News & Not News Megathread

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Deci said:
Sorry I'm not super-educated on the subject, but does anyone know how long it takes light to travel twenty light years? I've been under the impression that most of the stuff we look at in space isn't even really there anymore.
It's 20 years away, traveling at the speed of light.
 

Johnstantine

Skibbidy Boo Bop
Deci said:
Sorry I'm not super-educated on the subject, but does anyone know how long it takes light to travel twenty light years? I've been under the impression that most of the stuff we look at in space isn't even really there anymore.

Well, light travels at 186,282 miles a second. Multiply that times how many seconds are in a year and then again by another 20

1 second @ 186,282
1 minute @ 11,176,920
1 hour @ 670,615,200
1 day @ 16,094,764,800
1 year @ 5,874,589,152,000
20 years @ 117,491,783,040,000

So, it's 117,491,783,040,000...basically 120 trillion miles away.

The moon is 238,857 miles away, and that took three days at roughly 79,619 miles a day. I'm going to guess that with today's technology we could get there faster. But, let's face it, we haven't improved it all that much. So, let's go ahead and do the math on that. With 79,619 miles a day, it would take us roughly 1,475,675,191 days to get there. So, that's like...4,042,945 years.

Not so bad if you think of it as just 20 light years though=)
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gays_in_military

I just love how the article keeps giving out telling details of these guys who are trying to remain anonymous, mixed with the reasons why its so imperative they keep their secret:

When word came down of a judge's ruling that gays could serve openly in the military, an Air Force officer received joyous congratulations from a comrade. Realizing there was someone in the room who didn't know his sexual orientation, the officer pretended it was a joke and laughed it off.

I hope that someone doesn't read the news! But wait, that account wasn't a specific enough...

The Air Force officer was at work on his military computer when news of Phillips' ruling flashed up on CNN. A friend who knew his secret ran in and said, "You can come out of the closet now."

"I had to push him out and kind of laugh it off with the other person there in the office," the officer recalled. "It made me really, really nervous at first, because my first thought was, `Oh, crap. I just was outed, and I know that the policy is probably coming back. What do I do?'"

For the rest of the day, the officer — co-founder of a support group called OutServe — was worried some other friend might inadvertently say something. He wondered if he should go home until things calmed down.

Not that worried, apparently. If you're wondering what to do though, you probably shouldn't talk to the Associated Press, for starters. This one is arguably even better though:

"I'm not coming out yet because of the repercussions I might get," said an Army specialist at Fort Bragg, N.C., who, like others reached by the AP, did not want his name used. "I've got a year and a half left ... and I don't want just one day of me coming out to destroy all of what I worked for. I still want my benefits. I still want the military to pay for my college when I get out."
The soldier from Fort Bragg said he believes the ban is on its way out. But until then, he plans to continue "living a lie."

"The day that that does happen, then that's when I'll walk out of the darkness and say, `This is who I am. I've been serving my country for seven years, and I've done it just fine — being who I am,'" said the 23-year-old, who returned last weekend from a nine-month tour in Iraq.

The 6' 3" 225lb Captain with dark red hair and green eyes, of Irish-Mexican decent, who was born on July 24, 1987, didn't want his name used, so let's just call him... Juan O. No, that's too obvious... uuuh, let's say J. O'Malley.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/arts/30giraldo.html

Greg Giraldo died from and overdose on prescription pills. It's pretty sad, he was a funny comedian, one of the few who always made me laugh.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
A new word was literally just invented:

o·buri·u·ar·y
[oh-bury-oo-er-ee]
noun, plural -ar·ies, adjective
–noun
1.
a notice of the death of a person, often with a biographical sketch, as in a newspaper, at least two weeks after the time of death, or even after they've been buried.
–adjective
2.
of, pertaining to, or recording a death or deaths at an irrelevant time: the obituary page of a weeks old newspaper.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
At least I'm smiling now. :guts:


On topic: Here's something that'll make my friend leaving California not feel so bad about his timing, or maybe not:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_marijuana_legalization_justice

I doubt it'll pass anyway, but if it does I don't think this is going to be any more an issue for private users than previously, and would probably just get better unless the Obama administration went crazy. I mean, this is the situation as it stands with local law enforcement:

"We will continue as we are today regardless of whether it passes or doesn't pass," Baca said. His deputies don't and won't go after users in their homes, but public use of the drug will be targeted, he said.

Pretty tough, huh? Literally just don't do it right in front of the police! Even then, there's pot shops all over LA, and just about anybody can get a card to legally carry, so it's basically already legal here just from the old medical marijuana prop, so this would just completely open the floodgates, whatever the feds say. Here's the meat:

If California prevents police from enforcing the stricter federal ban on marijuana, the Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government cannot order local law enforcement to act, he said.

It "is a very tough-sounding statement that the attorney general has issued, but it's more bark than bite," Mikos said.

"The same factors that limited the federal government's influence over medical marijuana would probably have an even bigger influence over its impact on recreational marijuana," Mikos said, citing not enough agents to focus on small-time violators.

Federal drug agents have long concentrated on big-time drug traffickers and left street-level dealers and users to local and state law enforcement. As police departments began enforcing California's medical marijuana law, the DEA only sporadically jumped in to bust medical users and sellers that local law enforcement was no longer targeting.

Allen Hopper, a drug law reform expert at the American Civil Liberties Union in Northern California, predicted that federal agents would selectively crack down on marijuana growers and merchants instead of going after every Californian who uses pot.

"They don't have the resources to flood the state with DEA agents to be drug cops," he said.

Nearly all arrests for marijuana crimes are made at the state level. Of more than 847,000 marijuana-related arrests nationwide in 2008, for example, just over 6,300 suspects were booked by federal law enforcement, or fewer than 1 percent.

Consequently, the fight over legalization may end up the same way medical marijuana did, experts said.

When Californians approved their first-in-the-nation medical marijuana law in 1996, Clinton administration officials vowed a harsh crackdown. But nearly 15 years later, California's billion-dollar medical marijuana industry is thriving.

During the Bush administration, retail pot dispensaries across the state faced regular raids from federal anti-drug agents. Their owners were sometimes sentenced to decades in prison for drug trafficking.

Yet the medical marijuana industry still grew, and it has expanded even more since Holder said last year that federal law enforcement would defer to state laws on using it for medicinal purposes.

Besides California, 13 other states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana in recent years.

At the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Club, where you can buy marijuana-filled carrot cake and lollipops, manager James Kyne said the federal government would just be continuing "an endless cycle" with little positive effect.

Holder "is opening a bigger can of worms," Kyne said. "I really think the AG and the federal government could put our tax dollars to better use."

Yeah, you read that last part right, carrot cakes and lollipops. The only thing funnier than that is the idea that the same government that can't stop those weed-filled treats now would be able to after it's officially legalized.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/16/tyrannosaurus.cannibalism/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Tyrannosaurus Rex doesn't care about your perception of right and wrong.
 
I remember when the T-Rex was something to be feared. But now it seems all you would need is some tripping wire to take one out. And worse, you can use its carcass to lure the others.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/10/21/juan-williams-npr-fired-truth-muslim-garb-airplane-oreilly-ellen-weiss-bush/

Juan Williams fired by allegedly left leaning news organization for comments made on rightwing propagandist news organization. I don't really care about the original story, but his response is well played. Obviously makes him look good, but also raises a lot of interesting issues, such as prejudice in relation to fear, the media, and how much of that is justified or not. While I thought his specific admission about Muslims was irrational (the odds are so slim I'm honestly more afraid of random people not dressed in Muslim garb), it was to a make a larger point in defense of those groups, so he says. The whole thing is silly all around I guess, though so is random searching 90 year old Jewish ladies at the airport out of some misguided sense of objectivity. What's the standard for not being ignorantly prejudiced today? Ignorance to the opposite extreme? Having your guard down at all times? Also, how can people get past such feelings, irrational or not, if they can't talk about them without being fired? Though, it does help if you get a $2 million contract from Fox News to fall back on. Hey, if they want insensitive remarks, I can do a lot better than Juan!
 
http://sify.com/news/security-checks-at-us-airports-to-get-more-touchy-news-international-kk3qOgehajj.html
Security checks at US airports are set to get more 'touchy' for those who opt out of full-body scan, as TSA is set to change its pat-down procedure.

TSA officers used to pat down passengers with the backs of their hands, but now they'll use the fronts of their hands to search more than ever before, in some cases touching body parts that once were off limits.

One more reason not to fly to or through the States.
Though I gotta admit, this has incredible potential if you wanna make people uncomfortable. :troll:
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101106/ap_on_re_us/us_train_station_shooting

White ex-officer's sentence spurs Oakland protest

So basically the prosecutor couldn't prove he intentionally did it, so they found him guilty on manslaughter charging the transit officer. So...

An Oakland rally billed as a tribute to Grant turned into a march through the downtown area with residences nearby, where demonstrators broke car and bus windows late Friday night. Some carried a banner reading "Justice for Oscar Grant." Police helicopters hovered above, shining spotlights on the crowd.
riot
1. a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group, a government policy, etc., in the streets.
2. Law . a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes.
3. violent or wild disorder or confusion.

This isn't like a march against autism, I'm pretty sure that this qualifies as a riot. :schierke:

Walter is there a reason why they wouldn't want to label this as a riot?

Further on! Just so everyone knows why he ended up getting two years.
Prosecutors had sought a second-degree murder conviction, saying Mehserle became angry at Grant for resisting arrest.
However, jurors were given the choice of lesser charges, including voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. In reaching a decision on involuntary manslaughter, jurors found that Mehserle didn't mean to kill Grant, but his behavior was still so negligent that it was criminal.
The judge rebuked prosecutors for arguing that Mehserle intentionally shot Grant, saying there wasn't any evidence to back up that allegation. Perry also said he believed the videos showed Grant resisted arrest and many people, including Mehserle's fellow officers and Grant's friends, contributed to the tragedy.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I just wanted to note that after North Korea attacked South Korea today, CNN's two major photo headlines were about Natalee Holloway and TSA pat downs. Korea was hot linked below. :schierke:
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Griffith said:
I just wanted to note that after North Korea attacked South Korea today, CNN's two major photo headlines were about Natalee Holloway and TSA pat downs. Korea was hot linked below. :schierke:
I noticed that myself, but then I noticed they have a whole section dedicated to stories on the developing issue.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Walter said:
I noticed that myself, but then I noticed they have a whole section dedicated to stories on the developing issue.

I saw that too, underneath Natalee Holloway's totally inconsequential face and next to CNN's larger subsection concerning it's "Heroes Quiz", so it's still bass ackwards unless I just checked at the worst possible time before they could get the Korea story front and center. I notice the TSA pat down holiday fluff story is still the big picture in the middle of the page though (update: TSA was replaced by high school football/concussion story, "Was Jesus a Communist?" is coming up the ranks fast though =).
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Very interesting news:
http://chattahbox.com/science/2010/12/15/hiv-patient-‘functionally-cured’-after-stem-cell-transplant/

An American HIV patient being treated for leukemia in Germany underwent chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant to treat his advancing illness, and doctors were stunned to find that the procedure cured both the HIV and the leukemia, Fox News reports. Because the stem cells came from a donor with a rare, inherited gene mutation that makes carriers immune to HIV, the infusion allowed the patient to put his HIV diagnosis behind him.

Although the news is impressive, HIV experts warn that the therapy cannot yet be used on the entire HIV population, Fox News says. Noting that the patient is “functionally cured,” Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases warned that the stem cells used in this case are extremely rare, and that an HIV patient would not only have to find a stem cell donor with the unusual mutation, but would also have to be a match.

The patient in question has gone without HIV therapy for three years and doctors agree that he appears to be free of the virus, Fox News reports. Researchers hope that the news opens the door to new and different means of curing the HIV disease.

This is very interesting to hear about. It'd be interesting to see how many doors this breakthrough opens for Stemcell research. Hopefully it'll allowed in the US with full support.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
If true that is indeed quite remarkable. I'd heard before that some people were effectively immune to HIV, but for such a thing to happen... That HIV patient must feel like the luckiest man in the world.
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
My poor namesake...

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/13/horoscope-hang-up-earth-rotation-changes-zodiac-signs/
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Scorpio said:
My poor namesake...

On the other hand I couldn't be more delighted to no longer be a "cancer," at least astrologically. :griffnotevil:

Plus, my sign got upgraded to one that inspired the name of a Robot Master, just call me Gemini Man. :badbone:
 
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