Archive for February, 2009
The New Pornographers
What’s more disturbing — that teens are texting each other naked pictures of themselves, or that it could get them branded as sex offenders for life? Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon:
The photographs show three naked underage girls posing lasciviously for the camera. The perps who took the pictures were busted in Greensburg, Pa., and charged with manufacturing, disseminating and possessing child pornography — and so were their subjects. That’s because they are one and the same.
It all started when the girls, ages 14 and 15, decided to take nudie cellphone snapshots of themselves. Then, maybe feeling dizzy from the rush of wielding their feminine wiles, the trio text-messaged the photos to some friends at Greensburg-Salem High School.
When one of the students’ cellphones was confiscated at school, the photos were discovered. Police opened an investigation and, in addition to the girls’ being indicted as kiddie pornographers, three boys who received the pictures were slammed…
Abu Ghraib Investigator: ‘You Can’t Sweep Unlawful Activities Under the Table’
Mark Benjamin, Salon: President Obama vowed that “the United States will not torture” only two days into his new administration. But one big question Obama hasn’t answered is whether and how to investigate notorious Bush-era interrogation and detention policies.
On Thursday, 18 human rights organizations, former State Department officials and former law enforcement and military leaders asked the president to create a non-partisan commission to investigate those allegedly abusive detention practices.
Retired Major Gen. Tony Taguba, who investigated the famed abuses at Abu Ghraib, signed on to the effort. He explained his support in an interview with Salon. Taguba agrees with many attorneys who think it would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to prosecute former Bush administration officials.
A non-partisan fact-finding commission, however, might provide some degree of accountability for official U.S. detention and interrogation policies that Taguba called misguided and illegal.
Is Anything Made in the USA Anymore? You’d Be Surprised
Stephen Manning, AP: It seems as if the country that used to make everything is on the brink of making nothing. In January, 207,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished in the largest one-month drop since October 1982. U.S. factory activity is hovering at a 28-year low. Even before the recession, plants were hemorrhaging work to foreign competitors with low-cost labor. And some companies were moving production overseas.
But manufacturing in the United States is not dead or even dying. It is moving upscale, following the biggest profits and becoming more efficient, just as Henry Ford did when he created the assembly line to make the Model T car.
The United States remains by far the world’s leading manufacturer by value of goods produced. It hit a record $1.6 trillion in 2007 — nearly double the $811 billion of 1987. For every $1 of value produced in China factories, the United States generates $2.50.
So…
Are We About to Eliminate AIDS?
Clare Wilson, New Scientist: WHAT if we could rid the world of AIDS? The notion might sound like fantasy: HIV infection has no cure and no vaccine, after all. Yet there is a way to completely wipe it out — at least in theory. What’s more, it would take only existing medical technology to do the job.
Here’s how it works. If someone who is HIV positive takes antiretroviral-drug therapy they can live a long life and almost never pass on the virus, even through unprotected sex. So if everyone with HIV were on therapy, there would be little or no transmission. Once all these people had died, of whatever cause, the virus would be gone for good.
It’s a simple idea, but the obstacles to implementing it worldwide are enormous. Persuading everyone with HIV to start therapy purely for public health reasons could be ethically dubious. To identify everyone who is…
To the Citizens of the UK, You Are About to Go into Lockdown: Birth of Fascism in Real Time
In 2007 I came across a chilling bit of news from the UK that sent shivers down my spine.
The news was about Samina Malik, a 23-year-old cashier and poet, who was “arrested and jailed for her violent prose and visiting terror web sites.” Malik’s defenders argued that she was charged with a thought crime, while prosecutors emphasized that: “Samina Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry. Ms. Malik was convicted of collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
In short, Malik was either prosecuted for her words or for doing research on subjects that the UK government has deemed to be inappropriate. So inappropriate, that they found it to be feasible to press charges based on newly enacted draconian laws.
Scientology is Nothing More than a Rip-Off of Dr. Anastasius Nordenholz’s ‘Scientologie’
The book “Scientology: Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge” was first published in 1934 by the Publishing House “Ernst Reinhardt” in Munich, Germany.
The Church of Scientology has actively but in vain tried to suppress the book, as well as the domain name “scientologie”.
Preserving the Masturbating Bear
Conan O’Brien officially attempted to retire the Masturbating Bear earlier this week because, he said, the censors won’t allow it for his move to the 11:35 time slot. In his quirky Late Night fashion, Conan decided to preserve the Masturbating Bear by encasing him in carbonite, but it didn’t go as he planned:
Movies or Politics for Schwarzenegger?
Walter Alarkon, The Hill:
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the span of just two days, showed that he’s still his state’s leader — and that he may be ready for something else.
Just as Schwarzenegger this week pressed state lawmakers to broker a solution to the state’s $42 billion budget deficit, he agreed to appear in Sylvester Stallone’s new movie, which starts shooting next month. Schwarzenegger’s role was first reported by the celebrity site TMZ.
The movie deal serves as a reminder that the end of Schwarzenegger’s time in office is coming soon, in January 2011. Still, no one’s clear on what he’ll do next.
“I’d be very surprised if he got into elected office again,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a political analyst for KCAL in Los Angeles and editor of the California Target Book. Hoffenblum said he expects the governor to make only a cameo appearance in the Stallone flick, which will be called…
Don’t Let ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Mislead You, I Was One Myself…
Don’t let the movie mislead you: there are no fairy-tale endings for most of India’s street kids. I was one of them myself. Sudip Mazumdar | NEWSWEEK:
On the way to see “Slumdog Millionaire” in Kolkata, I had my cabdriver pass through the slum district of Tangra. I lived there more than 35 years ago, when I was in my late teens, but the place has barely changed. The cab threaded a maze of narrow lanes between shacks built from black plastic and corrugated metal. Scrawny men sat outside, chewing tobacco and spitting into the dirt. Naked children defecated in the open, and women lined up at the public taps to fetch water in battered plastic jerry cans. Everything smelled of garbage and human waste. I noticed only one difference from the 1960s: a few huts had color TVs.
I still ask myself how I finally broke out. Jamal, the slumdog in Danny…
Reagan and G.W. Bush: Presidents Above the Law
Will Bunch, TPMCafe: First of all, thanks so much to everyone who’ve posted here and made this what I think was a really interesting debate and discussion of the Reagan myth. My last post is rooted in current events — and the frustration that many share that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their minions plotted torture tactics, illegal wiretapping, political manipulation of the Justice Department and other allegedly unlawful acts inside the White House, v and seem to have gotten away with it. Are you looking for someone to blame for that?
How about Ronald Reagan? Or more accurately, the politicians and members of the media who let Reagan and some key aides — not to mention Reagan’s long-term reputation — largely get away with one of the worst scandals in White House history.
Because make no mistake, there is a straight line from the great political escape of Ronald Reagan…
Svengali Internet TV Series
Episode one of a new UK online series that takes the piss out of the London-centric music business. Brought to you by Dean Cavanagh, Jonathon Owen and Phil John. Future cameo appearances from Primal Scream, Alan McGee, Shane McGowan, Alabama 3 etc.
9 Real Life Mad Scientists
Cezary Jan Strusiewicz, Cracked.com: Are we too hard on mad scientists? After all, many of the world’s greatest discoveries were made using experiments that would make the average citizen run screaming from the room. So really, is there such a thing as a “mad” scientist at all? Yes. Yes there is. Here are nine of them.
#9. Harry Harlow, Monkey Torturer
The Scientist: What is love? American psychologist Harry Harlow decided to find out. And what stronger bond is there than that of a child and mother? So he did studies on rhesus monkey babies and their mothers, to find the nature of love itself. What could be more noble?
The Madness: Harlow had a “Rape Rack” in his lab. That’s what he called the forced mating machine he used for the monkeys. See, it turns out Harlow wasn’t big on using euphemisms to make people feel better about his experiments. And that’s a problem,…
Soros Sees No Bottom for World Financial ‘Collapse’
Reuters: Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis. Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.
He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system. “We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”
His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama. Volcker said industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in…
Ecstasy’s Long-Term Effects Revealed
Enough time has finally elapsed to start asking if ecstasy damages health in the long term. According to the biggest review ever undertaken, it causes slight memory difficulties and mild depression, but these rarely translate into problems in the real world. While smaller studies show that some individuals have bigger problems, including weakened immunity and larger memory deficits, so far, for most people, ecstasy seems to be nowhere near as harmful over time as you may have been led to believe.
The review was carried out by the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), an independent body that advises the UK government on drug policy. Its headline recommendation is that, based on its harmfulness to individuals and society, MDMA should be downgraded from a class A drug — on a par with heroin and cocaine — to class B, alongside cannabis.
Nobody is arguing that taking ecstasy is risk-free:…
Ecstasy’s long-term effects revealed
Enough time has finally elapsed to start asking if ecstasy damages health in the long term. According to the biggest review ever undertaken, it causes slight memory difficulties and mild depression, but these rarely translate into problems in the real world. While smaller studies show that some individuals have bigger problems, including weakened immunity and larger memory deficits, so far, for most people, ecstasy seems to be nowhere near as harmful over time as you may have been led to believe.
The review was carried out by the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), an independent body that advises the UK government on drug policy. Its headline recommendation is that, based on its harmfulness to individuals and society, MDMA should be downgraded from a class A drug – on a par with heroin and cocaine – to class B, alongside cannabis.
Nobody is arguing that taking ecstasy is risk-free:…
Al-Qaeda Founder Launches Fierce Attack on Osama bin Laden
David Blair, Telegraph: Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.
But in a book written from inside an Egyptian prison, he has launched a frontal attack on al-Qaeda’s ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and particularly his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda’s intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West. Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. “Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers,” writes Dr Fadl.
The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes. “Ramming America has become the shortest…
Giant Rat Caught in China
Malcolm Moore, Telegraph: The rat, which weighed six pounds and had a 12-inch tail, was caught at the weekend in a residential area of Fuzhou, a city of six million people on China’s south coast.
The ratcatcher, who was only named as Mr Xian, said he swooped for the rodent after seeing a big crowd of people surrounding it on the street. He told local Chinese newspapers that he thought the rat might be a valuable specimen, or a rare species, and had to muster up his courage before grabbing its tail and picking it up by the scruff of its neck.
“I did it, I caught a rat the size of a cat!” he shouted out afterwards, according to the reports. Mr Xian is believed to still be in possession of the animal, after stuffing into a bag and departing the scene.
The local forestry unit in the city identified the nightmarish…
Reality Check: 1 in 4 Americans Get Sick from Food Poisoning Every Year
MIKE STOBBE, AP: Next time you have a case of diarrhea that lasts a day or more, chances are better than 1 in 3 that it was food poisoning.
As many as a quarter of Americans suffer a foodborne illness each year — though only a fraction of those cases get linked to high-profile outbreaks like the recent salmonella-peanut scare, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Outbreaks are dramatic instances,” says Dr. Robert Tauxe, a CDC expert on the subject. But they highlight a health threat that many people exaggerate and misunderstand, according to some experts.
Scientists have counted more than 250 food-related types of illness — from viruses to bacteria to parasites. Most common are Norwalk-like viruses — famous for sickening cruise-ship passengers. They account for about two-thirds of known food-poisoning cases, according to the CDC.
Two types of bacteria, campylobacter and salmonella, are the next most common. Campylobacter…
