Archive for July, 2009
Centuries-Old Sketches Solve Sunspot Mystery
David Shiga, New Scientist: A SECOND look at sunspot drawings from the 1700s has clarified a puzzling episode in the sun’s history, and could lead to more accurate forecasts of dangerous solar outbursts.
The sun sometimes hurls clouds of plasma our way, which can fry satellites and knock out power grids on EarthMovie Camera. The outbursts are most common during solar maxima, when the dark blemishes of sunspots appear in greatest abundance on the sun.
Although there is an average of 11 years between solar maxima, predicting the exact timing and height of each peak is difficult as there is little historical data to plug into models. About two dozen solar cycles have occurred since reasonably complete records began. Now an analysis of historic sunspot drawings suggests that this patchy record had omitted a solar cycle from the late 1700s.
Sunspot numbers for this period were compiled by Swiss astronomer Rudolf Wolf in…
Spinning In The Grave — The Three Biggest Reasons Music Magazines Are Dying.
To the varied signs of the economic collapse we can now add a small but notable subspecies of urbanite: You’ll recognize him (or her) by the ear buds burrowing into his head, the freebie SXSW tote bag slung over his shoulder, and the unintelligible mutterings about “melisma” and “twee-core” crossing his lips. If you see such a person out and about—likely wandering a neighborhood rich with coffee shops or, even better, two-for-one happy hours—remain calm but keep your distance. This is a music journalist, a type never famous for social skills, and he’s in an especially bad mood these days.
Life, Inc. with Douglas Rushkoff – Disinformation: The Podcast
Disinformation: The Podcast – Life, Inc. with Douglas Rushkoff
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This episode features an interview with author and media wizard Douglas Rushkoff. We discuss his new book, Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back, his work as a media correspondent with the groundbreaking PBS series Frontline, and his long time interest in counter-culture.
Disinformation Podcast T-shirts available here!
Hollywood Destroys the World
Director Roland Emmerich has nearly destroyed the world three times already. This time, he means to finish the job.
In his next movie, “2012,” which comes out in November, the earth will rip apart, fulfilling an ancient prophecy [see the disinformation film 2012: Science or Superstition for information on that]. The director previously leveled civilization with an alien attack in the 1996 movie “Independence Day,” unleashed Godzilla a couple years later and orchestrated a climate disaster in 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow.” His new film, he says, reflects a darker world view. “I’m really very pessimistic these days,” he says.
A flood of postapocalyptic stories is now headed toward movie theaters and TV screens: Expect to see characters fending off cannibals, picking up day-to-day survival techniques and struggling to maintain their humanity amid the ruins. Previous waves of pop-culture disaster, from the Atomic Age paranoia of “War of the Worlds” to Watergate-era flicks…
Obama Birther Craziness On MSNBC
If you are wondering about the logic of the Obama “Birther” movement, the most illustrative video may be this surreal clip of radio host and Nixon-era political criminal G. Gordon Liddy arguing the case to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Is Obama an illegal alien from Mombasa, Kenya? Matthews whips out paperwork certifying Obama’s birth, but Liddy punts by claiming that his eyesight isn’t good enough to read it.
Obama Birther Craziness On MSNBC
If you are looking to understand the logic of the Obama “Birther” movement, there are few videos more illustrative than this surreal clip of radio host and Nixon-era political criminal G. Gordon Liddy arguing his case to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Is Obama an illegal alien from Mombasa, Kenya? Matthews actually whips out a copy of a form certifying Obama’s birth, but Liddy punts by claiming his eyesight is too bad to read it.
Ron Paul Dating Service
Like long walks on the beach? In search of romance and an audit of the Federal Reserve? You need to sign up for Ron Paul Singles; finally there’s an easy way for Ron Paul supporters to hook up. I’m guessing this is the Internet’s number one Libertarian dating site?
Americans Spend $34 Billion A Year On Alternative Medicine
While Americans may complain about the high cost of health care, they’re still willing to shell out roughly $34 billion a year out-of-pocket on alternative therapies that aren’t covered by insurance, a new study shows.
That’s a growth of more than 25% in the past decade, says an in-person survey of 23,000 Americans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health.
Alternative therapies, which range from herbs to yoga classes, now account for 11% of the total amount that Americans spend out-of-pocket on all health care.
These unconventional approaches are popular with people of all ages: 38% of adults and 12% of children have used them in the past year, the study says.
No Surprise: Tamiflu Makes Kids Sick
More than half of children taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu experience side-effects such as nausea and nightmares, research suggests.
An estimated 150,000 people with flu symptoms were prescribed the drug through a new hotline and website last week, according to figures revealed yesterday.
Studies of children attending three schools in London and one in the South West showed that 51-53 per cent had one or more side-effects from the medication, which is offered to everyone in England with swine flu symptoms.
William Shatner Reads Sarah Palin’s Tweets (And Discovers Poetry!)
The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien: Conan discovers that Sarah Palin’s confusing Tweets are actually poems … Bring on the Shatner!
Backstage At ‘The Colbert Report’ With Douglas Rushkoff
The Colbert Report helps Life Inc. author Douglas Rushkoff get his anti-corporatization message out:
Is Pluto A Planet After All?
Stephen Battersby, New Scientist: HOW many planets are in the solar system? The official answer is eight — unless you happen to live in Illinois. Earlier this year, defiant Illinois state governors declared that Pluto had been unfairly demoted by the International Astronomical Union, the authority that sets the rules on all matters planetary.
Three years ago, the IAU decided to draw up the first scientific definition of the term planet. After days of stormy arguments at its general assembly in Prague, the delegates voted for a definition that excluded Pluto, downgrading it to the new category of dwarf planet.
The decision caused outrage among many members of the public who had grown up with nine planets, and among some astronomers who pointed out that only 4 per cent of the IAU’s 10,000 members took part in the vote. The governors of Illinois saw the decision as a snub to Pluto’s discoverer,…
China Performs 13 Million Abortions Yearly
AP (BEIJING)— China performs about 13 million abortions every year, mostly for single young women who experts say know little about contraception, state media said Thursday in a rare disclosure of sensitive family planning statistics.
The China Daily newspaper said the real number of abortions is believed to be even higher since the 13 million accounts for procedures in hospitals but many more are known to be carried out in unregistered rural clinics. Also, about 10 million abortion pills are sold every year in China, the paper said.
It quoted Wu Shangchun, a government official with the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying that nearly half of the women seeking abortions in China had used no form of contraception.
China imposed strict birth controls in the 1970s, limiting most couples to just one child. Sterilization and the use of intrauterine devices, or IUDs, for women are widely promoted — and subsidized —…
Stable Owner Catches Man Having Sex With Horse (Again)
AP (COLUMBIA, SC) — A South Carolina man was charged with having sex with a horse after the animal’s owner caught the act on videotape, then staked out the stable and caught him at shotgun point, authorities said Wednesday.
But this wasn’t the first time Rodell Vereen has been charged. He pleaded guilty last year to having sex with the same horse after owner Barbara Kenley found him in the same stable. Then he was sentenced to probation and placed on the state’s sex offender list.
Kenley said she noticed several weeks ago that her 21-year-old horse Sugar was acting strange and getting infections. She noticed things in the barn had been moved around — dirt piled up and bales of hay stacked near the horse’s stall at her Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach.
“Police kept telling me it couldn’t be the same guy,” Kenley said…
Grand Magister Blackwood … (Again)
The Occult World seems a buzz with the thought of the return of the old guard from the Order of Nine Angles the product of Anton Long and his cohorts perhaps they form a real organization for once and not feed the brains of the mindless watered down and eroded diatribe.
The story they wish to expose, I will expose the entire tale once again for the viewing pleasure of my thousands of fans and critics.
In the Summer of 2001 I was approached by a couple of gentlemen who offered me the “lack-luster” key to the imaginary Order of Nine Angles and I being reluctant at first took the documentation as real materials as real documents and I began the task of creating a new order, something I had been very successful at in the past and present.
I began to accept applications making rather grandeur claims to the organization I would…
Order of Nine Angles Exposed Obession with Grand Magister Blackwood
Grumpy Old Men The Order of Nine Angles
Satanism Exposed by Temples of Satan.
The Occult World seems a buzz with the thought of the return of the old guard from the Order of Nine Angles the product of Anton Long and his cohorts perhaps they form a real organization for once and not feed the brains of the mindless watered down and eroded diatribe.
The story they wish to expose, I will expose the entire tale once again for the viewing pleasure of my thousands of fans and critics.
In the Summer of 2001 I was approached by a couple of gentlemen who offered me the “lack-luster” key to the imaginary Order of Nine Angles and I being reluctant at first took the documentation as real materials as real documents and I began the task of creating a new order, something I had been very successful at in the past and present.
I began…
So You Think You Can Be A Douche Bag: Cable News Edition
The Daily Show: Sean Hannity scares and confuses with grainy footage, Lou Dobbs demands a birth certificate, and Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist … yeah, there’s nothing else going on the world, right?
Teen Discovers Way To Decompose Plastic Bag in Three Months
Brandon Keim, WIRED: Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose — but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months.
The Waterloo, Ontario high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria.
(Hey, at between one-half and 90 percent of Earth’s biomass, bacteria’s a pretty safe bet for any biological mystery.)
The Record reports that Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.
Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that’s needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of…
Giant Anvil-Shaped Cloud Hovering 75,000 ft. Above Earth
Daily Mail Reporter: A giant, anvil-shaped cloud bubbles up towards the Earth’s stratosphere, looming over West Africa. The amazing formation would be invisible to anyone on the ground and would even be obscure from a regular passenger jet since they can reach up to 75,000 ft. But astronauts captured the astonishing picture from hundreds of miles up as they orbited the globe on the International Space Station.
Anvil clouds are formed mostly from ice and normally form in the upper parts of thunderstorms. They get their shape from the fact that rising warm air in thunderstorms expands and spreads out as the air bumps up against the bottom of the stratosphere.
Streaks of snow are often seen falling out of the edges of anvils. This light snow usually evaporates as it falls through the relatively dry air surrounding the upper part of the thunderstorm.
Images released today showed Tom Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy…
