe if you rack up a high enough score, it'll unlock Hooded Justice and Mothman as playable characters :-P

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Well played, Tarheels

Duke fan that I am, I'm man enough to admit that UNC had an excellent game tonight. 101 to 87... that might be the biggest margin between the two teams in a long time.

So to the Tarheels: congratulations!

(I just don't want to have to make a habit of saying that :-P)

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Customary reaction to LOST episode: "This Place Is Death"

Lost is better television than we darned well deserve.

And "This Place Is Death", tonight's episode, was one of the richest of the series to date.

I thought it was also one of the strongest of the Sun and Jin-centric episodes, and doesn't it say something about Lost that Sun could be in 2008 and Jin could be back on the Island in 1988, and this show still make sense? After how powerful the reunion between Desmond and Penny was, I'm of the mind that the setup is happening before our eyes for something much, much more intense when Jin and Sun find their way back to each other. They'd better get back: I know hordes of people who will be honked-off enraged if that doesn't happen.

The scenes in 1988 with Danielle and her team explored a lot of ground in a surprisingly short amount of time. I've wondered what "the sickness" was that 2004 Danielle was talking about... might it have something to do with "Smokey"?

Daniel and Charlotte: seemed handled a bit clunky, but I'm willing to see how this plays out. Jeremy Davies proves once more why he was the perfect choice to play Daniel: nobody does off-kilter lovable nerds better than he :-)

Ben's emotional blow-up in the van was an excellent scene. Michael Emerson shows again that he is one of the best actors working in the medium right now. More and more it's becoming easier to take Ben at his word, and I don't think he was being deceitful at all when he talked about what he and others had done to protect the Oceanic 6.

So... Locke has done it. He has turned the wheel and is on his way. Can't wait to see the story of "Jeremy Bentham" unfold once he gets to the outside world.

The final scene, where the gang meets Eloise inside the church: can't help but think that portends some amazing stuff next week. Eloise speaking in the teaser about how "this is how the Island was found" while showing the weird pendulum is painfully tantalizing. Can't wait 'til next Wednesday to get here to find out more.

Okay so... thought? :-)

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Two satellites collide in space over Siberia

At least 600 pieces of spaceborne shrapnel are now plaguing the sky, no thanks to an unprecedented collision between two satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Early yesterday, 790 kilometers (490 miles) above Siberia, an inoperative Russian satellite called Cosmos 2251 smashed into Iridium33, a communications satellite. Ground radar is now tracking the hundreds of resulting bits of debris, hoping that none of it will smash into any other satellites or the International Space Station.

When asked which satellite was at fault, NASA scientist Nicholas Johnson said, "they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction."

The good news, if there is any, is that Iridium Satellite LLC still has 64 satellites in unusually low orbit, relaying calls between special satellite phones (the U.S. Department of Defense is one of its biggest customers).

I wonder if one of them was trying to speed through an intersection...

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