Archive for June, 2010
Wrong By Design: Why Our Brains Are Fooled by Illusions (Photos)
Discover Magazine reports:
Neuroscientists usually explain color illusions in mechanistic terms. Beau Lotto says that misses the point: We misperceive colors and shapes because our visual sense has been molded by evolutionary history.
In the above image, all the blue dots are the same brightness.
Read More: Discover Magazine
FAA Under Pressure to Open U.S. Skies to Unmanned Spyplanes
Photo: Ross D. Franklin
Joan Lowy writes on the AP via Yahoo News:
Unmanned aircraft have proved their usefulness and reliability in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the pressure’s on to allow them in the skies over the United States.
The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry out civilian and law-enforcement functions but has been hesitant to act.
Officials are worried that they might plow into airliners, cargo planes and corporate jets that zoom around at high altitudes, or helicopters and hot air balloons that fly as low as a few hundred feet off the ground.
On top of that, these pilotless aircraft come in a variety of sizes. Some are as big as a small airliner, others the size of a backpack. The tiniest are small enough to fly through a house window.
The obvious risks have not deterred the…
Black Budgets and Secret Aircraft on The Black Fridays
The Black Fridays Episode 24 — Michael Schratt
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
The Black Fridays welcomes Michael Schratt to the show. Michael is a researcher following the world of secret aircraft and black budgets. We invited him on to talk about some of the things we have been hearing about since we have been exploring the world of Ufology on the show, especially Stanton Friedman’s “Nuclear Aircraft.” Michael laid down some unexpected bombshells on us thought, so he has to come back! We hope you enjoy!
Here is link for a video taped interview with Michael:
We Are Change LA Member Jailed for “Involuntary Facial Expressions”
Bruno Bruhwilher
Your support is needed at wacla.org and www.free-bruno.org.
WeAreChangeLA’s lead organizer Bruno Bruhwiler is being targeted as a terrorist threat. It all began when Bruno was sitting in the audience at a civil hearing for another WACLA member. The Judge literally did not like Bruno’s involuntary facial expressions, and ordered him out of the courtroom.
He was detained in the hall after asking to see the officers’ ID cards before he left the building. They are required according to their own manual to provide ID upon request, but apparently don’t like to be asked for it. When the supervising officer ordered Bruno to turn around and put his hands behind his back, Bruno instantly turned around and put his hands behind his back with absolutely no resistance.
At first he was supposedly being detained for trespassing (which is a misdemeanor) but of course, you can’t trespass on public property so then they…
Two Minutes Hate: Working Class Politics, History, Culture
The ISO Dutifully Joins "The Left" in Reformist Protest Politics
Nick Pell at the Red Star Times:
Just wanted to do a quick roundup before the weekend comes. Things have been hectic around RST central as I gear up to move and begin work on my book. Still, there’s a few things I just have to make time for.
There’s the small matter of the continuing oil spill uncontrolled hemorrhage, for which no one has, nor will they ever be, arrested and tried for crimes against humanity.
The unions continue their attacks on workers while the Chinese working class continues to prove that it is at the vanguard of struggle against the fake left, capitalism and imperialism. And Red Star Times’s favorite fake left sect the International Socialist Organization gears up for their annual love-in with the Democratic Party, its radical hangers-on and vaguely left-of-center celebrities, ironically named “Socialism 2010.”
Read the Full Article at Red Star…
Nuclear Physicist Describes Vast UFO Cover-Up
Photo taken aboard the Brazilian ship Almirante Saldanha on Jan. 16, 1958 (Courtesy of Stanton Friedman).
Lee Speigel writes on AOL News:
“Some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft, and this is the biggest story of the millennium.” These words are not the rantings of a deranged individual looking for attention or a comfortable straitjacket. Stanton Friedman is a maverick of sorts.
Employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for companies like General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse and Aerojet General Nucleonics, he worked on highly classified programs involving nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets.
In 1958, UFOs caught his attention, and Friedman has since lectured about this subject at more than 700 colleges and professional groups in all 50 states and around the world.
“After 53 years of investigation, I’m convinced we’re dealing here with a cosmic Watergate,” he told AOL News. “That means a few people within major governments have known since at…
Evolver the Podcast: Episode #2
On this episode of Evolver the Podcast we have three interviews. The first is with Jennifer Palmer, the news editor for Reality Sandwich and the community director for Evolver.net. We talked about what exactly Evolver is, a number of things we have accomplished, and directions that we hope to be headed.
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Next we Interviewed Tony Damico from Evolver Long Beach. We talked about some of the amazing things that Tony has going on with his community in Long Beach. One of the things we talked about is the Time Bank that they just started down there. We also have a song from Tony’s conscious hip hop group called Sun Dream. What they are doing down in Evolver Long Beach is very inspiring stuff. Last we have an interview with Richard Smoley. Richard has recently re-released his book called The Essential Nostradamus. Richard is one of the most distinguished authorities on the mystical and esoteric teachings of Western civilization. The interview is conducted by Jonathan Phillips who is one of the co-founders of Evolver. Jonathan also has a strong background in Gnosticism and conscious media. Jonathan will be helping with the podcasts from now on conducting interviews. |
I loved doing this episode and we have changed the format a lot from the first. I think that you all will enjoy listening. Remember it’s our world to change.
This Summer’s Most Exciting Reality TV Show: The War
Via the First Church of Mutterhals:
I had a brilliant idea this morning. I was watching The Today Show, as I just love a good train wreck, and for once I actually saw a story of legitimate merit. Richard Engel, he of the god-sized balls and really one of the few journalists worth a shit, was on the ground in Afghanistan while US troops fought off Taliban fighters a mere hundred yards away. It was a bloody and hard fought battle, littered with bodies and spent bullet casings. Just the way I like to start my day.
So here’s my grand idea. Let’s get some more big balled mothers on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, not armed with weapons, but with cameras. Let’s have a live feed of each and every battle that goes on, and let’s play the best hour of carnage in primetime, and let’s make it mandatory viewing…
Building Up The Immune System — In Plastic
Ira Flatow reports on NPR’s Science Friday Podcast:
Researchers have made plastic nanoparticles that can partially mimic the behavior of natural antibodies in the bloodstream of a living animal. Writing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they describe their experiment, in which they treated lab mice with synthetic polymer ‘antibodies’ to the compound melittin, the main toxin in bee venom. Antibody-treated mice had higher rates of survival than non-treated mice when injected with the melittin toxin.
Image, Above Right: Plastic antibodies, such as this cluster of particles viewed under a powerful microscope, may fight a wide range of human diseases, including viral infections and allergies. Credit: Kenneth Shea.
‘Sanity is Slavery’ Fights Psychiatric Abuse Through Music
For this past year machineKUNT Records (home to Experiment Haywire, Trimetrick, Lady Parasyte, Syrenn etc.) are hard at work on the “Sanity is Slavery” compilation to fight against psychiatric abuse through music.
This is a 2 digipack CD compilation which also includes a digital bonus disc. 10% of proceeds are going to MindFreedom International which is an organization dedicated to mental health rights. The compilation features 48 diverse (mostly unreleased) tracks from artists across the globe including Attrition, Hanin Elias, Leæther Strip, amGod, Pzychobitch, and Trimetrick. It is mastered by Kolja Trelle of Soman.
machineKUNT is currently giving away packages to anybody who pre-orders the compilation as they count down the last days of their Kickstarter fund. With everything from paintings made specifically for the cause to customized songs by Experiment Haywire and Society Burning to customized photoshoots of machineKUNT models to professional remixes by De-Tached to rare Attrition posters there are 14 different packages available to everyone who helps machineKUNT reach their Kickstarter goal.
The Crusextraction of the Earth
Robert Singer writes:
During the various stages of the energy extraction process, the globe of the earth suffers limitless pain at the area where the drilling occurs. It is gradually being depressurized and cooled internally, causing cycles of constriction, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation and searing pain as they use large drills to puncture pericardium and into the heart, sometimes as deep as 10,000 feet.
As the serum gets sucked from the sediment pores, the surrounding rocks shift positions to fill the newly vacated spaces, causing unbearable agony as the earth automatically contracts in size and goes badly out of shape resulting in a deep crushing pain.
“I Thirst.” “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.”(Psalm 22:15)
Then another agony begins when millions of barrels of vital bodily fluids are produced. This causes deep, crushing pain as the sac surrounding the bowels of the earth slowly fills with hydrocarbon soil and begins to compress the tectonic plates causing (shock) mini-seismic earthquakes.
“Kill Switch” Would Give Obama Power To Turn Off The Internet
Why doe it seem like it’s always Joe Lieberman who thinks of these great ideas? From the Sydney Morning Herald:
US President Barack Obama would be granted powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet under a new bill that describes the global internet as a US “national asset.”
The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency.
Titled “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act,” the bill stipulates any internet firms and providers must “immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed” by a new section of the US Department of Homeland Security, dubbed the “National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications.”
Lobby group TechAmerica told ZDNet it worried that the bill would give the US “absolute power” over the internet…
Coming Soon: The Bollywood Hitler Movie
Dear Friend Hitler is a lighthearted Bollywood romp, presumably filled with dancing, based on “Hitler’s love for India and how he indirectly contributed to Indian independence.” Anupam Kher and Neha Dhupia star as Hitler and Eva Braun (although Kher just quit, following the public controversy). The Guardian reports:
Western productions have occasionally attempted to make fun of Hitler, ranging from successes like The Producers to fiascos like Heil Honey, I’m Home. But Dear Friend Hitler is not a traditional Bollywood musical, and makes no claim to comedy. “It aims to capture the personality of Adolf Hitler and his insecurities, his charisma and his paranoia during the last few days of his life,” Kumar says. In other words, this is Downfall – but with a positive spin.
Seventh Graders Find A Cave On Mars
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
From PhysOrg.com:
California middle school students using the camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter have found lava tubes with one pit that appears to be a skylight to a cave.
They went looking for lava tubes on Mars — and found what may be a hole in the roof of a Martian cave.
The 16 students in Dennis Mitchell’s 7th-grade science class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California, chose to study lava tubes, a common volcanic feature on Earth and Mars. It was their class project for the Mars Student Imaging Program (MSIP), a component of ASU’s Mars Education Program, which is run out of the Mars Space Flight Facility on the Tempe campus.
The imaging program involves upper elementary to college students in Mars research by having them develop a geological question about Mars to answer. Then the students actually command a Mars-orbiting camera to take an image to answer their…
A To Z Of Sexual History: W = Wet Dream
From VICE:
A wet dream is basically a freebie: a gift from the orgasm fairy. After all, what could be better than waking up in the night from the sheer force of ejaculation? However, in earlier eras, rather than being the sexual equivalent of a surprise party, they were considered the work of the devil, who squeezed out your semen in a fight for your soul.
There is a Sin Scale, with gangbanging grannies somewhere near the top, and having the occasional wank in the more forgivable spectrum. However, religious folk have always struggled to know where to place the wet dream; there is no act of volition and they are seemingly random. The majority of times I have woken cumming in my sleep I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about, so wouldn’t take kindly to being held responsible for whatever cornucopia of filth was in my sleeping head.
Nonetheless, the…
250,000 Oil Spills in U.S. Waters, 1971-2000
From Care2:
A document produced by the U.S. Coast guard is titled, “Pollution Incidents In and Around US Water, A Spill Release Compendium, 1969-2000“.
Their document states between 1971 and 2000, the U.S. Coast Guard identified more than 250,000 oil spills in U.S. waters. The total amount of oil spilled by these incidents was 6.18 million barrels, or 259,560,000 gallons (a barrel is 42 gallons according to the same document).
One of the fascinating statements from the report: “The number of spills increased in the last decade due to better reporting of spills less than 100 gallons.” The truth though, is the number of spills did not increase so much as the number of spills reported increased. In other words, because of the improvements in reporting, more spills were documented. However, this fact also implies there were probably even more spills occurring in the previous period, but they simply were not documented, because…
Tracking The ‘Evolution’ Of Nanoparticles As They Decontaminate Groundwater
Kurt Pfitzer reports that engineers are usimg advanced imaging techniques to examine bimetallic materials that have remediated more than 50 toxic waste sites, for PhysOrg.com:
Iron nanoparticles 1,000 times thinner than a human hair have demonstrated an unprecedented ability to clean contaminated groundwater since they were invented 10 years ago at Lehigh.
The palladium-coated particles have remediated more than 50 toxic waste sites in the U.S. and other countries in one-tenth the time, and at a much greater economy of scale, than traditional “pump and treat” methods.
Now, thanks to Lehigh’s unrivaled electron microscopy and spectroscopy facilities, researchers have gained unmatched insights that could improve the efficiency and extend the applications
of the powerful nanoparticles.The researchers used scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS) to capture, for the first time, the evolution in the nanostructure of the bimetallic particles as they remove contaminants in water.
The advanced imaging instruments at Lehigh…
Why Is Washington Failing To Bring Criminal Cases On Wall Street?
Has someone persuaded the Obama administration to go easy on the Wall Street banksters? As the Washington Post points out, very few criminal actions are proceeding:
Since taking office at the height of the financial crisis, President Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reinforced that message in November when he vowed to prosecute Wall Street executives and others responsible for the crisis.
“We will be relentless in our investigation of corporate and financial wrongdoing, and we will not hesitate to bring charges,” Holder said as he launched a financial fraud task force.
His Justice Department took steps to fulfill that promise this week when it arrested the former chairman of one of the nation’s biggest mortgage firms — the largest crisis-related criminal case — and announced that 1,215 people have been charged with mortgage fraud since March 1. But that success masks the…
Mass. Police Using Biometric Facial Recognition iPhone App
The unstoppable iPhone: I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that even the cops are taking advantage of it’s amazing array of apps. Story from the Daily Mail:
Police in the US are using an iPhone app to take photos of suspects and instantly compares them with a criminal database.
The app employs biometric information such as facial recognition software to help police identify suspects within seconds.
Known as MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System), the system lets police officers take a photo of a suspect, upload it into a secure network where it is then analysed.
The system itself has been around for a number of years but this is the first time the iPhone’s unique combination of easy interface and high-end capability have been used by the police in this way.
If a biometric match is made, the identity, photo and background information about the suspect is transmitted back to the police officer’s…
