Detroit's Best-known Cyborg to Get Actual Statue

http://www.freep.com/article/20110216/NEWS01/110216015/Sci-fi-fans-rejoice-RoboCop-statue-coming-Detroit

Oh, Internet people, how you make life interesting.  If you head over to http://www.detroitneedsrobocop.com/, you too can be part of the crazy - the Kickstarter to fund an actual RoboCop statue to be installed somewhere in Detroit has blown past a couple of funding goals already.  At this point it's at just over $62,000 - the organizers have said they'll let it run for the whole funding period, and just make the statue as awesome as they can with whatever ridiculous total they end up with.

Apparently it started with a random tweet to the mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing (how'd Microsoft swing that deal, I wonder?) suggesting they build a RoboCop statue.  Perhaps unwisely, he actually responded to the tweet, saying "There are not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop.  Thank you for the suggestion."  Enter the fine folks at Imagination Station, a non-profit group dedicated to reclaiming and refurbishing some of Detroit's less-pleasant buildings and turning them into an art commune/gallery/park/something.  They decided this was something people could get behind, and threw up a Kickstarter for it.

As it turned out, they were right - in the first four days, they had $17,000 of pledges.  They got a boost shortly afterward from Pete Hottelet, the CEO of Omni Consumer Products...yes, really.  Apparently this is a real company, that makes little real products based on various fictional properties.  Mr. Hottelet pledged $25,000, which I suppose he really had to, given his company's name.

So, none of this has much to do with real cyborgs or transhumanism, but I figured it's worth noting.  Not least of which because, while RoboCop was great, I had a serious crush on Peter Weller in Buckaroo Banzai.  Even as a young prototype, I was not your standard model, I guess. ;)  Although now that I think about it, maybe his later portrayal of RoboCop did have something to do with my eventual robotic inclinations.