Rest in Peace, Tim Russert

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

I can add nothing else to add other than, “Thank you for your service to the field of journalism.” This is a loss for all.

Happy Groundhog Day!!!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

My favorite holiday of all!!!

I went to college in western Pennsylvania, all of 15 to 30 miles away from Punxsutawney. It was my long-standing goal to wake up really early in the morning, make the trek to Gobbler’s Knob and kidnap Phil. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a sot in college, so I was always either too drunk to drive or too drunk to remember my plan.

:sighs:

Phil saw his shadow today which means six more weeks of winter. Not too shabby given winters in Raleigh are quite different than winters in the snow belt of Pennsylvania.

What I fail to understand is why the movie, “Groundhog Day” is not airing on television today. I have scanned the dials for a bit now and have yet to stumble across this. What the hell???

Chanukkah Ham!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Religion

Every Jew’s favorite Chanukkah meat.

Grocery Store Goofs with Hanukkah Ham Ad

NEW YORK - This was REALLY not kosher.

A grocery store in Manhattan made a food faux pas, advertising hams as “Delicious for Chanukkah.”

Chanukkah — an alternate spelling for Hanukkah — is the eight-day Jewish holiday that began Tuesday evening, and hams — as well as pork and other products from pigs — can’t be eaten under Jewish dietary laws.

A woman who saw the mistake over the weekend at the Balducci’s store on 14th Street took pictures of the signs and posted them on her blog.

Jennifer Barton, director of marketing, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the signs were changed as soon as the error was noted.

She issued an apology on the company Web site, saying the company would be reviewing its employee training.

I support meaningless, jingoistic cliches!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

Retired cop fights to keep ‘GETOSAMA’ plates
DMV demands man return plates that call for al-Qaida leader’s capture

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - A retired police officer is seeking a court order to force the state Department of Motor Vehicles to drop its demand that he return vanity license plates calling for the capture or death of Osama bin Laden.Arno Herwerth, a 21-year veteran of the New York Police Department, said he requested the “GETOSAMA” plates earlier this month to send a political message. He said he was surprised to hear, after receiving the plates, that the DMV wanted them back.

In a Nov. 15 letter to Herwerth, the agency cited a regulation prohibiting plates that could be considered “obscene, lewd, lascivious, derogatory to a particular ethnic group or patently offensive.” It returned his previous generic license plates and asked that he send the “GETOSAMA” plates, which were issued Nov. 2, back to its Albany headquarters.

Herwerth, 42, said in a phone interview that it was important to him that the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which bin Laden is accused of orchestrating, be remembered.

“I got the plates because of 9/11,” he said. “I want to keep the message alive that this man needs to be killed or captured. It’s been a long time, but we haven’t forgotten.”

Free speech issue?
Herwerth’s attorney, Vincent Amicizia, said he would seek a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court that would prevent the DMV from revoking the “GETOSAMA” plates. He maintains the plates are patriotic because the sentiment supports the U.S. war against terrorism.

“That’s the oddity of this case,” Amicizia said. “I’ve never heard of a First Amendment case that seeks to suppress patriotic speech.”

Tara Keenan-Thomson, executive director of the Nassau County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said she is aware that states have denied plates based on offensive messages, but she is not sure why the “GETOSAMA” plates were interpreted negatively by state officials.

“What is unique is that this message does reflect the policies of the present administration,” she said. “When ‘offensive’ is applied to political views, it encroaches on free speech.”

State DMV spokesman Ken Brown said the plates “didn’t meet DMV regulation standards, and issuing them would be inappropriate.” He declined further comment.

Ugh. Where do I begin with this one?

First of all, we have a retired cop. Retired at the ripe, old age of 42. Thanks for your service, pal, but aren’t you a little too young to be sitting around the house, moldering? That’s my gig.

Then, we have the retired, moldering cop tying this bullshit to September 11th. I hate to point out the phucking obvious but it’s 2007. Either this retired cop is one of the laziest motherphuckers (in which case, for the benefit of the citizens of New York, I’m relieved he has retired) for not getting his ass to the DMV for SIX PHUCKING YEARS or he’s really stupid since it took him SIX PHUCKING YEARS to come up with this cack. Either way, he doesn’t deserve to have his precious vanity plate because:

• It’s retarded
• It’s not creative
• It’s sooooooo 2001

Good G-d, please get me out of this country.

Visit the Phorum for more News (according to Kang)

Bitch Plz

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Op/Ed

What is wrong with this country? What is wrong with our society?

Michael Vick has apparently been persecuted by the man because he’s black. That’s right! Whitey is stickin’ it to Vick because dog fighting is part of the black culture.

You know, folks, there has to be a limit to playing the race card. Just think of the boy who cried wolf too many times, shall we?

It was borderline ridiculous when people said OJ was prosecuted because he is black. It is absolutely hysterical to think that Michael Vick got rail-roaded into the deal. What would the critics say if they saw evidence? Mark Furman was in da hizz-ous?

Note to the NAACP: Quit while you’re ahead. Srsly.

Vick case divides African-American leaders
NAACP rift reported over whether to support quarterback’s reinstatement

The case against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has exposed a split within both the NAACP and the larger African-American community, as some activists condemn Vick’s role in the deaths of fighting dogs and others cast him as a victim of a racist justice system.

Vick, 27, is expected to plead guilty Monday to federal charges in connection with a dogfighting operation on his property in Surry County, Va. He could face up to five years in prison. Two associates of Vick’s who have pleaded guilty to conspiracy said Vick helped executed at least eight underperforming dogs.

A spokesman for Vick told NBC News on Thursday that Vick, who is black, was grateful to the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP for a statement of support issued by its president, the Rev. R.L. White. White said Wednesday that Vick should not be barred from playing professional football once he completes his prison sentence.

“It is regrettable to us that Michael Vick had to settle for a plea bargain,” White said. “All of us, the fans of Mr. Vick, had hoped for a more favorable outcome.”

White acknowledged that he had previously used the word “lynching” to describe public reaction to the prosecution of Vick, but he said he “honored” Vick’s decision to seek a plea agreement as the “most beneficial course.” He denied that he was “playing the race card,” saying he simply wanted to make sure Vick was “treated fairly by the public and by the court system.”

National NAACP withholds judgment
NBC’s Kevin Corke reported that White’s comments created a rift within the NAACP, whose national office has taken no position on Vick’s potential reinstatement to the National Football League.

Vick “certainly was in control of his actions at all times and should be held accountable for what he did,” Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president of the national NAACP, said Thursday in an interview with MSNBC’s Amy Robach.

Hayes rejected the contention that dogfighting was an acceptable part of urban black culture, as celebrated in rap and hip-hop videos like “Grand Champ” by DMX or “99 Problems” by Jay-Z.

“I thinks that’s a product of stereotypical thinking,” Hayes said.

“I’m from the black community. I live in the ’hood when I visit my mother in Indiana. I travel the streets of African-American communities in Baltimore, and this is all news to me,” he said. “I think people should hesitate to conclude that it’s something cultural with the African-American community. It exists everywhere.”

Racial element arose from beginning
Discussion of whether Vick was being singled out for special attention because he was a famous black man erupted almost from the moment the allegations against him arose in April, and much public reaction appeared to split along racial lines.

When several hundred people turned out last month for a rally supporting Vick in Atlanta, only about 50 were white, said Gerald Rose, executive director of the New Order National Human Rights Organization, based in the city. Rose said the overwhelmingly black turnout reflected anger among African-Americans that black men who stumbled came under disproportional public judgment.

Alton H. Maddox, a New York civil rights activist who was disbarred for his role in the Tawana Brawley case, argued that Vick was being targeted because “he is not an assimilationist.”

“No one can mistake Vick for Tiger Woods,” Maddox wrote in an editorial in the New York Amsterdam News, a black newspaper. “In sports, they are both performing a ‘white man’s job.’ Vick, however, is doing it on the Black side. This is like a Black man rubbing salt in the white man’s wound.”

Most recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, charged that a star white athlete never would have been prosecuted for the same crime.

Like Hayes, Sharpton has denounced images of dogfighting in popular black culture, and he signed a letter along with hip-hop executive Russell Simmons condemning the activity as ignorant and cruel.

But at the same time, Sharpton argued that the prosecution of Vick was overkill.

“If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not,” Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog.

“They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.”

Blacks urged to reject ‘street culture’
Other prominent black commentators dismiss that argument, however.

Hayes, of the NAACP, maintained that such sentiments were misplaced, saying African-Americans’ legitimate grievances against the criminal justice system should not excuse the very real crimes to which Vick has pleaded guilty.

“What we have to understand is the backdrop,” he said on MSNBC. “We have to understand that what we’re hearing expressed by some African-Americans is their anger and their hurt, distrust, in a criminal justice system that they feel treats them like animals.”

“Certainly, Mr. Vick was not a victim,” Hayes added.

Bryan Burwell, a sports columnist for MSNBC.com who is black, echoed Hayes’ assessment, arguing that it is impossible to claim that “Michael Vick was unjustly persecuted.”

“The negative images that are embraced by too many young (black) men in our society needs to be changed to make them understand that intelligence is right and ignorance is wrong,” Burwell wrote this week. “We need to alter the perception so that it’s cool to be smart and the thug and gangster lifestyle is wrong. When your friends can’t understand that, they aren’t your true friends.”

And in an open letter addressed to “young, black men,” ESPN columnist Jemele Hill, who also is black, wrote:

“I caution you not to make Vick a martyr. Do not applaud him for taking his comeuppance like some modern-day gangster. Do not blame others for Vick’s predicament when he alone should be held accountable for his actions.

“Let this historic unraveling be a wake-up call for the young, black men caught up in the same lifestyle that claimed Vick. Let his prison sentence send the message that a continued allegiance to street culture successfully keeps young, black men frighteningly behind in American society.”

I cannot be trusted with my own body

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

Egad. Is there no pleasing the right to lifers?

Abortion is bad! Booooo! Hissss! You kill fetuses and you’re going straight to hell. Blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah.

Along comes Plan B, a fantastic resource for women. Yet, people are still frothing and chomping at the bit about this preventative measure. Unphucking real.

The right to lifers think Plan B is akin to abortion. I’m still trying to figure out how one can abort what does not yet exist. Hmmmmm.

The religious nutters think Plan B leads to promiscuity. These are the same folks who are still pissed off and bitter because they couldn’t get laid in the 70s when everyone was phucking their brains out. Let’s be honest…the abstinence only brain fart doesn’t reduce promiscuity levels, either.

Plan B needs to be on the market, available at a reasonable price and readily accessible for everyone. Putting limits on usage, availability and any other sort of ridiculous regulation is nothing short of bombastic.

Morning-after pill popular but under pressure
A year after over-the-counter approval, sales soar and critics dig in

NEW YORK - In the year since it was approved for over-the-counter sales, the morning-after pill has become a huge commercial success for its manufacturer, but its popularity and solid safety record haven’t deterred critics from seeking to overturn the milestone ruling.

The pill, marketed by Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. as Plan B, was the focus of bitter debate for three years. After repeated delays, the Food and Drug Administration declared on Aug. 24, 2006 that customers 18 and older should be able to buy it in pharmacies without a prescription.

Barr began distributing the over-the-counter version last November, and all national pharmacy chains now stock it. The company projects that sales of Plan B will total about $80 million for 2007, almost double the total for 2006 and up eightfold from 2004, when Barr acquired the product as a prescription-only drug.

“Overall, we’ve been very pleased with the acceptance,” said Barr spokeswoman Carol Cox. “The product may not be for everyone — but if you find yourself in a position to need it, absolutely it should be available.”

Despite the booming sales, and evidence that the pill is safe if properly used, critics remain active.

Applying political pressure
A coalition of conservative groups, including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington seeking to reverse the FDA ruling. The groups contend that the FDA acted unwisely under political pressure and lacked authority to approve the same drug for both over-the-counter and prescription-only distribution based on the user’s age.

“Barr may be making a healthy profit, but women are paying the price,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, who believes Plan B is less effective than its backers assert.

Barr says Plan B, a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills, can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Since the FDA ruling, there have been extensive efforts by advocacy groups and some politicians to ensure widespread availability of Plan B.

• Several states have enacted laws to improve rape survivors’ access to the medication in hospital emergency rooms; a similar bill has been introduced in Congress.
• Also in Congress, supporters of Plan B have introduced legislation to ensure that women serving in the U.S. military overseas have access to the pills at their bases. The measure’s backers say servicewomen and military doctors often can’t obtain the medication when it’s needed.
• Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and their allies have campaigned to educate women about Plan B and pressure national pharmacy chains to make it readily available. Overall, activists are pleased with the chains’ response, but they say women continue to encounter pharmacies which refuse to stock Plan B and individual employees who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to sell it.

“Many women still don’t know it’s available,” said NARAL’s president, Nancy Keenan. “There’s a lot of education that needs to be done.”

Hotly debated claims
During three years of FDA deliberations over Plan B, many claims were made about it. Supporters said it would reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions; opponents said it would fuel teenage promiscuity because girls under 18 could obtain it from an older person — male or female — buying it over-the-counter on their behalf.

Thus far, there have been several studies casting doubt on all these claims — although activists of varying views say there is a shortage of authoritative research. Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, believes Plan B will contribute to a measurable drop in unintended pregnancies once accurate information about it spreads widely among American women.

“We’re talking about very mainstream health care here,” Richards said. “And yet there is a fringe group of folks in this country who seem determined to prevent women from getting emergency contraception.”

Some critics — including Roman Catholic leaders — consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although Barr says it has no effect on women who are already pregnant. Catholic bishops in Connecticut protested in May when the state legislature passed a bill requiring all hospitals, including Catholic facilities, to offer Plan B to rape victims

Deirdre McQuade, planning director for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, also expressed concern about pharmacy employees, saying they should have the right to refuse to sell Plan B for reasons of conscience. Some states have passed laws to protect this right of refusal.

“Pregnancy is not a disease,” McQuade said. “There is no absolute duty to dispense a non-therapeutic drug, but there is a basic civil right of conscience.”

Michael Vick: Certified Douchebag

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

What else can he do?   Really?

My grandmother used to say, “I would never wish anything on someone that I wouldn’t wish on myself.”  I cannot rise above this level of faggotry and ass-banditry.  I wish nothing but the absolute worst for Michael Vick. 

I’m hoping that those who abuse animals are treated worse than pedos in prison hierarchy.  I hope he’s not treated as a hero for being a quarterback; but as a prag for being the one of the biggest wastes of protoplasm this planet has ever seen.

Accepting full responsiblities for his mistakes (as he says)?  Mistakes you call it?  A mistake because you were popped, right?

With as vast as my vocabulary can be at times, I am at a loss for profane words to describe Michael Vick.  I sincerely hope he burns in hell.

Vick reaches plea agreement on dogfighting
QB will ‘accept full responsibility for his actions and … mistakes’

RICHMOND, Va. - Michael Vick’s lawyer said Monday the NFL star will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges, putting the Atlanta Falcons quarterback’s career in jeopardy and leaving him subject to a possible prison term.

The offense is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, although federal sentencing guidelines most likely would call for less.

“After consulting with his family over the weekend, Michael Vick asked that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him,” lead defense attorney Billy Martin said in a statement.

“Mr. Vick has agreed to enter a plea of guilty to those charges and to accept full responsibility for his actions and the mistakes he has made. Michael wishes to apologize again to everyone who has been hurt by this matter.”

Vick’s plea hearing will be Aug. 27, Martin said.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has barred Vick from the Falcons’ training camp but has withheld further action while the league conducts its own investigation.

Vick is charged with conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and conspiracy to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture.

Martin’s announcement came as a grand jury that could add new charges met in private. Prosecutors had said that a superseding indictment was in the works, but Vick’s plea most likely means he will not face additional charges.

Three of Vick’s original co-defendants already have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him if the case went to trial. Quanis Phillips of Atlanta and Purnell Peace of Virginia Beach signed statements saying the 27-year-old quarterback participated in executing at least eight underperforming dogs by various means, including drowning and hanging.

Phillips, Peace and Tony Taylor, who pleaded guilty last month, also said Vick provided virtually all of the gambling and operating funds for his “Bad Newz Kennels” operation in Surry County, Va., not far from Vick’s hometown of Newport News.

The gambling allegations alone could trigger a lifetime ban under the NFL’s personal conduct policy.

Fatally Flawed

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Observations, Op/Ed

…to borrow a term from Turdblossom, himself.

Finally!  It appears that the brain of the average, American worker-bee is showing signs of life.  Them synapses are a firin’, y’all!

I am thrilled to see a backlash against corporations who are making mandates on employee health.  This setting of standards is not only entirely unrealistic (how, exactly, are you going to ensure that someone who collected her $150.00 incentive for quitting smoking isn’t going to run out, cash the check and buy a carton of fags, after all), it invades privacy and puts limitations on how people can live their lives.

I appreciate an employer’s concern regarding skyrocketing healthcare costs.  The average is, at minimum, an increase of 7% annually.  Acting like big brother isn’t necessarily the answer.

What is?  Haven’t really a clue at this point (other than my typical, beat up the source of the cost, the supplier).  At least the workforce is beginning to take umbrage at corporations’ attempts to legislate off-duty hours and activities, though.

Privacy is true price of healthy worker discounts
Even fit folks should resist the temptation of lower deductibles

The latest fad in American health care is to give discounts to workers who are healthy. Many corporate CEOs and their benefits department managers are showing enthusiasm for the idea that workers who don’t take care of themselves ought to pay more for health insurance.

Like a lot of temptations, this one is attractive. Why should you pay the same rate for insurance as that bloated, pasty oaf of a co-worker down the hall?

But cupcakes, beer and cheeseburgers are not the only temptations you should try to resist. Paying less for being healthy is an enticement you ought to oppose as well.

The plan just announced by the giant HMO UnitedHealthcare is a good example of why some bosses are licking their chops at the fad. Workers can lower their annual deductible (the amount you pay each year for health care or drugs before insurance kicks in) if they take company-administered tests every year to check blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and weight and to see if they smoke. For each health goal employees meet, $500 is knocked off their deductible.

This bright idea comes all dressed up in the attractive language of personal responsibility. Who could possibly be against that? If your boss wants to pay you to stop unhealthy behavior, how could that be bad? You win, the boss wins, the insurance company wins. So what’s the problem?

A dumb idea
The idea that your boss or insurance company wants you healthy just because they care is, upon serious reflection, dumb. What your boss cares about is that you get to work, work hard, stay late and don’t jack up the price of the health plan. And the insurers may just be looking for a way to shift exploding health care costs.

Sure, it’s great that companies are starting to jump on board the movement for a fitter workforce. Access to fitness equipment, a less stressful workplace and an office that is designed to protect your health would help employees meet important health goals. But you may ask, “Wouldn’t that require turning the workplace into a health club?” My point exactly. So unless employers offer you time to get to the gym, forget it.

It’s also unlikely that your boss will tell you to stop working through lunch or to quit moving heavy objects to protect your back. And it is also pretty doubtful that you want your boss to hire people to poke and prod you and to find out what you’re doing when you’re not at work.

Think about it. Do you really want your bosses and the insurance company giving you physicals and snooping around in your health care records to find out the most intimate details of your mental, sexual and physical health? It’s a pretty high price in terms of privacy to pay for a discount.

No end to policing
The emerging movement toward corporate health fascism is no friend to the chubby and wheezy among us. But, if allowed, corporate health policing won’t stop there.

How long will it be before slackers will be told that discounts are over, and instead, surcharges on them will begin? Who will be next? The guy who skis on the weekends? The woman who wears high heels? What about the family that decides to have a baby, knowing the child may have sickle-cell disease or cystic fibrosis? Will companies be willing to put up with that sort of personal “irresponsibility”?

At least one employer is already headed down the punishment path.  Clarian Health, an Indianapolis-based hospital system, recently announced that starting in 2009 it will fine employees $10 per paycheck if their body mass index, blood pressure or glucose levels are too high.

HMOs and insurance companies have proven completely unable to contain rising health care costs. This is mainly due to the fact that costs are fueled by an aging population using more services, an increased reliance on technologies and drugs whose prices are out of control, topped off by a massive dose of error, fraud and administrative waste.

Unless we address those problems, it is only a matter of time before the smiling hand of management takes away the discounts and starts raising deductibles and issuing fines on the grounds that no employee who is sick or has a sick spouse or kid is blameless.

If you ski, fly a private airplane, drive go-karts, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, engage in risky sexual behavior, forgo a flu shot, sunbathe, eat rare meat, kayak, scuba dive or own a gun, you are defying medical wisdom and choosing to engage in unhealthy behavior.

Admittedly, no HMO or corporate health plan is going after those behaviors — yet.

So lose weight. Stay active. Get enough rest. Wear your seatbelt. Don’t do drugs. Don’t drink too much. Stop smoking. Do these things not because your employer is ready to slap a higher deductible on you if you don’t. Do them because you and your doctor know these are the healthy things to do.

Johnson & Johnson attempts to eat the Red Cross

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Tentacle Wagging

Yup! Corporate business shows its altruistic side, yet again.Johnson & Johnson is suing the Red Cross! Not for anything legitimate mind you. They’re claiming that they are the only one with rights to use the red cross symbol. It’s a lawsuit over corporate identity.

WHAT THE PHUCK? Seriously. What the phuckity phuck? I mean…who the phuck does J & J think it is?

Now…I’m going to say that I’m not exactly enamoured with the Red Cross. They won’t allow the use of the Red Magen David. From one perspective, it’s delicious irony. On the other hand, filing a law suit against a non-profit organization comprised of do-gooders??? What next? Mugging a nun? Taking candy from a baby?

Johnson & Johnson sues Red Cross over use of emblem

Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical giant which uses a red cross as its trademark, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the American Red Cross, demanding that the charity halt the use of the red cross symbol on products it sells to the public.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, marked the breakdown of months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, and prompted an angry response from the Red Cross.

“For a multibillion dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute … simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene,” said Mark Everson, the Red Cross president.

Johnson & Johnson began using the red cross design as a trademark in 1887 — six years after the creation of the American Red Cross but before it received its congressional charter in 1900. The lawsuit contends that the charter did not empower the Red Cross to engage in commercial activities competing with a private business.

“After more than a century of strong cooperation in the use of the Red Cross trademark. … we were very disappointed to find that the American Red Cross started a campaign to license the trademark to several businesses for commercial purposes,” Johnson & Johnson said in a statement.

It said these product include baby mitts, nail clippers, combs, toothbrushes and humidifiers.

The pharmaceutical company has had exclusive rights to use the trademark on certain commercial products for over 100 years, Johnson & Johnson said.

The Red Cross said many of the products in question were part of health and safety kits, and that profits from the sales — totaling less than $10 million (€7.25 million) — went to boost Red Cross disaster-response efforts.

The suit asks the Red Cross to turn over the products in question to Johnson & Johnson for destruction and also seeks unspecified punitive damages.

Robots! Mine Sweeping Robots!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

w00t!!!

From the New York Times:

Robots Clear Waterways of Deadly Mines

As it slowly moves in the shallow water along a beach, the robot splashes its fins like a small child playing in the surf. But the prototype device has a serious mission: destroying mines that could kill Marines and Navy SEALs as they come on shore. Such technology is considered the future of underwater bomb detection.

”It’s a kamikaze vehicle, a suicidal robot,” said Mathieu Kemp, a scientist with Durham, N.C.-based Nekton Research, LCC, which created the Transphibian.

The 3-foot-long device, which will someday carry 14 pounds of plastic explosives and attach itself to an underwater bomb before igniting, can be maneuvered by a joystick, which Kemp demonstrated last month at the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Fest, an annual two-week gathering of researchers who design robots for military use.

Experts with the Panama City Beach-based Naval Surface Warfare Center say such robots eventually will replace minesweeping ships and perform dangerous jobs now done by specialized divers.

A 2003 mine-clearing operation in the port of Um Quasar, Iraq, was a major test for autonomous underwater vehicles. The technology helped the U.S. Navy clear a path for a British ship carrying 200 tons of food and emergency supplies. It took the AUVs about 16 hours to search nearly a square mile and help divers locate an undisclosed number of mines — a task the Navy says would have taken 21 days for divers working without the technology.

In the future, scientists plan to put explosives on the AUVs to destroy the mines. Meanwhile, they are using them to quickly and accurately differentiate ocean clutter from mines.

”The closer in you get to any port or harbor, the greater amount of clutter you will encounter — tires, rocks, coral reefs — there can be so much clutter you would not believe it,” said Daniel Broadstreet, a spokesman for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, which specializes in neutralizing underwater mines.

”To screen out all that clutter is a huge job and it takes some very, very technologically advanced sensors,” Broadstreet said.

The Um Quasar operation was a milestone for AUVs because it marked the first wartime use of the technology, said Tom Swean, team leader of the Office of Naval Research’s Mine Warfare Science and Technology Program.

Swean joined the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Va., in 1981, but his work took off in 1997 when the Navy SEALs got involved. They tailored the systems for missions including surveying the seabed, finding channels near the shore and locating mines.

”It was important that they have underwater vehicles that could not be seen very easily,” Swean said. ”Their missions are near shore and are very dangerous.”

A decade later, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed advances in unmanned and robotic technology, especially on land and in the air where robots routinely inspect improvised explosive devices and drones conduct air reconnaissance.

”It’s gone from zero to 60 pretty fast,” said Jeffery Bradshaw, a scientist at the Pensacola-based Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, which is working with the warfare center on a project to use robots for port security.

The military is expected to spend more than $50 million on the acquisition of AUV technology in the next five years, Swean said. At the same time, more than $12 billion is expected to be spent on unmanned aircraft programs.

The next steps for the researchers include creating robots that function alongside troops as members of an operational team and ones that work with other robots.

”If one robot breaks or if one of the human team members is in trouble, they would know how to coordinate interactions — sort of like buddies,” Bradshaw said.

Among the robots with the most promise is the Transphibian, which is still being developed.

”It’s a good example of a hybrid concept, it can swim in the water and it can crawl on the sea floor,” Swean said as he watched a prototype splash along the waters near Panama City Beach. ”The last piece is to efficiently and cheaply go out to a real mine and place a charge on it.”