Archive for April, 2009
Fertility Expert: ‘I Can Clone A Human Being’
A controversial fertility doctor claimed yesterday to have cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women who had been prepared to give birth to cloned babies.
The cloning was recorded by an independent documentary film-maker who has testified to the Independent that the cloning had taken place and that the women were genuinely hoping to become pregnant with the first cloned embryos specifically created for the purposes of human reproduction.
Cady, died aged 10 in a car crash in the US. Her blood cells were frozen and sent to Dr Zavos, who fused them with cow eggs to create cloned human animal hybrid embryos
Fertility expert: ‘I can clone a human being’
A controversial fertility doctor claimed yesterday to have cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women who had been prepared to give birth to cloned babies.
The cloning was recorded by an independent documentary film-maker who has testified to The Independent that the cloning had taken place and that the women were genuinely hoping to become pregnant with the first cloned embryos specifically created for the purposes of human reproduction.
New Military Command Planned to Improve U.S. Cybersecurity
The Obama administration plans to create a new military command to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, according to current and former officials familiar with the plans.
The initiative will reshape the military’s efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia. The new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks, Pentagon officials said.
The move comes amid growing evidence that sophisticated cyberspies are attacking the U.S. electric grid and key defense programs. A page-one story in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that hackers breached the Pentagon’s biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter, and stole data. Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote to the defense secretary Tuesday requesting a briefing on the matter.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the project’s lead contractor, said in a statement Tuesday…
The DEA, The Army, and Ozzy Osbourne: Eight Druggiest Rock Star Stories
Ozzy Osbourne gets cocaine from a DEA agent — and how exactly did right-wing rocker Ted Nugent manage to fool the U.S. army draft board? (Hint: Crystal meth.)
It’s the “Top 8 Amazing Dope Tales” from a new book called “EVERYBODY Must Get Stoned.” There’s lots of coke, crank, heroin, and crystal meth.
And the first three are GUARANTEED to make you cringe….
The Immortality Drive in Orbit: A Guarantee For Our Survival?
Still fascinating, this happened in October 2008 when the “immortality drive” was brought onboard the International Space Station. I caught it mentioned on the new series Life After People. As Reported by ABC News:
The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft carrying Richard Garriott and two crewmates — and the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world’s most famous minds — hurtled into a clear blue sky from the Baikonur facility on the Kazakh steppe.
The spacecraft is bearing the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world’s greatest thinkers and musicians — as well as athletes, video game players and others.
The eclectic list ranges from famed physicist Stephen Hawking to comedian Stephen Colbert and Matt Morgan, best known as the “Beast” from the U.S. television show American Gladiators.
The digitized DNA is part of “the immortality drive,” a kind of time capsule that will also include a list of humanity’s greatest achievements and personal messages from…
Retro Computers Sing Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
Brandon Boyer, BoingBoing’s Offworld: Not to be shown up by the Super Mario-singing laser cutter, an Atari 800XL, a TI-99/4a (my first gaming PC!), an 8″ floppy disk drive, a 3.5″ hard drive, and an HP ScanJet 3C walked into a bar … and there is no joke: they sang Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” together and it was beautiful.
CIA Waterboarded Al-Qaeda Suspects 266 Times
Matthew Weaver, Guardian: The CIA waterboarded two al-Qaida terror suspects a total of 266 times, according to a report that suggests the use of the torture technique was much more extensive than previously thought.
The documents showed waterboarding was used 183 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who admitted planning the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reported. The US Justice Department memos released last Thursday showed that waterboarding, which the US now admits is torture, was used 83 times on the alleged al-Qaida senior commander Abu Zubaydah, the paper said. A former CIA officer claimed in 2007 that Zubaydah was subjected to the simulated drowning technique for only 35 seconds.
The numbers were removed from most of the memos over the weekend. But bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler from empytwheel, discovered that the figure had not been blanked out from one of the memos.
Barack Obama has banned waterboarding and overturned a Bush administration policy…
‘American Violet’ Vividly Depicts the Racism in the ‘War on Drugs’
BTW folks, Obama gave two billion more dollars to the “War on Drugs” as part of the stimulus … from the filmmaker’s website:
Based on true events in the midst of the 2000 election, AMERICAN VIOLET tells the astonishing story of Dee Roberts, a 24 year-old African American single mother of four young girls living in a small Texas town who is barely making ends meet on a waitress salary and government subsidies.
On an early November morning while Dee works a shift at the local diner, the powerful local district attorney leads an extensive drug bust, sweeping her Arlington Springs housing project with military precision. Police drag Dee from work in handcuffs, dumping her in the squalor of the women’s county prison.
Indicted based on the uncorroborated word of a single and dubious police informant facing his own drug charges, Dee soon discovers she has been charged as a drug dealer. She has…
The Presidents Like You’re Never Seen Them Before…
JUSTINE LAI: In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal.
I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.
Don’t Fear the Baby Preacher!
Why That’s Delightful: This baby’s satirical take on religion rivals the work of the late, great Bill Hicks. (via Videogum):
The Truth About Pirates in Less Than 4 Minutes
So, we are able to go to the horn of Africa, bring back 16-year old children and put them on trial as adults for piracy, but we succumb to the demands of the Wall Street pirates within our midst?
“Sure, the pirates are like a small-time, entrepreneurial version of the big-time crooks on Wall Street. The financiers and investment bankers hijack the economy for their own quick profit, and then when they’re caught, they hold the economy’s future hostage while they demand humongous amounts of money. The only differences are that the Somalis may actually need the money, and they pulled guns while the bankers didn’t even have to.”
Now ain’t that a kick in the head? The following short animation should help put things into the appropriate perspective.
Cracked.com: Six Writers Who Accidentally Crapped Out Masterpieces
Shaun Grey: So what does it feel like to write something that will inspire audiences for generations? Apparently it feels like another day at the office, as it turns out some of the greatest works of all time weren’t intended to be classics … and often were just dashed off for the hell of it.
Alice in Wonderland: One of the most beloved tales of all time was something a guy made up off the top of his head to please his 10-year-old girlfriend.
The Impact: Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a classic kid’s story about a little girl that finds herself transported into a magical alternate universe that reflects and lampoons our own; including humorous explorations into the subjects of mathematics, statistics, logic and linguistics. Sort of like a Victorian xkcd, but with worse art.
It’s been translated into 125 languages and has been adapted to film dozens of times since the inception of…
Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air: The ‘Freakonomics’ of Conservation, Climate and Energy
Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing: David JC MacKay’s Sustainable Energy — Without the Hot Air may be the best technical book about the environment that I’ve ever read. In fact, if I have any complaint about this book, it’s in how it’s presented, with its austere cover and spartan title, I assumed it would be a somewhat dry look at energy, climate, conservation and so on.
It’s not. This is to energy and climate what Freakonomics is to economics: an accessible, meaty, by-the-numbers look at the physics and practicalities of energy. MacKay, a Cambridge Physics prof, approaches the subject of carbon and sustainability with a scientific, numeric eye.
First, in a section called “Numbers, not adjectives,” he looks at all the energy and carbon inputs and outputs in Britain and the rest of the world: this is how many kWh of energy are needed to power all of Britain’s vehicles. This is how many kWh you…
The Future of Money: DIY Currencies
Annalee Newitz | Portfolio.com: All the elements are in place for cell phones stuffed with many different microcurrencies.
Futurist Douglas Rushkoff, famous for correctly predicting the rise of social media, is trying to convince Craigslist’s Craig Newmark to create “craigbucks.” He thinks it’s the obvious next step in the evolution of money. “People could buy and sell things exclusively on Craigslist using craigbucks,” Rushkoff enthuses. “Sure they’ll want to keep their Visas and their MasterCards, but they’ll want a specialized, alternative form of cash too.”
The idea is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Economists already have a term for this kind of community-specific money; they’re called “complimentary currencies” and they naturally take root when conditions are right. For example, in 2006, a Chinese online social network called QQ produced “QQ coins” that became widely traded, used for almost a billion dollars a year in transactions. Even though the currency was…
Stephen Colbert Takes a Crack at Monsanto and the Pesticide Lobby
The Colbert Report: First up in this clip, Texas Governor Rick Perry wants to secede, and second (and a must watch) MACA (Mid America Croplife Association) urges the Obamas to use pesticides in their organic garden.
“If we don’t douse our crops with glyphosate, how will the runoff get into our fish?” Colbert asks, in response to news that pesticide industry representatives were horrified to learn that Michelle Obama’s White House vegetable garden was going to be organic.
David Carr: Cable Wars Are Killing Objectivity
I feel this happened some time ago, however, it is pretty disturbing that a “news” reporter would classify anything as “anti-CNN.” David Carr writes in the NY Times:
DAVID CARR: Apparently there is an ingredient in tea that causes hysteria when given to cable news anchors. How else to explain the coverage of the tax day tea parties on Wednesday, which was the day when we procrastinators finally mailed the check to the feds?
The movement — if that’s what it is — was spawned by a rant on Feb. 19 from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange during a live report by the CNBC reporter — if that’s what he is — Rick Santelli, suggesting that it was time to organize a “tea party” to protest government spending on failed mortgages.
The cable news networks took it from there. Fox News, after running more than 100 promos about its coverage of the…
Future Now Interview with J.G. Ballard
A 1986 interview with J.G. Ballard from director Solveig Nordlund:
Has Hell Frozen Over? Beauty Queens Discuss Politics and the Economy
Once you get past the Obama love once again from Chris Matthews, check out the clips from the Miss USA contest. It’s hilarious to watch these vapid shells try to articulate a full sentence to answer the grand questions of our times.
All in all, the fuss has come from a really stupid comment by Miss California, that has sparked enough outrage to become a top trending topic for the Twitterati and the entertainment-addicted news media.
Chávez Creates Overnight Bestseller with Book Gift to Obama
Sales surge for book about history of Latin America’s exploitation after exchange at summit of Americas Andrew Clark, The Guardian: A 36-year-old historical tract attacking the imperialist exploitation of Latin America has become an improbable overnight bestseller after the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez abruptly presented a copy to Barack Obama.
During a session of the summit of the Americas in Trinidad at the weekend, Chávez strode up to Obama, patted him on the shoulder and, with a friendly handshake, gave him a paperback copy of Eduardo Galeano’s 1973 work, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.
As footage of the encounter appeared on news bulletins, the book rocketed up the US paperback sales chart of the online bookseller Amazon, soaring from number 54,295 to sixth place within 24 hours.
A classic work in left-wing circles, Galeano’s book analyses five centuries of unequal relations with Europe and the US.…
