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News Briefs 23-09-04

Ozzy Osbourne gives up swearing? The End Days are nigh, I tell you!

  • Coming to a Bar-B-Q near you soon – genetically modified mosquitos.
  • John Zaffis follows in the family business-ghosts.
  • A caveful of clues in the Carpathians: early man and neanderthals may have interbred.
  • Men and women misinterpret each others sexual signals for good evolutionary reasons.
  • As reported by Greg on yesterday, the US sends Weapons-grade plutonium by British armed-merchantship to France for reprocessing. Heres some more detail.
  • Plan to evacuate London in the event of a major terrorist event is found on a train
  • Afraid of global warming? Maybe we should all just chill out.
  • Forget the Marie Celeste, the Nigerian Navy has lost an entire oil tanker.
  • Beating the Turing Test? Not yet, but “Alice” the chatty programme shows promise.
  • The Vatican has produced a new dictionary of modern words in Latin, including translations for words like hot pants, punk and Lambrusco wine. Quis commes canis in fenestra?
  • Google has been accused of supporting Chinese internet controls by omitting contentious news stories from search results in China.(This one’s for Thrustbucket with respect.)
  • A study commissioned by a woman’s group proves women are better drivers because men drive like cavemen.
  • A Tokyo official wants to make parents legally responsible for their kid’s sex lives. Lets legislate the impossible, shall we?
  • Talking of impossible, Ozzy has vowed to stop swearing for charity!
  • Want to look out your window and see somewhere exotic? The Virtual Window Project.
  • Iranian woman wants only to be beaten once a week.
  • A while back, TDG reported on microwave pain guns. Now they are to be deployed to Iraq next September. Guess that means the Pentagon expects to still be there…
  • If you want to avoid the effects of global warming you should move to Missouri. There had to be one reason for moving to Missouri, I suppose
  • Thousands of tons of toxic e-waste is being sent from Britain and other EU countries to the Third World.
  • Someone is beheading religious statues in the Phillipines.
  • The modernisation of China’s weaponry continues as a new cruise missile is tested. China also recently fielded new submarine and destroyer warship designs.
  • Rejoice, for the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy has returned.
  • Antartic glaciers once held back by an ice shelf that melted are now moving eight times faster into the sea.
  • An English town is said to be a base for a worldwide secret society but an alleged member doesn’t show up to a meeting with a documentary crew.
  • More on the ever-popular subject of when we get our flying cars.
  • Scientists hope that “playing” a tiny guitar string, the smallest ever created, will help unravel some of the secrets of the molecular world.
  • Waking the dead with Britain’s Paranormal Research Organisation.
  • More about that Wiccan Wedding, and how witchcraft went from crime to prime time.
  • Russia may be about to sign the Kyoto Protocol at last.
  • Politics Warning! Please consider visiting the excellent Operation Truth website, run by U.S. veterans who have served in Iraq so that veterans and serving soldiers can talk about their experiences and views on the war. The soldiers deserve our support no matter how we feel about their political commanders.
  • Israeli defence scientists have invented a synthetic “skunk” bomb for crowd control.
  • The “new science” of how emotions and feelings affect health. Buddhists say “I told you so”. (Thanks to Rich for this item)
  • Prof. Richard Wiseman wil today be leading a bid to unlock the secrets of the psychic world.
  • Prof. Wiseman again, this time finding that mediums cannot do their thing under controlled conditions.
  • A new UK science degree will concentrate on awareness of multiple disciplines. As someone once said “specialisation is for insects”.
  • Is the liberal media in the U.S. mounting an anti-Christian crusade? Some would say so.

Quote of the Day:


“The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than either. Both mind ands matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense above them both, like a common ancestor.”



Bertrand Russell

    1. Why ask Alice?
      Hi Anon,

      Even if the Alice program didnt suck, and was so good that it good pass the Turing Test and pass itself off as human, would it prove anything at all about minds, machines that think or understanding language the way a human does? Some would say all it would prove is what clever programmers there are in the world. See the philosopher John Searle on why the Turing Test isnt really a test for a thinking machine – or a thinking human.

      Lets face it, Ive seen bloggers that fail the Turing Test in that they are incomprehensible and fail to communicate with the average human. Maybe they are programs like Alice 🙂

      Regards, C

  1. Latin for the common man
    Stay tuned for the debates between Senator Semper Transitus and President Stolidus Constans. Should be interesting.

    Regards,
    khefre

    Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est

    1. Missouri…
      Hi Middletown,

      Sorry for the flippant comment. It was either Missouri or Kansas and Missouri got jumped on. You will have the last laugh when I am under 20 feet of water down here in San Antonio.

      Regards, C

  2. Women better drivers?
    Well, they couldn’t have studied in New Jersey, because most women here drive like Scrat. Come to think of it, so do the men. Truck drivers, on the other hand.., let’s not go down that road. And the absolute worst driver I ever saw (no offense to any particular group), was an elderly Asian woman in a K-car with a handicapped placard.

    See my comments a while back on “bullying”. An automobile (the bigger, the better) becomes an extension of the ego. The Hummer should be featured in ads for penile enlargement.

    Regards,
    khefre

    “This baby made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.” Han Solo

    1. Driving by Miss Daisy
      Hi Khefre,

      I did say the study in question was commissioned by a womans group. I used to work as an insurance underwriter on behalf of Lloyd’s and my colleagues in motor underwriting used to tell a slightly different slant on the story. It seems that more rear-end accidents have a woman driver in front than a man. They felt that many of these accidents were caused by hesitant lady drivers combined with impatient men drivers behind them. However, as far as the law goes in the UK, the one behind is automatically at fault and they weren’t about to rock that particular boat as it gave opportunities to market cheap insurance to women and hike up premiums for young men. One friend reckoned that if the front drivers hestitancy was taken into account by the accident statistics then it would all even out.

      (Takes deep breath and waits for the onslaught from female readers)

      As far as big SUV’s are concerned, I have to agree. “I dont want an SUV”, I told one boss, “I know how big my dick is.” Guess what he turned up driving the next day, having already bought it when we had that conversation.

      Regards, C

  3. “Google has been accused of s
    “Google has been accused of supporting Chinese internet controls by omitting contentious news stories from search results in China.(This one’s for Thrustbucket with respect.)”

    Hmmm, I see your point Cernig. But I think you miss my point still. The difference is that Google is a search engine that I should be able to find stories from all sides of an argument on depending on what I’m searching for.
    TDG isn’t.
    As far as political news stories go, TDG is more censored and biased than the Chinese version of Google.

    This is all fine, I don’t come here for political news, it will never be balanced, simply because the contributers aren’t.

    I still enjoy the other stories immensely though, keep up the good work.

    Thrustbucket

    1. TDG News
      Hi again Thrust,

      I admit to being an unashamed lefty-leaning anarchist pagan. However, that doesnt mean I wont report stories with other leanings if I think they would interest the TDG readership, as I think I have proven on occasion. However, my usual sources for news reflect my own opinions and background, I suppose (lots of Brit online newspapers and the BBC for instance). If you, or anyone else for that matter, find a story you think the readers would enjoy or should hear, send it to me at cernig[at]sbcgobal[dot]net (spambot prevention there) and if it gets used I promise to credit the contributor. Please mark the mail as a TDG submission, as I habitually delete mail from people I dont know if the subject line is at all suspect.

      regards, C

  4. I would like to comment on th
    I would like to comment on the Operation Truth site….
    Interesting site. I read through some stories. I agree it’s very sad that those soldiers are suffering by stupid political decisions made by their superiors. I feel it’s really a shame they have to fight a political war, which has made them suffer far more than they have to. I have a cousin in Iraq that was telling us how they don’t have enough armor for their Hum-Vee’s and many of them have to go without the ceramic plating for their Flak Jackets. It’s really stupid.

    Both political parties are to blame. Bush for fighting a politicl war from the WW2 era instead of unleashing all our technology and Kerry for voting against funds for the military and the Iraq operation. Shame on both of them.

    Also, for those interested… I found an interesting article about what soldiers get paid. http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/recruiter5.htm

    Thrustbucket

    1. Armour on Patrol
      Hi Thrust,

      Glad you liked OpTruth. Those guys deserve everyones support.

      On the issue of lack of armoured patrol vehicles, you may be interested by something I spotted by accident a while back, that OpTruth have said they are looking into. While the US forces in Iraq have suffered a rate of one dead for every 5 wounded throughout the conflict, UK forces have only suffered a ratio of one dead for every 35 wounded. Although differences in reporting methods account for some of this discrepancy, no-one can get the statistics to come to better than one for 17 as opposed to one for 35. That means an American soldier is more likely to be killed than a British one, and it isn’t as if the British troops have seen less fierce fighting. One possible explanation for the remainder is that British troops, with generations of experience at counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist operations in Northern Ireland, habitually use up-armoured Land Rovers for patrols, while US troops are using Hummers with fibreglass doors. If this is the case, it begs the questions of why the US military didn’t ask their allies for advice based on their wealth of experience in these operations, and why they didn’t spring for up-armoured Hummers sooner. I will keep you posted if the situation ever clarifies.

      Regards, C

      1. Source of Armor
        Thrust and Cernig,

        I happen to have a little deep background on this armor situation. It turns out that if you go to every ‘source’ of armor for aircraft, ground vehicle, or body and order X thousands of units (and the DOD has actually done this), you will get a response from those ‘sources’ to the effect that: “sorry, backordered”.

        Ya see, it turns out THERE IS ONLY ONE SUPPLIER for the raw ceramic material that gets cut into the chunks that fit all those various applications. I don’t recall whether it is a licensing issue or a specific production process limit, but they just can’t make it any faster in the near term.

        Note, we are talking high energy protection here, not Kevlar small arms stuff.

        1. Ceramics for Armour
          Hi X_O,

          I think it’s a licensing problem. As I recall the British company who invented the ceramic sandwitch used in modern heavy-duty armour (Chobham) sold the rights to a US company some years ago. Certainly, there are any number of ceramics companies who could make the stuff – I remember a Scots company, a tiny concern, who made some of the tiles for the shuttle for instance and if that is possible then I am sure this is too. So it looks very like someone is guarding their profits at the expense of soldier’s lives.

          Regards, C

          1. Ceradyne
            Hi again X_O,

            The company concerned is Ceradyne Inc.

            Some quick snippets garnered from a web search:

          2. In 2003 Ceradyne was paid $9 million for body armour by the US Dept of Defence.
          3. On 16th December 2003, the company’s stock dropped 18% on Wall Street following the news of Saddam’s capture.
          4. July 2nd 2004 Ceradyne announces record profits for the second quarter, up 350% on the same quarter for 2003.
          5. August 16th 2004 Ceradyne announces the purchase of German company, ESK Ceramics GmbH & Co, the world’s major producer of the raw materials for ceramic armours.
          6. September 9th 2004, the company wins a $5.1 million order for armoured seats for Hummers.
          7. September 10th 2004 It announces the receipt of a new 36-month Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) government contract for lightweight ceramic body armor with a max value of $461 million.

            As the policeman said, “follow the money.”

            Regards,C

          8. Ceradyne
            Good on ya, Cernig. I will try to corroborate from my sources. What my spies originally were upset about was that DOD deliberately ignored this part of the problem and kept adding more finished goods suppliers as if this would some how speed up the delivery.

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