Archive for December, 2009
FBI Releases Massive Michael Jackson Dossier
From Variety/AP:
Police concerns about a terrorist attack stemming from the 2003 arrest of Michael Jackson led to a request for federal help, according to FBI files kept on the late pop star.
The Santa Maria Police Department in California asked for FBI “involvement” after Jackson was arrested for child molestation. Police, according to the FBI, said they believed the court case would be a “soft target” for terrorism because of “worldwide media coverage.”
The FBI concluded there were no threats, but did note the presence in an early court appearance of “The Nation of Islam, represented by its security unit Fruits of Islam,” and of a “New Black Panther Party” member whose name was left blank in the files.
The documents, more than 300 pages and dating from 1992 to 2005, were released Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press and other media.
The documents include death threats against…
Children Under 7 Scour The Web For Porn
From CNN:
Yikes. According to Symantec, the fourth most popular search term for children 7 and under is “porn” – just ahead of kids’ networking site Club Penguin.
Symantec recently released the anonymous results of 14.7 million searches run by users of its OnlineFamily.Norton service in 2009. The service allows parents to monitor web activities and supposedly blocks questionable sites, so let’s hope the toddlers searching for “porn” were unsuccessful.
It’s understandable that “sex” is one of the top searches for teens, but I was surprised to see that children as young as 7 were familiar with “porn.” While services like OnlineFamily.Norton may filter most inappropriate content, they are not perfect – and are no substitute for parental supervision…
[continues at CNN]
Telepathic Typing?
Why bother to type a document using a keyboard when you can write it by simply thinking about the letters? All it requires is a surgical incision into your skull and a sheet of electrodes on your brain…
A brain wave study presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society shows that people with electrodes in their brains can “type”… using just their minds. The study involved electrocorticography – a sheet of electrodes laid directly on the surface of the brain after a surgical incision into the skull.
“We were able to consistently predict the desired letters for our patients at or near 100 percent accuracy,” explains one Mayo clinic neurologist.
It’s a nice companion to the brain wave applications that can only turn brain waves into music or post Twitter status updates by thought alone…
Russia To Send A Monkey To Mars
Urmee Khan writes in the Telegraph:
Although the ape will be looked after by a robot on the mission, the decision is expected to spark controversy with animal rights groups.
“We have plans to return to space,” said Zurab Mikvabia, director of the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Georgia which supplied apes for the programme in the 1980s.
The Institute is in preliminary talks with Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy about preparing monkeys for a simulated Mars mission that could lay the groundwork for sending an ape to the Red Planet, he said.
Such an initiative would build on Mars-500, a joint Russian-European project that saw six human volunteers confined in a capsule in Moscow for 120 days earlier this year to simulate a Mars mission.
Mr Mikvabia said: “Earlier this programme was aimed at sending cosmonauts, people (to Mars). “But given the length of the flight to Mars, and given the cosmic rays for…
The Price Is Right! Payoffs for Senators to Move Forward Health Care Bill
This is the way business has ALWAYS been done in Washington: Do not kid yourself, folks … CHRIS FRATES writes on the Politico:
Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” as the GOP is calling it, got all the attention Saturday, but other senators lined up for deals as Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled the last few votes for a health reform package.
Nelson’s might be the most blatant — a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade.
But another Democratic holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a “sweetheart deal.” He was clearly more enthusiastic about a bill he said he couldn’t support just three days ago.
Nelson and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) carved out…
So Being Naked at Home is Now A John Dillinger-esque Crime?
Kashmir Hill writes on True/Slant:
Sometimes it’s nice to walk around your house naked. I, for one, don’t particularly like to do it when there are strangers in the house, but I have interviewed people who do.
But what if the strangers are outside your house and look through your windows and see you naked? For an au natural Virginia man, this scenario has resulted in a conviction for indecent exposure.
Findlaw defines indecent exposure as “purposefully display[ing] one’s genitals in public, causing others to be alarmed or offended.” Erick Williamson, 29, was in his private home, but he was viewable from the public streets. A judge decided Friday that this means Williamson is guilty.
Erick Williamson was having a cup of coffee in the buff one October morning. A woman drove by and saw him through his front window. Later, a mother and her 7-year-old son walked by on their way to school…
Cattle Mutilations Baffle Colorado Ranchers
From the LA Times:
Reporting from Denver – Manuel A. Sanchez has ruled out every logical explanation for the fate that has befallen the calves on his ranch in southern Colorado.
Over the past month, he’s found four calves dead in a way that he cannot reconcile with anything in his 50 years of raising cattle: eyes and ears missing, tongues and genitals excised in what appeared to be a series of fine cuts.
Mountain lions, bears or coyotes would leave messier marks, he said. And Sanchez found no tire tracks or footprints that would suggest a human invader — nor even bloodstains he’d expect to find around the carcasses if someone had butchered them.
“There’s nothing to go by,” said Sanchez, who estimated his financial loss at $10,000. “I can’t figure it out.”
Costilla County Sheriff’s Sgt. James Chavez agreed: “There’s nothing to follow up on.”
Besides Sanchez’s calves in San Luis, several cases have…
Body Part Theft: Truth vs. Myth
From LiveScience.com:
Earlier this year a Swedish journalist claimed that soldiers and doctors at the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, Israel, killed Palestinians for their organs.
The Israeli government originally dismissed the accusations as vicious anti-Semitic rumors, but was forced to acknowledge that there was some truth to the claims when an American anthropologist released an interview she had conducted in 2000 with the former head of Israel’s main forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss.
In that interview, Hiss stated that body parts including corneas, arteries, and bones were taken from dead bodies — Israeli, Palestinian, and others — without consent during the 1990s and transplanted into wounded soldiers. The Israeli military then admitted the procedures had been done but stated that the practice had ended 10 years ago.
Global phenomenon
International organ theft has made news before. Last year an Indian doctor, Amit Kumar, was arrested in Nepal, accused of being the…
Wall Street’s 10 Biggest Lies of 2009
From Huff Post:
Say goodbye to 2009, the worst economic year since the Great Depression.
Say hello to the billionaire bailout society in which the super-rich gamble, lose and get bailed out by the rest of us.
To save the system from total collapse we poured trillions of dollars into the financial sector. The result? Banks still are refusing to lend. Thirty million Americans are looking for full-time jobs and 49 million are skipping meals including one out of four children. But Wall Street again is reaping record profits and bonuses.
Not only are we richly rewarding those who wrecked our economy, but also, we have to put up with hundreds of fabrications about how the big banks got us here. Here is my biggest, fattest lies list for 2009:
1. “Government programs for low-income home buyers caused the financial crash.” Wall Street defenders were quick to blame the Community Reinvestment Act, which urges banks to…
Atheism and Diversity: Is It Wrong For Atheists To Convert Believers?
From Alternet:
Do atheists hate diversity?
Is the very act of atheist activism (trying to persuade people that atheism is correct and working to change the world into one without religion) an act of attempted conformity? Are atheists trying to create a drab, gray, uniform world, where everyone else is just like them?
It’s probably pretty obvious that I think the answer is a big fat “No!” (Probably said in the Ted Stevens voice.) But it certainly is the case that many atheist activists, myself among them, are working very hard to persuade religious believers out of their beliefs. Not all atheists do this, of course; many have the more modest goals of separation of church and state and religious tolerance, including tolerance of atheists and recognition of us as equal citizens. But a good number of atheists are, in fact, trying to convince religious believers to become atheists. I’m one of them.
And…
Jewish Exorcisms And the Occult
Forward has an article on a centuries-old document which provides evidence concerning a little-known phenomenon — Jewish exorcisms:
The ghostly document details the prayers that were performed on Qamar bat Rahmah to try to rid her of the spirit of her dead husband, Nissim ben Bonia. According to the handwritten but well-preserved Hebrew text, the rabbis asked the ghost to “leave this woman, Qamar bat Rahmah, [and forgo] all authority and control that it has over her.”
The document fittingly comes from the abandoned recesses of the Cairo Geniza, a storeroom attached to a Cairo synagogue in which hundreds of thousands of ancient texts were left because of the Jewish prohibition on destroying religious documents.
Jesus Shooting Santa
A man in Santa Maria, California has stoked outrage locally with his lawn display of Jesus shooting Santa Claus with a double-barreled shotgun, to protest the lack of attention paid to Christ at Christmastime. Residents are concerned by the scene’s close proximity to a school bus stop. I think it’s healthy for kids to see Jesus “taking out the trash.”
The Top CelebStoners of 2009
From CelebStoner:
The winner in a landslide for being photographed smoking a bong at a party, Olympic champion Michael Phelps became an instant pot-poster guy, though he insisted the toke was a mistake and he’d never do it again.
This list is based on popularity, relevance and posts over the year. Phelps led all Top CelebStoners with 30 posts in 2009. No other Top CelebStoner had more than 10.
1. Michael Phelps
The bong hit seen ’round the world was not the way Phelps expected 2009 to go for him. Once the photo leaked out – taken at a party in South Carolina in late 2008 – a full-scale media storm ensued. One of his sponsors Kellogg bolted and he was suspended for three months. Since then, Phelps competed in several international meets in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.2. Cheech & Chong
The dopey duo – Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong – continued their reunion Light Up America tour through the first half of the year. After taking a short break, they plotted the Get It Legal tour, which begins on Jan. 16. TBS roasted them and they appeared on numerous news and late-night talk TV shows. In addition, Chong began blogging right here at CelebStoner.3. Snoop Dogg
The Doggfather managed to stay in the news without getting arrested…
Into the Red Zone: An Ayahuasca Monologue (Video)
From our friends at Reality Sandwich: Comics artist Adam Pollina takes an extraordinary journey into the heart of Colombia’s military Red Zone in search of a legendary shaman.
This video was recorded at the Third Annual Ayahuasca Monologues, held at Webster Hall in New York City, on November 5, 2009.
Russian Cyber Gang Steals Tens of Millions From Citibank
Is there no end to the run of mishaps at Citibank? Remember, as the U.S. Government owns a massive stake in Citi, paid for with our tax dollars, the Russian hackers stole your money. The latest, from the Wall Street Journal:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a computer-security breach targeting Citigroup Inc. that resulted in a theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers who appear linked to a Russian cyber gang, according to government officials.
The attack took aim at Citigroup’s Citibank subsidiary, which includes its North American retail bank and other businesses. It couldn’t be learned whether the thieves gained access to Citibank’s systems directly or through third parties.
The attack underscores the blurring of lines between criminal and national-security threats in cyber space. Hackers also assaulted two other entities, at least one of them a U.S. government agency, said people familiar with the attack on Citibank.
[Targets]The…
Hackers Steal South Korean & U.S. Military Secrets
Another case of our military leaving itself open to hackers, reported in Seattlepi:
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea.
The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet, Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said.
The USB device contained a summary of plans for military operations by South Korean and U.S. troops in case of war on the Korean peninsula. Won said the stolen document was not a full text of the operational plans, but an 11-page file used to brief military officials. He said it did not contain critical information.
Won said authorities have not ruled out the possibility that Pyongyang may have been involved…
How Philip K. Dick Predicted The Future
Author Jonathan Lethem is also the man who edited Philip K. Dick’s anthologies for the Library of America. In this new interview, Lethem notes that Philip K. Dick correctly predicted our future.
“I think that Dick saw the makings of the contemporary reality we experience so profoundly. And this speaks to the different layers of reality in his work — the way time moves at one clip according to the calendar, but other ways in terms of mental time, psychological time, social time, American historical time.
“Like if you look at the terms of this absurd, hysterical healthcare debate — it’s basically McCarthyism again, the Red Scare. Socialism is coming to get us. ”
“Mid-50s America was overwhelmingly alive in his vision, in such a way that he saw it simultaneously as a present and as a future. He saw the makings of the late capitalist experience embedded in that mid-century triumphalist post-war…
Lost World War II Letter Promises “Rain Of Atomic Bombs”
On the fascinating site Letters of Note:
At 11:00 a.m. on August 9th, 1945, just a minute before the second atomic bomb in the space of three days was dropped on Japan, a B-29 bomber named The Great Artiste quietly dropped three canisters from the sky. Inside each of the canisters, alongside a shockwave gauge designed by American physicist Luis Alvarez, was an unsigned copy of the following letter.
The letter, written by Alvarez and two fellow scientists, was addressed to Japanese nuclear physicist Ryokichi Sagane —a man with whom Alvarez had previously worked at Berkeley — and pleaded with him to inform his ‘leaders’ of the impending ‘total annihilation’ of their cities.
The letter reached Sagane a month later after being found 50km from the centre of devastation: Nagasaki.
Alvarez and Sagane met again 4 years later, at which point the letter was finally signed.
