Well, another Bears season ended short of the playoffs with the added ignobility of having the Packers deliver the coup de grace. The most bizarre aspect was of course the fumble from Aaron Rodgers in the second quarter that everyone thought was a dead bar, including Packers receiver Brandon Boykin who was told to pick up the ball by the Packers sideline and score. To lose with a dead ball, reminded me of a certain scene from an old Bogart movie. Can you guess?
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
When the faceless analyzers locked deep inside the NSA finally get around to divining just how privacy died in this country they won’t start with Friday’s decision by Judge William Pauley, III in ACLU v. Clapper finding the NSA data mining of American’s communications perfectly constitutional or even go back to the horrible events of September 11, 2001 when fear ran freedom from the playing field. No, the truth is that privacy began to die farther back in an obscure case during the nation’s bicentennial year. As most of us were gathering up our red, white, and blue bunting, buying fireworks, and marveling at the first technological salvo of the commercial computer age known as The Cray-1 , a robbery case in Maryland would form the first cancerous cell in the assault on the body politic’s right to be left free from government snooping.
Submitted by Charlton Stanley, Guest Blogger
Ever since I was a kid, wheels, gears and spinning things held a fascination. I suspect that is true of most youngsters. One of my all time favorite Christmas toys was a gyroscope. When I took physics, my favorite subject was Mechanics, especially when I got to play with the lab equipment that demonstrated angular momentum and Newton’s laws of motion. I did a bit of research on the history of the discovery of the laws of angular momentum and inertia. Seems Descartes first formulated it, then Newton used Descartes’ ideas in developing his Laws of Motion. When adding the discoveries of Newton and Descartes together, we get the Law of Conservation of Momentum. Several years after Newton published his Laws of Motion, Euler first wrote the formula F=ma.
The physical laws governing Mechanics, like all other branches of scientific discovery, were discovered piecemeal. The process of discovery took place over centuries. There were many investigators, some more prominent than others. The thing I find interesting is the fact that the significance of the piecemeal discoveries were not always understood at the time. That is particularly true of momentum, which was discovered almost like the palaeontologist scratching dirt away from a fossil, a bit at at time. However, Sir Isaac Newton is given credit for creating the branch of physical science we call Mechanics.
All those discoveries makes the Cubli possible, but we had to wait for computers to be invented to make it work. What, may you ask, is a Cubli? Good question. The name “Cubli” is derived from the English word “cube” and the Swiss German diminutive “li.” The Cubli is a cube 15cm on each side. It contains three reaction wheels that act as the force generators. Their spin is controlled precisely by the computer. It is a mistake to think the Cubli works by gyroscopic force. It doesn’t. The wheels are spun, then suddenly stopped. That creates the reaction force needed to make the Cubli do what it does.
Take a look over the jump to see the Cubli in action.
Continue reading “The Cubli; Laws of Motion and Angular Momentum at Play”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty(rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
With the end of 2013 fast approaching, I have begun to wonder what the New Year holds for the country. It looks like the Affordable Care Act is finally getting its website to function properly and the sign ups are now being counted in the millions. Wall Street is still booming with the Dow Jones over 16,000, but yet unemployment is still too high and Congress is still trying to push austerity for the middle class and the poor, while doing everything in its power to prevent corporations and the wealthy from paying their fair share of taxes. The Citizen’s United decision opened the money floodgates and needs to be curbed. The military budget was spared in the recent Budget Deal, but yet unemployment benefits for millions have not been extended.
The gun lobby continues to prevent reasonable gun control legislation and needless scores of innocents continue to be slaughtered. Instead of closing the gun show loophole or mandating reasonable and effective universal background checks, Congress did nothing. Although there has been some recent movement from the Obama Administration to push Congress to allow the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the facility remains open after 12 years. With all of the bad news or non-action on many fronts, is it possible to have hope that 2014 will bring better news for all Americans? Continue reading “Hopes For the New Year”
Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger
In what otherwise would be seen as a string of words generated from a random joke generator, it is true authorities with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina report that a woman allegedly did just that.
Deputies reportedly arrived at the home of Helen Williams and found a man covered with blood. Williams stated to deputies he fell and cut himself however was not able to explain why her hands and clothes were bloody. But stranger issues were afoot
Continue reading “Woman Allegedly Assaults Man With Ceramic Squirrel For Failing To Buy Beer”
Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger
A worrisome situation has been created in a rural Josephine County Oregon. Approximately seventy percent of the land area in the county is owned by the federal government which provided millions in revenue from timber subsidies. That source of finding for the county stopped due to a termination of payments by the federal government and in an attempt to fill a budget shortfall of over $7,500,000 the county asked the voters to fund a tax levy. The levy, which was projected to assess $300 on a $200,000 home was defeated in a narrow election. The result of the loss of both revenue sources caused a routing of the sheriff’s office budget, personnel and services.
The effect of this has led to cuts in services and patrol that has effectively led to a major transfer of the traditional roles of county policing from local government to irregular citizen’s patrols and the farming out of what little remains in the sheriff’s office to private contractors and outside agencies. Could situations like this resurrect some of the nineteenth century practices necessary in the West that are no longer compatible with twenty first century American Society?
Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger
The Chinese Government banned the video game Battlefield 4, developed by Electronic Arts, claiming the video game casts China in a bad light and advocates political issues which make China appear to be a warlike society.
The game play plot takes place in the year 2020 where a military coup occurs in China resulting in a geo-political intrigue that could bring the US into a protracted war. The US sends troops to Hong Kong to fight against the coup and the PLA.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture went as far as to ban all things related to the game including software, patches, and news reports. It censored the topic of the game on China’s main social media website weibo.com. On a link derived, according to ZDNet, from an official Chinese news publication, there was much worry over the video games:
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
I’ve written before about the fact that the murder of JFK in Dallas was to me the most traumatic national experience in my life and the fact that I think it changed the destiny of our country in a negative fashion. I think that for many around my age this is also true, but it is now fifty years past and the majority of Americans have no real knowledge of it. The trauma of that day and the ensuing events of history have left me with an admittedly irrational repugnance towards the city of Dallas and I feel almost a shudder when I hear of Dealey Plaza, where the murder took place. These feelings are so intense that I doubt that I will ever visit Dallas in my lifetime, much less go to Dealey Plaza. When I got my weekly E Mail from my favorite investigative journalism website WhoWhatWhy.com I took note of an article about the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The article was a humorous look at the potential for Christmas gifts that might be available at the museum’s gift shop and of course provided a link to the museum’s website, which I then followed. Going to the website and perusing it caused me to muse about the ability in our country to turn even our most solemn national events into commercial enterprises, while we pretend that they provide an educational service. Continue reading “They Killed Him So Let’s Make a Buck”
In a previous column, I criticized the work of the White House Task Force on the NSA surveillance program as stacked with Obama loyalists with a majority of surveillance hawks. Later, one of the five members came out to say that the reforms were not significant and that he believes the program should be actually expanded not limited. Now, the only member without prior positions in the Administration and national security ties, University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone, has declared that the NSA is not a rogue agency and that Edward Snowden is a criminal.
Continue reading “Obama Task Force Member: Snowden Is A Criminal”
There is an interesting controversy in England over a policy of U.K. retailer Marks and Spencer, which has allowed Muslim employees to refuse to help customers buying dishes with pork or alcohol. The result was long lines of shoppers who were told to wait for a non-Muslim employee to check them out. With huge numbers of people buying champagne for the holiday, customers are irate as they stood around for another cashier without religious objections to appear. There is now a Facebook page to boycott the store over the policy. However, the Obama Administration is supporting a similar claim in a U.S. case.
Here is today’s column in USA Today on the hazards of the holidays. While Halloween racks up an impressive array of torts, Christmas and New Year’s Eve produce a considerable number of accidents and crimes. The difference is that the accidents are often self-inflicted — many of which I have personally experienced. Indeed, my family shudders when I pull out the Christmas decorations in anticipation of some unforeseen disaster.
Continue reading “Holiday Hazards And The Hope For A Litigation-Free New Year”
Incoming Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has announced that his office intends to appeal the ruling striking down the criminalization of cohabitation in the Sister Wives case. The decision will ultimately send the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado. However, the trial court has not yet issued a final order due to a couple outstanding issues. Once that order is issued, the Attorney General’s office will have 30 days to file a notice of appeal. In a surprising decision, the Attorney General also indicated that he will no longer have his office defend the Utah ban on same-sex marriage (struck down by Judge Robert Shelby) and possibly the cohabitation law (struck down by Judge Clark Waddoups). That will require the hiring of outside counsel and an outside firm to defend these laws as opposed to the Office of the Attorney General itself.
Continue reading “Incoming Utah Attorney General Announces That He Will Appeal Sister Wives Ruling”
At first glance, this family made a terrible choice when they could not find their tree decorations. Either that or Santa has decided the coal thing is not warning enough.
It the morning after and most of the kids (save one watching Mulan) are still asleep. We had a glorious dinner for 27 and everything this year came out on time and hot for the rollout. The only party in the dog house is Fanatics Outlet which failed to deliver a box of Bears shirts and sweaters for the kids as promised despite ample time for the order. It is something that millions of Americans face with little recourse other than returning the items. Some companies routinely do a bait-and-switch to get people to order with the assurance of a pre-Christmas delivery only to leave them without presents. However, this year apparently was worse due to some weather problems, though weather has not been bad in Chicago.
Montana District Judge G. Todd Baugh is the subject of national criticism (again) in his handling of a criminal case. Baugh previously caused a national uproar over his treatment of a rape of a 14 year old girl who he described as “older than her chronological age” and sentenced her accused rapist to a month in prison. Baugh has now sentenced a man convicted of punching his girlfriend to write “Boys do not hit girls” 5,000 times in addition to jail time.