Archives for September 2011

One of the things that we here are the World News Center are encouraged to do is help people excite their frontal lobes. Often times bonuses are offered such as getting us in free at the Art Institute the first two Wednesdays of any month.Sometimes when they buy one, we get one free. In fact they often allow us to take advantage of some of the best promotions in the country, even before others even here of them. We do our best here to live up to their lofty expectations. For example, I received a wonderful bonus for my efforts to help people appreciate celebrity breasts. In fact I was also given a working key to the rest room.

But there are things besides breasts that can stimulate minds. I know you don’t believe me but it’s true. Some times you can help your brain with things like learning and experiencing life. Of course that takes work. Another way you can do it is like they’re doing it in Israel. They’re inserting digital chips in rat brains in preparation for doing the same to you and I.

The cyborg rats are here.

Scientists at Tel Aviv University have, for the first time, used “digital cerebellums” to restore brain functions of rats that had previously been lost. According to New Scientist, the program essentially created “cyborg” rats, with a portion of their brain function being replaced by a chip.

The function is basic, but shows tremendous promise for a human application.

From PopSci:

The team’s synthetic cerebellum is more or less a simple microchip, but can receive sensory input from the brainstem, interpret that nerve input, and send the appropriate signal to a different region of the brainstem to initiate the appropriate movement. Right now it is only capable of dealing with the most basic stimuli/response sequence, but the very fact that researchers can do such a thing marks a pretty remarkable leap forward.

“It’s proof of concept that we can record information from the brain, analyse it in a way similar to the biological network, and return it to the brain,” researcher Matti Mintz told New Scientist.

Scientists did not implant the chips into the rats’ brains, reported PopSci, but instead used electrodes to replicate brain activity. During the experiment the rats learned to blink to a simple stimulus response, something that wasn’t possible without the use of the microchip.

Though this basic response isn’t much, the experiment proves that chips can not only receive information from nerves, like they do in cochlear implants or certain prostheses, but can send information back out to induce movement. It’s just one small step, but proves that at some point scientists may be able to repair parts of the brain disabled by the likes of a stroke with a microchip.

But this isn’t the only function electronics have been able to repair in rats. Earlier this year New Scientist reported that researchers at USC were able to restore previously lost memories in rats using electrodes and chemicals.

Ah yes, the joys of better living through chemistry. I bet you thought those days were behind us. You would be wrong but I can’t fault you for thinking so. It’s just that we now have to face the fact that THX 1138 was a documentary.

Of course there are traditional ways to stimulate your mind that have nothing to do surgery or chemicals. And, bonus to our vegetarian readers, it has nothing to do with meat either. Residents of Portland, Oregon can now hang out at heart healthy strip clubs. And any doctor will tell you that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.

Casa Diablo gentleman’s club is not the place to go if you want to see a piece of meat.

The world’s first vegan strip club made history by eliminating meat from the menu — but now neighbors have a bone to pick with the soy-serving strip joint.

Plans for a second Casa Diablo location in Portland, Ore. have nearby residents all riled up, The Oregonian reports.

Portland, long considered a crunchy hippie capital, isn’t opposed to the meat-and-dairy free menu.

Neighbors say the problem is the drunkenness, urination, public sex and theft allegedly caused by the rowdy clientele of nearby strip clubs, according to The Portland Mercury.

The owner of Casa Diablo, Johnny “Diablo” Zukle is trying to get a liquor license from state officials for his new joint, The Oregonian says.

Though their menus differ, the vegan strip club could seek an unholy dietary alliance with neighboring steak-serving gentlemen’s club Acropolis. Residents and civic groups battling Casa Diablo also want to shut down Acropolis, The Portland Tribune says.

Two competing demonstrations hit the streets last Friday and got hearts racing as anti-strip club protestors said the city needs to crack down on the clubs. Zukle, meanwhile, staged a counter protest, TV station KATU reports. It featured his staff and customers who said freedom of speech protections guarantee his right to open a gentleman’s club, which they claim will also help the local economy.

Casa Diablo is on the forefront of veggie-minded nudity — but the Stumptown strip joint is not alone.

Earlier this month, the animal rights group PETA announced its plans to create a vegetarian porn website.

Ah, PETA, I have no idea what they’re really trying to accomplish but at least they’re finally admitting that exploiting women is more socially acceptable than exploiting cows. Maybe someone with a better stimulated brain than mine can help out here.

Nevertheless, knowing our readers as I do (yes, Tony, this is for you), I would be remiss if I didn’t include a link to the many naked women who think PETA’s a good idea.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wquCCFvbNhI&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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Today I am going to share some information with you that is going to blow your mind. You’re not going to believe how insightful we here at World News Center can be. I am talking the kind of insight that may change your life, force you to find a new religion, alter the way you do online banking and maybe even (finally) update your Facebook photo from that 1983 one that no one believes any more. In fact, this is going to be so life altering that you may wish to grab a strong drink sit in a comfy chair and then, and only then, continue reading.

Right now, right here, in the aftermath of International Drink a Beer Day, I love the fact I never have to make stuff like that up, I am going to share a secret with you that is going to alter your very perception of our traditional dimensional reality.

Are you ready?

You sure?

Okay, you may want to sit down.

All right, here it is; people without money don’t buy stuff.

I know, I know, go ahead and take a minute to catch your breath.

Now, because this is the real world with real world ramifications, let’s go a step further and note that drug dealers are a for profit business. So, and I know this is an even greater shock to you, they won’t sell their drugs to people without money.

Okay, you probably knew all that but that’s because you’re not from Florida. They actually needed to pass a law, test every welfare recipient and then stare stupidly at the results. What they found out is that 98% of the people on welfare are drug free.

Bill Kaczor at Forbes Magazine has the whole story.

Preliminary figures on a new Florida law requiring drug tests for welfare applicants show that they are less likely than other people to use drugs, not more. One famous Floridian suggests that it’s the people who came up with the law who should be submitting specimens.

Columnist and best-selling author Carl Hiaasen offered to pay for drug testing for all 160 members of the Florida Legislature in what he called “a patriotic whiz-fest.” Several of the law’s supporters say they’re on board.

“There is a certain public interest in going after hypocrisy,” Hiaasen said Tuesday, two days after he made his proposal in a Miami Herald column.

“Folks that are applying for DCF (Department of Children and Families) money normally wouldn’t be standing in that line, and on top of that humiliation they now get to pee in a cup so they can get grocery money for their kids,” Hiaasen told The Associated Press in an interview at his Vero Beach home.

Gov. Rick Scott and other supporters of the law – the only one of its kind currently on the books in the U.S. – say the tests will save the state cash by weeding out people who would use welfare money on drugs. Critics say that just a few months after it went into effect, the law has already refuted the idea that people receiving public assistance are more likely to use drugs.

Preliminary figures show that about 2.5 percent of up to 2,000 applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families have tested positive since the law went into effect in July. Another 2 percent declined to take the test, Department of Children and Families officials say.

The Justice Department estimates that 6 percent of Americans 12 and older use illegal drugs.

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the law, saying it violates welfare applicants’ constitutional right against unreasonable searches. For that reason, a federal appellate court struck down a similar Michigan law in 2003.

The state hasn’t said how much it believes it has saved by requiring the drug tests, but some of the law’s most ardent backers say they’re willing to take Hiaasen up on his offer.

“Tell him to write the check,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Bennett. “I’ll be the first one to take it.”

The Bradenton Republican said he’d even sponsor a bill that would require legislators to get urine tests – and require Hiassen to pay for them.

“Half the citizens of the state of Florida probably think half of the Legislature is on drugs, anyhow,” Bennett cracked. “Nobody knows which half. That’s the problem.”

Rep. Jimmie Smith, an Inverness Republican who sponsored the measure, is also happy to accept. He’s a retired staff sergeant who ran an Army testing program as his unit’s drug coordinator.

Some legislative opponents of the law leaned against Hiaasen’s idea, including Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston. She had suggested – tongue-in-cheek – that lawmakers themselves agree to drug tests when the legislation was debated.

“I personally would be willing to be drug-tested, but again I don’t think you should be testing anybody unless there is a reasonable suspicion that they are taking drugs,” Rich said in an interview.

“It’s not a good return on investment …, a waste of Carl Hiaasen’s money,” said Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Hollywood Democrat who voted against the legislation. “He should use the money to help the homeless.”

Hiaasen, though, said he thought the tests would be well worth the cost: $10 to $25 each.

“It would have an incredibly high entertainment value for me, and I’d probably get another column out of it,” he said.

He said he’d also pay for a drug test for Scott.

The Republican governor not only urged lawmakers to pass the drug testing requirement, but ordered agencies under his control to test all new hires and do random testing of existing employees. He put the policy on hold, except for the Department of Corrections, due to a separate court challenge.

Scott spokesman Lane Wright noted that the governor’s office had a random drug testing policy for its employees before Scott was elected. He said the governor himself has not been tested since taking office in January but is “willing to be drug tested now.”

Hiaasen qualified his offer by saying he’d pay for the legislative drug tests only if all lawmakers took them together at the start of the legislative session in January.

“That way when the crazy stuff starts to happen a month or two later people won’t just automatically assume that they’re all stoned,” he said. “The reality will set in that these people … actually don’t have any drugs in their system and they’re still acting this way.”

That last sentence should scare the hell out of all sapient beings.

In the meantime the people who need our help the most are being humiliated, forced to be treated like parolees and generally dehumanized.

Well, I did warn you that Florida is where the human genome goes to die.

Oh well, until the rest of the universe figures that out, here’s a music video from someone who has too much money. That means he can afford the drugs he’s clearly doing.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2spZ-NDfS4&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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There are times when it’s fun to do this job. The kind of day when you wake up and stare happily at the morning’s results. I use a simple, customized, robot to search the World Wide Web, a/k/a the Internet a/k/a The Interweb a/k/a that Dying Fad, to see what is happening where on our humble planet. Today is one of those days. I happily perused various options. Some, while funny at first blush, tended to be VERY depressing when you read them. Like the nice lady who went to upgrade her breast implants and ended up with a Uniboob. You want to laugh but you also realize the many layers of hell she is going through. You certainly would not wish a similar fate on a loved one. Or an enemy.

But there are others that are just too good to pass up. For example, police in Attelboro, Massachusetts, are reporting that they arrested a man who washed his car in the nude.

At a public car wash.

A man who scrubbed his pickup truck in the nude at a Massachusetts car wash has been sentenced to a year of probation.

Robert E. Bailey, of Cumberland, R.I., pleaded guilty on Monday to open and gross conduct for being naked at Economy Car Wash in North Attleborough on May 31.

Police say Bailey was wearing shorts by the time they arrived at the scene and denied doing anything wrong.

A judge also ordered Bailey to stay away from the car wash and the witness and to continue counseling. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.

So, let’s see if we have this all straight. This genetic reject drove several hundred miles from his home in Rhode Island so that he could show up in a strange car wash and let his winky fly in the breeze? This is his idea of a good time? Remind me to NEVER party with that guy.

Okay, so he’s clueless in his own way, we can all admit that. Others are clueless in ways that defy description. For example, a nice ice cream shop in Florida unveiled its new mascot. An ice cream cone that just happens to look like a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The family that runs an Ocala ice cream shop said it never meant to offend anyone.

The Ice Cream Family Corner and Sandwiches restaurant opened just three months ago at the busy intersection of South Pine Avenue and Southwest 17th Street.

A worker came across an old ice cream costume in a back closet of the building, and decided to have one of the employees wear the costume and stand on the street corner to advertise the business.

Server Jasmine Gonzalez said they noticed business had dropped off severely two weeks later.

Gonzalez said they soon learned rumors were flying around town, specifically on Facebook, that the ice cream cone costume resembled that of a Klu Klux Klan member.

The family that runs the ice cream shop is from Puerto Rico, and said it didn’t even know what the Klu Klux Klan was until the controversy erupted.

The workers are no longer using the costume, and they said they want the community to know it was never intended to represent anything but an ice cream cone.

The controversy attracted plenty of media attention. During the lunch hour Tuesday, there were more reporters and cameras in the shop than there were customers.

See kids? This is why you pay attention in history class, so you don’t go out and commit acts of mind boggling stupidity. It will also stop you from opening a ham sandwich stand in Israel, so there are lots of practical benefits to school.

But sometimes clueless people can be fun. Or at least easily tied to your floor. Police in Brevard County, Florida report that a young lady tried to rob a convenience story with a toy gun to hilarious results.

A toy gun certainly calls for a game of cops and robbers, so when an a would-be robber with a plastic pistol came into a Florida convenience store, one clerk decided to play “let’s pretend” — and fooled the masked man into thinking he was a police officer.

Wilnelia Caraballo, 19, walked into a Palm Bay Kangeroo Express around 5:51 a.m. Sunday morning, intoxicated, masked, and holding a plastic “Uzi-type gun,” the Orlando Centinel reports, quoting police.

Store employees allegedly watched Carballo walk up to the check-out counter, which was unattended for the moment.

As Caraballo made her way around the counter, one of the store clerks — who is either fearless or knows a plastic gun when he sees one — yelled “Palm Bay Police. Get on the ground!”

Thinking that her plot had been foiled, Caraballo complied — at least for a moment. Reports indicated that the woman did make one attempt to escape, but store employees subdued her until authorities arrived.

Authorities later confirmed that Caraballo’s weapon of choice was, in fact, a toy.

Police took Caraballo to Brevard County Jail and charged her with attempted armed robbery.

My buddy, who’s a heartless cynic, figures the employees must be from out of town since no Floridians are smart enough to do something like that. Since I had some free time I blew a call down to the Palm Bay cops, explained my buddy’s premise and got hung up on.

I’ll take that to mean he’s right.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4yQFZK9YM&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

We live in uncertain times. Corporate oligarchies run amok and regular citizens almost become numb to the sound of their rights being trampled. Toss in the fact that many local municipalities seem to be run by diseased howler monkeys and you have a recipe for fomenting rebellion. How much can one society take before it breaks apart at the seams and becomes something none of us want? Sadly, there is a part of me that thinks we will find out sooner rather than later. That old cold war bogeyman, the Communist Party, has been making a comeback here in Chicago. Race rights groups, represented by a rainbow of colors – ironically enough, spout their eugenic laced bigotry as though there was a fact hidden in there somewhere. Religious fundamentalists, of all creeds, wrap themselves tighter and tighter in their paranoia without ever realizing that their most likely support groups are the very people they fear the most.

In other words, given what’s passing for normal these days, something really over the top has to happen before I notice. Well, something did. A California family has been ordered to quit holding bible study classes in their home or face fines of up to $500.

I almost wish I could make stuff up this weird, I’d be a millionaire.

An Orange County, California couple has been ordered to shut down a Bible study in their home amid complaints from local officials who say it is operating as a church.

Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 this month for holding what city officials called ‘a regular gathering of more than three people’, according to local reports.

The Fromms will reportedly face fines of $500 per meeting for any further ‘religious gatherings’ in their home.

Stephanie Fromm told CBS Los Angeles the city will require the family to obtain a conditional use permit to hold such gatherings.

A religious legal non-profit group – Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute – has taken up the family’s cause, calling it a case of religious freedom.

The couple’s attorney, Brad Dacus, said city officials rejected the Fromms’ appeal. They will appeal the decision to the California Superior Court in Orange County.

And they are prepared to take the case to the federal level if they have to.

Mrs Fromm told CBS2: ‘We’re just gathering and enjoying each other’s company and fellowship. And we enjoy studying God’s word.’

Mr Dacus said more than 20 Bible study groups meet in San Juan Capistrano.

He said the city ‘needed some kind of rational basis to justify their rigid intolerance towards this family for having a Bible study in their home.’

City Attorney Omar Sandoval said the issue is a matter of zoning.

‘The Fromm case further involves regular meetings on Sunday mornings and Thursday afternoons with up to 50 people, with impacts on the residential neighbourhood on street access and parking,’ he said.

Yeah, I believe him. That’s almost the exact same excuse used when cops roust five year old’s selling lemonade.

Of course, being conservative Christians, their protests are going to take a more traditional route, which is fine. There’s room here for everyone today.

However, I know my readers and they want boobs as well as brains. Sometimes, like now, I get lucky enough to give them both. Protesters in Salt Lake City, upset with more and more restrictive laws being imposed by the local Mormons, took to the streets wearing nothing but their skivvies.

Thousands of people stripped to their underwear and ran through Salt Lake City to protest what they called the “uptight” laws of Utah.

Undie Run organizer Nate Porter says the goal of the event Saturday was to organize people frustrated by the conservative nature of the state’s politics.

Nudity was prohibited by organizers. Participants donned bras, panties, nightgowns, swimwear or colorful boxer shorts — and some added political messages by expressing support for causes like gay marriage on their chests, backs or legs.

Salt Lake City is the home of the Mormon church, which is a vocal opponent of gay marriage.

Porter estimates 3,000 people participated in the run, which began in downtown Salt Lake City and circled past the state Capitol building about a mile away.

Of course, no protest is complete unless somebody’s naked. And in San Francisco a whole bunch of naked people got together to protest – and, no, I’m not making this up – restrictions on their public nudity.

one such restriction that has been suggested is that naked people follow basic common sense when it comes to public health and use a towel on their chairs.

We can’t have those Nazis telling us to do that, can we?

Hanging out on a street corner has taken on new meaning in San Francisco.

Several dozen men and at least one woman took part in a naked protest Saturday in an area of the Castro District neighborhood that has become known for its nude visitors. Several carried signs that read, “Nudity is Not a Crime” and “Get Your Hate Off My Body,” as they milled around, undeterred by the brisk weather and light mist.

San Francisco generally allows public nudity, but a city supervisor has proposed regulating the practice. Supervisor Scott Wiener’s proposal would require the clothing-averse to cover up in restaurants. It would also require nudists to put a cloth or other barrier under their bottoms if they take a seat in public.

Mitch Hightower, the organizer of the so-called “nude-in,” said it was not intended as a protest against the proposal. The goal, Hightower said, was to promote acceptance of the human body no matter what shape or form it comes in.

“The people out here believe there is nothing indecent or offensive about the human body,” he said.

The event, which had been scheduled before Wiener’s proposal was announced, was part of the unofficial celebrations leading up to the annual Folsom Street Fair, billed as the world’s largest leather and fetish event.

Some of the protesters say elements of Wiener’s proposal weren’t necessary. For instance, putting down a towel is already etiquette among nudists, said George Davis, 65, who wore a black fanny pack, a fake lei and sandals at the nude-in.

“As nudists, why do we have to go to a special beach or a special resort?” Davis asked. “Why can’t we just go to a park, which we’re doing today?”

Passersby mostly seemed amused by the demonstration. Some stopped to take photographs with the naked men.

“It doesn’t bother me in the least,” said Michael Zaverton, who was visiting from Cleveland.

Zaverton, 58, said he has gone to a nude beach. Still, he hesitated as he considered whether he would participate in a more public display like the nude-in.

“It takes a little more courage ’cause most of these guys, let’s admit it, are not body-beautiful,” he joked.

But Heather Flynn was not as amused. The Oakland resident, who was heading to a nearby screening of “The Little Mermaid” with her 7-year-old daughter, walked by briskly.

“When you’re at the corner of a kid’s event, I think you should cover up a little,” Flynn, 27, said.

Her daughter, Blanca, was more blunt. She scrunched up her face as she said the nudists should definitely put some clothes on.

I am about as far from being a prude as can be. I have been naked in many places, on several continents actually, and have never had a problem. Why not? Because I only do it around other consenting adults. I know, that’s silly of me and I should hang out naked in front of The Little Mermaid because ….. actually, there’s no good reason there.

Sorry protesters, I’ll support two out of three here today, but you freaks have got to toss on some togs and get lives.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yljbcRu3tiU&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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