Seeing loud and clear

Tristin, Provo, Utah — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:21:44 GMT

Will! You forgot to snope out an article before you posted it! The "indiscretions committed by members of congress" article is mostly bogus. My South African wife recently got the same article in an email about the government in South Africa. Check out the Snopes.com page:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/congress.asp

Seeing loud and clear

Howlin' Hobbit, Seattle, WA — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:32:36 GMT

Re: "Police kick some jerk's butt video of the day"

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WNDU-TV"

Nice job, MSM. Wonder where we can find the video now.

Seeing loud and clear

Clint, Chicago, Illinois — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:44:19 GMT

Two priests walk into a bar. A third one ducks.

Seeing loud and clear

Will Femia — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:48:11 GMT

Tristin, thanks. I knew something wasn't quite right with it.

Hobbit, geee, I don't know, maybe the WNDU-TV site?
(http://www.wndu.com/videoplus/headlines/9834111.html)

Seeing loud and clear

tony gallucci — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:16:48 GMT

here's the Snopes look at the congressional wrongdoing piece, which has been circulating via email for some time:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/congress.asp

Seeing loud and clear

Jess, Boston, MA — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 22:08:13 GMT

Alien Overlords...great Simpsons reference Will! One of my favorite episodes too...

Seeing loud and clear

Scott, Melbourne, Australia — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:05:23 GMT

Love the Simpsons reference Kent!

Seeing loud and clear

Marjorie, Illinois — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:14:44 GMT

Hey Will,

The Star Wars Lego game that is coming out this fall will have lightsaber capabilities with the Wiimote. I played it at Comic-con and it was AWESOME.

Seeing loud and clear

Chris Browning, Stillwater — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 04:54:54 GMT

The food digestion times...the source seems marginal at best. I'm skeptical.

Seeing loud and clear

David, Germany — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:03:34 GMT

The business with the egg and the equinox is a myth. You can stand an egg on end any day of the year. See this:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/egg_spin.html

Seeing loud and clear

Chris, Baltimore — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:52:20 GMT

Think maybe there's some bad science going on. The equinox/egg theory is bunk. You can balance an egg any day of the year...should be able to check snopes.com on that.

Seeing loud and clear

Will Femia — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:47:46 GMT

David, Chris, I was trying to make a joke because obviously you don't need to be a week before the equinox to balance a baseball bat either. Maybe I should have phrased it more like, "It may be a myth that eggs balance on end on the equinox but science has yet to fully explain why baseball bats balance themselves on end slightly before the equinox." ... or something.

Seeing loud and clear

Alex — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:03:29 GMT

Actually, the "standing an egg on end during the equinox" is a myth, you can do it any time if you're just careful, and they can stay standing for weeks if you don't bump them. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/egg_spin.html

I can only imagine standing a baseball bat on end is about the same.

Seeing loud and clear

Chris, Lawrence, KS — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:51:16 GMT

The food digestion page seems kinda sketchy. I mean, do certain foods really move through your digestive tract faster than others? If you had eaten a lime an hour ago, and then you ate some parsley, would the parsley race past it at some point on the way down?

Sounds like bad science to me. The page would make for some good math problems for kids, though.

Seeing loud and clear

Brian, San Francisco CA — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:48:56 GMT

re: Some of the other comments on digestion - most food takes pretty much the same amount of time to move through your digestive system and come out the other end (a little over a day if I remember correctly). What this seems to be is a chart of how long food takes to break down and have access to the calories and nutrients available in it.

If you look at the foods listed at various times, you will notice that the ones at the beginning tend to either be sugary/starchy, soft, or acidic; and the ones at the end tough and fibrous. Fiber is relatively indigestible and makes up most of the solid content of waste, which is why products like Metamucil and Citrucel are so popular for, ahem, "keeping things moving".

Seeing loud and clear

Nadeem Cokar, Calgary, Canada — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:14:30 GMT

We Canadians still pay anywhere from 5 to 40% more for a lot of items because of higher taxes and transportation costs. The booksellers in Canada just implemented a policy to peg the Canadian dollar at 85 cents US, so prices are supposed to come down. Before that, it was pegged at 65 cents, so this summer even though the Loonie was worth well over 90 cents American, we were still paying 25 cent difference "just because". You can get a Beemer for $48K in the States that will cost you $25K more here, so people go south, pay the all the fees and still end up $15K ahead. In the end, prices will stay higher because there’s no real overt pressure to reduce them, the distributors won’t lower their prices to the retail outlets because they don’t have to and despite cross-border shopping, the impact of that on a trillion dollar economy isn’t as great as you may think..

Seeing loud and clear

Catherine, Toronto, Canada — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:36:43 GMT

Will,

You're so right about the different prices on books now the C$ and US$ are almost at par. For the last year or so I've loaded up on books everytime I visit the US.

Seeing loud and clear

C.C. — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:07:16 GMT

"Police kick some jerks butt" please Will does wearing a badge give you the right to impose your will upon another person.I dont think so maybe you do but if I read the article correctly charges were dropped.
We are all allowed the right to dissent in a public forum in a civil manner and nothing I saw says anything different happened.
And yes I am one of those United States civilians that thinks the police cannot break the law to enforce the law although my wife thinks differently. lol. needless to say we cant watch C.O.P.S. together.

P.S. i hope im there when they assault you I will testify at your civil suit trial

Seeing loud and clear

C.C. — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:23:55 GMT

Not laughing anymore! my wife just watched this video and somehow comes to the conclusion that police have a right to assault civilians if they disagree with them.

huh ill think about it

Seeing loud and clear

DJ — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:08:33 GMT

Will, the several videos available on the WNDU page you linked above are wild stuff. This town's council meetings should be on C-SPAN -- they'd soon have one of the highest rated reality TV shows. It's obvious there is some serious history between David Snyder and some other folks, and not knowing what happened in the past rather limits one's ability to comment fairly on these videos in the present.

That being said, however, the claim by the officer that he was struck by Snyder does not seem to bear out at all by watching the raw footage. Whether or not Snyder had antagonized members of the police force and city council, that seems a pretty blatant loss of control by Officer Tiller -- which everyday folks are guilty of all the time, but which can never be tolerated by someone once they put on a badge and strap on a gun.

What's crazy is that cases like these are tried in the court of public opinion long before they ever get their day in actual court.

Seeing loud and clear

Noumenon, Mad., WI — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:48:49 GMT

Will, those police videos are kind of unique for a link blog, and really add a lot of value. As far as, is this the violence inherent in the system? what does the violence the police protect us from look like if anyone could safely videotape it? am I watching this out of concern or for a sick thrill? I'm starting to value your eclectic way of linking to things because of stuff like this.

Seeing loud and clear

Irvine, CA — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:00:55 GMT

Will
You are going out on a limb w Trotten--"why some want to stay in Iraq." Anbar found out Taliban way worse than U.S. Okay, but has little to do w the rest of Iraq. More balance please.

Seeing loud and clear

Joe Columbia, SC — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:03:49 GMT

WNDU should lose its NBC affiliation. They are tainting NBC's reputation. They have gone as far as only posting negative comments about the Snyders and rejecting those that are against police brutality. They are a sad excuse for a news source.

Seeing loud and clear

Nathan Fluet — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:07:22 GMT

You can keep up to date on the Snyder's situation by going here
http://abuse-of-power.org/modules/content/index.php?id=32
I have links to all of the articles about the incident plus Press Releases that David and his wife have sent me posted there.