Dvorak News Blog

Sunday’s 2nd Amendment sermon!

By Eideard Sunday June 28, 2009

Church members — many of them wearing identical blue shirts with the church’s name as they helped direct traffic and check weapons to make sure they were not loaded — were joined at the event by their friends and others who heard about it on the news. About 10 members of a local private militia were among those who attended.

The event has been criticized by other religious leaders, who say churches have no business glorifying deadly weapons. Across town, another event carrying an anti-gun message was held.

But Pagano, the Marine veteran and police chaplain who leads the Assemblies of God congregation, was unapologetic, saying one cannot defend a person’s First Amendment right to religious liberty without the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“We love God, we love our country,” he told the applauding crowd. “Without a belief in God, without a belief even in firearms, I don’t believe this country would be here the way it is today. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Attendees listened to rules about carrying unloaded weapons securely in holsters, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, sang patriotic songs such as “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful” and watched a series of Internet videos arguing for the right to bear arms and warning that gun-control advocates would put people at risk of mass murderers and other criminals.

A milder flavor of the religious wacko gun-nut variety. RTFA and reflect.

The appropriate question: Which gun would Jesus Christ carry?

NASA Finds Lost “Clear” Footage from Original Moon Landing, To Be Released on 40th Anniversary

By McCullough Sunday June 28, 2009

45 Comments

ECSTATIC space officials at Nasa could be about to unveil one of their most stunning discoveries for 40 years — new and amazingly clear footage of the first moon landing. The release of the new images next month could be one of the most talked about events of the summer.

The television images the world has been used to seeing of the historic moment when Neil Armstrong descended down a ladder onto the moon’s surface in 1969 is grainy, blurry and dark. The following scenes, in which the astronauts move around the lunar lander, are so murky it is difficult to make out exactly what is going on, causing conspiracy theorists to claim the entire Apollo 11 mission was an elaborate fraud. However, viewers have only ever seen such poor quality footage because the original analogue tapes containing the pictures beamed direct from the lunar surface were lost almost as soon as they were recorded.

Instead, a poor quality copy made from a 16mm camera pointing at a heavily compressed image on a black and white TV screen has been the only record of the event.

The Sunday Express can now reveal that the missing tapes containing the original high quality images have been found. If the visual data can be retrieved, Nasa is set to reveal them to the world as a key plank of celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the landings next month. The tapes show in much more detail than almost anyone has previously seen the surface of the moon beneath the patriotic symbol of the US flag. Crucially, they could once and for all dispel 40 years of wild conspiracy theories.

Axelrod Won’t Rule Out Tax Increase. So Much for the BS About Taxes.

By John C Dvorak Sunday June 28, 2009

37 Comments

Axelrod Won’t Rule Out Tax Increase | washingtonpost.com — Gee, how could this happen with all the campaign promises of lower taxes.

President Obama’s top political adviser refused today to rule out the possibility that the White House might agree to a tax hike on health insurance plans that would hit middle-income Americans.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” program, David Axelrod declined to repeat Obama’s “firm pledge” during the campaign that families making under $250,000 will not see “any form of tax increase, not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

Instead, Axelrod said the president has no interest in “drawing lines in the sand”

And, is Axelrod running the country now?

Found by Matthew Duvall.

Comics artist Mark Sable detained for Unthinkable acts

By John C Dvorak Sunday June 28, 2009

11 Comments

Looks suspicious

Comics artist Mark Sable detained for Unthinkable acts – SFScope — I wonder what they’d do with R. Crumb?

Sable wrote of his experiences: “Flying from Los Angeles to New York for a signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe Wednesday May 13th, I was flagged at the gate for ‘extra screening’. I was subjected to not one, but two invasive searches of my person and belongings. TSA agents then ‘discovered’ the script for Unthinkable #3. They sat and read the script while I stood there, without any personal items, identification or ticket, which had all been confiscated.

“The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots, and the fact that the fictional world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes, let alone that anyone actually wrote scripts for comics.

The real irony is that Sable has a website and series called, GROUNDED!

Via Tod White.

Billy Mays Dead at 50

By McCullough Sunday June 28, 2009

25 Comments

Television “pitchman” Billy Mays — who built his fame by appearing on commercials and infomercials promoting household products and gadgets — died Sunday. Mays was found unresponsive by his wife inside his Tampa, Fla., home at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, according to the Tampa Police Department.

Police said there were no signs of forced entry to Mays’ residence and foul play is not suspected. Authorities said an autopsy should be complete by Monday afternoon.

Mays, 50, was well known for his numerous television promotions of such products as Orange Glo and OxiClean. He was also featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which followed Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs. Mays was on board a US Airways flight that blew out its front tires as it landed at a Tampa airport on Saturday, MyFOXTampa.com reported. US Airways spokesman Jim Olson said that none of the 138 passengers and five crew members were injured in the incident, but several passengers reported having bumps and bruises, according to the station.

Authorities have not said whether Mays’ death was related to the incident. “Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days. Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times,” Mays wife, Deborah, said in a statement on Sunday. Discovery Channel spokeswoman Elizabeth Hillman released a statement Sunday extending sympathy to the Mays family. “Everyone that knows him was aware of his larger-than-life personality, generosity and warmth,” Hillman’s statement said. “Billy was a pioneer in his field and helped many people fulfill their dreams. He will be greatly missed as a loyal and compassionate friend.”

KABOOM! It must have been all that yelling. What a strange week this has been.

Awww, My Building Fall Down And Go Boom

By Uncle Dave Sunday June 28, 2009

31 Comments

Click pic to see more

At around 5:30am on June 27, an unoccupied building still under construction at Lianhuanan Road in the Minxing district of Shanghai city toppled over. One worker was killed. According to information, a 70 meter section of the flood prevention wall in nearby Dianpu River and that may have something to do with this building collapse.

Why do Republicans continue to lie about Canadian health care?

By Eideard Sunday June 28, 2009

93 Comments

From the Denver POST

If the only way we compared the two systems – U.S. versus Canada – was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.

Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America’s health care problems…

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada’s taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada’s health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn’t when everybody is covered.

Not so incidentally, single-payer systems run by the U.S. government can approach Canadian efficiency. Medicare and Social Security run at less than 3% overhead.

Weirdest MJ Story Yet — His Body To Be ‘Plastinated’ & Reunited With Bubbles The Chimp

By Uncle Dave Sunday June 28, 2009

15 Comments

You have to go pretty far to go beyond the natural weirdity of Michael Jackson when alive, but this would do it. Admittedly, this is from the Daily Mail, so all bets are off as to, well, anything, but even if fake, it’s creative. Or something.

Check out the Bodyworlds and competing Bodies Exhibit websites.

Michael Jackson will live on as a ‘plastinated’ creature preserved by German doctor Gunther von Hagens.

Von Hagens has caused controversy with everyone from the Pope to the chief rabbi in Israel with his practice of embalming corpses with preserving polyurethane.

Yesterday, he declared: ‘An agreement is in place to plastinate the King of Pop.’

Von Hagens said that he spoke with representatives of the Jackson family ‘many months ago’ and it was agreed that his body will be plastinated and placed next to Bubbles, his late pet monkey who was plastinated a number of years ago and is exhibited at The Body Worlds & Mirror Of Time exhibition at the O2 Centre in London.

Von Hagens also confirmed it was one of Michael’s final requests to be reunited with Bubbles.
[…]
He added: ‘Von Hagens has hinted that a moonwalk pose would naturally be favoured. ‘It is hoped the exhibit will be unveiled towards the end of July.’

The Climate Change Climate Change — The Backlash Against the Smears

By John C Dvorak Saturday June 27, 2009

65 Comments

Man Made Global Warming Denier

Strassel: The Climate Change Climate Change – WSJ.com — This is disappointing a lot of people. Perhaps this trend is a plot by the oil companies. Personally when I started hearing that ALL scientists are in agreement and everyone should shut their traps, I got immediately suspicious. How does that work especially with a new theory that cropped up in 1988 and was then popularized by Al Gore, a know-nothing politico. Then the smear campaign seemed odd.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations with an assist from the media, did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. .. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

Found by Justin Vincent, et al.

A Change In Our Drug Policy In Afghanistan

By Uncle Dave Saturday June 27, 2009

23 Comments

Could this be the first round in a more overall change to the failed, costly and pointless War on Drugs?

The United States has announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts.

The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, told The Associated Press on Saturday that eradication programs weren’t working and were only driving farmers into the hands of the Taliban.

“Eradication is a waste of money,” Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a Group of Eight foreign ministers’ meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.

The G-8 ministers “strongly appreciated” the shift, which also includes an increase in annual U.S. funding for agricultural development from a few million dollars to a few hundred million dollars, said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, the current G-8 president.

Amazing Music

By Uncle Dave Saturday June 27, 2009

20 Comments

It’s kind of a hypnotic sound that Dante Bucci gets playing the recently (2001) invented instrument called the PANArt Hang. Take a look at the company’s brochure.

More videos of Bucci playing can be found on his YouTube site.

Caption This Picture

By Uncle Dave Saturday June 27, 2009

40 Comments

Someome said other news is happening other than Michael Jackson. I think he’s lying.

By Uncle Dave Friday June 26, 2009

71 Comments

Google currently has 17,062 links (and counting) to news reports on Jackson. Every news channel has nothing but Jackson stories. I even saw Adam Curry interviewed on ABC about him. It’s all Michael, all the time.

Have all wars stopped? Has crime gone away? Have politicians stopped doing whatever the hell it is they do? Is anything happening that isn’t related to Michael Jackson? Anywhere?