Archive for October, 2009
Scientists Close In On Mystery Of Arctic Asteroid Strikes
Alexis Madrigal reports in Wired:
Two polar scientists hot on the trail of an arctic mystery have a new tool for exploration: a hovercraft, specially outfitted for week-long trips over the ice with scientific instruments and solar panels.
Their quarry is a nearly 22,000 square-mile patch of disturbed Arctic sea floor that could be evidence of a massive asteroid strike. John Hall, a now-retired geoscientist, discovered the anomaly during his late-’60s graduate work aboard Fletcher’s Ice Island, a huge berg U.S. scientists inhabited for several decades.
Since then, no scientific vessel has been back over the area to collect more data. The massive icebreakers that have crunched through the Arctic since the 1990s can’t reach the spot, said Yngve Kristofferson, a scientist and explorer at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Richard Belzer calls out the Federal Reserve on HBO
Richard Belzer on Real Time with Bill Maher exposing the Federal Reserve plot to destroy the country and their roll in the assassination of JFK. (Note, there’s an ad for gold at the tail of the clip, you can stop watching once that starts.)
Obese People More Likely To Contract Swine Flu
As if being obesely fat doesn’t already present enough serious health problems (see the disinformation documentary film Killer At Large for more on that), now obese people have one more major health worry: they are much more likely to get the H1N1 strain of flu, a/k/a/ swine flu, according to this AP report:
Rapidly worsening breathing problems in the sickest H1N1 flu patients in Mexico and Canada suggest a scary worst-case scenario for what doctors in the United States will face as winter flu season sets in, new reports suggest.
In the first wave of the global swine flu outbreak, many critically ill patients in both countries were obese, though their death rates weren’t higher than others. Many in both countries also were younger than those typically hard hit by seasonal flu, as has been found in the United States.
Patients studied worsened quickly after being admitted to hospitals. Most survived after intensive, lengthy…
Street Rock ‘N’ Roll: Oi! 101
From Black Sun Gazette
Let’s face it. Punk rock was never for the kids, the streets, or the masses. It was, on both sides of the pond, largely a movement of middle class art students, their hangers on, and elitist rock fans. Which is not to say that it didn’t yield a great deal of quality rock and roll. Bands like The Ramones, Generation X, The Clash, and even the much-maligned Sex Pistols make great rock music for discerning rock fans that holds up really well thirty years later. But down on the streets, the kids, as usual, knew what was what. As punk drifted further and further into art school wankery and glam rock pretensions, there were two reactions. In America, it took the form of hardcore, a style of punk rock where melody and song structure took a back seat to energy, anger, and simplicity. In Britain, the yobs retook…
Will Sex Be Different in the Future?
“It is important to remember that sexual intercouse is a highly ancient, simplistic-at-its-core activity that we may choose to discard at some point in the future…”
In “Sex and the Singularity,” futurist magazine H+ asks radical techs (including Ray Kurzweil) to describe futuristic “sex after the Singularity.” They envision “more complex activities that generate even more pleasure and connection between people,” and suggest “The primary purpose of the Singularity will be seen, after the fact, to be Awesome Sex.
“There will be exponentially more sex, with exponentially more interfaces, and with exponentially more measures of pleasure.” With “millions of super computer-generated sex fantasies,” one technologist concludes “I love the future. Bring it on.”
“Whether we choose to call it ’sex’ will be entirely arbitrary, but it may bear little resemblance to the sex of today…”
Reservella: The Shadowy Company Behind The Pirate Bay
Nate Anderson writes on Ars Technica:
When lawyer Ernst-Jan Louwers showed up in a Dutch court this week to defend the three Pirate Bay administrators, he swore that none of the three men in fact owned the site, having got rid of it in a shady 2006 transaction. How shady? Louwers told the judge that he could produce literally no piece of evidence that the site had even been sold at all — no contract, no bank transfer, no nothing.
The Pirate Bay admins have long said that the site is actually controlled by a mysterious company called Reservella, based in the Seychelles islands. As for who controls Reservella, the admins say they have no idea — and frankly don’t care.
But Dutch antipiracy group BREIN says that it knows who controls Reservella, and it has the document to prove it: Fredrik Neij, one of the three Pirate Bay admins.
…
Remote-Controlled, “Cyborg” Flying Insects Exist: The Goal is the Ultimate Spy
Creepy, really brings the expression “a fly on the wall” to life. Ewen Callaway reports in New Scientist:
It’s tempting to call them lords of the flies. For the first time, researchers have controlled the movements of free-flying insects from afar, as if they were tiny remote-controlled aircraft.
By connecting electrodes and radio antennas to the nervous systems of beetles, the researchers were able to make them take off, dive and turn on command. The cyborg insects were created at the University of California, Berkeley, by engineers led by Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz as part of a programme funded by the Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The project’s goal is to create fully remote-controlled insects able to perform tasks such as looking for survivors after a disaster, or acting as the ultimate spy. (Read more on New Scientist)
The 5 Minute Decision that Saved the World in 1983
Here’s someone who really deserves a Nobel Peace Prize … Gimundo writes on DivineCaroline:
Ever heard of Stanislav Petrov?
Probably not—but you may very well owe him your life.
Petrov, a former member of the Soviet military, didn’t actually do anything but that’s precisely the point.
In 1983, Petrov held a very important station: As lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union’s satellites over the United States, and watching for any sign of unauthorized military action.
This was the Cold War era, and suspicions were high; on September 1, the Soviet Union had mistakenly shot down a Korean aircraft it had believed to be a military plane, killing 269 civilians, including an American Congressman. The Soviet Union believed that the United States might launch a missile attack at any moment, and that they would be forced to respond with their own arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Several weeks after the airplane disaster, on…
‘Wild Things’ Author Maurice Sendak To Concerned Parents: Go To Hell!
Great find from Charlie Jane Anders on io9.com:
If you’re worried about taking your kids to see Where The Wild Things Are after reports of crying children having to leave screenings of the rough cut, halfway through, then Maurice Sendak has a message for you: “Go to hell.”
A story in the Oct. 19 Newsweek contains this classic exchange:
What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.
Because kids can handle it?
Sendak: If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.
Jonze: Dave, you want to field that one?
Eggers: The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the movies? I think adults should wear diapers going to it, too. I think everyone should be prepared for any eventuality.
So…
Americans Are Getting Used to Perpetual War
Ron Smith writes in the Baltimore Sun:
A new poll shows a substantial majority of Americans have resigned themselves to the reality of our nation’s perpetual foreign wars. They don’t like it, but they see it happening and know there is nothing they can do about it. The poll, conducted by Clarus Research Group, showed that 68 percent of us agree with idea that we won’t either win or lose the war in Afghanistan, now eight years long, but will instead just remain there. The image of flies and flypaper again swirls in my head, just as it did at the time of the invasion of Iraq. We invaded these places and now we’re stuck there, and President Barack Obama is likewise stuck, not on flypaper, but on the horns of a dilemma: Does he send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, as his area commander, Gen. Stanley A.…
A Neo-Nazi Inventor’s Gift to Childhood: Sea Monkeys
I always thought these things were really odd. Check out this article from Tamar Brott in Los Angeles Times from October, 2000. Sea Monkeys inventor Harold von Braunhut died in 2003:
APART FROM THE FACT THAT THEY CAN HATCH WITHIN MINUTES AFTER contact with water, brine shrimp are unappealing creatures. They’re ant-sized and translucent and bear a striking resemblance to sperm. Yet brine shrimp packaged as “Sea Monkeys” are currently sold as children’s companions, and portrayed on their boxes as pink, pear-shaped simian creatures with spindly legs, paunches and coy smiles. They are one of the most impressive achievements in the annals of marketing.
Harold von Braunhut, a former manager of novelty acts, first packaged his patented hybrids in 1960, transforming the Sea Monkeys into American icons via millions of comic book ads. Von Braunhut also wrote the 32-page handbook that is included in most Sea Monkey kits to this day, which states that the creatures can be hypnotized, play baseball and rise from the dead. The tone of the handbook is florid and huckstery: “It seems that at mating time in the Animal Kingdom, the males engage in combat to win the fin, paw, flipper, hoof, wing or what-have-you, of their ‘lady love.’ …
Chaoism: An Infantile Disorder
From Black Sun Gazette
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” – 1 Corinthians 13:11
Chaoists are a lot easier to manipulate than they think. The use of a Bible verse will likely reduce their illogical legions to simpering children. The verse also eloquently summarizes everything that is wrong with chaoism and its related tangents. Put in the brilliant carny simplicity of The Church of Satan: questions all things … but it helps to be able to think first. The paradigms of chaos magick, earnest Discordianism (it’s called a “joke religion” for a reason, people), and radical skepticism (all of which will be referred to in this article under the rubric of “chaoism”) concentrate on the former without any regard for the latter, and in doing so reduce…
Flu Vaccinations: It’s a Jab or Your Job
Alice Park writes in Time:
At Winthrop hospital on New York’s Long Island, the signs are everywhere. They’re posted at every nurses’ station, papered above the security panels against which employees swipe their ID cards and even attached to paychecks. The notices are there to remind the hospital’s staff — which includes everyone from the doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — that every employee must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face possible termination.
The mandate comes from the health department of New York, which over the summer became the first state to require that all health-care workers be vaccinated against influenza. In other states, individual hospitals have taken the same aggressive position. Given that the pandemic H1N1 strain is circulating the globe — and that one of the seasonal-flu strains is resistant to Tamiflu, a commonly used antiviral treatment…
Rush To Harvest California Marijuana Fields Before Raids
Law enforcement officials this year have seized and destroyed a record amount of illegal marijuana grown in remote parts of public land in California: more than four million plants with a street value of as much as $16 billion. Stacey Delo reports for the Wall Street Journal:
The Solution to our Environmental Woes is to End Prohibition
via chycho
The best solution to our environmental problems is to end prohibition. There is no other viable option short of the immediate end to military conflict that will have the same positive impact on the ecosystem. Our first step towards a sustainable existence should begin with cannabis. Its assimilation into our civilization is the safest, simplest, most efficient immediate solution that we can implement in time to prevent an ecological catastrophe.
Cannabis is a plant, and its use is as old as civilization itself. It has thousands of immediate and potential applications. Its cultivation rejuvenates the soil, it can replace wood products, it’s medicinal, and it can be used as building material, textiles, paint, plastic, fuel, paper, food and body care. It is one of the most important bounties of nature. It’s a plant that we were meant to use.
So what’s the hold up? The short answer is America’s “War on…
Do You Love Chipotle, But Are Concerned About the Bleeding?
South Park recounts our great year of dead celebrities, and a terrible side effect of our love of Chipotle’s burritos. Rest in Peace, Billy Mays:
Unclaimed Corpses Rise in the U.S. As Families Can’t Afford Burials
Kaite Zezima writes in the New York Times:
Coroners and medical examiners across the country are reporting spikes in the number of unclaimed bodies and indigent burials, with states, counties and private funeral homes having to foot the bill when families cannot. The increase comes as governments short on cash are cutting other social service programs, with some municipalities dipping into emergency and reserve funds to help cover the costs of burials or cremations.
Oregon, for example, has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of unclaimed bodies over the past few years, the majority left by families who say they cannot afford services. “There are more people in our cooler for a longer period of time,” said Dr. Karen Gunson, the state’s medical examiner. “It’s not that we’re not finding families, but that the families are having a harder time coming up with funds to cover burial or cremation costs.”
About…
‘Independence Day’-Shaped Cloud Hovering Over Moscow
Reported on the Daily Mail:
In what could have been a scene from the film Independence Day, a luminous ring-shaped cloud could be seen hovering over the city of Moscow last week.
The pale gold ‘halo’ could be seen above the Russian capital city’s Western District on Wednesday, and was captured on film by stunned Muscovites.
Meteorologists rejected any theories of the supernatural however, calling it an optical effect.
Have You Heard Of Coal Ash? The Coal Industry Would Prefer You Don’t…
Coal supplies more than more than half the electricity consumed in the United States. Our coal consumption produces coal ash, a toxic sludge which is largely unregulated.
If coal ash is safe to spread under a golf course or be used in carpets, why are the residents a Tennessee town being told to stay out of a river where the material was spilled? Lesley Stahl reports on 60 Minutes:
