Archive for November, 2009
The Lure of the Vampire
Julie Steinberg for the Wall Street Journal:
If you step out of your house late Thursday night, you’ll witness an overwhelming scene. At 12:01 a.m., movie theaters will release “New Moon,” the next film in the “Twilight” series. Anxious viewers will finally discover whether mortal Bella Swan will choose Jacob’s werewolf den over Edward’s sparkly coffin. Clearly, creatures of the night have returned to societal consciousness.
As a testament to their adaptability, vampires are front and center on the pop-culture stage. Television shows such as “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries” feature titillating exchanges between fanged supermodels. Movies like “Twilight,” “Let the Right One In” and “Blood: The Last Vampire” explore vampirism through teenage, independent and gore-tinted lenses, respectively. Even the BBC can’t withstand Bram Stoker’s lure, and has come up with “Being Human,” a show that focuses on three housemates who happen to be ghost, werewolf and vampire.
What accounts for this 21st-century obsession? …
Horror Show: Movie Popcorn = 3 Burgers + 12 Pats of Butter
Another story in the ‘you only just realized that?!?’ category, from Fox News (for a better look at how we’re killing ourselves with processed foods watch Killer At Large):
The food at movie theaters is scarier than “Nightmare on Elm Street,” a frightening new study reveals.
The double-features of artery-clogging tubs of fatty-fried popcorn and sugary, super-sized drinks — not to mention high-calorie candy — is nothing short of a health hazard, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
It sent food from three national theater chains to a lab and found they may have to soon start installing extra-wide seats.
The worst offender, the study found, was Regal Cinemas, where a medium popcorn contains 1,200 calories oozing with coconut oil and saturated fat.
The lab calorie counts were higher than claimed by Regal. The company said its medium popcorn has 720 calories.
Click here to find out about other movie snacks.
“Oh, well. What’s…
Church of Scientology Accused Of Torture And Forced Abortions
Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney reports for the Times:
The Church of Scientology faces the prospect of a police investigation in Australia after being accused of torture and embezzlement and of forcing employees to have abortions.
Nick Xenophon, an independent senator, presented letters to the Australian Parliament from seven former Scientologists which he said showed that the secretive church was a front for physical violence, intimidation and blackmail.
“I am deeply concerned about this organisation and the devastating impact it can have on its followers,” he told the Australian Senate in Canberra. He called for a Senate inquiry…
Skin-Based “Electronic Tattoos” Offer Medical Read-Outs
Researchers at three universities are combining efforts on super-thin silicon transistors that can be embedded in your skin. Their LEDs can act as in-body electronic tattoos that display blood-sugar readings, but this article also suggests non-medical applications, including “Animated and programmable LED tattoos connected to your brain… You could show off your latest Flash animations, watch TV on your arm, or have a built-in PDA screen.”
Other possible medical applications include deep-brain stimulation for Parkinson’s patients and possibly even interfacing with the nervous system….
And there’s also “a rather sensuous video from Philips” showing a sexy “design probe” about using the human body as a platform for interactive skin technology — that is, the first skin-based electronic tattoo that’s also interactive.
15 Docs On Oscar Shortlist
Why is it that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences always makes such boring choices for its Oscar nominations? The procedure is a little different for documentary films, where they first come up with a ’shortlist.’ Needless to say, as a distributor of documentaries Disinformation would have suggested some other films, such as Robert Greenwald’s timely and compelling Rethink Afghanistan and two personal favorites of mine, Anvil: The Story of Anvil and We Live In Public. Please place your alternative lists in the comments section below. Here’s the story from Variety:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced the 15 docus shortlisted for the documentary feature Oscar. The Academy said 89 films had originally qualified for the selection.
Several titles that have already had successful theatrical runs were on the list, including “The Cove,” directed by Louie Psihoyos; “Food, Inc.,” directed by Robert Kenner; “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” directed…
One Nation, Under Surveillance
By Michael Hampton for the homeland stupidity blog:
What have you got to hide? The answer may shock you: If you’re like most Americans, you have far more than you realize that you need to be hiding, and not doing so may be putting you and your family in grave danger.
In his new book, Three Felonies a Day, attorney Harvey Silverglate holds that the typical American professional commits an average of three federal crimes a day, just going about their daily business, without even realizing it. And the only thing keeping them out of prison — make that keeping you out of prison — is the fact that federal prosecutors haven’t looked at you yet. “No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch,” reads a statement on the book’s Web site, “and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.”
[more at the homeland stupidity]
The Secret War Against Afghanistan’s Space Invaders
If only it was like a video game…
Lauren Davis writes on io9.com:
Adam Richardson has added pixelated alien invaders to actual war photos from Iraq and Afghanistan. And when the Space Invaders descend on a war zone, they find that they have more to contend with more than laser cannons.
Barack Obama Has Shares in Baxter Pharma
A news summary of the controversy over Baxter International, one of the producers of the available commercial swine flu vaccine, and an alleged connection to President Obama on FTO South Africa News Blog:
- The President of the United States, Barack Obama has shares in Baxter, the company many say is responsible for the h1n1 swine flu pandemic. Back 2005 Barack Obama bought $50,000 worth of stock in two companies.
- Right after he bought the shares also in 2005 Barack Obama (still a senator at that time) introduced the first comprehensive bill to address the threat of avian influenza pandemic. AVIAN Act (S. 969)
- Then it makes it even more interesting that over $60 million dollars was awarded for a vaccine against the bird flu (2007) that at the time did not mutate till afterward.
- The guy sure knows his planning, I guess that is change you can believe in. From investor to President.
…
Show Me the Money
By Robert Singer
We have been conditioned from birth to believe that everything wrong in our society is about Greed: The inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.
However, my research concludes the earth’s environmental damage and pollution was not the result of greed and the unintended consequences of our capitalistic consumer society, but was the goal.
Until the common man became “civilized” he had almost no environmental impact on the earth. Hunters, foragers and gatherers are unable to upset the ecological structures of the planet. [1]
The first civilized societies and their agrarian economies had an environmental impact but the damage was negligible because only 3% of the population, Kings and Lords were consumers.
The earth wasn’t in trouble until the House of Rothschild unleashed the middle class on the planet when they financed and fomented the American and French Revolutions. [2]
Now the…
Rage Grows in America: Anti‑Government Conspiracies
The Anti Defamation League goes all out to discredit popular Texas talk radio host and filmmaker Alex Jones:
With conspiracy talk-show host Alex Jones leading the way, one of the most disturbing trends in 2009 has been the resurrection and proliferation of some of the same anti-government conspiracy theories that so riled up domestic extremists in the 1990s. Such theories had been less popular in the 2000s, but Obama’s election gave anti-government conspiracy theorists a new focus for their efforts, a new light in which they could re-cast some of the old theories, and a willingness to come up with new conspiracies. More extreme than the “birther” conspiracy theory, these theories allege dark, violent designs on the part of the federal government.
Anti-Government Conspiracy Theories and Their Transmission
Though there are many conspiracy theories and numerous permutations, three are particularly entrenched among anti-government extremists:
- Imposition of Martial Law. The federal government is plotting to declare martial…
Immortal Technique On War, Revolution & U.S. Democracy
The U.S. government uses foreign wars to distract people’s attention from internal problems. That’s according to rapper and political activist ‘Immortal Technique’. In an exclusive interview with Russia Today’s Marina Portnaya he says America’s bad decisions are covered up with lame excuses.
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Send Congress A Pink Slip
Tired of the Socialist takeover of the current administration, citizens across America went to sendcongressapinkslip.com and joined with millions of others to send a message that they wouldn’t take it any more. 5 million pink slips were handed out to members of congress who refuse to do what Americans want them to do.
Anti-war Soldier Faces 10 Years in Jail
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
A British soldier who faces up to 10 years in jail for speaking out against the war in Afghanistan will go before a military judge this week to discover if he will remain in an army jail while he awaits trial.
In an escalation of the Ministry of Defence’s legal action against him, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, 27, was arrested and charged last week with five counts of disobeying lawful commands and standing orders in relation to his public opposition to the war expressed at an anti-war rally last month.
He had already been charged with desertion for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan.
[Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald]
Satan: The Great Motivator
From the Boston Globe:
What makes economies grow? It’s a question that has occupied thinkers for centuries. Most of us would tick off things like education levels, openness to trade, natural resources, and political systems.
Here’s one you might not have considered: hell.
A pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practices. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies – and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell.
That hell could matter to economic growth might seem surprising, since you can’t prove it exists, let alone quantify it. It stands as one of the more intriguing findings in a growing body of recent research exploring how religion might influence the wealth and prosperity of societies. In recent years, Italian economists have presented findings that religion can boost…
Ad Campaign Takes Aim At Climate Change
Martin Mittelstaedt reports on how the fight over climate change is heating up, for the Globe & Mail:
Friends of Science, a Calgary-based non-profit group, is running a national radio advertising campaign mocking the whole idea of climate change that has mainstream environmental groups miffed.
The groups are claiming that funding for the anti-global warming effort is coming from the oil and gas industry.
James Hoggan, chair of the David Suzuki Foundation, lashed out Tuesday at Friends of Science in a speech in Toronto, calling it one of several “industry front groups” in North America that are trying to create uncertainty about the existence of climate change to undermine next month’s United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen.
The ads, which claim the planet has actually been becoming cooler in the past 10 years, have been running this month in 15 cities, including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary, according to the Friends of Science group.
Predictions…
Did All Life Originate From A Proton-Powered Rock?
New Scientist writes on the possible origin of life on Earth:
The most counter-intuitive trait of life could be one of the best clues to its origin. At one time everyone assumed that cells got their energy using straightforward chemical reactions. However, Nobel Prize-winning biologist Peter Mitchell argued, correctly, that life is powered not by the kind of chemistry that goes on in a test tube but by a kind of electricity; the energy from food is used to pump positively charged hydrogen ions, or protons, creating an electrochemical gradient.
Proton power drives not only cell respiration, but photosynthesis too: energy from the sun is converted into a proton gradient in essentially the same way as the energy of food. This suggests that proton power is no late innovation but evolved early in the history of life, an idea supported by the tree of life. The obvious explanation is that both inherited this…
Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists
Brandon Keim reports in Wired:
On one of the Galapagos islands whose finches shaped the theories of a young Charles Darwin, biologists have witnessed that elusive moment when a single species splits in two.
In many ways, the split followed predictable patterns, requiring a hybrid newcomer who’d already taken baby steps down a new evolutionary path. But playing an unexpected part was chance, and the newcomer singing his own special song.
This miniature evolutionary saga is described in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s authored by Peter and Rosemary Grant, a husband-and-wife team who have spent much of the last 36 years studying a group of bird species known collectively as Darwin’s finches.
The finches — or, technically, tanagers — have adapted to the conditions of each island in the Galapagos, and they provided Darwin with a clear snapshot of evolutionary divergence when he sailed there…
AFA List Of Anti-Christmas Stores To Boycott
It may seem a little early, but now is the time of season to get irate over Christmas. The conservative Christian American Family Association has compiled their color-coded “Naughty or Nice” list of retailers to boycott for being on the wrong side of the “War on Christmas.”
The website explains that “AFA reviewed up to four areas to determine if a company was Christmas-friendly.” A boycott of the P.C., Christmas-censoring Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic stores is being called for; why, why does Old Navy hate Jesus so much?
