Archive for October, 2009
Bird Flu May Be An STD … In Ducks
Dammit Donald! And I know your explanation isn’t going to make any sense … My eye’s now on you, Porky Pig, for the current craze. Nora Schultz writes in New Scientist:
Bird flu may be a sexually transmitted infection — at least in ducks. That’s the suggestion of an analysis of flu prevalence and mating behaviour that also proposes an easy way to spot duck populations most at risk of harbouring avian flu.
Surprisingly, the more rampant the sex a particular duck species indulges in, the lower the chance of spreading the virus. It’s all to do with penis size and the complexity of the females’ vagina.
Lethal strains of avian flu virus can evolve from harmless versions and then jump to other species, so it is important to also monitor less dangerous strains in wild birds. Ducks are the main wild hosts of bird flu, but surveillance is difficult without easy markers…
Man Finds ‘Missile Launcher’ in His Backyard
John Tedesco writes on the San Antonio Express-News:
Jarrette Schule was cutting down trees on his rural property Tuesday in Comal County when he noticed a green metallic tube on the muddy ground. “I had never seen it before,” said Schule, a 34-year-old Web developer. “I looked at it, and it kind of looked like a missile launcher.”
Schule took a closer look. It was a long, forest-green metal tube. A decal on it read: “Guided Missile and Launcher, Surface Attack.” The discovery was the start of a surreal journey for Schule. Somehow, an unarmed anti-tank weapon — or a very good fake — wound up on his land at Beck Road and Kirk Lane in the Hill Country, miles away from a military installation.
The launcher was deep in the wooded property far from the road, in an area he was familiar with.
“I don’t know if it fell out of something or…
U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Amazon and Twitter
Noah Shachtman writes on Wired’s Danger Room:
America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.
In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.
Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn’t touch closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get customized, real-time feeds of what’s being said on these…
Got Pot? Fly From Oakland
Josh Richman writes in the Oakland Tribune:
Oakland International Airport may be the nation’s only airport with a specific policy letting users of medical marijuana travel with the drug.
The policy is spelled out in a three-page document quietly enacted last year by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. It states that if deputies determine someone is a qualified patient or primary caregiver as defined by California law and has eight ounces or less of the drug, he or she can keep it and board the plane.
Deputies warn the pot-carrying passengers that they may be committing a felony upon arrival when they set foot in a jurisdiction where medical marijuana is not recognized. But they say they don’t call ahead to alert authorities on the other end.
President George H. W. Bush: Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are ‘Sick Puppies’
Nick Sabloff writes on the Huffington Post:
Former President George H.W. Bush feels that the tone of the national discourse lacks civility. “I don’t like it,” Bush told CBS. “The cables (TV) have a lot to do with it.” Bush said he believes Obama was “entitled to civil treatment” when it comes to his critics. But it was not just those on the right, who presumably make up a majority of Obama’s critics, that Bush felt were responsible for the angry tone. The left was guilty as well.
Singling out MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, Bush said, “the way they treat my son and anyone who’s opposed to their point of view is just horrible.” Maddow and Olbermann, he added, are “sick puppies.”
Needless to say, Maddow and Olbermann weren’t taking Bush’s criticism lying down. Here’s the video.
Barbara Ehrenreich Takes on the Plague of Positive Thinking
Interesting perspective for those drunk on The Secret’s kool-aid. From a New York Magazine profile:
Barbara Ehrenreich, renowned for her exposés of America’s grueling blue- and white-collar job markets (i.e., Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch), is out to cement her role as our nation’s reality checker. Her new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, was initially inspired by her resistance to the cancer-gives-my-life-meaning trope, which was inflicted on her when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. She found that insistent, blind optimism is deeply ingrained in our nation’s psyche, especially in the realms of finance and national security.
And an interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:
Has the Pill Changed the Rules of Sexual Attraction?
Linda Geddes writes in New Scientist:
The contraceptive pill alters monthly fluctuations in hormones associated with the menstrual cycle, mimicking the more stable hormonal conditions associated with pregnancy. This might not only disrupt the natural processes which influence women’s choice of partner, but it could also make them less able to compete with women who have a natural menstrual cycle, a paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution suggests.
How worried should we be, and what other strategies can men and women use to tip the odds in their favour? New Scientist investigates.
What do we know about how women choose a mate?
Recent studies have confirmed that women tend to prefer taut bodies, broad shoulders, clear skin and defined, masculine facial features – all of which may indicate sexual potency and good genes. Women also tend to be attracted to men who look as if they have wealth, or the ability to acquire it.
Smell…
Anthropologist Says Modern Man Is A ‘Wimp’
Reuters via the Independent:
Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 metres record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions. Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle. These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled Manthropology and provocatively sub-titled The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male.
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue: “If you’re reading this then you — or the male you have bought it for — are the worst man in history. “No ifs, no buts — the worst man, period…As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of…
The Uneducated American
PAUL KRUGMAN writes in the NY Times:
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.
But that was then. The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.
Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board.
NASA Confirms the World Will Not End in 2012
Got to read the fine print more carefully, concerned citizens … Nick Allen writes in the Telegraph:
Sony Pictures set up a website for an organisation called the Institute for Human Continuity which predicts a cataclysmic denouement for Earth three years from now. It suggests that “after two decades of rigorous research from the world’s top astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, physicists, engineers, futurists, we know that in 2012 a series of cataclysmic forces will wreak havoc on our planet”.
It even details how elections have begun for the leader of the post-2102 world, offers survival kits and asks people to sign up to a lottery to be saved. In fact, the website is a vehicle for promoting 2012 — a disaster movie about the end of the world based on predictions in the Mayan calendar.
The Yes Men Punk the Chamber
Kate Sheppard writes in Mother Jones:
The Chamber of Commerce stunned DC on Monday by calling a last-minute press conference to announce a dramatic about-face in its climate policy—it would not only stop opposing the Kerry-Boxer climate bill but would work with them to make it better. But the whole thing turned out to be a hoax mounted by the Yes Men, a notorious band of anti-corporate pranksters.
Reporters received a press release early Monday stating that the Chamber would be “throwing its weight behind strong climate legislation” at an event at the National Press Club in downtown Washington, DC. But when I and others showed up, we were met by a fellow dressed in a suit looking like a typical corporate PR man. This wasn’t Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue. And I recognized him as Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum. (I’ve written about the group previously.) He soon was telling reporters,…
Marty Beckerman Hates Fat People … And Tells Them
Marty Beckerman’s really going to make some big enemies with his latest blog rant, Kill Fatty: A Modestly Sized Proposal. Here at disinformation we published his book (mostly) about politics, Dumbocracy: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right, and Other American Idiots, but I’m not sure we would have had he included his latest assault on the weight-challenged. Here’s a sample, and don’t hold back on your comments, Marty likes to feature hate mail on his blog:
Overweight people are fucking abhorrent, which seems like an obvious and uncontroversial statement, but you cannot turn your head these days without gawking at the vile cascades of shapeless distended flesh that ubiquitously engulf your grotesque countrymen.
Look at these nauseating statistics:
1. 33 percent of Americans are overweight, according to the federal government.
2. Another 34 percent are obese, which is even worse.
3. Six percent are “extremely obese,” which is code for “must be airlifted…
The States of Marriage and Divorce
The veritable Pew Research people have published a fascinating new study showing, among other things, that:
In Arkansas and Oklahoma, men and women marry young — half of first-time brides in these states were 24 or younger on their wedding day. These states also have above-average shares of women who divorced in 2007-2008.1
It’s the opposite state of affairs in Massachusetts and New York. Their residents marry late — half of ever-married New York men were older than 30 when they first wed. These states also have below-average shares of men and women who divorced in 2007-2008.
The most interesting parts of the study are the maps, though:
Rachel Maddow Confronts Americans For Prosperity
On her MSNBC show, Rachel Maddow questions Tim Phillips, the president of Americans For Prosperity, an allegedly “grassroots” group leading the charge against health care reform. The involvement of Republican operatives and Phillips’ past involvement in the smear campaign against (disabled war hero Senator) Max Cleland and PR work covering up forced prostitution of Chinese workers.
Is Football As Bad As Dogfighting?
In the new New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell takes a look at the strong link between playing organized football and brain damage, and suggests that the sport is comparable to dogfighting in its brutal destruction of its participant’ bodies for the sake of money and entertainment. Pros sometimes suffer from dementia shortly after their careers end:
Mike Webster, the longtime Pittsburgh Steeler and one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history, ended his life a recluse, sleeping on the floor of the Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Another former Pittsburgh Steeler, Terry Long, drifted into chaos and killed himself four years ago by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, sank into depression and pleaded with his girlfriend—“I need help, somebody help me”—before shooting himself in the head. [Their] problem was with their heads, the one part of their body that got hit over and over again.
…
U.S. Government Loosens Medical Marijuana Drug Laws
Carrie Johnson reports in the Washington Post:
The Obama administration delivered new guidance on medical marijuana to federal prosecutors Monday, signaling a broad policy shift that will mean fewer crackdowns against dispensaries and the people who use them.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. instructed government lawyers that in 14 states where medical marijuana use is legal, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher level drug traffickers or people who use the state laws as a cover story.
“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” Holder said. “This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on…
The Sick Business of Health-Care Profiteering
Think Wall Street’s titans are the highest paid C.E.O.’s in the land? Think again. With median annual compensation of more than $12 million, medical moguls take the pay prize, even as the quality of care we receive falls to embarrassing lows. As the debate over health-care reform intensifies, Vanity Fair’s Matt Kapp catalogues the industry’s unbridled profiteering:
It’s become a national pastime to bash Wall Street’s lavish pay packages, but as we enter the vortex of another health-care showdown, consider these overlooked facts: With median annual compensation of more than $12.4 million, C.E.O.’s at the big health-care companies make two-thirds more than their counterparts in finance and are the highest paid of any industry. The health-care industry’s total annual profit has grown to an estimated $200 billion, and it doled out nearly $170 million in campaign contributions in 2007 and 2008. It now spends more than any other industry lobbying the federal…
Does Depression = Lack of Fun?
“Real science points to one conclusion. “Modern cosmetic pharmacology focuses so heavily on eliminating depression that it entirely misses one essential point: depressed people are suffering from a lack of fun.”
Fun (and adventure) produce both adrenaline and dopamine, while “Having fun with other humans in a social setting stimulates serotonin and oxcytocin, two neurochemicals essential to feelings of security and being loved.” This oversight “will be viewed by future generations as one of the greatest failures of medicine,” argues this article (which appeared in the fall issue of the science magazine H+), concluding that science “has barely scratched the surface on fun.
AboveTopSecret.com Starts ATS News Videocast
Our good friends at AboveTopSecret.com (we published the Jim Marrs book based on their site) have just started a new video news show hosted by veteran ATSMix host Johnny Anonymous. Check it out:
