Archive for April, 2010
‘Dr. Death’ Jack Kevorkian: “Medicine Is Controlled By Religion” (Video)
Here’s doctor and right-to-die activist Jack Kevorkian speaking with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto about the recent HBO film, You Don’t Know Jack. This film is a biopic of the good doctor’s infamous career later in life: those actions that landed him in prison and the media circus that revolved around him.
Kevorkian candidly expresses his views on Fox News and his opinion of this film:
Will Goldman Sachs Prove Greed is God?
These A-holes are no longer happy with the “Greed is Good” mantra? Kicking it up to the Almighty now? Great job ducking those questions from Congress today. Matt Taibbi, who’s been excellent on speaking the truth behind the so-called financial “crisis,” writes in the Guardian:
The investment bank’s cult of self-interest is on trial against the whole idea of civilisation — the collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even if we can.
So Goldman Sachs, the world’s greatest and smuggest investment bank, has been sued for fraud by the American Securities and Exchange Commission. Legally, the case hangs on a technicality.
Morally, however, the Goldman Sachs case may turn into a final referendum on the greed-is-good ethos that conquered America sometime in the 80s – and in the years since has aped other horrifying American trends such as boybands and reality shows in spreading across the western world like a venereal disease.
When Britain and other countries were engulfed in the flood of defaults and derivative losses that emerged from the collapse of the American housing bubble two years ago, few people understood that the crash had its roots in the lunatic greed-centered objectivist religion, fostered back in the 50s and 60s by ponderous emigre novelist Ayn Rand.
Smoke Bomb Egg Fight in Ukraine Parliament
Russia Today reports:
Ukraine’s parliament has ratified a new naval base agreement with Russia despite the opposition’s resistance. The vote was mired with a fistfight, smoke bombs and hooliganism. The document has been approved with 236 votes. It extends the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s stay at its base in Crimea until 2042 in exchange for a considerable gas price discount.
The opposition believes that the agreement undermines Ukraine’s national security and wanted the document to be denounced at any cost. At the session some deputies threw eggs at Speaker Vladimir Litvin, but he was saved from having his suit ruined by fellow MPs with umbrellas.
Ahead of the session the opposition faction of Yulia Timoshenko covered their seats with huge national flags and a banner saying “No treason of the motherland!”
How Chimpanzees Mourn Their Dead (Video)
Tim Barribeau writes on io9.com:
Chimpanzees are our closest primate relative, and have a number of behaviors we once thought were human only: they empathize, cooperate, and have a sense of self. But how do they deal with the most distressing event possible — death?
Two studies this being published in Current Biology this week show a remarkable amount about how chimpanzees mourn, and the effect that death has on them — sometimes in ways very similar to us, sometimes shockingly different.
In what is an incredibly rare occurrence, cameras recorded the death and mourning of two groups of chimps — one with an elderly female, and the other with the death of two infants. When an adult chimp dies unexpectedly or traumatically, the tribe’s reaction is often loud and violent. Both times here, the reaction from those close to the dead was very different.
Invalid Warrant Used in Raid on Gizmodo ‘Missing iPhone’ Reporter Jason Chen
The plot thickens. This isn’t looking like a publicity stunt by Apple anymore unless Steve Jobs has cops on his payroll. Beware the Power of Jobs! Kim Zetter writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:
Police raided the house of an editor for Gizmodo on Friday and seized computers and other equipment. The raid was part of an investigation into the leak of a prototype iPhone that the site obtained for a blockbuster story last week. Now, a legal expert has raised questions about the legality of the warrant used in the raid.
On Friday, officers from California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team in San Mateo, California, appeared at the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen while he was not there and broke open the front door.
Chen and his wife discovered the officers when they returned from dinner around 9:45 that evening. According to an account he posted online, Chen noticed his garage door was…
Stonehenge Expert Julian Richards on The Black Fridays!
The Black Fridays Episode 16 — Julian Richards
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
The Black Fridays is pleased to bring you Julian Richards! We believe Julian to be one of the foremost experts on Stonehenge today and we were thrilled that stopped by for a chat! We cover most of the new discoveries that have been made in the areas around the site, as well as other sites of interest in the vicinity. Our honor to talk to Julian … we hope you enjoy!
You can learn more about Julian Richards at www.archaemedia.net.
Can Supercomputers Stop Bird Flu Using Google Earth?
Supercomputers can now construct millions of phylogenetic trees to determine how H5N1 viral mutations are related, and then map them on Google Earth.
The Supramap can predict the path of pathogens the way weathermen predict the path of a storm…
Bin Laden Associate Says Osama Had No Idea U.S Would Hit Back So Hard After 9/11
In what they term an exclusive interview, radio station WTOP reveals that Osama’s Al-Qaeda didn’t think the U.S would retaliate to the extent it did:
Osama bin Laden had no idea the U.S. would hit al-Qaida as hard as it has since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a former bin Laden associate tells WTOP in an exclusive interview.
“I’m 100 percent sure they had no clue about what was going to happen,” says Noman Benotman, who was head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the summer of 2000. “What happened after the 11th of September was beyond their imagination, ” says Benotman, who adds that al-Qaida thought the U.S. was a “paper tiger.”
Sitting on the floor at bin Laden’s compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan during a meeting the summer before the attacks, Benotman shocked bin Laden and more than 200 other international jihadist leaders by telling the al-Qaida leader his jihadi strategy was…
Eating Chocolate Leads To Depression
Photo: André Karwath (CC)
Call me strange, and many have, but I’ve never liked chocolate. I’ve never been seriously depressed, either. Now it appears there may be a link between the two, reported here by the BBC:
People who regularly eat chocolate are more depressive, experts have found. Research in Archives of Internal Medicine shows those who eat at least a bar every week are more glum than those who only eat chocolate now and again.
Many believe chocolate has the power to lift mood, and the US team say this may be true, although scientific proof for this is lacking. But they say they cannot rule out that chocolate may be a cause rather than the cure for being depressed.
In the study, which included nearly 1,000 adults, the more chocolate the men and women consumed the lower their mood. Those who ate the most – more than six regular 28g size bars…
Daily Star Pulled From Airports Over Volcano Ash Splash
Daily Star headline
John Plunkett writing in the Guardian:
Copies of today’s Daily Star have been removed from airport newsagent shelves today over fears that its splash, headlined “Terror as plane hits ash cloud” with an image of a 747 with engines ablaze, could cause panic among travellers.
Richard Desmond’s red top was removed from shops at Gatwick and Manchester airports after today’s edition was published, with a front-page story claiming to feature “dramatic pictures as jets get OK to defy volcano”.
However, the image used in the splash was taken from a TV reconstruction of an incident 28 years ago in which a BA 747’s engines were knocked out by a volcanic ash cloud. The documentary, previously broadcast on the National Geographic channel, is to be shown on Channel Five tonight…
[continues in the Guardian]
Pseudo-Scientific Defense of GMO Safety is Smoke and Mirrors
By Jeffrey Smith, author and founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology at Huffington Post:
Three years after I wrote Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, pro-GM scientists have finally taken me up on my challenge to supply evidence that counters any of the 65 risks highlighted in the book. So, it will be a great pleasure for me to respond to the 65 arguments recently posted on a new attack-Jeffrey website. Their effort offers a priceless opportunity to not only revisit each health risk, but also to show more precisely where and how the biotech industry comes up short in its defense. Be sure to subscribe to my Huffington Post blog to catch the fun.
In my initial challenge to the GMO industry, I sought rigorous, independent scientific data that would enrich the global discussion and better characterize GMO risks. But the posts written by biotech apologists Bruce Chassy and David Tribe demonstrate without doubt how flimsy and unsupported the industry’s claim is that GMOs are safe…
‘Gay Dog’ Refused Entry To Australian Restaurant
Seriously, WTF?! Did the dog sound like George Clooney, what was the tip-off? Sarah Mennie writes in the Herald Sun:
A restaurant in a northwest suburb of Adelaide that refused a blind man entry because it thought his guide dog was “gay” was ordered by the Equal Opportunity Tribunal to pay him $1500.
A statement given by restaurant owners Hong Hoa Thi To and Anh Hoang Le said one of the restaurant’s waiters said that Mr Jolly’s partner Ms Chris Lawrence stated “she wanted to bring a gay dog into the restaurant.”
Mr Jolly and Ms Lawrence were refused entry to the restaurant – which displays a “guide dogs welcome” sign — even after providing staff with a guide dogs fact card.
At an Equal Opportunity Tribunal conciliation hearing on Friday, the restaurant agreed to provide Mr Jolly with a written apology and attend an Equal Opportunity education course, in addition to paying him…
Raising Arizona: Did A ‘Show Us Your Papers’ Act Become Law in the United States?
Much hubbub occurred over the weekend about Arizona SB1070. Curious to know your thoughts, there was a time where Arizona was the center of libertarianism in this country, and such a law there would have been unthinkable:
A ‘Network’ Scene Classic: “There Is No Democracy” (Video)
Commenting on our site survey of the best conspiracy-minded films, regular disinfo.com commenter 5by5 suggested this scene from Network and offered these thoughts:
It’s corporatist arrogance on bold display, and this is before they REALLY got cooking. This is why they need to be taken down MULTIPLE pegs. They think themselves Gods, and they need a serious reminder that they most definitely AREN’T.
Don’t Pick Your Nose On The Subway: Rupert Murdoch Might Be Looking
AnimalNY via Jason Shelowitz
It’s no secret that Rupert Murdoch wants his Wall Street Journal to usurp rival newspaper the New York Times as the top read for the elites in New York City. Whether or not stories like this one will do the trick is doubtful, but I guess it might give Gothamist a run for its money, were the latter ever to start a print edition…
Last week, Jason Shelowitz, 30, a Chelsea-based painter and freelance graphic designer, started hanging very realistic facsimiles of MTA service advisories in subway cars and train stations around the city. The goal: to call New Yorkers out for their inappropriate or disgusting behavior, and to make them laugh i the process. “Keep your hands to yourself, perv,” one sign says. Another: “Keep your finger out of your nose. Please.” The posters bear the stamp of the MEA: Metropolitan Etiquette Authority.
Shelowitz created more than 300 posters, which he will finish…
When Water Bottles Kill
Last week I posted a story about Tapped filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig’s Get Off The Bottle tour. Stephanie and co-producer Sarah Olson came by the disinformation NYC offices and I asked her about her appearance on Fox Business Network’s John Stossel show the night before. I feared the worst after reading Stossel’s blog post in which he wrote: “On my FBN show, tonight at 8pm ET, I’ll confront director Stephanie Soechtig about the myths she’s pushing.”
Here’s the confrontation – who do you think comes out on top? My vote’s with Stephanie, although she didn’t have a chance to add information about some of the other problems of bottled water, such as the massive plastic garbage patches now floating in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Chris Ware’s Rejected Cover For Fortune Magazine
Acclaimed-genius comic book artist Chris Ware was commissioned to do the cover for capitalist magazine Fortune’s iconic “Fortune 500″ issue (a list of the 500 top companies). Media Bistro reports that the finished result was rejected; upon inspection with a magnifying glass, it’s easy to see why.
Viewing the hi-res version reveals a multitude of subversive tiny figures including CEO’s dancing a jig on top of the number “500,” China dumping money into the ocean, houses sinking nearby, orange-clad Guantanamo prisoners, and Mexican workers sitting in a “Fabrica de Exploitacion” center. It was all a bit too much for Fortune to handle.
Russia Criminalizes The Writings Of L. Ron Hubbard
From now on in Russia, only outlaws will have Scientology pamphlets, as the writings of L. Ron Hubbard have been criminalized. That’s right, no more free “Are You Stressed?” quizzes in the subway for the people of Moscow. From Yahoo News:
Under a new law empowering the Russian government to ban written work categorized as “extremist materials,” the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has declared that the work of L. Ron Hubbard, the American founder of Scientology, belongs on a list of materials “undermining the traditional spiritual values of the citizens of the Russian Federation.”
The law lays out fines of 3,000 rubles ($100) for anyone in possession of such materials, or a jail term of up to 15 days — with harsher penalties imposed on repeat offenders and/or those with a criminal history.
According to the Moscow Times, 28 Hubbard-penned titles are now on that forbidden-readings list, including such works such as “The Factors, Admiration & the Renaissance of Beingness” and “The Unification Congress. Communication! Freedom and Ability.” The writings were reportedly intercepted by Russian transport officials, who forwarded them to a panel of “psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists” for review…
George W. Bush Book ‘Decision Points’ Out Nov. 9
Even his legion of detractors will probably want to know just what Dubya was thinking (or not) when he decided he knew better and launched America into its first preemptive war. News of his new book, Decision Points from AP:
The publisher of former President George W. Bush’s book “Decision Points” on Sunday set a Nov. 9 release date, unveiled its cover design and announced new details about it.
Bush has said he is not writing a traditional memoir but an account of key decisions in his life. The cover features a photo of then-President Bush alone with his thoughts, standing in the Rose Garden Colonnade, wearing a dark suit and holding a briefing book, his head turned slightly from the camera.
According to Crown Publishers, “Decision Points” will offer “gripping, never-before-heard detail” on such historic events as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the 2000 presidential election along with Bush’s decision to quit…
