News stories the mainstream media missed : 10/09/10**

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Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* When police arrived at a man’s house to investigate a domestic violence call, the male suspect quickly covered himself in fresh paint thinking it would prevent the police officer’s tasers from affecting him! Captain Brilliant then decided since he was invulnerable, he would “scuffle with the police”. Needless to say, hijinks ensued. The final score : Police = 1 | Sherman Williams = 0 [MILITARY.COM]

* Hands only CPR is the way to save lives now? Apparently keeping blood going to the brain > breathing. Plus you actually don’t have to trade saliva with a bleedy-hurty stranger. [YAHOO]

* White noise helps “inattentive” children learn. You know what else helps? A coupla’ good SMACKS on the butt with a old splintery wood paddle from a principal who’s had a real bad day. That seems to make “inattentive” children behave better, too! [SCIENCE CODEX]

* Men apparently tend to “Check out” in stressful fight-about-to-start situations, while women tend to “Show Increased Brain Coordination.” In other words, Supergirl think real gooder, and HULK SMASH!!!! Right? I think that’s kinda’ what they meant. [SCIENCE DAILY]

* European scholars are doing their best Monty Python impersonation when it comes to the US economy… RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

* And in related news, do you remember musical chairs as a kid? When the music stopped, all hell broke loose? Kinda the same thing is happening now that the economic stimulus is coming to a halt. Doo dee doo dee doo dee dee doo… [NY TIMES]

* The UN has decided to fly a big-ass freak flag last week by appointing a… “space ambassador to act as first contact for aliens visiting Earth”. OK, with all the disasters and crap going on in the world, the UN actually sets aside the time to announce they’re gonna’ have a space ambassador? Howzabout we take care of stuff here on Earth first before opening a modern day Casablanca for the local galaxy, yes? [TIME.COM]

* And finally, isn’t one of the prophesies of the “end times” that “ye shall see crap movies, and the tech in them shalt be made real!” I think it goes something like that. Anyhow, the GI Joe “accelerator” suit from the same lame-ass GI Joe movie from last year is apparently getting close to being field-use ready. In other movie terms, we’re about to have a army of Iron Men, Mark I series. This is alllll sorts of awesome and alllll sorts of “oh hell no” kinds of bad at the same time. [AOL.COM]

** Actually upped on 10/10/10 for evil reasons all my own! Mu ha ha ha ha!!!!

If you haven’t seen the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson yet… [VIDEO]

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…check this video out.

Oh, and at around :56, the mythbusters show up.



Brilliant.

Check out his show’s website here.

Squirrely Squirrel you say?

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On the same day I saw Mr Sir-Loin, I also ran across Squirrely Squirrel.

Squirrely Squirrel


Either Squirrely Squirrel has a gun in his paw, or he’s about to whip out some serious nut-fu. And is it me, or is he also wearing a mask?

Squirrely Squirrel Close up


Obviously it’s the beer and wine at work.

Stopthisbill and stopthatbill .org .net and .com are now retired

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Waaaaaay back in January, I set up a website called stopthisbill.org (along with stopthisbill.net, stopthisbill.com, stopthatbill.org, stopthatbill.net and stopthatbill.com)

The whole point of that website was that I didn’t agree with the healthcare bill as it was written. I preferred a well thought out healthcare bill that was more aligned with the president’s campaign promises, and took its’ time to come to fruition after a great deal of intellectual analysis and careful, reasoned debate by congress and the input of hundreds of existing health-based agencies in the national and state government.

I did not like the piecemeal train wreck that was rushed through congress, and I definitely don’t like the slapdash version that passed into law.

The stopthisbill/stopthatbill site gathered a few signatures on the online petition and it also generated some interesting debate. I really do appreciate everyone who took the time to visit the site and those who emailed me to offer their opinions (one way or the other!).

But today, I decided it was time to pull the site down and move on to other projects. I am keeping the domain names, though. Just in case something comes up later.

Sir-Loin you say?

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I haven’t posted for awhile because I’ve been traveling all over Texas. Plus I’ve got major projects piling up that I’ve gotta’ blitz through as fast as I can, so my free time is actually somewhat less than zero right now.

Anyhow, on one of my recent travels through south Texas, I found the elusive Mr. Loin.

Mr. Sir-Loin.

Sir Loin


You know, with the stones to have a tag like “Howdy My name is Sir-Loin”, I kinda’ wanted to give them a try. But I didn’t have time for a sit-down lunch and wound up drivin’ through a local Whataburger instead. Maybe next time.

FTC says POM juice and supplements really don’t do much for you – files administrative complaint

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The FTC just dropped a bomb on POM products, saying their products really don’t do anything special.

The FTC’s administrative complaint says POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and assorted POMx supplements have a buncha’ “false and unsubstantiated claims. Specifically, the F.T.C. disagrees with claims the products will prevent or treat heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.”

It’s always the “erectile dysfunction” part, isn’t it? Don’t these companies know by now that putting an “erectile dysfunction” claim on a product is a big honkin’ 24-karat-gold invitation for the feds to come knocking?

Actually, that’s fairly disturbing on many levels.

Anyhow, the ugly comes with this next part… the FTC says POM “violated federal law by making deceptive disease prevention and treatment claims” and because the studies POM used “did not show heart disease benefit from use of its products” and “additional studies testing other touted benefits were allegedly not “blinded” or controlled or show POM Juice is more effective than a placebo”, the feds can now clobber POM on a as-needed-basis now.

By filing this complaint, the FTC has also summoned the FDA kraken, specifically by establishing “a proposed order that would prevent future law violations by requiring future claims to not be misleading and comply with Food and Drug Administration regulations for the claim.”

So here’s POM’s options… re-label all of their products, or kiss their flagships buh-bye.

My money is on the former.

Here’s the link to the article on Food Business News.

Monday Morning Music : 09/27/10

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Every Monday I like to post some music to start the week off on the right foot.

This week…

Papa Roach – Lifeline



Ozzy Osbourne – Shot In The Dark



Aerosmith – The Other Side



…and finally, Metallica – Fuel

News stories the mainstream media missed : 09/25/10

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Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* I’m a big fan of Science. Every so often, though, science brings out the kind of discovery that makes me do the 3-stooges-Curly “Nyaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa!” sound. Exhibit A: scientists and doctors now want to freeze patients into a state of suspended animation for surgery. I’m talkin’ deep suspended animation. As in “No pulse, no blood pressure, no electrical waves in the brain” suspended animation. Hey, if you’re already dead, there’s no more harm to be done! Hippocratic oath fulfilled! [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

* Date with a warlock? Check. Blood on the altar? Check. Getting fed on the altar of he-who-shall-not-be-named at midnight? Check. GOP candidate? You betcha’! [THINKPROGRESS.ORG]

* The “big side eye” award winner of the week are the Russians on the International Space Station! They took a gun up to the space station! Seriously. A gun. If any advanced intelligence travels across the friggin’ galaxy to meet us, their tech will be light years beyond ours, so a handheld oxygen-based kinetic energy weapon won’t do diddly squat. So the only other possible use I can see for a gun on the space station is to make damn sure the last glass of Tang always goes to Russia. [WESH]

* The headline says “How night owls are cleverer and richer than people who rise early”. Being a night owl myself, I must point out it’s “more clever”. Ain’t no such word as cleverer! [DAILYMAIL.CO.UK]

* Somebody watched too much “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” as a kid. “Chocolate creator Georges Larnicol, who owns a dozen shops across western France, won a bet by successfully building a seaworthy boat from chocolate.” Wait, wasn’t it a chocolate river in the movie? And wasn’t the boat a one-way trip down the local psychosis-r-us lane? NOTE: VIDEO LINK [BBC]

* And now for a quick slice of serious pie. This is a direct bit from SALON.COM: “Not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.” This isn’t filed under BUSH. It’s filed under OBAMA. Yup. Obama is ordering Americans killed overseas that are deemed terrorists without a trial, and it’s Obama who says his actions are “state secrets” and nobody can second guess them. Sooooooo where all the screams of protest? All the demands of justice? This kind of un-American crap was wrong when Bush was doing it, but it’s OK under Obama? [SALON]

* And finally, there’s been an ongoing project to drill into a very deep, heavily fortified, and unmapped room in the great pyramid of Giza in Egypt? A room in the Pyramid of Khufu that was not on any hieroglyphic tablets or records? A room no one ever ever ever mentioned in all of history? A room that’s completely surrounded by thick slabs of solid rock and that has been 100% sealed off for 4,500 years with no access in or out? A room that is “blocked after 60 meters by a limestone door with two copper handles… and 20 centimeters behind it, a second door that looks like “it is screening or covering something.”” Somebody call Brendan Fraser, Oded Fehr and Rachel Weisz and tell ’em to standby. We might have a live one here. [CNET] and [INDEPENDENT.CO.UK] and the driller’s page at [DR HAWASS]

That’s all I got for this week. Back Monday!

iTunes allows paid app downloads even though a credit card they have on file has changed

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I found out something pretty interesting today. iTunes allows paid app downloads even though a credit card they have on file has changed.

A quick prologue… my corporate AmX card got compromised last week. Apparently a local Chinese restaurant I liked to go to had a dishonest waiter who copied the front and back of my AmX card when they were supposedly running it in back to pay for a business dinner. I saw false charges pop up, called AmX customer service, AmX immediately refunded the charges the thief/thieves made, and sent a new corporate card overnight UPS. (FYI, AmX corporate customer service is the best customer service I’ve ever experienced.)

So fast forward to today, when I was downloading some business apps from iTunes…

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 01


…and I remembered only after I pressed the YES to the purchase button the credit card iTunes has on file is my no-longer-valid AmX card. But the download for the $14.99 paid app had started anyway!

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 02


The app finished downloading, and I saw it in my app list in iTunes. I went to see if it cleared in my purchase history…

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 03


…and sure enough, there it was. Tax and all.

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 04


I went ahead to the edit payment information button to update the AmX card…

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 05


There were no errors at all in the screens that followed. Only after I had updated my credit card information did iTunes finally say something was wrong.

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 07


“A previous purchase failed to successfully authorize, because the credit card used for that purchase was declined. Please provide working credit-card information and press done to clear the outstanding amount from your account and enable your account to continue purchasing.”

And at the bottom of the page was a small addendum about the outstanding balance…

iTunes Credit Card Glitch 08


I pressed DONE and that seemed to be it.

I think it’s kind of strange Apple allows a full app download before a credit card can be confirmed. Shouldn’t the charge amount go through first before the download is authorized? And I wonder what would have happened if I never updated my credit card information?

Et Tu, Jon Stewart? “Saddened” by Obama?

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I’m still buried in projects at work, but I saw on CNN on my lunch break that Jon Stewart said he “thought Obama would do a better job when he voted for him in the 2008 presidential election.”

Wow. First Donald Trump, and now Jon Stewart.

Stewart said “I thought we were in such a place [in 2008], much like the Tea Party feels now, that the country … needed a more drastic reconstruction – I have been saddened to see that someone who ran on the idea that you can’t expect to get different results with the same people and the same system has kept in place so much of the same system and same people,” he said.

What he said! What he said!

So to sum up, the Democrats are getting torpedoed because “more of the same!” isn’t what the voters wanted, the Republicans are getting torpedoed because their message isn’t what the voters want to hear, and the Tea Party is doing well right now because the voters want real change, but they’re going to eventually be torpedoed because nobody wants the faaaaaar right loony-tunes brigade in charge.

It’s still a douchebag and turd sandwich choice, but now there’s a new option of toejam taco to go with it.

Not. What. We. Want.

Here’s the link to the CNN Jon Stewart article.