Archive for November, 2009
Most Britons Reject Swine Flu Vaccine
Do the British know something Americans don’t? From Reuters:
More than half of Britons being offered vaccination against pandemic H1N1 flu are turning it down because they fear side-effects or think the virus is too mild to bother, a survey of doctors showed on Wednesday.
Many of the 107 family doctors polled by Britain’s Pulse magazine said there was widespread resistance from patients and on average only 46 percent of those offered the vaccination agree to have it.
Doctors reported particular difficulties in persuading pregnant women to be vaccinated against the virus, according to Pulse, a trade newspaper for doctors.
“In all the pregnant women we’ve offered it to, I think only about one in 20 has agreed,” Dr Chris Udenze, a family doctor based in Nottingham, central England, said in the survey.
Skepticism has been growing in Britain and other European countries about health authorities’ handling of the H1N1 pandemic because the number of…
Cheech & Chong On Jimmy Fallon (Video)
The stoner icons are back … on network TV, telling Jimmy Fallon stories from the slammer:
2012: The Year Product Placement Will Destroy All Integrity in Movies
I (almost) promise this will be my last post about 2012 … did anyone else notice the product placement in Roland Emmerich’s disaster-fest? Ryan Sager is all bent out of shape about it, at True/Slant:
I won’t be giving away too much to tell you that 2012 involves one of the most ludicrous seeming product placements in movie history: The hero’s 7-year-old daughter wearing Huggies Pull-Ups. The pull-ups problem is introduced in the first act (and, if you see a gun in the first act…). They don’t appear in the second act. But — and truly, I’m not giving anything away here, I don’t think, but possible spoiler alert — the Huggies Pull-Ups end up featuring in the last two lines of the movie, which go roughly as such:
Annoying 7-year-old daughter: I don’t need Pull-Ups anymore!
The insufferable John Cusack: Nice!
That’s the end of the movie. Trillions of dollars worth of special effects. Years…
The Mummies’ Curse: Heart Disease
Amanda Gardner reports for U.S. News & World Report:
Hardening of the arteries may have more of a family history — the human family tree — than was once thought.
Modern-day imaging techniques have unearthed hardening of the arteries — or atherosclerosis, which causes heart attacks and stroke — in mummies up to 3,500 years old.
Experts have long believed that atherosclerosis is a scourge of modern society, caused by meals snatched at fast-food restaurants and eaten in front of high-definition TVs.
“Perhaps atherosclerosis has been around a lot longer than we think. It might have been a malady affecting man long-term,” said Dr. Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association. “It doesn’t necessarily change anything we know or do now, but perhaps some of the accoutrements of civilization are not only unhealthy now, they were also unhealthy then.”
The unusual findings were presented Tuesday at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Orlando,…
Vaccines For AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Herpes
The AP reports (question: why is it that vaccines are suddenly front page news every day?):
Malaria. Tuberculosis. Alzheimer’s disease. AIDS. Pandemic flu. Genital herpes. Urinary tract infections. Grass allergies. Traveler’s diarrhea. You name it, the pharmaceutical industry is working on a vaccine to prevent it.
Many could be on the market in five years or less.
Contrast that with five years ago, when so many companies had abandoned the vaccine business that half the U.S. supply of flu shots was lost because of factory contamination at one of the two manufacturers left.
Vaccines are no longer a sleepy, low-profit niche in a booming drug industry. Today, they’re starting to give ailing pharmaceutical makers a shot in the arm.
The lure of big profits, advances in technology and growing government support has been drawing in new companies, from nascent biotechs to Johnson & Johnson. That means recent remarkable strides in overcoming dreaded diseases and annoying afflictions…
Chairman Mao’s Underground City
From Vice:
In 1969, Chairman Mao commanded the construction of a second Beijing beneath the surface of the original city, designed to accommodate all six million of its then inhabitants so that if nuclear war did kick off, folk would still have somewhere to hang out and play Mah Jong while the rest of us burnt to death in a shower of atomic rain. War never came, but the city is still there.
Check it out…
http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2009/11/17/chairman-mao%E2%80%99s-underground-city/
Colby The Christian Robot Wants Your Soul
Great find. A Christian “robot” — the jokes write themselves. Meredith Woerner on io9.com:
This is Colby, the Christian robot. Fast forward to 3:40 when his robot army tries to transform the bullying kid into another Christian robot, singing, “We are all robots, you must be a robot too.” [ via Everything Is Terrible]
Side Note: Apparently I need to point out that this is an edited version of the show, thought you could tell that from the cuts but now it’s all out in the open, it’s edited. But they still want to turn that kid into a robot.
On CNBC, Strategist Says Dollar Will be ‘Utterly Destroyed’; We Are Moving Toward ‘New World Order’
Wow, this was on CNBC:
The dollar will get “utterly destroyed” and become “virtually worthless”, said Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners.
“We don’t have resources. Neither does a lot of Asia to be quite frank,” Vickers said on CNBC’s Asia Squawk Box. “Countries that have resources — the Brazils, the Canadas, Australia — their currencies are doing well.” Vickers noted that their stock markets have done the best year-to-date.
“They have stuff. They’ve got resources. They export real things. The United States exports ‘promises’ and ‘pretty paper’,” he added.
Due to the huge wage disparities between the United States and emerging markets like China, Vickers said that may resolve itself in some type of a global currency crisis.
“If the global currency crisis unfolds, then inevitably you get an alignment of a global world government. A new global currency and a new world order, so we may be moving towards that,” he said.
Vickers added that this is the time where investors should be making money when the trend is developing. “Oil looks higher, gold looks higher, currencies look weaker.”
The Man Who Made You Put Away Your Pen
Listen on NPR:
When was the last time you actually set pen to paper and mailed off a personal letter to someone? It’s probably been awhile — and the man to blame is Ray Tomlinson.
Back in 1971, Tomlinson was a young engineer at the Boston firm of Bolt, Beranek and Newman — known today as BBN Technologies. He’d been given a task: Figure out something interesting to do with ARPANET, the newborn computer network that was the predecessor of the modern-day Internet.
“We were working on ways in which humans and computers could interact,” he tells NPR’s Guy Raz. But instead, Tomlinson started tinkering with the interaction — or lack of it — between distant colleagues who didn’t answer their phones. He eventually found a way to send messages from one computer to another — inventing the system we now know as e-mail.
Interview on NPR’s All Things Considered
…
The Gray-Haired Graffiti of L.A.’s Oldest Street Artist
From Ian Fortey at Asylum.com:
“Cops in L.A. have spent months tracking down a vandal who has caused thousands of dollars worth of damage by slapping “Who is John Scott?” stickers on buses, bus shelters and any other flat surfaces he could find.
Typically this is the domain of teenagers putting up ads for their garage bands, but this time, it was the work of a senior citizen. 73-year-old John Scott is officially the oldest person ever arrested in L.A. for street vandalism, beating the previous record holder who was 36.”
Eight Ways In-Vitro Meat Changes Our Lives
This fascinating article describes eight ways in-vitro meat will change the world, including the ability to taste endangered animals and even extinct species like dinosaurs!
“Future flesh” could also eliminate 51% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (and 90% of choking victims), and “test tube steak” is also cheaper, healthier, and greener. (A quarter of the earth’s land is currently used to grow meat, along with 8% of the world’s water.) It could reduce animal-to-human diseases while eliminating artery-clogging saturated fats from our diets, replacing them with heart-healthy Omega-3 while eliminating hormones and mercury (as well as e. coli and salmonella).
And someone will finally claim PETA’s $1 million prize for anyone who can market a competitive in-vitro meat by 2012.
How Hitler and the Nazis Tried to Steal Christmas
From the Telegraph:
The Nazi Party tried their best to remove Christ from Christmas by paganising carols, producing glittering swastika, iron cross and toy grenade baubles for the fir tree, research for a new exhibition has found.
Many of the changes made under Hitler, put in place to remove the influence of the Jewish-born baby Jesus, are still in use today, much to the alarm of modern Germans.
The swastika-shaped baking trays and wrapping paper adorned with Nazi symbols have long gone, but traces of the Third Reich Christmas can still be found in the subtly rewritten lyrics of favourite carols.
The discoveries have been highlighted by a new exhibition at the National Socialism Documentation Centre in Cologne.
[Read more at the Telegraph]
Can Mind-Altering Drugs have Mental Health Benefits?
From the Telegraph:
New studies are testing whether psychedelic drugs such as LSD and MDMA can treat OCD, post traumatic stress and cancer related anxiety.
On September 19 this year, 12 people gathered in the suburban Hermsdorf district of Berlin for a group psychotherapy session that allegedly involved illegal drugs. A day later, two of the participants were dead and another in a coma. The substances used and exact cause of death have yet to be confirmed. Local newspaper reports have claimed that heroin and MDMA (ecstasy) were taken, but other drugs may have been in circulation.
Garri Rober, the therapist who led the session which included his wife, Elke, is facing possible charges in connection with the deaths and on suspicion of supplying illegal drugs. The other nine participants were released from hospital the next day.
This tragedy, which received international coverage, threatens to derail a fledgling renaissance in legitimate research using psychedelic…
Liberation Psychology for the U.S. Are we too demoralized to protest?
From Z Magazine:
The term “liberation psychology” was popularized by Ignacio Martin-Baró (1942-1989), the psychologist, priest, and activist who was assassinated in El Salvador by government troops. Martin-Baró focused on the oppression of his fellow Salvadorans, Central Americans, and Latin Americans. It is increasingly apparent that U.S. citizens need Martin-Baró’s insights along with their own special kind of liberation psychology.Why, in the United States, when the majority of people oppose the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry and the military occupation in Iraq, are the streets not regularly occupied with large numbers of protesters? Given 47 million people in the U.S. without health insurance and many millions more who are under-insured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage, and given the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, why are there not millions, rather than thousands in Washington, DC protesting this betrayal?
In contrast to the hundreds…
NZ Crew to Drill for Whisky in Antarctic
From MSN News:
A team of New Zealanders is preparing to drill in Antarctica in the New Year, and they hope to strike – whisky.
Among the supplies British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton abandoned on his unsuccessful 1909 expedition to the pole were two crates of the now extinct rare old brand of McKinlay and Co whisky.
Now Whyte & Mackay, the drinks giant that owns McKinlay and Co, has asked for a sample of the drink for a series of experiments, the Telegraph newspaper reported in London.
The New Zealanders will use special drills to free the trapped crates and rescue a bottle from the crates, discarded near the Cape Royds hut used by the Nimrod expedition, or at least draw off a sample using a syringe.
[Read more at MSN News]
The Relentless War on Drug Users Is Escalating Violence in the US: It’s Time for Harm Reduction
Don Hazen, veteran progressive and currently the main man at AlterNet, (plus a good guy and friend of Disinformation), has penned a compelling editorial on the drug war:
Ethan Nadelmann is one of a handful of marvelously charismatic and motivating speakers within the liberal and progressive universe. He talks creatively and emphatically about race, class, gender, corruption, power, human rights, immigration and the devastating impact of prison-industrial complex on all aspects of society, all progressive touchstones. Yet relatively few people know who he is, or follow his efforts. Why? Because he has devoted his life to transforming America’s attitudes and laws about drugs, which is no easy task, and often a thankless one.
There exists a complex, almost paradoxical attitude toward drug use and the ramifications of “drug war” repression among many progressives. Even Baby Boomers, many who successfully navigated a journey through their own drug experimentation as they came of age, often…
Hitler’s Hidden Underground City Found In Berlin (Video)
Interesting documentary about a group working deep beneath modern Berlin to discover and preserve complex tunnels of bunkers, even as the city is destroyed. Here’s the official program description from National Geographic Channel:
Hitler’s Hidden City is a subterranean adventure under the streets of Berlin, following the work of a team of German archaeologists and historians exposing and exploring the last remaining structures of the Third Reich. We gain rare access to an underground city ordered and — in part — designed by Hitler himself, part of a vast network of over 1000 bunkers and many miles of tunnels, much of which has remained sealed since the war. Eyewitnesses and historians add colorful stories to cutting edge CGI that bring to life this network of bunkers, how they were built and how they were used in the dark days of the downfall of Berlin.
Giant iceberg spotted off Australia
via Telegraph
The ice chunk, measuring some 2,300 feet long with an estimated depth of more than 1,000 feet, caused a stir when it was sighted by experts based on Australia’s remote Macquarie Island.
“I’ve never seen anything like it – we looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice,” said fur seal biologist Dean Miller.
Neal Young, an Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist, said the flat-topped slab could break into dozens of smaller icebergs as it moves in the direction of New Zealand, causing a possible shipping hazard.
“It’s rare to make a sighting like this – it’s certainly impressive-looking,” he said.
He said the iceberg had probably split from a major Antarctic ice shelf nine years ago, and said more could be expected in the area if global warming continues.
“If the current trends in global warming were to continue I would anticipate seeing more icebergs and the large ice shelves breaking up,” he added.
But Professor Jonathan Bamber, from Bristol University, said icebergs the size of Wales can break off the Antarctic and it is too early to say if it is caused by climate change.
Chicago’s Camera Network Is Everywhere
William Bulkeley reports on yet another city falling victim to a techno-panopticon, in the Wall Street Journal:
A giant web of video-surveillance cameras has spread across Chicago, aiding police in the pursuit of criminals but raising fears that the City of Big Shoulders is becoming the City of Big Brother.
While many police forces are boosting video monitoring, video-surveillance experts believe Chicago has gone further than any other U.S. city in merging computer and video technology to police the streets. The networked system is also unusual because of its scope and the integration of nonpolice cameras.
The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won’t say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds.
Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University…
