Archive for July, 2010
Jesus Thwarts An Armed Robbery (Video)
In all fairness to the Good Lord’s superpowers, this convert to Christ did go on to rob another store the same day. I wonder how he’d hold up against Darth Vader, who recently robbed a bank in Long Island. Via the AP:
Authorities in South Florida have charged the man they say backed out of robbing a MetroPCS store after an employee spoke with him about Jesus. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that 37-year-old Israel Camacho of Coral Springs later committed an armed robbery caught on surveillance video at a Payless ShoeSource.
Investigators say Camacho entered a Metro PCS store in Pompano Beach last Friday, chatting with an employee and then displaying a gun and demanding cash from the register. The employee, Nayara Goncalves, spoke with Camacho about church and God and eventually convinced him not to hurt her.
Authorities say he robbed the Payless ShoeSource a few hours later. He has been charged with armed robbery and attempted armed robbery.
U.S. Is 16th For Web Speed (Behind Latvia), But #3 For Botnets!
Some Eastern European countries enjoy a higher average internet speed than the U.S., according to the new “State of the Internet” report by Akamai. South Korea has the fastest average speed — 12 Mbps — followed by Hong Kong, Japan, Romania, and then Latvia! The U.S. is in 16th place, with an average speed of 4.7 Mbps, though one technology site suggests it’s “the result of the U.S. having so many rural and remote areas compared to South Korea.”
Akamai’s full report is behind a register wall, but it also identified the top countries for “attack traffic” — Russia, the U.S., and China — but “given the population of the three countries, it’s likely they simply house more computers which have been hijacked for botnets.” Still, you can probably blame U.S.-based Microsoft for a lot of the problems. The top compromised port? 445 — the main port for carrying data through Windows’…
In Case Anything Happens To WikiLeaks … They Have Posted A Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File
The plot thickens … Excellent story from Kim Zetter on the always interesting WIRED’s Threat Level:
In the wake of strong U.S. government statements condemning WikiLeaks’ recent publishing of 77,000 Afghan War documents, the secret-spilling site has posted a mysterious encrypted file labeled “insurance.”
The huge file, posted on the Afghan War page at the WikiLeaks site, is 1.4 GB and is encrypted with AES256. The file’s size dwarfs the size of all the other files on the page combined. The file has also been posted on a torrent download site as well.
WikiLeaks, on Sunday, posted several files containing the 77,000 Afghan war documents in a single “dump” file and in several other files containing versions of the documents in various searchable formats.
Cryptome, a separate secret-spilling site, has speculated that the file may have been posted as insurance in case something happens to the WikiLeaks website or to the organization’s founder, Julian…
Watch What a Legal Pot Economy Looks Like (Video)
Haik Hoisington writes on Alternet:
This fall Californians will go the polls with a chance to make history. They will be able to cast a vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. California’s Proposition 19 is one of many similar initiatives cropping up on state ballots across the country.
Whether it’s calls for decriminalization or medical marijuana the end of cannabis prohibition has never seemed closer. In this short animated parable, “The Flower,” award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed.
Mel Gibson Wants You (So Long As…)
Mel Gibson's mugshot from his 28 July 2006 arrest for DUI.
Sharon Waxman, one of Hollywood’s insider journalists, proves it’s open season on Mel Gibson-bashing with her sarcastic comments on Herr Gibson’s search for interns in her WaxWords blog at The Wrap:
It’s apparently business as usual for Mel Gibson over at Icon Productions, where they are advertising for a passel of interns for the fall.
United Talent Agency’s latest insider Hollywood job list has a posting that advertises for “positive, hardworking” young folks who have a “team based attitude.” They can apply to work (no money, as per usual) around the production company team that brought you “Apocalypto,” “Passion of the Christ” and the as-yet unproduced Mel-as-Psychopath audio tapes.
Unwritten but presumed: Jews, blacks and Russian women need not apply.
Here’s the notice, but honestly I’d lock up your children first:
Icon Productions (PUSH, APOCALYPTO, BRAVEHEART) seeks fall interns.
Interns learn the ins and outs of…
Beyond The Valley Of The Whales
Whale skeleton at Wadi Al-Hitan. Photo:Volker Scherl
BBC News reports on an unlikely location for massive whale fossils: the Sahara desert in Egypt:
Its name in Arabic is Wadi Hitan but it is known as the Valley of the Whales.
For years archaeologists have been unearthing a remarkable collection of whale fossils, all the more surprising because the area is now inland desert in upper Egypt.
It is believed that about 40 million years ago the area was submerged in water, part of the Tethys Sea. As the sea retreated north to the Mediterranean it left a series of unique rock formations and also a cornucopia of fossils.
One of the most exceptional finds was a 37 million-year-old whale from the species Basilosaurus Isis, unearthed by a team led by Prof Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan in the United States.
But now it has become the subject of a bizarre customs wrangle at Cairo airport.
Prof…
Very Early Warning: 1-in-1,000 Chance of Asteroid Impact in 2182
Ian O’Neill writes on Discovery News:
This isn’t an urgent call to arms, but it’s certainly a future date to consider. In the year 2182 — 172 years time — there’s the possibility that we might be hit by an asteroid with potential to cause some significant global turmoil.
This long-distance forecast could help mankind determine whether asteroid deflection techniques are warranted, especially when given nearly two centuries of lead time.
The not-so-romantically named (101955) 1999 RQ36 — discovered in 1999 — measures approximately 510 meters in diameter and is classified as an Apollo asteroid. Apollo asteroids pose a threat to our planet as they routinely cross Earth’s orbit.
With a one-in-a-thousand chance of 1999 RQ36 hitting Earth — with half of this probability indicating a 2182 impact — the threat might not sound too acute.
But compare this with the panic that ensued with the discovery of 99942 Apophis in 2004. Initially, it was…
Charlie Rangel Must Die To Purge Congress Of Sin
Charles Rangel must die, politically that is. He has become an embarrassment to a House Speaker who vowed to “clean the swamp” of Congressional corruption. It took him 80 years but Harlem’s war-hero turned Congressional elder, Charles Rangel, is this week’s media poster boy for all the ills of an institutionally corrupt system.
He must be purged so that honesty can be seen to prevail in an institution that only enjoys a 22% approval rating. Oh, the damage he’s done to the “reputation” of the House. How dare him lie on his rental application–a crime, which if enforced widely—would indict half of his fellow New Yorkers. And never mind, no one is talking of indicting his landlord who winked at the transgression. Remember, wherever there are takers, there are also givers.
So, Charlie must die. He had stuffed his Merc in the wrong parking lot. He has violated every sense of propriety…
Katie Couric Gets ‘Tapped’ – The Bottled Water Debate
Is bottled water bad for the environment? Katie Couric talks to Stephanie Soechtig, director of the disinformation documentary Tapped, and Joe Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association.
Google & CIA Invest Together To Predict The Future
Noah Schachtman reveals yet another confluence of public and private intelligence gathering, for Wired:
The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future.
The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”
The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down…
Inception: Lucid Dreaming Goes Mainstream
I just went to see the biggest movie in America, Warner Bros.’ Leonardo DiCaprio summer smash, Inception. Surprisingly it really revived, for me at least, the notion that Hollywood can still make truly interesting, challenging films — one of the first since The Matrix. Lucid Dreaming is generally relegated to New Age backwaters with most people probably unaware even of the term, let alone what it refers to, but director Christopher “Batman” Nolan has changed that in no uncertain terms.
Robert Waggoner, author of the book Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, has written an excellent analysis of the movie for Reality Sandwich:
Inception raises many fascinating questions that experienced lucid dreamers (those who become consciously aware of dreaming while in the dream state) have wrestled with for decades:
- If you become consciously aware of dreaming, can you lucidly enter another’s dream, or bring them into your dream?
- If they share unknown information with you,…
Get Entangled With Graham Hancock
Were our Stone Age ancestors stoned? Do we have alien DNA? Can a plant allow us to see dead people? These are questions Hancock addresses in his nonfiction books. From the author whose book was credited as the inspiration for the film 2012, Hancock’s first fiction novel, Entangled, continues to question the mysteries of our minds and our lost ancient past.
Graham Hancock is an international bestselling author, who has sold over five million copies of his books to readers across the world. Scottish born, Hancock graduated from Durham University in 1973, with First Class Honors in Sociology. His writing career began as a journalist for several English newspapers, including the Independent, Times, Guardian, as well as co-editor for the New Internationalist magazine.
His shift to books began in the early ’80s with travel-based books such as Journey Through Pakistan, Under Ethiopian Skies, Ethiopia: The Challenge of Hunger, and AIDS: The Deadly Epidemic.
A…
Grave Mistake at Arlington National Cemetery Could Be Over 6,000
The most disciplined organization in our government seems to have the least organized cemetery. With more and more records being lost or found incorrect, and graves left without tombstones, the number of burial errors has risen from hundreds to thousands at Arlington National Cemetery. The Associated Press reports:
Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, as the cemetery’s former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster.
John Metzler, who ran the historic military burial ground for 19 years, said he accepts “full responsibility” for the problems.
But he also denied some of the findings by Army investigators and suggested cemetery employees and poor technology were to blame for remains that may have been misidentified or misplaced. He said the system used to track grave sites relied…
Russian Court Bans YouTube Website
Russia joins the company of Turkey, China, Pakistan and Iran, in banning YouTube. After an “extremist” nationalist video appeared on the website, a Russian court ordered YouTube to be blocked within the Khabarovsk region. The Guardian reports:
Russia’s blogosphere reacted with anger today after a regional court banned YouTube because it carried a single video containing “extremist” content.
The court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Khabarovsk region in the Russian far east ordered Rosnet, a local internet provider, to block YouTube as well as three online libraries and a website that archives deleted web pages.
The regional ban was made because YouTube hosted Russia For Russians, an ultra-nationalist video which was added to the justice ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials after a separate court decision in Samara region in November.
The other four sites – Web.archives.org, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru – all carried copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Anton Nosik, Russia’s leading internet guru, condemned the…
U.S. Army Report: Crime, Prescription Drug Use Makes Soldiers ‘More Dangerous Than the Enemy’
The content of the report is not as shocking as its source: the U.S. Army itself. ABC News investigates:
After nine years of war, the U.S. Army is showing signs of stress because of repeated deployments and inadequate support for soldiers when they return, according to a blunt internal report released today. It blasts the Army’s leadership for failing to recognize the problem.
The figures in recent years are staggering.
The number of soldiers committing suicide has increased since 2004, surpassing civilian rates in 2008. Use of prescription drugs has tripled in the past five years; prescription amphetamines use has doubled between 2006 and 2009. One third of soldiers take at least one prescription drug and 14 percent of soldiers are on some form of powerful painkiller.
Crime is rising every year as well. Each year has seen an increase of 5,000 misdemeanors over the previous year, meaning soldiers are expected to commit around 55,000…
A Free Buffet To Beat Whole Foods
The LA Times profiles Christopher Nyerges, founder of the School of Self-Reliance and an expert on how to survive on food he finds in the urban wild:
Nyerges, who has been teaching for more than 30 years, says that it isn’t uncommon for hard-core survivalists to take his class, as well as people with end-of-the-world-related fears. “There have been individuals who have been seriously upset about things over the years. During Y2K they were petrified; now I get a lot of that with the 2012 baloney,” he says, referring to what some believe is the Mayan calendar’s end date.
“I tell people that society is not going to change, only the individual can change and that’s the source of calm that comes from true self-reliance,” he continues. “I’m convinced I will never go hungry, I’ll never be homeless, I’ll never be broke…
Beepers to Protect Children From Sexual Predators
South Korea has taken steps toward keeping their children safe from sexual predators. Each child was given a beeper with a GPS device installed. After atrocious attacks on minors, the government has decided to equip children with these beepers in order to warn police of any danger. The beepers will also activate surveillance cameras. An interesting use of technology as police protection, but how do you remind your child to remember his/her rape beeper every morning? The Himalayan Times reports:
Some 1,200 elementary school children in Anyang City, south of Seoul, will receive the beepers in a test run from October.
Authorities will then consider adopting the system nationwide, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said.
Each child will be able to use their matchbox-sized beeper, fitted with GPS (global positioning device) technology, to activate any nearby cameras and alert parents and police via mobile phone.
The government has strengthened monitoring of elementary schools…
Alan Moore’s ‘Unearthing’
Leave it to Alan Moore, subject of the disinformation documentary The Mindscape of Alan Moore, to go against the grain with his latest project, a tribute of sorts to another British comics pioneer, the unrelated Steve Moore. David Itzkoff interviewed Moore for the New York Times:
Typically, the appearance of Alan Moore’s name on a comic book has been a harbinger of heady, consequential writing inside: a promise of mighty champions empowered through mystical or superscientific methods and whose conflicts would challenge the reader’s perceptions of heroism and humanity.
So perhaps the first indication that “Unearthing,” a new work by Mr. Moore, is not typical of his pioneering graphic novels, like “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta,” is that its subject is not a costumed adventurer, but a friend and fellow comics writer named Steve Moore, who inspired him to enter the business.
The second sign is that “Unearthing” is not a comic book at all, but a lengthy spoken-word recording accompanied by an atmospheric musical soundtrack and a book of photographs…
Baby Chaps: Eco-Friendly Diaper-less Baby Clothes
Source: Passed Ports blog
From the Passed Ports blog:
All over China little babies and toddlers are running around with their bums hanging out. It’s kind of hilarious. From Lhasa to Chengdu to Beijing, many people simply don’t use diapers at all. But, if you put an untrained, diaperless kid in regular clothes, there’s going to be a mess. So the solution? Tiny baby crotchless chaps.
The littlest babies have a one-sie version: imagine a long bib, with strings that tie around the waist, and strings hanging down from the bottom corners which tie around the thighs. From the back it’s nothing but strings. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of these.
It is socially acceptable for babies and toddlers then just do their business whenever/wherever they need to, so long as they are outside. However there comes a point when it is not so cute. Some might argue that when kids achieve a certain…
