January 16, 2013

Robot Baby! - Diego Installed

The singularity is near!

Link to article with different video and in-depth information from scientists working on project: http://news.yahoo.com/video/robot-baby-learns-express-human-151644002.html

January 12, 2013

WH Hilarious Official Response To Petition To Build Death Star

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.


The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.

The Administration does not support blowing up planets.

Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

However, look carefully (here's how) and you'll notice something already floating in the sky -- that's no Moon, it's a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We've also got two robot science labs -- one wielding a laser -- roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.

Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo -- and soon, crew -- to space for NASA, and are pursuing human missions to the Moon this decade.

Even though the United States doesn't have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we've got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we're building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.

We don't have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke's arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.

We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn because he knows these domains are critical to our country's future, and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing big things.

If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Paul Shawcross is Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget

See it HERE: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking

January 11, 2013

http://www.dayswithoutagoprapemention.com/

Has been reset back to zero after Todd Akin's comments today.

http://www.dayswithoutagoprapemention.com/

January 11, 2013

Senate Dem leaders privately inform Obama they fully support unilateral exec action on debt limit

In a move that will significantly ratchet up the brinksmanship around the debt ceiling, the four members of the Senate Democratic leadership are privately telling the White House that they will give Obama full support if he opts for a unilateral solution to the debt ceiling crisis, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me.

The four Democratic leaders — Senators Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray — have privately reached agreement that continued GOP intransigence on the debt ceiling means the White House needs the space to pursue options for raising it that don’t involve Congress, and that the White House needs to know that Dems will support whatever it decides to do.

In a letter to the White House signed by the four leaders that will soon be made public — and was sent over by a source — the Democrats say:

“In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension as part of an unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promise and trigger a global economic crisis — without Congressional approval, if necessary.”

The rest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/11/top-senate-dem-to-white-house-if-you-unilaterally-raise-debt-ceiling-youve-got-our-back/

January 7, 2013

These speakers are clueless. Economic slavery would be what the Republican party is creating.

The GOP does the bidding for the CEOs to push for legislation that destroys workers rights (ETA: Hell, they won't even vote to raise minimum wage). You can't have true economic freedom without collective bargaining. Notice how the further unions are crushed the worse wages become or stagnate, and its not because of lack of profits, profits are at an all time high and so is worker productivity, but the worker doesn't reap the benefits of his/her hard work, the top does. Yeah, that's the party that coined the phrase 'trickle down' economics.

Also, these speakers are preaching as if people are somehow asleep and are unaware of their situations. People are the most awake they have been in history, these guys are mad because people vote their own best interests? Talk about undermining and subverting democracy.The only people in the U.S. who I see needing to wake up are those who complain about jobs being shipped overseas while voting for the party that obstructs legislation to keep jobs in America.

I get why CL Bryant votes republican, he's a millionaire. Too bad he's preaching to the Tea Party who are mostly senior citizens collecting Social Security.

January 7, 2013

Crime rates are at an all-time low in most places. So is leaded gasoline. Coincidence?

-snip-

In states where consumption of leaded gasoline declined slowly, crime declined slowly. Where it declined quickly, crime declined quickly.

Gasoline lead may explain as much as 90 percent of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.

When differences of atmospheric lead density between big and small cities largely went away, so did the difference in murder rates.

The rest: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

January 7, 2013

19-year-old Socialist takes seat on Red Bank Regional's Board of Education.

RED BANK – Pat Noble is not your average teenager.

The 19-year-old Red Bank resident dedicates most of his time to either working full time as a clerk in a Little Silver pharmacy or with a political organization he helped found.

He speaks passionately about issues ranging from foreign policy and education to taxation and evolution. He was on the ballot for a seat on the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders in 2011 and on Wednesday he officially became a member of the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education, after defeating incumbent Nilsa Samol in November’s election.

Oh, by the way, he’s also a proud socialist.

Noble, a graduate of the Monmouth County vocational school The Academy of Allied Health & Science in Neptune, first became interested in socialism while in high school and hearing people from opposing political parties use the term “socialist” to attack each other.

“I decided to do some research into what the problem was with it and I never found it. The rest is pretty much history,” said Noble, who summed up the socialist philosophy as “a society built for the majority instead of the elite minority.”

“I think people who are dead set against the idea of socialism have false logic,” he said. “But I think that if most people have an opportunity to really hear what it’s about, that they’ll agree with it or at least walk away with a real understanding of it.”

The rest: http://blog.nj.com/monmouth_impact/print.html?entry=/2013/01/19-year-old_socialist_takes_seat_on_red_bank_regionals_board_of_education.html

January 3, 2013

Senate Swears in a Historic 20 Female Senators

Today the Senate will make history, swearing in a record-breaking 20 female senators – 16 Democrats and 4 Republicans – in office.

-snip-

"I can't tell you the joy that I feel in my heart to look at these 20 gifted and talented women from two different parties, different zip codes to fill this room," Sen. Barbara Mikulksi, D-Md., said while surrounded by the group of women senators. "In all of American history only 16 women had served. Now there are 20 of us."

The rest: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-swears-historic-20-female-senators-154104805.html