lumberjack in a desert

Cool? Yes.  Practical? Functional? Not for all amputees.

The world’s first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex.  Last month APL announced it was awarded a $34.5 million contract withDARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthesis in five individuals over the next two years.

We’ve been reporting on major advances in artificial limbs for a while now, but this is the holy grail of prosthetic technology. Phase III testing – human subjects testing – will be used to tweak the system, both improving neural control over the limb and optimizing the algorithms which generate sensory feedback. The Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) is the product of years of prototype design – it includes 22 degrees of motion, allows independent control of all five fingers, and weighs the same as a natural human arm (about nine pounds). Patients will control the MPL with a surgically implanted microarray which records action potentials directly from the motor cortex.

Researchers plan to install the first system into a quadriplegic patient; while amputees can be outfitted with traditional prostheses, the MPL will be the first artificial limb that can sidestep spinal cord injury by plugging directly into the brain. This isn’t the first brain-controlled interface to be used in humans – we’ve previously reported on Braingate, a system that uses brain impulses to control computer cursors and restore communication to locked-inpatients. But the MPL will offer the first hard-wired neural control of bionic body parts, whether lost to injury or neurodegenerative disease.

Make sure you read the whole thing. Pretty cool, but realistically speaking someone like me will never get something like this.  Much like hand transplant surgery, I only foresee this going to a double arm amputee.   This isn’t exactly a “go enjoy the great outdoors” type of prosthetic either. Give this arm to me and I guarantee I’ll have it broken in a week just working around the house (can you use it as a hammer?)  My body powered prosthesis has a Kevlar-esque harness, steel cables, and a carbon fiber socket and I still break it all the time.  (Snowboarding season is particularly hard on my prosthetic. I had to repair it with ski binding hardware in Aspen last winter.)  Please understand I’m not dumping on this prosthesis for the sake of dumping on it. Advances like this are great for amputees.  But they’re not going to help all amputees.  Technology like this is extremely expensive, extremely finicky, and not very durable.  Hence the reason my expensive Myoelectric arm stays in a box in my attic and never sees the light of day.

This weekend at the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, WI I won my 8th log rolling world title. Here is the final match, minus the second fall Darren Hudson got on me (for some reason it wasn’t filmed).

I think I did a pretty good job of covering everything that I wanted to say when I was given my award.  Well, almost everything.  I would also like to say something how the VA health care system once again failed in its obligation to provide me with the necessary care and nearly cost me 2.5 months of training and my 8th log rolling world title.

After spending Monday and Tuesday in our local (private, non-VA) hospital with my wife as she gave birth to our first child, I finally succumbed to my deteriorating condition and complete exhaustion and went to VA urgent care in Minneapolis.  That night I spent 6 hours waiting because they apparently they ran out of doctors and had to call some in (they then had the audacity to ask me to be “extra nice” to the doctor because and was only supposed to work on weekends but got called in midweek).  I had trouble understanding how they were “backed up” when there were only four of us waiting.

Despite the fact I had been bitten by three ticks two months earlier and had nearly all the symptoms of Lymes (and was suggesting the entire time that I have Lymes) I was sent home empty handed pending an out-of-state blood test (that may or may not reveal that I have Lymes Disease, even if I have it).   Had I not consulted with medical professionals outside the VA and acquired the necessary antibiotics my condition would not have improved enough to compete in the Lumberjack World Championships, let alone win another log rolling world title.

As much as I would like to give the VA the benefit of the doubt, I find myself unable to do so based on their prior track record of being unable to provide me with the necessary medical care.  It took me over a year of waiting and a congressional inquiry into my case until I was finally given a prosthetic arm to replace the one I received at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  (I received a new one within a week of the inquiry).  I bounced around the VA system for year and a half by myself before I was finally assigned a patient advocate to help with my transition from Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  During that time I was unsure how to acquire meds, make appoints, or go through the disability rating process.  And despite my many calls to VA personnel to find out when the appoints were for disability rating, I was informed that after months of waiting I had missed all of them because the “system” made the appointments without sending me a letter or issuing a call notification.  After these repeated displays of incompetence, I cannot give the VA the benefit of the doubt any longer.

To me the moral of the story is clear.  The VA is incapable of providing adequate medical care in a timely fashion.  The system is too big, too bureaucratic, and apparently has no oversight whatsoever.  I have finally learned that if I’m going to receive adequate medical care I need to go elsewhere, even if I have to use my disability payments to pay for it.  It’s a shame that I had to risk 2.5 months of training and my 8th log rolling world title to realize it.

And I thought our VA system was bad.

A soldier has spoken of his disgust after his disability benefit was axed despite losing a leg fighting for his country.

Private Aron Shelton, 26, had his left leg amputated in December 2008 after he was injured in an explosion in Helmand province, Afghanistan, a year earlier.

After an 18-month struggle, the Bridlington soldier has learned to walk a few hundred metres with the help of a prosthetic limb.

But as a result of his efforts, the Department for Work and Pensions has ruled this means he no longer needs his £180-a-month Disability Living Allowance.

From September, he will lose his allowance, which he traded in each month in return for the use of a specially-adapted car.

Pte Shelton said that without a car, his dream of rebuilding his life as a taxi driver was in tatters.

He said: “I’m disgusted, shocked and mortified.

“I risked my life and now I feel let down by the Government.

Sounds a bit like my struggles with the VA, only much worse. I waited over a year for a new prosthetic arm only to be ignored and brushed aside.  It wasn’t until a couple congressmen wrote letters that I finally received a new prosthetic arm to replace my worn out one from Walter Reed (within a week, mind you).

Milwaukee sure has a habit of giving the rest of Wisconsin a black eye (no pun intended).  Enter Ieshuh Griffin.

Madison — State elections officials Wednesday narrowly rejected a Milwaukee Assembly candidate’s attempt to run with the slogan “NOT the ‘whiteman’s bitch’ ” under her name on the ballot.

Ieshuh Griffin, an independent candidate with a history of feuds with local officials, said in response she would sue the state Government Accountability Board for infringing on her freedom of speech.

She is running to replace retiring Rep. Annette “Polly” Williams (D-Milwaukee).

“I’m not making a derogatory statement toward an ethnic group. I’m stating what I’m not,” Griffin told board members. “It’s my constitutional right to freedom of speech.”

Maybe she should sit down and have an intellectual conversation with Peggy West, geographically challenged Democrat Milwaukee County Board Supervisor who didn’t know that Arizona is a border state.   You stay classy Milwaukee.

Capt. Dan Luckett of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division is assigned to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, the Zhari district just north of Kandahar city, where Taliban attacks are common.

He goes on patrols, lifts weights in his spare time and is second in command of his company.

That may not sound unusual.

What is unusual is that Luckett is a double amputee, after injuries he received in combat in Iraq in 2008.

I encountered a handful of other amputees during my stay at Walter Reed who returned to combat. The vast majority were lower extremity, but a couple were upper limb, below elbow amputees (its a lot easier to go back as as leg than an arm).  Make sure you read the whole thing.

Feingold did his best to look responsible by opposing the financial reform bill to win points among voters in the upcoming election. Here is what he had to say.

Feingold’s stand has made it more difficult for his party to muster the 60 Senate votes it needs to pass what is a huge priority for the White House and frustrated some progressive groups who are his natural allies.

His position on the issue is unique in the 100-member Senate.

All the measure’s other opponents in that body are Republicans. Feingold is the only senator opposing the bill from the progressive side of the debate and the only one who is arguing that the new regulations are so timid and easy on Wall Street that passage would do more harm than good.

“It doesn’t do the job, and I’m not going to be part of basically defrauding the American people into thinking it does,” said Feingold in an interview that underscored his pointed differences with his own party on a reform package intended to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic financial meltdown of 2008.

It was all for show though, as I rightly predicted.  Much like the Democrats in Arizona begging Obama not to sue their state, Feingold is only worried about the upcoming election.  Feingold gladly voted for the $787 billion “stimulus” and the unconstitutional health care mandate.  My prediction was that Feingold could be a dissenting vote on the finance reform bill and look good for his constituents, while the two RINOs in Maine pick up the slack and help ram the bill through anyway.  Other than Scott Brown’s vote, I was right.   The bill readily passed without him, and will be signed into law next week. Meanwhile, Feingold doubles down on his campaign rhetoric as the November election gets closer.

I agree with the Journal Sentinel that the bill includes some positive consumer protections. But after listening to Wisconsinites frustrated about the prospect of future bailouts, I cannot support a bill that simply doesn’t get the job done.

I work for the people of Wisconsin, not Wall Street, and the people of Wisconsin deserve a bill that will protect them and their families from the pain of another financial crisis.

Feingold is doing his best to paint himself as a maverick who bucks the trend of the liberal Democratic Party’s  big spending, big government agenda.  But the facts of his record say otherwise.

According to the US Congress Votes Database Feingold voted with the Democratic Party 79.8 percent of 598 votes in the current congress.  Feingold is a rank-and-file Democrat according to GovTrack’s own analysis of bill sponsorship.

What about campaign contributions? He’s a man of the people who bucks the liberal trend of being in the pocket of corrupt union influence, stays away from the influence of greedy lawyers, and whose voting on health care is not determined by campaign contributions, right?  Well, no.

Top 20 Feingold Contributors

Nearly all of his contributions come from unions, lawyers, and health care industries.  Feingold is no different than Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. Its time to give this career politician the boot this November.

Update

I’ve had a couple people comment on the large number of contributions from the University of Wisconsin.  First, you need to remember that nationwide roughly 72% of college professors identify themselves as liberal (shocking, I know) while  only 15% identify as conservative. You also need to know a little something about Madison, WI (home of the largest UW school in the system).  Madison is such a large liberal stronghold, that around the rest of the state it’s commonly referred to as “The People’s Republic of Madison,” also commonly known as “78 square miles surrounded by the real world.”

I think this clip from Ghostbusters pretty much sums things up.

I’m shocked, shocked that Muslims are issuing death threats toward those who disagree with their “religion of peace,” especially after all the death threats I collected on Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Via Jammiewearingfool:

A charismatic terror leader linked to the botched Times Square car bomb has placed the Seattle cartoonist who launched “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” on an execution hitlist.

The Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – the radical who’s also been cited as inspiring the Fort Hood, Tex., massacre and the plot by two New Jersey men to kill U.S. soldiers – singled out artist Molly Norris as a “prime target,” saying her “proper abode is Hellfire.”

FBI officials have notified Norris and warned her they consider it a “very serious threat.”

In “Inspire,” an English language Al Qaeda terrorist mag, Awlaki damns Norris and eight others for “blasphemous caricatures” of the Prophet Muhammed.

The other cartoonists, authors and journalists in Awlaki’s crosshairs are Swedish, Dutch and British citizens.

Don’t expect Obama to get worked up over this.   He’s too busy using NASA (the former space agency) to make Muslims feel better about themselves.   I bet they’ll feel real great when they succeed in giving Molly Norris the Theo Van Gogh treatment.

First you need some background on this story to understand the utter incompetence of the Canadian Government’s handling of the G20 Summit and the usual liberals that swarm to these events to wreak havoc. From Hotair (follow link to see videos):

A palate cleanser via Iowahawk, who subtitles this one “Rage Against My Allowance.” Say, how come there are no cops around to cuff this black-bloc idiot? Well, funny thing: On Saturday, Toronto PD decided to avoid confrontation as anarchists and far-left dregs of various stripes burned cars and smashed windows in the name of “human rights” or whatever. That didn’t sit well with the public, so theychanged tactics that night and ended up beating people the next day who, er,weren’t rioting. No estimates yet on the total damage, but according to Toronto’s mayor, it was a “mistake” to hold the summit there. How’s that for a vote of confidence in the city from the man in charge?

Now enter John Pruyn, a Revenue Canada employee from Thorold, Ont., and 57-year-old amputee.

In the early evening, Mr. Pruyn and his 24-year-old daughter, Sarah, were sitting on the lawn of the provincial legislature — the so-called “designated speech area” — waiting to meet Mr. Pruyn’s wife, Susan, from whom the pair had become separated during the afternoon march.

At the same time, a line of police began advancing on the crowd of protesters, most of whom Mr. Pruyn says were simply relaxing on the grass.

“The police came up to us and said, ‘Move!’ so I tried to get up,” said Mr. Pruyn, who lost his left leg above the knee 17 years ago in a farming accident.

“I fell back down and my daughter yelled out, ‘Give him time. He’s an amputee.’ I guess the police thought I was taking too long … then all of a sudden the police were on top of me.”

Mr. Pruyn claims his head was kept on the ground by an officer digging a knee into his left temple while other officers yanked at his arms.

“One of them was yelling, ‘You’re resisting arrest’, but I wasn’t resisting anything. I couldn’t move.”

He says police then ordered him to start walking, but when he informed them that he couldn’t get up because his hands were cuffed behind his back, an officer grabbed his prosthetic leg and “yanked it right off.”

“Then he said, ‘Hop!’ but I told them I couldn’t because it hurts for me to hop on my right leg,” Mr. Pruyn recalled. “Then the cop said, ‘OK, you asked for it’ and two officers grabbed me under my armpits and dragged me away from Queen’s Park towards the police vans.”

Make sure you read the whole thing. I wish I could say that this type of treatment is limited to Canada, but it isn’t. I regularly have to deal with stupidity in the official capacity when I fly and deal with TSA.  Rather than deal with their inconsistent procedures in dealing with amputees, I simply take my prosthetic arm off and send it through the scanner with my laptop and shoes.  Unfortunately leg amputees are not as lucky. While returning from the Vail Veteran’s Project in Vail, Colorado a couple years back a TSA official asked a fellow Veteran and leg amputee from Walter Reed if he would hand over his crutches and hop through the security without them.  A year later on the way back from a snowboarding clinic in Park City, UT another fellow Veteran from Walter Reed and double below knee amputee was basically molested in the little glass security booth by a TSA official who was clearly unsure or untrained in proper search techniques.

You can’t really blame Senate Democrats. They are simply following in the footsteps of Obama, who tried to make wounded Veterans like me pay for our war injuries with private insurance. I guess it’s only fitting they come after my prosthetic arm.  After all, I did have to fight the VA for a year to get it.

As the nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day with parades and barbecues, America’s veterans face a new tax on prosthetic limbs and other vital medical devices.

The health care overhaul passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama earlier this year contains a new tax on medical devices such as prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, and wheelchairs.  This tax, which its proponents claim will raise $20 billion over the next ten years, contains no exemption for the nation’s 22 million veterans.  In fact, Senate Democrats specifically refused to exempt veterans from the tax.

On March 24 2010, Senate Democrats rejected an amendment offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to the healthcare bill.  This amendment (SA 3644) would have prevented the medical device tax from hitting veterans covered by the Veterans Healthcare Program or TRICARE for Life.  This amendment was rejected by a vote of 44-54. All but five Democrat senators voted in favor of retaining the tax for veterans.

The medical device tax was one of over twenty new or higher taxes in President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul.  This permanent new tax is being collected now.

“On March 24, Senate Democrats had the opportunity to exempt our veterans from Obamacare’s new tax on medical devices such as prosthetic limbs.  But 54 Democrats voted against the measure.  They chose to side with the tax-and-spend crowd in Washington over our wounded warriors,”said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.  “This is one of the many reasons Harry Reid and the Democrats did not want Americans to read the 2,500 page health care bill before it was passed.”

You can get a complete list of all those who voted for it right here. Among the names are Wisconsin’s very own Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Herb Kohl (D-WI), both clear military haters.

Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes (big whoop, we have 15,000 in Wisconsin), that gave the world Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Senator Al “Stuart Smalley” Franken decides to continue its reign of stupidity by banning ladies night. Why? Because it apparently discriminates against men. Because you know, men feel extremely discriminated against when they show up to a bar that is jam packed with women instead of men. Apparently James Kirkpatrick, the Commissioner of Human Rights in Minnesota, hates women.