BotJunkie made me aware several days ago of Petman. Now humanoid robots are nothing new these days and without arms and with tethered cords, this might seem rather primitive. But between the speed and the agility this bot is far ahead of the pack.

The company which makes it, Boston Dynamics, also made Big Dog – the scary-ass cool-beans buzzing robot mule (notice that he looks clumsy but does not wipe out on the ice as I tend to):

They are working on the noisy power source so he will eventually not sound like a swarm of bees with PMS.

 

Here is the most advanced version (at least, the most advanced one that is not classified and carrying a grenade launcher and a machine gun).

(1:09 = LOL)

A commenter asked me recently about a mutual acquaintance of ours who is an agent of the Illuminati – Anglican church branch (retired, though with global domination conspiracies you are never really retired, you just scale back your more nefarious deed doings). He was wondering what this fellow thought about this issue of the Roman Catholic church taking in Anglican priests and parishioners and allowing these defecting congregations to maintain Anglican rites and letting them keep their priest even if he is married with kids as is permitted in the Anglican church. To paraphrase the Illuminati agent in question, he said that while he could see how some Anglicans might be offended at what might be poaching of members and clergy, it didn’t put a bee in his bonnet personally.

 

I suppose that this Anglican churchman realizes that Anglicans have been benefiting from Catholic defections over the issues of homosexuality, women clergy, divorce and the centralization of final authority under one person. Both Catholic priests and laity have come to Anglicanism because, except for their stances on these and some other minor issues, the two faiths are hard to tell apart. Granted, this move by the Pope is aimed at whole congregations and is far more in-your-face than quietly ushering people in one at a time but most people don’t expect a massive wave of apostasy toward the Catholic church. If anything, there is at least as much concern that the Anglican church may become indistinguishable from the United Church of Canada.

 

Personally I think it could be a smart move for the Catholic church and neither good nor bad for the Anglican church. African dioceses of the Anglican communion have been greatly at odds with the Western industrialized side of the faith, and over these very issues of homosexuality and women in the church. Since church policy is set largely by consensus it makes for some frantic Lambeth Conferences. Even those things which get made into Anglican Church policy can often be subject to the desires of individual archbishops as some Anglican churches oppose homosexuality and ban women and gay clergy/marriages. Catholics could stand to gain some churches and since Africa is not very far along on its demographic transition it could well see enough growth to make up for the losses to both churches from secularism in the West. Both churches will benefit from this population boom (until it runs out of steam) but Catholics would gain both from natural increase and from defections. Already both churches are addressing their clergy shortages in the West by importing African born clergy.

 

If this move does result in many congregations switching to Catholicism it will have some interesting effects. Anglicanism will lose people who are more “conservative” on these swing issues of homosexuality and women clergy and thus could become more “liberal”. Meanwhile, liberal Catholics will wonder why it is permissible for former Anglican priests to marry and have kids while lifer Catholic priests can’t. They will either pressure the Papacy for change or switch to the Anglican church. Or just leave.

 

All of this is but a sideshow to the real trends both churches are facing. In the West, while atheism, agnosticism and secularism are growing there is another fast growing group of C&E Christians and even completely unattached Christians. Neither change bodes well for organized religions in the areas. At the same time the spread of Christianity in Asia (and covertly in the Middle East/Muslim regions) along with population expansion in Africa coupled with erosion of traditional indigenous faiths like animism in the region is seeing Christianity – Anglican, Pentecostal, Catholicism and even Mormonism if you consider it a Christian faith – make some impressive though ultimately temporary gains in global market shares.

 

The commenter also mentioned that he didn’t know that religions could, in a sense, merge. It is true that the vast majority of changes in the religious spectrum are divergences into two or more new sects. But mergers are not unprecedented. Anglican and Lutheran churches have agreed to enter into “communion”, meaning that a person in one church can receive communion in the other. Many Anglican churches have a policy that anyone in good standing with their own church can receive Anglican communion (and it’s not like they do a background check as you approach the rail). Religions are like biological species in that we think of these changes as either examples of the whole species changing as a mutation spreads in the population or a diversion of the species into two new ones which eventually change so much that they can not produce fertile offspring when they mate. We rarely think of two species merging into one or creating a hybrid “species” beyond individual hybrid organisms. It was once asserted that the definition of a separate species was that individuals from each group would not create a fertile offspring if they mated, just as donkeys and horses create infertile mules when they mate. You can not get a breeding population of mules. But then it seems obvious that tigers and lions are different species yet their offspring (in zoos) can mate with each other or with either species to produce offspring. So they tweaked  the definition of species to say that they can’t produce “viable” offspring. Outside of a zoo or enclosure setting, offspring of lions and tigers don’t do well. The two species have different hunting strategies and socialization instincts and the mix doesn’t suit them to survive and find a mate. New discoveries further challenge our concept of “species” as viral and bacterial genes merge with multicellular organisms genomes. There is a really, really, REALLY cool species of wasp which transmits a virus to the caterpillar which it injects its eggs into. This virus weakens the victim’s immune system just long enough for its eggs to hatch and eat the caterpillar. It certainly started out as a separate virus of caterpillars which happened to be spread by the wasp but it proved so useful to the wasp that the wasp incorporated the virus’ genes into its own genome so it could produce it as a biological weapon. Species can merge. So can religions.

 

There is actually a greater movement towards merging of religions or “ecumenicalism” as it is called. Like the desire for a one world government, a one-world religion is very tempting to many people. Denominations get together to try to convince each other that they should give up the issues which divide them so that Christianity (and in its more extreme forms, all religions) can become a single, unified, bland consensus. As a secularist I find myself in the uncomfortable situation of agreeing with many conservative Christians in feeling that this is the worst idea ever. It would require all religions to give up the values which conflict with other faiths and create an uber religion that would be far harder to resist than any others as it would have the political backing of vast segments of society. Don’t like worshiping many gods? Well Hindus do so go along or you’re hateful. Don’t believe in prophets or Messiahs? Well shut your blaspheming mouth. Ecumenicalism is almost tailor-made for a totalitarian government. Hmmm. Maybe that’s not a bad idea. As long as I get it implemented first.

I have been in a snarly, pig biting mood lately so I have been kind of weak in the area of blogging productivity. Certainly, seeing that our new God,  (Mmm, mmm, mmm!) Barack Hussein Obama, has won the Norwegian antisemitic and socialistic peace prize for his contribution to theology was a bit of a boost. A tongue-in-cheek movement is afoot to have Obama written in on ballots for the Heisman Trophy. It is blasphemous to mock our new God made flesh but I do approve of him being awarded the Heisman. Somebody needs to get ACORN working on voter registration campaigns ASAP. Where are the Black Panthers when you need them.

What led me to compose this post (or to comp-post as I like to abbreviate it) is this article at Next Big Future about coded programmable magnets. Using patterns of numerous differing magnetic domains they can create magnet pairs that are actually more strongly binding than simple opposite polarity magnets yet their power drops off much faster with distance so they are safer to use and they lose their attraction when you rotate them so you can just twist them apart. A company video is embedded at the article. Metals and programmable magnets with different patterns don’t have the same attraction so a magnet “powerful” enough to lift a shipping container won’t hoist people up by their tool belts or demagnetize everyone’s credit cards. Any number of physical mechanisms could be used to prevent the magnets turning out of alignment until one wants them released – pins, posts, clamps, bits of string and chewing gum… whatever.

Very cool indeed.

Apparently, Mexico has a problem with illegal American immigrants and has decided to offer them amnesty. Look for far more illegal American immigration to Mexico in the future. Older Americans taking early retirement packages to avoid being fired will want their cash to go further and will want a warmer climate. Mexican companies looking to capitalize off of these retirees will need some English speaking employees who are familiar with American culture. Kids and grand kids who want to visit will boost tourism. There are trade offs to moving to Mexico but with unemployment higher in America for the time being and lower (historically speaking) in Mexico, the equation is somewhat more favorable.

Obama, attempting to comment off the record, called Kanye West a jackass.

West made news at something called the MTV music awards or something like that, when he tried to support his pick for best female something or other after she lost to a seventeen year old country singer named Taylor Swift. His support involved taking the mic from Miss Swift, telling everyone that someone else should have won and basically ruining the girl’s night.

That is, unless it was all a stunt. I’m not saying Swift was in on it but anyone invested in her career will realize that she gets people’s sympathy and exposure (I had never heard of her before this) while MTV gets talked about again. And between the psychopath segment of West’s demographic who probably thought it was great and the rest who will be won back by his “I’m ashamed and have been under stress” explanation making him a sympathetic character, he doesn’t come off that bad either. Everybody wins. But for now, face value of the episode seems to indicate that West is a jackass who got drunk and humiliated a young performer on what should have been a wonderful night for her.

But back to the title subject, Obama actually didn’t defend outrageous behavior by someone who’s black. And since he supposedly didn’t think he was speaking on the record he doesn’t look like he is poking his nose into an issue he has no business with. Who would have thought that some mild to moderate trauma to a teenager could bring so much benefit to so many people. I think we should humiliate teenagers more often. Make it an Olympic sport.

I have mixed feelings about political posters in public spaces, especially when they are obviously placed without permission. On the one hand there are few methods that the average person can use to express their views without spending huge amounts of money. Slapping up a poster anonymously also allows one to express an opinion that may be on the wrong side of the partisan divide from one’s family, community or employer. And unlike blogging, it allows one to reach a geographically targeted audience; the people who vote in your district and whose decisions directly effect your life on a more immediate level. One might not change many people’s minds but it can help to dispel the illusion of uniformity of thought that politicians and the journalistas love to sink into like a warm bath. Currently they are so deep in the suds (I hope those are suds) that even opposition by large numbers of voters is deemed extremism and angry mobs of fringe group wackos. It has gotten to the point that the insulated class are withdrawing behind a wall of union muscle in SEIU meeting halls with phony citizenry consisting of campaign workers bussed in to create “public town-hall meetings” because dissent is so foreign to them that they can only see it as some weird cult (AUM-Tea-bagyo), even if that cult represents not just opposing partisans but formerly undecideds and even former supporters. Quite a sizable cult to be sure. But I digress.

Even expressing one’s views on one’s own property can be complicated for renters or people who live under the rules of a home owner’s association (and that’s an issue for another day – how do we strike a balance with such associations between wanting to avoid living next to someone who covers his house with pink masking tape and spells out obscene words on his lawn with plastic paving stones without having every square inch of land under the control of fascist twits who ban children from playing outside and demand that every house be identical to the ones near it.)

But on the other hand (that’s the second one for those of you keeping count), most people don’t want to be confronted with someone else’s politics every few feet on every wall, lamp post and mailbox. That’s what yard sale signs and ads for garage bands are for.

But given the number of “BUSH IS HITLER!!!!!!!!!” signs* I have been subjected to for eight years, I have to say I was incredibly impressed, surprised, refreshed and amused by what I saw today on a crosswalk post. Here, in the heart of Far-Eastern Soviet Canuckistan (i.e. the city of Fredericton), someone had placed one of those “Socialist” Obama as The Joker posters there to brighten my day, albeit a black and white version – someone lacking enough of the “means of production” to be able to afford colour copying it seems.

This image always brings a smile to my face!

I glanced at it, smiled because I realized that this was actually placed in the real world rather than cyberspace and turned back to it, still smiling while waiting for the walk light and said “Why so stimulus?” (Not my line but one I admire. I also like “Why so socialist?” but with the word Socialism on the sign I thought it was too obvious even for an inanimate poster). This image was also originally done by a young non-Obama Democrat which proves that there are some Democrats who are able to be creative and observant (they are probably the ones who become Republicans after a decade or two and say things like: “Back then I never thought I could ever be a Republican and now I can’t believe I was ever a Democrat.”). It also proves that something can be “racist” until it is found to be the work of a Democrat and then the racist aspect evaporates. The ninth law of political vapor constants, I believe. And if hating Obama’s policies is racist then some blacks are becoming racist. Not many but every one helps.

Remember:

When you’re smilin’,

Oh when you’re smilin’

The whole world smiles with you.

* Just to compare the analogies:

Bush was elected twice by mass majority, had no control over the media and left office without any armies surrounding his capital – Hitler, not so much. He was elected as a minority power and let his thugs take it from there. He also exerted total control over the media, the economy,  and everything else you care to mention. National Socialism is still socialism.

Obama came into town, made lots of demands, did a lot of damage, set fire to a big pile of money and cracked jokes that only he thought were funny. Whereas The Joker… Holy crap! Bit on the nose I’d say.

Ecuador has just elected a “socialist for the 21st century”. Good for them. (See you guys in 2101 C.E.)

Fortunately, Ecuador has a population of only a large city and its fertility rate is very low for a formerly developing nation so the amount of extra suffering this will bring to the world is fairly low compared to the rest of the planet but every little bit helps.

You know, there was once a time when the Nazis were so long defeated that we made historical comedies about them; Communism was collapsing; theocracy and monarchy were being rolled back everywhere; even humanity’s eternal goal of wiping out the Jews was made to seem old fashioned, as they now had a homeland and had proven that they could defend themselves militarily. Economies were prospering, democracy was spreading and even poor nations were starting to move in the right direction. Now the Nazis are crawling around every newsroom on the planet; their identical twin – Marxism is making political gains on every continent even while continuing to prove itself as the most effective way to destroy prosperity ever devised by man; Islamic theocracy is given a smile and a hug by progressive modern secular society despite having nothing near the demographic power or potential it should needs to be given such a privileged place in society; the international community is united in its desire to see Jews of Israel (and everywhere else) cleansed from the planet while it turns a blind eye to a state that is  pursuing the weapons technology that could help bring this about. Elections, referendums and constitutional changes are becoming theatrical performances with the ballots prepared before hand or the opposition intimidated away from the poling stations or the citizens’ impressions sculpted by monopolistic state or partisan media.

Funny how quickly things change. No worries. I’ll adapt.

If you ever get across the sea to England,
Then maybe at the closing of the day
The bars will all be serving German lager
Vhich means we von the var – hip hip hooray!

If you ever get across the sea to England, Then maybe at the closing of the day The bars will all be serving German lager Which means we won the war – hip …

Funny thing, that. Coincidentally, or not, the population of self-identifying Dutch Muslims and the percentage of Muslims who attend mosques regularly is dropping.

And extremists seems to include the Australian government, and the Obama administration.

Speaking of uses for the Internet, would you like some blindingly obvious facts? More bandwidth is linked to economic growth. Oh, and the secret is out. Less blindingly obvious: even sub-Saharan Africa is seeing broadband growth. But to compensate for the still low penetration rate for broadband the mobile Internet is exploding in Africa.

The Internet boosts moderate view points and increases economic growth. Africa and the Middle East are seeing rapid increase in Internet growth. Synergism,  anyone?

I certainly hope that communications technologies continue to transform the Islamic world and Africa. Americans might need to relocate there now that American politics under Obama is increasingly dominated by threats, manipulation, violence and slander.

I had almost forgotten to blog about this: Early this week I had a fascinating and rather humourous encounter on the street. Now, I don’t know if it is an east coast thing, a Canadian thing or just a youth-of-today thing but around these parts it is not uncommon to witness some young whippersnapper screaming incomprehensible insults out a car window at people they don’t know who are walking on the sidewalk. The screamer’s male groupies and pre-skanks (girls who have not yet acquired enough VD and drug addictions to be full skanks but are already hanging out with guys who are obviously not there to provide intellectual stimulation) laugh uproariously as the vehicle flees. One rarely gets a good look at the little darlings but that’s probably for the best. Well, earlier this week I got to view the scenario played out in slow motion since the screamer did not have a car to shout from.

A little background would be in order. I am in my mid-thirties with glasses and a slight gut. Not what a sensible person would call fat but obviously not in the best of shape. Recently I came to live in an area where a ten minute walk brings me to a park with a small oval walking track as well as a more mosquito-infested walking trail. Forty minutes of walking around the track, while muttering to myself about how pathetic journalists are and how damned our society is and how vast the number of morons among humanity’s ranks is, results in a fair amount of exercise. With the 10 minutes to walk there and back it makes for a good hour of increased heart rate. On a particularly warm day one can work up a fair sweat; especially if one is, as I say, not in the best of shape.

The sidewalk on the way to the park entrance where the walking track is runs for a long stretch with no driveways or turnoffs and has a drop off into the wooded park on one side and a very busy roadway on the other with woods on the other side of it. As I was walking back from the park, tired and sweaty, a male, likely of high school age and a couple of his pre-skanks were walking in the other direction toward me. I didn’t know they were as young as they were as I don’t generally scrutinize people’s appearance as I approach them in public. I didn’t think anything of it as they approached, since I assumed they were in conversation about something, but the male had what I believe is termed in the technical literature “a shit-eating grin”; as if he had thought of the most clever thing ever.

As I normally do when passing groups on a sidewalk I moved off onto the grass to let them pass on the pavement. Just as they were passing by the male says: “Hey there fatty, nice boob sweat!” He actually said “fatty”. Not “fat-ass”, not even “fatso” which would at least make him seem like a junior high school name-caller but “fatty”. Poor kid must have had severe head trauma at the age of nine; stunting his development. No matter. As it registered what he had said I wearily flipped him the bird without turning around. I knew he would be turned around to see my reaction as the reactions of others are all important to these folk. I was expecting several possible reactions. He might just laugh. He might run up and try to sucker punch me but with the sun low and behind me I would see his shadow well before he could reach me. I reminded myself not to push his little stick ass into the traffic or down the drop off where he could puncture a lung on a tree branch to tragic yet humourous effect. I contemplated whether I should take his wallet when the fight was over so I could report him to the cops quickly to establish self-defense and maybe get a few bucks for my troubles. But what happened next really did surprise me.

He took offense. Not physically, as in going on the offensive – he was offended at my giving him the finger. “Yeah!?!!?” he called back, “Well f**k me then!” as he continued walking away. Needless to say I was not expecting a sexual proposition given that he had, seconds ago, tried to insult me. When you give someone the finger it is often translated as “f**k you” but it does not really mean you are asking for a sexual encounter. At least it never did when I was growing up. Lots of girls have given me the finger and not once was it followed up with a clarification as to an offer of sex. I suppose he was caught off guard by my response as he had worked out a narrative where he insults someone – a mid-thirties adult with glasses who is obviously out of shape and tired – and, like all good citizens he tends to encounter, the adult “just walks away”. He then impresses his pre-skanks with how he has the stones to insult people at random and is so menacing that no-one ever says anything. When I screwed up his narrative, he was at a loss for a comeback to what should, in the adult world, not need a comeback. So “Yeah!?!!? Well f**k me then!” was the best he could come up with on short notice. I had, it seems, hurt his feelings.

Now in all fairness to him he may have come up with something really clever after that. Certainly he continued to yelp something but he was still walking in the opposite direction and was being completely drowned out by traffic. It became obvious that I was not going to see his shadow as he ran up to me. I was not going to have to worry about not puncturing his  on a tree branch and I was not going to get hold of his wallet which likely had nothing in it as no-one would be stupid enough to employ him in a job market as tight as this and I suspect that his parents spend every dime on meth. I wonder if his wallet had a zipper on it? On the plus side, I did hurt his feelings and I don’t think even his pre-skanks could have been impressed with his overly hasty invitation to a stranger to have gay sex with him. Guys who want to have gay sex with strangers are not always the best match for an up and coming skank.

I haven’t seen my admirer since. Two males and a female were arrested later in the week down the road from this for a series of violent muggings but I doubt he or one of his pre-skanks could be involved, unless of course the mugging victims were in their fifties or sixties. But then, maybe his failure to seem macho with me made him desperate to prove himself and he turned to violent crime. Maybe I could have prevented the crimes if I had just run after him and pushed his scrawny ass down the embankment. Something to think about when I finally get hold of a time machine.

The police officer of non-Eurasian ancestry who supported Officer Whitie Crowley’s decision to arrest Professor Gates at his home with the candlestick handcuffs, feels that many in the black community – or at least the part of the black community that calls into pro-Democratic Party political call-in radio shows - is portraying him as an “Uncle Tom” (his words; not mine – see the quotes?). Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a black person who does not show sufficient reverence for the Democratic Party and its elite, its policies and its actions, or demonstrate sufficient obedience to same. Black cops are not part of that Democratic Party elite. Harvard Professors who are close personal friends with our new God are.

And apparently, Gates gets all the racist cops who can’t stand a strong black man standing up for himself. In 1984 one stopped him for allegedly speeding and described his attitude as “poor”. (via Ace of Spades HQ) I assume it was a whitie, honkie officer who stopped him; the news article didn’t say but why would the officer describe him as having a poor attitude if it were not a racist attack by a honkie cop? It couldn’t be because he is a Harvard professor who thinks cops are beneath him. I mean this Gates chap is friends with Obama and that certainly would not be the case if he were an angry elitist nut job that doesn’t accept responsibility for anything he says or does.

Has anyone asked Rev. Wright what he thinks about all this or are the Jews keeping him from talking to the media like they keep him from talking with Obama? I am dying to hear what he has to say.