Dvorak News Blog

White Light, Leaving Your Body and Floating, etc. When Near Death — Sorry, It’s Just Gas

By Uncle Dave Sunday April 11, 2010

Near-death experiences are tricks of the mind triggered by an overload of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, a new study suggests.

Many people who have recovered from life-threatening injuries have said they experienced their lives flashing before their eyes, saw bright lights, left their bodies, or encountered angels or dead loved ones.

In the new study, researchers investigated whether different levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide—the main blood gases—play a role in the mysterious phenomenon.

The team studied 52 heart attack patients who had been admitted to three major hospitals and were eventually resuscitated. Eleven of the patients reported near-death experiences.

During cardiac arrest and resuscitation, blood gases such as CO2 rise or fall because of the lack of circulation and breathing.

“We found that in those patients who experienced the phenomenon, blood carbon-dioxide levels were significantly higher than in those who did not,” said team member Zalika Klemenc-Ketis, of the University of Maribor in Slovenia.

Could Immigration Reform Solve the Social Security Problem?

By Uncle Dave Sunday April 11, 2010

58 Comments

This is from Robert Reich, Clinton’s Labor Secretary, who tilts a tad to the left. While I agree there should be immigration reform (actually, enforcement reform — here illegally, get sent back), this seems like a backdoor way to get citizens to side with them. Having said that, he does, unfortunately, have a point.

Forty years ago there were five workers for every retiree. Now there are three. Within a couple of decades, there will be only two workers per retiree. There’s no way just two workers will be able or willing to pay enough payroll taxes to keep [Social Security and Medicare] benefits flowing to every retiree.

This is where immigration comes in. Most immigrants are young because the impoverished countries they come from are demographically the opposite of rich countries. Rather than aging populations, their populations are bursting with young people.

Yes, I know: There aren’t enough jobs right now even for Americans who want and need them. But once the American economy recovers, there will be. Take a long-term view and most new immigrants to the U.S. will be working for many decades.

Get it? One logical way to deal with the crisis of funding Social Security and Medicare is to have more workers per retiree, and the simplest way to do that is to allow more immigrants into the United States.

Immigration reform and entitlement reform have a lot to do with one another.

And then there’s the ‘anchor baby’ issue.

Nike’s Strange Tiger Woods Ad

By McCullough Saturday April 10, 2010

16 Comments

And one of many parodies.

The Great Mexican Cell Phone Cutoff

By Uncle Dave Saturday April 10, 2010

17 Comments

Imagine not being able to walk into any Walmart in the US and buy a dozen disposable, unregistered cell phones for whatever Constitutionally and God given right to privacy purpose you wish to put them to. The government will have to pry them from our cold, dead hands before we sign up for contracts with AT&T, Sprint, et al! Er, um… Forget I ever mentioned that, cell phone companies. No need to send your lobbyists to outlaw… Sorry, someone’s pounding on my door…

Tens of thousands of Mexico residents could have their cell phones cut off this weekend for failing to register their numbers under a government scheme to tackle organized crime. Congress voted in the move last year in a bid to reduce widespread crimes, particularly extortion and ransom demands, carried out via untraceable cell phones.

If cell phone users fail to register by Saturday midnight, “their line will be suspended with no responsibility from their service provider,” the Federal Telecommunications Commission said on its Internet site. Out of around 79 million registered lines, just under 55 million had been registered by Thursday, or 66 percent, according to the commission.

Thousands rushed to register by SMS or on the Internet as the deadline loomed, but bottlenecks slowed down the process and some — including Mexicans without birth certificates and foreigners without Mexican identity numbers — were unable to comply.
[…]
Critics claim the law will be ineffective because criminals can easily register phones using other people’s identities.

Nothing to see here. No government attempt to track it’s people via cell phones. Move along…

The ‘Debate’ Over Confederate History Month

By Uncle Dave Saturday April 10, 2010

42 Comments

The only debate is over which newscaster can get better ratings riling people up over this media distraction. Having said that, the argument that slavery is a states-rights issue is vaguely relevant to those (like the governor here in Nevada) who feel Obama’s health reform bill is unconstitutional because of states-rights concerns.

It Has A Pussy Detector Built Right In!

By Uncle Dave Saturday April 10, 2010

12 Comments

It works with dogs, too.

The Fujifilm FINEPIX F80EXR

FUJIFILM North America Corporation today announced the FinePix F80EXR, a sleek, compact digital camera that combines intuitive use with the most advanced features, including Fujifilm’s award-winning EXR technology, available in a point-and-shoot digital camera. Among its many features, the FinePix F80EXR has an impressive Fujinon 10x Wide-Angle optical zoom lens, a 12-MegaPixel Super CCD EXR sensor, a large, 3.0” High-Contrast LCD, Face Recognition, Pet Detection and HD movie capture at 720p.
[…]
For those who enjoy the company of four-legged friends, the F80EXR has Pet Detection, allowing users the ability to detect up to 10 faces of dogs or cats and automatically optimize the focus. The F80EXR is programmed to recognize 57% of the Fédération Cyno Logique Internationale (FCI) Registered Dogs, 80% of the Top 20 Dogs in the American Kennel Club (AKC) Ranking and 60% of The Cat Fancier’s Association (CFA) breeds1. Pet Detection works by matching various dog or cat data of facial parts with patterns to detect the dog or cat being photographed.

I Think it May Be Stuck

By Uncle Dave Friday April 9, 2010

12 Comments

Audio comments by the driver’s buddy may be NSFW, depending on where you work and if you can understand the accent.

Cranky Geeks — Episode #213

By hhopper Friday April 9, 2010

8 Comments

NOTE: iPad users… touch HERE to watch directly.

Today’s Guests:

Sebastian Rupley, Co-Crank
Dan Goodin, Reporter, The Register
Rob Enderle, President, The Enderle Group

The Topics:

Download this episode:

Right click and choose “save target as” or “save as” to download videos.

Anti-abortion Congressman Bart Stupak Brought Down by Anti-abortionists?

By Marc Perkel Friday April 9, 2010

48 Comments

http://aroundthesphere.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/bart_stupak_official_109th_congress_photo.jpg

Kind of an odd strategy for anti-abortionists to go after a fellow anti-abortionist for taking a principled stand against abortion. But when it comes to the Tea Baggers – failure is the new success. Perhaps 2 wrongs do make a right.

Iraq Veterans Speak About the Rules of Engagement

By honeyman Thursday April 8, 2010

47 Comments

“During the course of my three tours, the rules of engagement changed a lot,” Washburn’s testimony continued, “The higher the threat the more viciously we were permitted and expected to respond. Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry ‘drop weapons’, or by my third tour, ‘drop shovels’. We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent.”

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio.

“One time they said to ﬁre on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation…. One of the snipers replied back, ‘Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?’ The lieutenant colonel responded, ‘You heard me, trooper, ﬁre on all taxicabs.’ After that, the town lit up, with all the units ﬁring on cars. This was my ﬁrst experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment.”

Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take “trophy” photos of bodies.

Although the testimony from the vets in this article is from the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings, they are a pertinent reminder that the actions by military personnel in the Wikileaks video were not unusual and probably were within a vague and flexible ‘shoot anything that moves’ ROE. How can you blame troops for behaving like barbarians when its Army policy to disregard the safety, and often the humanity, of civilians in a situation where it can be difficult to tell who’s a threat and who’s not? I accept that war is hell, but the Iraq occupation was and is a hopeless clusterfuck that should never have happened.

No Agenda Show
Krazy Karzai

By John C Dvorak Thursday April 8, 2010

32 Comments

This Episode’s Executive Producers: Milou Lisa de Kemp, David Ickler
Associate Executive Producers: Keith Bradshaw, Jonas Astrom
Artwork by: Randy Asher

Listen to show by clicking ►

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Show notes here.
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Memristor Coming!

By John C Dvorak Thursday April 8, 2010

3 Comments

iPhone OS4 all over the news. Multitasking finally. When can we download?
Science news: new humanoid found.
Ice racking satellite launched by EU since they have money to burn.
Tons of stories about iPad reviews. Reviews of reviews.
Son suing Mom continuing.
Solar airplane makes maiden voyage — again! My prediction: crash.
HP using the memristor somehow.
No more Mac vs PC ads? Oh no!

Show presented by e-Harmony. Get a date.
Go to www.eharmony.com
and use the code EHTECH for a great discount.

click ► to listen:

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

NYC Destroyed – 8-bit style…

By Joe C Thursday April 8, 2010

14 Comments

Stunning Research Discovery — Men Want Sex, Women Want Relationships

By Uncle Dave Thursday April 8, 2010

23 Comments

Truly ground breaking research. I’m going to roll over and go sleep now.

Given a choice, men prefer “hooking up” to dating, while women prefer dating with the prospect of a relationship to causal sex, U.S. researchers said.

Carolyn Bradshaw of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and colleagues exposed 150 female and 71 male college students to a variety of situations involving dating — when the man asks a women on a date and the woman accepts or rejects any sexual overtures and there is the prospect of a relationship — and/or hooking up — a casual sexual encounter between strangers or brief acquaintances.

The study, published in the journal Sex Roles, found women seemed to want a relationship more than men, but women fear, whether dating or in hooking up, they will become emotionally attached to a partner not interested in them.

The study also found men seemed to value independence and they feared that even in hooking up, a woman might want to have a relationship.

Teachers Caught In Middle Of Catch-22 Sex Ed Laws

By Uncle Dave Thursday April 8, 2010

26 Comments

This situation is just plain stupid on so many levels.

A Wisconsin district attorney is urging schools to drop their sex-education programs, warning that the teachers involved could be arrested if they follow a new state law requiring them to instruct students on how to use condoms and other contraceptives.

In light of a letter from Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth, leaders at the five school districts in the county are evaluating what to do now, New Lisbon School District Superintendent Tom Andres told AOL News today.
[…]
The state law, called the Healthy Youth Act, took effect in March. Starting this fall, it requires schools with sex-education courses to teach students medically accurate, age-appropriate information, including how to use birth control and prevent sexually transmitted diseases. It also requires the classes to include information about how to recognize signs of abuse and how alcohol can affect decision making.
[…]
In his letter, Southworth told school district leaders the new law promotes sexual assault of children, and warns that teachers who follow the law could be charged with misdemeanor or felony delinquency of a minor, with maximum punishments ranging from nine months in jail to six years in prison.

“For example, if a teacher instructs any student aged 16 or younger how to utilize contraceptives under circumstances where the teacher knows the child is engaging in sexual activity with another child — or even where the ‘natural and probable consequences’ of the teacher’s instruction is to cause that child to engage in sexual intercourse with a child — that teacher can be charged under this statue,” Southworth wrote.

“Moreover, the teacher could be charged with this crime even if the child does not actually engage in the criminal behavior,” he wrote, adding, “Our teachers should never be put in this position.”