Say what you want about him -- and I do -- but this is good stuff.

I have never really had all that much good to say about Bob Barr. I'm no fan of his stance on homosexuality and on a number of issues. But at this rate, I believe that comparatively speaking I might just swallow my pride and hold my nose come this November, and pull the lever next to his name (proverbially speaking)

What do I mean by "at this rate"? Here's what I mean:
(H/T: Last Free Voice.

Bionic Knees?

So, here's the deal: there is more interest today than ever before in harnessing the natural rythms of the body for kinetic-electric conversion. What you're about to see (should you choose to click "play") is a video that shows a new avenue for electrical generation which could with capacitance and battery storage provide -- assuming, of course, the bulkiness is overcome -- all the whirring joys of extended battery life for all the wearables or gargoyling that may come to pass.

Dystopian: Pretend to Be a Time Traveler

The following is, apparently, a video that is meant to be an ad for Dennis Kucinich -- though you don't discover that until the end. I find it quite entertaining, however, whom the only politician actually mentioned was. You industrial fans out there -- be prepared to be amused.

Video: South Korea Clones "Glow In The Dark" Cats

I am struck by the recollection that only recently the news was made that you just can't clone a calico cat. That being said, it would seem that once again our poor benighted felines are doing their part in the advancement of cloning science. Check this video for more:

The reasoning behind this act was that it was meant as a proof-of-concept for the breeding of cats, which are supposedly genetically quite similar to humans, with specific genetic disorders unique to human beings. This would qualify, then, as quite the genetic-science breakthrough.

Yes, it's unfortunate that animals need to be used for such research, but there reaches a point where you can only study genetic functions in a functioning genetic machine -- that is, an animal. Here's to hoping that the Green-Peaces and Animal Liberation Fronts of the world don't stop this vital and fundamentally important work.

Of Laffer, Deficits, and Poverty

Every once in a while, you see something that just plain makes your haunches bunch up in disgust. Apparently, this happens more to conservatives than it does to liberal, but I digress. Today, I should like to go over something that makes this happen to me every time I encounter it.

While looking into this little declaration from The Nation's Idiot, one area I thought I would start out with an examination into the continuation of Laffer-curve thinking. Whilst digging around on that, I found a piece apparently written by Laffer himself, from January of 2004. It is unfortunate, but expected, that this should appear on The Heritage Foundation's website -- unfortunate because The Heritage Foundation is as conservative a think-tank as MoveOn.org is liberal. This particular excerpt got me to thinking:

In 1913, the federal progressive income tax was put into place with a top marginal rate of 7 percent. Thanks in part to World War I, this tax rate was quickly increased significantly and peaked at 77 percent in 1918. Then, through a series of tax-rate reductions, the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts dropped the top personal marginal income tax rate to 25 percent in 1925.

That's right -- when the income tax was instituted, it's highest percentage was 7%. And within five years, it went to 77%.

This becomes all the more disturbing when we consider that not too long ago, someone took the time and effort to calculate the effective "flat tax" rate for America. And they found that this rate was ~40%:

The average marginal tax rate on incomes between $20,000 and $500,000 is 40.3%, the median tax rate is 41.8%, and the standard deviation of all of those rates is 5.3 percentage points. Basically, most of us pay about 40%, plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.

That's not a big range, particularly when you notice that it covers an income rise of 2,500%.

So I have a modest proposal: Ask your senators or representative if they have a clue about this. If they don’t, regardless of party, they shouldn't be in office. Vote accordingly.

So yes, while we discuss the FedGov deficit, what we fail to discuss is the impact on the expenditures and incomes of the average citizen; most especially the poor.

We have allowed ourselves to fall in to the fallacy of thinking that, merely because their incomes are untaxed, our lowest earners are themselves untaxed. And this simply is not so. Sadly, the practices of our government's "Glorious Leaders" seems to be equally economically inept: take, for example, the overwhelmingly under-reported fact that the most recent SCHIP expansion is based on a demonstrably regressive tax. And it is with this that this article comes full circle: While the national income tax's position on the Laffer curve is debatable, our sin-taxes are demonstrably and definitively on the right-hand side of the Laffer curve. And so, two things will result:

• The nation's poor will be unfairly taxed as compared to the rich, if Bush's veto is overridden.
• There will still have to be another source of revenue to cover the failure of this new, regressive, tax to generate $35 Billion.

And remember, folks -- I'm a proud, card-carrying member of the "He-Man President Bush Hater's Club". While it is arguable that this lack of economic understanding is itself understandable in the everyday man -- it's called "rational ignorance" for a reason -- the problem with making allowances for such when it comes to our leaders is that it leads, demonstrably and as evidenced above, in horribly frequent "unintended consequences".

So, then -- for those of you still paying attention, please consider the following: Rather than leaving the welfare of our nation's poor -- you can't really call them destitute; we don't have people starving to death here like still happens in other first-world nations like Japan -- wouldn't we be better off if we, you know, reduced that 40% flat tax rate to something more sane?

The poor would be able to purchase more, or have more left over -- so the actual loss in tax revenue there would, you know, go to a good cause, like upwards mobility amongst the poor. And as to the rich... well, it is still arguable that decreases in their tax rate will still generate higher revenues.

How Many "Breakthroughs" Away Are We From The Sex 'Droids?

Perhaps there are more tasteful ways to put that point. But when you combine the American invention -- the "RealDoll" -- with this latest development from (where else) Japan, of a robot that performs facial massages, yet another advent of science-fiction seems ever more the likely.

What development is that, you ask? Why, this one:

It's a minor step -- but the idea of objects (inanimate or otherwise) performing and being used for human luxuries seems to be more and more... common nowadays. One can only imagine that it won't be too long now until some entrepeneurial spirit figures out he can rig up a -- by then -- simple machine to something like the RealDoll, and then rent 'her' (or 'his') time to johnny-on-the-street.

What makes this interesting is: will the moral crusaders see fit to try and ban such an activity, should it develop? And -- if they don't -- what, then, is the justification for telling a real flesh-and-bone woman that she can't do the same with her own body?

A Hazard of Blind Technophilia

Many transhumanists are activists for what is called "mind uploading"; the idea that we can have our 'meat-brains' uploaded into computers, to live out our lives in electronic wonderlands a la today's videogames. And to be fair, with things like "Heavenly Sword" for the PS3, that's no surprise -- imagine where things will be in twenty years. It's pretty hard to imagine that, given the choice between an 'eternal' virtual playground where even the laws of physics are up for grabs, and this grubby ol' world of ours, that even the majority of people would choose the physical.

But there's just one tiny problem with this sort of thinking: electronics are vastly inferior, in terms of survivability, to biological neurons. No computer yet built has operated at full load for a year continuously; yet our bodies do this for decades. By way of example of what I mean, please consider the following video:

To be fair, this is really nothing more than a technological problem -- and technological problems tend to get solved over sufficient time -- but a bit of realism would go a long way towards assuaging the fears and doubts of those who question the realities we transhumanists propose.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodies?

Tragedies can strike anywhere, at any time. There is no real pattern to be discerned from when and where mad gunmen will strike -- saving that they tend to commit their mass shootings on so-called 'gun free zones' -- but when the mad gunman is himself a policeman, we have to ask: who will protect us from the people whom are supposed to protect us?

Video: North Korea's Weapons Pledge

With all the furor over Iran's roguishness over the last few years, it is worth noting that, when the current Administration's term began, there were two "major Rogue states": Iran and North Korea. North Korea was by far the most dangerous of the two. So with this thought in mind, we must now ask ourselves: which is more effective -- "Cowboy" Diplomacy, or "Regular" Diplomacy? By way of answering that question, I submit the following:

Video: Over-the-Phone Lie Detectors

The technology is called Voice Stress Analysis. It is used extensively in insurance call-centers, and has been around for a few decades. Essentially, it detects what statements you make which you feel an unusual amount of stress about compared to your "baseline" -- and thus makes guesses or assumptions about your mendacity. Now here's a question: With the "Bush Wiretapping Scheme", what makes anyone think that this sort of technology isn't being used, to pick up the conversations that people feel "anxious" about? Observe:

Wait -- is it still okay to mock him?

I've heard it said that it's not "nice" to make fun of the intellectually disabled. It's bad manners. So I have to ask, are we still allowed to put out things like the following video and laugh at them, or is this just another sign of what happens when you lie to your kids and tell them that they can do anything they put their minds to?

The infamous "Childrens Do Learn" comment. And think: this man is using a teleprompter!

Videos: How Is This Helping?

With the recent news that Robert Gates, the new Secretary of Defense, has requested an additional $190 Billion in funding for the Iraq War, we are left asking: how is this really helping? Note further that this doesn't cover the increase in spending necessary to care for those whom 'We The People' must now care for specifically because they became disabled in the line of duty -- and that's not a duty I would have this great nation shirk. Regardless of whether you think the conditions the men and women you'll see in the first video are justified by the 'need to be in Iraq', I ask you: how is that helping to protect us from what you'll find in the second?

Video the first:

Video the second:

Video: China Attempts To Go Green

It's a message some of us don't seem to want to hear; that there is a balance between the cost of 'alternative technology', and the cost of energy. Once that threshold is crossed, without incentives and without mandates, the crossover will happen on its own. And for China, water heating seems to have already reached that point.

Video: Interview with Craig Venter, advocate of Human Genetic Engineering and Synthetic Life

This man is the quintessential libertarian transhumanist success story: listen to him talk and you'll hear that as he advocates advances in genetic understanding, he's also published his own mapped genome, what many people consider highly private. And yet, he also talks in terms of how private activities are far more effective than government endeavors. Watch and see for yourself.

Video: Death "Raises Questions" About Gene Therapy

Not too long ago, a woman died tragically and unexpectedly. Her name was Jolee Mohr. A detailed report can also be found here. In short, she died of a fungal infection that became developed, acutely, the day after she received her second injection of a gene-therapy trial viral vector for rheumatoid arthritis. This death is tragic. But given that it was a trial, and that the company involved is doing everything in its power to act responsibly, do we really need to "question" Gene Therapy, or is this just luddist activism encompassing one family's tragic loss? Watch this video, and form your own opinions.