Archive for September, 2009
Shatner/Beatles Mashup: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
As a Beatles fan, did read earlier in the week on the passing of Lucy Vodden at age 46, the inspiration behind the classic song.
If William Shatner had a chance to perform with the Fab Four, I hope Lucy would enjoy this:
Today’s Signs of Nascent Fascism
Nick P writes at Black Sun Gazette:
Following up on yesterday’s commentary on fascism, I present the following roundup of news sources pertaining to the issue. I would also like to direct my readers to Klintron’s blog Mutate!, which also has a follow-up. If you ever needed clear signs that elements of the ruling elite are moving America toward fascism- real fascism as a mass political movement aimed at the working class, foreigners, Blacks, and anyone else who gets in their way makes a convenient scapegoat- here they are.
The New Jesus Of Siberia
From the Guardian:
“I am Jesus Christ. It was promised in Israel 2,000 years ago that I would return, that I would come back to finish what was started.”
Meet the Messiah of Siberia, Vissarion Christ, as he is known to his thousands of disciples, who are convinced that he is the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, come back to earth to save the world.
To his critics who accuse him of brainwashing and embezzling his followers, Vissarion is a charlatan [who leads] “a destructive, totalitarian sect”. More prosaically, he is Sergei Torop, a 41-year-old former traffic cop from southern Russia, who moved to Siberia as a youth, experienced his awakening a decade ago, and now leads one of the biggest and most remote religious communes on the planet.
‘Invisibility Cloak’ Could Protect Against Earthquakes
Research at the University of Liverpool has shown it is possible to develop an ‘invisibility cloak’ to protect buildings from earthquakes.
The seismic waves produced by earthquakes include body waves which travel through the earth and surface waves which travel across it. The new technology controls the path of surface waves which are the most damaging and responsible for much of the destruction which follows earthquakes.
The technology involves the use of concentric rings of plastic which could be fitted to the Earth’s surface to divert surface waves. By controlling the stiffness and elasticity of the rings, waves travelling through the ‘cloak’ pass smoothly into the material and are compressed into small fluctuations in pressure and density. The path of the surface waves can be made into an arc that directs the waves outside the protective cloak. The technique could be applied to buildings by installing the rings into foundations.
Sebastien Guenneau, from…
American Fascism: What It Is, How To Fight It
Nick P writes at Black Sun Gazette:
My friend Klint blogged an interesting post on the subject of fascism here. I have briefly spoken on the matter here, but wish to provide a fuller, more elaborate picture.
Fascism is more than a nationalist, authoritarian, right-wing political movement. It has certain characteristics which are specific to it, and do not exist in every right-wing political movement. Fascism, so far as I am concerned, is not a cohesive political ideology. Rather, it is a grab bag of “everything and the kitchen sink, too” that serves the needs of the ruling class in utterly destroying independent political and social movement by the working class. Much of my analysis of what fascism is and how it works is lifted directly from Leon Trotsky’s Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It. I hope to, in my small way, concretize Trotsky’s work for America in 2009. While…
India’s Masturgate
It’s the stuff of every man’s dreams: Sports and sex. Gary Kirsten, the coach of India’s cricket team, has the entire country in an uproar after the team’s training manual leaked to the Indian media. The scandal? The coach encourages his players to have sex right before matches. No partner available? Go solo, he suggests.
India’s “Masturgate” has sparked dialogue throughout the traditionally conservative nation about sex and from the looks of it, the talk won’t stop anytime soon. Read the full article by Jason Overdorf in GlobalPost.
Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown’s Twenty Worst Sentences
The Telegraph has compiled a list of the twenty absolute worst sentences written by Da Vinci Code and Lost Symbol author Dan Brown.
Edinburgh professor of linguistics Geoffrey Pullum says “Brown’s writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad,” and he’s right, woo-ee, there are some stinkers.
Angels and Demons, opening sentence: “Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.”
The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: “Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow.”
The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: “As a boy, Langdon had fallen down an abandoned well shaft and almost died treading water in the narrow space for hours before being rescued. Since then, he’d suffered a haunting phobia of enclosed spaces – elevators, subways, squash courts.”
Fascism by the Numbers
Klint Finley, Mutate:
As a follow-up to my recent post Is It Too Late to Stop Fascism in the US?, I worked from the definition of fascism proposed by Robert Paxton.
There are several other definitions of fascism, many of which are listed on the Wikipedia entry Definitions of Fascism. I’ve decided to go through the definitions that include specific lists of criteria and see which of them the United States fits.
I’ve made the case before that when Ronald Reagan signed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act, he was quietly declaring martial law and creating a police state (and that the US has never really lived up to its liberal democratic ideals). I’m sure those with more knowledge of the right-wing populist movement of the 70s that culminated in Reagan’s election and with the Reagan administration itself could make the case that fascism, under many standard definitions, actually started then. I…
Census Reveals Extinction Threat
BBC News reports:
Almost 10% of the World’s mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are at risk of extinction, says an Australian report.
The animals face threats including habitat loss and climate change.
The report comes from Australia’s Biological Resources Study, a project aiming to document all of the planet’s known animal and plant species.
The study found that almost 1% of the World’s 1.9 million classified species were threatened. This included 9.2% of major vertebrate species.
The publication, Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World, is part of a major effort to document the entire planet’s animal and plant life.
Almost 5% of reptiles were considered threatened, along with 4% of fish species.
Peter Garrett, Australian Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, said: “We need this essential information to do a better job of managing our biodiversity against the threats of invasive species, habitat loss and climate change.”
Mr Garrett also announced a partnership…
Ron Paul Takes His Fed Offensive to the Daily Show
Conor Dougherty, Wall Street Journal:
Texas Rep. Ron Paul was on the Daily Show last night, where he went through his standard spiel about personal liberty and why the Federal Reserve should be abolished. In noting that Mr. Paul’s radical ideas about the Fed have gained wider acceptance in the wake of the financial crisis Daily Show host Jon Stewart compared Paul to a “cool indie band” that is a cult favorite but suddenly goes mainstream. “It scares the daylights out of me,” was Paul’s response to this observation.
The Ultimate Breakfast Machine
Mark Wilson, Gizmodo:
Earlier this month, designer Yuri Suzuki called for help to create a Pee Wee Hermanesque breakfast machine. Now, the heavenly contraption is done. Here’s a rundown of the machine (not in English, but eggs and toast are pretty universal):
The completed machine assembled a breakfast of an omelet, toast with jam, coffee and orange juice that was served all day to visitors of the Platform21 show in Amsterdam. But allow us to be the first jerks to say, wait, no bacon?
LSD Research Resurgence
Erin Halliday, SF Gate:
Nearly 40 years after widespread fear over recreational abuse of LSD and other hallucinogens forced dozens of scientists to abandon their work, researchers at a handful of major institutions – including UCSF and Harvard University – are reigniting studies. Scientists started looking at less controversial drugs, like ecstasy and magic mushrooms, in the late 1990s, but LSD studies only began about a year ago and are still rare.
The study at UCSF, which is being run by a UC Berkeley graduate student, is looking into the mechanisms of LSD and how it works in the brain. The hope is that such research might support further studies into medical applications of LSD – for chronic headaches, for example — or psychiatric uses. [...]
In 1966, the federal government made LSD illegal, and by the early 1970s, research into all psychedelic drugs in humans had come to a halt, although some…
Surrogate “Telepresence” robots help hospitals and businesses
31 Michigan hospitals are already treating stroke patients using real “robot surrogates” – the InTouch Health RP-7i, controlled remotely by a doctor using a joystick. The “telepresence” robot helps them administer a crucial treatment protocol 20 times more often than the national average, and it’s part of a growing trend. NextGen research predicts the number of robots will triple to 25 million units within the next six years, with a larger share being these “telepresence” bots.
But the examples are fascinating. One motion-detection robot even emails photographs of intruders, and a robotics CEO is already using a surrogate to eliminate his need to commute. Instead, “his robot sits next to his desk at the office, available for anyone to approach and ask him a question.”
EPA unveils plan to review 6 controversial chemicals, reform US toxics policy
Jane Kay, Environmental Health News:
Saying that the public is “understandably anxious and confused” about chemicals in their bodies and in their environment, President Obama’s top environmental official announced on Tuesday a new push to transform the way the nation regulates industrial compounds.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson called the nation’s 1976 toxics law “inordinately cumbersome and time-consuming.” As a result, she said the Obama Administration will promote a new chemical law in Congress in the coming months that puts the responsibility on industry to prove that its compounds are safe.
In the meantime, Jackson said, the EPA will begin to analyze and regulate six high-profile chemicals that have raised health concerns. Included are bisphenol A, or BPA, found in hard, clear polycarbonate bottles, and phthalates, which are used in vinyl and cosmetics.
Also targeted are brominated flame retardants added to electronics and other goods; perfluorinated compounds used in manufacturing non-stick coatings…
2012: Science or Superstition – Disinformation: The Podcast
Disinformation: The Podcast – 2010: Science or Superstition with Alexandra Bruce
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Woo-woo (or just plain woo) is a term used, often in a dismissive way, by skeptics for dealing with phenomena that can’t be verified by independent evidence, but yet, many people strongly believe in. So who better to investigate the “woo-woo” world of the present-day 2012 phenomenon than author Alexandra Bruce (Beyond The Bleep, Beyond The Secret), no stranger to the realm where pop culture and the esoteric collide.
Raymond Wiley and Joe McFall, hosts of our monthly interview series Disinformation: The Podcast, talk with Alexandra about her new book 2012: Science Or Superstition, a companion to the Disinformation documentary of the same name.
Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll Have A Dictatorship Soon In The US’
New Gore Vidal interview in the London Times:
A conversation with Gore Vidal unfolds at his pace. He answers questions imperiously, occasionally playfully, with a piercing, lethal dryness. He is 83 and in a wheelchair (a result of hypothermia suffered in the war, his left knee is made of titanium). But he can walk (“Of course I can”) and after a recent performance of Mother Courage at London’s National Theatre he stood to deliver an anti-war speech to the audience.
How was his friend Fiona Shaw in the title role? “Very good.” Where did they meet? Silence. The US? “Well, it wasn’t Russia.” What’s he writing at the moment? “It’s a little boring to talk about. Most writers seem to do little else but talk about themselves and their work, in majestic terms.” He means self-glorifying? “You’ve stumbled on the phrase,” he says, regally enough. “Continue to use it.”
Vidal is sitting in…
Half of All New Pharmaceutical Drugs Developed Fail to Beat Placebos … and Drugmakers are Scared
Have pharmaceutical companies gotten so good at advertising that now most people think the answer is in just taking a pill? Quite the Frankenstein effect for Big Pharma … perhaps the billions they spend on trying to convince people to take drugs they don’t need will be their undoing. (Big Pharma spends twice as much on marketing than research & development.)
Steve Silberman reports in Wired magazine:
Merck was in trouble. In 2002, the pharmaceutical giant was falling behind its rivals in sales. Even worse, patents on five blockbuster drugs were about to expire, which would allow cheaper generics to flood the market. The company hadn’t introduced a truly new product in three years, and its stock price was plummeting.
In interviews with the press, Edward Scolnick, Merck’s research director, laid out his battle plan to restore the firm to preeminence. Key to his strategy was expanding the company’s reach into the antidepressant market, where Merck had…
Traumatic Head Injury? Have A Shot of Vodka!
John Timmer writes on Ars Technica:
Blow to head? Drink up!: You could probably figure out the topic despite the medicalese in the title: “Positive Serum Ethanol Level and Mortality in Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.” The study is a retrospective one, based on identifying a set of patients in trauma centers who had been diagnosed with severe brain injuries. Not surprisingly, a number of them had been drinking. The surprise was that the folks with alcohol in the bloodstream had a better survival rate than those who hadn’t had a drink, even after correcting for some potential confounding factors. As always, further studies are suggested before we start dispensing vodka shots in the ER.
Image Credit: www.flickr.com/photos/spine via Creative Commons 2.0
J. K. Rowling Snubbed by Bush White House for Promoting Witchcraft
Think Progress reports:
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civil award, and is given to individuals who have contributed to: 1) the security or national interests of the United States, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
In his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals how politicized the revered Presidential Medal of Freedom became during the Bush administration.
Latimer writes that administration officials objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing “encouraged witchcraft” (p. 201):
This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged withcraft.
