Low-life humanoid types, bow down low before the presence of the great Pooch Doggy Dog!

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Will You Have To Buy ADigital TV Antenna?


Pooch Dog watches Animal Planet exclusively. Whenever dogs or wolves or good-looking humanoid women appear - yes, even though a canine, I have developed a liking for them - I lift my head and howl! And, it pisses me off when my master's TV set goes blurry. He is a technological Luddite and he doesn't know whether he will have to buy a digital antenna in 2009.

Here's the answer... NO!!! (Probably, not, at least.)


Read more...

Your Mother is a Cyborg Tramp! Your Dog Works for ME!!

Before reading this article, Soup Hound - yours truly, has some news for you: your mother is a cyborg, and your dog was recruited by the CIA. We know all about you!

Oh! Almost forgot. I can stop a speeding bull with the flick of a switch. And, if you don't read this article, I can just as easily command said bull to attack YOU!

Maggot!!


THE next time a moth alights on your window sill, watch what you say. Sure, it may look like an innocent visitor, irresistibly drawn to the light in your room, but it could actually be a spy - one of a new generation of cyborg insects with implants wired into their nerves to allow remote control of their movement. Be warned, flesh-and-blood bugs may soon live up to their name.
It's not just insects that could be used as snoops. Researchers have already developed remote control systems for rats, pigeons and even sharks. The motivation is simple: why labour for years to build robots that imitate the ways animals move when you can just plug into living creatures and hijack systems already optimised by millions of years of evolution? "There's a long history of trying to develop micro-robots that could be sent out as autonomous devices, but I think many engineers have realised that they can't improve on Mother Nature," says insect neurobiologist John Hildebrand at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Furthermore, animals' sensory abilities far outstrip the vast majority of artificial sensors. Sharks, moths and rats, for example, have amazing olfactory systems that allow them to detect the faintest traces of chemicals. And if you can hide your control system within your cyborg's body, it would be virtually indistinguishable from its unadulterated kin - the perfect spy.
José Delgado at Yale University created the first cyborg animal in the 1950s. Delgado discovered where to insert electrodes in the brains of several species, including bulls, to acquire crude control of their movement. In one dramatic demonstration in 1963, he stood in a bullring in Córdoba, Spain, as one of his cyborg bulls charged at him. With just seconds between him and a good goring, Delgado flicked a switch and the bull skidded to a halt.
The cyborg concept drifted back into science fiction for a few decades, until 2002 when a team announced that they had developed a cyborg rat whose movement could be controlled remotely (New Scientist, 4 May 2002, p 6). The team led by John Chapin at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, implanted electrodes in the rat's brain which apparently mimicked the sensation that its left or right whiskers had been brushed. They then trained the rat to respond to the electrical stimuli. For example, if the rat turned right when the brain region associated with its right whiskers was pulsed, then reward centres in its brain were electrically stimulated.
Linda Hermer-Vasquez at the University of Florida in Gainesville later joined the project to train the cyborg rat to identify specific scents, such as humans or explosives, to demonstrate that it could be used in search-and-rescue missions to find people trapped under rubble, for example, or to sniff out bombs.
To give the animal's operator a rat's-eye view, the most advanced generation of cyborg rats were kitted out with video-camera backpacks. These souped-up rats were trained to board a rolling carrier so that they could be easily transported to the site of their mission.
To test the system, the team allowed a rat to descend from the carrier and remotely steered it to the area they wanted searched for traces of an explosive. Once in the correct area, they switched off their remote control. "When the rat realised that it was no longer being controlled, it went into odour-sniffing mode," says Hermer-Vasquez. Within a few minutes, the rat had successfully identified the source of the scent. They repeated the test several times, with the same result.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726461.800-the-cyborg-animal-spies-hatching-in-the-lab.html

Cyborg cockroaches could power own electric 'brains'

PITY future cyborg insects. As if being remotely controlled by a human isn't bad enough, their every movement may be harnessed to power the electronics that hijack their bodies. This could also extend the length of their enslavement, since the microchips had previously relied on tiny batteries with short lifespans.
Engineers have been attempting to gain control of insects' bodies for some time, to act as discreet spies or to take advantage of their advanced sense of smell to detect chemicals or explosives.
To do this, researchers implant electrical stimulators that zap certain nerves or brain cells, triggering an impulse that makes the insect move in a desired direction. This process can be controlled by a preprogrammed chip or by remote control (New Scientist, 6 March 2008, p 40).
Powering these "stimulator chips" is a big limitation. "Wires from an external power source restrict their motion, and most battery cells are too heavy and wouldn't fit on the insect," says Keisuke Morishima from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan. Smaller batteries have been used, but run down in as little as a few minutes.
Instead, Morishima suggests that the insects themselves could power the slave-driving chips. As a proof of concept, he glued a piezoelectric fibre - 4 centimetres in length but just 200 micrometres across - to the back of a Madagascar hissing cockroach. As the cockroach walked, each step stretched and squeezed the piezoelectric fibre, generating electricity via mechanical stress.
His experiments show that the cockroach's movement can generate more than 10 millivolts in a single fibre. About 100 of these fibres would be enough to power the stimulators, he says.   Read more...

Archaeologists Excited Over Find in Oregon Cave. Pooch Dog Calls It Pure CRAP!

The most interesting "artifact" of the year award is a piece of crap. Literally. When a pile of poop discovered in an Oregon cave in 2002 was retested this year thanks to new techniques in DNA extraction, excited researchers determined that the ancient feces — officially called coprolites in polite archaeological terms — were human and were more than 14,000 years old, marking the earliest evidence of human presence in North America by almost two thousand years. Other bits and pieces of cultural material have turned up in the Americas and called the date into question, but the coprolites are the oldest of definite human ... extraction.    Read more...

This picture of coprolite is not the actual pile of crap discovered in Oregon cave.  It is just a random picture of fossilized crap found on the Internet.   Pooch Doggy Dog

Ancient Origins of Cheetahs Found in China

A nearly complete skull of a primitive cheetah that sprinted about in China more than 2 million years ago suggests the agile cats originated in the Old World rather than in the Americas.
The skull was discovered in Gansu Province, China, and represents a new cheetah species, now dubbed Acinonyx kurteni, said Per Christiansen of the Zoological Museum in Denmark, who studied the fossil. The animal probably lived some time between 2.2 million and 2.5 million years ago, making the specimen one of the oldest cheetah fossils identified to date, he said.
Read more...

Space Shuttle Columbia Astronaut Injuries


More about the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, and causes of death...

Returning to Earth aboard Columbia were commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool, mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, David Brown and Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut. Exposure to high altitude and blunt trauma caused their deaths, the report states.
One of Columbia's STS-107 crew members was not wearing a pressure suit helmet and three astronauts had not put on their spacesuit gloves, according to the report. At no point did crew error contribute to the loss of Columbia, which was not a survivable event, the report states.
The design of Columbia's seats, too, decreased the crew's chances of survival as their restraints did not lock in place, subjecting the astronauts to extreme trauma from rotational forces. Their helmets were not head-conforming, resulting in injuries and lethal trauma, the report states.

And more about the equipment...

The report found five separate lethal events that occurred during Columbia's descent. It calls for enhanced astronaut training to help spacecraft crews transition from emergency response to survival mode. It also recommends that NASA design the seats and pressure suits for future spacecraft with loss of vehicle control in mind.
Current astronaut pressure suits, for example, require astronauts to manually deploy their parachute during an emergency escape. Modifying the system to automatically close visors or deploy a parachute could help an unconscious astronaut's chances if they survived a spacecraft's catastrophic descent.

Read more...

Shuttle Columbia Astronauts Died in Seconds

The seven astronauts killed during the 2003 loss of NASA's space shuttle Columbia survived less than a minute after their spacecraft began breaking apart, according to a new report released Tuesday that suggests changes to astronaut training and spacecraft cabin design.
The 400-page "Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report" released today states that Columbia's ill-fated crew had a period of just 40 seconds between the loss of control of their spacecraft and its lethal depressurization in which to act on Feb. 1, 2003.
The crew's response was hampered by delays in donning their re-entry pressure suits, which ultimately would not have saved them during the searing plunge into the atmosphere anyway.
"The Columbia depressurization event occurred so rapidly that the crew members were incapacitated within seconds, before they could configure the suit for full protection from loss of cabin pressure," the report states. "Although circulatory systems functioned for a brief time, the effects of the depressurization were severe enough that the crew could not have regained consciousness. This event was lethal to the crew."   Read more...

Kama Sutra to Mindfulness to Better Sex for Moderns

According to a recent review article in the Dec. 3 issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, sexually unsatisfied women who practiced the Eastern techniques of mindfulness and yoga reported improvements in levels of arousal and desire, as well as better orgasms. In addition, yoga has been found to effectively treat premature ejaculation in men. Eastern practices have been touted as sexually beneficial for years — as the article states, the techniques have "their origin in the Kama Sutra of the fourth to sixth centuries." Read more...

Caves Leave Detailed Weather Records From The Past

Stalactites and stalagmites form as water drips from from the roof of a cave. In a previous post, earthquakes have been dated from stalactites and stalagmites. (Sometimes they start from cracks that formed at the time of an earthquake.)
This article discusses the uses of these formations as a weather record. Sometimes, they can track weather conditions down to the week! Read more...

Honeybees On Cocaine Say Pollen Is Far Out, Man!

Cocaine is a terrible drug — not just for humans, but for honeybees as well, whom it turns into exaggerating liars. When researchers applied a drop of cocaine to the backs of feeding bees, they returned to their hive and gave a waggle dance that described the pollen as being far better than it was. Read more about these high bees...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Pooch Dog LOVES Shorpy Photographs!


St. Louis, May 1910. "The boy on the right, nicknamed Turk, said he was going to Texas soon. The investigator found him recently with $1.75 he had just won at craps." The same boys seen here. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine.

Click on photo for magnificent Shorpy blow up!

http://www.shorpy.com/node/5199

Can You Text Message? Then, You're FINE!!

Teens faint or have panic attacks at festivals. Medical personnel provide help, but wonder how to tell if person is OK to return to crowd. In one interesting case, if the teens can text message, they are declared ready for return to "society."   Read more...

Tobacco Companies Up To No Good In China - Surprised?

Various tobacco companies are attempting to divert public awareness in China of the danger of second-hand smoke. Pond slime, I say! An example is British American Tobacco (BAT.) BAT's internal corporate documents produced in response to litigation against the major cigarette manufacturers to understand company activities in China related to SHS. BAT has carried out an extensive strategy to undermine the health policy agenda on SHS in China by attempting to divert public attention from SHS issues towards liver disease prevention, pushing the so-called “resocialisation of smoking” accommodation principles, and providing “training” for industry, public officials, and the media based on BAT's corporate agenda that SHS is an insignificant contributor to the larger issue of air pollution.    Read more...

Sports Drinks: Protein + Carbs Beats Carbs Only

Sports drinks containing protein are better at improving athletes' performance. Research published in BioMed Central's open access Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition has shown that drinks containing a mix of carbohydrate and protein are superior to carbohydrate-only drinks in improving cyclists' recovery from exercise.    Read more...

Dolphins Invade New Jersey River, Concerns for Survival

A group of bottlenose dolphins have been confounding humans since they took up residence in two rivers near the Jersey shore six months ago. Now that it's winter, some people are worried they'll never make it out. Three dolphins have died out of the original group of about 15 that spent the summer and fall in the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers, waterways just north of Asbury Park. Federal wildlife experts say the remaining dolphins are healthy, and should be able to make it through the winter if they choose to stay. They cite the cases of dolphins that successfully spent winters in Massachusetts, Virginia and even northern Scotland. But some animal advocates worry the dolphins will meet the same fate as four that drowned in the Shrewsbury River in 1993 when ice closed in on them, or the 26 dolphins killed by a sudden freeze in 1990 in Texas' Matagorda Bay. Read more...

Marines Closer to 2nd Generation Rifle

Pooch Dog warning:  I believe the picture is the new IAR rifle discussed below.  But, am not sure...

The Marine Corps has moved one step closer to selecting a next-generation light automatic rifle.
The Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va., announced contract awards for three competing weapons manufacturers to produce and deliver their final entries to the Corps by the middle of next year, in what signifies a final round of competition that began with ten candidates.
The lighter, magazine-fed Infantry Automatic Rifle - or IAR - is intended to replace the belt-fed M249 Squad Automatic Weapon - or SAW - in "the Marine Rifle Squad within infantry battalions and in the scout teams in Light Armored Reconnaissance battalions."
But the rifle will not be for all Marines, according to a statement by MARSYSCOM spokesman Bill Johnson-Miles.
The Pentagon requested up to 10 samples of a 5.56 mm IAR prototype from FN Herstal, which would be made in Belgium; Heckler and Koch Defense, which is based in Ashburn, Va., but whose samples would be made in Germany, the home country of the parent company; and two entries from Colt Defense, made in West Hartford, Conn.
The rifles will then undergo limited testing by infantry Marines.
Under the five-year contracts, the Pentagon could tap the winning entrant for an acquisition of 4,476 rifles, with an option to purchase up to 6,500 copies at a possible value of $28 million for FN Herstal or Heckler & Koch, or $24 million for Colt.
The SAW, which is manufactured by FN Manufacturing, the US subsidiary of Belgium's FN Herstal, weighs 16.5 pounds and fires 750 rounds per minute.
The lighter IAR candidate from FNH USA, for example, weighs in at 10.4 pounds and fires 650 rounds per minute.
Spokesmen from Heckler & Koch's Ashburn, Va., office and FNH USA, in McLean, Va., did not return calls to Stars and Stripes.
The rifles are scheduled for deployable use in December 2010.     Read more...

I Pledge Not To Have Sex Before Marriage. But, If I Do, I Pledge Not To Use a Condom!

As many as one in eight teens in the United States may take a virginity pledge at some point, vowing to wait until they're married before having sex. But do such pledges work? Are pledge takers more likely than other teens to delay sexual activity? A new study suggests that the answer is no. While teens who take virginity pledges do delay sexual activity until an average age of 21 (compared to about age 17 for the average American teen), the reason for the delay is more likely due to pledge takers' religious background and conservative views -- not the pledge itself.
According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, pledge takers are as likely to have sex before marriage as other teens who are also religious, but don't take the pledge. However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex!                   Read more...

Iraqi Raid Recovers Ancient Artifacts

BASRA, Iraq – Iraqi Security Forces recently uncovered hundreds of historical artifacts during two raids in northern Basra.
The 228 ancient artifacts included Sumerian and Babylonian sculpture, gold jewelry and other items from ancient Mesopotamia.
“This is my favorite item,” said Iraqi Col. Ali Sabah, commander of the Basra Emergency Battalion that led the operation, holding a piece of gold jewelry. “It’s gold from the Babylon ages and about 6,000 years old. It doesn’t have a price.”
“I’m very happy because this is my civilization’s heritage,” he said.
The Basra Emergency Battalion led raid operated from tips that smugglers intended to remove the treasure from the country.
“We got information that there were important Iraqi monuments that were going to be smuggled outside of Iraq,” Sabah said.
After verifying a tip, the operation kicked off with a house raid that recovered 160 pieces of Iraqi monuments that were found in the yard. “We arrested five of the guys and they admitted to the crime,” he said.    Read more...

No Evangelizing At Recruiting Sites

Here's the first few sentences of a www.military.com article about evangelizing at recruitment centers...

The Pentagon is cracking down on evangelizing at its national network of recruit processing centers, telling religious groups that it won't permit proselytizing at the sites. A new regulation quietly distributed last month to commanders of the 65 centers says that religious literature and publications produced by other "non-federal entities" may be made available to recruits at the sites but that they cannot show favoritism to any particular faith or group.

At first glance, I asked myself why this regulation was needed? But, then I remembered reading news reports by non-Christians in the military regarding what they consider the antagonistic environment they sometimes experience. And, I guess the two go together. Poocher

http://www.military.com/news/article/no-evangelizing-at-recruiting-sites.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

Human Genetics Review and Primer


For those interested in human genetics, read this article. It is a very good synopsis of current research and knowledge. Pooch Dog.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/genetic-science/human-genome-project-results.htm

Letterbox: 1912

Washington, D.C. "Post Office Department. Motorcycle postman. 1912." S14 collects the mail. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5169

A Boy and His Toys

I'm sure Santa has been or will be good to this serious little guy, reminiscent though he may be of Augustus Gloop. I can't read the calendar, but the 31st falling on a Friday makes it either 1926 or '37. After researching, I found out that "Boy Scouts to the Rescue" came out in 1921, and the little poem "Am I Ready for School?" was mentioned in a 1924 Louisiana State Health Department bulletin. Any thoughts? [Update: The calendars are from January 1941.]
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5171

Monday, December 29, 2008

A Day at the Races: 1918


June 1, 1918. Six of the eight contestants in the 100-mile Harkness Handicap on Sheepshead Bay Motor Speedway's two-mile wooden oval in Brooklyn, New York. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5186

As always with Shorpy photographs, click to see a magnificent expanded view.  Poocher

Heart Regeneration Using Adult Stem Cells

At the 16th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine & Regenerative Biomedical Technologies in Las Vegas, Zannos Grekos, MD, director of Cardiac and Vascular Disease for Regenocyte Therapeutic, addressed physicians from around the world with a presentation on patients treated with pre-engineered Adult Stem Cells. In the presentation, Grekos showed the successful engraftment of stem cells into damaged organs and subsequent regeneration of tissue.

Dr. Grekos also highlighted several case studies to illustrate his team's success with Adult Stem Cells. According to their findings, cardiac disease patients experience an average increase of 21% in ejection rates as well as measurable improvements in congestive heart failure class status, some in as little as one month post-treatment. "We are able to bring patients from a Class IV congestive heart failure status to a Class II status in less than 180 days," said Grekos. Regenocyte Therapeutic's clinical data from PET scans confirm that Adult Stem Cells have the ability to engraft themselves into areas damaged by myocardial infarction (heart attacks) and turn into viable new heart muscle. "Three months after treatment, cardiac nuclear scans of the areas treated reveal reversal of damage. We have been able to take patients off the transplant list, and we have been doing it consistently."

Read more...

Palestinians Warned Via Text Messages

I'm sure you've heard that Israel and Hamas are at it again. Here's a blurb from a Wired article...

The two-day-old Israeli air bombardment of Hamas forces in Gaza, pictured, is part of a sophisticated campaign involving "long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public," according to Ha'aretz.

It was interesting to me how Israel warned Palestinians...

The planning's secrecy ensured that Hamas security forces were at their stations when the bombs fell. But to help reduce civilian casualties, Israeli forces reportedly sent text messages to thousands of Gaza residents urging them to "leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons," Ha'aretz reports.

Pooch Dog

Read more here...

Pentagon, Hollywood Pair up for Transformers Seque

Hollywood action director Michael Bay enlisted the U.S. military to provide realistic props for his 2007 giant-robot epic Transformers. After the Pentagon helped rewrite the script, Bay got access to helicopters, warships and -- for just $25,000 an hour -- F-22 stealth fighters. As we speak, Bay is shooting a sequel that has even more U.S. military hardware on display. Read more...

Submarine Text Messaging Using Buoy Released in Trash

Fascinating! A submarine releases a buoy in their trash containing a communication device. When the submarine is away from the trash dump location a sufficient distance, the buoy surfaces and sends the text message. Pretty interesting experimental stuff here, Pooch Doggy Dog says! Read more...

Rebellious American Muslim Punk Rockers Rebel Against Everyone!

After 9/11, many American Muslims were openly ridiculed to varying degrees. An example is Hanan Arzay, 15, a daughter of Muslim immigrants from Morocco who lives in East Islip, N.Y. In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, pedestrians threw eggs and coffee cups at the van that transported her to a Muslim school, she said, and one person threw a wine bottle, shattering the van’s window.

But, there is another emotional side for many American Muslims, their treatment by other Muslims...

At school, Hanan's Koran teacher threw chalk at her for requesting literal translations of the holy book. After she was expelled from two Muslim schools, her uncle gave her “The Taqwacores.” Hanan Arzay says, “This book is my lifeline. It saved my faith.” And, after reading her comments, I might add it seems to have saved her American heritage as well.

But, what is "The Taqwacores"?

Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo. The novel is “The Catcher in the Rye” for young Muslims, said Carl W. Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springing from the imagination of Michael Muhammad Knight, it inspired disaffected young Muslims in the United States to form real Muslim punk bands and build their own subculture.

“I’m a Muslim and I’m 100-percent American,” Ms. DeWulf said, “so I can criticize my faith and my country. Rebellion? Punk? This is totally American.”

The novel’s title combines “taqwa,” the Arabic word for “piety,” with “hardcore,” used to describe many genres of angry Western music.

For many young American Muslims, stigmatized by their peers after the Sept. 11 attacks but repelled by both the Bush administration’s reaction to the attacks and the rigid conservatism of many Muslim leaders, the novel became a blueprint for their lives.

“Reading the book was totally liberating for me,” said Areej Zufari, 34, a Muslim and a humanities professor at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Fla. Ms. Zufari said she had listened to punk music growing up in Arkansas and found “The Taqwacores” four years ago.  “Here was someone as frustrated with Islam as me,” she said, “and he expressed it using bands I love, like the Dead Kennedys. It all came together.”

This is a fascinating story about Muslims rebelling against many things Muslim, and many things American, synthesizing their own experience. Quite American and refreshing, Ol Pooch Dog thinks!

Read more...

Chinese Teaching Profession Miles Ahead of Western World in Internet Savvy


The following BBS post makes fun of what school teachers say about the Internet. From juetuzhi.cn, translated by CDT:

Politics teacher: It objectively reflects the Chinese people’s improved standards of living.

Chinese teacher: Mao’s (literally meaning cat, a homonym of modem) real name is modulator-demodulator. It is an indispensable hardware for web surfing.

History teacher: The Web was formally named in 1990, but the idea of the Internet dates back to 1945.

English teacher: WWW is short for World Wide Web. Its Chinese name is Quanqiu Xinxi Wang (global information net).

Biology teacher: It will affect the metabolism of the human body to sit in front of the computer screen to surf the web for a long time.

Math teacher: How long does it take for Xiaoming to download a 1,000-kilobyte file at an average speed of 5 kilobytes per second?

Chemistry teacher: The speed of the Internet connection is like that of a magnesium ribbon’s reaction with water. It is awfully slow!

Music teacher: Remember to delete the MP3 files downloaded from the Internet within 24 hours.

Painting teacher: The web address for France’s Musée du Louvre is Paris. Check it out when you have time.

Sports teacher: I heard there’s a pair of sneakers with springs being displayed on Nike’s website. I am wondering if I can buy them online.

Headmaster: Last night, some student spread rumors in my name in a certain Internet chatroom, saying that the school would have a day off tomorrow. Who on earth was that? Turn yourself in!

Muslim Model in UK Loses Her Balance, Trips Over Chair, Grasps Desperately for Door, Careens Thru Open Door to Balcony, Falls To Death. Tragic!

The world watched OJ I.0, and more recently they were titillated by OJ 2.0. We've also entertained our planet with countless other Scott and Laci Peterson extravaganzas. Pooch Dog says it's time you grooved to another country's juicy tidbits!

Muslim model marries man. Finds out he already has wife. She wants divorce. Goes to pick up her belongings. Ends up dead, after accidental fall from 12th story. This has it all! Muslim polygamy, mistreatment of women, desire of men to control sexuality of women...

Pooch Doggy Dog


http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article5400567.ece

Chinese Happier Than Rest of World And Even Outer Space Martians!

I guess I'm not as happy as the Chinese in Shiqiao. Guess I'll get my bone and apply for citizenship in Shiqiao! 
Pooch Doggy Dog

You Are as Happy as the Government Says You Are
Danwei translates an article from the Nanjing Morning Post about a telephone survey in a town near Nanjing to measure residents’ well-being:

Early this month, the people of Shiqiao, a town in Nanjing’s Pukou District, received a list of sixteen questions and answers:
Item 3: “What was your total family income in 2008? Answer: more than 8,000 yuan.”
Item 16: “If you were to measure happiness on a 100-point scale, how many points would you give yourself? Answer: between 90 and 100.”
Local officials distributed the answer sheet so that residents would be able to give the “correct” responses to a provincial telephone survey designed to measure whether or not the town had achieved its targets for improving the people’s well-being.
After a suspicious telephone outage affected the homes of poorer rural families on the morning of December 20, the day the survey was to take place, many members of the public complained to the Nanjing Morning Post, which sent a reporter to investigate.

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/12/you-are-as-happy-as-the-government-says-you-are/

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Breastfeeding Pictures Are Verboten on Facebook

Facebook is experiencing controversy regarding breast-feeding photographs being posted by mothers. Some photos have been removed. What rules are reasonable? This article contains some contoversy history, and recent developments. Read it...
http://www.ecanadanow.com/news/technology/breastfeeding-photos-being-banned-on-facebook-20081227.html

Saturday, December 27, 2008

The King of California vs Costco! (Just watch the movie and quit asking dumb ass questions)


Just watched King of California, 2007, PG-13. I'm an odd duck. Which explains why I found this odd duck movie a delight!

Description from Netflix...

This quirky Sundance comedy chronicles the journey of a delusional father (Michael Douglas) who's convinced that a fabled treasure is buried somewhere beneath his Southern California suburb. His delinquent teenage daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) -- a high school dropout who saw her father sent to a mental institution, only to be abandoned by her dysfunctional mother -- resists his ravings at first. But, eventually, she starts to believe.

Also liked by viewers who liked...

Stranger than Fiction
The Darjeeling Limited
Into the Wild
Running with Scissors
Henry Poole Is Here

Pooch Doggy Dog

2008 Was A Banner Year For Neanderthal Man


For a species that went extinct more than 25,000 years ago, 2008 has been a hell of a year for Neanderthals. The ancient humans got their first complete mitochondrial genome sequence, their stone tools turned out every bit as efficient as ours, and we even heard them speak.

Here are some of our favourite Neanderthal discoveries of 2008.

Genome secrets revealed
A team in Germany is has released early details of rough draft of the nuclear genome from a Neanderthal found in Croatia. Early indications are that he and his ancestors did not share a bed with humans. The completed work should be announced in weeks.

Big nose strikes again
Neanderthals' large schnozzles have puzzled anthropologists for more than a century. New research suggests that their big noses are due to an evolutionary throw of the dice.

Our brainy cousins
Neanderthals also had big brains - bigger than our own. However, new skull reconstructions suggest that Neanderthal brains developed at the same rate as humans living around the same time. Modern human babies have slightly smaller brains than both, leading researchers to speculate that humans traded infant intelligence for faster growth rates.

More DNA revelations
The same German team sequencing the complete Neanderthal genome also decoded the far shorter mitochondrial genome. The sequence casts further doubt on human-Neanderthal hanky-panky and hints that Neanderthal populations were small.

A voice from the past
Based on estimates for the dimensions of the Neanderthal vocal tract, researchers synthesised a Neanderthal voice. All he said was "e," but the researchers tell us they are working on a whole word for 2010.

Making themselves pretty
The discovery of rudimentary crayons also hints that Neanderthals spoke. Researchers discovered black manganese pigments in Neanderthal settlements that may have been used to create body decorations - and art is communication and that implies the ability to talk, say researchers.

Master tool makers
When they weren't powdering their big noses, Neanderthals made stone tools. Damn good ones, claims an anthropologist who used Neanderthal technology to better understand the process of stone tool-making. Their tools waste less rock, suffer fewer breaks, and have more cutting edge for their mass than human tools from the same era.

The butchers of Gibraltar
One of the things they used these tools for was hunting and butchering animals. For Neanderthals that lived off southern Spain, this included dolphins and seals. Excavations of two caves revealed bones from both marine mammals.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16329-2008-a-good-year-for-neanderthals.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=life

Christmas Declared Holiday in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Iraq's Christians, a scant minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.
In his homily on Thursday, Chaldean Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly praised the establishment of Christmas as an official holiday as a step toward easing tensions.
"I thank the government for giving chances to all to serve each other for the general benefit, and I thank it too for making this day an official holiday where we pray to God to make us trust each other as brothers," he said at the Christmas Mass before several dozen worshippers in the small chapel of a Baghdad monastery.
A senior Shiite cleric, Ammar al-Hakim, attended the Mass flanked by bodyguards in a gesture of cooperation with Christians.
"I thank the visitors here and ask them to share happiness and love with their brothers on Christmas; by this they will build a glorious Iraq," the cardinal said.    Read more...

Sneezing Will Never Be The Same Again for Ol Pooch Dog!


Yours truly, Pooch Doggy Dog has a medical degree from South Harmon Institute of Technology, a prestigious Eastern seaboard medical school. And, we weren't taught about this malady. I smell a big fat Commie rat!

What is your vote. Serious or a belated April Fools joke?


A paper in this month's issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine highlights an under-reported but possibly not uncommon phenomenon - sneezing in response to sexual excitement.
When Dr Mahmood Bhutta, a specialist registrar in ENT at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, came across a patient who sneezed every time he had a sexual thought, his initial reaction was one of disbelief, but it interested him enough to undertake an internet search.
"I was surprised by how many people also reported the same reflex in internet chat-rooms. It certainly seems odd, but I think this reflex demonstrates evolutionary relics in the wiring of a part of the nervous system called the autonomic nervous system. This is the part beyond our control, and which controls things like our heart rate and the amount of light let in by our pupils. Sometimes the signals in this system get crossed, and I think this may be why some people sneeze when they think about sex."

Woman Who Regularly Fainted While Eating Sandwiches Or Fizzy Drinks


Here's a stumper from Pooch Hound for the medically interested among us. Read the first few paragraphs, guess the diagnosis, then read the article. Those who guess the correct diagnosis will be presented with a medical degree from South Harmon Institute of Technology...

The 25-year-old woman was seen at the hospital in January this year. She presented with episodes, typically lasting 10 second or less, of feeling suddenly and alarmingly light headed, and nauseous. She had collapsed on more than one occasion, but had no movements typical of epilepsy. Sometimes she would have several episodes a week. The problem first began when she was 15 and remained unexplained despite hospital admissions between 2001 and 2007. A full battery of blood and other tests had, more than once, revealed everything to be normal. However, an electrocardiogram (ECG) test had shown a pause of 2.5 seconds. She then had external-loop ECG tests, in which she was asked to press a button to record 1-2 minutes of the ECG each time she felt faint. At times of light-headedness, she was found to have complete atrioventricular block (a slowing of intracardiac conduction), with beat-to-beat pauses lasting up to 2.5 seconds.
On questioning, the patient revealed no history of note - she did not smoke, drank little alcohol and had never used illicit drugs. Her episodes tended to occur when she ate certain types of food, particularly sandwiches and fizzy drinks - and she had last collapsed when eating a sandwich while driving (in stationary traffic). Despite weighing only 46.5 kg, she had no symptoms of anorexia and her pulse rate and blood pressure were normal. Dr Boos and colleagues offered the woman a sandwich, which caused rapid onset of atrioventricular block and an associated 'heart pause' lasting two seconds - causing her to feel light headed again. She was diagnosed with...

What was the diagnosis?  Read on...

Want To Trade My Matchbox Car For Your Toy Gun Before I Smash Your Gun?

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- On a recent house-to-house search for illegal weapons in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, soldiers confiscated a number of toy guns.
That's right: Whenever soldiers found a plastic pistol or a pint-sized shotgun, the toys were promptly smashed.
Capt. Andrew Slack, a company commander with Task Force 1-6 Infantry, said that toy guns can be a big problem in a violent neighborhood like Sadr City. He showed me a handbill in Arabic that explains how toy weapons can be mistaken for the real thing, especially at night. But he added: “Never in a million years did I think I would be confiscating toy weapons.”
Slack carried a small stash of matchbox cars to replace the lost toys.
"I can give them a toy for a toy, I will," he said. "So I will give them a matchbox car as a replacement, along with a little information and literature. Hopefully it’ll make them understand that it’s only inviting a disaster, potentially. If it’s misconstrued or seen at the wrong time, brandished in a manner that looks threatening, it’s not going to be good for either side."
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/gun-control-com.html

Infra-Red Pain Beams For Police, Military


A long article about "pain ray" guns being developed. Worth the read, and another futuristic weapon that is no longer quite so futuristic!
Read more...

I Don't Care Who You Are, This is FUNNY!


Yours truly, Pooch Doggy Dog, puts his stamp of entertainment approval on this article...

The Washington Post's Joby Warrick has an excellent story on one of the more novel tools CIA operatives use to coax intel from reluctant sources in Afghanistan: the little blue pill.
Talk about mastering the human terrain. But erectile-dysfunction meds are just one of the incentives spooks use to get tribal chieftains to offer up info on local Taliban activity. Writes Warrick:
In their efforts to win over notoriously fickle warlords and chieftains, the officials say, the agency's operatives have used a variety of personal services. These include pocketknives and tools, medicine or surgeries for ailing family members, toys and school equipment, tooth extractions, travel visas, and, occasionally, pharmaceutical enhancements for aging patriarchs with slumping libidos, the officials said.
"Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people -- whether it's building a school or handing out Viagra," said one longtime agency operative and veteran of several Afghanistan tours.
The male-enhancement pills apparently have a reputation that knows no borders. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reported on the thriving black market for Viagra in Baghdad.     Read more...

Satellites Discovering Ancient Egyptian Ruins


Archaeologists believe they have unearthed only a small fraction of Egypt's ancient ruins, but they're making new discoveries with help from high-tech allies -- satellites that peer into the past from the distance of space. "Everyone's becoming more aware of this technology and what it can do," said Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who heads the Laboratory for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "There is so much to learn."
Images from space have been around for decades. Yet only in the past decade or so has the resolution of images from commercial satellites sharpened enough to be of much use to archaeologists. Today, scientists can use them to locate ruins -- some no bigger than a small living room -- in some of the most remote and forbidding places on the planet. Parcak conducted surveys and expeditions in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt in 2003 and 2004 that confirmed 132 sites that were initially suggested by satellite images. Eighty-three of those sites had never been visited or recorded.
In the past two years, she has found hundreds more, she said, leading her to amend an earlier conclusion that Egyptologists have found only the tip of the iceberg.
"My estimate of 1/100th of 1 percent of all sites found is on the high side," Parcak said.
Read more...

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