Archive for June, 2010
Barack Obama: The Movie
Obama The Menteng Kid book cover
President Barack Obama spent four years of his childhood life living in Indonesia. He attended Primary School 1 in the Menteng district of Jakarta, where they referred to him as Barry.
Much of Indonesia still think of Obama as that ambitious child who someday wanted to be a president. Moved from the Menteng park to Primary School 1, there stands a seven foot statue of Obama as a 10-year old boy holding a butterfly.
His success has been materialized throughout Jakarta as an inspiration. Screenings have begun in Jakata of the new film Obama The Menteng Kid, due to be released on July 1.
The film is based on a book which explores a fictionalised portrayal of President Obama’s life from 1967 to 1971 when he was living in Indonesia. Obama is portrayed by Hasan Farooq Ali, 14, who told the BBC how the film helped him to…
McCollum, Time Travel and Murder: An Interview/Review
Aaron McCollum’s story is one that will either leave you believing him insane, a liar, the greatest government whistleblower of all time, or some combination of the three. Initially, in conversation with him, I confessed my belief to him that I thought he might even be a liar, a statement about which he seemed remarkably understanding, if of course in disagreement. But having heard him out, I feel satisfied concluding that he really does believe most if not all of what he’s saying, and that he’s thus either insane or exposing some horribly evil government action. His is a story full of outlandish facts that purport to expose hyper-illicit genetic modification, political assassination, contact with extraterrestrials, and time travel.
The Aaron McCollum Project Camelot Interview
After telling a colleague in the news media about hearing out this account, the colleague expressed amazement that I even had the patience to listen to Aaron McCollum…
Porn Is Apocalyptic
On porn and the end of the world:
The spread of porn is somewhat akin to Global Warming – both evidence that we are mistreating the Earth, but also has the potential to totally transform our behavior for the better. Porn is evidence that we’re being totally careless with our sexuality, but taboo-breaking could be useful if we don’t devolve completely. I’m not entirely optimistic about our chances.
The trouble with porn is that it is currently forbidden. Even though people decry the mainstreaming of porn – Jenna Jameson on Oprah – the mainstreaming is as senseless as any other cultural artifact. Jenna Jameson shows you can make a lot of money in porn and there’s even some glamor in it, but the real porn story is how this trickles down to everyone else. Just as people debase themselves eating cockroaches on “Fear Factor” to get 15 minutes of fame, porn is bringing…
Lying And Spying: The Economy Is Sinking, Confidence Is Down Along With The Market – Is A Depression Coming?
The FBI arrests 1200 Americans for mortgage fraud in the largest crackdown of its kind in history. There is no media focus on the companies that securitized and insured their toxic loans. This white-collar crime sweep is, at best, a one-day story with most of the reports carried by local outlets.
Clearly the FBI did not get the media punch it had hoped for. The issue of financial industry fraud did not even register on the media’s Richter scale.
Two weeks later, the FBI tried again, this time with an ill-timed, years in the making bust of 11 alleged Russian spies accused, so it seems, of impersonating Americans with no sign that they carried out successful espionage missions.
The story grew legs, in several senses, after it was discovered that one of the “spies” posted sexy pictures of herself on Facebook and other sites.
Ooo la-la: Predictably, she has now become the story; No…
Debunking the Myths of Global Climate Change
The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin is plugging a new climate change report, Debunking the Myths of Global Climate Change on his NYT blog. It’s interesting but so far as I can tell doesn’t address the views of those who question the whole concept of man-made climate change at all. Thoughts? Here’s Revkin’s post:
The Energy Collective is a valuable aggregator of views on one of the prime challenges of our time — how to provide the energy required to foster a smooth path beyond “peak us” while cutting the risks of economic turmoil, resource conflicts or disruptive climate change. In a fresh post, Darrene Hackler summarizes conclusions from a new report she wrote with Robert D. Atkinson (they both hail from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit research group) that rebuts 10 prominent strategies for avoiding dangerous human-driven climate change.
Their report, “ Debunking the Myths of Global Climate Change,” will challenge…
Vote For Pamela Gorman Or Get Shot
The message of this television spot for Pamela Gorman, running for a seat in Arizona’s state congress, seems to be, “Vote for me, or I’ll shoot you.” It actually seems like an imitation of militia/Al-Qaeda training videos, but with more puns thrown in — she has my vote.
Petty Criminals Unite! Subway Fare-Jumpers In Paris Form Insurance Fund
As someone oppressed by the ever-expanding ticket prices of New York’s corruptly-run MTA subway system, I find this example of criminal ingenuity inspiring: turnstile hoppers in Paris have formed an insurance fund so that whenever one of them is caught by the police, their fine/expenses are fully covered.
“It’s a way to resist together,” declared Gildas, 30, a leader of the mutuelle movement. “We can make solidarity.”
“There are things in France which are supposed to be free — schools, health. So why not transportation?” he said. “It’s not a question of money…. It’s a political question.”
The fare dodgers who jump the turnstiles or sneak in through exit barriers on the Paris Metro are practically as much a fixture of the city as the subway itself.
Those who get caught without a proper ticket, though, face fines of up to $60. So what’s a poor freeloader to do?
For about $8.50 a month, those…
Investigating Economic Organized Crime
The economic crisis needs to be investigated using RICO laws used against organized crime, says Danny Schechter, author and director of Plunder: The Crime of Our Time. Wall Street made billions off mortgage fraud, and all the busts of mortgage lenders in the world won’t get the real culprits.
Schechter joins GRITtv’s Laura Flanders in studio to talk about the unreported story of the economic crisis, which continues to haunt millions of Americans, and which Paul Krugman recently referred to as the third depression.
Anna Chapman: Internet Sensation
Assuming none of these Russian spying charges stick (apparently no actual secrets were sent to Russia), Anna Chapman seems likely to profit massively – one envisions her own reality TV show, K-Mart fashion line, and all the other trappings of instant tabloid fame. Some thoughts from Jeff Stein in the Washington Post:
“Act naturally,” the Russians tell their espionage trainees before dispatching them to America.
Boy, did she.
Anna Chapman cut a wide swath in New York even before her arrest on charges of spying for Mother Russia, judging by the sultry shots and videos suddenly popping up everywhere, starting with her own Facebook page…
WTF: U.S. Government Can Dictate Americans’ Diet?
Senator Coburn presses Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on the limits of the government’s power under the commerce clause.
Two Strikes For South Korea’s Space Launch
South Korea’s second space launch attempt proved unsuccessful when a rocket exploded just after lift-off. World Politics Review interviewed the Center of New American Security Fellow, Abe Denmark, about some of the progress and problems South Korea’s space program has had:
WPR: What is the current state of South Korea’s space program?
Abe Denmark: To date, the ROK’s satellite development program has been rather successful. Its National Space Program, most recently updated in 2005, calls for an ambitious program including the development of 13 satellites by 2010 and the ability to lift a 1.5 ton satellite into low-earth orbit (LEO) by 2015. South Korea’s first indigenously produced satellite, KOMPSAT-1, was launched in 1999 aboard a Russian-produced rocket. Since then, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has launched several advanced communications, imaging, and weather satellites.
In contrast to its satellite program, the ROK’s rocket program has been to date a disappointment. South Korea is largely dependent…
Would You Blow It Up Bill?
Since the oil spill in April, the Gulf of Mexico has witnessed numerous accounts of failed attempts to stop the oil from gushing into the water. With BP’s constant efforts to find a new solution to blocking the well, it is best to see how other nations have dealt with similar instances in the past. Bill Clinton spoke with Wolf Blitzer about the use of explosives to seal the well. This stems from the success that Russia has seen with the use of nuclear weapons to deal with gas well fires, as Jeremy Hsu of Live Science points out:
“The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily…
The IMPACTS Concept: A New Way to View Human Society and Human Civilization
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics rules the universe. We like to think we are immune from it—that we live and exist in a “special” place—but we don’t. On second thought, we might live in a special place in the universe but we are not immune from the 2nd Law, no matter where we are. Everything that happens is doing so against that backdrop—or perhaps because of that backdrop. The 2nd Law says that concentrated energy will disperse (break down) if not hindered from doing so. Entropy is the state of the disorder that follows.
Within that 2nd Law reality, there appear to be 2 major forces with opposite ways of reacting to, or dealing with, the 2nd Law. The male force, represented by the proton, is pulling inward, trying to accumulate all that it can. A black hole at the middle of a galaxy might be the ultimate expression of male energy. It appears that the…
Nikola Tesla – Mad Electricity
“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”
- Nikola Tesla, 1929
Choosing Healthy Foods Now Called A Mental Disorder
By Mike Adams for Natural News:
In its never-ending attempt to fabricate “mental disorders” out of every human activity, the psychiatric industry is now pushing the most ridiculous disease they’ve invented yet: Healthy eating disorder.
This is no joke: If you focus on eating healthy foods, you’re “mentally diseased” and probably need some sort of chemical treatment involving powerful psychotropic drugs. The Guardian newspaper reports, “Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder” and goes on to claim this “disease” is called orthorexia nervosa — which is basically just Latin for “nervous about correct eating.”
But they can’t just called it “nervous healthy eating disorder” because that doesn’t sound like they know what they’re talking about. So they translate it into Latin where it sounds smart (even though it isn’t). That’s where most disease names come from: Doctors just describe the symptoms they see with a name like osteoporosis (which means…
How To Uncover CIA Spies
Nick Baumann and Daniel Schulman tell how human rights advocates investigating torture ended up snooping on the CIA—and in hot water with the feds, in Mother Jones:
The CIA probably doesn’t want you to know this, but unmasking its covert operatives isn’t as hard as you’d think. Just ask John Sifton. During a six-year stint at Human Rights Watch, the attorney and investigator was hot on the trail of the CIA and some of its most sensitive Bush-era counterterrorism programs, including extraordinary rendition, secret Eastern European detention sites, and the legally dubious and brutal methods used to extract information from detainees. “Even deep-cover CIA officers are real people, with mortgages and credit reports,” Sifton once told CQ Politics. For researchers with a trained eye for the hallmarks of a CIA alias, there are obvious giveaways: “A brand new Social Security number, a single P.O. box in Reston, Virginia. You disregard those…
Zeus Strikes Parthenon With Lightning Bolt
OK, the headline’s a little over the top, but what a photo, from the Daily Mail/AP:
It looks like a narrow escape for one of mankind’s most ancient symbols.
A bolt of lightning illuminates the sky around the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple, high on the Acropolis during a heavy rainfall in Athens early this morning.
Fortunately, the temple is believed to have escaped any damage.
[story continues in the Daily Mail/AP]
No “Kill Switch” in Lieberman-Collins Bill, But There’s Been One Since 1934
Via ReadWriteWeb:
It doesn’t sound like a “kill switch.” The bill would require the President to submit a report describing, among other things, “The actions necessary to preserve the reliable operation and mitigate the consequences of the potential disruption of covered critical infrastructure” (pg. 84 lines 1-4). That sounds like the opposite of a kill switch: this legislation describes a process by which the president is expected to take action to ensure access to “critical infrastructure” -including the Internet.
There’s plenty of room to debate the merits of the federal government dictating the security policies of private companies, the ability of the president to continually extend any provisions beyond 30 days, the value of establishing new cyber security departments within the government, and the vagueness of the language in the bill. But this is nothing nearly so radical as some are making it out to be.
In fact, as Senate Committee on Homeland…
