Archive for April, 2009
30-foot Battlestar Galactica fightercraft auctioned on eBay
A 30-foot fightercraft used in Battlestar Galactica just got auctioned on eBay.
The bidding started at $1.00, and rose to $28,100 — but
it didn’t meet the reserve so it’s still up for grabs at a “live” auction in May.
Bidders included actual pilots and a World War II memorabilia collector — and flight jackets are also for sale. In fact, 1,800 props from the show have already been purchased on eBay.
“We sell paper — auction off paper from the show,” says the auction’s Manager, “and people love it.”
Government Officials Admit NSA Wiretaps on Americans Exceeded Law
ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN, NYT Times: The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.
Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the NSA had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
The legal and operational problems surrounding the NSA’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because NSA activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage…
30-foot Battlestar Galactica fightercraft auctioned on eBay
A 30-foot fightercraft used in Battlestar Galactica just got auctioned on eBay.
The bidding started at $1.00, and rose to $28,100 — but
it didn’t meet the reserve so it’s still up for grabs at a “live” auction in May.
Bidders included actual pilots and a World War II memorabilia collector — and flight jackets are also for sale. In fact, 1,800 props from the show have already been purchased on eBay.
“We sell paper — auction off paper from the show,” says the auction’s Manager, “and people love it.”
Force is Strong for Jedi Police
BBC News: Eight police officers serving with Scotland’s largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.
Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.
The details were obtained in a Freedom of Information request by Jane’s Police Review. Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.
In the Star Wars films, Jedi Knights such as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda use the Force to battle the evil Darth Vader, who has strayed to the dark side.
Jane’s Police Review editor Chris Herbert, who requested the information, said: “The Force appears to be strong in Strathclyde Police with their Jedi police officers and staff.
“Far from living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, some members of the noble Jedi order have now chosen Glasgow and its…
Theistic Satanism Blasts the Church of Satan
Recent comments by Ygraine a Church of Satan spokesperson has infuriated Grand Magister Blackwood and his Temples of Satan Clergy. In her explicit commentary she rants:
The Satanic Bible Presents the Only Legitimate Satanic Religion. The Satanic Bible to Novice Satanists is considered a viable source, however to the more knowledgeable and educated person its represents nothing more than another H. P. Lovecraft type novel.
The Enochian Calls and mishmash prayer’s to a deity he didn’t even recognize makes his works in vain.
While many groups and organizations today claim to be “Satanic”, only the philosophy practiced by the members of the Church of Satan and those who adhere to The Satanic Bible can rightfully be called Satanists.
Once again to think the accomplishments of Allee, Aquino, Vera, or Blackwood mean nothing is simply arrogant and shows us the example of how The Church of Satan pretends to be elite and offers up little…
Marilyn Chambers Dead at 56
Marilyn Chambers, the legendary adult movie queen who was the wholesome model on Ivory Snow detergent boxes in the early 1970s when she made her adult movie debut in the X-rated classic Behind the Green Door, has died. She was 56.
Chambers was found unconscious Sunday evening at her home in Canyon Country, said Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Ed Winter.
The cause of death is under investigation, but foul play is not suspected and an autopsy is pending.
Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Chambers was one of the biggest names in the porn industry, ranked by Playboy magazine as one of the top 100 sex stars of the 20th century and named one of the top 10 adult film stars of all time by Adult Video News.
Bill O’Reilly On Nintendo
Back in the late eighties, Inside Edition ran this segment on Americans’ obsession with a crazy Japanese-made entertainment system called Nintendo. There’s interviews with professional Nintendo game councilors (you call a pay-by-the-minute number to ask them for gameplay advice), and discussion of magic swords and turtle shells. Youthful, charming host Bill O’Reilly can’t believe it; “All this is beyond me, I had trouble with Lincoln Logs! Remember Lincoln Logs?” He contained that inner rage much better back then.
A Very Graphic Review Of ‘Cargo 200′
This is the very first graphic review of a Disinformation release. Rick Trembles reviews the controversial and acclaimed Russian thriller Cargo 200 from Alexey Balabanov like no one else could!
Bill O’Reilly On Nintendo
In the late eighties, Inside Edition ran this segment on the rise of a crazy Japanese-made entertainment system called “Nintendo.” There’s interviews with professional Nintendo game councilors (you call a pay-by-the-minute number to ask them for tips) and discussion of turtle shells and magic swords. Youthful, charming host Bill O’Reilly can’t believe it: “”All this is beyond me, I had trouble with Lincoln Logs! Remember Lincoln Logs?” He contained that inner rage much better then.
Photo Highlights From The Tax Day Tea Parties
While most Americans quietly paid their taxes two days ago, thousands took to the streets in hundreds of cities across the nation for Fox-News-propped-up Tax Day Tea Party protests. Officially, the protests’ goal was to express opposition to Obama’s plan to raise the income tax rate for the richest Americans by a few percentage points, returning it to a Reaganesque level. However, judging by the photos, it seems as if many of the attendees were gripped by wider fear and confusion.
Pirate Bay: Guilty!
The four men connected with The Pirate Bay were found guilty of being accessories to copyright infringement by a Swedish court on Friday, delivering a symbolic victory in the entertainment industry’s efforts to put a stop to the sharing of copyrighted material on the internet.
“The Stockholm district court has today convicted the four people charged with promoting other people’s infringement of copyright laws,” the court said in a statement.
The four defendants in the case, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were each sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.56 million) in damages.
The trial attracted wide international attention, with file sharers and copyright holders around the world wondering what sort or precedent may be set by the Stockholm court as it assessed arguments by the entertainment industry that the four men behind The Pirate Bay had been accessories to copyright…
Round One of The Pirate Bay Trial is Over: The Boys Found Guilty But Stay Tuned for the Appeals
The verdict for the first round of The Pirate Bay trial has been announced. “All four defendants were accused of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’. Peter Sunde: Guilty. Fredrik Neij: Guilty. Gottfrid Svartholm: Guilty. Carl Lundström: Guilty. The four receive 1 year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000.” …
So “while Friday’s ruling is an important step in clarifying some of the legal issues associated with the distribution of copyrighted material in the digital age, it is by no means the final word. With an expected appeal by the defendants, the case may eventually be heard by Sweden’s Supreme Court, with a detour through the European Court of Justice also a possibility, according to many experts. Either way, it will likely be several years before a final ruling in the case is reached, by which time today’s BitTorrent technology may very well have been replaced by a new method…
Round one of The Pirate Bay trial is over: The boys found guilty but stay tuned for the appeals
The first round of The Pirate Bay trial verdict has been announced. “All four defendants were accused of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’. Peter Sunde: Guilty. Fredrik Neij: Guilty. Gottfrid Svartholm: Guilty. Carl Lundström: Guilty. The four receive 1 year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000.” …
So “while Friday’s ruling is an important step in clarifying some of the legal issues associated with the distribution of copyrighted material in the digital age, it is by no means the final word. With an expected appeal by the defendants, the case may eventually be heard by Sweden’s Supreme Court, with a detour through the European Court of Justice also a possibility, according to many experts. Either way, it will likely be several years before a final ruling in the case is reached, by which time today’s bitTorrent technology may very well have been replaced by a new method for sharing…
Paul Krugman: Obama Is Wrong
Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK: Traditionally, punditry in Washington has been a cozy business. To get the inside scoop, big-time columnists sometimes befriend top policymakers and offer informal advice over lunch or drinks. Naturally, lines can blur. The most noted pundit of mid-20th-century Washington, Walter Lippmann, was known to help a president write a speech — and then to write a newspaper column praising the speech.
Paul Krugman has all the credentials of a ranking member of the East Coast liberal establishment: a column in the New York Times, a professorship at Princeton, a Nobel Prize in economics. He is the type you might expect to find holding forth at a Georgetown cocktail party or chumming around in the White House Mess of a Democratic administration. But in his published opinions, and perhaps in his very being, he is anti-establishment. Though he was a scourge of the Bush administration, he has been…
Tea Party Protests: ‘On 9/11, I Think They Hit the Wrong Building’
Mike Madden, Salon.com: The gathering in Lafayette Square, in honor both of tax day and of a generalized fury at Barack Obama, his budget, the Federal Reserve and whatever else ails the conservative movement, was going just fine, despite the rain. But there’s an old saying in protest organizing: It’s all fun and games until someone tea-bags the White House.
And so it went Wednesday for the most geographically prominent tea party protest of the hundreds held around the nation. At around 2:30 p.m., a little before the rally was supposed to break up, someone threw a box of tea bags over the fence around the executive mansion, and the Secret Service moved in like, well, like they were cornering a bunch of liberal protesters gathered outside of George W. Bush’s White House.
Before you could say, “Who is John Galt?” the party was over. It turns out the Secret Service’s devotion…
Fat as a Weapon of Mass Destruction
NICOLE M. ROBERTSON, The Oakland Press: The greatest threat to American safety is not Osama Bin Laden — it’s obesity. That is the premise of Killer at Large, a shocking new documentary on DVD from the Disinformation company.
In it, pundits, celebrities such as Bill Clinton and dietary authorities describe the psycho-social causes of rampant obesity — and diseases it causes, killing Americans with government complicity. “There are children showing up in health clinics who are overfed, they’re overweight, eating diets of fast food exclusively, who have nutritional diseases like rickets, things we thought we had banished a long time ago,” says author Michael Pollan.
The film begins with Brooke Bates of Austin, Texas, who had liposuction at age 12 when she weighed 218 pounds. She just wanted to be popular, and after years of diets that didn’t work, her parents agreed to surgery. Her surgeon removed 16 liters of fat from her…
Fear and Greed Have Sales of Guns and Ammo Shooting Up
FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — The way Jay Chambers sees it, the semiautomatic weapons in his firearm collection might be the most promising investment in his financial portfolio.
Like many gun enthusiasts, Mr. Chambers, a manager for a door wholesaler here, believes President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress soon will reimpose a version of an expired federal ban on the sale of so-called assault weapons. If such a law passes, he figures his collection — enough guns, ammo magazines and weapon parts to assemble about 30 AK-47s, AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles — could triple in value.
“A guy could easily make a lot of money,” says Mr. Chambers, 47 years old, while at Autrey’s Armory, a gun store about 20 miles south of Atlanta.
Purchases of guns and ammunition are surging across the country. Nearly four million background checks — a key measure of sales because they are required at the purchase of…
The ‘End the Fed’ Protests Are the (Secret) Road to World Government
Problem: The Fed.
Reaction: Protest and revolt against the Fed.
Solution: Modify or destroy the Fed (i.e., replace it with a global reserve bank) — i.e., set up the New World Order.
1,500 Farmers Commit Mass Suicide in India
Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today. The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.
“The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine. “Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.”
Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress. In another village nearby, Beturam Sahu, who owned two acres of land was among those who committed suicide. His crop is yet to be harvested, but his son Lakhnu left to take up a job as…
