Archive for September, 2009
Reading Surreal Fiction Makes You Smarter
Alison Flood, Guardian: Forget Sudokus and crosswords: if you want to sharpen up your thinking, immerse yourself in Kafka’s stories of the surreal.
Research from psychologists at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia claims to show that exposure to surrealism enhances the cognitive mechanisms which oversee implicit learning functions. The psychologists showed a group of subjects Kafka’s story The Country Doctor, a disturbing and surreal tale in which a doctor travels by “unearthly horses” to an ill patient, only to climb into bed naked with him and then escape through the window “naked, exposed to the frost of this most unhappy of ages”.
A second group were shown the same story, but rewritten so the plot made more sense. Both groups were then asked to complete an artificial grammar learning task which saw them exposed to hidden patterns in letter strings, and then asked to…
Blind Patient Sees Again with Eye Tooth
FRED TASKER, Miami Herald: The multistage procedure began in March when Dr. Yoh Sawatari, a dental surgeon at the University of Miami Medical School, extracted the tooth — coincidentally, it was Thornton’s eyetooth, also called the canine tooth — shaved it flat horizontally, drilled a hole in it and inserted an acrylic lens. He implanted the tooth/lens prosthesis under the skin inside her cheek, intending to leave it there for three months so the combination could heal together. Unfortunately, she developed a sinus infection, so he had to remove it and re-implant it under a pouch of skin in her upper chest.
Now You Can Find Out What Cthulhu Smells Like
Annalee Newitz, io9.com Everybody wants a sniff of the gods of the deep, and that’s why Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs has created a bunch of perfumes inspired by HP Lovecraft. Including — yes — a Cthulhu scent. Here’s how they describe it:
“A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.”
What is wrong with me that I totally want to buy that now? I’m also intrigued by the smell of Nyarlathotep:
“Brooding, yet electric: the scent of buried secrets, roiling nightmares, the essence of the Crawling Chaos, the Father of Knives and Locusts, the Hunter in the Dark. This is the blackest of ritual incenses charged with flashes of ozone.”
Seriously, I’m glad that goths are so entrepreneurial. There are many more lovely sniffs to be had here, from a perfume of the Deep Ones, to eau d’Herbert West. All are 5 ml for $15.
200 Dead Walruses Found On Alaska Coast
Federal wildlife researchers report that up to 200 dead walruses were spotted from the air along the northwest coast of Alaska.
New ‘Time’ Cover on Glenn Beck Ignores Facts, and Worse
I have no quarrel with Time magazine devoting a cover
to Glenn Beck — so long as the accompanying story sticks to hard facts and harsh truths.
The issue coming tomorrow, online today, sadly fails to do so in an apparent effort to woo the rightwing with a ludicrously “balanced” treatment of equally dangerous and wacko “ranting” coming from left and right.
It starts right away with a first paragraph that claims that only “liberal sources” estimated the protest crowd in D.C. last weekend as about 70,000, while conservatives say up to a million or more.
Actually, virtually all mainstream media sources (even some on Fox News) endorse a far lower number. PolitiFact, the nonpartisan fact-checking site, cited an officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department telling a reporter that, unoffically, he thought between 60,000 and 75,000 people had shown up.
Geek Songwriter Urges All Death Rays Be Open Source
“I hope I’m not nurturing an army of supervillains without knowing it,” says “Codemonkey” songwriter Jonathan Coulton “But in some sense, I do think that maybe the ‘death ray’ is a metaphor for the project that is crazy and that everybody thinks is a waste of time…
“We all have the opportunity to make that ‘death ray’ in our spare time for very little money and publish it to massive numbers of people. Just, if you do make a death ray, make it open source, because that’s the most stable way to do it.”
He also predicts the music industry will become “mega-collaboration on a global scale.” (”When you think about the trend in music and post-modern art, it makes sense. You’re incorporating parts of other pieces into the pieces that you’re making. And now this is a thing that children grow up knowing how to do…”)
Saying he hopes to be massively…
Russian Hackers Posing as Department of Homeland Security
*Not only do hackers boldly pose as members of the Department of Homeland Security, they do so in order to intimidate people in the Federal government.
*I rather imagine this kind of spearphishing works pretty well. “Hey! Drone from the Commerce Department! Turn over your password right now, or we put you on the Watch List! You’ll never fly domestic without relentless harassment again. What? ‘Demand your civil rights?’ With us, you don’t have any!”
–DHS Warns of Malicious Spoofed eMail
(August 24, 2009)
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned of malicious
email messages that appear to be from the DHS Division of Intelligence.
The emails actually come from addresses in Latvia and Russia and contain
links to malware designed to steal passwords. The messages were sent
to US Defense Department officials and state and local government
officials starting in June.
Free Educational Version of ‘Killer At Large’ Available Now
ShineBox Media Productions announced today that their critically acclaimed film, Killer at Large, will be made available free for school teachers for use in the classroom. A special twenty-minute version of the film has been assembled by the filmmakers and is perfect for affording teachers enough time to discuss the complex issues raised in the film in the space of one class period.
The award-winning Killer at Large explores the multi-faceted obesity epidemic facing the United States. Producer Bryan Young insists the problem is so large that, “we felt it was very important to get as many people as we can to discuss an issue that the last few Surgeons General have warned us is the biggest threat to our country today. Classrooms are the perfect place for that discussion and, to that end, we thought it was vital to offer teachers an opportunity to show important excerpts from the film and discuss…
AFL-CIO names new president: Who is Richard Trumka?
On Wednesday, John Sweeney, who has led the AFL-CIO since 1995, stepped down and was succeeded by his long-time lieutenant, Richard Trumka, who ran unopposed and was elected by delegates at the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh.
Few workers will take notice of the changing of the guard at the summit of the right-wing trade union apparatus. However, the corporate media and various “left” apologists for the labor bureaucracy have suggested that the elevation of the former president of the United Mine Workers might lead to a revival of the labor movement.
Washington elaborates AfPak strategy amid calls for US troop buildup
The Obama administration presented a document to a closed session of the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday spelling out a US war strategy that places special emphasis on Pakistan. The secretive briefing follows signals by US military commanders that a substantial increase in the troop presence in Afghanistan is needed to counter growing opposition to the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan.
Obama Administration to Seek Extension of Patriot Act Spy Powers
In a letter from the Justice Department to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Obama administration has gone on record for the first time supporting the extension of key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, including the notorious provision that gives the federal government the power to subpoena library records of any individual.
Mexico’s Hopeless Drug War
Mexico announced recently that it will decriminalize the possession of “small amounts of drugs” — marijuana, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamines, heroin and opium — “for personal use.” Individuals who are caught by law enforcement with quantities below established thresholds will no longer face criminal prosecution. A person apprehended three times with amounts below the minimum, though, will face mandatory treatment.
For the government of President Felipe Calderón, which has spent the last three years locked in mortal combat with narcotrafficking cartels, this seems counterproductive. Is the government effectively surrendering to the realities of the market for mind-altering substances? Or could it be that the new policy is only a tactical shift by drug warriors still wedded to the quixotic belief that they can take out suppliers?
The answer is that it is a bit of both. But neither matters. Mexico’s big problem — for that matter the most pressing security issue throughout the…
Girl Rejects Gardasil, Loses Path to Citizenship Does The Gov Have A Right To Decide This?
Born in Britain in 1992, Simone Davis got off to a rough start in life. Her biological mother abandoned her as a baby, and her father couldn’t care for her. At 3, Simone was adopted by her paternal grandmother, Jean Davis, who married an American in 2000 and moved them to Port St. Joe, Fla.
But because the adoption was not recognized in the United States, Davis embarked on a near-decade quest to get Simone U.S. citizenship.
Now 17 and an aspiring elementary school teacher and devout Christian, Simone has only one thing standing in the way of her goal — the controversial vaccine Gardasil.
Immigration law mandates that Simone get the vaccine to protect against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, which has been linked to cervical cancer.
But Simone, who has taken a virginity pledge and is not sexually active, doesn’t see why she should have to take the…
Tit for Tat: “Suicide bombers hit Somalia peacekeeping base in Mogadishu; witness says 11 dead”
Islamist suicide bombers in explosives-laden cars with U.N. logos drove onto the main base of African Union peacekeepers Thursday and triggered two massive blasts that a witness reported killed at least 11 people, blew out windows and shrouded the sky in black smoke.
“I have counted the bodies of 11 people, Somalis and peacekeepers,” the witness said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The AU said peacekeepers were wounded in the attack at Mogadishu’s airport, but did not elaborate. The African Medical and Research Foundation, which operates a flying doctors service, said the U.N. has asked for help evacuating 15 “critically injured” people.
An Islamist insurgent group claimed responsibility for the attack and said the targets were senior peacekeeping officials and Somali government officials who were meeting there. The attack came two days after al-Shabab vowed revenge for a U.S. commando raid that killed al-Qaida operative Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in Somalia.
Whatever Became of LSD?
It was the drug that fuelled the psychedelic 60s — and was tested as a weapon by MI6. But whatever became of LSD? Duncan Campbell traces its colourful past, and finds that the acidheads are still out there.
‘I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation — the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence … flowers shining with their inner light and all but quivering under the pressure with which they were charged … words like ‘grace’ and ‘transfiguration’ came to mind.”
That was the writer Aldous Huxley extolling the benefits of LSD from his vantage point in the Hollywood Hills in 1953, and he remained, right up to his death — and possibly beyond — an admirer of the substance. He even took it on his deathbed in 1963 so that he could enter the afterlife with, as it were, his doors of perception wide…
JRR Tolkien Trained as British Spy
Tolkien, one of his generation’s most respected linguists, was “earmarked” to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war. Intelligence chiefs singled him and a ‘cadre’ of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire.
Its staff — which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker — would later decipher the ‘impenetrable’ Enigma machines. This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to intercept and destroy Hitler’s U-Boats.
According to previously unseen records, Tolkien trained with the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). He spent three days at their London HQ in March 1939 — six months before the outbreak of the Second World War and just 18 months after the publication of his first book, The Hobbit.
But although he was “keen”, Tolkien — a professor of English literature at Oxford University — declined a £500-a-year offer to become a full-time recruit. The reasons…
Do Churches Control the Activist Community?
FaithWorld, Religion Clause, and Religion Dispatches all point to a newly-released poll from Public Religion Research and the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics that compares conservative and progressive/liberal religious activists. While it “contains very little that will surprise anyone”, the poll does starkly display the vast differences in diversity between the politically active religious “left” and “right”. To quote the findings:
“Conservative and progressive religious activists are deeply religious, but have strikingly different religious profiles. In terms of religious affiliation, conservative activists are almost exclusively Christian, whereas progressive activists are more diverse.”
Let’s have a look at the graphs.
I think “strikingly different” is a fair assessment. Not even 1% of conservative activists would admit to being non-Christian, while 2% of progressive activists admit to being in the “other” category (the happy land of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Pagans that exists only in the minds of polling organizations) and an impressively significant 12%…
Hung Up – Is Your Phone A Sex Toy?
Riverphonic blog:
It’s smooth, it’s curved, it vibrates; it could even, if so desired, animate pictures of George Clooney’s fingers. It’s no surprise then that there are already some 25 “massage” apps competing on the iTunes Store, jostling for attention like so many buxom babes in the back of a local city guide. Some focus on the serious business of physical therapy and raise the bar with yogic text and oriental graphics; others coyly reference ‘emotional stimulation’; few come out and risk the wrath of Apple’s censors by telling it like it is.
Which is, Ladies and Gentlemen (or just you ladies then, since the lads are on Safari searching for visual titillation), a Pocket Rocket you can talk on! A mini orgasmatron that integrates with your social networks! That’s right, Christmas has come early – pun intended. The geeks have been promising it for years, now the fully converged, handheld entertainment…
Nazism and Its Occult Connections
Seventy years ago this week, World War II began with the invasion of Poland by Germany. No one’s in any doubt that Adolf Hitler was directly responsible for this conflict.
.jpg)
There have been hundreds of attempts to deconstruct, scrutinize and put under a microscope his motivations. In that process, we have dissected Hitler’s life from the day he enlisted in the Kaiser’s army to fight in World War I, to the moment he was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and finally, to his alleged suicide in the Fuhrerbunker in 1945. But conventional history has chosen to ignore very interesting circumstances in the period of history when the Nazi party was born.
The majority of historians are hamstrung by assigning Hitler with a “conventional” worldview. Because of this, Hitler’s motivations for pushing the world to war are ascribed to politics, lust for power, nationalism and other factors that simply don’t tell the…
