Archive for January, 2009
US army suicides hit record high
The rate of suicides among soldiers in the US army has risen to a record level for the second year in a row.
The army said there were 128 confirmed suicides in 2008, with a further 15 deaths still under investigation.
Military officials said they did not know why the number has kept increasing but that the stress of conflicts overseas had had a significant impact.
The army has said it is committed to addressing the issue and has introduced training to raise awareness.
“This is a challenge of the highest order for us,” said US Army Secretary Pete Geren.
“Why do the numbers keep going up? We cannot tell you. But we can tell you that across the army, we’re committed to doing everything we can to address the problem.”
Conflict stress
About 35% of the suicides were of soldiers who had never been deployed, while 30% were soldiers who were on active service – three…
Bill Hicks’ Censored Segment on David Letterman; Interview with Bill’s Mom
The following is the buildup and the actual censored segment of Bill Hicks from the ‘Late Show with David Letterman’…
One thing I would like to point out. In the first video where David Letterman is introducing Bill’s mom and talking about why she is here, he states that it was his decision to remove Bill’s routine from the show 16 years ago…
It appears that Letterman doesn’t remember why he removed Bill’s segment from the show, so I thought it would be appropriate to remind him and anyone else that may be interested. According to Bill Hicks, the reason that his segment was censored from the show is because the “CBS Standards and Practices felt that some of the material was unsuitable for broadcast.”
Tax Solution to Wretched Greed
A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax.
Remembering The ‘1984′ Super Bowl Mac Ad
Caroline McCarthy: The fact that the Los Angeles Raiders humiliated the Washington Redskins in a 38-to-9 victory is a mere afterthought. Super Bowl XVIII’s lasting legacy has been a single advertisement sandwiched somewhere in the third quarter: Apple Computer’s iconic “1984″ commercial.
It began, in a clear nod to George Orwell’s novel of the same name, with tense strains of music, the image of figures marching through a tube across a dank industrial complex, and the start of a bizarre monologue: “Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.”
Directed by Ridley Scott not long after Blade Runner, “1984″ aired on January 22, 1984, and its narrative is now geek canon. Scores of blank-faced people are fixated on a broadcast of a Big Brother figure on a giant television screen, until a woman in bright athletic apparel sprints down a center aisle, wielding a hammer. She hurls it…
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Was Motivated By A Desire To End Slavery
Richard Gray, Telegraph: Science historians Adrian Desmond and James Moore have compiled compelling new evidence which reveals Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery and this was the moral impetus behind his work.
Private notes and letters uncovered by the pair reveal that Darwin’s opinions on slavery were far stronger than had previously been believed. Notebooks from his five year voyage on HMS Beagle, during which Darwin first began to form his famous theories on natural selection, detail his revulsion at the slavery he witnessed in South America.
The historians have also discovered letters written by Darwin’s sisters, cousins and aunts that reveal the family as highly active abolitionists. Darwin’s grandfather and uncles were also key members of the anti-slavery movement.
The pair claim in Darwin’s Sacred Cause that Darwin partly chose to highlight the common descent of man from apes to show that all races were equal, as a rebuttal to those who insisted…
Champagne-Board the CEOs
Barack Obama called the well-lubricated CEOs, “irresponsible” and their grand theft “outrageous”. Ya think Barack? They’re taking us like Bernie Madoff wannabes and they’re “irresponsible” and “outrageous”? Damn! You ARE the master of understatement.
Obama’s First Big Failure: Spending Us Into Oblivion
It’s official, President King Obama has taken his first steps towards ruining our country, seamlessly picking up where George W. Bush left off.
Last night his $825+ BILLION “Stimulus” bill was passed. NONE of the House Republicans voted for it (for once Ron Paul did not stand alone), and all but 11 Democrats voted for it (including Mary Jo Kilroy, new Representative for Ohio’s 15th District, who will NEVER AGAIN get my vote.)
If you support Obama’s plan, I have 3 assignments for you:
1. Find where in the Constitution it says the federal government is allowed to use tax-payer money for these things.
2. Read the Stimulus Bill for yourself. All 1,588 pages.
3. Report back to me in a few months and tell me how many jobs have been created and how much better off we are thanks to this emergency pillaging.
4. EXTRA CREDIT #1: Research how FDR’s New Deal programs actually prolonged…
A Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down the United States
A new study from the National Academy of Sciences lays out the frightening possibilities for a worst-case scenario solar storm.
To explain: during the active phase of its 11-year cycle, the sun unleashes powerful magnetic activity. Depending on severity, these flare-ups can disable satellites and disrupt communication systems on Earth; a 1989 solar storm knocked out all power in Quebec, Canada. The worst solar storm of the last few centuries occurred in 1859, shutting down telegraph wire communication across the country and igniting widespread fires.
Today, however, the damage would be immensely greater. The Academy of Sciences describes such a scenario as “catastrophic”; a “cascade of failures” with crucial systems such as power, water and food distribution, internet and phone service, fuel resupply, and sewage disposal being compromised, all taking months to fix. The resulting chaos would be well beyond the scope of emergency services, leading to a possible “loss of governmental…
Iraqi Shoe Hurler Monument
The Iraqi city of Tikrit yesterday unveiled a sofa-sized statue of the shoe which an Iraqi journalist threw at President Bush last month. Made of fiberglass and copper, the work was sculpted by Baghdad-based artist Laith al-Amari, who described it as a tribute to the pride of the Iraqi people.
The statue is inscribed with a poem honoring Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the journalist. He made headlines around the globe when he whipped off his loafers and hurled them at Bush during a Dec. 14 press conference. Anyhow, the monument looks like a gigantic version of those copper-dipped baby shoes that everyone’s parents made.
Michael Savage: Bilderberg Group Not Important
Mark Dice calls Michael Savage and asks him for the first tiime about the Bilderberg Group and Michael tells him he is 100% wrong.
The Darwins’ Marriage Of Science And Religion
On Jan. 29, 1839, in the little chapel in the English village of Maer, a religious, 30-year-old woman named Emma Wedgwood put on a green silk dress and got married. She believed firmly in a heaven and a hell. And she believed you had to accept God to go to heaven. She married Charles Darwin.
As we head into a new era for a country that has struggled for too long with the marriage of science and religion, we should take a look at the marriage of Charles and Emma Darwin.
When Charles came home in 1836 from his five-year voyage around the world, which included the visit to the Galapagos Islands, he was already seeing life and creation in a new way. And as he courted Emma, he also was secretly scribbling notes about a new idea, his theory of evolution, in leather-bound notebooks marked “private.”
He knew that his view of…
Greg Palast: Obama Is A Two-faced Liar. Aw-RIGHT!
Republicans are right. President Barack Obama treated them like dirt, didn’t give a damn what they thought about his stimulus package, loaded it with a bunch of programs that will last for years and will never leave the budget, is giving away money disguised as “tax refunds,” and is sneaking in huge changes in policy, from schools to health care, using the pretext of an economic emergency.
Way to go, Mr. O! Mr. Down-and-Dirty Chicago pol. Street-fightin’ man. Covering over his break-your-face power play with a “we’re all post-partisan friends” BS.
And it’s about time.
Frankly, I was worried about this guy. Obama’s appointing Clinton-droids to the Cabinet, bloated incompetents like Larry Summers as “Economics Czar,” made me fear for my country, that we’d gotten another Democrat who wished he were a Republican.
Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt Volcano Ready To Blow
Alaska’s known for dramatic scenery. That scenery is there because of very active geology.
Case in point: Mt. Redoubt, a 10,197-foot active volcano 103 miles west of Anchorage. Scientists at the US Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) are keeping close tabs on the mountain. They say an eruption may be imminent.
(You can monitor the mountain too, weather permitting. Government scientists have set up webcams at two locations, here and here.)
Last fall, it showed signs that it may be waking up after a decade’s slumber. Since Jan. 23, that activity has been rising — largely marked by an increase in tremors recorded by seismic sensors near the summit.
According scientists to the AVO, the first tip that the mountain might be clearing its throat again came via peoples’ noses. Toward the end of last September, residents downwind of the volcano reported the pungent rotten-egg smell of hydrogen sulfide. The AVO ordered up some overflights of…
An Inconvenient Debt
The amount of U.S. dollars in circulation is skyrocketing. What does it mean for you?
Google Maps Car Hits a Deer And Records Entire Ordeal
Adam Frucci, Gizmodo: Here’s a sad one: the Google Maps car took out a baby deer, and it recorded the entire process for all Google Maps users to see. For shame, Google Maps car!
As you follow the street view scene down Five Points Road in Rush, NY, you can see the deer run out in front of the car, get hit and then see it on the side of the road before the car pulls over. And that’s the end of the Street View data for Five Points Road.
UPDATE: Google responds.
President Obama: Here Are 50 Facts That Should Change The USA
Disinformation: The Podcast
Hosted by Raymond Wiley and Joe McFall
Raymond and Joe sit down with Stephen Fender, author of the informing 50 FACTS THAT SHOULD CHANGE THE USA, to present a vibrant, proud, and critical portrait of the world’s most powerful but least understood nation. Hilarious, sad, shocking, and riveting: sit back and enjoy a fascinating conversation about life in contemporary America.
Disinformation: The Podcast is always available at www.disinfo.com/podcasts and is on:
Road Signs Warn of Zombies: Hackers Change Public Safety Message
Shannon Wolfson, AUSTIN (KXAN): Austin drivers making their morning commute were in for a surprise when two road signs on a busy stretch of road were taken over by hackers. The signs near the intersection of Lamar and Martin Luther King boulevards usually warn drivers about upcoming construction, but Monday morning they warned of “zombies ahead.”
“I thought it was pretty funny,” said University of Texas sophomore Jane Shin, who saw the signs while driving down Lamar Bouelvard with friends Sunday night. “We wondered who did it.”
The City of Austin does not own the signs, but they are responsible for the message. The contractor on the construction project owns the signs. A city spokesperson said the hacked messages were only up for a few hours, until the construction project manager saw them during his morning commute and immediately ordered them to be changed back.
…
Mystery of Sleepless Boy Solved
ABC News: Not long ago, saying goodnight to his mom and dad was nearly impossible for 3-year-old Rhett Lamb. In a case that baffled doctors, Rhett was awake nearly 24 hours a day.
“His body would give out but his mind wouldn’t; he’d still be awake,” said Rhett’s mom, Shannon Lamb. “He’d still be alert. It was extremely scary.” One of the side effects of Rhett’s lack of sleep was bad behavior.
“He was in a bad mood all the time,” Lamb said. “He couldn’t play, he didn’t interact with other children. His frustration level was so high, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. He couldn’t communicate with anyone. It was heartbreaking.” Rhett’s temper got so bad he would hit his mother, even giving her black eyes.
Rhett’s dad David Lamb said, “It was like he was losing his mind and there was nothing we could do to help…
