The Libertarian Popinjay. I blog on political and cultural issues.
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Greetings From Las Vegas
Wish you were here...
New Technology For Football
Sometimes science and technology just blows my mind. This past Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens on a controversial call in which is was hard to tell whether the football broke the plane of the goal line when caught by a receiver who then fell back into the field of play. A professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh thinks they may have a way to resolve these kinds of calls.
Dr. Narasimhan is a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and she and her students are equipping gloves and a football with remote sensing technology to measure everything from grip and trajectory to speed and position.
In the case of the Roethlisberger-Ward hookup on Sunday, the technology would ultimately be able to tell without doubt whether the ball was caught before it bounced off the ground.
It could also show such things as who actually has the ball in a pileup, whether a runner has crossed the goal line inside a mass of humanity and whether a receiver has control of the ball before he goes out of bounds.
Dr. Narasimhan teaches a course at Carnegie Mellon in "embedded real-time systems," which is a fancy way of describing the kind of touch sensors, GPS receivers and accelerometers that the students are putting to use.
[...]
"You'd never want to replace the human referees because they make these calls based on years of experience, and no technology can replace that," she said. "But in addition to the instant replay, if you had a supplementary system that said this is exactly where the ball landed and where the player stopped with it, you could make these kinds of calls accurately."
So far, she and her squad of undergraduate and graduate students have focused on two things: gloves with touch sensors that can transmit that information wirelessly to a computer, and a football equipped with a global positioning receiver and accelerometer that can track the location, speed and trajectory of the ball.
Eventually, the same kind of sensors used in the gloves could be adapted to shoes, to measure stride and running patterns, or even shoulder pads, to calculate blocking positions and force.
I can easily see this coming to fruition in my lifetime. Just astounding. (Hat tip: PFT)
New TV Series Idea: The Real Housewives Of Crook County
Incoming Vice President Joe Biden was promised by his wife Jill that she would get him a puppy if he and Obama won the election. So yesterday Biden got his pick of a German Shepard litter in southeastern Pennsylvania, and it's about the cutest dog I've ever seen. The puppy is a three-month old male and Biden has promised his grandchildren will get to name him.
Utterly Fascinating: The Reason We Yawn
A new study says the reason for yawning is an overheated brain:
"Brains are like computers," Andrew Gallup, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Binghamton University who led the study, told Discovery News. "They operate most efficiently when cool, and physical adaptations have evolved to allow maximum cooling of the brain."
[...]
If air in the atmosphere is cooler than brain and body temperatures, taking it in quickly cools facial blood that, in turn, cools the brain and may even alter blood flow. Prior studies reveal yawning leads to a heightened state of arousal, so a morning yawn may function somewhat like a cup of coffee in providing a jolt of energy.
The new findings also explain why tired individuals often yawn, since both exhaustion and sleep deprivation have been shown to increase deep brain temperatures, again prompting a yawn-driven cool down. Yawning additionally appears to facilitate transitional states of the brain, such as going from sleep to waking periods.
They study says the reason yawning can be contagious among humans is an innate instinct from our more tribal days to stay alert in case of danger.
And as for boredom:
But the new study on yawning changes the popular notion that yawns are mere signs of boredom.
On the contrary, as Gallup said, "yawning more accurately reflects a mechanism that maintains attention, and therefore should be looked at as a compliment!"
I love science.
Cornhuskers Loading Up On DB's
It may seem an obvious point, but I'm glad to see that Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini understands what needs to be done to get the team to the next level. The Huskers are loading up on defensive backs, perhaps the biggest weak spot on the team:
San Antonio prep standout Andrew Green said yes to the Huskers over conference rivals Missouri, Oklahoma State, Colorado, Baylor and Iowa State, boosting NU's current class to 21 known commits.
"It's where my heart felt right," Green told Rivals.com, which rates him as a three-star player and as the 50th-best prospect in Texas regardless of position. "I wasn't trying to do that many interviews, and I was just trying to clear my mind and think because I had a lot going on and stuff. I just kept praying and praying about where I should go. It's what felt right."
The Huskers have been loading up on defensive backs, the 6-foot, 180-pound Green becoming the sixth secondary player in the 2009 class.
Other defensive backs on NU’s commitment list include DeAndre Byrd (Tallahassee, Fla.), Dejon Gomes (San Francisco), Lazarri Middleton (Long Beach, Calif.,), Dijon Washington (Lawndale, Calif.) and Taylor Martinez (Corona, Calif.).
Excellent. We need all the D-backs we can get. Another thing I've been reading about Nebraska's recruits is that they like the way the coaching staff doesn't try to BS them like car salesmen. It's all very professional with straight talk about what the program is all about and what they want to do, with no promises made that the program can't keep.
A Draft Ditka Movement? Maybe
Word out of Chicago at the moment is that Governor Blagojevich is considering signing legislation that would strip him of the power to appoint a successor to Barack Obama in the Senate and instead the state would hold a special election.
So despite the fact that Illinois is a deep blue state, Bruce Walker at Enter Stage Right offers up a proposal for the GOP to trump ideology with popularity by drafting Mike Ditka to run for the seat. Remember, he almost did when Obama first ran for the the Senate. Hard to say if he would have won then or if can win now, but it makes about as much sense as anything thing else going on in the country at the moment. Why not?
Iowahawk Declares "Five Year Plan" A Failure
Five years of blogging and Iowahawk has yet to rule the world. Perhaps a bailout is in the offing?
Geesh! Now Bill Richardson Is Under Investigation
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- A federal grand jury is investigating how a company that advised Jefferson County, Alabama, on bond deals that threaten to cause the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, did similar work in New Mexico after making contributions to Governor Bill Richardson's political action committees.
And so we return to the Clinton years. However, I have to say this is your classic political crime. Just like "holding" is a penalty that could be called on almost every football play from scrimmage, sweetheart deals for campaign donors are just as prevalent. That doesn't make them right, but this is Politics 101 and it's not going to stop until the populous has had enough.
Biden To Take Vice Presidency Back To Its Irrelevant Roots
John Adams, the first Vice President in the history of the United States said of this particular office:
"My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate."
And so it went for some 200 years until a man named Dick Cheney changed all that by taking an active role in the presidency of George W. Bush. Some called him the real president thinking that Bush wasn't smart enough for the job, while others went so far as to call him a blood-thirsty, power-mad criminal. But despite the fears of the extra-chromosome crowd, Cheney will be leaving office come January 20th. On that day, Joe Biden intends to return the office to the status that the Founding Fathers intended:
Joe Biden is laying plans to significantly shrink the role of the vice presidency in Barack Obama's White House, according to an official familiar with his thinking.
It's not just that Biden won sit in on Senate Democrats' weekly caucus meetings - a privilege Republicans afforded outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney. He won't have an office outside the House floor, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert gave Cheney early on.
Biden will not begin every day with his own intelligence briefing before sitting in on the president's. He will not always be the last person Obama speaks to before making a decision.
He also will not, as a transition official calls it, operate a "shadow government" within an Obama administration. . . .
As part of that understanding, Biden is unlikely to have a specific docket of issues.
A reader at Michelle Malkin's site has it right: the Secret Service did a horrible job protecting President Bush at his news conference in Iraq. This journalist got to throw both shoes, one at a time, before the Secret Service even blinked. What the hell? Somebody needs to be fired.
MORE:Gateway Pundit points out this incident shows how Iraq has changed:
The man did not have his tongue cut out, did not have his arms broke and was not thrown off a roof.
Well, this should be the week where a few things come to a head in the Blagojevich scandal. Most likely the Governor will resign once he's sufficiently lawyered up. Obama has promised a full accounting of who in his inner circle was talking to Blago and about what, but nothing yet. Obama will come out of this clean with the MSM's help, but it'll be interesting to see if this changes anything in Illinois. Probably not.
Bettie Page Dies
Perhaps the most famous pin-up girl that ever lived, Bettie Page, has passed away at 85.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bettie Page, one of America's most photographed pin-up girls during the 1950s, died in Los Angeles on Thursday from pneumonia, her agent said. She was 85.
Page was a ubiquitous sight during the 1950s, propelled to stardom when she posed for Playboy as Miss January 1955. Soon her image was gracing playing cards, record albums and bedroom posters across the country.
Reading the rest of this Reuters report is pretty sad as she lived a tough life that including a period in a mental institution. Fortunately, she was able to take with her the fact that she was popular with several generations up until her dying day.
Sarcasm Gets Its Due
SYDNEY (AFP) - Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but Australian scientists are using it to diagnose dementia, according to research published on Friday.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic.
The study, described by its authors as groundbreaking, helps explain why patients with the condition behave the way they do and why, for example, they are unable to pick up their caregivers' moods, the research showed.
I am ready to offer my services.
It's Down To Rahm
So the press is abuzz with the fact that incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is ducking the press in light of the Blago scandal. At first we were hearing from the MSM that Rahm could be the hero in all of this by having tipped off Patrick Fitzgerald of the shenanigans, but his recent avoidance of the media leads to other conclusions:
Don Surber: "...if he's smart, Obama is vetting a new chief of staff."
Possibly, but I'm doubtful that Rahm won't be serving his post as Chief. Am I cynical? You be your ass, but this could be the bellwether event for this scandal. If Rahm survives, chances are this goes away. If he's thrown under the bus or worse, implicated in the scandal, then it could mushroom into a big problem for the new president. Just spitballing here.
Che Chic
Post-Democracy In Europe
I've blogged many times about Czech President Vaclav Klaus and how I admire his tough stands on freedom, democracy and global warming hysteria in an increasingly unfriendly atmosphere in Europe. Much to the chagrin of the political elites in the continent, Klaus is now going to assume the presidency of the European Union. Recently he met with members of the Conference of the Presidents of the European Parliament and it wasn't pretty. Brussels Journal has an excerpt. You may not understand everything they're talking about, but read the whole thing closely and see just what you come away with.
Klaus makes a very poignant statement:
President Vaclav Klaus: Thank you for this experience which I gained from this meeting. I did not think anything like this is possible and have not experienced anything like this for the past 19 years. I thought it was a matter of the past that we live in democracy, but it is post-democracy, really, which rules the EU.
You mentioned the European values. The most important value is freedom an democracy. The citizens of the EU member states are concerned about freedom and democracy, above all. But democracy and freedom are loosing ground in the EU today. It is necessary to strive for them and fight for them.
I would like to emphasize, above all, what most citizens of the Czech Republic feel, that for us the EU membership has no alternative. It was me who submitted the EU application in the year 1996 and who signed the Accession treaty in 2003. But the arrangements within the EU have many alternatives. To take one of them as sacrosanct, untouchable, about which it is not possible to doubt or criticize it, is against the very nature of Europe.
As for the Lisbon Treaty, I would like to mention that it is not ratified in Germany either. The Constitutional Treaty, which was basically the same as the Lisbon Treaty, was refused in referendums in other two countries. If Mr. Crowley speaks of an insult to the Irish people, then I must say that the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the result of the Irish referendum. In Ireland I met somebody who represents a majority in his country. You, Mr. Crowley, represent a view which is in minority in Ireland. That is a tangible result of the referendum.
A couple points here. I like the definition that Europe is now a "post-democracy." It rings true. It was the great Vaclav Havel who coined the term "post-totalitarian" for China as the communists country moved toward capitalism while still controlling peoples' lives in general. Europe, which is mostly democratic, has been moving in the other direction for the last decade.
Incredibly, this parliamentarian Brian Crowley is upset that Klaus wants to follow the will of the Irish people which voted against the Lisbon Treaty. He's then accused of "telling us what the Irish think." Only Crowley, as an Irishman, knows what they think even though they voted against it. Klaus responds he's just looking at the data.
It all has a slight Kafkaesque tinge. It's like Klaus is Josef K.
Finger Licking Good? Not Quite
Three girls working at a KFC (that's Kentucky Fried Chicken for those of you unaware of the company's self-censorship) in Anderson, California are in trouble with the restaurant for posting photos on MySpace of them taking baths in the KFC sink. I bring this story up because it serves as kind of a snapshot of our culture at this point. Obviously, teenage pranks have been going on for as long as we've had teenagers and certainly there are things that go on at fast food restaurants we would rather not know, but in the age of the Internet, people across the globe can see this pranks in high resolution. I'm a libertarian so it doesn't bother me any, I just find it rather interesting. It would be easy to say that our culture has gone to hell and in some respects that's indisputable, but we should remember that thanks to technology we can now see what in say the 1950s we would have been blissfully unaware.
Perhaps the most shocking part of the wiretaps revealed so far was a sequence where Blago talked of needing to get out of the Illinois Governors' chair so as to avoid impeachment, and instead get to the US Senate, which would also serve to position him better for a 2016 Presidential run. How do you describe someone so delusional? A few words that have been tossed around the last two days are revealing-sociopath, psychopath, and dumb.
(Emphasis mine). We've heard a lot of talk on the political right about how Barack Obama lacks judgment based on the company he keeps. Now we're getting a glimpse into the governor of Illinois who is refusing to step down from his position despite damning evidence of wrongdoing. A psychopath, they say. A sociopath they say. At some point we need to get down to the heart of the matter and look at the judgement of the voters. Granted, the MSM has done a spectacular job of protecting Democrats and Barack Obama especially and creating portraits of a Messiah and other candidates that only have the best of intentions. Does the media really have just that much power to shape public perception that even a "psychopath" can be elected to high office as in the case of Governor Blagojevich? Is it really that easy? Can voters not see what they are doing or are they in denial? Many questions.
The Jackson "5"
If there's corruption in Chicago, chances are the Jackson family is there with their collective hands in the cookie jar. The Jesse Jackson family that is, father and son. The Congressman, Jesse Jackson, Jr. says he is not a target in Patrick Fitzgerald's probe and did not authorize anyone to promise anything to Governor Blagojevich for an appointment to the U.S. Senate. This statement is amusing for it's not like Jr. necessarily calls the shots. Jesse Sr. could very well have made some moves on his behalf, after all, that's what he does...shakedowns.
It'll be interesting to see what comes out of all this, but a few things are clear: Obama will come out of it clean, Blago will go to jail for a few years and life in Chicago will continue as normal. Don't get your hopes up for any kind of justice in the Windy City, that's not how our system works.
It Begins: Obama's Culture Of Corruption Ahead Of Schedule
Gateway Pundit has the goods on how Barack Obama did indeed meet with Governor Blagojevich about his open Senate seat, despite his denials. Meanwhile, the MSM tries to convince us that Obama is completely untouched by this whole affair. Get comfy folks, we've got eight years of this coming down the pike.
The Time Is Now: Mike Ditka For Senate (or Governor)
An open Senate seat that has been up for sale, a governor that's going to the clink. Who can rescue Illinois from this political abyss. Who else but "Iron" Mike Ditka! After all, he was supposed to run for the Senate against the no-name Obama but bailed. As John Brodigan says, "you owe us."
It'll never happen, though. Ditka just has too short of a fuse for politics, but hell, in this political environment anything is possible. It's like a sitcom.
Holy Crap! Illinois Governor Arrested For Trying To Sell Obama's Senate Seat!
We all knew that Illinois has the most corrupt political system rivaled only by pre-Katrina Louisiana, but this takes the cake. Governor Blagojevich apparently tried to sell the appointment to Obama's open U.S. Senate seat. What's all the more mind-blowing about this is that Blagojevich had to know that with all the Rezko investigations going on that people had to be listening. I mean, come on! This isn't the "Fitzmas" the Democrats were hoping for. Wow.
