Dvorak News Blog

A Self Guided Bullet from the Good Folks at Sandia Labs

By McCullough Wednesday February 1, 2012

Sandia Labs’ bullet doesn’t miss: krqe.com

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have invented a bullet that guides itself to the target. Sandia has wide expertise at miniature technology, and the bullet works like a tiny guided missile.

The patented design doesn’t shoot straight. Instead of a spiral rotation, the bullet twists and turns to guide itself towards a laser directed point. It can make up to thirty corrections per second while in the air. Jim Jones, distinguished member of technical staff, and his team of engineers at Sandia Labs think the .50-caliber bullets would work well with military machine guns so soldiers could hit their mark faster and with precision.

Great News! As long as we can kill more efficiently, I am all for it! Wonder what one of them little buggers cost?

Fox News says the Muppets are dangerous propagandists — WTF?

By Eideard Wednesday February 1, 2012

27 Comments

Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy hit back at Fox News during a UK press conference following the London Premiere of their new film. Fox had publically criticized the film for supposedly pushing a ‘dangerous liberal agenda’ at kids.

Har.

DH Unplugged #138
Here We Go Again!

By John C Dvorak Tuesday January 31, 2012

9 Comments

Here is the latest conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything. We discuss the earnings season and indicators.
Click here for non-Flash version.click ► to listen:

Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.

Contribute to the future of the show here.

All the Rage. The Backward Talking Girl

By John C Dvorak Tuesday January 31, 2012

31 Comments

Research: Living in a Stress Free Environment is Stressful and Will Shorten Your Life

By McCullough Tuesday January 31, 2012

48 Comments

Developers in the last half-century called it progress when they built homes and shopping malls far from city centers throughout the country, sounding the death knell for many downtowns. But now an alarmed cadre of public health experts say these expanded metropolitan areas have had a far more serious impact on the people who live there by creating vehicle-dependent environments that foster obesity, poor health, social isolation, excessive stress and depression.

As a result, these experts say, our “built environment” — where we live, work, play and shop — has become a leading cause of disability and death in the 21st century. Physical activity has been disappearing from the lives of young and old, and many communities are virtual “food deserts,” serviced only by convenience stores that stock nutrient-poor prepared foods and drinks.

According to Dr. Richard J. Jackson, professor and chairman of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, unless changes are made soon in the way many of our neighborhoods are constructed, people in the current generation (born since 1980) will be the first in America to live shorter lives than their parents do.

Did You Know FEMA Patented A Coffin?

By Uncle Dave Tuesday January 31, 2012

55 Comments

Click pic to learn all about it

Now why would FEMA want to develop their own coffin? Have they been stockpiling them somewhere? Do they know something we don’t?

Brown bagging lunch? Tired of having your sandwiches stolen?

By Eideard Tuesday January 31, 2012

9 Comments

Har!

Thanks, Gasparrini

Just When You Thought Japanese Films and TV Couldn’t Get Weirder…

By Uncle Dave Tuesday January 31, 2012

30 Comments

Possibly NSFW, depending on where you work.

Ultrasound for Pregnant Women, Rectal Exams for Men Wanting Viagra

By Uncle Dave Tuesday January 31, 2012

17 Comments

Social conservatives: don’t want government interference with their guns and money, but all for government interference in your private life.

The Virginia Senate, for years a firewall against efforts to restrict abortion, today is poised to pass a bill to require that pregnant women undergo an ultrasound and get a chance to see the image before having an abortion. It’s one of several anti-abortion bills now moving through the General Assembly. Others would give legal rights to unborn children, prohibit abortions after 20 weeks unless a woman’s life or physical well-being is at risk, and further limit public funding for some abortions.

Unlike past sessions when some of those measures failed in the Senate, social conservatives now sense a chance for long-desired gains.
[…]
The bill would force low-income women to choose between carrying a doomed pregnancy “or pay out of pocket for abortion care she and her doctor may determine she needs at a difficult time,” argued Jessica Honke, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood.
[…]
Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax County, was dismayed enough by the bill’s progress that she tried to amend it so men seeking prescriptions for erectile dysfunction medication such as Viagra would be required to undergo a rectal exam and cardiac stress test. She said that’s “only fair, that if we’re going to subject women to unnecessary procedures, and we’re going to subject doctors to having to do things that they don’t think is medically advisory.”

Freddie Mac Is Making Money Off of Restricting Refinancing

By Uncle Dave Monday January 30, 2012

20 Comments

I wonder if this is one of the things Gingrich was paid to advise them to do?

Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giant, has placed multibillion-dollar bets that pay off if homeowners stay trapped in expensive mortgages with interest rates well above current rates.

Freddie began increasing these bets dramatically in late 2010, the same time that the company was making it harder for homeowners to get out of such high-interest mortgages.
[…]
Freddie’s charter calls for the company to make home loans more accessible. Its chief executive, Charles Haldeman Jr., recently told Congress that his company is “helping financially strapped families reduce their mortgage costs through refinancing their mortgages.”

But the trades, uncovered for the first time in an investigation by ProPublica and NPR, give Freddie a powerful incentive to do the opposite, highlighting a conflict of interest at the heart of the company. In addition to being an instrument of government policy dedicated to making home loans more accessible, Freddie also has giant investment portfolios and could lose substantial amounts of money if too many borrowers refinance.

Snoop Dogg for Ron Paul

By McCullough Monday January 30, 2012

43 Comments

“Because I said so,” writes Snoop on his Facebook page. Paul’s drug legalization stances reaching ever more young voters. (H/T Reddit) posted Jan 30, 2012 12:56pm EST

Well there you have it….har!

Holy Crap! Tanks and More Tanks Apparently Going to?? What is UP?

By John C Dvorak Monday January 30, 2012

75 Comments

Where are these tanks going? These were seen on Jan. 20 2012 in Watsonville, CA. Who says America doesn’t manufacture anything anymore!

Found by Joshua Dale

Upcoming Discussion on DH Unplugged

By John C Dvorak Monday January 30, 2012

7 Comments

What are the following reports and what do they mean. This is one of the things we will be discussing on the Tuesday DH Unplugged.

Rhode Island city goes ballistic over Constitutional lawsuit

By Eideard Sunday January 29, 2012

208 Comments

She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.

No Agenda Show
Pooper & Blitzer

By John C Dvorak Sunday January 29, 2012

5 Comments

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Art By: Nick the Rat
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