Saturday, December 30, 2006

Saddam has been executed



Before sunrise Saturday, at 6:05 AM (local time), Saddam was hung. Finally.

The Vatican called it tragic. What are they on about? They talked about how it might fuel revenge and new violence, but I think it was more important for all the Iraqis who needed it for closure and even vengeance of their own. At least now he's gone, out of the picture.

The execution was filmed. They might be broadcasting it over Iraqi television, but you can bet it will be on the Internet immediately after it's shown there, if it is. ABC and CBS said they wouldn't broadcast it, but Fox News and CNN were still discussing it. There has never been a video of an execution broadcast in the U.S. before.

-edit- I found part of the video online; it just shows him being led to the gallows and then having the noose put around his neck, not the actual hanging, and can be found here.

-edit- Here is a video shot from a cell phone of his execution. While it doesn't show him actually dying because the guy moved the camera in a weird way when he fell, it shows him dropping and then shows him dead, so it could still be considered graphic, if that bothers you.

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Friday, December 29, 2006

Cindy Sheehan arrested on Thursday in front of Bush ranch

Cindy Sheehan was arrested on Thursday for lying in the road leading to the Bush ranch, blocking it for about 20 minutes, according to Tela Mange of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Four other people were also arrested with her.

From the CNN article:
"[Sheehan] told us if you want us to get out of the road, you're going to have to arrest us," said Mange. "So we did."
Obstructing a highway is a misdemeanor in Texas, which they were all charged with. Due to an incident in New York in 2005 where Sheehan and others were arrested, they could face some penalty for being arrested yet again so soon afterwards.

In March of 2005, Sheehan and three other women were arrested after trying to deliver and anti-Iraq war protest to the U.S. Mission to the U.N. In December of 2006, they were charged with trespassing because they didn't disperse when ordered to by police. They were given a conditional discharge, which meant they would have had a stiffer punishment if they were arrested again in the next six months, and fined $95. They then went back to the Mission with the petition after the sentencing and it was accepted.

If found guilty, they could each face a fine of up to $2000 and six months in prison.

Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/28/sheehan.arrest/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/12/11/sheehan.convicted.ap/index.html

*Note* I recently joined the Blogger News Network as a writer and this is one of the articles I wrote; read below for details if you haven't already.

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I'm finally writing for an actual news organization online

I've signed up to be a writer at the Blogger News Network. It's a news site (obviously) that has a lot of different people that write about current news, whether by writing about things themselves or summarizing other articles (basically blogging about them). We can write about anything, be it world, national or local or whatever else, and I actually get paid for it. It's not much, maybe like $.20 an article at the moment, but the pay's not the reason I'm doing it. Now, I can actually write for something other than a personal blog with some regularity, and I get maybe 200 views for each article I write, as long as it's fairly interesting, plus I get plenty of practice writing and who knows, maybe it will help my resume or something if I write a ton of stuff.

The way it's set up is the guy who runs it takes 30% of the revenue from ads and junk each month to run the site, pay for bandwidth and any other costs, etc., and to pay himself. Then he splits up the remaining 70% among all the writers depending on how much they wrote that month. If the site gets bigger and bigger as he plans it to, then the pay could increase to even $5 an article (which would be very nice for part time blogging), but that'll probably be a couple years, at least. Anyway, I'm just enjoying writing for it, even though I've only written 2 things so far, and they've both been "blog style" (article summaries, although I did bring several articles together into one concise entry, so it's a bit different). Oh, another cool thing is we still have the copy write for whatever we write, so we can post it wherever we want, so I'll be posting anything I write for that here. The story below about food from cloned animals is one I just wrote, and I also wrote something the other day about an earthquake off Taiwan and the fears people had about another tsunami an the 2 year anniversary of the big one, which can be read here, if you're interested.

If you end up reading anything on Blogger News Network, everything I've written is under my own name. Depending on when you look, my latest stuff might not be up, because until I've written several things there's a delay in posting my articles for them to be looked over. Once they know I can actually string a couple words together, then my posts will go up automatically. I would actually recommend looking at the site and seeing if you like it, because it seems a pretty good place for news. The front page is just a list of all the recently written stories, which are about any and everything going on. You can get both the facts and editorial content there. Plus, the more people that visit the site, the more money I maybe get. :) The ads are just down the left hand side and at the bottom, so they're out of the way. Well, just check it out if you're interested.

Oh, and if you have any ideas for a story, something local or something you saw online or whatever that you think will be interesting, or that you just for some reason want my take on, hit me up with a comment about it. The more stuff Jeremy has to write about, the happier he be.

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Food from cloned animals may be hitting shelves relatively soon

The FDA has finally concluded that food products from cloned animals like milk or meat are safe for human consumption after years of study. This opens up the possibility of commercial food products made from cloned animals and put into supermarkets. If this occurs, the U.S. will be the first country to allow it.

Many people, however, still have worries about food from cloned animals, even after the FDA's assurances of safety. As some people will obviously not want to eat that type of product, many companies are already thinking about how they can make sure consumers know whether their products have ingredients from cloned animals in them. But while some companies might want to affix extra labels on food from clones, they have to be sure that they are not saying it is any less safe than food from normal animals. Since the FDA has found that the food is indistinguishable, they would not allow any label other than something just stating the fact that it came from clones.

Although some companies are looking at these possibilities already, food from clones is still a little while off. The FDA is still anywhere from several months to several years away from formally approving food from clones. At the moment, there is a voluntary ban on selling products from clones that was put in place in 2001 to allow the FDA more time to study what affect food from clones might have. But within a year, there is a possibility of it ending and food from clones coming onto the market. Once that happens, it will be up to the consumer to decide whether to buy products made with ingredients from cloned animals.

Sources:
New York Times Article
AP Article from My Way News
FDA Study

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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Holy crap I want one.


The Antonov KT-40 Flying Tank. I have a newfound respect for Russians.

Just read the article. There's nothing I can add to that.

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Monday, December 25, 2006

James Brown died at 73

On Christmas morning, around 1:45 AM, James Brown died in Emory Crawford Long Hospital. He had been hospitalised Sunday with pneumonia, but they aren't sure what he died of.

So now the "Godfather of Soul" is gone. In addition to helping create the soul genre along with others such as Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, James Brown had such a huge influence on rap, funk and disco. It's a sad day for music. I think I'll listen to "I Feel Good" in tribute.

Article

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Sunday, December 24, 2006

A PSA: Name of the final Harry Potter book announced

This article was a bit anti climatic. All it says is the name; they haven't announced when it will be released or any other details. It stretches it out for a bit, though. And now, with no further ado, the last book will be called...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Yeah, a bit disappointing, huh? At least I thought so.

Well, I read about this after I made my last post, and decided I might as well post it even though it was announced 4 days ago, so go read my last post, the real one. This one's just a brief announcement.

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The Mystical Landscapes of Gregory Euclide

I recently stumbled upon the website of Gregory Euclide, a landscape artist from the Midwest with a very unique style and way of expression. His paintings just captured my attention and imagination. They're not linear in any fashion, and flow in and out of themselves. From his statement of intent on his website:

...my work is largely influenced by the dramatic changes in the seasons...The rhythm of growth and decay has made a strong impression on me; the process and content of my work has come to reflect this unique evolution of complex systems in the landscapes as well as in every aspect of the natural world.


It attempts to show the nexus between the past and the present as a set of innumerable action/reaction occurrences. This idea is informed by my research in quantum physics...history is too vast to be known and the potential is capricious.


Because no two circumstances in nature have ever been the same, every action and motion is original and can never be repeated. I begin each work with a chaotic gesture, which underscores the apparent structure of nature. The creation of the initial gesture becomes the foundation on which a set of elements can evolve into a system.


I think what he says in there is why I like his work. I'm very interested in chaos theory, which has a large sensitivity to initial conditions, and shows emergent structure, just as he describes his art. Complex systems are fascinating, from things like the weather to a bee hive to a city of humans. Due to the effects of organisms on the systems, complex systems are unpredictable and adaptable.


Click on the image to see a bigger size of it; due to space restrictions here I had to keep it small and sort of cramped.

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Friday, December 22, 2006

Riddle me this, Batman...

I found this puzzle on one of my favorite blogs, Neatorama, who in turn found it on Coudal Partners. Supposedly, it was created by Albert Einstein, who claimed that only 2% of the people in the world could do it. I did it in less than five minutes with a pen and a piece of paper (after one false start from reading a clue wrong), so I doubt that only that small amount of people can solve it, but it was a fair bit of logic, so if you can do it, congratulate yourself. Maybe people were just more stupid in Einstein's day, or didn't play as much Sudoku.

Here's the puzzle:

This brainteaser, reportedly written by Einstein is difficult and Einstein said that 98% of the people in the world could not figure it out. Which percentage are you in?

There are five houses in a row in different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a Walleye Pike.

The question is-- who owns the fish?

Hints:
1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

There are no tricks, pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer.

If you get the correct answer, congratulations, you are one of the exclusive group of 121,348,731 people in the world who can.

The answer can be found here, on the original page the puzzle came from. Scroll down to Note IV and click the link.

Good luck, and Merry Christmas!

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Of Beards and Bribes

This page is an exhaustive summary of everything having to do with any combination of presidential elections and facial hair, from the inspiring beard of Abraham Lincoln (who was actually clean-shaven at the time of the election) to a highlight of all the elections in which candidates had some form of facial hair. It was actually fairly interesting to peruse, if you are a person who is interested in that sort of thing, or are wondering whether to grow that mustache or not. Pick a president, and follow his example!

Another interesting read is this summary of bribery and its etiquette, out of The Economist. While many people realize that money is the grease that makes the wheels of bureaucracy run more smoothly, what they don't realize is that there is a proper way to do things. You can't just throw a wad of cash in the face of a customs officer or politician; you must be tactful: in most cases, people won't come straight out and call it a bribe, but will refer to it as a "fee" for some special service or an "expediting" payment to increase the speed of certain transactions. A useful article for those of you planning on traveling through several foreign countries and wanting to do it with minimal hassle.

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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Top Ten Politically Incorrect Words of 2006

LanguageMonitor.com comes up with a list of the top 10 politically incorrect words or phrases every year, and this year's are quite humorous. The list is, of course, scattered with feminist phrases trying to take power from men, like HERstory instead of history, and also worries about race, like saying "black coffee." I think my favorite would have to be Global Warming Denier: some people want those who don't believe global warming is happening to be treated the same way as a Holocaust denier; "professional ostracism, belittlement, ridicule and, even, jail."

What annoyed me was this phrase from "The Bible in a More Just Language," that changes the beginning of the Lord's prayer to "Our Mother and Father who art in Heaven." They claim that this is a more "inclusive" Bible, and it replaces the "decisive" teachings of Christianity. How can you change a quote, even if you don't like it? People like that really annoy me.

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Monday, December 18, 2006

This would be sweet: The Vatican may field a football team

One of the cardinals, Tarcisio Bertone, mentioned the possibility of the Vatican fielding a football team that could be as good as some of the top teams in Serie A. I think that would be pretty cool.

They are, of course, talking about what we Americans call soccer. It would be even better if they put together an American football team, but alas, I don't see that happening.

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NASA and Google's partnership

They have signed a Space Act Agreement, and now Google and NASA will be working together on a variety of technical problems in the future. Their first project will be Google getting NASA's most useful and interesting data out there to the general public.

Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution3- D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the InternationalSpace Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future. "This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every Americanto experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through thecanyons of Mars," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.

They're also going to incorporate NASA data sets into Google Earth, as well as numerous other technical innovations.

NASA and Google also are finalizing details for additional collaborations that include joint research, products, facilities, educationand missions.

Article

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NASA and Google to form partnership

According to a press release, NASA and Google will be announcing a partnership on some new venture at 11 AM PST (1 PM here) today. It is supposed to be something "exciting and unique." It sounds like Google's going to be funding something or another. I'm going to try and use the media call-in line to get the low down; expect an update this afternoon, either from what I get from there or somewhere online.

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Saturday, December 16, 2006

Hey, you won the "Person of the Year" award from Time magazine! Yes, you! Seriously.

This year, Time decided to award their "Person of the Year" award to not just one person, but everyone who uses or creates content on the internet. Hence, if you're reading this, that's you. Congrats. They decided this year to award it to "citizens of the new democracy", the people who are shaping the world now, those who are interconected online. If it hadn't been everyone this year, they probably would have given it to the Iranian president, according to the managing editor at Time, Richard Stengel. The "Person of the Year" issue has a computer with a mirror for the screen that has the word "You" on it so people can see their reflection in it.

Time has given the award to a group or something other than an individual 3 times before: in 1966 to those who were 25 and younger; in 1975 to American women; and in 1982 to the computer.

Article.

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Thursday, December 14, 2006

World's Tallest Man Saves Chinese Dolphins With Long Arms

At an aquarium in Fushun, located in north-east China, Bao Xishun was summoned to save the day after two dolphins swallowed plastic that was used around their pool. They people from the aquarium had tried to use tools and instruments to get the plastic out first, but when that wasn't a success, they tried a different approach. They wrapped their teeth in towels and Mr. Bao reached into their stomach with his long arms and pulled out the shards of plastic. The dolphins are expected to make a full recovery; I know you're all thrilled.

Bao Xishun is 7' 9" at 54 years old, and is a herdsman. That's crazy tall.

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Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Interesting Times in the Senate...

Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota had a stroke recently. He's a Democrat, and if he dies or resigns, the governer, who is a Republican, gets to pick his replacement. He'll probably pick a Republican, obviously, and in that case, the Senate will then be split evenly. It will be interesting to see how all this turns out.

Article.

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Night Owls Are More Creative Than All You "Morning People"

This makes me happy that I found this article the day after I stayed up all night just for kicks. Scientists have discovered that those people who tend towards the nocturnal life are generally more creative and extroverted than those who are "morning people." There are special cells in the brain that emit a signal to synchronize time in your body, and in morning folks it runs two hours ahead, but in night-time people it runs two hours behind.

"Being in a situation which diverges from conventional habit — nocturnal types often experience this situation — may encourage the development of a non-conventional spirit and of the ability to find alternative and original solutions," lead author Marina Giampietro and colleague G.M. Cavallera wrote in a study to be published in the February 2007 issue of Personality and Individual Differences.

I don't know what this new-found knowledge will do for me, but it sure is interesting. I am definitely a night person.

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Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Super-Lions Rock!

Fifteen years ago in Botswana, a group of lions were marooned on an island due to the shifting course of a river. They were without their normal food supply, sick, weakly, and old or young antelope, and were left with only a herd of water buffalo, and a few wildebeest and warthogs. Yet instead of dying out, they adapted and started taking down the water buffalo. From the article:

They have adapted to this challenge by hunting during the day under the baking African sun, swimming through deep rivers in the hunt for buffalo. This water-based training programme combined with a diet of protein-rich buffalo meat has led to the development of huge muscles, and these super-cats now dwarf other lions.

The island lions also use highly advanced psychology in their quest for food, predicting the course of the buffaloes' daily trek by anticipating their need for water — then lying in wait at the precise spot along the river where the herd will eventually stop for refreshment.

In turn, the buffalo have responded to the threat by merging into a vast mega-herd of 1,200 beasts — five times the size of a normal group. They have also, at times, turned on the lions, killing isolated cubs.

I find all this highly interesting, and will probably check out the new film about it, Relentless Enemies, with Jeremy Irons, if we get the National Geographic channel, which I don't think we do. So I guess I won't be watching after all.

For those of you who aren't fans of amazing super-lions taking out water buffalo (although I have no idea who this would be...), and for those who are and want more wanton violence but in a less bloody way, check out these videos of "a golf ball [being] sent hurtling towards everyday objects at ridiculously high speeds." Trust me, they don't disappoint.

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Sunday, December 10, 2006

The Internet Is Safe! (For Now, At Least)

At the end of Congress' 109th session, Bill H.R. 5252, the one attacking Net Neutrality, has been defeated. Huge telecom corporations speant over $150 million trying to get it passed, but the huge public oppostion to it won out, as it should. This makes me very happy. I'm glad our Congress actually listens to us.

And fromWashington State, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport took down it's Christmas trees to keep from facing a lawsuit. A Jewish rabbi issued a complaint and wanted them to put up a menorah as well or face a lawsuit, and so they decided to just get rid of the trees. When I first started reading, I thought it was just the airport taking down the trees, but then I realized that rabbi was trying to get a menorah up as well. I liked what the airport's stance on this was. They said that if they put up a menorah, they would have to put up symbols of other religions as well. A spokesperson said, "The holidays are the busiest season at the airport and staff didn't have time to play cultural anthropologists." The rabbi was suprised and dissappointed because he said he just wanted the holiday spirit represented for everyone, but I think the airport handled it well. Why have a huge fight when you can just get rid of the problem and get on with the real business at hand?

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Sunday, December 03, 2006

December 5 is Ninja Day!


Be as ninja-ey as you can be! Wear a mask! Throw shurikens! Kill people! Just be a ninja!

Visit the official website for Day of a Ninja to learn how to be as much a ninja as possible!

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Friday, December 01, 2006

I have been assesed as a terrorist or criminal threat...

And so have you if you've traveled into or out of the country within the past four years. The gorvernment has been using a computerized Automated Targeting System to track and keep records of anyone exiting or entering the country by land, sea or air, and "under specific circumstances, some or all data in the system can be shared with state, local and foreign governments and even some private contractors." They assign a threat rating based on comparing the "activities and characteristics of terrorists and criminals" to your travel data. So know that you are in the system if you've been traveling outside the U.S. recently, and there are way too many people who can access it.

Article here.

Also, a naked man smoking crack is chomped on by an alligator. My favorite quote from the article: "Judd said Apgar told deputies he was smoking crack-cocaine at the adjacent park, but it was unclear why he was naked or why he was attacked by the alligator."

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