Archive for March, 2010
Sinead O’Connor: ‘There Should Be a Full Criminal Investigation of the Pope’
From the L.A. Times:
Years after her controversial ‘Saturday Night Live’ appearance, the Irish singer is still at odds with the Catholic Church, saying it must come clean about sexual-abuse allegations.
Reporting from Bray, Ireland – She shot to fame 20 years ago with her shaved head, chiseled cheeks and haunting rendition of the song “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Then she gained notoriety when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on American TV, calling him “the enemy” and urging people to fight child abuse.
Sinead O’Connor is still singing. And she’s still speaking out against abuse — only now her 1992 stunt on “Saturday Night Live” almost seems prescient as the Roman Catholic Church faces a growing catalog of complaints about child sexual and physical assault by priests in her Irish homeland and across Europe.
Such mistreatment was rampant here in Ireland, going back decades. By 1987, the Irish church…
Sudan President Bashir Threatens to Expel Foreign Election Observers
From the Christian Science Monitor:
Ahead of April 11 parliamentary and president elections, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir told supporters that if foreign election observers ‘interfere in our affairs, we will cut their fingers off, put them under our shoes, and throw them out.’
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to expel foreign election observers for “interference” after a prominent US-based observer mission suggested “minor delays” to the April 11 election date to create better conditions for free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections.
Skip to next paragraphThe Atlanta-based Carter Center, which is one of many groups invited by Mr. Bashir’s government to observe the country’s vote – said that the election process thus far was “mostly peaceful” but warned that “the process remains at risk on multiple fronts including the ability of candidates to campaign freely,” and suggested that elections be delayed briefly.
“It is increasingly unclear if the [National Election Commission] can deliver…
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
It’s been a huge week in American politics, and Disinfo readers seem awfully quiet about their feelings on the matter. What’s the problem folks, did you spend too much energy screaming at your Facebook friends? We’d love to hear your opinions on this article and the health care bill. Is it the a good thing, or a tool of the ‘new world order?’
From the Economist:
Barack Obama has transformed health reform from near death to fact. So how will Obamacare change America’s health system?
THE Barack Obama who addressed Americans at near midnight on March 21st had every right to gloat. After a year in which his proposals for health reform were savaged by Republicans and leftists alike, and declared dead half a dozen times by everyone, he has somehow managed to get them over the finishing line.
The reform package is made up of two bills. One, a flawed and pork-laden version…
Can You Solve a Rubik Cube While Balancing Ten Books on Your Head & Reciting 100 Decimals of Pi? (Video)
Via LiveLeak:
Evolver the Podcast: 2012 Time For a Change
In the first episode of Evolver the Podcast we have conversations with both Daniel Pinchbeck and Joao Amorim on their upcoming collaborative effort 2012 Time For a Change.
Daniel Pinchbeck has written two books (Breaking Open the Head, 2012 Return of Quetzalcoatl) and helped start both Reality Sandwich (the leading online magazine in consciousness culture) and Evolver.net. Evolver has now started to focus on building an actual social movement to produce real change in the world.
Joao Amorim has done a number of short animation films, such as the award winning short Don’t Get Charged Up. He also worked as the animation director on Chicago 10. 2012 Time For a Change is his first venture as director of a full length feature film.
Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Evolution is Wrong
What if Darwin’s theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants? Evolutionary thinking is having a revolution. Oliver Burkeman writes in the Guardian:
The story, still sometimes repeated in creationist circles, goes like this: it is the 1960s, at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, and a team of astronomers is using cutting-edge computers to recreate the orbits of the planets, thousands of years in the past. Suddenly, an error message flashes up. There’s a problem: way back in history, one whole day appears to be missing.
The scientists are baffled, until a Christian member of the team dimly recalls something and rushes to fetch a Bible. He thumbs through it until he reaches the Book of Joshua, chapter 10, in which Joshua asks God to stop the world for … “about a full day!” Uproar in the computer…
$100,000 Spills From Armored Car; Passers-By Pocket Most of It So Far
Would you return the money that fell out of an armored car onto the street? Theodore Decker writes in the Columbus Dispatch:
More than $100,000 spilled out the back of an armored car in Whitehall yesterday, and most of it is still missing.
Police urged anyone who couldn’t resist temptation to reconsider before officers come calling.
Whitehall Sgt. Dan Kelso said a Garda armored car was eastbound on E. Broad Street at 8:20 a.m. yesterday when a bag of cash fell from the back into the intersection at Hamilton Road.
“It hit the ground and split open, and there was money all over the place,” Kelso said.
A unsecured door might have come open; police are investigating.
First Online Islamic Sex Shop Open For Business
Hanina Ajarai and Joke Mat write on nrc handelsblad:
Abdelaziz Aouragh is a Muslim, lives in Amsterdam, and deals in sex articles. His webshop El Asira, which is for Muslims, will soon be selling Pure Power capsules which “heighten male performance, desire and pleasure.” Desire capsules for women will also be available, sensual stimulators for him and her and lubricants based on cocoa butter, water or silicon. El Asira calls itself “the first Islamic online webshop for sex articles and care products.”
There are ‘Tupperware parties’ in Morocco for women looking for sex toys, which are not on general sale. “But there are networks, very discrete and well organised, which fill the vacuum,” writes the Moroccan journalist Vanessa Pellegrin on the website casawaves.com.
There are cultural differences. Vibrators are not popular because women do not want to admit their husband’s shortcomings. A 25 centimetre surrogate penis is too obvious. But a vibrating plastic…
Star Trek-Style Force-Field Armor Being Developed by British Military
Richard Gray writes in the Telegraph:
The new type of armour will use pulses of electrical energy to repel rockets, shrapnel and other ammunition that might damage a vehicle.
Researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), which is the research and development arm of the Ministry of Defence, claim it is possible to incorporate material known as supercapacitors into armour of a vehicle to turn it into a kind of giant battery.
When a threat from incoming fire is detected by the vehicle, the energy stored in the supercapacitor can be rapidly dumped onto the metal plating on the outside of the vehicle, producing a strong electromagnetic field.
Scientists behind the project claim this would produce a momentary “force field” capable of repelling the incoming rounds and projectiles.
Although it would last for only a fraction of a second, if timed correctly it could prevent rocket propelled grenades, which detonate on impact, from…
An Interview With 4chan’s Christopher Poole
The New York Times sat down for an interview with “Moot,” real name Christopher Poole, founder of 4chan. Poole discusses the (lack of) sales offers for the site (the biggest bid he’s received was for $45,000), his efforts to keep 4chan secret from his family, and his own fear of and lack and control over the site’s users.
You go by the name “Moot.” Why?
As a teenager, I used to use the nickname “Moo” as a moniker online, and then I turned into “Moot” for fun, which I didn’t even realize was a real word at the time, and it just stuck with me.
How old were you when you started 4chan? I was 15. I’m 22 now.
In November, Californians Will Vote On Legalizing Pot
Californians have voted for some bad ballot initiatives in recent years, but maybe they’ll make up for it big time in November. The Los Angeles Times reports:
An initiative to legalize marijuana and allow it to be sold and taxed will appear on the November ballot, state election officials announced Wednesday. Supporters of the initiative collected well more than the 433,971 signatures needed for it to go before voters in the fall.
Legalization supporters note that misdemeanor arrests have risen dramatically in California in the last two decades. The initiative would also allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana per residence or parcel.
But the measure, known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, goes further, allowing cities and counties to adopt ordinances that would authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana, which could be taxed to raise revenue.
Pope Benedict Accused of Ignoring Pleas to Stop Priest Who Molested 200 Deaf Boys
Seriously?!? WTF. This Pope Benedict/Star Wars Emperor meme that’s been on the ‘net for years is starting to really make sense. Richard Owen writes in the Times:
Pope Benedict XVI was drawn deeper yesterday into the clerical sex abuse scandal that has begun to overwhelm the Roman Catholic Church, when he was accused of personally failing to take action against a serial paedophile.
The Pope was blamed directly for ignoring repeated pleas by senior American churchmen to take action against a priest who had molested up to 200 deaf boys.
Father Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at the St John’s School for the Deaf in St Francis, Wisconsin, from 1950 to 1974, starting as a teacher and rising to director, allegedly molested scores of pupils, preying on his victims in their dormitories and on class trips.
But instead of being defrocked and the police called in, it is alleged that Father Murphy avoided justice…
Program or be Programmed: Douglas Rushkoff’s Ten Commands for a Digital Age
Doug Rushkoff, author of Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back, speaking at SXSW 2010:
Fixing The Financial System
Danny Schechter, director of Plunder: The Crime of our Time, appears on Russia Today to discuss the U.S. government’s next big challenge.
The End of Democracy for Non-Dummies
Following is an essay outlining some current problems with today’s form of globalized capitalism.
The message being conveyed is that there is something kind of off about the existence of hundreds of millions of people (the first world/outer party) who assume that they are democrtic citizens when the power to literally topple governments and start world wars is handed down dynastically into the hands of very few people. I’m aware that I am largely preaching to the converted, but if you’re interested, please read on.
The whole of human history may be considered as a broad narrative detailing the aggregation and evolution of small human communities into city-states, nation-states, super-national states and perhaps ultimately – a global state. It is perhaps the case that the current rate of social aggregation has exceeded the rate at which societies are willing to adjust economic and regulatory conditions within the emerging global community. The discrepancy…
New ‘Designer’ Human Organs – Stem Cells + Inkjet Printing?
Organovo will distribute its $200,000 inkjet-like organ printers to medical research centers starting this year. Their “ink” comes from stem cells (from adult bone marrow) guided by growth factors into specific cell types, then packed into droplets of “ink” containing up to 30,000 cells to be printed onto sheets of organic biopaper where they self-assemble into functional tissue.
Though at first they’ll only print “very basic tissues like blood vessels”, the CSO of Organovo sees the business potential in using their bio-printers to create artificial human organs for implanting. (”You give us your cells: we grow them, we print them…”) And he also raises the possibility of “designer organs”, artificially grown into customized sizes and shapes…
Revolution: History and Praxis. Technoccult Interviews Johnny Brainwash
Via Technoccult:
Klint Finley: I suppose you should start by defining what you mean when you say “revolution.”
Johnny Brainwash: Well, it’s one of those slippery words, like freedom or democracy, that gets used a lot of different ways. I’m assuming here a political and social aspect, and really focusing on what are sometimes called “social revolutions” or “the Great Revolutions.”
The basic definition for me is a rapid and fundamental change in not only political leadership, but also economic and social relations.
So the American Revolution or the various colored revolutions (like Georgia’s Rose Revolution) don’t make the cut, but the French or Russian Revolutions do.
Antichrist Mania: Glenn Beck Says It’s Not Obama, It’s James Cameron
It’s Antichrist day apparently. Further to my earlier post about a quarter of Republicans believing that President Obama may be the Antichrist, the Hollywood Reporter reveals that one of the Republicans’ favorite media mouthpieces, Glenn Beck, actually thinks the Antichrist is filmmaker James Cameron. Come on guys, get your story straight, or is it just your all-purpose slur for anyone who you think might not be as holy as thou?
“Avatar” director James Cameron lashed out at Glenn Beck at a news conference Tuesday, offering to debate the Fox News personality on environmental and political issues.
Asked what he thought about Beck during a junket appearance in support of the “Avatar” home video release, Cameron said: “Glenn Beck is a fucking asshole. I’ve met him. He called me the anti-Christ, and not about ‘Avatar.’ He hadn’t even seen ‘Avatar’ yet. I don’t know if he has seen it.”
Making The Switch From Gucci Capitalism To Cooperative Capitalism
My good friend, Cambridge University economics professor and celebrity Noreena Hertz, has given an interesting interview to German news service Spiegel Online in which she says capitalism is about to change:
Hertz: I am convinced that we are at a turning point in capitalism. The financial crisis could only come about because people were too focused on growth without asking where this growth comes from and at what cost. The crisis was a wake-up call for many people who accepted the rules of the old system. And many people — from policymakers to academics to economists to politicians, but also the man on the street — are starting to question whether the old rules were actually fair, just or right.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You call it the switch from Gucci capitalism to cooperative capitalism.
Hertz: In Gucci capitalism, people believed that the markets were absolutely rational and reliable. Economists created models with cartoon-like assumptions about…
