Archive for July, 2010
Obama vs Arizona
President Barack Obama, along with the Justice Department, filed a lawsuit against the state of 
Arizona for the passing of an immigration law that would allow the failure of carrying proper documentation subject to arrest. This lawsuit may be taken to court as early as today. Making this the sixth lawsuit against Arizona, many people have argued that the law allows local law enforcement to hassle citizens based on racial profiling.
Arizona has argued, and fine-tuned the law, to emphasize the fact that officers will not perform random spot checks, but will enforce the law once someone has brought attention to themselves because of another law-breaking action. This questions if “reasonable doubt” could easily be jaywalking, broken tail light, etc. Although this law has been widely contested throughout the country, according to Los Angeles Times, Arizona has already received $120,000 in private donations throughout the nation,to defend the law. In President…
Woman Lived With Embalmed Corpses Of Husband, Sister
Meet a charming 91-year-old Pennsylvania woman who lived with the embalmed corpses of her beloved husband and twin sister for more than a decade. She’d dug them up and brought them back into the house soon after burial. Creepy, yes, but also heartbreaking — part of me says, “What the hell, why can’t we let her keep them?”
Will Stoners Save the Democrats?
Why not? From New York Magazine:
Democratic voters are not nearly as enthusiastic as Republican voters this year, probably because the former are generally somewhat content with the way things are going, while the latter fancy themselves modern-day revolutionaries tasked with saving the nation from certain destruction, perhaps with the help of zombie George Washington. But what if there were something that could spark the interest (the pun will become apparent shortly) of Democratic voters as much as socialist Kenyan debt-fetishists excite Republicans? Obviously, there is nothing that young, liberal voters love more than the thought of legalized marijuana, and luckily for Democrats, it could be on the ballot in up to six states this November.
According to a couple of political thinkers, Democratic-leaning voters who wouldn’t really care about participating in congressional or gubernatorial elections this year might haul their lazy asses to the voting booth if they can help decriminalize marijuana, in the…
The Game-Changing Colombian Narco-Sub
Chris Kraul reports from Bogota, Colombia, for the Los Angeles Times:
Police in Ecuador seized a 100-foot submarine being built by suspected drug traffickers capable of carrying a crew of six and 10 tons of cocaine on underwater voyages lasting up to 10 days — a “game changer” for U.S. anti-drug and border security efforts, officials said Monday.
A raid Friday by 120 police officers and soldiers netted the fiberglass sub as it was nearing completion in a clandestine “industrial complex”…
UK Government Monitoring Citizens’ Conversations
Here we go again – despite the new coalition government promising to roll back the world’s most aggressive surveillance state laws, the Telegraph reports that a controversial covert surveillance system that records the public’s conversations is being used in Britain:
The technology, called Sigard, monitors movements and speech to detect signs of threatening behaviour. Its designers claim the system can anticipate anti-social behaviour and violence by analysing the information picked up its sensors.
They say alerts are then sent to police, nightclub bouncers or shop security staff, which allow them to nip trouble in the bud before arguments spiral into violence. The devices are designed to distinguish between distress calls, threatening behaviour and general shouting.
The system, produced by Sound Intelligence, is being used in Dutch prisons, city centres and Amsterdam’s Central Rail Station. Coventry City Council is funding a pilot project which has for six months and has installed seven devices in the…
Forget Filling Cavities: Regrow Your Teeth Instead
Source: LearnAnatomy (CC)
By Kim Evans for Natural News:
If you’ve got a cavity, maybe you want to try regrowing your own teeth before heading for a filling. Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves and although it isn’t commonly known, we can regrow our teeth too. In fact, regrowing our teeth is highly preferable to having them filled because most fillings these days either contain mercury (a known toxin that damages the brain and nervous system) or are estrogenic (white fillings release estrogen and contribute to hormonal problems.)
Besides, regrowing your teeth is simple. You’ll just need two things: comfrey root and organic eggshells. Eggshells are used because they contain 27 minerals and loads of calcium, so they contain the ideal building materials to regrow your teeth. In fact, the composition of eggshells is very similar to the composition of our teeth and bones. Comfrey root is used because it accelerates bone, teeth…
Would Benjamin Franklin Be A Blogger?
A biographer of Benjamin Franklin fielded an interesting question at a Smithsonian Institution symposium. If he were alive today, would Ben Franklin be a blogger?
Walter Isaacson, once Time magazine’s managing editor and the CEO of CNN, ultimately answered with an affirmation of today’s decentralized media. “All the way through [America's] life as a country, you have low barriers of entry to the technology of information… For a very brief period in our country’s history, approximately from 1940 to the year 2000, you have a concentration of media where it’s a higher barrier to entry… Then the internet blows all that away.” He notes that in New Orleans there’s one monopoly newspaper, but “there’s probably a thousand bloggers, all attacking the mayor of New Orleans at any given moment!”
He concludes that Franklin would have a very thoughtful web site – though the frugal founding father might also be tempted to put his…
Cash-Strapped U.S. Police Departments Turn to More Marijuana Busts
Via Fox News:
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, his budget under pressure in a weak economy, has laid off staff, reduced patrols and even released jail inmates. But there’s one mission on which he’s spending more than in recent years: pot busts, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The reason is simple: If the California lawman steps up his pursuit of marijuana growers, his department is eligible for roughly half a million dollars a year in federal anti-drug funding, helping save some jobs. The majority of the funding would have to be used to fight pot. Marijuana may not be the county’s most pressing crime problem, the sheriff says, but “it’s where the money is.”
Washington has long allocated funds to help localities fight crime, influencing their priorities in the process. Today’s local budget squeezes are enhancing this effect, and the result is particularly striking in California, where many residents take a benign view…
World Cup Replica Made of Cocaine Found in Colombia
BBC News reports:
A replica World Cup trophy seized by anti-drugs police in Colombia is made out of cocaine, lab tests have confirmed. The 36cm (14in) statue was found in a delivery crate at Bogota airport.
The crate was in an airmail warehouse waiting to be sent to an address in Spain, airport anti-drug chief Jose Piedrahita said. In another development, a submarine built by drug-traffickers was found in Ecuador before its maiden voyage.
The World Cup replica was made up of 11kg (24 lb) of the drug, mixed with acetone or gasoline to make it mouldable.
How I Met Trent Reznor on Ecstasy at the Charles Manson murder house
Imagine taking ecstasy at the site of the Charles Manson murders — with Timothy Leary — and then meeting Trent Reznor, Anthony Kiedas (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), and Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers. “With the ecstasy coming on, the entire L.A. media world started to seem like a serene and glittery playground filled with happy children playing grownup and I settled into a comfort zone. The world was a friendly place. Relatively speaking, of course.”
Until they saw a handwritten sign that said “COME IN HERE TO BE KILLED”….
The former editor of Mondo 2000 magazine remembers partying at the former Manson murder house in 1992. Behind the door, he reports, were “Seventeen Illuminati figures, including Marilyn Monroe, George H.W. Bush, David Bowie and The Penguin, all in black robes, huddled over Britney Spears, laying in the center of a Pentagram while Reznor raised his blade.
“OK. I just made that up.…
The Propaganda of Charles Krauthammer
With his usual precision and sharpness, Glenn Greenwald has dissected the latest disinformation coming out of the Washington Post’s editorial pages. This time its Charles Krauthammer, back with more of his indignant flavored right-wing talking points. Krauthammer has again misled his readers by hiding the root causes of terrorism and instead makes an effort to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment. From Salon.com:
It’s anything but news that Charles Kruathammer is a rank propagandist, but his column today is particularly egregious, though quite illustrative of how these issues are discussed. He lambastes the Obama administration for what he calls its “absurd and embarrassing refusal . . . to acknowledge who out there is trying to kill Americans and why.” Krauthammer — needless to say and for reasons too obvious to require explanation — wants to claim that the True Cause of Terrorism is “radical Islam” by itself, and thus accuses the administration of…
Defeating The New World Order and Creating a New Society That Allows Capitalists and Communists to Live Together in Peace After Establishing a New Constitution
The bureaucracy, inefficiency, waste, national debt, loss of states’ rights, erosion of individual rights, my experience in the public schools, and the military interventionism of our government caused me to become a libertarian capitalist, until recently. In my younger, college days, I was very concerned about poverty and world hunger. My parents were quite alarmed when I told them I was a democratic socialist. I also believed that a democratic, world federal government would abolish the foolish wars that result from national rivalry. My favorite expression was from Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Years later, my concern about environmental degradation motivated me to attend the first national conference of the Green Movement in 1987. [1] Six people from Indiana attended, and I was one of them.
So whether it is the result of being wishy-washy or seeing the limitations of various political…
Forgotten Verses From “This Land is Your Land”
In 2005, I published a book with Disinformation called 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed To Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism.
Hope you like what you read, for more about me, please check out my blog at www.mickeyz.net.
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If you were to open your mouth and belt out the words “this land is your land,” you could rest assured that someone nearby would add: “this land is my land.” The chorus to Woody Guthrie’s 1940 classic is common knowledge … as are the first couple of verses.
But it isn’t until you get to the later verses — the verses often omitted from official versions — that you start comprehendin’ what good ol’ Woody (1912–1967) had in mind:
As I was walkin’ I saw a sign there
And that sign said “No tresspassin’”
But on the other side, it didn’t say nothin’
Now that side was made for you and me
In the squares of the city / In the…
Trent Reznor On The Facebook Movie. “It’s Really Fucking Good. And Dark!”
MC Siegler’s take on the Facebook movie, at TechCrunch:
I’ve never been quite sure what to make of the upcoming Facebook movie, The Social Network. On one hand, the talent behind the camera is pretty amazing. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin (of West Wing, and A Few Good Men fame). And it’s being directed by David Fincher (of Fight Club and Seven fame). On the other hand, it’s a movie about Facebook. And the trailer is a bit cheesy. But some news today may have put me over the edge towards being very intrigued by it.
As he announces on the official Nine Inch Nails site, Trent Reznor will be doing the score for the film. It seems as if there’s entirely too much talent behind this movie now for it to fail — or at least, for it to be awful.
Writes Reznor:
I was planning on taking some time off after the continual waves of…
The Man Who Would Be the Dot-XXX King
Interesting profile of the man who’s application for the .xxx domain extension has got the porn industry seeing red, in Business Week:
The Internet has made Stuart Lawley a wealthy man. In 1999 he got rich by taking a British Internet service provider public. The London Sunday Times has named him one of the 1,000 richest people in Britain.
Now he’s poised to make his next fortune selling Internet addresses to pornographers. Late last month the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an international body that manages Web addresses around the world, gave preliminary approval for Lawley’s application to be the sole registry of Internet domains that end in dot-xxx.
If Lawley’s bid is approved—ICANN’s next board meeting is in December—he says his company, ICM Registry, stands to bring in $200 million a year selling Web addresses at $60 a pop. That’s six times the going rate for dot-com and dot-net addresses,…
Mel Gibson’s Racist Rant Caught On Tape
Mel Gibson's mugshot from his 28 July 2006 arrest for DUI.
It’s no secret that Mel Gibson is a racist and anti-semite, if admittedly a decent actor and filmmaker. The question is, why does he keep flaunting it in public? Is it an Aussie macho thing? From RadarOnline.com:
In one of the most explosive, racist and vile outbursts by a celebrity ever caught on tape, Mel Gibson told the mother of his love child that the way she was dressed would get her “raped by a pack of n***ers,” RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.
It’s a shocking and blockbuster development in the couple’s bitter legal battle, and Mel’s disgusting words are on audio tape. His racist, misogynist statement is one of the secrets lurking in his war with his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.
RadarOnline.com has heard the tape, which also includes Mel telling Oksana he will burn down her home.
Drunken Mel previously shocked the world…
The Land Where Your Unwanted CDs Go to Die
Thank the gods that someone found a use for all those “1000 HOURS FREE!” AOL discs I received in the ’90s in the mail. Kyle VanHemert writes on Gizmodo:
CDSea is the work of artist Bruce Munro, who put out the call for unused CDs only a few weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, they poured in by the thousands. But the work was inspired by a moment almost three decades ago, when Munro was in Sydney, Australia.
Bringing Zoo Animals Back To Life
Photo: Male and female drill
The San Diego zoo and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California have joined together to conduct research on reproducing rare animals. The frozen stems cells, in theory, will allow a basis to create sperm and eggs in order to create a reproduction. Paul Aldhous of New Science magazine goes into detail:
“At the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in San Francisco last week, Inbar Friedrich Ben-Nun and Jeanne Loring of Scripps described how they have created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from the frozen skin cells of a deceased male drill (Madrillus Ieucophaeus) an endangered monkey found in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea.
The team’s long-term goal is to coax iPS cells into becoming sperm and eggs. They will be making iPS cells from tissue held by San Diego zoo’s Frozen Zoo project – which has samples from some 8400 individuals representing…
