Archive for August, 2009
The Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’ Will Be Remade … By Disney!
Disney and director Robert Zemeckis are negotiating to remake Yellow Submarine, the 1968 psychedelic animated film based on the music of the Beatles.
The studio has been quietly brokering a complicated rights deal that would give Zemeckis access to 16 original Beatles songs for a movie he will direct in the performance capture 3-D digital production format he employed for A Christmas Carol.
Disney opens that film November 6, with Jim Carrey playing Scrooge and the three ghosts that haunt him in the Charles Dickens tale.
The hope is to have Yellow Submarine ready to premiere around the 2012 Summer Olympics, which begins July 27 in London, England.
Cracked.com: Six Animals That Can Get You High
Dan Stewart: Most human beings are inexplicably drawn to at least some measure of mind-altering substances, from your grandmother sipping her soothingly-caffeinated tea to the dude in Under Armour sweatpants puking out rivers of beer in front of your apartment building at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning.
However, only the few, the visionaries, look at passing wildlife and think, “Hey, I wonder if that creature can get me wasted? Let’s lick it and find out.” The sad part? Those guys are often rewarded for their efforts, by animals like…
#6. Giraffes: The Arabic-speaking Humr people of Sudan are strictly forbidden to partake in any plant-based intoxicant such as alcohol or cannabis, which is a bizarrely specific restriction reminiscent of the Transportation Security Administration’s express identification of nunchucks as a prohibited item on airplanes. However, as long as only plant-based toxins are forbidden, we’re seeing a loophole big enough for B.J. McKay to…
Congressman Barney Frank Confronts the Obama-Hitler Comparison During Town Hall Meeting
At a Barney Frank town hall meeting in Dartmouth, MA, a constituent asks, “Why are you supporting this Nazi policy?” Frank responds: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” He then calls her approach “vile, contemptible nonsense.” He closes by saying: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”
Michael Jackson’s Huge FBI File For Sale At 10 Cents Per Page
Patrick Range McDonald, LA Weekly: Blogger/activist Michael Petrelis, who’s based in San Francisco, received an interesting letter in the mail yesterday. According to the FBI, he can buy Michael Jackson’s FBI file, which is a whopping 591 pages, for $49.10.
“There is a duplication fee of ten cents per page,” writes FBI section chief David Hardy. “The first 100 pages will be provided to you free of charge.”
Petrelis publishes the FBI’s response on his blog, The Petrelis Files. He received the letter after he sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, asking for any of the agency’s documents concerning Michael Jackson. Petrelis writes that he was surprised there was a sizable file, but maybe he shouldn’t have been.
First of all, Michael Jackson fought off child molestation charges in 2005, which most probably brought the attention of the FBI. But rock stars throughout the decades have been targeted by…
Cockroaches (a.k.a. Our Insect Overlords) Will Survive the Effects of Global Warming
Shanta Barley, New Scientist: Hate cockroaches? Best pour yourself a stiff drink. The widely loathed insects can hold their breath to save water, a new study has found — and the trick could help them to thrive in the face of climate change.
When cockroaches are resting, they periodically stop breathing for as long as 40 minutes, though why they do so has been unclear.
To investigate the mystery, Natalie Schimpf and her colleagues at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, examined whether speckled cockroaches (Nauphoeta cinerea) change their breathing pattern in response to changes in carbon dioxide or oxygen concentration, or humidity.
They conclude that cockroaches close the spiracles through which they breathe primarily to save water. In dry environments the insects took shorter breaths than in moist conditions.
“Cockroaches lose water across their respiratory surfaces when they breathe,” says Schimpf, “so taking shorter breaths in dry conditions reduces the amount of…
‘60 Minutes’ Creator Don Hewitt Dies At 86
CBS News: Don Hewitt, recognized as a father of modern television news and the creator of the medium’s most successful broadcast, 60 Minutes, died today. He was 86.
Hewitt was executive producer of CBS News, the title he took when he stepped down from 60 Minutes in 2004. For the past several years, he had been involved in a variety of broadcast projects, mostly outside of CBS, including producing a primetime documentary about the Radio City Music Hall’s annual Christmas show.
Hewitt’s remarkable career in journalism spanned over 60 years, virtually all of it at CBS. As a young producer/director assisting at the birth of television news, it was usually Hewitt behind the scenes directing legendary CBS News reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, using a playbook he had to write himself. He played an integral role in all of CBS News’ coverage of major news events from the late 1940s…
Michael Jackson’s Doctor to Be Charged With Manslaughter
Michael Jackson’s personal physician will be charged with manslaughter within the next two weeks, a law enforcement source told FOXNews.com.
The source initially said Dr. Conrad Murray could be arrested as soon as next Wednesday — but investigators have decided to execute one more search warrant, likely at a Los Angeles pharmacy, next week in an attempt to gather more evidence against him. The arrest is now expected the following week.
Jon Stewart Skewers Obama on Public Option Waffling
He’s only been in office seven months, but if you voted for Barack Obama, you’ve got to be at least a little concerned. He failed to close Gitmo, he’s forgotten gays exist, and now he’s pussying out on government-run health care. At this rate, I don’t even know if we’re going to get the free abortions for kindergartners he promised.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-17-2009/heal-or-no-heal—medicine-brawl
Jon Stewart Skewers Obama on Public Option Waffling
He’s only been in office seven months, but if you voted for Barack Obama, you’ve got to be at least a little concerned. He failed to close Gitmo, he’s forgotten gays exist, and now he’s pussying out on government-run health care. At this rate, I don’t even know if we’re going to get the free abortions for kindergartners he promised.
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Top Sweden Newspaper Says IDF Kills Palestinians For Their Organs
A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication.
Return Of The Militias
In an article written for the Southern Poverty Law Center, Larry Keller describes the current rise in domestic militia activity:
In Pensacola, Fla., retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson tells a gathering of antigovernment “Patriots” that the federal government has set up 1,000 internment camps across the country and is storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta. They’re there for the day the government finally declares martial law and moves in to round up or kill American dissenters, he says. “They’re going to keep track of all of us, folks,” Gunderson warns.
Almost 10 years after it seemed to disappear from American life, there are unmistakable signs of a revival of what in the 1990s was commonly called the militia movement. From Idaho to New Jersey and Michigan to Florida, men in khaki and camouflage are back in the woods, gathering to practice the paramilitary skills they believe will be needed…
Woodstock As Depicted In Marvel Comics
Forty years ago, the seminal (and to some, notorious) music and culture festival was held at Woodstock in upstate New York. As we hear and read the babbled remembrances of various baby boomers who were there, it’s fun to take a peek at “It Happened At Woodstock!,” Marvel Comics’ hippie-themed comic book, released in 1971. Gary Friedrich wrote it and Gray Morrow did the art, with appearances by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and others. The protagonist learns that “free love” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and leaves the festival a day early so that she can marry her “square” high school sweetheart.
Cops Use Old Brink’s Truck to Shame Suspects; Video Cameras Add to the Drama
PEORIA, Ill. This industrial city, hard hit by the recession, has found a new, low-budget way to fight crime: Park an unmanned, former Brink’s truck bristling with video cameras in front of the dwellings of troublemakers.
Police here call it the Armadillo. They say it has restored quiet to some formerly rowdy streets. Neighbors’ calls for help have dropped sharply. About half of the truck’s targets have fled the neighborhood.
“The truck is meant to be obnoxious and to cause shame,” says Peoria Police Chief Steven Settingsgaard.
Will The Big Crunch Follow The Big Bang?
The Big Crunch may sound like a slogan for crackers or potato chips, but it’s actually an astronomical theory with a gloomy twist.
We’ve all heard of the Big Bang, a widely accepted theory that proposes the entire universe began from a single point about 13.7 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since.
But will it expand forever? Or could it stop and reverse that process?
One possible fate of the universe is the Big Crunch, the idea that the cosmos could one day begin contracting and eventually collapse back on itself or return to a single point.
If it ever happens, this anti-Big Bang would take place so far in the future that Earth might even not exist anymore, according to experts writing for Cornell University’s Curious About Astronomy Web site.
But the experts also took a stab at what a contracting universe could look like to an observer billions of years…
Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle
Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won’t sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?
Warren Buffett: Recession Is Over, Inflation Is Coming
NYT Op-Ed by Warren Buffet:
In nature, every action has consequences, a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. These consequences, moreover, are not necessarily proportional. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere may far more than double the subsequent problems for society. Realizing this, the world properly worries about greenhouse emissions.
The butterfly effect reaches into the financial world as well. Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.
To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.
They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when…
Curfews For Adults? New Jersey Officials Say It’s Possible
Curfews might not be just for kids anymore in one northern New Jersey city.
Seeking to curb violence after a spate of deadly summer shootings, Paterson officials are considering an unusual ordinance that would prevent people of all ages from gathering outside in public late at night.
No Matter Where You Go, There You Are: Happy B-Day Buckaroo Banzai!
Ken Denmead, WIRED: We missed posting this on Saturday, but it cannot be left unobserved. August 15th was the 25th anniversary of the release of a film near and dear to many geeks who came of age in the ’80s. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension was a great, adventurous, geeky movie, with enough silly science fiction and great characters to fill any three lousy summer blockbusters these days.
Didn’t we all dream of someday being a super-scientist/rock musician and get to travel around the country on the coolest tour bus ever made to save humanity from the evil aliens hiding amongst us? It gave us our future Robocop, our future Dr. Ian Malcolm/David Levinson, and (perhaps geekiest of all?) our future Sergeant Zim/Kurgan/John Danziger/Dr. Neo Cortex/Captain Black/Otto/Dark Dragon/Long Feng/Lex Luthor/Mr. Freeze/Mr. Krabs.
And it gave us so many great, geeky lines to quote. Please feel free to cite your…
Preview of ‘2012: Science or Superstition’ — In Book Form!
Coming September 2009, order a copy today on Amazon:
December 21, 2012: will the world really change forever on this date, the end of a 5,125-year calendar last used over a thousand years ago? Certainly Hollywood would like you to think so. Indeed, a not-so-small industry has arisen around the date, hawking everything from t-shirts to teleseminars.
Clearing a path between fantasy and reality, Alexandra Bruce surveys the entire 2012 landscape, asking questions such as:
• Is the Earth losing its Mojo?
• How did 2012 come to mean “The End of Time”?
• Did psychedelics facilitate the Maya “Cosmovision”?
• Should we worry about Earth Crustal Displacement?
• What the hell is “Planet X”?
Uniquely amongst a vast array of 2012 literature, this companion book to the #1 documentary film about 2012 features interviews with the leading expert — including Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and many others—and insightful, detailed analysis of the broad spectrum of…
