The Blame Game: Virginia Tech

I’m not really much for voicing my opinions on politics, but I’ve decided to give it a go–on the VA Tech tragedy.

Of course, ever since the shooting happened, the news has been trying to delve into what led Cho to do such a violent and deadly act. So. They’ve brought on experts or other various guests and advocates to help shine some light on things. In fact, I think the mainstream news media has been behind the bulk of this. Even the Daily Show on Comedy Central hasn’t gone near the topic that much, and only yesterday did they begin to mention anything indepth about it. And some good points were raised, too.

All right, on the one side you’ve got the grieving familes and students, on the other side you’ve got gun control advocates and beyond that you’ve got the anti-gun control advocates. The latter two sides are now duking it out over the entire thing. Gun control advocates say this is an example of why guns need to be controlled or banned. Anti-gun control advocates are blaming the media for its violent portrayals in video games, movies, and TV–that guns aren’t to blame.

Well, unfortunately, they’re both sort of right on the subject. However, I doubt it would have mattered much either way in the argument. Cho, who was obviously bent on getting what he felt were his frustrations out on society, would have been able to get a gun even with strict gun control laws. He was that serious and determined about it. But, on the flip side, if guns weren’t so readily available it would have made it a lot harder for him to get one in the first place.

I’m not against hunting or anything, but why does one need a handgun to go hunting? The answer is you don’t. Of course, the other argument here is that you can use a handgun for protection. That may be. However, it’s all a moot point in the end because if nobody, not even the police, had handguns there wouldn’t be a need for them at all. I think, in our minds, here in America, we are led (or want to believe) that we’re still in the frontier days. And, you know what? Maybe we are. We’re in the frontier days of Humanity.

After all, with escalating violence in Iraq and no hope of a pull-out soon, we’re faced with a big challenge. And maybe with all that violence going on–a car bomb a day–we kind of just tune it out. I know I do. We become desensitized to it. It’s hard to fathom that level of death. And when we see something like this happen here, it leaves us dumbstruck. But, let’s just hope that some good can come of it. A terrible tragedy it was, indeed.

Cyborg Pigeons

Umm, yeah, it’s supposedly true. Some crazy Chinese scientists implanted electrodes into the brains of some pigeons and were able to control their motor skills and movement. Yikes! That’s what I say. I can see all sorts of negative things that could come of this. The Borg

Seriously, such a device could be implanted into a Human brain just as easily, I’m sure. That means that somebody could gain full control of your body. You want to go one way, but they have go the other–and there’s nothing you can do about it. Now, that is messed up! I don’t think we’re ready for this sort of technology. However.

Such devices could be used to possibly help people who are paralyzed. All we need to do is get the signal from the brain to the various muscles that control motor functions. I mean, I could see a lot of good here as well as bad. It sure would be great to take somebody from no mobility to a full life of doing whatever they want to do.

I just thought it was an interesting article, if the story is true that is. Oh, and they had it setup so they could control it via a wireless connection.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17359821/from/RS.1/

Fur From China…Watch Out!

Man, I’m going to have to return that fur-trimmed parka I just bought

Big surprise here. I was reading the news on MSNBC and saw an article on faux fur actually being real. Apparently, Chinese suppliers have been using fur from domesticated dogs and even wolves on several high-end clothing brands and, worse, calling it faux. Well, it seems there’s nothing fake about it.

One consumer alerted the Humane Society of America about the fur, saying it felt too real to be fake. And, after various spectrometer tests were taken, it was found that the woman was right. Coats from Andrew Marc and Tommy Hilfiger were both found to have this from-domesticated-dog fur. This left many retailers scrambling to pull the coats in question from store shelves and racks. Should this be surprising? No.

Chinese suppliers are always trying to out bid any and every competitor that comes along–and here are clothing manufacturers, which outsource everything to other Chinese suppliers anyway, are letting it happen. I don’t care what they say. Nothing surprises me anymore. Ooops, somebody got caught There is just no regulation in China for these kinds of things, either. It’s not fair that our companies have to follow stringent guidelines while these guys are getting away with paying employees low wages and, well, things like using dog fur on clothing. I think there need to be regulations. I think the government needs to step in and use trade sanctions to say, “hey, China, you can’t get away with this.”

Huh? Yeah right. That will never happen. Why? Because, if we enforced trade sanctions on China we’d not have half the things our consumers are craving. It’s all made in China, now. It’s ridiculous. Way to go corporate America. I agree with what Steven Colbert on the Colbert Report had to said about the subject: China is a frienemy. That’s an enemy who acts like a friend for those of you who aren’t in the know. This is just another example of that.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17298301/

Best This, Best That

Is it just me, or is every company saying they have the best?  I mean, I was watching TV last night and ABC was claiming that Knights of Prosperity, a new comedy they came out with, is the “best” comedy of the year.  I was going to watch it anyway, just to see how it was.  And I was sadly let down.  I should have known it’d be crap.  But, the point is, who said it was the “best” comedy of the year?  Then, a couple of commercials came on advertising cars–I think one was Honda, the other Chevrolet–and each one said “best” in class for their vehicles.  It’s getting a little crazy with the “best”.

All of it if you ask me has been overdone.  Oh, and speaking of that.  Commercials in general as of late have all been very much the same.  Office Depot’s latest is killing me, it sucks so bad.  A hand popping out of an Office Depot box, pointing like Thing from the Addams Family to items that the person is looking for is fairly lame.  I thought the Rubberband Man was dumb.  No.  This tops that.  Oh and another annoying one is the one for Olympus–I think that’s who it’s for–where the girl is walking to her apartment and these tennis balls spill everywhere.  She gets out onto her balcony and the tennis balls form a giant smiley face that she takes a picture of.  That’s just stupid.  Anyway.

I think some of the best commercials of the last two years have been from Capital One.  Even though Cap likes to screw people with their credit cards, it’s still funny to see a hoard of viking-like pillagers in ridiculous situations.  I also liked the one where the guy took his family skiing but there was no snow.  Him taking off on the snowmobile like that was priceless–priceless, ugh!  I’m not down on advertising, or anything.  I mean, it annoys us all, but it is necessary.  However.  Bad commercials hurt my brain.  And enough with the “best” please!  Heh.  “Wii like to play.” ;)  “Brilliant!”

Bare-Naked Irony

The Department of Homeland Security apparently does strip searches when it believes it’s necessary.  Well, I think you can take things too far sometimes.  And that’s happened just recently in the case of an Iraqi woman who flew into Florida.  Her son lives there, and he had defected from Iraq back when Saddam was still in power.  She was just coming to visit.

Well, as the story on MSNBC put it, Homeland Security believed the woman had suspicious aquaintances and detained her.  Then, during the questioning, they had her strip-searched.  Now, mind you, this woman was in her forties.  Yikes!  I’m sure she really appreciated that ;)  Anyway.

The U.S. Government did apologize to her, but that was after they had sent her packing.  In fact, they deported her to England of all places.  Heh.  But, that’s not where the irony comes in.  OK.  So, in the screenshot below–now, I’m sure this is all by chance–you’ll see the article’s headline on MSNBC along with an ironic banner ad on the top of the page.  The ad is being run by the CIA.  Now.  You have to admit that’s sort of ironic and funny.

And no, I didn’t doctor this screenshot.  That’s what was on the top of the page when I was there :)  It had me laughing for a few minutes.

Myths and Bugs

Last night I was up at 2 in the morning, unable to sleep as usual, watching TV.  I had the Discovery channel on and the Myth Busters Movie Special was on.  They were attempting to prove or disprove some Hollywood myths.  Such as: falling through sets of awnings will slow your decent so you don’t die when falling off of a building’s roof, shooting locks with a gun will instantly open them, a perfectly normal-looking car can have an ejector seat, shooting around you in a circle will cut away the floor below you so you can escape the bad guys, and so forth.

Falling through the awnings was interesting: it actually does work.  However, the stunt in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was done by using a bungie cord, which was later removed from the film.  Also, the awnings had been cut in the middle so they ripped apart where needed.  It was funny, though.  The insurance company wouldn’t allow Adam to try the stunt, so Tori went in his place.  Needless to say, Adam wasn’t too happy.

Shooting locks they discovered does work, but not with a handgun.  You’d have to be carrying a shotgun or rifle, and the shrapnel could be deadly.  The ejector seat was much more plausible.  They took an old car and made a seat with tubes beneath it attached to compressed airtanks in the back.  Just like in James Bond: Goldfinger, the seat worked perfectly, ejecting Buster from the car

I knew the last one that sticks out in my mind would be busted.  In Underworld, Kate Beckinsale escapes from hungry werewolves by shooting the floor around herself in a circle with a pair of machine-pistols.  Tori setup a rig that allowed him to shoot a circle like this but not be on the floor while doing it.  Big surprise, it didn’t work.  The joists kept the floor up ;)  Sorry, Kate, maybe next time.  Anyway.

Then, when I was just going to turn the TV off, a commercial came on, which sort of took me by surprise.  There was this little cartoon bug flying around the screen going through different scenes of people doing various things.  And this narrator was talking about, I can’t remember now, but it was related to the bug.  Then, the CIA emblem came up!  LOL  The CIA is advertising like the Army or Airforce or any of those other Government organizations.  It was fricking wierdo!  At first, I thought it was a joke or even a Discovery Channel promo, but it wasn’t.  It was an honest to God recruitment commercial