Ain't Complicated

Morning News

Three stories: New Bionic Arms for Wounded Soldiers, Trimming Words Out of a Dictionary, and “Tell Me How to Do It.”

The Luke Arm has four fingers and an opposable thumb, and was designed to be controlled by muscular movement in the wearer’s remaining limbs.

But thanks to neurological advances in “targeted renervation” by Dr. Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the Luke Arm can now connect directly to motor nerves, meaning it can be controlled purely by thought alone.

And the nerve connections are two-way: The wearer gets “force feedback” about his own grip and movements, allowing him to pick up an empty water bottle without crushing it.

Many cheers for Dean Kamen and Dr. Todd Kuiken and the Department of Defense.

Trimming Words Out of a Dictionary

Oxford University Press has removed words like “aisle”, “bishop”, “chapel”, “empire” and “monarch” from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog”, “broadband” and “celebrity”. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

But academics and head teachers said that the changes to the 10,000 word Junior Dictionary could mean that children lose touch with Britain’s heritage.

“We have a certain Christian narrative which has given meaning to us over the last 2,000 years. To say it is all relative and replaceable is questionable,” said Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment at Buckingham University. “The word selections are a very interesting reflection of the way childhood is going, moving away from our spiritual background and the natural world and towards the world that information technology creates for us.”

[…]

Words taken out:

Carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe

Dwarf, elf, goblin

Abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin, devil, vicar

Coronation, duchess, duke, emperor, empire, monarch, decade

adder, ass, beaver, boar, budgerigar, bullock, cheetah, colt, corgi, cygnet, doe, drake, ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, lobster, magpie, minnow, mussel, newt, otter, ox, oyster, panther, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle, porcupine, porpoise, raven, spaniel, starling, stoat, stork, terrapin, thrush, weasel, wren.

Acorn, allotment, almond, apricot, ash, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, buttercup, canary, canter, carnation, catkin, cauliflower, chestnut, clover, conker, county, cowslip, crocus, dandelion, diesel, fern, fungus, gooseberry, gorse, hazel, hazelnut, heather, holly, horse chestnut, ivy, lavender, leek, liquorice, manger, marzipan, melon, minnow, mint, nectar, nectarine, oats, pansy, parsnip, pasture, poppy, porridge, poultry, primrose, prune, radish, rhubarb, sheaf, spinach, sycamore, tulip, turnip, vine, violet, walnut, willow

Some of those deletions are astounding!

Then again, how would you keep a dictionary from becoming thicker and thicker?

Even so, jeers not cheers for that dictionary and its publisher?

“Tell Me How to Do It”

A Korean immigrant who lost his wife, two children and mother-in-law when a Marine Corps jet slammed into the family’s house said Tuesday he did not blame the pilot, who ejected and survived.

“Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident,” a distraught Dong Yun Yoon told reporters gathered near the site of Monday’s crash of an F/A-18D jet in San Diego’s University City community.

“He is one of our treasures for the country,” Yoon said in accented English punctuated by long pauses while he tried to maintain his composure.

“I don’t blame him. I don’t have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could,” said Yoon, flanked by members of San Diego’s Korean community, relatives and members from the family’s church.

[…]

“I know there are many people who have experienced more terrible things,” Yoon said. “But, please, tell me how to do it. I don’t know what to do.”

He doesn’t blame the pilot?!

He wants you to pray that the pilot wouldn’t suffer?!

He considers the pilot a national treasure?!

He knows others have suffered greater tragedy?!

Mr. Yoon, you are quite the man!

(Dare I say he’s obviously not a “typical” home-grown American?)

May God sustain Mr. Yoon and the young pilot.

(And keep the lawyers and “suers” away from Mr. Yoon, please. Thanks.)

Family SWATted

Lighthouse Trails Research reports in their blog:

On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.

There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly supicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.

What’s the rest of the story, I wonder.

Here. I’ll do a quick Google news search. (A regular Google search actually yields more results than the three I just got with that one.)

Suppose I’m at WalMart and see an item with a price that’s so “too good to be true” that it must be a mistake. Say a normally $300 digital camera for $30. So I attempt to purchase it for $30…and succeed.

What should I do in such a case?

Tell the store management about the matter.
Tell family and friends about the “great deal that’s surely a mistake so you’d better buy a camera before they discover and rectify the mistake.”
Blog about it here so you can “check your local WalMart for the same or similar goofs.”
Buy as many of those cameras as I can so I can resell them at a profit.

What say you?

And why?

Montenegro: Have You Seen Him?

Wanted for murder: Fermin Omar Montenegro

I haven’t seen him.

But I want to remember to pray for him.

I just read he’s become a Christian.

And is trying to work out his own surrender.

I don’t know him. But I can still pray for him.

I Object

This the land of the ~~free~~ fee.

Oh, quit fussing, Mark! The fees are a small price to pay to be free. If you lived in a fee-free state, the fees might be free, but likely not thee.

Oh.

OK.

(If you want more than that fine print, click the graphic for more of the story.)

What Happened to Ain’t Complicated?

So this blog disappeared completely off the Web.

Why?

Some hacker deleted it for me.

Thankfully, I just got done reinstalling and restoring it.

I’m so grateful the database was out of the hacker’s reach.

Now I need to restore a bunch of other stuff til I get it back to what it was.

If you have a blog powered by WordPress, be sure to upgrade to 2.6.5!!

BDS, Phase 2?

From Bush Derangement Syndrome to Barack Derangement Syndrome...

For the last five years or so, BDS has stood for Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Former psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer, noting the reaction of liberals to George W. Bush and his policies, in a 2003 column coined the term Bush Derangement Syndrome to describe “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush”.

During Phase Two, BDS officially stands for Barack Derangement Syndrome.

Says who?

Why, me, of course.

Now, with that aside, what do you think will be the official Supreme Court decision here?

Decision on Obama citizenship pending

The Supreme Court held off Friday on deciding whether to grant a hearing in a long-shot lawsuit that would decide whether Barack Obama can constitutionally become president as a “natural born” U.S. citizen.

The Friday list of court orders that denies or grants hearings did not mention the lawsuit, which says Mr. Obama should be disqualified from the presidency because he purportedly acquired the same British citizenship that his father had when he was born.

A spokesman for the court said the decision on whether to hear the suit brought by retired New Jersey lawyer Leo Donofrio is likely to be announced next week.