Archive for July, 2009
Crusading British Journalist Combats Stupidity
Aaronovitch explains that the reason some of us qualify as stupid is that we assume conspiracy when an event is really the result of accident or chance. Such beliefs are harmful because they distort reality and lead to “disastrous decisions.”
The book doesn’t really break new ground. The author’s role is commentator. He provides the wise insight we stupid people lack on what’s normal and conventional, along with overviews and updates on the conspiracies he selected for inclusion. Among those are the Protocols of Zion as endorsed by Henry Ford, the Commies-under-the-bed scares that implicated most everybody including the Boy Scouts, JFK and RFK assassinations, world government as the aim of international bankers, Masons, Catholics, Zionists, Communists and whoever else, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Di, alternative histories of ancient civilizations founded by extraterrestrials, and 9/11, and the Da Vinci Code.
How Many Nukes Are In Range Of Your Home?
Curious about whether your city could be destroyed five, 10, or 100 times over? The Nukeometer lets you know how many deadly nuclear weapons are known to be in range of your location, and tells you who possesses them. Nice to know that New York could theoretically be attacked by almost three thousand nuclear submarines.
Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother Is The Best Libertarian Science Fiction Book Of 2009
Charlie Jane Anders, io9.com:
Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother showed the dangers of a police state run amuck, and showed how public-spirited techies fight back.
Now the Libertarian Futurist Society has given Little Brother the 2009 Prometheus Award for libertarian SF.
You can read Little Brother for free here or find it on Amazon.com.
Insurers Unleash Largest Lobbying Effort Ever
According to the Washington Post, the largest U.S. insurance companies have hired more than 350 retired veterans of Congress and other governmental posts to lobby against meaningful health care reform; “the tactic is so widespread that three of every four major health-care firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls.”
The effort is breaking all records; insurance and pharmaceutical companies are spending more than $1.4 million a day on the campaign. Among those hired to influence Congress are former House majority leaders Dick Armey (R-Tex.) and Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), who are being paid by a New Jersey-based drug company. Former Senator Richard Tarplin, who now runs a lobbying firm called Tarplin Strategies, explains, “For people like me who are on the outside and used to be on the inside, this is great, because there is a level of trust in these relationships.”
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Friday Is The Only Day That Matters For Movies In The Age Of Social Networking
If the world seems to turn faster with each passing month, then don’t be surprised that the weekend box office has now shrunk to a single day: Friday.
The rise of social networking, studio executives say, is driving a near-instantaneous word of mouth effect that is doing much to hyper-charge Hollywood’s multi-million-dollar marketing efforts … or to defeat them a lot faster than usual.
A movie like “Up,” for example, had Disney executives surprised at its opening weekend success, which outstripped projections and brought in $68 million domestically.
Studio tracking did not indicate that the movie would have strong appeal to adults without children, one executive said, but by Saturday exhibitors were noting that that exact demographic was going to the movie. “It’s a new phenomenon and we’re really seeing it this summer,” said Dick Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios. “Clearly there’s a Twitter effect.”
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Proof: Low Calorie Diet Extends Life, Reduces Disease
For a country in which roughly 200 million people are overweight or obese, scientists today have discouraging news: Even those who maintain a healthy weight probably should be eating less.
Evidence has been mounting for years that the practice of caloric restriction — essentially, going on a permanent diet — greatly reduces the risk of age-related diseases and even postpones death. It has been shown to significantly extend the lives of yeast, worms, flies, spiders, fish, mice and rats.
Now, in a much-anticipated study funded by the National Institutes of Health, many of the same benefits have been demonstrated in primates, the best evidence yet that caloric restriction would help people.
The findings, published in the journal Science, tracked rhesus monkeys that were on a reduced-calorie regimen for as long as 20 years. The animals’ risk of dying from cancer, heart disease and diabetes fell by more than two-thirds.
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Pilgrims Flock To Tree ‘Showing Image Of Virgin Mary’ In Limerick
It has been 14 years since her last major apparition in Ireland but the Virgin Mary is back and this time in the lowly form of a tree stump in Limerick.
To the dismay of local Catholic church leaders, the freshly severed stump, with its supposed image of Our Lady, is rapidly becoming the focus of pilgrims. The last time that Ireland experienced anything similar was during its last recession in 1985, when a “moving” statue drew tens of thousands to Ballinspittle, Co Cork.
Researchers Teach Mice to Exhale Fat!
UCLA researchers have taught mice how to exhale their excess fat. Mammals digest fats differently than bacteria — and the researchers successfully introduced bacteria genes into mouse livers! “The excess fat was literally released into thin air,” notes one science writer.
One researcher calls it “an unconventional idea which we borrowed from plants and bacteria.” The research potentially could help treat serious medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease — and of course, obesity.
The CIA’s Long History Of Lying to Congress
Melvin A. Goodman, The Public Record: “Let me be clear about this,” CIA director Leon Panetta told his troops in May, “it was not CIA policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values.”
Of course, Panetta is entitled to his opinions, but he cannot create his own facts. And, as a long-time member of the House of Representatives, he surely must know that there is a long and substantiated record of CIA deceit and dissembling to the congressional intelligence committees, which lawmakers revealed late Wednesday Panetta admitted to in a closed-door briefing. Here are some highlights of the CIA’s record of lying to Congress.
In 1973, CIA director Richard Helms deceived the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, refusing to acknowledge the role of the CIA in overthrowing the elected government in Chile. Helms falsely testified that the CIA had not passed money to the opposition movement in…
Nazi Stealth fighter Re-created from old bluebrints
Top stealth-plane experts have re-created a radical, nearly forgotten Nazi aircraft: the Horten 2-29, a retro-futuristic fighter that arrived too late in World War II to make it into mass production.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/images/090625-hitlers-stealth-fighter-plane_big.jpg
Nazt Stealth fighter recreated from old blueprints
Top stealth-plane experts have re-created a radical, nearly forgotten Nazi aircraft: the Horten 2-29, a retro-futuristic fighter that arrived too late in World War II to make it into mass production.
Ron Paul Leads Bipartisan Effort To Audit The Fed
Chadwick Matlin, MSNBC: Ron Paul’s legislative history is a lesson in principled failure. Among the bills he has co-sponsored: ending U.S. cooperation with the United Nations, a repeal of antitrust law “to restore the inherent benefits of the market economy,” and stripping the government of the right to set a minimum wage. Just last week, he again introduced a bill “to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990,” which would presumably make schools less safe but which would reinforce our right to bear arms. For Paul, ideology almost always trumps politics.
None of these bills, I should note, have picked up much support. And Paul’s track record with economic legislation isn’t any better. His perennial efforts — shifting the country back toward a gold standard, abolishing the personal income tax, and dismantling the Federal Reserve — are nonstarters. They so change the very fabric of this country that Paul can’t…
Seven Members of Congress Say Panetta Testified That CIA Misled Congress
Remember how CIA Director Leon Panetta said in May that members of the House Intelligence Committee “will have to determine” whether the CIA accurately and appropriately briefed Congress about the agency’s “enhanced interrogation program”? It appears that Panetta reached a conclusion himself.
On June 26, six seven Democrats on the committee — Anna Eshoo (Calif.), John Tierney (Mass.), Rush Holt (N.J.), Mike Thompson (Calif.), Alcee Hastings (Fla.) and Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) [Update: I received an early version of the letter. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.) also signed it] — wrote to Panetta, “Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all Members of Congress, and misled Members for a number of years from 2001 to this week.” The letter — which doesn’t explain what those “significant actions” concerned* — asks that Panetta “publicly correct” his May 15 statement that it isn’t CIA “policy or…
Canadian Woman Sues Photo Developer For Giving Her Pot Pix to the Cops
I’m completely on this woman’s side, but c’mon. It’s the 21st century. Have you never heard of a “digital camera”?
“An Ontario woman… says Black’s violated her Charter rights back in 2001 when a worker handed the photos over to police. Drug charges were later dropped when the pictures were excluded as evidence because they were obtained without a search warrant.”
You’ll Never Guess The Cause Of California’s Financial Woes: Obesity!
Obesity and inactivity is becoming a major drain on the state’s economy, according to a report released this morning.
The report, by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA), said that the economic cost of obesity in terms of health care costs and other factors is an estimated $41 billion a year in the state. Obesity has contributed to increases in total health care costs and a decline in worker productivity, the report found.
The study, produced by examining health care data and existing scientific research, found that the costs of obesity in Los Angeles County is $11.9 billion, $3.3 billion in Orange County and $3 billion in San Diego County.
Greenpeace Scales Mt. Rushmore To Combat Global Warming
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SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota – Environmentalists who used National Park Service rock anchors to scale Mount Rushmore and unfurl an anti-global warming banner along President Abraham Lincoln’s face Wednesday were charged with trespassing.
The 11 activists also were charged with the misdemeanor crime of climbing on Mount Rushmore National Monument, U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley said. They pleaded not guilty to all charges.
‘Capitalism: A Love Story’: Michael Moore’s New Movie
Michael Moore’s opting to spoof romantic conventions in titling his upcoming documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which addresses the causes of the global economic meltdown.
“It will be the perfect date movie,” Moore said in an announcement Wednesday. “It’s got it all — lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day. It’s a forbidden love, one that dare not speak its name. Heck, let’s just say it: It’s capitalism.”
Moore and Overture Films had announced previously that the film would be released domestically on Oct. 2 — a year and a day after the U.S. Senate voted to approve a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Paramount Vantage will handle international distribution.
The film is described as focusing on “the disastrous impact that corporate dominance and out-of-control profit motives have on the lives of Americans and citizens of the world.”
Scientists Claim ‘Fountain of Youth’ is on Easter Island
Agence France-Presse: A compound found in the soil of Easter Island stunningly boosts the lifespan of mice, enabling some to live more than 100 years old in human terms, researchers reported on Wednesday.
The remarkable molecule, a bacterial byproduct discovered in a sample taken from the remote Pacific archipelago in the 1970s, is called rapamycin, after the island’s Polynesian name of Rapa Nui. Rapamycin first came to light because of its qualities as a fungus fighter.
It was later used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients and then became incorporated into “stents” — implants used to keep arteries open in patients with coronary disease. It is now in clinical trials for cancer treatment. The latest step in this remarkable odyssey is the vision that rapamycin, or something like it, may one day massively boost human life expectancy.
“I’ve been in ageing research for 35 years and there have been many so-called anti-ageing…
‘Father of the Internet’ Imagines Our Future at NASA
Vint Cerf, aka “the father of the internet,” performed an hour-long Q&A at NASA for “Singularity University” (which is partially funded by Google ). And a question about Twitter led Cerf to imagine even more mind-blowing micro-applications that use the wireless internet and cell phones — including real-time health data and checking your location against a map for danger spots. “Humanity, at the end of the day, could track everywhere you went, and then you could take that trace and give it to service, and say… ‘Is there a biohazard? Is there an announcement of swine flu? Was there an outbreak there? Were there other substances that I should be worried about?’”
“These systems have applications which I think we will discover over time,” Cerf says, adding “For me, the exciting thing to just anticipate, are the new ideas for using these instruments.”
Also speaking were Ray Kurzweil and nanotechnology expert Ralph Merkle (described as…
