Archive for February, 2010
Kangaroos Victims of Factory Fluoride
DEBORAH GOUGH writes in the Age:
SCORES of starving and pain-ridden kangaroos have been culled after developing tooth and bone deformities from breathing and ingesting fluoride emissions. Many more are believed to be suffering from growths that will kill them.
The affected kangaroos are living near the Alcoa aluminium smelter in Portland, in the state’s south-west, and the Austral Bricks factory at Craigieburn.
Autopsies performed at Melbourne University on 49 kangaroos culled at Alcoa on a single day last year found all but one were suffering from flurosis, which leads to excessive bone growths, or lesions, on joints in the paws, ankles and calves.
It can also cause tooth and jaw deformities that hinder eating and foraging. The Sunday Age has been told more than 200 ill kangaroos living near both affected sites have been culled in recent years, but this figure could not be confirmed.
Read More in the Age
Image Credit: Ester Inbar via Wikimedia Commons
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Christians Want To Change Name Of Mt. Diablo
A devout Christian wants to change the name of Mt. Diablo. Maria L. LaGanga writes all about it for the Los Angeles Times, below, but first BREAKING NEWS from Claycord.com,
Just seconds ago, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors decided against the requests to change the name of Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan, and also decided not to support a last minute request to change the mountain’s name to Mt. John Muir.
The Board doesn’t have the final say, however, so it could still happen…
Reporting from Mt. Diablo State Park – Arthur Mijares never saw it coming when he filed the federal paperwork to change the name of Contra Costa County’s most famous landmark from Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan.
It’s not that he’s such a big fan of the 40th president of the United States. It’s just that he believes, as a devout Christian, that naming a peak of such beauty…
UFOs and Science on The Black Fridays
The Black Fridays – Episode 9: Stanton Friedman
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We are VERY pround and honored to welcom Stanton Friedman to The Black Fridays Podcast. Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956.
He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear powerplants for space and terrestrial applications.
He has lectured about UFO’s at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 9 Canadian provinces and 16 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 2007 and…
Unplug the Signal: The Truth Will Not Be Televised
By Nathan Janes, Pupaganda.com.
A flow of information is constantly streaming from the television set; a bombardment of words and pictures. The speed at which this information is communicated makes it easy for the signal to take control, switching the viewer’s brain to stand-by as information is absorbed without analysis or question. Today the television’s constant signal shapes the conclusions of the masses and produces the collective norm. The signal prescribes what is news and what is truth through the words of so-called experts and authorities, gelding the consciousness and independent thoughts of those subjected to it. Through television, the masses can be made to accept the most monstrous distortions of reality. The signal is a chill wind of continuous oppression over the minds of the masses. It controls the management of society and culture, creating uniformity across all subjects.
The fuel for this vehicle of mass deception is a technique known as…
John Lennon Plays Dead in Beatles Last Photoshoot
Prophetic and creepy. See more photos at dailymail.co.uk
An apparently lifeless John Lennon lies on the ground, his fellow-Beatles by his side. The haunting picture was taken in 1968 – 12 years before Lennon was gunned down by a crazed fan, Mark Chapman, in New York City.
It was one of many images taken by society photographer Tom Murray during the Fab Four’s last official photoshoot in 1968, which lay forgotten in an envelope for decades.
It was among a number of photographs which were made public today after lying forgotten about for years.
‘From two rolls of film there are 23 surviving shots. The colours are astonishing and it’s basically because the original slides were kept in the dark in an envelope for so many years.’
Obesity? Big Feet? Blame Darwin
From the Wall Street Journal:
Evolution, the theory goes, guarantees survival to the fittest. But we can blame evolution for some of today’s most pressing health problems, such as cancer, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
A 2009 Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans believe that God created human beings in their present form within the past 10,000 years. Many of them also think the human body is perfectly designed.
But most scientists—including biologists, anthropologists, paleontologists and geneticists—see the 21st century human body as a collection of compromises, jury-rigged by evolution as our ancestors adapted to changing conditions.
“In many ways, we are maladapted for modernity,” says Stephen Stearns, a Yale evolutionary biologist. He and others in the field are urging medical schools to include more evolutionary thinking when teaching doctors about modern diseases.
For example, the immune system was honed to fight off epidemics like malaria and cholera, which proliferated along with urbanization. According…
Does The Patriot Act Violate Free Speech?
Do monkeys eat bananas? Come on Supremes, do the right thing. Report from NPR:
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a case that pits an individual’s right of free speech and association against a federal law aimed at combating terrorism. At issue is part of the Patriot Act that makes it a crime for an American citizen to engage in peaceful lawful activity on behalf of any group designated as a terrorist organization.
Federal law makes it a crime to provide material support to any organization designated as a terrorist group by the secretary of state. But the definition of material support includes not just providing weapons or money or bomb-making skills; it includes providing any sort of expert advice, training or personnel — including advice on how to resolve disputes peaceably or training on how to make human rights claims before the United Nations.
The nonprofit Humanitarian Law Project has…
We Are Anonymous. We Are Legion. We Plead Guilty In Court.
From TechCrunch:
On Thursday 8 January 2009, then 18-year old Mahoud Samed Almahadin (aka Matt Connor aka Agent Pubeit
) took off his shirt, proceeded to rub vaseline all over his upper body and subsequently used it to hold toenail clippings and pubic hair. He then ran into the New York Scientology building, tossed some books around and smeared the mixture on objects.
After his greasy raid
Michael Pollan on Food Rules: An Eaters Manual on Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman: Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food, discusses the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the nutritional-industrial complex, the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating. The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid, says Michael Pollan. So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket. Today we air an excerpt of the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. and then spend the rest of the show with Michael Pollan.
Outer Space Exploration Depends on Your Orgasms
Author Jason Louv asks: what happened to the Great Dream? And then he urges you to start thinking about outer space when you have an orgasm.
“Space is fundamentally about sex. And by eroticizing space, instead of militarizing it, we can do wonders for our limp interest.”
Humankind’s best hope for outer space exploration may be to…eroticize it. “If we could harness the sexual juice poured into the Internet every day and aim it toward the stars, just think what we could achieve.” And in fact, space has a very clear link to sexuality — the threat of world overpopulation! (”Sex makes human beings…And we’ll eventually need to get into space to find somewhere to put them!”)
“Don’t use sexuality to further pollute planet Earth. Use it as a spaceship. Forget Earth, with its grime and disappointment. Forget the last four decades of disaster capitalism and electronic distraction… There’s a whole universe out…
The U.S. and Soviet Union Considered Detonating Nuclear Bombs on the Moon
With all the hubub about NASA blowing up the Moon last October, I thought disinfo.com readers would like to know the U.S. (and the Commies!) had it in mind all along.
Here’s another chapter from my book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.
For more on me, check out: The Memory Hole.
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You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is an unused scene from Dr. Strangelove, but the United States and the Soviet Union have seriously considered exploding atomic bombs on the Moon.
It was the late 1950s, and the Cold War was extremely chilly. Someone in the US government got the bright idea of nuking the Moon, and in 1958 the Air Force Special Weapons Center spearheaded the project (labeled A119, “A Study of Lunar Research Flights”).
The idea was to shock and awe the Soviet Union, and everybody else, with a massive display of American nuclear might. What better demonstration than…
Kentucky Approves Bible Classes For Public Schools
LEX18.com via the AP reports:
FRANKFORT (AP) — Kentucky may follow the lead of Texas and a handful of other states in allowing Bible classes to be taught in public schools.
The Senate Education Committee on Thursday unanimously approved legislation that would effectively return the Bible to classrooms across Kentucky.
“The purpose is to allow the Bible to be used for its literature content as well as its art and cultural and social studies content,” said state Sen. David Boswell, D-Owensboro, chief sponsor of the bill that is modeled after a Texas measure.
Under the Kentucky proposal, Bible courses would be offered as electives, meaning schools could choose whether to offer them to students as a social studies credit and that students could decide whether to take them.
Boswell said he believes the legislation is constitutional because the Bible won’t be taught from a religious perspective. What sets the legislation apart, he said, is that it…
Plants Are Actively Intelligent: What Does This Mean for Vegetarians?
Ethan A. Huff writes in Natural News:
Most vegetarians believe that by not eating animals, they are preserving life. Everyone knows that plants are alive but they are not viewed with the same level of intelligence as animals are. As science continues to uncover the complex nature of plants, it is becoming more apparent that plants are actively intelligent life that pursue their continued existence in similar ways as do animals.
Research on the subject naturally flies in the face of strict vegetarianism which often insists that eating animals is murder but eating plants is just fine. Yet the facts illustrate that the characteristics of animals used to argue that eating them is murder also apply to plants. In other words, in order for strict vegetarians to be consistent in their beliefs, they would also have to stop eating fruits and vegetables.
Plants are very sensitive to environmental changes and they have many…
U.S. Pinpoints Coder Behind Google Attack
From Wired:
U.S. government analysts believe a Chinese man with government links wrote the key part of a spyware program used in hacker attacks on Google last year, the Financial Times reported on Monday.The man, a security consultant in his 30s, posted sections of the program to a hacking forum where he described it as something he was “working on,” the paper said, quoting an unidentified researcher working for the U.S. government.
The spyware creator works as a freelancer and did not launch the attack, but Chinese officials had “special access” to his programing, the report said.
“If he wants to do the research he’s good at, he has to toe the line now and again,” the paper quoted the unnamed U.S. government researcher saying.
“He would rather not have uniformed guys looking over his shoulder, but there is no way anyone of his skill level can get away from that kind of thing.…
Using Facebook or Twitter ‘Could Raise Your Insurance Premiums’
Richard Evans writes in the Telegraph:
Services such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Buzz can alert criminals when users are not home, according to Confused.com, the price comparison service. Foursquare, for example, shows that people are in a specific spot and, more importantly, that the user is definitely not at home, Confused.com added.It predicted that the new wave in social media could eventually lead to big rises in home insurance premiums.
Darren Black, the head of home insurance at Confused.com, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if, as social media grow in popularity and more location-based applications come to fore, insurance providers consider these in their pricing of an individual’s risk. We could see rises of up to 10pc for people who use these sites.
“Criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their information gathering, even using Google Earth and Streetview to plan their burglaries with military precision. Insurance providers are starting to take this…
‘Internet Enforcement’ Copyright Treaty Leaks Online
Cory Doctorow writes on BoingBoing:
Someone has uploaded a PDF to a Google Group that is claimed to be the proposal for Internet copyright enforcement that the USA has put forward for ACTA, the secret copyright treaty whose seventh round of negotiations just concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico.
This reads like it probably is genuine treaty language, and if it is the real US proposal, it is the first time that this material has ever been visible to the public. According to my source, the US proposal is the current version of the treaty as of the conclusion of the Mexico round.
I’ve read it through a few times and it reads a lot like DMCA-plus. It contains, for example, a duty to technology firms to shut down infringement where they have “actual knowledge” that such is taking place.
This argument was put forward in the Grokster case, and as Fred von Lohmann argued then, this is…
CPAC Speaker Condemns GOP Conference for Gay Republican Group Invite
Way back when, in the ancient days of the Bush Administration (circa 2004), Disinformation distributed a documentary called Gay Republicans, which focused on the activities of the Log Cabin Republicans. When I recently came across this video from the recent CPAC conference, seems like it’s history repeating itself with another group called GOPride.
These folks actually do vote, keep that in mind, Grand Old Party … after all, Ron Paul — who could care less about gay Americans serving in the military — did win the 2010 CPAC presidential straw poll, by a wide margin…
An Archaeological Dig in Turkey is Reshaping Human History
Patrick Symmes writes on Newsweek:
A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.
They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot — the exact spot — where humans began that ascent.
Could Scorpion Venom Make a Safe Alternative to Morphine?
I’m starting an urban scorpion farm, just to get in on the the action:
by Clay Dillow for popsci.com
Scorpion venom and intense pain generally go hand in hand, but a group of researchers at Tel Aviv University are rethinking that relationship, using a better understanding of the peptide toxins found in scorpions’ pain-inducing payloads to create a breed of non-addictive, side effect-free painkillers.
Pain is communicated to the brain via a certain type of sodium channel embedded in our nervous and muscular systems. Understanding the way these sodium channels convey the sensation of pain from certain parts of the body to the brain is key to manipulating these signals to reduce or eliminate feelings of pain. Figure out how to manipulate those mechanisms, and we could be on the way to a much less painful future.
Luckily for us, scorpions — friendly little critters that they are — have spent the past few million years evolving sophisticated toxins that can really turn up the level of excruciation. By modifying those same molecules, researchers believe they can customize compounds that are highly effective at numbing specific kinds of pain in specific parts of the body. What’s more, because these compounds are natural and tailor-tweaked, they can be engineered to perform without side effects like addiction or the state of lovely but intoxicating loopiness induced by other painkilling compounds like morphine.
Therein lies the benefit, of course; anyone who’s had wisdom teeth pulled or dealt with a serious ligament tear knows that a bottle of conventional pain meds can get the job done, but the side effects can be mentally impairing and even dangerous should one become chemically dependent. With bio-mimicking pain compounds, doctors could treat chronic discomfort without fearing that patients might end up in the streets trying to score that next hit of scorpion.
