Friday, January 11, 2013

Just What’s Needed These Days in America…a New Rifle That Makes Anyone a Sniper

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Just think…you can kill someone 7 football fields away now.

 Good Day World!

In this violent country we love so much, new weapon capabilities grow every day. With this latest innovation to sights on rifles someone who has never fired a real weapon before can make a kill shot.

Wow! Just think about that. Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and cuddly?

“It all goes back to "Top Gun." In the heads-up display on Maverick's Tomcat, you can see a computer compensate for human aim with precision laser guidance and careful calculations. How long before that technology made its way to to a conventional hunting rifle? It's here now, with a price tag of $17,000 to $21,000.” (read the story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Another classroom shooting today in California!

The big question is: how did someone just stroll into a classroom with a loaded 12-gauge shotgun? With all the awareness on school shootings, you’d think there was additional security. Here’s what happened:

A high school teacher and a campus supervisor talked a student into surrendering after he opened fire in a classroom, wounding a classmate at a school in California's southern San Joaquin Valley on Thursday morning, police said.

The student had intentional targets when he brought a 12-gauge into the Taft Union High School classroom halfway through the first period, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said in a news conference. The incident happened around 9 a.m. local time and students were evacuated to the football field, NBC affiliate KGET of Bakersfield reported. (Source)

Guess which state is having a python hunting contest this weekend?

Good Day World!

Reptile haters rejoice! It’s open season on pythons in Florida’s Everglades this weekend. Saturday’s scheduled competitive snake slaughter is supposed to raise awareness of the threat Burmese pythons pose to the Everglades ecosystem.

The whole competition sounds like an opportunity for a bunch of crazy people to get lost while hunting snakes as big as themselves in the snake’s turf. Crazy stuff. Only in America:

“A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to the Florida Everglades, where captured Burmese pythons have exceeded the length of minivans and weighed as much as grown men.

Python Challenge 2013, a month-long event sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, is open to hunters and non-hunters alike.

But the idea of luring weapon-wielding amateurs into the harsh environment of the Everglades has raised some alarms.

"I just thought it was as exciting as could be. It's a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity," said contestantRon Polster, a retired salesman from Ohio whose closest encounter with the swamp has been from the highway heading south for the winter.

Participants pay a $25 entry fee and take an online training course, which consists mostly of looking at photographs of both the targeted pythons and protected native snakes to learn the difference.

The state wildlife agency is offering prizes of $1,500 for the most pythons captured and $1,000 for the longest python.

A Burmese python found in Florida last year set records as the largest ever captured in the state at 17-feet, 7-inches (5.4 meters). The snake weighed nearly 165 pounds (75 kg).

FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson said the number of registered contestants reached about 500 this week and was growing, with people coming from 32 states.

The stated goal of the competition is to raise awareness of the threat Burmese pythons pose to the Everglades ecosystem. The snakes are native to Southeast Asia and have no known predators in Florida.

The contest also serves as a pilot program to determine whether regular hunting competitions can cull the growing population of the invasive species, said Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife expert from the University of Florida who helped create the competition.

Python Challenge rules require contestants to kill specimens on the spot in a humane fashion, recommending shooting the snakes precisely through the brain.

"I was hoping there would be a lot of machetes and not a lot of guns," said Polster, the retired salesman. He said he worries "these idiots will be firing all over the place."

Shawn Heflick, star of the National Geographic "Wild" television show "Python Hunters," told Reuters that despite the formidable size of the snakes, he expects the swamp itself, with its alligators, crocodiles and venomous snakes, to pose a greater threat to the contestants.

"You get these people going down there, they'll get lost, they'll get dehydrated, they'll get sucked dry by mosquitoes," Heflick said.

Segelson said the wildlife agency will provide training on the use of GPS devices and on identifying venomous snakes at the kick-off event. In the meantime, she said, contestants should be familiarizing themselves with the Everglades environment, just as they should before entering any other strange territory.

Heflick said most of the contestants likely were drawn to the Python Challenge by the romantic mystique of bagging a giant predator. He expects few will last long in the hunt."The vast majority of them will never see a python. The vast majority of them will probably curtail their hunting very quickly when they figure out there's a lot of mosquitoes, it's hot, it's rather boring sometimes - most of the time really, and I think a lot of them will go home," Heflick said.” (source)

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Shock of the Day: Drinking diet soda linked to depression

               Good Day World!

Lately (it seems) everything we eat and drink causes some ill effect upon us. Soda pop has been under extreme scrutiny this past year, and now it turns out even fruit drinks may give us grief. As in depression. No really.

I’m about to lay another one of those studies upon you. As always, I suggest taking the study (like all studies) with a grain of salt. It may be that diet soda is the worst in the soda class. The irony of a diet soda always amused – and disgusted – me. Did the drinkers of diet soda really think believe in the fuzzy math of the soda corporations? C’mon! Seriously?   

“Diet drinks may taste good, but they might not bring happiness. A new study finds that people who drink diet sodas or fruit drinks are more likely to be diagnosed with depression.

The study doesn't show that diet drinks and the researchers stress their findings don't provide an explanation. They looked at more than 263,900 U.S. adults ages 50 to 71 who answered questions about their beverage consumption between the years 1995 and 1996. About 10 years later (from 2004 to 2006), the same people were asked if a doctor had diagnosed them with depression since the year 2000.

People who regularly drank four or more cans of any type of soda a day were 30 percent more likely to have received a diagnosis of depression than people who did not drink soda, said  Dr. Honglei Chen of the National Institutes of Health, who led the study. The risk of depression was especially high for people who drank diet soda — a 31 percent increased risk compared to a 22 percent increased risk for those who drank regular soda, the researchers said. 

Those who drank four or more cans of diet fruit drinks were 51 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression compared to those who did not drink diet fruit drinks.

By contrast, people who drank four or more cups of coffee a day were 10 percent less likely to have been diagnosed with depression compared to non-coffee drinkers.” (read the rest here)

Monday, January 7, 2013

Hot Topic: 17th-century 'Aristotle' sex manual to be auctioned

Image: "Aristotle's Compleat Master-Piece"

A sex and pregnancy manual from 1680 that was incorrectly attributed to Aristotle is going up for auction this month at Lyon & Turnbull in England.

"Aristotle's Compleat Master-Piece" may have been banned in Britain until the 1960s, according to some sources, though that is uncertain. One thing is for sure: "It was taboo and a lot of people didn't want their name on it," said Lyon & Turnbull book specialist Cathy Marsden, during an interview.

As for why the book was pegged to Aristotle, "we think it was just to kind of raise the profile of the book," Marsden said. Also, there has been some suggestion that bits of the book, though not very much at all, could be attributed to Aristotle's work. Bits also seem to come from the work of 17th-century physician Nicholas Culpeper and 13th-century saint and grand thinker Albertus Magnus.

The book, though taboo, was by no means " The Joy of Sex," the 1972 cookbook-esque writing known for its explicit drawings of sex poses and the like. Images in this "master-piece" show a woman's torso and drawings of hairy children with extra limbs, and according to the Guardian, an image showing a woman's torso opened up to reveal a baby in her womb. But there are no actual explicit images, she said. [The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos & Bizarre Facts ]

"It kind of explains the approach to marriage and when young people should be getting married and then it goes on to try to explain why children have deformities; they call it monstrous births," Marsden told LiveScience. "They explain how to conceive children and how to conceive male and female children," said Marsden, adding the book describes what type of moon to lie under to conceive a male or female child.

(Read the rest of the story here)

Sunday, January 6, 2013

AS IT STANDS: ‘Crazy Wayne' won't bring NRA into 21st Century

By Dave Stancliff/for the Times-Standard

According to Wayne LaPierre, CEO and Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, any attempt at gun control in this country is an “anti-American” attack that threatens all our rights.

Let's back up a moment and take a look at “Crazy Wayne.” He recently lashed out at the national media in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre declaring, “ ... call me crazy for wanting armed police in schools.”

I call him crazy for even suggesting that his rabid defense of guns is mainstream, and that he represents a majority in this country. That's a flat out lie. The NRA has four million members, hardly a majority in America. Furthermore, try polling those NRA members and see what they really think about compromising on gun control for the sake of their own families.

”Crazy Wayne's” main point, when addressing the press after this latest tragedy, was that the NRA would not even begin to think about compromising on gun control laws despite the increasing mass murders in our country. Flat out. Period. No compromise.

Don't be too surprised by “Crazy Wayne's” unyielding stance. The guy gets a million dollars a year to just say no. But it's deeper than that. He's a fanatic. All you have to do is turn the clock back to 1993 in the aftermath of Waco, and later the Oklahoma City bombing to see that .

”Crazy Wayne” sent out a fund-raising letter after Waco referring to federal agents as

“terrorists and jack-booted thugs who wear Nazi helmets and wear black storm-trooper uniforms.”

Former president and avid NRA member George H.W. Bush was so enraged over “Crazy Wayne's” anti-American stance after Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing, that he publicly resigned his membership in the NRA.

Afterward “Crazy Wayne” insisted he only meant to criticize isolated incidents primarily involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). However, there was one section of the letter that offered a more sweeping condemnation of federal law-enforcement efforts.

Once again the “jack-booted thugs with Nazi helmets” theme was repeated and “Crazy Wayne” claimed that under the Clinton Administration, “ ... if you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, and even murder law abiding citizens.”

Even before President Obama was elected the first time, “Crazy Wayne” warned his membership that there was a conspiracy, and Obama would take their guns away.

You may remember there were record gun and ammunition sales right after Obama was elected. You can thank “Crazy Wayne” for that. I wonder if his corporate cronies gave him a bonus?

Despite his doomsday warning, Obama didn't pass one gun control law. If anything, he extended rights for gun ownership and armed our rangers in federal parks. It didn't matter though. “Crazy Wayne” kept beating the drums through this last election cycle with the same dire warnings of a coming apocalypse for gun owners if Obama was re-elected.

I call him “Crazy Wayne” for a reason. Based upon his own actions, the man is an extreme, unyielding fanatic who cares more about his twisted ideology and his allegiance to the corporations that produce weapons and ammunition, than he does about the American public's safety.

Once the NRA stood for gun safety. It still offers state-of-the-art gun safety classes for shooters of all ages. But common sense in other matters seems to have deserted it's leadership.

Under “Crazy Wayne” people wonder how any kind of gun control legislation can be passed when the NRA lobby is flush with corporate bucks, and has paid buddies in both houses.

However, I learned one thing from this last presidential election that gives me hope. Super PACS and million dollar donations from wealthy individuals couldn't buy the Presidency. Therefore, even “Crazy Wayne's” efforts to advance the NRA's power are eventually doomed to fail. Perhaps 2013 will be that year when the majority of people will have their say.

As It Stands, Americans demand change in our gun laws. The senseless slaughter of 20 children and six teachers with an assault-style weapon was the last straw.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Blog Break: I’ll be back after officiating my son’s marriage

          Good Day World!

I’m taking a blog break until Monday, January 7th. I’ve been asked – and honored –to marry my youngest son, Elijah to his fiancé, Tiffany. The ceremony is taking place in Ashland, Oregon. I only hope it doesn’t snow, as the ceremony is set to take place outside! I’m sure there’s alternative plans if it does happen…at least I hope there are!

It’s a nice way to start the new year. Not too many people know I’m an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church and can officially marry anyone in all 50 states with traditional and non-traditional ceremonies. It’s one of my sidelines to keep life interesting. 

I intend to have lots of fun as our family and Tiffany’s get together this coming weekend. I’m not going to be thinking about fiscal cliffs, or 1st graders getting suspending from school for pointing a finger and saying, “Pow!”(story here).

I’m going to set aside stories like the one about the homeowner who shot a naked man who was choking his dog in his house (story here), or the naked man with the Samuria sword and the assault rifle who finally surrendered to the police in San Jose.

I’m not going to think about Singer Patti Page, whose smooth alto voice made hits of "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?", "Tennessee Waltz" and "Old Cape Cod," who died yesterday at 85 years-old.

No…I’m going to ignore all that reality and enjoy the coming adventure. Please don’t be shy about checking out the links on the right side of the page: I bet there’s at least one topic that’ll interest you.

Now, it’s time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Scientists say sex-starved flies drown their woes in alcohol

Image: Feeding fly

Guys, when your sweetheart says “No thanks” to sex, do you knock back a few stiff drinks to feel better? Turns out fruit flies do pretty much the same thing.

That’s the word from a new study that may explain why both species react that way. In an issue of the journal Science, researchers propose a biological explanation for why “Not tonight, dear” may lead to “Gimme another beer.” If it proves true in people, it may help scientists find new medications to fight alcoholism.

In that case, we can thank thousands of frustrated flies. What’s going on here?

The researchers did other work that implicates a substance in the fly brain called NPF. They theorize that pleasurable activities like having sex boost the activity of brain circuits that use NPF, and that feels good. If a fly is denied sex, the system goes into deficit, driving the fly to seek other rewarding activities such as drinking alcohol.

“I think it’s a pretty good bet that it will translate to humans,” said Ulrike Heberlein of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the research. If so, “one can say we could now understand why a negative experience, such as a sexual rejection, could drive somebody to drink.” (Read the rest here)

Where No Civilian Companies Have Gone Before: Private Space Travel to Make Giant Leaps in 2013

Dream Chaser space plane

                                             Good Day World!

  I’m feeling kinda old today while scanning stories about space travel to share. Buck Rogers would be comfortable with all of this talk about space flight in 2013.

This is all so 21st Century. Space supply ships. The Dragon capsule. Dragon Version 2. SuperDraco  thrusters. International space station. SpaceX. Beam me up Scotty!

“Private companies building new spaceships to soar through orbital and suborbital space are looking forward to an action-packed year in 2013, with new flight tests, launches, wind tunnel tests and rocket technology trials all planned during the new year. 

Image: An artistic rendition of the Dream Chaser vehicle launching into space. Sierra Nevada

Of the many spacecraft being developed only one has already flown in space, the Dragon capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, Calif.The unmanned cargo ship has flown in space three times so far, and carried supplies to the International Space Station twice in 2012 — first in May during a test and then again October.

SpaceX’s next cargo flight to the station is set for May 2013. But a new astronaut-carrying version of Dragon is also in the works. The crewed capsule will be different from its robotic predecessor in several key areas, with SpaceX set to advancing technology for the new ship in 2013.

“Dragon Version 2 won’t look like [today’s Dragon]. I think it looks pretty cool. Dragon one, we didn’t really know what we were doing so that’s why Dragon looks similar to things that have happened in the past,”SpaceX founder Elon Musk told an audience during a talk at the UK’s Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Nov. 21. Musk described Dragon version 2 as having “legs that pop out” and added that it uses parachutes and its eight SuperDraco thrusters for a “propulsive landing.” [SpaceX’s Dragon at the Space Station (Photos)]

The SuperDraco thrusters, located around the base of the Dragon, also act as the pusher launch abort system to move the capsule (and crew) clear of its rocket during a launch emergency.

While Musk was unavailable for to discuss SpaceX’s plans for 2013, company officials did provide SPACE.com details on its expected activities.

NASA needs private space taxis
SpaceX is developing the seven-person Dragon 2 capsule to compete for NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) crew transportation contract. NASA’s commercial crew program is helping industry develop competing space transportation systems to win this ISS contract. Ed Mango is the commercial crew program manager.

“2013 will be a huge year for us. In the first couple of months we’ll kick off work for our certification contract and we’ll award that shortly,” Mango told SPACE.com. (Read the rest here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

What a way to start a New Year…

It saddens me to see people murdered every New Year’s Eve like it’s a rite of passage in America. Such a grim statistic for a new year. People who partied until death joined the festivities. A grim aftermath to a night of revelry. Reality. We live in a violent society. 

“Seven people were shot, one of them fatally, during a New Year's party early Tuesday in Columbus, Ga., police said — just one of many fatal shootings to be reported across the country as 2013 got off to a bloody start.

Police detectives told NBC station WLTZ of Columbusthat six people were shot inside the Bar about 2:30 a.m. ET. One of the victims was pronounced dead, and the four others were being treated at the Medical Center of Columbus for non-life-threatening injuries.

Across the country, the New Year rang in with the sound of gunfire:

  • Three people, one of them a 17-year-old boy, were shot and killed Tuesday morning in separate incidents in Philadelphia, NBC 10 of Philadelphia reported.

The teenager was shot in the head about 12:30 a.m. ET during an following a house party, police said. About two hours later, an unidentified man was shot and killed in the Frankford area of the city. Then, about 3 a.m., police who were called to a house in North Philadelphia, where they found three gunshot victims. One later died at a hospital.

  • Police said they were investigating a double homicide Tuesday morning in Elizabeth City, N.C., NBC station WAVY of Portsmouth, Va., reported. The names of both victims were being withheld, but authorities said both were in their early 20s.
  • Police in Suffolk, Va., said a 31-year-old man died at a hospital after he was shot at a "social gathering" about 3 a.m., WAVY reported.
  • In Chicago, which hit the grim milestone of 500 homicides in 2012 last week, New Year's Day kept the toll clicking. A 20-year-old was killed Tuesday morning on the West Side, authorities said. He was among 11 people to have been shot so far Tuesday, the Sun-Times reported.

Tale of two cities: Homicides plummet in New York, leap in Chicago

  • Another man was also shot and killed early Tuesday at a Georgia nightclub, this one the Club Fiesco located in South Augusta, police told NBC station WAGT of Augusta.
  • A suspect was in custody after a man killed one person and wounded four others Tuesday morning at a convenience store in Lansing, Mich., NBC station WILX of Lansing reported. Three of those injured were reported to be in critical condition.
  • Four people were shot, one of them fatally, at about 3:30 a.m. at a gasoline station in Lorain, Ohio, NBC station WKYC of Cleveland reported.
  • Police said a man shot his girlfriend in the head in Port Arthur, Texas, during an argument Tuesday morning, NBC station KBMT of Beaumont reported. She was pronounced dead.
  • A 19-year-old high school senior was dead and two other people were wounded during a shooting incident about 2 a.m. ET during a New Year's Eve party at an American Legion building in Clayton, N.C., NBC station WNCN of Raleigh reported.
  • In Corpus Christi, Texas, a 35-year-old man who was found injured in parking lot Tuesday morning died at a hospital, NBC station KRIS of Corpus Christi reported. Police haven't confirmed how the man was wounded, but they arrested a man armed with a handgun after an hour long standoff at a nearby apartment.
  • Police in Flint, Mich., said they had no suspects in the death of a man who was found Tuesday morning with a gunshot wound, NBC station WEYI reported.
    • Indianapolis police who were called to a duplex shortly before 5:30 a.m. found a dead man with what appeared to be a gunshot wound, NBC station WTHR reported. No other details were immediately available.
    • Sheriff's deputies were investigating a fatal shooting Tuesday afternoon in Columbia, S.C.,NBC station WIS of Columbia reported.”
  • (Source)

First meteor shower of 2013 peaks this week

Quadrantid meteor shower

Good Day and Happy New Year World!

How about starting the year off with some cool stargazing?

What better activity than to observe meteor showers while you contemplate all the New Year’s resolutions you aren’t going to keep!

“The first meteor shower of 2013 will kick off the year's night sky events this week, giving stargazers a chance to ring in the New Year with a celestial fireworks display.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is an annual meteor shower every January. While this year's "shooting star" show is not expected to outshine some of the morespectacular meteor showers of 2012, it may give stargazers with clear, dark skies a great start to the New Year.

Photo - Astrophotographer Jeff Berkes took this photo of the Quadrantid meteor shower on Jan. 4, 2012.

"Those who brave the cold might see up to 40 meteors per hour, although moonlight will make faint meteors harder to spot," officials with the Hubble Space Telescope explained in a January sky watching video guide.

The waning gibbous moon will be out in full force during the shower's peak, but skywatchers in dark areas of the Northern Hemisphere during the wee hours of Thursday morning might still get a decent show.

Scientists suspect that the meteors of the Quadrantids are debris from the asteroid 2003 EH1 — the same source of the Geminid meteor shower every December. The asteroid itself may be a chunk from a shattered comet that broke into pieces several hundred years ago, NASA officials said in a statement.

The Quadrantid meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through a stream of debris from the comet. The fragments slam into the atmosphere at 90,000 mph (144,841 kph) and burn up 50 miles (80.5 km) above the planet in a dazzling display.

The meteor shower is named for the outdated Quadrans constellation, which is no longer recognized by astronomers, NASA officials said.

"Located between the constellations Bootes and Draco, Quadrans represents an early astronomical instrument used to observe and plot stars," they added.

However, the constellation was still relevant in 1825, when the meteor shower was first documented by astronomers.

"Located between the constellations Bootes and Draco, Quadrans represents an early astronomical instrument used to observe and plot stars," they added.

However, the constellation was still relevant in 1825, when the meteor shower was first documented by astronomers.

Just in case you aren't interested in braving the cold, NASA is streaming the shower for free online from Jan. 2 to Jan. 4. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has a light-activated camera pointed to the sky to record and live-stream the meteor shower during its peak.” (Source)

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the Quadrantid meteor shower and would like to share it with SPACE.com, contact us at spacephotos@space.com.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...