Archive for June, 2010
The World Health Organization (The WHO) is Accused of Hyping Swine Flu, Favoring Drug Firms and Costing European Governments Millions
WHAT? I can’t believe it. Corporations, in this case, Big Pharma, gave advice to governmental bodies that wasn’t in the best interest of the public, it was more about making money. Listen up World Health Organization (WHO) — you have one of the best acronyms EVER to describe what we, as a public need to do, We … “WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN!” Rob Stein writes in the Washington Post:
European criticism of the World Health Organization’s handling of the H1N1 pandemic intensified Friday with the release of two reports that accused the agency of exaggerating the threat posed by the virus and failing to disclose possible influence by the pharmaceutical industry on its recommendations for how countries should respond.
The WHO’s response caused widespread, unnecessary fear and prompted countries around the world to waste millions of dollars, according to one report.
At the same time, the Geneva-based arm of the United Nations relied on advice from experts with ties to drug makers in developing the guidelines it used to encourage countries to stockpile millions of doses of antiviral medications, according to the second report.
The reports outlined the drumbeat of criticism that has arisen, primarily in Europe, of how the world’s leading health organization responded to the first influenza pandemic in more than four decades.
Einstein’s Brain Unlocks Some Mysteries Of The Mind
By Jon Hamilton for NPR:
In the 55 years since Albert Einstein’s death, many scientists have tried to figure out what made him so smart.
But no one tried harder than a pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who lost his job and his reputation in a quest to unlock the secrets of Einstein’s genius. Harvey never found the answer. But through an unlikely sequence of events, his search helped transform our understanding of how the brain works.
In The Name Of Science
How that happened is a bizarre story that involves a dead genius, a stolen brain, a rogue scientist and a crazy idea that turned out not to be so crazy.
The genius, Einstein, died April 18, 1955, at Princeton Hospital in Princeton, N.J. Within hours, the quiet town was swarming with reporters and scientific luminaries, and people who simply wanted to be near the great man one last time, says Michael Paterniti, a writer…
Russia’s Scientists: Toxic Rain From Oil Spill Will Ravage America
Russia’s top scientists have informed their president that they expect toxic rain from the Gulf oil spill to destroy the eastern coast of the United States. They also believe that BP’s use of a chemical dispersal agent at the spill site is hiding just how bad the spill really is. Er, here’s hoping they’re wrong? From the EU Times:
A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.
Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over…
Americans, You Have the Worst Quality of Life in the Developed World — By a Wide Margin
Photo: BrokenSphere (CC)
Lance Freeman writes on Escape From America Magazine:
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world — by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home. I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this, you are the only people in the developed…
2010 World Cup Good Luck Charm: Smoking Vulture Brains
One of the hottest 2010 World Cup South Africa items is vulture brains. Soccer gamblers smoke the brains in order to bring good luck to their teams of choice. Plus, smoking vulture brains is as pleasant, smooth and mellow as a filtered cigarette at sunset. The U.K.’s Metro notes:
Conservationists believe the growth of ‘muti’ magic in South Africa ahead of the World Cup has seen a surge in poaching of Cape vultures, already at risk from lack of food and poisoning.
‘The harvesting of the bird’s heads by followers of muti magic is an additional threat these birds can’t endure,’ said Mark Anderson, of BirdLife South Africa.
Steve McKean, from KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, who has been studying the decline of vultures due to muti magic, said: ‘Our research suggests that killing of vultures for so-called “traditional” use could render the Cape vulture extinct in some parts of South Africa within half a century.
…
Can We Make a Less Brain Damaging Internet?
Via Mediapunk:
If you haven’t heard, information technology iconoclast Nicholas Carr has a new book coming up called The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The basic case he makes is this: the Internet is altering our brains and making our thinking wider but more shallow.
Carr makes a compelling case, and it’s time for web professionals to start thinking about how we can fix the problem.
Carr lays out his argument in a new piece in the Wall Street Journal. He’s also made the case in this Wired article
The WSJ is also running Clay Shirkey’s response to Carr – or actually, they may have just asked him whether the Internet was making us stupid, because Shirkey’s piece doesn’t seem to specifically address Carr’s arguments and it doesn’t mention Carr at all…
Portland Police Provocation at Anarchist Coffee Shop
From Nick Pell at Red Star Times.
For those who have far better things to worry about, a recap: Recently, at a worker-owned Portland anarchist cafe, Red And Black, a police officer was asked to leave by a co-owner. A local blogger was outraged (enough so to revisit the subject), the insipid Portland hipster yuppie press picks it up and the national media has a field day yukking it up over the bizarre notion that some people don’t think cops are acceptable in polite company.
Meanwhile, no one (except Infoshop News in their roundabout, “let’s pretend we’re trying to be objective to avoid the political fight” identity politics-laden “anarchist” sort of way) asks the crucial question: Why is a police officer going into an anarchist cafe in the first place?
The Revolution that the Divine Mother is Preparing
Andrew Harvey
At the end of his life, the great Indian mystic Aurobindo is said to have said, “If there is to be a future, it will wear the crown of feminine design.” Unless we awaken to the mystery of the sacred feminine, of the feminine as sacred, and allow it to glow into, irradiate, illumine, and penetrate every area of our activity and to create in them all harmony, justice, peace, love, ecstasy, and balance, we will die out and take nature, or a large part of it, with us. Unless we come to know what the sacred feminine really is—its subtlety and flexibility, but also its extraordinarily ruthless, radical power of dissolving all structures and dogmas, all prisons in which we have sought so passionately to imprison ourselves—we will be taken in by patriarchal projections of it. The Divine Mother, the fullness of the revolution that she is preparing,…
Bilderberg 2010: Between The Sword And The Wall
The Catalan police are refreshingly friendly. But if the time for action comes, the Guardian’s Charlie Skelton asks whose side will they be on:
The enormous bald detective in beach shorts took the camera from my wife. “Let me see.” He scrolled through the photographs, just taken, of me being detained at the campsite gates. He scrolled past, to see a photo of a limousine convoy, whooshing up the hill to Bilderberg. “I don’t like this,” he said, and waved a huge, disgruntled hand towards the conference hotel.
Map of countries by the number of politicians, which have attended one or more conferences organized by the Bilderberg Group.
“Do you know how much this is costing?” asked Hannah. “Do you think the Spanish economy can afford all this?” Grimly, the enormous bald detective started deleting images of his comrades with his giant thumb. “Your opinion,” he growled, “is right.”
He handed the camera back…
Why Beatrix Potter Would Love The Kindle
Kindle 2. Photo: Jon 'ShakataGaNai' Davis (CC)
Here’s an interesting blog post about why Beatrix Potter “would love the Kindle”. In 1906 she’d actually tried creating her own, new non-book format for delivering her famous fairy tales.
“Intended for babies and tots, the story was originally published on a strip of paper that was folded into a wallet, closed with a flap, and tied with a ribbon. The format was unpopular with booksellers and within a few years of the book’s release it was reprinted in the standard small book format of the Peter Rabbit library…”
This article includes a link to actual images from one of Potter’s strange wallet-sized stories – “The Story of A Fierce, Bad Rabbit” – plus an image showing you exactly what Beatrix Potter thinks “a fierce, bad rabbit” would look like! And there’s also a celebration of the fact that there’s now finally illustrated versions for the…
Henning Mankell ’s Flotilla Raid Diary: ‘A Man Is Shot. I Am Seeing It Happen’
Henning Mankell , the prize-winning writer and creator of Wallander was among those on board the Gaza flotilla. He shares his private diary of the events leading to his capture, for the Guardian:
Tuesday 25 May, Nice
It is five o’clock in the morning and I’m standing in the street waiting for the taxi that will take me to the airport in Nice. It’s the first time in ages E and I have had some time off together. Initially we thought we’d be able to stretch it to two weeks. It turned out to be five days. Ship to Gaza finally seems to be ready to set off and I’m to travel to Cyprus to join it, as arranged.
As instructed, I’ve limited my luggage to a rucksack weighing no more than 10 kilos. Ship to Gaza has a clearly defined goal: to break Israel’s illegal blockade. After the war a year ago,…
Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Faces On Mural Be Changed To White
Artists Pamela J. Smith and R.E. Wall, also the project's director, sit in front of their “Go on Green” mural on Wednesday outside Miller Valley Elementary School in Prescott. Source: AZcentral.com
Thanks to long-time disinfo-friend Richard Luckett for sending this gem our way, from AZCentral.com via Wonkette.com:
A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school.
The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity. But the school’s principal says the request was only to fix shading and had nothing to do with political pressure.
The “Go on Green” mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.
R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he…
The War in Afghanistan Reaches New Milestone: Longest War in U.S. History, Surpasses the Vietnam War
As the Afghanistan War replaces the Vietnam War as the longest war in U.S. history, Brave New Foundation and TrueMajority today called on President Obama and Congress to ensure a responsible troop withdrawal from Afghanistan complete no later than December 2011. Brave New Foundation and TrueMajority released a new video marking the milestone featuring leading experts, including: former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, Malou Innocent of the CATO Institute, author Tom Hayden and historian Christian Appy speaking to the Vietnamization of Afghanistan and to the staggering cost to Americans totaling almost $300 billion and over 1,000 American lives.
As of Monday, June 7, 2010, the U.S. will have been in Afghanistan for 104 months, more than eight-and-a half years, surpassing the war in Vietnam. In his December 2009 West Point speech, President Obama announced a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan would begin in July 2011. However, he set no end date, leaving open the possibility that U.S. combat troops could remain there indefinitely.
The call for a firm withdrawal end-date comes as Congress debates spending another $33 billion on troop escalation in Afghanistan.
NASA Scientists Discover Evidence ‘That Alien Life Exists’ on Saturn’s Moon Titan
Artist's impression of a mirror-smooth lake on Titan's surface. Credit: NASA
Andrew Hough writes in the Telegraph:
Researchers at the space agency believe they have discovered vital clues that appeared to indicate that primitive aliens could be living on the planet.
Data from Nasa’s Cassini probe has analysed the complex chemistry on the surface of Titan, which experts say is the only moon around the planet to have a dense atmosphere.
They have discovered that life forms have been breathing in the planet’s atmosphere and also feeding on its surface’s fuel. Astronomers claim the moon is generally too cold to support even liquid water on its surface.
The research has been detailed in two separate studies.
The first paper, in the journal Icarus, shows that hydrogen gas flowing throughout the planet’s atmosphere disappeared at the surface. This suggested that alien forms could in fact breathe. The second paper, in the Journal of Geophysical Research, concluded that…
India’s Castes: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Count?
Jason Overdorf reports that for the first time in 80 years India may get a true tally of an ancient system, in Globalpost:
NEW DELHI, India — The 2,000-year-old Hindu caste system remains the most powerful force in Indian society.
Friendships, business ties and marriages live and die according to its dictates. Political parties carefully script their election tickets according to its mathematics. And an increasing number of government policies — including spiraling quotas for government jobs and university education — follow its logic.
But it’s not polite to talk about it, and might even be dangerous to quantify it…
Christopher Hitchens: ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Gay’
Christopher Hitchens tells Deborah Solomon why, for her New York Times Magazine column:
Solomon: What did you mean to suggest by including the detail about your long-ago flings with two men who became part of Margaret Thatcher’s administration?
Hitchens: There are still people who want to criminalize homosexuality one way or another, and I thought it might be useful if more heterosexual men admitted that they are a little bit gay, as is everyone, and that homosexuality is a form of love and not just sex.
Solomon: Not everyone is “a little bit gay,” as you say. Do you think your basic sexual confusion underlies your political confusions?
Hitchens: No, I wouldn’t call it confusion. I’d call it a punctuated consistency. I argue in the book that my principles were the same throughout…
[continues in the New York Times Magazine]
Two Minutes Hate: Spill, Baby, Spill
Nick Pell at Red Star Times writes:
How many of you have woken up over the last couple weeks and almost immediately thought: damn, the world is in the toilet? Me too. The last month or so has been perhaps one of the most horrible times I have ever experienced, with the beginning of the Iraq War being one of the few things that even comes close.
Whether or not it’s a Chinese curse, the adage about living in “interesting times” becomes more and more apt with each passing week. Despite how awful things are, there seems to be a lingering scent of resistance in the air. I concede that this could entirely be wish-fulfillment and solipsism on my part, but it seems as if things could explode at any second.
Explosions in and of themselves go nowhere, however. A political analysis and direction is necessary to make an explosion travel in the right direction.…
A Polaroid Camera That Captures Your Aura
The Polaroid AuraCam 6000 was designed in the 1970s and does something done by no other camera: it captures its subjects’ psychic auras on film. Carlo Van de Roer got a hold of the rare device and took a series of photos.
Michael Jordan’s Hitler ‘Stache Raising A Fuhrer (Video)
David Griner writes on AdFreak:
That new Michael Jordan campaign for Hanes, really does have people buzzing, though it’s not Jordan’s “lie-flat collar” that they’re fixated on. Viewers instead seem to be stupefied by his attempt to bring back the “Hitler mustache,” which has pretty soundly been out of fashion since, you know, Hitler.
Technically called a “toothbrush mustache,” this facial styling was actually quite popular in the 1920s, and still makes the occasional appearance on the faces of foul-tempered tyrants like Robert Mugabe and J. Jonah Jameson. Maybe Jordan feels he simply transcends the clear cultural need to avoid looking like history’s most vile psychopath. Maybe he’s on a quest to reclaim a symbolic styling of the industrial working class, and a mediocre underwear ad seemed like the right forum.
Or maybe the copywriters simply loved the irony of mocking some poor guy’s “bacon neck” while the star of the ad blatantly sports a damn Hitler ’stache.
