Archive for May, 2010
Juggalos, Media Scares, and the West Memphis 3
Klint Finley writes on Mediapunk:
It’s difficult to estimate the total number of Juggalos. The 2009 Gathering of Juggalos had 20,000 people in attendence. The most recent ICP album sold about 50,000 copies in the first week. But let’s be conservative and go with the 20,000 estimate. (I actually suspect it’s much higher than this.)
Nightline cites only 3 instances of reported Juggalos actually murdering anyone. To be charitable, let’s assume there are 10 people who are both Juggalos and murderers.
That would mean AT MOST .05% of Juggalos are murderers. Granted that’s a significantly higher percentage than the US population at large (there were 16,272 murders in 2008 and the US had a population of about 305 million). But less than 1%, at most, isn’t exactly cause for alarm. And I would think Arizona’s finest would be better served by realizing that 99.94 percent of murders are committed by non-Juggalos and adjusting their law enforcement priorities accordingly.…
Illustration Giant Frank Frazetta (1928–2010)
A giant of 20th Century illustration has sadly passed. The Beat has more about the artist:
Frank Frazetta was born February 9, 1928. His early artistic career consisted of years of exquisitely drawn comics work, including contributions to the EC line of comics, assisting Al Capp on L’il Abner and later drawing several years of the strip, and working with Harvey Kurtzman on Little Annie Fanny.
In the ’60s Frazetta turned to cover paintings for the thriving pulp paperback industry and created one of the most recognizable illustration styles of all times.
His covers for Conan, Tarzan and other rough hewn heroes created a visceral, violent, erotic yet somehow still nuanced visual style that has been endlessly imitated but never surpassed — Frazetta’s imagery of brawny, relentless swordsmen, seductive, fleshy sirens and hellfire breathing monsters had a gut level impact because it came from the gut — his many followers were just tracing without the…
Teens Treat ADHD With Medical Marijuana
The New York Times reports on a, er, teen health trend:
At the Peace in Medicine Healing Center in Sebastopol, the wares on display include dried marijuana — featuring brands like Kryptonite, Voodoo Daddy and Train Wreck — and medicinal cookies arrayed below a sign saying, “Keep Out of Reach of Your Mother.”
The warning tells a story of its own: some of the center’s clients are too young to buy themselves a beer.
Several Bay Area doctors who recommend medical marijuana for their patients said in recent interviews that their client base had expanded to include teenagers with psychiatric conditions including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“It’s not everybody’s medicine, but for some, it can make a profound difference,” said Valerie Corral, a founder of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a patients’ collective in Santa Cruz that has two dozen minors as registered clients.
“How many ways can one say ‘one of the worst ideas…
Did Religion Have an Evolutionary Value?
Even Dawkins sees some value in religion, just not in the present. ScienceBlogs reports:
Richard Dawkins argues that humanity’s historical predisposition towards religion and supernatural beliefs may have held an evolutionary utility. “The rule of thumb: ‘Believe whatever your parents tell you,’ quite clearly could have survival value,” says Dawkins.
10 Years Ago: The Devastating ILOVEYOU Virus
Last week marked the ten-year anniversary of one the most fiendishly successful computer viruses of all time, whose occurrence signaled the rise of spam email. The virus’s incredible spread was based more on psychological than technical skill: the subject line ILOVEYOU and attachment name LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU were what got people. I.e. we found out that people on the internet are lonely. BBC News looks back:
All around the world, security researchers were waking up to the scale of the problem confronting them.
It all started in the Philippines many hours earlier when 24-year-old Onel De Guzman released a virus that he had proposed creating as part of his undergraduate thesis.
Few could resist opening the attachment which kicked off the attack code that then plundered their e-mail address list and sent itself to every name it found. In 2000, many people did not have any security software and even those that did only updated the…
Russian Regional President Says He Has Visited Alien Space Ship
Richard Galpin writes for BBC News:
A Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalmykia, made his claim in a television interview. MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern. He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets.
The MP has written a letter to Mr Medvedev raising a list of his concerns. In his letter he says that – assuming the whole thing was not just a bad joke – it was an historic event and should have been reported to the Kremlin. He also asks if there are official guidelines for what government officials should do if contacted by aliens, especially if those officials have access to state…
High Frequency Terrorism: How the Big Banks and Federal Reserve Maintained Their Death Grip Over the United States
By David DeGraw & Max Keiser, AmpedStatus Report:
The following article is the third-part of a six-part report titled: “The Financial Oligarchy Reigns: Democracy’s Death Spiral From Greece to the United States.” The full report is available here.
III: Financial Terrorism Operations: 9/29/08 & 5/6/10
In the aftermath of Goldman Sachs’ public flogging before the world in Congress, and while under investigation, on the very day that Congress was voting on the “break up the too big to fail banks” amendment and cutting behind the scenes deals to gut the audit of the Federal Reserve, the stock market had its greatest sudden drop in history, plummeting 700 points in ten minutes – shades of September 29, 2008 all over again.
If you recall, back in September ‘08, as Congress was voting down the first bailout, the big banks made the market plunge a record 778 points in one day, fear and panic then led Congress…
Company Says It Has Solution For Gulf Oil Spill, But Being Ignored
Why won’t BP and the U.S. Government consider this solution to the Gulf oil spill disaster?
Roger Ebert Battles Tea Party By Twitter
Roger Ebert. Photo: Ethan Hill/Esquire
Film critic Roger Ebert recently stirred up the debate about video games as art (he says “video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic”), and now he’s done it again, engaging in a Twitter flame war with Tea Party types (report via CNN):
Movie critic and cancer survivor Roger Ebert has run afoul of some proclaimed Tea Party supporters and things turned ugly.
Gawker.com has some of the tweets which document the skirmish. It all started after Ebert took to Twitter last week to comment on a story about five teens who were sent home from their high school after wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.
“Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July,” Ebert tweeted from…
“Democratic War Room” Unleashed For Kagan Supreme Court Nomination
The political venom never flows more strongly than during the confirmation process. Will the Democrats run the table during this process, or is The Huffington Post just playing politics?
Photo: Doc Searls (CC)
In the hours following the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, the predominant feature of the debate has been the swift, campaign-like operation of Washington’s Democratic establishment.
Since President Obama introduced his Solicitor General as the choice to replace retired Justice John Paul Stevens, national airwaves and DC inboxes have been littered with a steady stream of material from Kagan backers.
One party official compared it (favorably) to a presidential campaign war room, with caffeine-aided staffers shooting out “rapid response” messages to Republican attacks and driving narratives either supportive of Kagan or mocking of the GOP.
It has been by design. At the White House, a team of aides overseen by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and run out of the…
Daniel Pinchbeck Interviews Stan Grof (Video)
Reality Sandwich presents a fascinating interview from the new movie 2012: Time For Change:
In this video, the psychologist and author Stanislav Grof. Grof discusses with Daniel how psychedelics helped him create an expanded cartography for the psyche, with a new emphasis on what he calls the “paranatal” and transpersonal consciousness. We need to raise up from our self imposed biological cubicles, that is the next level of consciousness. Evolve to Solve!
The EU Financial Crisis: An Opportunity For Forex Fraud
[disinformation editor's note: We decided to run this article because of recent wild swings in currency exchange rates resulting from turmoil in the financial markets. We recognize that the author is promoting his website but feel that our readers may still value the information.]
Trading in foreign exchange, or forex, has become increasingly popular in recent years for a variety of reasons. The Internet has become the “Great Facilitator”, but has it also spawned another industry, that of forex fraud?
Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a resounding “Yes”. Foreign currency trading is not immune, not by a long shot. Published figures from federal authorities note that forex fraud has increased dramatically, impacting 26,000 individuals to the tune of $460 million over a period of six years, and that was three years ago. With this kind of “music” playing in the background in the shadows, what must a forex trader do?
The secret…
“Space Alien” Tries To Take Over Flight; Bizarre Behavior Continues In Court
From KNTV:
Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) — During his first court appearance, the man who police say caused a SkyWest plane to make an emergency landing asked the judge if he was a “normal person.”
Matthew Kleindorfer, 32 years-old from Las Vegas, seemed unresponsive and confused during Tuesday’s arraignment.
The judge had to read Kleindorfer his rights twice, since he wasn’t sure if he heard him. Kleindorfer is accused of trying to storm the cockpit during Sunday’s flight from Helena, MT to Salt Lake City, UT. He allegedly told flight crews he was a space alien and needed to fly the plane…
Ash Cloud Disrupts Travel for 2nd Day
Just when you thought air traffic was back to normal … I’m headed for Europe this week, and I hope Vulcan will hold his wrath long enough for me to get across. CBC News Reports:
Air traffic to and from European destinations was disrupted by a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland for a second consecutive day Sunday.
The cloud is lingering over northwestern Scotland and a finger stretches into the airspace over northwestern Spain and Portugal.
An isolated cloud is affecting southern France and northern Switzerland, while another hangs over southern Switzerland, northern Italy, southern Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria.
Roughly 1,000 fewer flights took place in European airspace on Sunday, a drop of four per cent from the usual number for this time of year.
Hundreds of flights were canceled Saturday as plumes of ash again blew toward western Europe.
Spain closed 19 airports, while dozens of flights were also canceled in Portugal.
Air traffic…
Argentine Dictator Going To Jail – Is Bush Next?
Charlotte Dennett, author of The People V. Bush: One Lawyer’s Campaign to Bring the President to Justice and the National Grassroots Movement She Encounters Along the Way, writes in Huffington Post of at least one dictator that is going to jail. Guess who she wants to be next…
The growing accountability movement got a major shot in the arm recently when it learned that on April 19, an Argentinian judge sentenced the last of Argentina’s dictators, Reynaldo Bignone, age 83, to 25 years in prison. Bignone’s crime: kidnapping and torturing 56 victims in a concentration camp during the reign of terror known as the “dirty war” that gripped Argentina from 1976-1983. This is huge, surpassing the arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in his hospital bed back in 1998. (Pinochet died before justice could be done). The conviction of a former head of state for crimes he committed while in office sends a powerful message to all those suspected war criminals still on the loose, including some of the top leaders of the Bush administration.
Obama Doesn’t Know How To Use iPod Or Xbox, But Says They Are Bad
Come on Barack, we’d expect this from your precedessor, but not you, young Mr. Change. Story from AFP:
US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.
Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.
“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter,” Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.
“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form…
The BP Oil Spill and American Capitalism
Tom Eley writes on the World Socialist Web Site:
The explosion on the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon on April 20 off Louisiana’s coast, which took the lives of 11 workers and has resulted in a massive oil slick that threatens economic and environmental ruin for the Gulf Coast, stands as a powerful exposure of American capitalism.
Each day brings new revelations that federal regulators under both the Bush and Obama administrations aided and abetted BP and the oil industry as they disregarded safety and environmental precautions that might have prevented the disaster.
Some of the most recent revelations include:
• In 2000 the Minerals Management Service (MMS) requested industry advice on problems related to the cementing used around deep sea well caps to stop blowouts. The oil industry never produced recommendations, and no regulation was put in place.
• A 2002 study conducted by the MMS revealed that vital equipment on oil rig blowout…
Philip K. Dick on “Consensus Reality” and the Multiverse
Another fascinating glimpse into the whirring gears that drove one of our most beloved literary figures.
