Thursday, April 19, 2007

Big Brother Lives!

Now this is scary.

“Talking" CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England.

They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff.

They will undoubtedly add more as they go. Already Britain is the most surveillance country on earth with something like one camera for every 5 people. 

Cool Google Hack

Useful search tricks to find anything you need. 

In Case You Were Wondering

String Theory explained, in a nutshell. or how they think the universe works. 

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Gun Control is Bunk

The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki was shot to death in a brazen attack Tuesday by an organized crime chief apparently enraged that the city refused to compensate him after his car was damaged at a public works construction site, news agencies reported.

The shooting was rare in a country where handguns are strictly banned and only four politicians are known to have been killed since World War II.

The article wants us to believe gun deaths are rare in Japan because of gun control, but it’s really because Japan is a safe place over all with one of the world’s lowest crime rates. Even so, a country with the strictest gun control lawa still have gun deaths. And here we have a criminal flaunting the law as criminals do. This is why gun control doesn’t work. 

Clever Ads

Some really creative stuff here.

American Idol: 4/17

I had a feeling country week would spell the doom of Sanjaya malakar. And I may be right this time. Dial Idol has him dead last. Of course, they have had a bad track record this year. But they got scarily accurate the closer they got to the end of the season. I’d say Sanjaya needs to sweat a little.

Melinda and Jordin were the stand out performers of the night. They both looked radient, and they both out sang everyone else.

Phil Stacy also did a great job, just not as good. I think however, he showed that country worked well with his style.

Sanjaya was a train wreck. And he came out with a doo rag that made him look like a janitor lady. On top of that he sang a girl’s song. Is he going to be in drag next time?

Actually, I don’t expect there to be a next time. Well, one can hope anyway.

UPDATE: Ouch!

I think the other person who could lose tonight is Lakisha. She has become too borig and divaish since her first, great performance. Now she seems to be sleep walking trhrough the show. She ignores the advice she is given every week. Last night she seemed to cop an attitude when she was critiqued. I think it’ll be this week or next that she goes. Hopefully it’ll be Sanjaya tonight.

THERE IS A GOD! SANJAYA IS OUT!

Gun Control, My Ass

In 2002 a foreign born student went to his college and starting shooting people. he was taken down by armed students. So much for “Gun Free Zones”.

When Odighizuwa exited the building where the shooting took place, he was approached by two students with personal firearms.

At the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally owned firearms. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a bulletproof vest and a 9 mm pistol.[ Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver’s seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.

Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa then dropped his firearm and was subdued by a third student, Ted Besen, who was unarmed. Once Odighizuwa was securely held down, Gross went back to his vehicle and retrieved handcuffs to detain Odighizuwa until police could arrive.

Police reports later noted that two empty eight round magazines belonging to Odighizuwa’s handgun were recovered. When Odighizuwa dropped his gun, it still had a magazine holding three rounds of ammunition within it.

Contrast this story with the one at Virginia Tech which has a “gun free zone”. No one was armed and able to fight back.

In the Virginia Tech case, the first killing was two hours before the mass slaughter. Where were the police? Why weren’t they sweeping the school looking for the killer? Why didn’t they lock down the school?

The police can’t protect you. They can only clean up the bodies. This is why you should have the right to bear arms. Not everyone wants to carry a gun, but as long as some people do, there’s a chance they can stop a killer like this if they are caught in the same situation. 

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Hometown Baghdad

Three Iraqi Video Bloggers give a series of short films about their lives in Baghdad. It’s interesting stuff. It also shows how, the problems there aren’t caused by he US. It’s caused by revolutionaries who try to stop progress there. In this one you see how they target intellectuals. That’s what they did in South-East asian in the 60s, also. In Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Good Advice

I learned a lot of this the hard way. Ben Stein has some tips for having a good conversasion with a stranger. It’s especially important to use these methods when dealing with people in business or making good impressions. 

Will Ferrell in “The Landlord”