Now This Is How An Election Should Be Done!

Have you ever used a coin as a tiebreaker? I know you have. We've all done it, right? Heads or tails? I don't know where that one went. But a quarter was used in a very unusual vote here in Temple City, California - an important one, nonetheless. Let me tell you about it.

A city council seat in Temple City was decided by a coin toss Friday, after two candidates wound up tied in the election for three open seats on the five-member council. Newly elected Temple City Councilman Fernando Vizcarra won the seat over incumbent Dan Arrighi, after city officials discovered a quirk in the state elections code that allows ties to be decided by chance and Vizcarra won the toss. According to the "Los Angeles Times," although runoff elections are an option, the two candidates decided that they would decide their fates with a toss of a quarter. Vizcarra is a former councilman who had lost reelection two years ago.

Temple City has no provisions for runoff elections, Flandrick said, and in their absence the city follows state election law, which call for picking a winner by chance - drawing lots or a coin flip. Vizcarra said a runoff election could have cost the city $35,000.

In Florida a Democratic primary runoff for a seat on the Gilchrist County Commission ended with John Rance Thomas and Edwin Douglas tied at 909 votes each. The tie remained after a recount. Under Florida law, a tie in a primary runoff is to be broken by drawing lots, like a coin toss or drawing straws. The candidates chose a coin toss.

Why just apply this principle to local politics and runoff elections. Let's put it to the test in our Federal government. Why spend lots of money and time with the candidates having us think about things like how much we care for the preservation of the American Wilderbeast? Let's just flip a damn coin.

Let's put both presidential candidates on a stage, let them debate the facts a bit, then bring out Bob Barker and a couple of NFL referees and have them do a coin toss to elect the president. Now that would be simple and hell, it could even be a Pay-Per-View event!

Heads, you lose. Tails, you're elected.

Gas Prices Approach $3.00 in CA:I Guess I Should Be Happy For The Oil Companies!

I went to the gas pump this weekend. And I've only got one thing to say about it. It sucked! U could not believe that I was paying $2.93 per gallon to fill my truck. It's so much friggin' fun to watch that pump go up like a lottery jackpot...$25, $30, $40, $50, $60! Holy crap! Maybe I should write my new friend Ed Nabor in Georgia and ask him to fill up my tank!

But hey, I shouldn't feel all that bad now, should I? People in other parts of the world pay more than I do, right? I mean in London they pay $5.79, Amsterdam $6.48, Havana $3.03 and my personal favorite - Caracas $0.12! That blows my mind, 12 cents! I could fill up for 3 bucks and still have money for that AM/PM hot dog with all the fixin's!

So why are gas prices so high? There are a number of factors at work at the pump. Tight supplies and speculators (who the hell are the "speculators?") helped send our prices rising for the fifth consecutive week as California, with unleaded regular averaging nearly $3 a gallon, overtook Hawaii with the nation's most expensive gasoline, the Auto Club said Friday. Check out this graphic I found online. Why is California the only state in RED? Are we our own country or what????


But hey, the big oil companies have other reasons for the price surge...read on.

For starters, gasoline prices almost always rise as summer approaches because demand goes up as people go on vacation and use more gas. Refiners anticipate this and starting about now, they begin building up stockpiles of gasoline. If they make enough, and can keep running at full capacity through the summer, gas prices may not rise too much from here.

But if demand gets too high and/or they can’t make enough gas, prices will go higher. Sometimes this is because a big refinery has to shut down for maintenance or fire. Some parts of the country, namely mine, also see local spikes in prices because some states require “reformulated” gasoline in the summer months to meet clean air standards. So you can only sell a specific blend for a particular region. If supplies of that blend get low, the price goes up. I say screw the blend. My truck doesn't run any better because of it. Keep my prices down!

Now for my Big Oil Corporation Hat. The question I ask you is this: why should an oil company -- or refiner, or gasoline dealer -- charge less than the market price? If they did, who should they give all those profits back to? Me? Should our government set price caps on gasoline prices? If it did, why would oil companies continue to make gasoline? Without profit, what's their motivation? You see, the oil companies can justify their prices!

In my opinion, one reason oil supplies are tight today: not enough money has been invested in drilling new wells. I'd rather see oil companies making the cash they need to poke new holes in the ground. And let's start drilling on our own territory. Make those derricks look like cool little Survivor Islands.

Sure, oil company executives and investors are pocketing a nice chunk of change with their $50-oil-price windfall. I know that most of the money I'm spending to fill up my gas tank is going to big oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Iran because the United States produces about 10 percent of the world's oil supplies (and falling). OPEC produces four times that much. So let's get off our butts US Oil Companies and get them drills-a-drillin. Let us see some Beverly Hillbilly type gushers. Let's stop giving the money to other countries and keep it here where it belongs. We'll have more oil and keep more people employed in the process.

Wouldn't we rather have the money going to U.S. oil companies? At least I'm not paying $5.79 a gallon like those people in London. No wonder they drink excessively!

It's Church Sunday:Knowing A Little About Religion Isn't A Bad Thing!

Okay people, sometimes being dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education climate driven by "the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading,"

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.

His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn't, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.

"More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected," he says, citing President Bush's speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson's Quran.

"If you want to be involved, you need to know what they're saying. We're doomed if we don't understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can't outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda."

In theory, everyone favors children knowing more. The National Education Association handbook says religious instruction "in doctrines and practices belongs at home or religious institutions," while schools should teach world religions' history, heritage, diversity and influence.

Only 8% of public high schools offer an elective Bible course, according to a study in 2005 by the Bible Literacy Project, which promotes academic Bible study in public schools.

Also today, "there is more emphasis on religious experience as a mark of true religion and less emphasis on doctrine and knowledge of the faith."

Still, it's the widely misunderstood 1963 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that may have been the tipping point: It removed devotional Bible reading from the schools but spelled out that it should not have been removed from literature and history.

But she says the backlash went too far. "Now, you can't use biblical characters or narrative in anything. We've stopped teaching stories. We teach facts, and the characters are lost."

The bottom line is this. We are not all on the same one path to the same one God and religions aren't all saying the same thing. That's presumptuous and wrong. They start with different problems, solve the problems in different ways, and they have different goals. Having a little bit of knowledge about what most of the world is based upon isn't a bad thing. I am a Christian, but I've made it my point to find out what other religions are all about. I may not agree with every religions core beliefs or doctrines but they all point at one thing...God is somehow important and faith in that God could make you a better person. Is that so bad?

Okay ACLU, I'm bent over, my pants are down, and I'm ready for my spanking!

An Inspiration To Us All

A man who once weighed well over a half ton left his house for the first time in five years Wednesday — wheeled outside on his bed to greet neighbors and see a mariachi band. "The sky is beautiful and blue and what I want is to enjoy the sun," said Manuel Uribe, who had once been certified by doctors as weighing 1,235 pounds. Though still unable to leave his bed, Uribe has lost 395 pounds since he began a high-protein diet a year ago. He now weights about 840 pounds.

To celebrate the milestone, six people pushed Uribe's wheel-equipped iron bed out to the street as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered. Then, a forklift lifted him onto a truck and the 41-year-old rode through the streets of San Nicolas de los Garza, in Mexico.

With dozens of reporters and photographers in tow, Uribe traveled along, passing the town's plaza and church and waving at clusters of people eager to get a glimpse of him.

"It fills me with joy to see he's getting better and getting a little sun," Uribe's neighbor Guadalupe Guerra said. "I would go crazy if I had to be inside my house for so many years."

Uribe was a chubby kid and weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent. In 1992, he said his weight began ballooning further. Since the summer of 2002, Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him.
He drew worldwide attention when he pleaded for help on national television in January 2006. Afterward, an Italian and a Spanish doctor both visited and offered gastric bypass surgery.

But Uribe chose to accept help from Mexican nutritionists working with the Zone diet. He says he will stick to that diet until he reaches his goal of 265 pounds. "My goal is to leave the house on my own but I know that will be a long process," he said. Doctors say it may take between three and four years for Uribe to reach his goal.

I personally am proud of this guy. He's worked hard to get where he's got and it seems like he's got the gumption to get where he's going. I've been there. I can relate. I was 459 pounds when I did my gastric bypass. Now I'm 218 pounds and life has gotten a lot easier. Losing the weight isn't the final goal, it's changing the lifestyle that made you get there in the first place.

Whatever it takes to do that...go for it! Do it for yourself, your own health not for those around you or so you fit in to what society thinks is right!

Keep it Manuel...you're an inspiration to us all!

Homeland Security's Real ID Act:You Better Be Concerned About YOUR Privacy!

There's been a lot of talk recently about the Federal ID. I've hear commentaries on it on a lot of radio and TV newscasts. I think it's a good idea in theroy, but the government has got a long way to go on protecting our security...and privacy. Is our future going to be decided by our Big Brother, the government. Yep.

This is going to be a hot topic in the coming months. The battle on what techology to use is only beginning. People have found problems with the RFID chips. And what is to prevent someone from cloning yours? And what stops from terrorists or illegal aliens from making there own ID's once they figure out how to do it? So, to make it easier for you to understand, check out this article from the website eWeek...

After a rising tide of concern over the security, privacy and monetary implications of the Department of Homeland Security's Real ID Act, the Department has handed down proposed regulations that drastically alter its original intent. The proposed regulations, handed down March 1 by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, suggest using machine-readable bar code technology rather than RFID (radio-frequency identification), as had been anticipated, and called for states to implement (or upgrade) a database to hold documentation information, but stipulated that the government will not require states to integrate with a national database.

"I always want to dispel the notion that the Real ID Act or our standards mandates anything like a Big Brother kind of database or style of government," said Chertoff. "We at the Department of Homeland Security in the federal government will not build, will not own, and will not operate any central database containing personal information. The data will continue to be held at the state level as it has traditionally been since they began to issue driver's licenses. And by improving the quality of the documents, we're going to make it very, very much harder for people to forge them, counterfeit them, or alter them."

Chertoff also extended the date states have to comply with the Act from May 11, 2008, to a "phase-in period" through May 2013.

The Act, as it was initially proposed in 2005, would have each state implementing a database to hold digital images of citizen documentation—birth certificate, social security number, W-2 form, passport, and utility bill, for example—and share that information with other states, countries and the federal government through a national database. It also called for the implementation of machine-readable technology—the front runner for which was RFID, a technology that has a lot of security and privacy advocates up in arms given its inherent risks.

What DHS proposed instead is the use of bar code technology on driver's licenses. The regulation would require each state's license to have on its face space available for 39 characters for full legal name, address, digital photograph, gender, date of birth, signature, document number and machine-readable technology. That boils down to the use of 2-D bar codes already used by 45 states and the District of Columbia, according to Chertoff, who said, "DHS leans toward encrypting the data on the bar code as a privacy protection and requests comments on how to proceed given operational considerations."

Here's where the proposed regulations get tricky. While DHS doesn't require states to include the use of RFID or biometrics—face or iris scans, for example—it isn't eschewing those practices either.

"States may independently choose to implement biometrics into their driver's license process," said Chertoff. "[DHS] does not require a State to collect fingerprints, iris images, or other biometric data in connection with obtaining a license and has no plans to serve as a repository for the face images the states will collect."

The fear of many Real ID Act proponents, particularly Rep. Jim Guest, a Missouri Republican who is leading a 38-state rebellion against the Act, is that even watered--down regulations, once enacted, can be changed to include stronger requirements.

"My concern is that even if [DHS] waters [the Act] down a bit they will try and accomplish what they want with some other legislation," said Guest, who advocates a repeal of the Act. "Homeland Security has total control, with no judicial or legislative control over this. Once they issue this, there is no way of stopping them."

Chertoff, in his public comments, said that the implementation of the Real ID Act's actual technology boils down to common sense.

"Now here's how these standards are going to work. It's very simple and it's really a matter of common sense," said Chertoff, during a March 1 press conference. "Applicants are going to need to bring documents to their state Department of Motor Vehicles offices in order to validate or prove five things: who they are, what their date of birth is, what their legal status is in the United States, their social security number, and their address. None of this stuff is top-secret stuff."

Many states, however, have said they cannot afford the potentially millions of dollars it will take to implement the extra technology mandated by the Act. DHS said yesterday that up to 20 percent of the state's Homeland Security Grant Program funds can be used to help states implement Real ID. The funds will be made available during the 2007 grant cycle.

The public and other interested parties have 60 days from March 1 to submit comments about the proposed regulations. After the two-month period closes, DHS will review the comments and submit the final rules for compliance.

So there you have it. All around the internet there are article on how to fake, forge or destroy the upcoming technology in these ID cards. Our security is at risk. The battle has just begun...stay tuned!

The Bumbling Revolution - Part 4:The Final Word On All This Crap!

The digital TV transition has finally entered the home stretch

This is the last installment of my TechnoBabble HDTV blog. I'm sure you're either bored or confused of both. But hey, I'm here to answer the questions for you. If you know me, and love me, and still have questions...e-mail me or call me. The time has come to upgrade to and HDTV 16x9 set. We'll be forced to. What you decide is up to you and what you get should be what looks great to you...not what TechnoBabble confuses the hell out of you. So here's the final lowdown on TV's transition to the digital era...

Until the transition to digital television is complete, TV stations will continue broadcasting on their analog channels while phasing in digital broadcasts on a separate DTV channel. Several years ago, the FCC established a timetable for terrestrial (over-the-air) broadcasters to convert to DTV. While many stations missed earlier deadlines, most commercial and public TV stations are currently broadcasting digitally at least part of the time.

Earlier deadlines weren't strictly enforced, but everyone seems to be taking the Feb. 2009 analog shutoff date more seriously. As you shop for an HDTV, be aware of the following dates:

July 1, 2006: As part of the FCC's "tuner mandate," all TV sets with screens measuring 25" or larger must include an over-the-air digital tuner. Note: this rule doesn't apply to "monitor" displays which lack any type of built-in tuner.

December 31, 2006: This was the FCC's original target "analog shut-off date" when all TV stations would have been required to turn off their analog signals. However, the proposal included a loophole that allowed the deadline to be extended until most homes (85%) in an area were capable of watching digital TV programs. This deadline is no longer in effect.

March 1, 2007: The final requirement of the tuner mandate calls for all TVs with screens measuring 13" or larger to include an over-the-air digital tuner. Again, this won't apply to monitor displays.

February 17, 2009: In legislation passed in early Feb. 2006, the U.S. Congress chose this date for the "analog shutoff," when all TV stations will be required to turn off their analog signals and broadcast only digital signals. The measure was part of the budget bill signed into law by President Bush.

If 2009 rolls around and you still don't own a digital TV, don't worry — you won't be left staring at a dark screen. Any TV connected to a cable or satellite set-top box should continue to work just fine. Plus, the analog shutoff legislation includes funds that are earmarked for helping owners of analog TVs purchase inexpensive converter boxes that would allow them to view over-the-air digital broadcasts on their old TVs.

HDTV or HDTV-ready?

Once you know which type(s) of digital TV signals are available to you, you're ready to consider which type of digital TV makes the most sense. There are two basic categories of HD-capable televisions.

An HDTV (also called an "integrated HDTV") combines an HD-capable display and an HDTV tuner in one package. The tuner can usually receive both digital and analog over-the-air broadcasts. Nearly all HDTV sets use the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio.

An HDTV-ready TV (also called an "HDTV monitor") has the high-resolution display, but must be connected to a separate HDTV tuner to receive digital broadcasts. Many HDTV-ready TVs include an analog (NTSC) tuner for viewing conventional programs. HDTV-ready TVs can have either the squarish 4:3 aspect ratio or the widescreen 16:9 ratio.

The selection of HD-capable TVs has gradually shifted from mostly HDTV-ready models to mostly HDTVs now. The FCC is requiring that all TVs with screens 13" and larger include a digital tuner by March 1, 2007. If you live in an area where most or all of the TV programming you care about is available via over-the-air digital broadcasts, choosing an integrated HDTV is a no-brainer. But if digital broadcasts are limited in your area, or if you subscribe to satellite TV service, an HDTV-ready TV may be a sensible choice.

Again, my opinion and the bottom line on this is...get a set that is right for you. You're going to spend a bunch more money for a new HDTV set and you need to be happy. Just pick the one thats right for you!

The Bumbling Revolution - Part 3:Which HDTV Is Right For You?

When purchasing an HDTV set, everybody thinks that having the most "up-to-date" technology is where it's all at. My opinion on that is bullsh--! There are so many changes going on nowadays with HDTV displays that it can ben mind-numbing. In my opinion, you should get the best possible HDTV that works for you now! Go to the store, see what you like, check out the picture and get one that fits in your budget. I'm pretty sure you'll be happy.

But for those who have more "techo-questions", hopefully I can answer them here to help you make the choice for your next TV set.

What should you consider when shopping for an HDTV set?
Decide on Screen Size. Measure the distance between your primary seating area and the TV's desired location when considering size, both width and depth. To take advantage of what HDTV offers, you want to sit within optimum viewing range. Sitting too far away diminishes the overall impact, while sitting too close reveals the screen's "structure" (those tiny "dots" that are really called pixels). There is no set rule, so try out various sizes and distances. Yet, keep in mind, the higher the resolution the closer you can sit to the screen.

So what type of HDTV or Flat Panel should I get?
Consider Plasma vs. LCD vs. Rear or Front Projection. Some of it is personal preference, as well as budget. LCDs start as small as 10 inches and go up from there. If you plan on watching TV in a room with a lot of light, LCD has the edge over plasma, with its bright picture and its special surface coatings that reduce room reflections. Yet LCDs generally have slower video response times than plasmas, which is noticeable on sports and fast action scenes. On the other hand, Plasmas, which start at 37" and go up to 103", have wide viewing angles, high contrast ratios, excellent color, deep blacks, fast response time and are generally priced less than LCDs above 42". However, prices of larger-sized LCD TVs are falling.

A year ago plasma was the leader for large flat panel TVs. For a few reasons, better contrast (blacker blacks - keep reading for the contrast ration section below), cheaper and a wider viewing angle. LCD is making tremendous strides, and for a panel under 40 inches, I would probably go with LCD. But for greater than 40 inches it is still plasma that has the biggest bang for the buck. This is changing and could be the other way around this year. The old myth of plasma burn in has been fixed by most mainstream manufacturers by a number of methods. It really comes down to a personal choice. If you have a home theater environment, then plasma is probably the way to go. If you have a bright room, and you will be watching the TV staight on, then LCD would be a better choice.

Another thing you'll hear about is contrast ratio. The contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks a display can show. The higher the contrast ratio, the greater the ability to show subtle color details and tolerate ambient room light. Contrast ratios of at least 1,500:1 are good, but 2,000:1 or higher is considered excellent.

Lastly, they'll blast you with crap about resolution. The quality of your picture depends on how many pixels and how many lines of horizontal and vertical resolution are displayed. The more lines, the more detail, the better the picture. The most common HDTV resolutions are 720p, 1080i and (as of late) 1080p. Look for these numbers when you shop. And, while 1080p is the highest resolution currently available, you don't necessarily need to go that high to enjoy a great picture. With a smaller screen size or larger seating distance, you may not be able to see the difference between 720p and 1080p.

Lastly, and pretty darn important in my opinion is cables.
Don't be too cheap here if you want a "great" picture. Most HDTV's today have a number of connections at the back. Which one to use will depend on what you are hooking up to the set. You should know, that in order to get HD resolution you have 3 choices. Component (red, green, blue cable), DVI or HDMI. Component is an analog cable that is the same on many DVD players. This will allow you to get up to 1080i on your flat panel. DVI and HDMI are digital cables. They will allow you to get up to 1080p. The video signal on both cables is the same. With HDMI, they add the audio signal on the same cable. I am always confused as to why someone would want to run an HDMI cable to their flat panel. First, they are expensive. Some are as high at $200 for a 4 ft. cable. Second, most people who have a flat panel TV, will have spent some money on a surround sound system. Granted the speakers that come with today’s flat panels are much better than the old CRT speakers. They don’t come close to the quality of your surround system. So my recommendation is to go with component or DVI and put the sound through your surround system. Use the menu on your TV to turn off the speakers that are attached to your TV. I can’t stress enough, the cables you should not be using are the composite, which is the single yellow RCA type plug. Or the small 5 pin S-video cable. Neither of these 2 will give you the HD resolution that you paid for.

Well, are you confused yet? In conclusion, pick the HDTV set that works for you. Compare. Put your choices side by side and see which one has the better picture. What fits into your decor.

Hey, this is just my opinion, I may be wrong!

The Bumbling Revolution - Part 2: It's All Screwed Up!

I have been asked by numerous people, numerous times, to explain HDTV. Or said in a better way, “Which flat panel TV should I buy?”

720x480, 640x480, 1920x1080... what is the significance behind these and other aspect ratios we sometimes love to hate? In this TechnoBabble segment of my blog, I'll try to present a straightforward introduction to the significance of video aspect ratios, and how video differs when presented on old style and new style televisions. Learning the differences between formats will give you a better understanding of exactly how video is displayed.

When you look at your old CRT television it is slightly wider than it is taller. This ratio is described as 4:3. Meaning it is 4 units wide by 3 high. The newer flat panels (and even some CRTs) came out in the wide screen format. This aspect ratio is described as 16:9. This is the standard for most flat panel screen, whether they be LCD or Plasma. The 16:9 ratio is closer to the theater experience, that allows you to see all of the picture.

Yes, many of you have looked on a DVD box and read "Anamorphic Widescreen 16:9 - 2.35:1" and thought "what the Fu*k!" Nevertheless, most of you will be familiar with the idea of ratios even if you think you don't. Imagine, for example, you are mixing a cocktail drink. It is four parts vodka to three parts of soda. That would be a ratio of 4:3. It doesn't matter if you used four gallons of vodka to every three gallons of soda, or four egg cups of vodka to every three egg cups of soda, it would still be a ratio of 4:3!

Aspect ratios work exactly the same way. Interestingly enough, your "old-style" TV screen is probably an aspect ratio of 4:3. That is, three parts down by four parts across. We measure the height and the width. For example, in the image below we have a ratio of 1.33:1 (or 1.33 to 1).

A second very often used aspect ratio is 16:9. That is, sixteen parts to every nine parts. This is basically what you will get from a widescreen TV.

Because they still represent the overwhelming majority of TVs in the marketplace, most television programming is already properly formatted for standard 4:3 TV's. But many movies as well as a small but steadily increasing number of TV shows (for example, David Letterman, American Idol, All of the CSI's) are broadcast in wide-screen format. Seen on your "old-style" 4:3 TV this letterboxing format--named because it duplicates the effect of staring through a mail slot--leaves black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

Looking at your "old-style" 4x3 TV above, the letterbox bars are visible at the top and bottom--but you can see how the director intended the shot to look.

Standard TVs are pretty straightforward, but aspect-ratio issues can get a bit confusing once you upgrade to a set with a 16:9 screen (most HDTVs, for instance). Let's take a look at the common aspect-ratio problems in the wide-screen HDTV format.

The main problem with 4:3 sets is getting the rectangular shape" of wide-screen programming to fit the squarish "hole" of a standard TV. 16:9 TVs have the opposite problem: decades' worth of TV programming has been produced to fit the squared-off 4:3 aspect ratio, not the luxuriously wide space of a 16:9 display. There are several solutions, but you'll need to decide which sacrifices you're willing to make: deforming the picture, losing a portion of the horizontal image, sacrificing the resolution, or a combination of the three.

Before we take a look at the most common aspect-ratio problems that afflict wide-screen TVs, it's important to ensure that devices connected to wide-screen TVs - which include the overwhelming majority of HDTVs - should be set to 16:9.

You may ask yourself, "How do I get rid of those vertical black bars?" There are black (or gray) bars on the left and right sides of the screen when watching standard TV content on any HDTV set, for instance. This problem has three possible solutions. There's no right answer--just choose the one that's most visually pleasing to you.

Option one is you could use the zoom control on the TVto blow up the image, eliminating (or at least minimizing) the black bars. The image will fill the screen but you'll miss any action at the extreme top and bottom of the screen, which will be cut off--bad news if you're looking at the stock ticker, news crawl, or subtitles. Furthermore, the picture will appear softer because it's being electronically blown up, just like the muddy images one gets when using the digital zoom function on a digital camera.

Option 2 would be to set the TV's aspect-ratio control to Stretch or Full.The image will stretch to fill the screen. The black bars are gone, but to fit the square 4:3 image to the wider screen, the picture has been stretched horizontally, making everyone appear squat and bloated.

Lastly, you could set the aspect-ratio control to a nonlinear stretch mode such as Panorama or TheaterWide. The image will stretch to fill the screen, but only the extreme left and right will be distorted; anything toward the center of the screen will be displayed close to its proper proportions. It's a happy medium between native 4:3 and stretch, but this mode is implemented in some TVs better than in others. In some cases, panorama mode can be more distracting than pleasing.

Once you get used to viewing TV shows in their full wide-screen glory, we bet you won't be able to go back to the cramped confines of a cropped 4x3 version. The beauty of aspect-ratio control: it puts that choice in the hands of the viewer, not of a Hollywood director or network executive. For maximum flexibility, make sure it's at the top of the list the next time you're shopping for a TV or home-video peripheral.

Stay tuned, the next TechnoBabble Blog will get better!

The Bumbling Revolution - Part 1: TV/DTV/HDTV Explained

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? And what daring soul opened a gas station when automobiles were first invented? And who took the first scenic drive when there were no gas stations? This leads us to the catch-22 of digital television: Who's going to fork over a couple kilobucks for a snazzy new DTV if there are only a few hours of shows being broadcast? And what advertiser is going to pay to broadcast DTV to an audience of a few hundred techno-yuppie viewers? DTV is definitely coming, but adapting to it when it gets here promises to be an e-ticket ride.

This installment of my blog is for you techno and semi-techno geeks who want to know what it's all about. This is going to be a multi-part entry because there is just too much crap to explain and it's easier for me to do it this way than to try to do it in one entry. So sit back for the next few days and learn about DTV, HDTV and what you can look forward to and what you can buy. Now for a wee bit of history...

It was easier to start television than it will be to change it. In 1929, experimental television was in the hands of ham radio operators and electronic tinkerers (counterpart to today's computer nerds) and not much was at stake. By 1935, the Radio Manufacturer's Association developed standards so that TV sets could be mass produced and they would all work the same. By 1940, the National Television System Committee (NTSC) under the sponsorship of the RMA presented the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the television standards that, except for a few minor changes, have been in use ever since. That old system has carried us a long way. Even the addition of color and stereo sound hardly changed the basic way television signals were produced and transmitted. But our venerable old friend, analog NTSC, National Television System Committee (Never The Same Color) television has stretched about as far as it can go. New technologies, especially the digital ones, promise to offer wider, sharper pictures with better sound. The only problem is, we have a multi-billion dollar investment in the old system. Unlike television's early days, many powerful entities have a financial stake in how this revolution turns out. There are advertisers who demand a substantial viewership before they'll fund digital broadcasting. Broadcasters will have to spend millions of dollars converting to a new system which may not earn them any additional income for a long time. About one hundred million working TV sets will get tossed into the garbage, replaced by expensive new DTV sets. Yes, it's harder to change something than it is to start it.

What Is DTV Anyway?

First, a few things DTV is not. It's not DV (Digital video as found on a camcorder), DVD (Digital Versitile Disc, not Digital Video Disk), digital satellite , or digital cable TV. Yes, these technologies are all digital and involve video, but they're not the specific type of digital TV described by the "DTV Standard". DTV is more than just digitized video, it is a digital television signal manufactured a particular way. Now that we've cleared up that recurrent source of confusion, let's go on to what DTV is.

But first (another first?), even more history. Man, a creature ever striving to improve things, has long diddled with the idea of making TV pictures sharper and shaping the screen wider than its boxy 4:3 shape. In 1973 high definition television (HDTV) was first demonstrated. The HDTV screen was 1/3 wider, giving it a pleasing, movie-like 16:9 aspect ratio.

The HDTV picture was created using 1,125 horizontal scanning lines (as opposed to NTSC's 525 lines) and the HDTV picture had more detail in each line, 1920 pixels (picture elements or dots) as opposed to today's 720 pixels. Years ago, when I saw the demo at CBS as we planned our transition into this new era of television, it blew my boxer-briefs off. (OK, that's TMI). It wasn't television anymore, it was a medium alltogether different. After watching HDTV for a while, when I looked back at normal NTSC screens, it felt as though I was going back to a manual typewriter after using my PowerMac G4. Once you've seen HDTV, you love it. It's addictive.

The big problem with HDTV is that there is so much detail in the picture that it requires very high frequencies to transmit the information. In the analog world, it would require the equivalent of five TV channels to broadcast just one HDTV image. This is where digital television (DTV) has come to the rescue with its mighty compression schemes that can fit six digitally compressed TV channels where one analog channel used to be. Or, that can fit one digital HDTV channel where one analog channel used to be.

How TV Works...Real Geeky Stuff

Analog TV signals consist of vibrating electronic waves. Every detail in a picture is represented by a vibration. The more details you have, the more vibrations the wave must make. There is a limit to how many vibrations you can pack into a 6 MHz TV channel, which explains why HDTV doesn't fit in normal analog TV channel allotments. Analog TV has other problems too. Little errors creep into the signal causing colors to shift. Noise and other interference mixes with the signal causing the picture to become grainy. When the signal becomes weak, it gets snowy. When the TV signal bounces off buildings and mountains, the reflected signal interferes with the original signal, causing ghosts. Sure, you could ajust the coat hanger you had jammed into the broken antenna, but it never really looked right. When the signal is recorded and played back, imperfections in the machinery degrade the picture even more. DTV solves many of these problems. Video's vibrating wave is electronically sliced into millions of tiny slivers, each sliver is converted into a number, and from then on, only numbers are transmitted, recorded, and manipulated by the equipment. Interference, noise, and machine errors could make those numbers fuzzy, but still they are the same numbers, and as long as they are discernible, they can be accurately converted back into the original picture with no loss of quality.

Digital data can be compressed. In the analog world, if you had a picture of a California Happy Cow in front of a blue sky, that entire image would have to be electronically redrawn every sixtieth of a second; millions of video vibrations would be repeated even if nothing in the picture moved. In the digital world, the circuits would look at the picture and start calculating shortcuts. They'd start with the first pixel in the upper left hand corner which happened to be a dot of blue sky. The machine would assign a number such as 0 units of red, 2 units of green, and 255 units of blue. These three numbers would represent one dot of deep blue sky. What if the next dot is the same color and brightness as the first one? You could repeat all the numbers, or using compression, you would just say, "ditto." If the whole scan line across the TV screen were the same color blue, the machine could say "ditto for the whole line" rather than listing the exact numbers 700 or more times. If nothing moved in the picture, then the digital data one sixtieth of a second later would be a duplicate of the previous data. Again the machine could say, "ditto for the next picture," saving millions of numbers from being encoded, recorded, or transmitted. Although I've oversimplified this explanation, the idea of digital compression is to have electronic circuits notice similarities in pictures and parts of pictures and to use shortcuts to represent them. If the cow is walking across the field, the compression system can simply keep track of the parts of the picture that change as the happy cow moves, saving oodles of data. The compression system also takes into consideration that our eyes do not see sharpness very well when things are moving. Thus, the still parts of the picture are given more detail (more data) while the moving parts of the picture are fudged --- but we don't notice it. The DTV compression method is called MPEG-2. MPEG stands for Motion Picture Experts Group...these people are the real techno-geeks of today!

The same trick applies for TV sound. If you've ever listened carefully to your stereo, you've noticed that what comes out the left speaker is very similar to what comes out the right. It would be possible to digitize the left channel and instead of digitizing the right channel in its entirety, only digitize the differences between the left and right channels. Thus you'd have a whole lot of data for one channel but just a little data for the second channel. Using this technique, called Dolby AC-3, DTV squeezes 5.1 channels of audio (5 channels of surround sound plus one subwoofer channel) into a measly 382 kilobits per second (256kbps for two-channel SDTV).

Thus through the magic of digitization and compression, we can make HDTV fit in the same channel space or bandwidth used by analog TV. In fact, there is some space left over for transmitting additional data such as computer text, internet data, or extra sound tracks.

Money Drives the Market...Like You Didn't Figure That Out!

NTSC presently uses channels 2-69 (but not 37), for a total of 66 channels. The new DTV channels will be 2-51, relinquishing UHF channels 52 - 69 for non-TV uses. The DTV channels, because several SD programs can fit within the bandwidth, may appear as 53.1, 53.2, 53.3, etc., so there will be more than 49 channels if you count the subchannels. Confused Yet?

Set down your Vodka & Tonic and pretend you are an accountant for a moment. Your TV station has just adopted DTV, and let's assume the viewing public has purchased DTV receivers. Using the magic of compression, should you transmit one beautiful-looking HDTV image to your viewers or should I transmit six standard definition TV signals (SDTV) over the same bandwidth? One HDTV signal will look better, but six average looking SDTV signals offer the option of presenting six shows at once, collecting the big $$ from six advertisers. Which technique will derive the most income: One HDTV program or six SDTV programs? If six times as many people will watch the HDTV program as will watch the SDTV programs, you'll win - the sponsors will pay six times as much to reach six times the viewership. The sixty-four billion dollar question is, will six times as many viewers watch? Studies have shown that the American viewers are not clamoring for sharper, wider TV pictures.The American public complains bitterly about TV, but never about the quality of the picture.

Maybe if the public could see HDTV, they would get more excited about it, but would they get six times more excited? Doubt that! Add to this equation one of the realities of technology; a true high quality HDTV receiver will cost a lot more than a simple SDTV receiver. HDTV sets currently cost about $2000, but that's still a lot of money. Will most Coach Potatoes blow $2000 for an HDTV set when he can buy an SDTV set for maybe $500? The tough question for the beancounters in the television industry is: Does the public want HDTV badly enough to pay for it? Again, doubt it...at least for now,

Enter the FCC, Creating A Standard? Yeah, Riiiight!

Nobody is going to start manufacturing TV sets without some guarantee that they will actually work with the signals the broadcasters will be using. The FCC's job is to lay out a set of standards that everyone will follow so that the DTV signals are the same for everybody and won't change after people have made an expensive investment. The FCC has failed miserably at selecting a single system for DTV. You can hardly blame them, though. Unlike the 1930's, today's world of television is beset by powerful forces with bazillions of dollars at stake. Each of these forces has a good reason for having DTV take a certain path.

Purists would like to see HDTV in all its glory. This means 1125 vertical lines, each line with 1920 pixels, shown on a TV screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio, and the picture would repeat 30 times per second in its entirety. I must digress for a moment and explain last part. Presently, television pictures are interlaced. If you think of the TV picture as a bunch of lines, sort of like the slats in a venetian blind, the TV picture is painted on that venetian blind and each slat (each scan line) holds a piece of the picture. Presently, in one sixtieth of a second, the odd numbered scan lines (the odd numbered slats in the venetian blind) are drawn on your TV screen. In the next one sixtieth of a second, the even numbered scan lines are drawn on the screen, inbetween the odd lines. Your eye doesn't notice this but it is seeing only half of the picture (the odd or the even scan lines) at any moment. Thus, every thirtieth of second, you are presented the entire picture. The interlace system was invented to reduce the amount of data that had to be recorded and transmitted over the air. One problem with the interlace system is that the inaccuracies of placing those odd and even lines make the picture a little fuzzy and less bright.

Another way of creating the picture is called progressive scan. All of the lines are drawn on the screen at once. This is the way computer monitors make their pictures. Progressive scan creates a very sharp image, without those interlace errors, but it doubles the data flow because, instead of creating one half of a picture every sixtieth of a second, the system has to create the entire picture every sixtieth of a second. Twice as much data has to be recorded, transmitted, and processed by the TV set.

This is why the purists are having a hard time. Even with the help of compression, the number of lines, the number of pixels, and the doubling of data for progressive scanning simply adds up to too much data. Nobody in the industry doubts that we will someday find a way to handle this much data and tranmit it within the allowed bandwith, but we can't do it right now. The FCC, not wanting to lock us into an inferior system that we will have to live with for many years, has decided that progressive and interlace should both be embraced by the standard, and further, different numbers of scan lines and pixels per line should be allowed. This flexibility has opened the door for a confusing array of DTV signal formats. Some broadcasters plan to transmit 1080: (1080 scan lines interlaced every 1/60 second) like NBC and CBS, while others will use 720p (720 scan lines repeated progressively every 1/30 second) like ABC and FOX. On the one side, 1080 lines is sharper than 720, but uses more data but is interlaced, halving the data but interlace is relatively fuzzy. On the other side, 720 lines is less sharp than 1080 making it data-efficient but progressive scan transmits more data. Actually, both methods end up making pictures that look fairly equal and if you're watching Some Hung Yee or whatever his name is sing on Amercian Idol, do you realy care?

The broadcasters, seeing a market for plain SDTV broadcasts, have pushed the FCC to make six channels of SDTV from their allotted bandwidth. Computer companies have pushed for 480 lines by 640 pixels which is the present VGA standard. They also maintain that a 4:3 aspect ratio is perfectly adequate. The TV broadcasters realizing that all of their old shows exist in the 4:3 aspect ratio are also happy to transmit in the 4:3 aspect ratio.

So we end up with four possible picture sharpnesses in the FCC standard, and two picture shapes, 16:9 and 4:3. We also have progressive versus interlaced scan. The FCC, caught inbetween these powerful forces, has diluted the standard to permit all these systems to exist.

Ah, but there's more. Enter the film people, who hate the video people. Movies are shot at 24 frames per second. TV pictures are made at 30 frames per second. Since these numbers are different, a complicated conversion must occur to make movies viewable on TV. The conversion process (called 3:2 pull-down) shows one movie picture three times (3 video fields) and the next movie picture two times (2 video fields). Although the math is a bit complicated, it all boils down to repeating some of the movie pictures the right number of times so that they synchronize with the video pictures. This process works, but it's quite wasteful. Every time you repeat a movie frame you are sending needless data that takes up space. It would be better if you sent the data for a movie picture just once and were done with it. Thus the film people have convinced the television industry and the FCC that the DTV standard should allow the transmission of 24 pictures per second as well as TV's 30 frames per second.

And if you thought this was complicated, try on this other twist for size. Today's TV pictures are not really produced at 30 frames or 60 fields per second. We refer to these numbers because they are simple to say, and black-and-white TV systems used to follow these numbers, but when the US switched to NTSC color TV, it adopted slightly different numbers. Actually there are 29.97 frames per second and 59.94 fields per second comprising our NTSC color TV picture. These odd numbers were implemented for technical reasons involving the circuitry in the old tubed TVs of yesterday. Those problems have been resolved and there is no longer a need to use these weird numbers, but they're entrenched as part of today's NTSC standard. All the color video tapes made these past 40 years use those ungainly numbers, so if you want to stay compatible with the old video tapes without going through expensive and complicated conversions, you need to stick with these numbers. On the other hand, the numbers 30 and 60 are so easy to work with, why not use them? The 30/60 numbers are even useful for counting time while editing (dismissing the need for NTSC's "drop-frame" and "non-drop-frame" time code distinctions, but that's another subject and this article is probably boring you to death).

So the FCC has adopted both sets of numbers plus another set of numbers to represent what happens when 24fps film is transferred not to 30 fps video but to 29.97fps video. As a result of accepting all of these permutations of different numbers, the DTV television standard has become hardly a standard at all. The screen can be 4:3 or 16:9, the signal can be progressive or interlaced, it can have four different sets of vertical lines and four different sets of horizontal pixels per line and the pictures can be made 23.976, 24, 29.97, 30, 59.94, or 60, times per second. This is a standard?

The Effect of DTV on You...The Ultimate Viewer

First let's start with Charlie Couch Potato and his TV receiver. In order for his digital TV receiver to operate on all these different standards, the machine will have to electronically complex (translation: big $$$) whether it can display high definition television imagery or not. The circuitry will have to assure that whatever signals are received in high or standard definition, and regardless of picture shape, and regardless of how many channels of audio are transmitted, something will appear on the TV screen and something will come out the speaker. DTV receivers will also have NTSC inputs for backward compatibility. There will also be set top converter boxes that will translate DTV signals, in whatever format they are, into something that older TV sets can display (remember how many years you had to use the cable company's converter box with your TV before TVs became "cable ready"?)

Note that most cable and all satellite systems presently send digital signals. The set-top boxes provided by cable companies already make the conversion from digital to analog for your analog TV set. You don't have to buy a new set to view cable and satellite signals. Over-the-air broadcasts will be different after April 7, 2009 - you will need a digital TV to pick up those broadcasts unless you have a set-top box that will make the conversion for your analog TV. Set top converter boxes will also make it possible for you to record shows using your standard VHS VCR (do you still have one of those?) once the DTV signals are converted to NTSC audio and video, your old TVs and VCRs will work just fine.

The old camcorder is likely to die a gradual death. You will still be able to use it to record home videos that you play on your home VCR through your old TV. But eventually you'll no longer be able to buy analog NTSC TVs and VCRs forcing you to jump up to digital camcording. Think for a moment how difficult it is to find a super 8 movie projector these days; even if you had a wonderful super 8 movie camera, you wouldn't bother using it because nobody could show your movie.

Thus there will be a gradual change to digital standards for camcorders and home VCRs. Naturally, the digital stuff will be more expensive at first and will slowly come down in price. Right now the prices are so high that only the broadcast and industrial guys can afford the cameras, VCRs, and TVs.

And now for some good news. Remember all the "standards" that the FCC accepted? Some of those standards are quite compatible with today's technology; it won't be hard to build a cheap, consumer camcorder that can record/play one of the digital formats. Naturally, more expensive models will record using one or more of the higher definition formats. How it all works will remain transparent to the user. You simply chuck in a tape and pull the trigger like you did before and the system will record picture and sound. You will play your signal back from your camcorder into your TV just as you do now, or you will need a compatible VCR to play the tape. Many of today's digital camcorders are up to the task of recording a DTV signal but aren't doing it because NTSC is still the defacto standard. Manufacturers will have little trouble converting the digital camcorders of today to outputting one of tomorrow's SDTV signals.

Okay, I'll end this part now. The DTV revolution is coming and it's likely to be an awful mess for a while, but those of us in the industry can see a light at the end of the picture tube, or is that LCD screen, or plasma screen, or SED screen, or hell, whatever! Stay tuned for tomorrow's next round of the HDTV Technoblog!

A Few Terms To Remember

DTV (Digital Television) TV that is broadcast, recorded, and processed digitally, possibly with extended definition like HDTV, and adheres to certain FCC specifications.

HDTV (High Definition Television) One DTV method of displaying sharper, wider TV pictures than the present NTSC system. Pictures ideally would be shaped into a 16:9 aspect ratio, composed of 1125 scanning lines, each line having 1920 pixels.

SDTV (Standard Definition Television) Digitally broadcast TV signals with about the same sharpness and screen shape as today's NTSC television.

Dolby AC-3 Method of compressing 5.1 channels of high quality sound data into 382 kbps for use in DTV and DVDs.

Bandwidth Signal transmission capacity, or the size of a channel through which data has to travel. TV broadcast channels, whether for digital or analog programming, offer 6 MHz of bandwidth.

Compression The process of fitting a large amount of data into a small file. MPEG-2 is the method used to compress DTV. Audio is also compressed using the Dolby AC-3 algorithm.

Progressive scan The converse of interlaced scan, a method of "drawing" a TV image across the screen sequentially --- left to right, top to bottom. No lines are skipped. This method is presently used on computer monitors and the 720p method will be used by Fox and ABC.

Resolution Picture sharpness, which is roughly proportional to the amount of data used to make up a picture. Digital TVs will describe their resolutions in terms of the number of pixels or dots that make up the picture along the vertical and horizontal axes.

Our Tax Dollars At Work:More Stupid Legislation Coming Our Way!

Want to know how much caffeine is in your soda? Do you want to know how many cans of Coke I would have to gulp down in one sitting to kill myself? Are you ready for this? 461.69 cans! If you really need to know, you'll soon be able to on a bottle of "The Real Thing." Like we really care!

The Coca-Cola Company plans to list the caffeine content on labels of all products sold in the U.S. It'll start in May with cans of its flagship Coke Classic, then expand to its other brands during the rest of the year.

The move comes as a New York City councilman Simcha Felder, who admits he drinks several cups of coffee a day says he'll introduce a resolution Wednesday to pressure the federal government to require food and beverages to contain labels revealing caffeine content. His wife said, 'You don't accomplish much as an elected official. Maybe you can do something about this,'" the councilman recalled Monday with a chuckle. "And I don't argue with her."

According to experts, apart from being highly addictive and causing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if we stop drinking it suddenly, research shows that even a little bit of coffee may reduce fertility by damaging sperm. But every cloud has a silver lining. Ironically, caffeine is being administered to pre-term babies to help them breathe. It also appears to increase alertness and improve performance under some circumstances.

Many people know that caffeine is a strong diuretic - it makes you urinate more than usual. It can produce insomnia - and some people experience tremors after drinking coffee and tea.

Too much caffeine may not be good for complex reasoning tasks, but it can improve mental speed-related tasks. A study which looked at 3 groups of volunteers and results found that Caffeine actually improved performance in more simple mental tasks. Mental speed is the critical thing in this test.

Global consumption has been estimated to be about one caffeine-containing beverage per day for each of the planet's 5 billion plus inhabitants. So, caffeine is almost certainly the most widely consumed psycho-active substance in the world.

Like I really don't care about how much caffeine I'm conuming on a daily basis. What I'd really like to know is how much freakin' money it is going to cost us as taxpayers for this mindless legislation, and the total $ it'll cost the Coca-Cola company to put this stupid label on their products.

The cost to produce this type of legislation is astronomical. Now I want to see warning labels that tell me how many parts per million of rodent droppings, bone fragments, spider legs, and all the other crap that is in my "all-beef" hotdog with sauerkraut (light on the mustard, please!)

As consumers, lets use our common sense to limit the quantity of crap we eat. Just like what your kid's watch on TV, the control is up to the only person who can control it...YOU!

Maybe we should put a warning on our legislator's who have way too much time on their hands that says...

"Voting for this candidate is hazardous to your income tax bill!"

Internet Misinformation Can Kill You:"How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone."

Hundreds of people around the country, including me, have been receiving an e-mail message or a Powerpoint presentation entitled "How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone." This article recommends a procedure to survive a heart attack in which the victim is advised to repeatedly cough at regular intervals until help arrives. For a moment, I thought it was a good idea. Then I went to the articles supposed source, the "Journal Of General Hospital, Rochester". I was shocked to find out the real truth!

Here's what the e-mail or Powerpoint or e-mail says...

Let's say it's 6:15 PM and your driving home (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired and frustrated...you're really stressed and upset. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in you chest that radiates out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only five miles from the hospital nearest you home. Unfortunately, you don't know if you will make it that far.

What to do. You've been trained in CPR but the guy who conducted the course did not teach you how to perform it on yourself.

How to survive a heart attack when alone. Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and begins to feel faint has only about 10 seconds left before losing conciousness.

What to do. Do not panic but start coughing repeatedly and very vigourously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated every two seconds without letup until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and the coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it to regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to the hospital.

According to the supposed source of the article, this email forward that offers spurious advice about how to survive a heart attack has been continually circulating around the Internet since at least 1999.

The message outlines a technique for surviving a heart attack while alone that involves vigorous coughing. According to the email, a cardiologist has advised forwarding the message to others in order to save lives. However, the alleged cardiologist is not named, nor is there any reference to a reputable medical institution. In my opinion, any life-critical "medical advise" that is not supported by credible reference material should be used with extreme caution.

It should be noted that the cough procedure outlined in the email might be beneficial under certain circumstances. However, medical experts maintain that the procedure should only be performed under professional supervision. According to the American Heart Association, "the usefulness of "cough CPR" is generally limited to monitored patients with a witnessed arrest in the hospital setting".

The Resuscitation Council in the UK "knows of no evidence that, even if a lone patient knew that cardiac arrest had occurred, he or she would be able to maintain sufficient circulation to allow activity, let alone driving to the hospital".

The American Heart Association article states that: "The best strategy is to be aware of the early warning signs for heart attack and cardiac arrest and respond to them by calling [the emergency number in your country]. If you're driving alone and you start having severe chest pain or discomfort that starts to spread into your arm and up into your jaw (the scenario presented in the Internet article), pull over and flag down another motorist for help or phone [the emergency number in your country] on a cellular telephone."

The Rochester General Hospital denies that such an article exists and has included the following statement on its website:

Important Notice Regarding the article "How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone."

The source of information for this article was attributed to ViaHealth Rochester General Hospital. This article is being propagated on the Internet as individuals send it to friends and acquaintances - and then those recipients of the memo send it to their friends and acquaintances, and so on.

We can find no record that an article even resembling this was produced by Rochester General Hospital within the last 20 years. Furthermore, the medical information listed in the article can not be verified by current medical literature and is in no way condoned by this hospital's medical staff. Also, both The Mended Hearts, Inc., a support organization for heart patients, and the American Heart Association have said that this information should not be forwarded or used by anyone. Please help us combat the proliferation of this misinformation. We ask that you please send this e-mail to anyone who sent you the article, and please ask them to do the same.

Now here's what to really do...

The American Heart Association's Heart Attack Warning Signs

Some heart attacks are sudden and intense — the "movie heart attack," where no one doubts what's happening. But most heart attacks start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Often people affected aren't sure what's wrong and wait too long before getting help. Here are signs that can mean a heart attack is happening:

• Chest discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain.

• Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.

• Shortness of breath. May occur with or without chest discomfort.

• Other signs: These may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness

As with men, women's most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain.

If you or someone you're with has chest discomfort, especially with one or more of the other signs, don't wait longer than a few minutes (no more than 5) before calling for help. Call 9-1-1... Get to a hospital right away.

Calling 9-1-1 is almost always the fastest way to get lifesaving treatment. Emergency medical services staff can begin treatment when they arrive -- up to an hour sooner than if someone gets to the hospital by car. The staff are also trained to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Patients with chest pain who arrive by ambulance usually receive faster treatment at the hospital, too.

If you can't access the emergency medical services (EMS), have someone drive you to the hospital right away. If you're the one having symptoms, don't drive yourself, unless you have absolutely no other option.

When you get an e-mail like this, check it out first. Go to the source. Check the internet hoaxes web sites. There is tons of misinformation out there that may cause you to get hurt, severly injured, or even die!

I only say this cause I want you here to continue reading my blog!

Incredible Breaking News:Florida Girl's 5 Weeks Of Hiccups Finally End

In what has got to be a news story that puts the whole Anna Nicole and Britney Spears stories to shame, a 15-year-old Florida girl who had the hiccups for more than five weeks can finally breathe freely again. For more than five weeks nothing would stop her rapid hiccups until they finally just stopped on their own. According to Jennifer Mee of St. Petersburg, said her hiccups suddenly stopped around 5 p.m. Wednesday. No one is certain why. Maybe it was because of the home remedies and comments made by everybody who witnessed this tragedy. Read on.

She sipped pickle juice, held her breath, breathed into a bag, drank water from the far side of the glass, put sugar under her tongue, even went to a neurologist along with countless other home remedies. Nothing had helped. Even well-meaning strangers have approached Jennifer at Wal-Mart and attempted to scare the hiccups away. Still, she hiccuped.

She was in first-period class when the hiccups began. It was January 23rd. After about 15 minutes of these nonstop spasms, Jennifer Mee, a ninth-grader at Northeast High School, sought help at the campus medical clinic. She remained there for five hours while the staff worked with her. Still, her hiccups persisted at a
rate of approximately 50 times a minute.

Her mother, Rachel Robidoux, remarked that Jennifer sounds like a barking chihuahua or a smoke alarm with a dying battery. She said that at first it was kind of funny, but now it's become much more than an annoyance. "It's actually really stressful," Jennifer said. "Really, there's nothing much I can do except stay home. I just want to be a normal teenager again," Robidoux also said during Park's interview.

As strange as it might sound, there are three classifications of hiccups. A regular bout is anything up to two days. If they last longer, they’re called persistent hiccups. More than a month, they’re deemed intractable. As many as 100 diseases have been reported to cause hiccups.

Charles Osborne of Iowa has the dubious distinction of being on record as having the longest case of hiccups on record. His diaphragm spasms lasted 69 years and five months. Osborne's hiccups occurred every 11/2 seconds.

I am so glad that Jennifer has overcome this horrible problem. May your life be filled with happiness (hiccup), joy (hiccup), peace (hiccup) and love (hiccup, hiccup)!

Get A Good Belly Laugh Today:Billboards We'd Love To See

Billboards. Everywhere we go we see billboards. And they advertise everything from flowers to gasoline. We all say that we pay no attention to these things and that they are an eyesore in our communities. But we still read 'em...and remember 'em.

Last night when leaving from work (yes, after 10 PM) there was this e-mail that was set out for all to see with pictures of some billboards we'd all love to see. Some of them made me laugh so hard my ribs hurt. It gave me a little joy on my long ride home through the heart of Hollywood.

So today, I was thinking about what to put up here on my blog. The news of the day sucked. The stock market recovered a bit. That was nice. The big "storm watch" that we were supposed to have here in L.A. never happened. And yes, even Anna Nicole Smith's body was ruled it could take a vacation in the Bahamas. Even greater news, hunh?


So, since there wasn't much in the way of news or my personal commentaries on this news, I decided to compile a mini-slideshow for you all of some billboards we'd all love to see. Maybe then we'd say to people that we notice them. In my exhaustive research of billboards, I found so many that made me laugh. The best ones were from this company called dribbleglass.com. They've even made these into greeting cards and they sell them on Amazon. How's that for marketing? Well, it's time for you to view my BILLBOARD SLIDE SHOW...CLICK HERE.

By the way, the slide above made me laugh hysterically. Have a great day!

The Reality of the Iraq War:Documentary on Injured Soldiers Wakes Me Up!

This blog entry is in honor of my Dad. He served in WWII and although he never encountered battle on the front line, he had a special heart and empathy for the people who served in all branches of our military. So please sit back and read this article...it'll wake you up.

Last night, I watched the ABC News special title Bob Woodruff: To Iraq and Back. It made me see a side of this war that I never really saw before. Every day we hear things like "10 Soliders Killed in Helicopter Crash" or "3 Dead in Troop Carrier Blast." Yes, this is a sad reality of the war, but these boys come home, we honor them, we bury them and yes, we forget about them.

The really sad part that we don't see because the media deems it too traumatic to show are those troops who return injured and must try to fit back into society...a society that does not want to hear about all of the medical problems these kids have incurred. For some, the care will last a lifetime. Bob Woodruff really brought that point home to me and the people I was watching it with last night. The shock may have been surprising, but it made me wake up.

Woodruff was there and although he wasn't a soldier, he experience the pain and suffering that each soldier AND their families goes through. The story of Bob Woodruff and his recovery is remarkable. On January 29, 2006, ABC News Anchor Bob Woodruff was severely injured in Iraq when his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb. Woodruff, who was wounded along with cameraman Doug Vogt, sustained multiple life-threatening injuries, including a devastating brain injury. In his first on-air reporting since the incident, Woodruff tells the incredible story of his life-altering injury and miraculous recovery.

In this one-hour special, Woodruff returns to the field to report the stories of brave young soldiers and Marines who, like him, are recovering from traumatic brain injury – the signature injury of the war in Iraq. Woodruff takes a closer look at the challenges they and their families face as they struggle not only to heal from their wounds, but to get the care they deserve.

Often called the signature wound of the Iraq war, TBI can rob people of themselves, causing problems that range from trouble speaking and concentrating to violence, anger and a loss of "filter". Bob's family established the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury to raise awareness about TBI, and to raise money to support organizations that help those suffering from TBI to receive the best care possible.

According to a July 2006 report from the Veterans Administration inspector general, brain injured veterans often fall through the cracks. It found that "multiple factors lead to suboptimal access to care" and "services are often very limited in communities where injured veterans live."

According to the Department of Defense, there have been about 23,000 nonfatal battlefield casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But through an internal VA report, Woodruff discovered that there are more than 200,000 veterans who have sought out the VA for care.

"What you have are two sets of books," says Paul Sullivan, who served in the first Gulf War and is now an advocate for Veterans. "The Department of Defense saying that there's 23,000 wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Department of Veterans' Affairs is actually treating 205,000 veterans from these two wars."

The force from an IED or roadside bomb can rattle the brain so severely inside the skull that it can cause life long health problems.

His situation brings to light that many more soldiers serving in Iraq or having returned from battle, may be walking around with a traumatic brain injury and not even know it. That could mean of the 1.5 million Americans, who have served or are now serving, more than 150,000 people could have a brain injury that is unrecognized by the Department of Defense.

Bob Woodruff suffered a painstakingly slow recovery, through intensive speech and cognitive therapy, reading, writing, and forcing his brain to accomplish simple tasks he had previously taken for granted. As he healed, he became determined to help shed light on traumatic brain injury (TBI), to make something good come out of such a tragic experience for him and his family.

Let's look at the reality of this war. It's not just the kids who die...that's sad enough. What got me is how we, as Americans, don't get off our asses and help these boys and girls out. They went over there to protect our freedom and yet we really don't know much about them.

Bob Woodruff and his family have started a foundation called the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury (Click on that link there in bold to learn more!) to raise money and assist members of the military with cognitive rehabilitation and other care needs following traumatic brain injury suffered in service to their country. Check Out this foundation and may drop them a couple of bucks...you'll feel better for doing so.

Finally, you need to see this documentary. ABC News will be putting this online tomorrow morning for all to see. If you get the chance, watch it. It will be well worth the time you take. To see it, click here -> http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/WoodruffReports/.

And by the way, make my Dad proud!

The Trunk Monkey: The Ultimate Car Security System and Internet Cult Phenomenon

According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a car is stolen every 25.5 seconds in the United States. In 2004 a total of 1,237,114 motor vehicles were reported stolen. If you own a 1995 Honda Civic, you might want to invest in an anti-theft system because that is the most-stolen car.

Are you paranoid? Don't be. Suburban Auto Group in Sandy, Oregon has a highly effective security system for your ride. They call it the Trunk Monkey.


Consisting solely of a trained monkey and a steady source of ice cold high-quality import ale or lager, the Trunkmonkey lives in the trunk of any vehicle and is car security at its best. The moment your car is in danger, the Trunk Monkey jumps into action. This series of commercials has become an internet cult phenomenon.

Kids throwing eggs at your car? The Trunk Monkey will chase them down and make them clean up the damage. Car thief hotwiring your new beauty? The Trunk Monkey emerges from the trunk, beats the culprit and then disposes of the evidence. The Trunk Monkey will even deliver your baby in the backseat. How's that for helpful?

Reaction to the commercials, which were created and produced by Portland’s R-West advertising agency, was overwhelmingly positive on Portland-area blogs. A search for “trunk monkey” on Google’s blog search turned up 1,689 results. The two newest commercials, the Super Bowl episode and the “Trunk Monkey fights aliens” installment, already have more than 5,000 views on YouTube.

“Everyone here at Suburban is every excited,” said General Manager Erinn Sowle. “We didn’t realize how big (the monkey) was until we went to the Portland Auto Show last month. It made the Super Bowl that much better.”

I didn't have a lot to write about today. I'm still coming off the disappointment that the Oscar's are over and now have to resort to Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition to find out all of the just oh so exciting news on my favorite celebrities. Yeah, right.

So take a break from your hectic day and Click Here To View All the Trunk Monkey Commercials. You'll get a good laugh and I hope your have a great day!

Want to Lose Weight Fast?Send Me $153 And Find Out How!

"When is a diet pill worth $153 a bottle?" asks one of the most popular TV infomercials of the past year.

Certainly not when it's Leptoprin.

Dramatic, unsubstantiated weight and fat loss claims continue to tempt the overweight with new hope for a quick fix. If you read the very small fine-print during these ads, you’ll see “Results not typical.” Hmm.

I’ve seen this commercial so much that I can’t even quote Melissa Pace (The Hostess). Now that is pathetic. So, I decided to do a little research on this “amazing diet drug” and did a Google search.

Wickipedia’s entry in my Google search results looked like this:

Leptoprin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leptoprin/Leptopril is a weight-loss pill marketed by Generics Labs. ... Whoever last edited the Leptoprin page here on Wikipedia had erased everything and ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptoprin - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

I thought it quite interesting that on the search result for Wickipedia it said, “Whoever last edited the Leptoprin page here on Wikipedia had erased everything and ...” So, I decided to dig deeper and find out more about this drug, the company and the FTC action.

So here’s what the product is: The name Leptoprin may sound like leptin, a protein the body makes to control fat stores. Leptoprin is an herbal supplement marketed by "A.G. Waterhouse", a front for Basic Research of Salt Lake City, Utah. It was formerly known as Anorex. Despite the pharmaceutical-sounding name, the company that makes Leptoprin (and Leptopril) is not a pharmaceutical company.

The method of advertising the product is unique, and begins with the question "When is a diet pill worth $153 a bottle?" The ad goes on to claim that Leptoprin is "developed for the significantly overweight", that it is "much too powerful" for the "casual dieter".

There is also a less expensive "generic" version of the formulation called Leptopril, which is advertised as being developed by "Generix Labs". The two products are in fact exactly the same, being marketed to two different consumer personalities by the same company.

"Clinical studies don't lie," says the Web site of Leptoprin's manufacturer, A.G. Waterhouse, one of several related Utah companies that hawk dubious supplements on TV and online.

"In a recent clinical trial, subjects who were given the active Leptoprin-SF compound (in conjunction with modest caloric restriction and exercise) experienced eleven times (1100%) more weight loss and 63 percent more fat loss than those on diet and exercise alone."

In fact, the six overweight subjects lost no more weight or body fat after six weeks on Leptoprin's active ingredients than 14 others who were given either a placebo or nothing at all.

The Federal Trade Commission has come after this company for deceptive practices. In fact, The Commission’s complaint names: Basic Research, L.L.C.; A.G. Waterhouse, L.L.C.; Klein-Becker usa, L.L.C.; Nutrasport, L.L.C.; Sovage Dermalogic Laboratories, L.L.C.; BAN, L.L.C.; Dennis Gay; Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D., also doing business as American Phytotheraphy Research Laboratory; and Mitchell K. Friedlander, all operating from the same Salt Lake City facility. Hmmmm.

Here are a few highlights from the FTC’s brief against the makers of this super popular diet drug.

[Federal Register: May 18, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 96)]
[Notices]
[Page 28865-28867]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr18my06-56

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
[Docket No. 9318]


Basic Research LLC, et al.; Analysis of Agreement Containing
Consent Order To Aid Public Comment

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Proposed consent agreement.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this matter settles alleged violations of Federal law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or
practices or unfair methods of competition. The attached Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes both the allegations in the complaint and the terms of the consent order--embodied in the consent agreement--that would settle these allegations.

The Complaint Allegations

According to the Commission's Complaint, Individual Respondents Dennis Gay, Daniel Mowrey (also doing business as American Phytotheraphy Research Laboratory), and Mitchell K. Friedlander all worked from the same Salt Lake City, Utah facility as Corporate Respondents Basic Research, L.L.C., A.G. Waterhouse, L.L.C., Klein-Becker usa, L.L.C., Nutrasport, L.L.C., Sovage Dermalogic Laboratories, L.L.C., and BAN, L.L.C., who have operated as a common enterprise to advertise and sell a broad line of topical gels and dietary supplements.

The Commission's Complaint alleges that these Respondents engaged in deceptive practices in advertising and selling topical fat-loss gels. Specifically, the Commission's Complaint challenges the following claims as unsubstantiated: That Leptoprin and Anorex cause weight loss of more than 20 pounds in significantly overweight users and that those products cause loss of substantial, excess fat in significantly overweight users.

Additionally, the Complaint challenges the following claims as false: That clinical testing proves that Leptoprin causes weight
loss of more than 20 pounds, including as much as 50, 60, or 147 pounds, in significantly overweight users; and that clinical testing
proves that Leptoprin causes loss of substantial, excess fat in significantly overweight users;

That Respondent Mowrey is a medical doctor.

The Proposed Consent Order

The proposed consent order contains provisions designed to prevent Respondents from continuing the illegal conduct alleged in the Complaint, and from engaging in future practices similar to those previously alleged.

Paragraph V provides that Basic Research will pay the sum of three million dollars ($3,000,000), on behalf of all Respondents, to the Commission. In the discretion of the Commission, these funds may be used to provide redress to purchasers of any of the products challenged in the Complaint and to pay the attendant administrative costs. If the Commission determines, in its sole discretion, that redress to product purchasers is wholly or partially impracticable or is otherwise unwarranted, any funds not used will be paid to the U.S. Treasury.

The proposed order allows Respondents to engage in various forms of legitimate conduct. The order does not prohibit Respondents from making any claim for any drug that is permitted in labeling for that drug under any tentative final or final standard established by the Food and Drug Administration (``FDA'').

By direction of the Commission.
Donald S. Clark,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. E6-7533 Filed 5-17-06; 8:45 am]

So if you want to lose weight fast. Stop eating. Learn control. Diet. Exercise. Get a gastric bypass like I did. The bottom line is that there is NO diet drug that will burn off fat. It takes self-control. It takes a change in lifestyle. If you’re significantly overweight…I feel your pain. I used to be 459 pounds. Now I’m 218. It took radical surgery to do that. I had to change my lifestyle or die. I tried the fads to no avail.

This blog is publish by Peter D. Sawyer, Peter Sawyer, Pete Sawyer, Pete, Sawyer, AKA Petey, Petey-Petey, Turdsi, Hump, Dude, bro, brah, kimosabee, a—hole, skinny, fatty, ugly, geek, loser, bozo, fatso, stupid, blockhead, dimwit, dodo, dolt, dullard, dumb bunny, dumb cluck, dumb head, dumbbell, dumbo, dumdum, dunce, fool, idiot, ignoramus, moron, numskull, oaf, simpleton, dumb, gay, queer, freak, dummy, fool, half-wit; imbecile; dolt, dunce, numskull, DBA actor, beggar, bum, bummer, castaway, dawdler, delinquent, drifter, floater, good-for-nothing, grifter, hobo, leper, loafer, lounger, ne'er-do-well*, outcast, pariah, remittance man, renegade, scumbag, skid-row bum, slimeball, stiff, stumblebum*, tramp, untouchable, vag, vagabond, vagrant, wastrel.

Clinical studies may not lie, but ads do.