"Mancow" gets waterboarded, decides it IS torture

Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller had maintained that waterboarding could not possibly be considered torture. And he set out to prove it this morning. Mancow submitted himself to the procedure, which was broadacast on his live show and recorded by a television crew.

What did Mancow say afterward?

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back... It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.'"

Here's the video. Gotta give Mancow some serious props for both going through with this, and having the strength of character to admit that he had been wrong before...

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"Life finds a way."

This is the nest that some birds have made in the satellite television box on the back of my house!

Nevermind all those cables and wires and other potential hazards to wildlife. I'm just astonished that they were able to open the box to begin with... and then build what otherwise looks to be a comfortable avian domicile inside of it.

While I was taking this picture a startled bird flew out. I was able to count a number of eggs within the nest. There is another built atop an outside light beneath the overhang of the roof.

I suppose that wherever there is found a niche - whether left by God or man - that nature is quite adept at filling it.

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FCC can enter your home without warrant if you have a wireless router

If your home network uses a wireless router, or if you have a cordless phone or baby monitor or cellphone or anything that emits radio waves, the Federal Communications Commission has asserted it has the power to enter your property WITHOUT a warrant in order to "inspect" said equipment.

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.

“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”

George Washington University professor Orin Kerr, a constitutional law expert, also questions the legalilty of the policy.

“The Supreme Court has said that the government can’t make warrantless entries into homes for administrative inspections,” Kerr said via e-mail, refering to a 1967 Supreme Court ruling that housing inspectors needed warrants to force their way into private residences. The FCC’s online FAQ doesn’t explain how the agency gets around that ruling, Kerr adds.

There's more on the Wired.com story linked above, including how this crazy "right" first came to light.

And if any of our friends from the FCC are reading this, I can only say this:

You can have my Linksys router... when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!

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This is what American politics has turned into

A high-tech, glorified pissing match between the Democrats and Republicans.

Some people have written to me asking why I'm not doing much political commentary anymore. To be honest: it's become a very boring thing to me. I'd rather devote time to considering and then articulating about real ideas, not empty ideology.

And maybe also it's because I cannot help but on some level have already written of America as a lost cause, if she must be dependent upon people like Dick Cheney and Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh and Nancy Pelosi.

These people and many more have completely forgotten what it means to serve others. They actually believe that because something so eternally vapid as their political parties have given them a measure of power, that it means that God Himself has somehow anointed them over all others.

I'm not here to cheer on any among the morally impotent. I am here to find and celebrate those who possess clarity of character and a higher vision. This blog is going to honor those who have the sense to realize that it is God and not they themselves who are at the center of the universe.

They're out there. And most of them have the unique quality of having never asked for any amount of power at all. They are the ones we should be encouraging to step up to the plate in this country, not the professional political pigs of self-parody.

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Down syndrome and how it fights cancer

This is why I love the Internet so much: you get to learn stuff you otherwise might never have known. And this is why I love blogging so much: it gives me the opportunity to share stuff like this with others who also might never have known it :-)

Apparently it's been recognized for awhile among those in the field that people with Down syndrome (a genetic affliction marked by an extra chromosome) very rarely get cancer. According to an article at Science News about a newly published study in the journal Nature, it may be because of extra production of a cancer-fighting protein in people with Down...

People born with Down syndrome have an extra copy of chromosome 21, instead of the usual two copies — one from each parent. The third chromosome causes genetic aberrations that result in the mental retardation and telltale physical traits that define the condition.

But chromosome 21 carries 231 genes, including some that may well suppress cancer. In the new study, researchers provide evidence that the protein encoded by the RCAN1 gene reins in the rampant blood vessel growth that a tumor needs to thrive. Scientists theorized that having an extra copy of the gene would result in more protein being made and add to an anticancer effect.

Scientists have long suspected that such genetic benefits might accrue from having an extra chromosome 21. A recent study found that people with Down syndrome are only about one-tenth as likely to get a solid-tumor cancer as are people without the syndrome.

There's plenty more of this intriguing study at the link above.

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Perhaps we should call it the "International Still Suit"?

Thanks to a newly-tested and approved recycling system aboard the International Space Station, its long-term crews are now able to drink water recovered from urine, sweat and breath exhalation. It's the first time that water has been acquired and imbibed in space in such a manner.

The new system takes the combined urine of the crew from the toilet, moves it to a big tank, where the water is boiled off, and the vapor collected. The rest of contaminants - the yucky brine in the urine - is thrown away, said Marybeth Edeen, the space station's national lab manager who was in charge of the system.

The water vapor is mixed with water from air condensation, then it goes through filters, much like those put on home taps, Edeen said.

When six crew members are aboard it can make about six gallons from urine in about six hours, Edeen said.

The system sounds very much like the stillsuits worn by the Fremen in the Dune series of novels.

Wonder how long it'll be before some bold entrepreneur approaches NASA about selling drops of "authentic recycled astronaut urine" :-P

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Meet the Big Daddy that you'll play in BIOSHOCK 2 (and game release date?)

It's been known for a few months that in the upcoming BioShock 2 players will be stepping into the boots of the first-ever Big Daddy: the prototype of the ones that you fought in the original BioShock. The cover of the July issue of GamePro reveals the design. And the mag promises to deliver a lot more details when it hits the stands.

(By the way, according to the comments on the above-linked post that's a camera on your Big Daddy's helmet. So research is once again part of a BioShock game.)

Meanwhile, Digital Spy has some more info about BioShock 2's particular moral choices and the first time I've seen a release date given anywhere: October 30th. Just in time for Halloween :-)

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"They call it spreading hope!" It's ABC's trailer for V!

This could be the breakout hit of the 2009-2010 television season. But what has me gushing with joy is the return of the blood-red "V" graffiti! And I especially love how the reboot updates the premise of the original miniseries by having resistance to the Visitors spreading viral on the Internet.

Check out ABC's first trailer for V...

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If you are going to see TERMINATOR SALVATION...

Please don't.

I just got back from the midnight premiere of it. And right now I'm weighing whether or not I should take the time to write a full review of the movie.

So far as I'm concerned the Terminator story ended with Terminator 2: Judgment Day: one of the most perfect sequel movies of all time. Neither of the last two alleged installments have added anything of merit to the saga. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was pretty bad and Terminator Salvation stinks on ice. Just about everything about it is wrong, with the exception of Anton Yelchin as the young Kyle Reese and he's channeling Michael Biehn from the original The Terminator about as well as Karl Urban did DeForrest Kelley in Star Trek.

And speaking of Star Trek: if you haven't seen it yet and were planning on catching Terminator Salvation this weekend, buy a ticket for Star Trek instead. Even if it's your second or third time going to watch it.

Terminator Salvation is everything that is wrong with modern blockbusters: all about special effects to carry the story, instead of complementing the story. And a lot of it makes no sense in the context of established Terminator mythology.

Like I said, in my mind the Terminator saga was concluded with Terminator 2. I had no empathy for the characters in Terminator 3 and I care even less for them in Terminator Salvation. Absent James Cameron coming back to direct a new Terminator film, I shall never plunk down good money to see another one again.

Hell, Batman & Robin and 2008's Godzilla might have been better than Terminator Salvation, if that tells you anything...

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1 in 4 Americans are texting while driving

According to a new poll, 1 in 4 Americans are apparently text messaging while driving.

I don't agree with laws prohibiting talking into a cellphone while driving, although I do believe that's something that individual drivers should make a determination about on their own. But texting is completely different. It demands an attention that talking doesn't require.

Plainly put folks: it should be just common sense not to text while operating a vehicle. It's already caused one trolley accident in Boston, and a school bus driver is now without a job after being photographed texting while driving with a full bus of kids.

So far as I'm concerned, trying to text while driving is just as rife with risk as is driving while intoxicated. If one has to text while out and about in a vehicle, there's always the side of the road or a parking lot somewhere.

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Oliver Stone wants to make a new HELTER SKELTER film

According to Geek Tyrant, Oliver Stone (director of Platoon and JFK and co-writer of Conan the Barbarian along with a lot of other movies) is in discussion with Vincent Bugliosi to film a new adaptation of Helter Skelter.

Oliver Stone. Making a movie about this guy:

Holy #*@&...

This would be the third movie to be based on the book that Bugliosi wrote about the Charles Manson murders, of which Bugliosi served as prosecuting attorney. The first was a two-part television movie in 1976 that starred Steve Railsback as Manson: a portrayal that is even now regarded as the most hypnotic and terrifying of the true crime genre. Indeed, everything about 1976's Helter Skelter still holds up surprisingly well as a film about one of the most bizarre crimes in American history. The second was a 2004 two-hour TV movie that I didn't care much for, although it did have Jeremy Davies (Daniel from Lost) as Manson.

I am going to definitely keep an eye on this one. I've read Helter Skelter at least a dozen times over the years and if Stone is faithful to the book, this could be a hella gory feast for the senses.

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FALLOUT 3 getting more DLC... and it's coming to PS3 too!

What the boys (and girls) at Bethesda are doing with their nigh-unstoppable hit Fallout 3 is possibly the future of single-player video games as a successful business model: pour a lot of effort into making an outstanding game experience, and then use the initial game as a platform upon which to build and sell more content that is just as outstanding. The Operation Anchorage downloadable content alone is letting Bethesda sleep atop a pile of greenbacks.

So I hope y'all have some room on the hard drives of your PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (yes, the PS3!) 'cuz Fallout 3 is about to get a bunch more DLC.

The big news for PlayStation 3 owners is that the previously produced content is coming to their system at last, beginning with Operation Anchorage later next month. That'll be followed up by The Pitt and Broken Steel. Everyone will also soon be getting Point Lookout (featuring a swamp environment) and Mothership Zeta (marking the return of the "aliens" to the Fallout saga).

If downloading new content ain't your thing for whatever reason, Fallout 3 Game Add-on Pack #1 - containing Operation Anchorage and The Pitt - will be available for retail sale next week, and Add-on Pack #2 with Broken Steel and Point Lookout on sale in August. And if you don't own any Fallout 3 yet, a Game of the Year edition with all five add-ons will hit the street in October.

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Bev Perdue - AKA "WORST NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR EVER" - signs smoking ban into law

It's a scene I've watched on television damn too many times: a chief executive like a president or governor sitting behind a desk and smugly signing away another right or liberty, with a backdrop made up of the sorry-a$$ed legislative bastitches, also grinning like they've just made some legitimate contribution to the betterment of mankind, who passed the effin' law to begin with.

In today's case it was Bev Perdue - who I have already declared to be the worst Governor that North Carolina has ever had with just four months into her term - signing the state-wide smoking ban into law.

That dumb blond and the twits who stood next to her today are now patting themselves on the back for their show of force over the common people of this state. Because, let us be candid folks: the legislators in the General Assembly who passed this, by and large (and even that might be too kind) do not give representing their constituents the greatest of priorities.

Here's what one person observed in my last post about this...

The story the newspapers aren't telling you is this . . . .

A private, non-profit foundation that receives funding from such people as Ted Turner, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, The Times Company, Time-Warner, Media General, and the Heinz estate is hiring lobbyists in every state legislature for the purpose of doing whatever is necessary to ensure that public bans on smoking are passed.

Tactics include taking legislators out for meals, buying them vacation trips, bringing movie productions to targeted states and (when all else fails) outright bribery to gain votes for this legislation.

The end goal is to provide unchallenged legal precedent that can one day be used to outlaw the use of tobacco products, or beyond that, any product or behavior that this foundation disapproves of.

This is definitely anti-populist behavior, because this foundation seeks to "educate" legislators on the dangers of smoking (something we all know about) and the advantages of defying the ill-formed public opinion that no real harm comes from smoking.

They have a word for this . . . . it's called Oligarchy. Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

That commenter is most correct.

And like I said in that post last week: I do not smoke. I wouldn't encourage anyone to take up smoking. Believe you me, I have seen the deleterious effects it can have on one's health. But I would never stoop so low as to attempt to use the force of government to either compel someone to not smoke or to obligate a private business owner into prohibiting smoking on his or her premises against his or her will!

That's all that this is about, my friends. It has nothing to do with "public health" or "it's for the children" or whatever other mealy-mouthed bullcrap the politicians are claiming. It's all about flexing the might of the collective against the individual.

Just one more incremental loss of liberty, that is damned hard to get back once it's gone.

So... what to do about it?

Personally, I think that every restaurant and bar owner in the state of North Carolina that wishes to do so, should outright damn ignore Governor Dumb Blond and her contingent of Nicotine Nazis.

According to the story above...

The law, which takes effect in January, authorizes fines of up to 50 dollars for people who smoke after being asked to stop, and up to 200 dollars for managers of establishments who have twice been warned to enforce the law.

Or what? Is Guvner Bev gonna close down a business just 'cuz its owners ignore this silly law? WHERE is the power to enforce this nonsense?

This is something that the free market, not the government, should determine. It's very very simple, friends and neighbors: if a restaurant owner wants to have smoking in his establishment, he should be free to do that. Just as much as nobody has to eat in that restaurant if they don't want to on account of the smoking. If enough customers ask nicely for it to be a tobacco-free place, the owner can make that determination on his own and also be free to end smoking in his joint.

Nobody needs or even really asked for Bev Perdue and her legislative lackeys to make that determination for them.

What do I think needs to happen in this state?

A hella lotta rebellion against the General Assembly and Governor Bev Perdue.

They passed this law and she signed it. Now let's see them enforce it.

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Two clips from ABC's reboot of V!

Courtesy of James Hibberd's The Live Feed. Watch Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from Lost) gazing up at the sky along with the rest of humanity...

And then there's this clip, which I find to be much more promising/menacing...

The first clip seemed kinda... bland. Maybe it's just 'cuz I'm still a fan of old-school V (the original 1983 miniseries anyway). But the second one has sold me on this re-imagining's potential. That is a drop of distilled essence of what made the first miniseries so powerful and unbelievably scary: creeping fascism on a global scale.

ABC has already committed V to series based on its pilot. It should start running later on in the 2009-2010 season.

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GPS system could start dying next year

The Global Positioning System may be months away from beginning to fail, it has been been announced. Mismanagement and a failure to maintain the fleet of satellites at the heart of the system now threatens to put both military and civilian use of GPS in tremendous jeopardy starting sometime in 2010.

Here's hoping that this can be remedied and soon. I just recently started using GPS for highway navigation (a unit from TomTom) and it has already become an essential part of my business ventures. But then you get to considering the reason why GPS was first made available for public use to begin with, and you come to realize the urgent gravity of the situation.

(Thankfully, Soviet-controlled airspace at least has been defunct for the past 18 years. But absent modern navigation that much of the world has come to depend on, and it's not hard to imagine a similar incident happening in any number of places.)

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Where Black People and White People BUY FURNITURE!

This is a commercial for The Red House Furniture, located in Greensboro, North Carolina: about 30 minutes south of where I live.

What is it about this area that spawns such weird advertisements? :-P

Anyhoo, I think it's terrific! And it's already achieved more than a million views on YouTube!

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This is the long-sought "Missing Link"?

Color me "meh!" ...

So what will this do to the never-ending battle between "Evolutionists" and "Creationists"? More than likely: not much. Proponents of evolution will see a proto-human in this fossil, and those siding with divine creation will insist it's merely a monkey.

That's why this particular issue has no appeal to me one way or another: for as long as anyone can remember, it's only been about which faction has more power and influence. You see it especially in many school districts where evolutionists and creationists form up gangs to take on each other, like grown adults playing "Bloods 'n Crips". Lost in the process is rigorous scrutiny and legitimate query for knowledge.

And personally, all I see in this fossil is... a varmint :-P

Click here for the rest of the story on what is being called the scientific discovery of the century.

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