This story is exactly the kind of thing I'd get yelled at for doing. I still think it's a good idea.

Also, who's reading my blog from Australia? I didn't know I knew anyone in Australia. Feel free to post a comment and say hello. Hi, Australia!

My Monday Night Halftime

So ESPN, now in possession of Monday Night Football, has added a mini-version of their popular television show, Pardon The Interruption, to the halftime show. Just minutes ago, one of the two stars of the sports debate show, Tony Kornheiser, said that OJ Simpson, who was recently arrested for allegedly stealing his own sports memorabilia, was "the most notorious person of our time."

At first I thought, "this must be some strange use of the word 'notorious' of which I was not previously aware." Then I looked it up. Definitions include:
1) Known widely and usually unfavorably; infamous
2) Widely known and discussed: famed, famous, leading, popular, well-known

And that's it. I'm going to assume they mean the first definition, as the second definition is clearly not true. So let's play a fun game in the comments. Name someone more notorious (in the infamous/known widely and unfavorably sense) than OJ Simpson, and perhaps try to name the most notorious person of our time. I'll get the ball rolling with a few suggestions:
Hillary Clinton
Terrell Owens
Osama bin Laden

My Future

The Associated Press reports that a scientist from Erie, Pennsylvania has discovered a way to burn salt water. It's a neat little trick he discovered while playing with a radio frequency generator.

I personally think this could be one of the most influential discoveries of the past 100 years, or more. Some of you are already giddy with excitement along with me, but for the non-scientists and slow learners out there, let me explain: if you can burn something, you can probably figure out a way to use it as fuel.

Right now most of our fuels come from oil, and a great deal of our nation's foreign policy--and consequently a huge percentage of taxpayer dollars--is directly or indirectly influenced by our need to secure a steady supply of oil. Now, let me paint you a picture with my imagination brush. We could live in a world where we have a choice between using saltwater or oil as the base for most of our fuels. Our political and industrial leaders start to wonder if there might be a convenient source of saltwater near us, one that wouldn't be controlled by terrorism-supporting nations, or any other sovereignty for that matter...and if we could get the saltwater for cheaper than 40 dollars a barrel, well, wouldn't that be a coup. Eventually even our leaders who couldn't find their own posteriors with both hands would make their way to the ocean...either with the power of their minds or carried by a mob of constituents who don't appreciate paying terrorists 4 bucks a gallon to fill up their Hummers.

Oh, and wanna know the kicker? 16 days ago I wrote about a guy who was using radio waves to fight cancer...IT'S THE SAME GUY. And even more amazingly, it's the same machine that led to both discoveries (which will of course be pursued by many more sophisticated scientists with much better equipment and bigger budgets, but still). John Kanzius may be a household name in a quarter of a century, for inventing a single machine that helped the fight against cancer...as a warm-up before helping to solve the world's energy problems.

Oh yeah, and he's willing to sell the saltwater-burning invention and let someone else run with it...so he can take the proceeds of the sale and reinvest it in his efforts to cure kids with leukemia. I'm not one to affix the "hero" label to someone willy-nilly, but in this case, John Kanzius is making a good case for being the Superman of our time, and he's doing it without ever ceasing to be mild-mannered.

Some links:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070911_ap_salt_water.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07252/815920-85.stm

Video from local news:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGg0ATfoBgo

This is obviously the very beginning of a long story with extraordinary potential, and I intend to keep an ear and an eye out for more developments. If I miss something, however, and one of my loyal readers (can I use the plural there? I'm gonna use the plural) sees more on the subject, please let me know.

My Links 3

I'm going to break this links entry into two sections. The first three links are interesting news updates.

The last three links are just amusing images.

News:

German town removes traffic lights and stop signs to cut down on accidents - This seems counter-intuitive, but I guess that if you have to be hyper alert all the time, drivers can't be lazy and follow guidelines. Still, this is one idea that wouldn't fly with America.

Study finds that liberal brains are smarter - This isn't all that well explained in the article, but the basic idea is that they put a bunch of people in front of terminals that give them easy questions they have to answer very quickly by pressing buttons, and 80% of the answers correspond to one of the buttons. The participants also rate their political leanings from -5 (liberal) to +5 (conservative). The researchers then looked at the 20% of questions whose answers didn't correspond to the button that the people were used to pushing. Sure enough, there was a different; the more liberal you were, the lower your error. According to researchers, liberals' minds are better able to adjust to and process and consider new things, politically and otherwise. The results were examined by an independent researcher at Berkeley who was unconnected with the experiment (and had nothing at stake).

Hormone linked to Autism - Levels of a male sex hormone in fetuses are positively correlated with the probability the resulting child will be autistic or have autistic traits. While it's unclear whether this is a cause or effect of autism, it's an important discovery in the ongoing investigation.

The Lighter Side:

The Safest Airline

Adorable animals made out of vegetables

Why My Kids Won't Be Allowed Online

I would totally go see this show if it existed.

My Cure for Cancer

http://www.nbc4.com/health/11125917/detail.html

OK, so it's not MY cure for cancer. But a leukemia patient with a background in Physics and Radio Broadcasting invented a device to help combat cancer, and it's very interesting. The idea is that it turns cancer cells into antennae that attract ordinarily harmless particles that can be easily heated by radio waves (more easily than the rest of your body). Then, once these particles are disproportionately attached to the cancer cells, you flood the body with radio waves in a non-invasive procedure. The cancerous growths then go through something like a self-destructing meltdown.

This innovative concept is being tested by researchers, and hopefully something will come of it. I'd love to buy stock in the company that starts building whatever comes out of the research, though I think it'd be even better if the inventor insisted that a non-profit take control and try to make it as widely available as possible as fast as possible. Heartwarmingly, the motivation for his invention was seeing kids go into chemotherapy with smiles and come back a few weeks later without them.

[Editor's Addendum: Read the comments. The one left by Max Power provides some context for this type of research. And I can assure you he's quite qualified to comment.]

My Links 2

Here's a second round of links I think my readers might enjoy. I spend enough time surfing the Internet to find these things, you all might as well benefit from it. Why reinvent the wheel, after all? I have no life...now you can get the benefits of having no life and surfing the web all day without having to actually needing to have no life!

First and Foremost: A Free Cure for Depression - It's not a drug, it's your mind! Specifically, it's the neo-cortex. Depression resides in the sub-cortex, and according to this researcher, one can use a technique called "Brainswitching" to change the source of your thoughts from the sub-cortex to the neo-cortex, where depression can't exist. Something as simple as focusing on a very simple thought or nonsensical phrase repeatedly with your logical mind will switch your mental activity from one part of the brain to the other, and enable one to avoid long spells of depression. This switch happens naturally over days, weeks or months--which is why the severity of depression is almost always cyclical. But one can accomplish that switch in minutes--the researcher himself is bipolar and has had tremendous success with the technique on his own. If you want more information, the researcher plugs his two books on the topic at the end (one is his story, the other is more of a how-to manual).

An Underwater Restaurant - For the adventurers out there looking for their next exciting meal. Seriously, this is a cool concept. Add in the fact that dinner's between 242 and 275 dollars a plate, and I start wondering: anyone want to go into business with me and start one?*
*offer void where seasick

Han Solo in Carbonite Chocolate Bar - I will eat my favorite decoration. Mwahahaha. Seriously, it's about time! I want one.

An interesting artistic video - Proof that I don't understand art. If someone would kindly explain this to me in the comments, it would be much appreciated. All I know about art is that I know what I don't like, and I don't not like this.

Ridiculous Japanese Vending Machines - What can you buy in Japanese vending machines? The list includes: Eggs, Umbrellas, Hot Ramen Noodles, 22 pound bags of rice, Fishing Bait, Toilet Paper, Flowers, Dumplings, Alcoholic Beverages, Pornography, Pet Beetles, Kerosene, Dry Ice, and some more troubling items that I won't mention in this reasonably family-friendly blog...but it's pretty insane (and really makes you wonder who on earth would BUY some of these things at ALL, much less out of a vending machine...).

As always, feedback is welcome.

So I accidentally posted twice and can't figure out how to delete posts. Oops. I can edit it down to nothing though, but I thought I'd include this explanation.

My First Attempt at (actual) Political Commentary

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2879&id=10983-8524939-k7.3OE&t=2

Ignore the source of the website and just watch the video. It's short. But for those who can't be bothered with it, it's a clip from an interview with Dick Cheney from 1994. In this interview, Cheney talked about various foreign policy issues, including a defense of why the US didn't go into Iraq. Cheney, in this interview done 13 years ago, is well-informed, thoughtful, articulate, straightforward, and seems to have his priorities in order. I'd vote for the Cheney in that video.

Which begs the question: what happened? And I don't think it's possible to figure out the answer looking at just Cheney. I'm going to throw out a position that I derived by thinking about things a little more broadly:

I believe Cheney's transformation into the archetypal "Bush Republican" goes to show just how insistent parties are becoming on complete polarization and loyalty to communally decided platforms. It's stamping out individuality in politicians (see the new McCain for a premier example), and making conformity a necessity to play the game at its highest levels. I think this, above all things, is the biggest danger to America present in its current political system. More so than any legislation, movement, set of ideals, war or person, it's this artificial consolidation into a completely binary system that will weaken our nation's ability to intelligently deal with complicated sets of increasingly inter-linked challenges.

Thoughts?

My Halter Top

Yesterday I finally learned what a halter top was. Today I googled it, just to make sure I had it right, and in doing so I learned how to spell "halter top."

[Editor's Addendum: Today I also learned what happens when you post a blog entry without a title. I might do this for really short or pointless entries.]

[Editor's Addendum to Editor's Addendum: I have decided to title this entry after all. Thanks, Chase, for pointing out that "My Halter Top" is a funny title.]