Archive for November, 2009
UFO Chaser: Aliens Involved in Mysterious Colorado Calf Mutilations?
On Fox News:
SAN LUIS, Colo. — A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and sheriff’s officials mystified.
Four calves were found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed.
But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion. Usually predators leave pools of blood or drag marks from carrying away the livestock.
Two officers from the Costilla County Sheriff’s Office have investigated the mutilations but say they don’t know what’s killing the calves.
“There’s nothing really to go by,” said Sanchez, who’s ranched for nearly 50 years. “I can’t figure it out.”
Read More: Fox News
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Meteor Exploding Over South Africa (Video)
On News.com.au:
A METEOR has crashed in a blaze of colour in South Africa, but experts are unable to find where the out-of-space visitor landed. The rare astronomical phenomenon was captured by a local traffic camera and witnessed by locals, British tabloid the Sun reports.
The footage initially shows cars on a busy road, near the city of Johannesburg, when the meteor suddenly streaks across the night sky. The meteor appears as a brilliant green light before it explodes on the horizon, transforming into an orange ball of flame.
One witness told the Sun: “We saw this big green ball of fire. It kind of came out of the sky, out of the blue. “There was a sudden flash, like an orange stripe in the sky, followed by a very bright explosion where the sky lit up as if it was daytime.”
This Is Why The Internet (And Twitter) Wins
MG Siegler writes on TechCrunch:
Undoubtedly by now you’ve heard about Tiger Woods’ car crash. Early reports had him in serious condition (which remember, is better than critical condition) after he apparently hit a fire hydrant and a tree while leaving his home in his SUV. The latest reports say he has been released from the hospital and is “fine.” But I’m not going to speak to any of that because that’s not what we do (you can find out more here).
Instead, as I’m watching this unfold in front of my eyes on the Internet, I’m reminded that this type of story is exactly why the web is destroying newspapers, and should eventually even take down television and the main source of news for most people. I first heard the news via a BNOnews bulletin sent via push notification to my iPhone. I immediately pulled up Twitter and already some 10-15 people…
Surfer to Savior: Jamie Tworkowski, Founder of To Write Love on Her Arms
I must be in the wrong demo because I’d never heard of TWLOHA, but it’s actually massive and seemingly totally righteous. Allison Glock profiles founder Jamie Tworkowski for Rolling Stone:
It’s just past noon in Atlanta, where the Warped Tour is in full swing, but already Jamie Tworkowski has hugged 79 people, posed for 56 photographs, signed 42 autographs, blotted the tears of 13 young girls (and two teenage boys), and heard the words “you saved my life” at least a dozen times. He has seen phrases he wrote tattooed on torsos and legs, held a woman’s hand while she wept for her dead son, and shared his cherry sno-cone with a stranger who proclaims he wants to be just like Tworkowski — “just so fucking righteous, man!”
Tworkowski, a 29-year-old surfer dude and college dropout, has become a new kind of guru to a generation of troubled teenagers, the father of…
Ireland’s Archbishops ‘Covered Up Abuse to Protect Church’s Reputation’
Matthew Moore writes in the Telegraph:
Clergy were able to molest hundreds of vulnerable children because of a “systemic, calculated perversion of power” that put their abusers above the law, the Irish government said.
The damning verdict on the conduct of church and secular authorities followed a three-year investigation into allegations of child abuse by priests in Dublin going back to the 1960s.
Investigators who were given access to 60,000 previous secret church files accused four Archbishops of Dublin of deliberately suppressing evidence of “widespread” abuse.
Archbishops John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan and Kevin McNamara, who have all since died, and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who is retired, all refused to pass information to local police, the report said.
Evidence was kept inside a secret vault in the archbishop’s Dublin residence, with suspect clerics moved between parishes to prevent the allegations being made public.
Image: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh. Seat of the Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of…
Activists Target “World of Coca-Cola”
From Truthout:
Atlanta, Georgia – Activists from the U.S. and Colombia are targeting the World of Coca-Cola museum, located near its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, accusing the company of “union busting”, paying its workers “poverty wages”, and engaging in environmentally destructive practices.
“We’re an unofficial coalition with the India Resource Center, focusing on Coca-Cola overusing waters in drought areas. We’re supporting Corporate Accountability International, that have been trying to stop the use of bottled water over tap water,” Lew Friedman, of Killer Coke, told IPS.
“We’re working on behalf of Sinaltrainal, the food workers in Colombia. They had eight union leaders murdered. We’ve been augmenting their legal suit,” Friedman said.
“There’s plenty of evidence that shows the plant managers were very cozy with the paramilitaries,” he added.
Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola was filed in 2001 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of the Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal, several…
The Vampire Banks Are Back: Will There Ever Be Meaningful Financial Reform?
From Alternet:
There are more than 15 million people unemployed and almost 2 million people set to lose their homes to foreclosure this year. But there is good news: the Wall Street banks are as profitable as ever and set to give out record bonuses this year. The taxpayer bailouts worked.
Congress is now debating a financial reform bill that is supposed to prevent this sort of disaster from ever happening again. Leaders in Congress are promising us tough measures that will put an end to “too big to fail” institutions and the other implicit and explicit subsidies that allow the Wall Street crew to get incredibly wealthy at our expense.
It’s still an open question as to whether this reform effort will just be a pointless source of greenhouse gas emissions. If the goal were to fix the financial system, then the process would not be difficult. But the halls of Congress…
A Family Secret That Has Been Murder to Figure Out
Gautam Naik for the Wall Street Journal:
IRVINE, Calif. — Jim Fallon recently made a disquieting discovery: A member of his family has some of the biological traits of a psychopathic killer.
“These results will cause some problems at the next family party,” he said, reviewing the data on his laptop in his backyard. Meanwhile, his wife, Diane, stood in the kitchen, using a knife to slice through a blood-red pepper.
Dr. Fallon, 62 years old, is a neuroscientist who studies the biological basis of human behavior at the University of California’s campus here. He has analyzed the brains of more than 70 murderers on behalf of psychiatric clinics or criminal defense lawyers. It’s a young science. Because jailed killers rarely are permitted to take part in research trials, data linking genes and brain damage to violent crime are tentative and often disputed.
“In terms of early factors, we know nothing about who becomes an adult psychopath,” says Adrian Raine of the University of Pennsylvania, who applies neuroscience techniques to study the causes and cures of crime.
Three years ago, as part of a personal project to assess his family’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Fallon collected brain scans and DNA samples from himself and seven relatives. At a barbecue soon thereafter, Dr. Fallon’s mother casually mentioned something he had been unaware of: His late father’s lineage was drenched in blood… [continues in the Wall Street Journal]
G20 Report Lays Down the Law to Police on Use of Force
From The Guardian:
A blueprint for wholesale reform of British policing to create a service “anchored in public consent” was unveiled today by the inquiry prompted by Scotland Yard’s controversial handling of the G20 protests in London.
Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, used his report to demand wide-ranging reforms and a return to an ideal of policing based on “approachability, impartiality, accountability and … minimum force”.
The findings received almost unanimous support across the political spectrum. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the government would “take the action” needed to reassure the public that policing is fair.
The report – instigated after the Guardian revealed that a newspaper seller, Ian Tomlinson, had died after an attack by a police officer – was broader and more critical than many had expected.
O’Connor warned of a “hardening” of policing style in recent years and the erosion of the British approach to policing developed by the 19th-century…
Doctors Recommend Medical Marjiuana for Minors with ADHD in California
From NYDailyNews.com:
Hey, hyperactive kids, in California you can get stoned — legally. California doctors are now recommending marijuana to children diagnosed with attention hyperactivity disorder, Sphere reports.
Since 2004, California has given out more than 36,000 medical marijuana cards. The number of these cards going to children - it appears that all of the known cases are teenagers – is not known, as doctors are not required to report medical marijuana cases.
However, experts say medical marijuana cards going to minors are on the rise. Parents must accompany children under 18 requesting medical marijuana to this doctor’s appointment, the New York Times reports.
Even with this precaution, the fact that children can get medical marijuana is creating quite a controversy.
[Read more at NYDailyNews.com]
Americans Toss Out 40 Percent of All Food
Robert Roy Britt writes on LiveScience:
U.S. residents are wasting food like never before.
While many Americans feast on turkey and all the fixings today, a new study finds food waste per person has shot up 50 percent since 1974. Some 1,400 calories worth of food is discarded per person each day, which adds up to 150 trillion calories a year.
The study finds that about 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States is tossed out.
Meanwhile, while some have plenty of food to spare, a recent report by the Department of Agriculture finds the number of U.S. homes lacking “food security,” meaning their eating habits were disrupted for lack of money, rose from 4.7 million in 2007 to 6.7 million last year.
About 1 billion people worldwide don’t have enough to eat, according to the World Food Program.
Read More: LiveScience:
Sex Trafficking: An American Problem Too
Bridgette Carr reports for CNN:
“We did not have a right to choose where we lived … freedom of speech, or freedom of actions. The traffickers had keys to our apartment. They controlled all of our movement and travel. They watched us and listened when we called our parents. They didn’t let us make friends or tell anyone anything about ourselves. We couldn’t keep any of the money we earned. We couldn’t ask anyone for help.” — Lena
Lena was an athletic student from Eastern Europe yearning to visit the United States through a study-abroad program at her college. She had visions of learning English and returning home to share her experiences with her family.
But the human traffickers who ensnared her had a different vision for Lena, shipping her to America and exploiting her in the sex industry for profit. They met her at the airport with news that her study abroad…
The Mecca Diaries: Vice Goes To Mecca for Hajj
As most of us finish off yesterday’s turkey, Muslims around the world celebrate their own holiday today with end of the Hadj, which is called Eid. To mark the occasion today on VBS is The Mecca Diaries. Last year VICE founder Suroosh Alvi documented his own religious and cultural whirlwind homage to Mecca.
If you think going counter clock wise around a big black box and stoning Satan three times is hard, try doing it with three million people and your parents.
The Ultimate Christmas Gift? Buy Nothing
Reverend Billy Talen writes in the Guardian:
[Today] is Buy Nothing Day in the United States. A group of people including myself will preach and sing at the front door of Macy’s department store in New York. We do this every year. We’ll be there at 5am, when shoppers who have been up all night wait in line rush the glass doors. This is the human comedy at its most sad, and it is an environmental “shopocalypse”.
Buy Nothing day is an old idea — that we should drop out of consumerism for 24 hours on Black Friday, the day when we are supposed to shop the most. The radical rechristening of the corporate Christmas took place back in the 90s, long before most of us equated consumerism with destruction of the Earth.
So kudos to the people at Adbusters for venturing forth with this. Nonetheless, Buy Nothing day is not enough, not for the emergency we face now. The American consumer’s carbon footprint is exponentially the most sinful of all, 20 times the average…
Future Shock: Intel Wants Brain Implants in Its Customers’ Heads by 2020
Jeremy Hsu writes on Popular Science:
If the idea of turning consumers into true cyborgs sounds creepy, don’t tell Intel researchers. Intel’s Pittsburgh lab aims to develop brain implants that can control all sorts of gadgets directly via brain waves by 2020.
The scientists anticipate that consumers will adapt quickly to the idea, and indeed crave the freedom of not requiring a keyboard, mouse, or remote control for surfing the Web or changing channels. They also predict that people will tire of multi-touch devices such as our precious iPhones, Android smart phones and even Microsoft’s wacky Surface Table.
Turning brain waves into real-world tech action still requires some heavy decoding of brain activity. The Intel team has already made use of fMRI brain scans to match brain patterns with similar thoughts across many test subjects.
Plenty of other researchers have also tinkered in this area. Toyota recently demoed a wheelchair controlled with brainwaves, and…
New Evidence Points to Fossilized Life on Mars
CRAIG COVAULT writes on Spaceflight Now:
Compelling new data that chemical and fossil evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars was carried to Earth in a Martian meteorite is being elevated to a higher plane by the same NASA team which made the initial discovery 13 years ago.
Sources tell Spaceflight Now that the new data are providing a powerful new case for the Allen Hills Meteorite to have carried strong evidence of Martian life to Earth — evidence that is increasingly standing up to scrutiny as new analytical tools are used to examine the specimen.
The latest findings are the product of new research using more advanced High Resolution Electron Microscopy than was in existence when the initial findings were made and announced by NASA and the White House in 1996.
More on Spaceflight Now
Behold: The World’s 10 Fattest Countries
Laurie Cunningham writes on GlobalPost:
If you tend to pack on a few pounds over the holidays, blame it on globalization. As the world has grown smaller, we’ve all grown larger — alarmingly so. In countries around the world, waistlines are expanding so rapidly that health experts recently coined a term for the epidemic: globesity.
The common fat-o-meter among nations is body mass index (BMI), a calculation based on a person’s height and weight. The World Health Organization defines “overweight” as an individual with a BMI of 25 or more and “obese” as someone with a BMI of 30 or higher. (To see how you weigh in, use this calculator by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.)
Today, one in three of the world’s adults is overweight and one in 10 is obese. By 2015, WHO estimates the number of chubby adults will balloon to 2.3 billion — equal to the combined…
Washington Endorses Gunpoint Election in Honduras
Bill Van Auken writes on WSWS:
The Obama administration has declared its support for elections being held this Sunday in Honduras, under conditions in which the regime that came to power in a coup last June has refused to cede power and is preparing intense repression against those who oppose it.
The action has placed Washington at odds with virtually all of Latin America, whose governments have refused to recognize the elections as legitimate.
The US endorsement of the elections represents the culmination of a policy that has lent political support to the coup regime headed by the Liberal Party leader of the national legislature, Roberto Micheletti, and the Honduran military, even as Washington has given lip service to the principle of restoring the country’s elected president, Manuel Zelaya, to power.
Zelaya was dragged from the presidential palace by hooded and heavily armed soldiers in the early morning hours of June 28, bundled onto…
Aliens ‘Already Exist on Earth’, Bulgarian Scientists Claim
On the Telegraph:
Aliens from outer space are already among us on earth, say Bulgarian government scientists who claim they are already in contact with extraterrestrial life.
Work on deciphering a complex set of symbols sent to them is underway, scientists from the country’s Space Research Institute said. They claim aliens are currently answering 30 questions posed to them.
Lachezar Filipov, deputy director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, confirmed the research.
He said the centre’s researchers were analysing 150 crop circles from around the world, which they believe answer the questions. “Aliens are currently all around us, and are watching us all the time,” Mr Filipov told Bulgarian media.
“They are not hostile towards us, rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them.”
More on the Telegraph
