Archive for January, 2009
Marilyn Manson’s Mansinthe Rocks Sleepy Switzerland
KALLNACH, Switzerland — Few people in this quiet village of quaint chalets know the album “Eat Me, Drink Me,” by Marilyn Manson, the shock rocker. But almost everyone knows his taste for absinthe.
There could hardly be a greater contrast between Mr. Manson, the American bad boy who introduced the golden age of grotesque, and the 1,500 people who live quietly in the squat farmhouses strung out along Kallnach’s main street, their eaves reaching almost to the ground.
“They’re completely different,” said Beat Läderach, 47, who has been the town manager for 17 years. “We live off the land, a very sleepy existence. But it has its advantages: There is little unemployment, no vandalism; life is modest, comfortable, friendly.”
Yet Mr. Manson’s link to the town “is important for us,” Mr. Läderach said. The name Kallnach has become well known, he said, thanks to the success of a superpremium absinthe developed with Mr.…
‘The Age of Transitions’ by Aaron Franz
Converging technology, transhumanism, and our future in the making:
The cutting edge group known as transhumanists see a beautiful future brought about by artificial intelligence, life extension, and cybernetics. What one must realize before getting carried away with such utopian dreams is that transhumanism was born out of the elitist pseudo-science eugenics. This documentary provides vital information on the history of eugenics and its new cutting edge transformation.
Israeli Troops Killed Gaza Children Carrying White Flag, Witnesses Say
EZBT ABED RABBO, Gaza Strip — Nasser Abu Freeh was one of the first to see the Israeli soldiers as they entered this pastoral Gaza neighborhood overlooking the Israeli border on Jan. 3, hours after the Israeli government ordered the first ground forces into Gaza.
Abu Freeh’s two-story hilltop home is a favorite spot for Israeli soldiers, who used it as a command post during three previous attempts to deter Gaza militants from firing crude rockets into Israel from the surrounding cattle farms, orange groves and dirt alleys.
Scouts from the militant Islamist group Hamas also favored the hilltop as a place to watch for approaching Israeli soldiers, and the fighters tried to lure the Israelis into a trap by planting land mines outside Abu Freeh’s home.
As the Israelis moved in, neighbors said, the Hamas scouts put up little resistance and quickly fell back into the more densely populated part of the…
BBC ‘open to Gaza appeal rethink’
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has said it is open to reconsidering its earlier decision not to telecast a charity appeal for funds for Palestinians in Gaza.
The chief operating officer of the BBC, under fire for its refusal to air the appeal, said a reversal of the decision was possible if another request to air the appeal was made.
“We never say never and clearly, if the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) came to us with another request when things have calmed down and we didn’t have the same worries about the controversial nature of this, we would look at it again in that light,” Caroline Thompson told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
The DEC is made up of charities including the British Red Cross and Oxfam and its request for telecasting an appeal for funds was turned down by the BBC.
In explaining its decision, the BBC said the telecast might compromise its impartiality.
In…
BBC Refuses to Show Gaza Appeal
The British Broadcasting Corporation has defended its decision not to participate in a television fund-raising appeal for Gaza, saying it did want to avoid compromising public confidence in its impartiality.
Normally all broadcasters show Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeals without charge, but in a statement on Friday, the BBC said: “Along with other broadcasters, the BBC has decided not to broadcast the DEC’s public appeal to raise funds for Gaza.
“The BBC’s decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation, and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story.”
DEC ‘unhappy’
The DEC is an umbrella organisation representing a number of aid agencies, including Action Aid, Save the Children, the British Red Cross, Islamic Relief and Oxfam.
The organisation said its members will be providing immediate humanitarian aid, such as medicine, food and blankets,…
Israel Forms War Crime Defence Team
Daniel Friedman, the Israeli justice minister, has been appointed to lead a defence team should war crimes charges be brought following the 22-day war on Gaza.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed to Al Jazeera on Friday that Friedman would lead an inter-ministerial team to co-ordinate a legal defence for civilians and the military.
Israel has been criticised by many human rights organisations for using excessive force, including flame-generating chemical munitions, in densely populated areas during its aerial, naval and ground assault on the coastal strip, which began on December 27.
The Israeli army has already banned the publication of the identity of military leaders who fought Hamas in Gaza.
Ali Kashan, the Palestinian justice minister, met Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, in The Hague on Thursday to discuss “allegations of crimes”, a special adviser to the prosecutor said.
Gaza medics put the death toll in Gaza at…
Davos Delegates Gather To ‘Shape New World’
DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) — The head of the World Economic Forum has urged delegates to respond to the global economic crisis by shaping a “new world” as they braved snowstorms, icy roads and subzero temperatures Tuesday to gather for the five-day annual brainstorm in the Swiss Alps.
Delegates are arriving for the start of the World Economic Forum amid troubled times for the global economy.
Delegates are arriving for the start of the World Economic Forum amid troubled times for the global economy.
Speaking to CNN, WEF founder Klaus Schwab said the world was in the midst of a “transformational crisis” and admitted that Davos 2009 would be “more concerned, more austere and more modest” than previous events.
“The whole atmosphere is going to be different,” said Schwab. “Above all else this is a crisis of confidence. To re-store confidence you have to establish signposts that the world after the crisis will be different.…
Annan: World Faces ‘Crisis of Governance’
DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) — The worldwide economic recession has exposed a “crisis of global governance” that can only be addressed by the radical reform of the United Nations, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday as the World Economic Forum got under way in Switzerland.
Kofi Annan says the United Nations needs to be reformed. “The current architecture of managing global affairs is broken and needs to be fixed,” Annan said on the opening morning of the five-day annual meeting of global political and business leaders. “We have major new players coming on the scene and they need to be integrated and given a voice.”
Referring to the U.N. Security Council, which gives permanent places and vetoing powers to the U.S., the UK, Russia, China and France, Annan said: “We cannot continue to run the world based on countries that won a war 60 years ago. It’s either destructive competition or cooperation.…
Scientists Turn Tequila Into Diamonds
Whoever thought that science was a dry subject might change their mind after learning about a new discovery in which tequila is turned into diamonds. A team of Mexican scientists found that the heated vapor from 80-proof (40% alcohol) tequila blanco, when deposited on a silicon or stainless steel substrate, can form diamond films.
“To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests,” Apátiga said. “We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary…
Free Your Phone
Cellphone manufacturers use locked software to stifle competition and restrict consumers:
– Apple uses software locks on the iPhone to censor ebooks and block mobile applications that would compete with Apple’s own software.
– T-Mobile’s software locks prevent owners from gaining root access to the Google Android G1 phone, needlessly limiting the phone’s bluetooth and other capabilities.
– And virtually every mobile device sold today is locked to a single telecommunications carrier.
Hundreds of thousands of cellphone owners have modified their phones to connect to the network or run the software of their choosing, and many more would like to. But the Digital Millennium Copyright Act poses a legal threat to phone users, even though the law was supposed to protect copyright owners and distributors of digital music and movies. This threat of litigation has driven consumers underground, stifling innovation and competition.
Why Are Top Political Leaders So Out-Of-Touch with Public Demand for Marijuana Law Reform?
NORML: It is hard to imagine liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and conservative Minority Leader John Boehner as soul mates on any discernible level, however, on the issue of marijuana law reform, for entirely different reasons, they’re two peas in a pod.
Shortly after the conclusion of this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, NORML’s Paul Armentano posted a blog highlighting Pelosi’s comments exhorting the public to take the lead on communicating with their elected policymakers regarding any desired major marijuana law reforms in the upcoming 111th Congress.
With that call to action in the minds of many, American voters elected Democrats into workable majorities in both chambers and elected Barack ‘Change’ Obama — while voters in both Massachusetts and Michigan voted in strong favor for ‘change’ regarding their states’ antiquated marijuana laws — when given the chance and medium to express their viewpoint regarding what other ‘changes’ are on the American…
New Pornography Laws ‘Could Make Comic Books Illegal’, Say Campaigners
New laws designed to tackle extreme and child pornography could make owning mainstream comics like Batman or Judge Dredd illegal, campaigners claim.
Jon Swai, Telegraph: They are protesting against two pieces of legislation. The first, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, comes into force later this month.
It will make possessing “extreme pornography” — defined as any “extreme image” produced “solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal” — illegal.
The Government defines an “extreme image” as any “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise … obscene” moving or still depiction of someone any “reasonable person” would think real being sexually injured or engaging in sexual activity with an animal or corpse.
Films given an official classification are exempt from the new law, meaning portrayals of such extreme activity by actors will be allowed on screen. However, imitations by characters on paper will not enjoy such an exemption.
…
Boobs And Booty Banned From The App Store
Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch: Breasts and the iPhone have had a tumultuous relationship. Last month, an application that allowed users to shake a pair (possibly NSFW) of 3D breasts was banned from the App Store for being apparently too risque for its audience.
A few weeks later an application called Wobble made it into the App Store using something of a loophole — instead of offering pre-rendered mammary shaking, it allowed users to add their own ‘wobble points’ to any picture, which could conceivably have more tame applications (of course, the site made the designed purpose very clear in its demo video, which can be seen below).
Now it looks like Apple is having second thoughts. After hitting the top spot on the Japanese App Store and seeing 20,000 downloads over ten days, Wobble has been asked by Apple to remove anything having to do with ‘Boobs’ and ‘Booty’ from their marketing text.…
The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity
TARA PARKER-POPE, NY Times: Have American teenagers gone wild?
Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people, and the latest news seems particularly worrisome. It came from the National Center for Health Statistics, which reported this month that births to 15- to 19-year-olds had risen for the first time in more than a decade.
And that is not the only alarm being sounded. The talk show host Tyra Banks declared a teen sex crisis last fall after her show surveyed girls about sexual behavior. A few years ago, Oprah Winfrey warned parents of a teenage oral-sex epidemic.
The news is troubling, but it’s also misleading. While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today’s teenagers are more conservative about sex than previous generations.
Today, fewer than half of all high school students…
First the Affair, Then Paternity Test, Then Abortion?
Concerns Grow in the U.K. That the Rise in Prenatal Paternity Tests Leads to Abortions
AMMU KANNAMPILLY, ABC News:
The illegal use of DNA testing to determine the sex of fetuses in the developing world is widely known, but now, concern is growing in the United Kingdom that the availability of prenatal paternity tests is encouraging women to terminate fetuses that are the result of extramarital affairs.
According to Dan Leigh, the marketing director with DNA Solutions, a global DNA test firm with offices in 40 countries, the number of women opting for the prenatal paternity test shot up from 20 in 2002 to 500 last year.
“The testing technology has improved vastly,” Leigh told ABC News. “It’s become much more accessible.” “It’s fairly common to see women take this test after their husbands have found out about an affair and want to know if they have fathered the child their wife is carrying,”…
New Legislation Authorizes FEMA Camps In U.S.
A new bill introduced in Congress authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to set up a network of FEMA camp facilities to be used to house U.S. citizens in the event of a national emergency.
The National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645 mandates the establishment of “national emergency centers” to be located on military installations for the purpose of to providing “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” according to the bill.
As we have previously highlighted, in early 2006 Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root was awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps would also be used “as the…
New World Order/Scottish Ritual Freemasonry
Remember World War II and attempts at the ‘Final Solution’? So do others!
* Scottish Ritual Freemasonry’s H.Q. is at 96 George Street, Edinburgh, Scotland — builders of the U.S. White House.
* The Knesset (Masonic Lodge) was specifically designed and built by Rothschild.
* Adolf Hitler was a Rothschild offshoot.
* Watch the globally and strategically placed ‘black dots’/’traditional handshakes’ as they tour the world, and the picture emerges e.g. Bush-Blair-Brown-Rothschild!
There is growing awareness of Mountbatten-Windsor (British royal family) attempts to hinder public awareness of these details. The attempt also is to try to thwart understanding and accountability for their intended World War Three evils.
Darth Vader Has Left The Observatory
For those who think that Dick Cheney might not really be gone — suspecting that somehow the Darth Vader of American politics might be hiding in some closet in an undisclosed location ready to infect the bureaucracy with poisonous legal memos — now comes proof that we really have moved on.
It seems Google Maps now has a clear satellite view of the vice president’s residence on Massachusetts Ave., which has not been the case for about eight years.
The funny thing is that when tech detectives first discovered the blurred image of the Naval Observatory, which includes the vice president’s home, Google insisted that it was all very normal…
Dating A Banker Anonymous
Are you or someone you love dating a banker? If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times. Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together — free from the scrutiny of feminists — and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships.
DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time — we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter and email your stories to dabagirls@gmail.com. Warning all stories sent will be infused with our own special brand of DABA Girl humor.
