.::. sungolog

annicka: Lion finds vampire’s jokes hilarious, via the amazing...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:33:57 -0400

Lion finds vampire’s jokes hilarious, via the amazing True American Dog

Downsize DC is suspending operations

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:32:31 -0400

Quote of the Day: ”We must suspend operations until further notice.” — Jim Babka

Back in June we said we were “burning our ships and marching inland,” in order to do the One Sack infrastructure project.

We weren’t kidding.

We really did “burn our ships.”

We spent well above our budget to try and get the project done by August 8. We had to do it. Our infrastructure problems were choking our progress. Well …

We succeeded with the project, but failed with the time-line. It took us three extra weeks to get it done.

Which means that we busted our budget by more than we intended to bust it. That would be a survivable problem except that …

We didn’t get much response to our Dispatch yesterday which said that we had finished One Sack, but that we were $6,400 in the hole.

I’m grateful to those who responded. We received about $1,000. But the shortfall started sirens ringing here. We can’t do our job if we can’t pay our bills. The hole is still big enough that I must take drastic action now.

That’s why I’m suspending operations until further notice — until we get our financial hole filled.

That means there will no Dispatches targeting Congress, or new campaigns, or other projects, until we raise the remaining $5,400.

In yesterday’s Dispatch, I was so full of hope — excited about, and seeing our bright future. THAT FUTURE, WITH 43 NEW TOOLS FOR GROWTH, IS RIGHT AT OUR FINGERTIPS. But, if we don’t raise the remaining $5,400, quickly, then …

We really are in trouble. If you want to help us get back to work, please contribute using our secure web form, or PayPal, now.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

P.S. I know that there is someone reading this message who could cover half of the shortfall — or even all of what is needed. Today is the day we need YOU!

P.P.S. If tax-deductibilty of your contribution is crucial, please make your contribution to the Downsize DC Foundation.

Our mailing address is …

1931 15th St.
Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223

Wired youth from China, Japan suffer from 'character amnesia'

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:27:51 -0400

Like every Chinese child, Ms Li Hanwei spent her schooldays memorising thousands of the intricate characters that make up the Chinese writing system.

However, the 21-year-old university student now finds that when she picks up a pen to write, the characters for words as simple as “embarrassed” have slipped from her mind.

“I can remember the shape but I can’t remember the strokes that you need to write it,” she says. “It’s a bit of a problem.”

Surveys indicate the phenomenon, dubbed “character amnesia”, is widespread across China, causing young Chinese to fear for the future of their ancient writing system.

There is even a Chinese word for it: “Tibiwangzi”, or “take pen, forget character”.

A poll commissioned by the China Youth Daily in April found that 83 per cent of the 2,072 respondents admitted having problems writing characters.

“When I can’t remember, I will take out my cellphone and find it (the character) and then copy it down,” Ms Li says.

Young Japanese also report the problem, which is caused by the constant use of computers and mobile phones with alphabet-based input systems.

Tokyo student Maya Kato, 22, said: “I hardly write anymore, which is the main reason why I have forgotten so many characters.”

Character amnesia matters because memorisation is so crucial to character-based written languages, says Ms Siok Wai Ting, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Hong Kong University. Forgetting how to write could eventually affect reading ability.

“Through writing, we memorise the characters. Reading and writing are more closely connected in Chinese,” she says.

Chinese reading even uses a different part of the brain from reading the Roman alphabet, Ms Siok’s research has found. It is a part closer to the motor area, which is used for handwriting.

Some argue that the perceived decline in character knowledge is, in fact, nothing to worry about.

A survey by the Chinese news portal Dayang Net found that 80 per cent of respondents had forgotten how to write some characters but 43 per cent said they used handwritten characters for signatures and forms.

“The idea that China is a country full of people who write beautiful, fluid literature in characters without a second thought is a romantic fantasy,” wrote the blogger and translator C Custer on his Chinageeks blog.

“Given the social and financial pressures that exist for most people in China … (and) given that nearly everyone has a cellphone, it really isn’t a problem at all.”

Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:42:00 -0400

Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

bitchville: Funny Illustrations of Actual Tweets by...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:42:02 -0400

bitchville:

Funny Illustrations of Actual Tweets by http://twaggies.com/

Anime Writer/Director Satoshi Kon Dead at 47

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:38:00 -0400

Veteran anime writer/director Satoshi Kon has passed away in Tokyo at the age of 47. The news first spread via a Twitter post from industry fellow Yasuhiro Takeda of Studio Gainax, but has since been confirmed by Kon’s co-workers at Studio Madhouse. Details of his death have yet to be made public. Kon helmed half a dozen films, many of which found success at home and abroad. He first gained international recognition for his film Perfect Blue, a taut, psychological thriller released in 1998. Kon followed up this success in 2001 with Millennium Actress — an ode to the Japanese film industry — and Tokyo Godfathers in 2003. Kon next dabbled in television, writing and directing the 26-episode series Paranoia Agent.

His most recent film to make waves was 2007’s Paprika, a fantastical, sci-fi journey through the world of dreams bearing striking similarities to Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film Inception. Kon was working on a new sci-fi robot project titled The Dreaming Machine. Early art from the film reveals a much more cartoon-y look, similar to Fox’ 2005 Robots. No word yet on the future of this project. After the jump, check out some of the trailers to his movies.

Kon’s work was characterized by a fascination with the subconscious and the world of dreams. All of his films have a sort of surrealistic quality that is in some ways similar to that of fellow writer/director Mamoru Oshii, though Kon’s work was generally less morose. His realistic, yet stylized characters and artistic design are instantly recognizable. Kon often partnered with composer Susumu Hirosawa, whose distinctive style had come to be an integral part of the overall feel of Kon’s work. His loss at such a young age is a great tragedy and the Japanese film industry will be poorer for his absence. He will be sorely missed.

-John de Perczel

New Hampshire pharmacy gives candy-filled pill bottles to kids

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:38:16 -0400

A New Hampshire pharmacy is apologizing after giving away prescription pill bottles full of candy to children as part of a promotion.

The Walgreens in Hudson gave out the pill bottles during a fair over the weekend.

Many parents were appalled by the pharmacy’s choice in giveaways.

“I don’t think that’s a smart idea because kids are gonna look at the bottles and think there’s candy in them,” said mother Julie Chute.

The prescription bottles came in Walgreens tote bags along with other treats.

Parents said this was a bad idea because kids could start mistaking medicine for candy.

“What kid doesn’t want candy? They ask all the time, you say ‘No,’ and then they’ll be like, ‘Oh well I know where it is,’” said mother Karen Barrett.

“They’ll look in mommy’s medicine cabinet and they’ll look similar to what their candy looks like and they’ll open that up, and so I don’t think that’s a very good idea at all,” said mother Lori Kerrigan.

In response to all the hype, Walgreens released the following statement:

“We apologize for this giveaway item at the festival and will ensure we provide more suitable items in the future.”

Some parents praised Walgreens for the apology, but others were still shocked that the pharmacy did the promotion in the first place.

“You have to kind of try to ask people for opinions before you make a decision like that. Maybe kind of get a poll from other parents,” said mother Becky Morgan.

Parents who are still bothered by the promotion said the apology isn’t going to help the fact that kids who received the bottles may have already figured out how to open the child-proof caps.

(via chunkycharlie)

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:37:49 -0400

(via chunkycharlie)

Your children would be safer in Portugal

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:16:30 -0400

Quote of the Day: “Even if you don’t like drugs, you really, really don’t like murder, rape, robbery, and so forth.” - Ted Balaker

An important video by Reason.tv and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) succinctly addresses how the War on Drugs cripples police work and endangers children. DownsizeDC.org would like to express our gratitude to Reason’s Ted Balaker and LEAP’s Neill Franklin for laying out the facts.

We urge you to …

* Watch the video
* And then tell Congress to watch it too, using our End the Mexican Civil War campaign

You may borrow from or copy this letter …

The Mexican government reports that its War on Drugs has killed 28,000 people over the past four years. This ongoing tragedy is undermining Mexico’s stability, which is bad news for the United States.

But that’s not the only way drug prohibition is hurting us. I urge you to watch this interview with Neill Franklin, the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (under 9 minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzOHQdKRANA

The video reveals that the Mexican drug cartels have expanded into 230 U.S. cities. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of police 911 calls are related to this illegal drug trade. And yet, as our police go from one drug-related 911 call to the next, most violent crimes go unsolved, including …

* 60% of rapes
* 73% of robberies
* 88% of auto thefts
* And 37% of murders

Whereas, in 1963, before the War on Drugs, only 9% of murders went unsolved!

Repealing drug prohibition would put an end to narcotics units and place more cops on the street to “do the work that is supposed to be done.”

But unsolved crime is not the only danger caused by the Drug War. Our children are particularly at risk …

* Criminals don’t ask for ID’s to verify the age of their customers
* This means that powerful drugs are more available to kids than cigarettes and alcohol
* Criminals don’t care about quality control, so the black market substances that lure our kids are more dangerous than they would be if prohibition didn’t exist
* And urban, African-American children are at special risk. They are heavily recruited to the drug trade because juvenile offenders get lesser sentences

Whereas in Portugal, which legalized personal drug possession ten years ago …

* There was a double-digit drop in drug use by school-age children
* As well as a double-digit drop in AIDS cases
* The stigma has been removed for people seeking treatment
* And there is MORE MONEY for treatment

Even so, President Obama still wants to increase funding for the War on Drugs!

But the facts are clear. Drug prohibition doesn’t work. Repeal the federal drug laws. Our communities will be safer and our children will be better off.

END LETTER

You can send your letter through DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

We also urge you to spread this common-sense message to your friends and Digg it on our blog.

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

Never Forget

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:00:35 -0400

Never Forget

: “Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and...

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:19:59 -0400

: “Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and...:

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular…

Atheist sues for grant refund from landmark cross

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:18:35 -0400

An atheist is suing to force the administrators of a towering cross in southern Illinois to return a $20,000 state grant toward its restoration, saying Thursday it was “blatantly unconstitutional” to spend taxpayer money on a Christian symbol.

Caretakers of the 11-story Bald Knob Cross of Peace near Alto Pass, Ill., some 130 miles southeast of St. Louis, insist the grant was legally awarded to the 50-year-old landmark in mid-2008 by classifying it as a tourist attraction, not a religious symbol.

Rob Sherman disagrees, pressing in his federal lawsuit in Springfield, Ill., that the grant violates the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause used to argue a separation of church and state.

“There has never been any question, outside of southern Illinois, that this state grant is blatantly unconstitutional,” said Sherman, who successfully sued to have an Illinois law requiring a daily “moment of silence” in Illinois public schools overturned.

“The job of atheists is to take clergy to court to challenge the epidemic of civil wrongs that they have perpetrated, on the sneak, against the people of Illinois,” Sherman said on his website. “It’s a big job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

In his lawsuit filed Thursday, Chicago-based Sherman asks a judge to compel the caretakers of the cash-strapped cross to return the money or face what he pledged would be a drawn-out, expensive legal tangle.

Steve McKeown, a pastor and administrator of the cross, said he was confident Sherman would not win. He said Bald Knob drew roughly 1,000 visitors last weekend, underscoring its sway as a tourist draw.

“What Mr. Sherman fails to recognize is there’s a long-standing precedent for the fact the just because an organization may have a sectarian purpose, it does not exempt them automatically from receiving tax dollars,” McKeown said.

“What Mr. Sherman wants is a United States that’s free from religion,” McKeown said. “Our founding fathers never meant that to be the case.”

The lawsuit’s defendants include Gov. Pat Quinn and his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich, who is awaiting the verdict ini his trial on federal corruption charges. Also cited are the current and previous heads of Illinois’ Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which awarded the grant to Friends of the Cross, the landmark’s fundraising arm.

The cross — built in large measure with area farmers’ profits from selling pigs — has been a fixture on the 1,025-foot-high Bald Knob Mountain for a half century, standing sentry over forests and much of the region’s orchards and burgeoning wine country. Easter services have been held on the mountain since 1937.

Over the decades, the cross and its porcelain tiles fell into disrepair, prompting its caretakers’ feverish bid to raise funds for the half-million-dollar restoration expected to be completed within months.

Sherman’s lawsuit claims that under the state’s 2008 contract with the cross’ fundraising group, the portion of the restoration work to be covered by the grant was to be finished by last April. Sherman says that work continues.

According to the lawsuit, the rehabbing effort “has the primary effect of advancing a particular religious sect, namely Christianity,” with taxpayer funding causing “an excessive entanglement between (the state) and the Christian religion.”

Friends of the Cross has maintained the grant has been spent long ago, though Sherman counters that the $20,000 remains in a certificate of deposit readily returnable to the state.

“Nobody’s hiding any money anywhere,” McKeown said.

No hearing date was immediately set.

FIFA boss hails China as football birthplace

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:40:51 -0400

China is the birthplace of football.

At Thursday’s opening ceremony for the Third International Football Expo in Beijing, FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter said his organization concurs with the findings of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), which has officially concluded football originated in Linzi, Zibo of Shandong Province.

AFC secretary-general Peter Velappan and experts on sports history and archaeology also attended the ceremony.

It means football’s origins date back 2,300 years to when Linzi was the capital of the ancient Qi kingdom.

FIFA once announced China would be officially recognized as the birthplace of football.

The formal ceremony was to have been held during last year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, which was originally scheduled to be held in here. The tournament was moved to the USA after the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

“It is so great to hear president Blatter make the announcement.Football is the world’s No 1 sport, so I am honoured that China is being recognized for inventing and developing ancient football,” said CFA vice-president Zhang Jilong.

Although a great many countries claim to have ‘invented’ football, historians point to the game of “cu ju” in China as the origin of the sport.

Many centuries before football appeared in Europe, the Chinese were already practicing kicking the ball with their feet to score points in organized matches.

“Having been recognized by FIFA and CFA, we have to take on the responsibility and cling to the honour. We should also take greater efforts to make a contribution to football development,” Zhang said.

Velappan also expressed the need for more research on the game’s history.

“Thank you China as the birthplace of football. Football started in china and the sport’s future belongs to Asia,” said Velappan.

“Now I will ask the CFA to work with FIFA and AFC to establish a museum and further establish related courses in college,” Velappan added.

Velappan said the upcoming Asian Cup will help reinforce China’s love affair with the game.

“China’s has so much potential to develop football. I hope the Asian Cup will help highlight the truth that China has the most football potential in the world.”

sandman-kk: -clu-: (via 3tongallery)

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:23:30 -0400

sandman-kk:

-clu-:

(via 3tongallery)

Photo

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:22:13 -0400

+5, for effort

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:47:03 -0400

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin climbed into a firefighting plane Tuesday and dumped water on two of the hundreds of wildfires sweeping through western Russia and cloaking Moscow in a suffocating smog.

Putin has been a very visible leader in the battle against the fires, which have caused billions of dollars in damage and left thousands homeless in the past two weeks. He has demanded that soldiers help overstretched firefighting brigades and has walked through smoldering villages, consoling residents and promising them new homes by fall.

But with his once sky-high approval ratings dropping — and sociologists warning that discontent could grow as the fires and a severe drought take their toll — Putin has not let up.

He took off Tuesday in a Be-200 firefighting plane and then moved into the copilot’s seat. Television footage showed him pushing a button to unleash water on blazing forest fires about 120 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of Moscow.

After hitting the button, Putin glanced toward the pilot and asked, “Was that OK?”

The response: “A direct hit!”

The stunt was classic Putin. In past years, he has copiloted a fighter jet, ridden a horse bare-chested in Siberia and descended to the bottom of Lake Baikal in a mini-sub. Just last month he drove a Harley Davidson motorcycle to a biker rally.

All of his exploits have been widely publicized on the national television networks, which are under government control. Russia holds its next presidential election in 2012, and Putin would be eligible to run.

Damage from the fires was expected to hit $15 billion, or about 1 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, the business newspaper Kommersant reported Tuesday. The government has yet to release any damage estimates.

The hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago has cost Russia more than a third of its wheat crop and prompted the government to ban wheat exports. Putin said last week the ban would last through the end of the year, but his deputy said Tuesday the government may consider lifting the ban in October once the harvest is complete.

The government is eager to prevent a sharp increase in the price of bread, which could lead to greater public dissatisfaction. The agriculture minister, speaking Tuesday on Ekho Moskvy radio, reassured Russians that there was no reason to expect retail bread prices to rise.

The acrid smog that has engulfed Moscow for a week eased a bit Tuesday, but the concentration of pollutants remained high. Putin summoned Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who said the situation in the capital was difficult but that city health authorities were doing what was needed to help people cope with the heat and smog.

Ambulances calls have risen by nearly a quarter, Luzhkov said.

The situation in Moscow was severe enough for the U.S. State Department to allow non-essential personnel and the families of all diplomats at the American Embassy to leave Russia temporarily at government expense. Spokesman P.J. Crowley said about 100 embassy staff and family members were eligible for the so-called “authorized departure” program.

The handling of the wildfire crisis could weigh heavily on approval ratings for Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, the business daily Vedomosti cited a sociologist as saying.

Vedomosti noted that three polls conducted in July showed Medvedev’s rating had dropped up to 10 percentage points since the start of the year, and Putin’s had declined by up to 6 percentage points. The paper cited Leonty Byzov, a leading sociologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, as saying the wildfires could drag those figures down even further and stoke anti-government protests.

The lowest approval ratings were reported by the independent Levada polling agency, which gave Medvedev 38 percent and Putin 44 percent. The highest were 52 for Medvedev and 61 for Putin, registered by the Public Opinion Foundation. The margin of error for the polls was about plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Sergei Gordeichenko, the head of the Forestry Agency for the Moscow region, was fired on Tuesday, following criticism from the president that he had not cut short his summer vacation to tend to the crisis.

Medvedev himself was slow to interrupt his Black Sea vacation even as fires around Moscow grew worse, and, unlike Putin — who went out in jeans to meet with sobbing villagers and exhausted firefighters — mostly conferred with officials after his return.

After his firefighting flight, Putin visited another village destroyed by fire and again promised residents that they would be fully compensated.

Putin also offered reassurances to residents of Moscow that something would finally be done about the dried-up peat bogs outside the city that often burn in the summer and where fires this year have sent out thick plumes of smoke. He said 300 million rubles ($10 million) would be allocated to flood the peat bogs.

By LYNN BERRY

One high-fat diet, two different outcomes: The path to obesity becomes clearer

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:33:00 -0400

Why is it that two people can consume the same high fat, high-calorie Western diet and one becomes obese and prone to diabetes while the other maintains a slim frame? This question has long baffled scientists, but a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers provides a simple explanation: weight is set before birth in the developing brain.

The results are reported online the week of August 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Led by Tamas Horvath, chair and professor of comparative medicine and professor of neurobiology and obstetrics & gynecology at Yale School of Medicine, the research team analyzed the same question in specific groups of rats. These animals have been bred so that their vulnerability to diet-induced obesity is known before they would be put on high-fat, high-calorie diet diets.

Horvath said animals that become obese already had a significant difference in the feeding center of the brain. Neurons that are supposed to signal when you’ve eaten enough and when to burn calories, are much more sluggish in these animals because they are inhibited by other cells. In animals resistant to obesity, these satiety signaling neurons are much more active and ready to signal to the rest of the brain and peripheral tissues when enough food has been consumed.

“It appears that this base wiring of the brain is a determinant of one’s vulnerability to develop obesity,” said Horvath, who is also co-director of the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism. “These observations add to the argument that it is less about personal will that makes a difference in becoming obese, and, it is more related to the connections that emerge in our brain during development.”

Horvath points to other unwanted consequences of these brain mechanisms. “Those who are vulnerable to diet-induced obesity also develop a brain inflammation, while those who are resistant, do not,” he said. “This emerging inflammatory response in the brain may also explain why those who once developed obesity have a harder time losing weight.”

Diet-induced obesity has become one of the most critical medical problems in the United States. In particular, the incidence of childhood obesity has reached unprecedented levels. Since genetics alone cannot explain the surge of obesity in society, investigators have been trying to determine the primary underpinnings of the vulnerability to develop obesity on a Western diet.

“What genetic, epigenetic and environmental factor determines this base wiring in the brain is a very important issue to address,” said Horvath. “Specifically, the emerging view is that besides genetics, maternal impact on the developing brain is likely to be critical to imprint these feeding circuits thereby determining one’s vulnerability or resistance to obesity.”

Rand Paul and our experimental results

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:43:41 -0400

Rand Paul continues to promote the Downsize DC Agenda in his poll-leading race to become the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky.

For instance…

* In an email message to supporters this week, he pledged to push hard for the Enumerated Powers Act.

* He mentioned “reading the bills” as one of his top three, mainstream issues during his most recent appearance on the Sean Hannity show. Our friends at Liberty Maven posted the video clip.

Rand has been promoting these two issues since before I met with him last December, and has pledged to sponsor or co-sponsor all six Downsize DC Agenda bills.

Rand Paul’s constant public advocacy for “Read the Bills” shows us the huge potential of getting challengers to adopt our proposals. Imagine what would happen if some or all of the challengers in your district were promoting Downsize DC bills like the Read the Bills and One Subject at a Time. This would surely result in …

* New supporters joining Downsize DC because of the extra publicity
* Challengers winning votes because they advocate our proposals
* And incumbents getting nervous about this, to the point where they decide to adopt our bills themselves

This is a huge lever — a powerful way for us to get better results with less effort. That’s why we created a new tool to allow challengers to register their support for all or part of the Downsize DC Agenda.

We’re pleased to announce that we now have 9 candidates who have endorsed some or all of our bills (and several more have begun the registration process). Please, check out the list.

But this tool will only be partially effective until or unless we can include challengers in our Educate the Powerful System. Doing this will allow you to lobby them the same way you lobby your elected representatives. This is one of many tools we plan to create after we finish our One Sack database overhaul. Speaking of which …

We’re down to the nitty-gritty details of queries we need — the questions one asks of a database. Most of these are done and working, and the rest should be ready shortly. Our goal is to have no less than the same level of information we had with our old system of divided databases, but with greater functionality. Then, the next task is the last step — importing our donor data into the Educate the Powerful System, which is the One Sack to which the name for this project refers. That’s big news!

Thank you to everyone who donated to make this progress possible!

Thank you also to everyone who participated in our recruitment experiment on Monday. It too will help inform our plans for new tools that will allow us to recruit more people, faster, with less effort. I wish I could tell you right now what’s coming next. But we’ve got to do one thing at a time. Trust me, you’ll love it; so stay tuned.

The Army number on our home page shows that we’ve passed the 30,000 milestone, but given the way we constantly purge our list to get rid of bad email addresses, we suspect we may slip below this number again, temporarily.

In addition, we also blew past 8,000 fans on Facebook!

Thank you for making all of this progress possible. If you want us to continue moving forward please consider making a contribution or starting a monthly pledge. You can do so here.

Have a good weekend!

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Artificial bee eye gives insight into insects' visual world

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:24:00 -0400

Despite their tiny brains, bees have remarkable navigation capabilities based on their vision. Now scientists have recreated a light-weight imaging system mimicking a honeybee’s field of view, which could change the way we build mobile robots and small flying vehicles.

New research published today, Friday, 6 August, in IOP Publishing’s Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, describes how the researchers from the Center of Excellence ‘Cognitive Interaction Technology’ at Bielefeld University, Germany, have built an artificial bee eye, complete with fully functional camera, to shed light on the insects’ complex sensing, processing and navigational skills.

Consisting of a light-weight mirror-lens combination attached to a USB video camera, the artificial eye manages to achieve a field of vision comparable to that of a bee. In combining a curved reflective surface that is built into acrylic glass with lenses covering the frontal field, the bee eye camera has allowed the researchers to take unique images showing the world from an insect’s viewpoint.

In the future, the researchers hope to include UV to fully reflect a bee’s colour vision, which is important to honeybees for flower recognition and discrimination and also polarisation vision, which bees use for orientation. They also hope to incorporate models of the subsequent neural processing stages.

As the researchers write, “Despite the discussed limitations of our model of the spatial resolution of the honeybees compound eyes, we are confident that it is useful for many purposes, e.g. for the simulation of bee-like agents in virtual environments and, in combination with presented imaging system, for testing bee-inspired visual navigation strategies on mobile robots.”

Big Brother Wants More

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:08:01 -0400

In the name of “fighting terrorism,” President Obama wants to give the FBI more powers to monitor Internet activities without a judge’s approval.

You may think this wouldn’t apply to you because you’re not a terrorist. You would be wrong. It could apply to anyone and anything that the FBI deems “related” to a terrorism investigation. FBI agents don’t even have to go before a court to explain themselves. The FBI alone gets to decide.

Obama wants this new power even though the FBI has abused the powers it already has!

Do you want Big Brother knowing the people you email or the sites you visit?

If you don’t, then please tell Congress to deny Obama’s request using DownsizeDC.org’s I Am Not Afraid Campaign.

You can borrow from or copy the following letter …

Now I hear that President Obama wants Congress to give the FBI the power to search my emails and web browsing without my knowledge and with no judicial oversight.

This would rip the First and Fourth Amendment to shreds. Deny this request!

There is no reason the FBI can’t request a search warrant even for sensitive terrorism investigations. A federal court (FISA) was set up to address investigations concerning classified intelligence information. Although it rarely denies a search warrant request, the FISA court is an external check that keeps the FBI accountable.

And the FBI needs MORE accountability, not less!

* In issuing National Security Letters (NSLs), the FBI broke the law thousands of times over the past decade http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032000921.html
* And there is still shoddy record-keeping and lack of oversight in the FBI http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012002070.html
* There was even widespread cheating on exams about surveillance procedures! http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/07/28/fbi.tests.cheating/?hpt=T2#fbid=8jzKjDewgo9

The FBI is out of control. You should be INVESTIGATING the FBI, not giving it more power!

But even if the FBI was squeaky-clean, Obama’s request is abhorrent. The Administration is pretending that it’s requesting only a technical change and clarification of existing law. In reality … http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806141.html

* The FBI could collect records reflecting who someone is communicating with in the digital world, Web browsing history and potentially location information — outside of judicial review
* The power could be used to obtain Internet search queries and Web histories detailing every Web site visited and every file downloaded
* Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, says this power is “much more sensitive than the other information, like name, address and telephone number, that the FBI gets with national security letters. It shows associational information protected by the First Amendment.”

As Cato’s Julian Sanchez notes http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=obamas_surveillance_power_grab

* This new power potentially allows “investigators to draw detailed road maps of the online activity of citizens not even suspected of any connection to terrorism.”
* This could obliterate the First Amendment right to anonymous speech “if chat-forum participants and blog authors could be identified at the discretion of the FBI, without the involvement of a judge.”
* Data-mining technology would allow the FBI to find out the membership of controversial groups without judicial process - in violation of the First Amendment and Supreme Court rulings
*”When the goal is to detect the patterns of previously unidentified terrorists, such analysis requires vacuuming up the records of huge numbers of innocent persons, more or less by definition.”
* While the “content” of my internet activities is supposedly out-of-bounds, much of it could be discovered through keyword searches and download histories

Sanchez concludes, “If the Obama administration gets its way, an agency that has already proved itself utterly unable to respect the limits of its authority will have discretion to map our digital lives in potentially astonishing detail, with no judge looking over their shoulders. That the administration and the FBI would seek such power under the guise of a ‘technical clarification’ is proof enough that they cannot be trusted with it.”

A New York Times editorial quotes the Obama campaign from 2008: “There is no reason we cannot fight terrorism while maintaining our civil liberties … As president, Barack Obama would revisit the Patriot Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material witness provision.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30fri1.html

The President is determined to break his promise. Force him to keep it! Deny this request, and instead, investigate and reform the FBI.

END LETTER

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Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.