Archive for August, 2009
The Gospel Of Getting Rich
FORT WORTH — Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God.
Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.
“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.
Even in an economic downturn, preachers in the “prosperity gospel” movement are drawing sizable, adoring audiences. Their message — that if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold — is reassuring to many in hard times.
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Mathematical Model for Surviving a Zombie Attack
It is possible to successfully fend off a zombie attack, according to Canadian mathematicians. The key is to “hit hard and hit often.”
Oh yes, somebody actually did a study on mathematics of a hypothetical zombie attack, and published it in a book on infectious disease. So, while we still don’t know what to do if a deadly asteroid takes aim at Earth, an unlikely but technically possible situation, we now know what to do in case of a zombie attack.
“An outbreak of zombies is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead,” the authors wrote. “It is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble.”
German Court Says Nazi Slogan Is Legal In English
BERLIN (Reuters) – Nazis slogans banned in Germany may be legal if they are translated from German into English, one of the country’s highest courts has ruled.
The Federal Court of Justice said it had rescinded a conviction against a man fined 4,200 euros ($5,993) for possessing 100 T-shirts due for sale emblazoned with the words “Blood & Honor” — a translation of the Hitler Youth slogan “Blut und Ehre.”
The display of Nazi symbols is forbidden in Germany, but the court said the= context of the original phrase had been sufficiently distorted to render its usage legal.
“By translation into another language, the Nazi slogan, which is characterized not just by its meaning but also by the German language, is fundamentally transformed,” it said.
Sarah Palin, ‘The World’s Greatest’
Since most Sarah Palin fetishists think she’s Christ reincarnated with a folksy twang and fertile vagina, it stands to reason that someone would eventually make a Palin video tribute set to the music of R. Kelly. That time is now.
At first glance you’d think that this utterly hilarious compilation, featuring the music of a black man renowned for on-camera golden showers and statutory rape, was a parody made by Keith Olbermann or Bill Maher’s staffs, but it was actually put together and posted to the web this morning by the delusional wingnuts who run the Conservatives4Palin website. Prepare to be mesmerized.
They Live Album Cover Censored By MSNBC!
A recent news story about “homegrown terrorism” featured a video by the Ohio Militia that briefly showed the cover of the album “No Escape” by THEY LIVE. MSNBC aired the exact same video but decided to edit out the album cover. I wonder why?
Here is the CNN report with the undoctored video:
Here is a video where you can see the MSNBC airing of the exact same Ohio Militia video with the “No Escape” album cover suspiciously edited out:
All I gotta say to that:
THEY LIVE Album Cover Censored By MSNBC!
A recent news story about “homegrown terrorism” featured a video by the Ohio Militia that briefly showed the cover of the album “No Escape” by THEY LIVE. MSNBC aired the exact same video but decided to edit out the album cover.
I wonder why?
Here is the CNN report with the undoctored video:
Embedded video from CNN Video
Here is a video where you can see the MSNBC airing of the exact same Ohio Militia video with the “No Escape” album cover suspiciously edited out:
Swimmers Are Told to Wear Burkinis
British swimming pools are imposing Muslim dress codes in a move described as divisive by Labour MPs. Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.
Instead they are told that they must comply with the “modest” code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.
One step closer to the Matrix
It’s being compared to William Gibson’s vision of an interactive, Matrix-like data world. SQL databases or even Excel spreadsheets can now become immersive while users explore “data avatars,” sorting and drilling down in what could be the killer app for virtual world services!
This article explores Green Phosphor’s new Glasshouse service, which “lets users romp around 3D representations of data in virtual worlds.” Now users can explore real-time data visualizations in three (or four) dimensions…
An End to Movements
The national healthcare movement was doomed from the start. TV clips of shouting matches at town halls and fear-mongering by cynical politicians may be lamentable, but we are witnessing something more profound than the collapse of civic discourse. The failure of a movement that could rightly claim over 70 percent public acceptance just a month ago, exposes the inherent failure of movements of any kind to effectively address our society’s ills.
That’s right. Mass organization may just have been a twentieth century thing: collective actions of all sorts—good and bad—were responses to the corporatization of government and industy. As such, they took the form of the entities with whom they sought to do battle. But—like the top-heavy, highly abstracted creatures they were created to counter —they are proving utterly incapable of providing an alternative to what they would replace.
They did work for a time. When a corporation had the power to…
Captured: NYC’s Lower East Side
Since 1979 Clayton Patterson has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City’s Lower East Side, a neighborhood famed for art, music and revolutionary minds. Traversing the outside edge he’s recorded a dark and colorful society, from drag to hardcore, heroin, homelessness, political chaos and ultimately gentrification. His odyssey from voyeur to provocateur reveals that it can take losing everything you love to find your own significance.
The Great American Bubble Machine
3rd world kleptocracy, I guess I can stop feeling guilty for not having been more involved in the Obama campaign.
Oh where will it end, this is just getting so pornographic.
Man Catches MSI Laptop With … His Arse
With so many laptops, notebooks, netbooks and – even – smartbooks on the market, manufacturers must create increasingly brilliant adverts in order to sap the cash from your pockets. Not MSI, though, which just resorts to ‘cheeky’ adverts.
Congratulations Americans, You Pay The Most For Cellphone Service
Chris Walters, The Consumerist: A new survey from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compared annual costs around the world for consumers who have cellphones, and the U.S. is in the top three for most expensive.
How expensive? DSLReports notes that “on average, the OECD found that Americans pay $635.85 on cell phone service, compared to $131.44 per year in the Netherlands or $137.94 per year in Sweden.”
The carriers disagree that we’re getting screwed, of course:
“As you might expect, the wireless industry issued a press release proclaiming the study was based on ‘flawed assumptions’ that ‘just don’t make sense.’ If you look at the data the way carriers would like, you’re getting quite the bargain. The CTIA does have a point that the OECD’s usage categories seem low — particularly when it comes to MMS use.
“Another reason U.S. prices seem high? Carriers charge a hell of a lot of…
The ‘Family Guy’ Abortion Episode
The Live Feed: The cast of the Emmy-nominated Family Guy performed a live table read of their controversial abortion episode for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on Wednesday night.
Though creator Seth MacFarlane assured the crowd the content wasn’t as controversial as they might assume, it definitely wasn’t tame (ex.: “If God wanted us to kill babies he would have made them all Chinese girls”).
Below is an exclusive clip from the table read, which had the audience rolling. The read was also being shot by Family Guy producer 20th TV for inclusion on next season’s DVD package, which is also expected to have the completed abortion episode that Fox broadcast has refused to air.
U.S. Gov’t Drops An ‘H-Bomb’ in the Congo This Week
The Daily Show: Courtesy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Take that Congo!
Who Was That Gun-Toting Anti-Obama Protester?
Joan Walsh: One of Tuesday’s big mysteries was the motivation behind anti-Obama protester William Kostric, the man who brought a loaded gun to the town hall meeting and carried a sign referencing Thomas Jefferson’s famous credo, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
On Tuesday afternoon MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Kostric why he carried “a God-damned gun” to a meeting with the president, “given the violent history of this country with regard to presidents and assassinations,” and whether he supported the Birther movement. Kostric insisted his intentions were peaceful, and that he’s not affiliated with Birther groups.
But at least one of those statements doesn’t seem to be true. A right-wing activist named “William Kostric,” who’s left a lot of footprints around the Web, is listed as a “team member” of the Arizona chapter of We the People, the far-right group…
Peanuts: Skinhead Culture and Me
The skinhead cult and I have a strange sort of relationship. Pictures of me taken in high school confirm that I have a definite skinhead look about me. I frequently wore combat boots, army fatigues, horn rimmed glasses and a flight jacket while sporting a guardless shaved head.
However, at the age most people would choose to identify as a skinhead (approximately between fourteen and sixteen) I had, as I say, a complicated relationship with the term. On the one hand, I sat through German class every day and had members of a local gang of Nazis glaring, throwing things, and even making threats at me. More than once I got chased through an empty hallway of my large high school, or threatened with violence by boneheads.
Advertisers Deserting Fox News’ Glenn Beck
In what is shaping up to be one of the more effective boycott campaigns in years, advertisers are abandoning the “Glenn Beck” show on Fox News following the host’s incendiary comments that President Barack Obama is a “racist” and has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.”
Among the advertisers to pull spots from the popular cable talk show are Geico, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway; Procter & Gamble; Sargento Cheese; and Progressive Insurance, according to the companies and Color of Change, one group that is organizing a campaign against the program.
Graham Hancock’s First Novel, ‘Entangled’ Set For Publication
The Disinformation team was recently given a prized sneak preview of the very first novel from Graham Hancock, bestselling author of nonfiction blockbusters like Fingerprints of the Gods and Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. It’s called Entangled and it’s set for publication in the UK in April 2010 (US publication is still not determined).
There’s a general description on Graham’s site here, but it doesn’t really do justice to the fantastic nature of the book. I don’t use that word lightly: this book really is in the fantasy genre, but it is infused with all the marvelous, groundbreaking insights that Graham has brought to his previous work, especially the book that we were privileged to be involved with, Supernatural.
I won’t reveal any more of the plot than is on the official site, but suffice it to say that it’s written in cliffhanger style and I was left with that awful…
