Archive for March, 2010
Listener Discussion with John Ratcliff on The Black Fridays
The Black Fridays Episode 13 — John Ratcliff
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Today we’ve got a very special guest. Mr. John Ratcliff. John is an engineer and a Freemason and a newer listener to The Black Fridays. John first heard about us on Paratopia’s podcast with Wes and Tim Bannall. After which, John had some particular comments about us on Paratopia’s forum. We invited John to come on the show and talk about those posts, plus Freemasons, and UFO’s. We think we’ve found a new friend. Wes and Stacy both really liked talking with John and think you’ll like his ideas as well.
Wes and Stacy also have a lengthy discussion on the Emma Woods tapes and Dr. David Jacobs. To get a more thorough treatment of this issue, go to the episode 57 podcast at www.paratopia.net.
Proof: Corn Syrup Makes You Fatter Than Sugar
I never buy anything that has “high fructose corn syrup” on the list of ingredients, to the annoyance of certain members of my household. Now a research team at Princeton University can back up my assertions that it’s far worse for you than sugar, as reported in Princeton’s News Site:
A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.
“Some people…
Airport Worker Caught Abusing Body Scan Pics
You knew all those assurances that the full body scans were not going to intrude on your privacy were just waiting to be disproved. Here’s an early indicator from Britain, via Reuters:
A security worker at London’s Heathrow Airport has received a police warning and faces disciplinary action over claims he ogled a female colleague using a full-body scanner, officials said on Wednesday.
The 25-year-old worker made lewd comments after his colleague Jo Margetson, 29, mistakenly strayed into the scanner, which can see through clothes to produce an image of the body, the Sun newspaper reported.
The case is believed to be the first of its kind since the full-body scanners were rushed into service at a number of British airports in the wake of an attempt by a suspected Muslim extremist to blow up a plane bound for Detroit on December 25.
They are now being rolled out at airports across the world.
Details…
Media Goes Mad Over Facebook Link To Sex Disease
Have you seen all the tabloid headlines linking the rise of Facebook with increased rates of syphilis? The British newspapers, especially, have had a field day tying social media use with sexually transmitted diseases. Some perspective from Gawker:
Syphilis cases are up fourfold in parts of Britain where Facebook is most popular. Mere coincidence? The Telegraph newspaper thinks not, after consulting an expert.
The director of pubic health in Teeside, who is also some kind of professor, tells the paper, “several of the [Teeside infected] people had met sexual partners through these sites…. social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex.” Case closed. Log off of Facebook before the social networking site literally infects you directly. (Also, between this and Facebook’s teen-sex fight with the Daily Mail, the company needs to hire some British flacks, already.)
A Facebook spokesman writes us:
While it makes for interesting headlines, the…
Republicans See Obama As The Antichrist
Or at least nearly one quarter of them do, according to the Daily Mail. Will the other 75% please throw these religious lunatics out of your party?
Americans who suggest Barack Obama should rot in hell are apparently deadly serious. Nearly a quarter of Republicans believe the Democrat president ‘may be the Antichrist’, according to a survey. An even greater number compared him to Hitler.
Mr Obama was jubilant this week after securing his £626billion healthcare reform plan. But his triumph seems only to have inflamed his critics among the evangelical Christians from America’s heartland who kept George Bush in power for eight years and have demonised his successor.
More than half of the Republicans quizzed by Harris Poll, 57 per cent, believed the president was secretly Muslim, something he has consistently denied. And 67 per cent of Republicans who responded believed Obama was a socialist, despite his central leanings…
[continues in the Daily…
Minister Farrakhan: Should We As Black People Be Publicly Criticizing Barack Obama?
From Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner:
Last week Tavis Smiley held a summit/ round table called ‘We Count’. He had a number of people speaking including Minister Farrakhan. I think this is a series of videos well worth watching. Minister Farrakhan lays down a lot of things for us to keep in mind as we engage President Obama. He speaks to the issue of weather or not we as Black people should be criticizing him in public – and if so how. This is in 3 parts.
Can A Computer Finally Pass For Human?
“Why not develop music in ways unknown…? If beauty is present, it is present.”
That’s Emily Howell talking – a highly creative computer program written in LISP by U.C. Santa Cruz professor David Cope. (While Cope insists he’s a music professor first, “he manages to leverage his knowledge of computer science into some highly sophisticated AI programming.”)
Classical musicians refuse to perform Emily’s compositions, and Cope says they believe “the creation of music is innately human, and somehow this computer program was a threat…
SittingNow Podcast Talks The 8 Circuit Model of Consciousness With Antero Alli
Via SittingNow.co.uk:
This week we delve back into the realm of reality hacking with our guest Antero Alli.
Antero has been involved in the study of the 8 circuit model of consciousness for many years now, and has authored several books on the subject.
Antero is also involved in a unique consciousness experiment called ‘Paratheatre’, in which initiates and researchers experiment, and more importantly, experience consciousness change.
We discuss: The 8 circuit model of consciousness, Timothy Leary, Paratheatre, the difference between reading about a ritual and actually experiencing it, and much more.
Now That Health Care Is “Done,” It’s Time For Financial Reform With A Focus On Fraud And Crime
In Britain, the police are raiding Hedge Funds to bust insider traders. In America, the Hedge Funds are still raiding us, even as public opinion calls for a crackdown on Wall Street. One recent poll, in a nation that seems so divided on everything, showed 82% for aggressive action. 82%!
A new Bloomberg survey says the public wants the government to punish the financial fraudsters. “57 percent of Americans have a mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable view of Wall Street, versus fewer than one-quarter who have a favorable opinion. Banks are viewed badly by 54 percent of poll respondents, and 60 percent have a negative opinion of insurance companies.”
In a sense, reformers have won the fight of public opinion, but the financial reform battle promises to be even tougher than the health care fight.
Why?
The public is just not as informed about complicated financial issues. Their eyes glaze over with all the…
Texas Gold: Should Fake Weed Be Illegal?
Has anyone tried marijuana substitutes like K2 and Texas Gold? They are certainly getting people excited in Missouri, as local station KPLR11 reports:
ST. CHARLES, MO (KPLR) – There are new developments in a story we first brought you Monday. Texas Gold, a product being marketed as a substitute to marijuana, was pulled from store shelves in St. Charles County after investigators say it violated a recent county ordinance banning K2 or fake pot. “That is a prohibited product,” said St. Charles County Sheriff Tom Neer talking about Texas Gold.
Two stores in St. Charles County, The Vise in St. Peters and The South 94 Bait and Tackle Shop in Weldon Spring, started carrying Texas Gold and a line of Sky products after St. Charles County banned K2 earlier this month…
In Wake Of Health Care Bill Passing, GOP’s Website Goes Insane
Look out, because the Republican Party has gone crazy and activated Code Red in response to the passing of the health care bill. Right now, GOP.com leads you to a picture of Nancy Pelosi burning in hell, and asks for your assistance in creating a “Tweet Bomb” to destroy her.
World’s Lights Go Out For Earth Hour On March 27
For those of you who still believe in doing good things for the Earth (don’t worry, I know we have a lot of readers who are climate change skeptics and we will continue to post stories more to your liking), Earth Hour takes place this Saturday, March 27 at 8:30 PM. Here’s the official rationale:
On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations.
North Korea’s Comics
An article from The Diplomat examines North Korean comics and animation, produced and sold by the government for the purpose of teaching lessons to the nation’s children:
The books are designed to instill the Juche philosophy of Kim Il-sung (the ‘father’ of North Korea)—radical self-reliance of the state. The plots brim with propaganda, featuring scheming capitalists from the United States and Japan who create dilemmas for naïve North Korean characters.
In almost every cartoon, those who stay faithful to Juche have happy endings; the others aren’t so lucky. The villains fit outlandish stereotypes. Americans are usually depicted with big noses, German Nazis as wearing swastikas and Japanese with glasses and buck teeth.
Poll Shows Americans Despise Wall Street
A new poll by the ultimate Wall Street insiders at Bloomberg shows that most Americans want criminal punishment for the banksters, just as Danny Schechter shows in his new film Plunder: The Crime of our Time:
Most people interviewed in the Bloomberg National Poll say they don’t like Wall Street, banks or insurance companies and favor letting the government punish bankers who helped cause the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Almost seven out of 10 people surveyed support using current bank regulators for consumer protection, backing positions held by the financial industry and Republicans over President Barack Obama’s proposal to establish an independent agency…
As the country struggles with a 9.7 percent unemployment rate while financial stocks surge, 57 percent of Americans have a mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable view of Wall Street, versus fewer than one-quarter who have a favorable opinion. Banks are viewed badly by 54 percent of poll respondents,…
Dark Energy: The Biggest Mystery in the Universe
Far from light and plunged into months-long darkness, Antarctica's South Pole Telescope is one of the best places on Earth for observing the universe. Photo: Keith Vanderlinde / National Science Foundation
At the South Pole, astronomers try to unravel a force greater than gravity that will determine the fate of the cosmos. Richard Panek reports for Smithsonian Magazine:
Twice a day, seven days a week, from February to November for the past four years, two researchers have layered themselves with thermal underwear and outerwear, with fleece, flannel, double gloves, double socks, padded overalls and puffy red parkas, mummifying themselves until they look like twin Michelin Men. Then they step outside, trading the warmth and modern conveniences of a science station (foosball, fitness center, 24-hour cafeteria) for a minus-100-degree Fahrenheit featureless landscape, flatter than Kansas and one of the coldest places on the planet. They trudge in darkness nearly a mile, across a…
Canada Hates Anne Coulter; She Thinks That’s A Hate Crime
Ann Coulter at CPAC in February 2010. Photo: Gage Skidmore (CC)
I’m not sure what’s more surprising: that Canadians are giving Anne Coulter the treatment she deserves, or that anyone is actually taking any notice of her over the top right wing rhetoric anymore. Personally I don’t think even she believes half the stuff she says – she just does it to garner attention and sell books. Report from Canada.com:
After protesters at the University of Ottawa prevented Ann Coulter from giving a speech Tuesday night, the American conservative writer said it proved the point she came to make — free speech in Canada leaves much to be desired.
Then she said what she really thought of the student protesters who surrounded Marion Hall, making it unsafe, in the view of her bodyguard, for the pundit to attempt entry.
“The University of Ottawa is really easy to get into, isn’t it?” she said in…
Drunk History: Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison
On the latest Funny Or Die Presents, this is Drunk History: Nikola Tesla. If you think this is purely a joke, I’m afraid not …
On January 7th, Duncan Trussell drank a six-pack of beer, then a half a bottle of absinthe … and then he discussed a historical event:
The Bayer Company Made Heroin
Another chapter from my book, 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003, by Disinfo.
For more on me, please check out The Memory Hole.
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Aspirin isn’t the only “wonder drug that works wonders” that Bayer made. The German pharmaceutical giant also introduced heroin to the world.
The company was looking for a cough suppressant that didn’t have problematic side effects, mainly addiction, like morphine and codeine. And if it could relieve pain better than morphine, that was a welcome bonus.
When one of Bayer’s chemists approached the head of the pharmacological lab with ASA — to be sold under the name “aspirin” — he was waved away. The boss was more interested in something else the chemists had cooked up — diacetylmorphine. (This narcotic had been created in 1874 by a British chemist, who had never done anything with it.)
Using the tradename “Heroin” — because early testers said it made them feel…
VP Joe Biden Drops F-Bomb Before President Obama Signs Health Care Reform Bill Into Law
Joe Biden rocks. ‘Nuff said:
