Apple Computer had a few surprises of late, from dropping the ‘Computer’ from its name (Apple Computer, Inc. is now Apple, Inc.) to dropping this bombshell upon our furry — or otherwise — heads:

Coming this June, the iPhone combines a mobile phone with a 3.5-inch ‘widescreen’ 4- or 8-gig iPod smart touch-sensitive display, which resizes content in portrait or landscape, depending on the angle its being viewed turns off to save power if lifted to the user’s ear a two-megapixel camera and . . . . . . oh, heck — lots of great stuff. Read about it here. Impressive, this.

[Photo Courtesy of Apple]

Army of the Dead?
In a December mass mailing to officers no longer enlisted, the United States Army encouraged some 5,100 to return to active duty.  Of these, 75 had been killed in action.

No word as to specific incentives offered to encourage the dead to come back . . .

 . . .

While they can’t raise the dead, the US Army has been investigating technology which gives their troops a fighting chance in battle.  From sensors reporting real-time troop injuries and locations to medics to body armor reminiscent of that visualized by Robert Heinlein in Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), Space.com reports several improvements to American fighting troops’ gear just over the hill.

 . . .

A Pox on You?
Already responsible for cold sores, chicken pox and shingles, the Herpes I virus is now in the running as a cause for Alzheimer’s disease.

So . . . it’s not all that LDS you did back in Berkeley.

 . . .

Technorati Tags: news, opinion, review

As the brave year of 2006 closes with Saddam’s execution, Michael Boldin points out that almost 3,000 US troops (and an enormous number of Iraqi citizens) are dead for no good reason in Saddam was Right and Bush was Wrong.

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The Food and Drug Administration has determined that eating cloned meat is dandy. Wouldn’t a plate of steaming replicative fading fritters go down nice, now?

Of course, if things subsequently go weird, expect more Tangy Tumors™ and Crunchy Carcinoma™ in your drive-through dinners.

. . .

Huffing for Health Department:
Someday, people you see with paint cans and paper bags may just be huffing to shake off the ‘flu.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has managed to invent a paint that kills influenza virus and most bacteria. The paint has been tested to great success on surfaces (like washroom door handles, et cetera), but no mention was made of paper bags.

. . .

Have a happy 2007, folks.

Technorati Tags: news, opinion, review

Travellers returning from China always mention the unique cuisine — wholly different from what North Americans call ‘Chinese food.’

In Zhejiang province, a gentleman managed to manufacture lard (ordinarily animal fat) out of “swill, sewage and recycled
industrial oil” . . . with a pinch of “toxic pesticide” and sell it to retailers who resold it to restaurants, hotels and other customers.

“Sewage in lard” prompts new China health scare - Yahoo! News

 . . .

Meanwhile, a Taco Bell in New Jersey was temporarily closed by the company after 11 confirmed cases of E. coli infection dating from November 17 were determined to have had their origins there.

This was the same deadly strain of the bacterium which had earlier contaminated packaged California spinach.

No word if wild boars — blamed for the California outbreak — had been trampling through the restaurant.

Taco Bell closes New Jersey outlet after E. coli

In the early ’70s, I wore a peace shirt. That is, it had a peace sign on it. For some reason, this caused little consternation . . . and I lived in an army town. Then again, Canada wasn’t at war in the ’70s. In fact, Canadians were peacekeepers.

But the idyllic ’70s are dead and buried, and Canada is currently in Afghanistan trying to do what the old superpower, the Soviet Union, could not. Interesting. And darned if I know what happened to the shirt.

So . . . where did the peace symbol come from?

There’s plenty of documentation to support this view:

In 1958, Bertrand Russell and Canon John Collins formed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). They organized a four-day march from London to Aldermaston — where England’s nuclear program was centered — and introduced CND’s symbol

. . . what was generally referred to world-wide as ‘the peace sign.’

Photo courtesy BECTU History Project

A brief history of the CND may be seen at the CND site. Another view may be read in the article, ‘Whatever happened to CND?‘ from the BBC News website.

The CND symbol was an amalgam of the semaphore ‘N’ (for ‘nuclear’) and ‘D’ (’disarmament’) and was carried by marchers as lollipop-like signs. A forest of them may be seen on display during a CND march, below:

Photo courtesy BECTU History Project

So what’s the big deal? A philosopher and a churchman decided to form a group protesting nuclear weaponry manufacture and proliferation and have a symbol designed. The symbol’s meaning evolves from meaning nuclear disarmament to ‘peace’ and Pagosa Springs, Colorado goes nuts?

Okay, so America is at war . . . but isn’t peace, ultimately, its objective? Anyone’s objective?

Certainly, there exist people who do not want peace at all — who want to war for God, for instance . . . despite the evident impotence of any god who needs people to fight for him. Be assured that an Entity capable of creating “everything made that was made” really doesn’t need your help or mine to take down people who don’t like Him.

There are other theories about the peace sign’s genesis. Stephen King researched this for a dormitory confrontation in ‘Hearts in Atlantis‘. Non-CND theories didn’t fare well, therein.

I remember a Jack Chick publication. ‘The Broken Cross‘, which stated that witches had to renounce the Christian God by turning a ceramic cross upside down and breaking off the arms (thus creating a peace sign, y’see). I know of no witches (and I do know a few . . . you may, too, though you may be unaware of this) who underwent this or similar initiations, but one should note that Mr Chick’s work isn’t always the most factual. As I remember, he blames most of the planet’s ills on the Catholic church.

Lisa Jensen’s and Bill Trimarco’s displaying a Christmas wreath in the shape of a peace sign calls to mind the heralding of Christ’s birth in Luke: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will toward men.”

Frankly, ’tis the season, and a little peace and good will shouldn’t make people writhe in horror . . . or charge $25 /day to punish someone for having the audacity to herald it.

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Incidentally, the peace sign at the beginning of this piece is courtesy of peacesymbol.org

The new iPod Shuffle is in stores, and is ridiculously cute (albeit it has no discernable cuddly factor). 1 gigabyte, US$79. Also from Apple, the PRODUCT (RED) iPod Nano (Apple donates $10 of the purchase price to Bono’s African AIDS charity) is now available in an 8-gigabyte model . . . days after I bought mine.

Neil Patrick Harris (’Doogie Howser’) has informed a largely unsurprised planet that he is gay.

Reverend Ted Haggard has been given the Parson’s Punt from the New Life Church he used to head.

380 people voted on this story on Yahoo, so I gotta do it: 33-year-old Pittsburgh native John Sheehan, fresh out of prison, is likely going back Real Soon Now. He was seen near a Bay Area (California) transit station, lying naked on a tree stump indulging in auto-eroticism. Usually this is sufficient to break any parole restrictions, but Mr Sheehan had an ace up his sleeve: an awl up his rectum. No word on what Mr Sheehan was in prison for (passing bad cheeks?), but the mind boggles.

Pastor Ted Haggard, An evangelical minister strongly opposed to gay marriage (and, presumably, drugs) resigned among allegations that he’d been having a three-year affair with a male prostitute who supplied him with methamphetamine.

Initially denying all, he has since amended his denial to gay sex, only. He did, after all, purchase methamphetamine (but didn’t take it, ‘course) and enjoyed one relaxing massage.

Pastor Haggard was the president of the American Association of Evangelicals (roughly 30 million members) and the minister of the New Life Church (approximately 14,000 members) at the time the allegations arose.
. . .

Sex scandals involving evangelists are old hat. Depending on your age, you may remember Jimmy Swaggart’s lip-trembling confession (prostitute) and the PTL Club’s downfall (fraud, conspiracy, church secretary Jessica Hahn).

In July, 2005 Ms Hahn informed Larry King that Tammy Faye Messner (of PTL Ministries, then Tammy Faye Bakker) had been having an affair, so hubby Jim Bakker and associate John Fletcher drugged her drink, then raped her.

Her allegations — and allegations of Bakker’s homosexuality coming from peers such as John Ankerberg eight years after the fact helped to bring down Bakker’s empire; serious financial abuses were discovered, and Jim Bakker was sentenced to serve 45 years, but ultimately spent just over five years in prison.

Tammy Faye Messner is currently in a hospice care with inoperable lung cancer (initially spread from her colon).