Archive for August, 2010
Global Warming: Man or Nature?
Stanton Friedman
Kathy Marden
[disinformation ed.'s note: The following is a chapter from the new book by Stanton T. Friedman & Kathleen Marden, Science Was Wrong: Startling Truths About Cures, Theories, and Inventions, courtesy of New Page Books.]
Rarely has a subject received so much attention as has the notion of “global warming,” especially since the publication of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, the Nobel Peace Prize award received by him and the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2007, and the media hype. If one were to believe the propaganda, CO2 (carbon dioxide) is public enemy number-one. Its increasing production by the world is leading to disastrous consequences, and hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent as soon as possible to reduce the warming and all the damage that will be accompanying it. Use of fossil fuels must be reduced or eliminated. Countries must sign agreements to reduce their emission of carbon…
Ohio Woman Flies Into a Rage Over Lack of McNuggets (Video)
Feed me! Feed me! WTF lady, it’s not even real chicken … The AP via Google News reports:
TOLEDO, Ohio — A security video from a McDonald’s in Ohio shows a woman punching two restaurant employees and smashing a drive-thru window because she couldn’t get Chicken McNuggets.
The tantrum caught on tape in Toledo earlier this year shows the customer reaching through the drive-thru window, slugging one worker and then another. She then grabs a bottle out of her car and tosses it through the glass window before speeding off.
It happened early on New Year’s Day. Police say Melodi Dushane was angry that McNuggets weren’t being served, because it was breakfast time.
String Theory and Black Holes Show Possible Path to Practical Superconductors
The unit cell of high-temperature cuprate superconductor BSCCO-2212
Alasdair Wilkins writes on io9.com:
A leading candidate for room temperature superconductors is the copper compound cuprate, but no one knew how cuprates facilitated superconductivity … until some brave souls looked inside a black hole and broke out the string theory to explain how they work.
Superconductors that can transmit massive amounts of electricity with zero resistance at room temperature are pretty much the holy grail of applied physics (with good reason), but we’re still a long way away from actually building one.
Indeed, even figuring out the theoretical underpinnings of a room temperature superconductor has proven tremendously difficult, although a team of MIT physicists may have found an unlikely — and brilliant — way to learn more about how they would work. But first, a little backstory.
Currently, there are two types of superconductors. One group is the low temperature superconductors, which can only work at…
How The JetBlue Flight Attendant Became An Internet Hero
Why we love the Internet! Story everywhere, but this is from the New York Post:
Move over Chesley Sullenberger, make room for Steven Slater.
The JetBlue flight attendant who went berserk has become an overnight Internet hero to workers everywhere after arguing with a passenger, then escaping down the plane’s inflatable emergency chute at JFK Airport clutching a beer.
A day after the attendant-turned-wing-nut had a meltdown on a flight from Pittsburgh, eight Facebook fan pages have been created overnight in Slater’s name…
Google’s Secret Internal Vision Statement Reveals Struggle With Privacy
Jessica Vascellaro reports for the Wall Street Journal:
A confidential, seven-page Google Inc. “vision statement” shows the information-age giant in a deep round of soul-searching over a basic question: How far should it go in profiting from its crown jewels—the vast trove of data it possesses about people’s activities?
Should it tap more of what it knows about Gmail users? Should it build a vast “trading platform” for buying and selling Web data? Should it let people pay to not see any ads at all?
These and other ideas big and small—the third one was listed under “wacky”—are discussed in the document, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and compiled in late 2008 by Aitan Weinberg, now a senior product manager for interest-based advertising. Along with interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, the vision statement offers a candid, introspective look at Google’s fight to remain at the…
American Politics Gets Weirder Than Ever: Levi Johnston Runs For Mayor
Just when you thought American politics couldn’t get any more ridiculous! People Magazine (where else?!?) has the story:
Some people will do anything for attention – including running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.
The latest hopeful to toss his hat into the ring? None other than reality-star wannabe Levi Johnston, who hopes his campaign will attract viewers to his proposed TV reality show.
Johnston, 20, has paired with the veteran reality firm Stone and Co., already responsible for TLC’s Extreme Food Sculpting, to pitch a Loving Levi: The Road to the Mayor’s Office pilot, the production company confirms to The Hollywood Reporter.
Those will memory loss may need to be reminded that Johnston’s almost mother-in-law, Sarah Palin, was mayor of the small town (pop. 10,000) from 1992-2002, before becoming governor of the state…
Arizona Turns Off Speed Cameras Due to Privacy Complaints; Admits Design to Generate Revenue
Finally, Sammy Hagar can drive in the State of Arizona worry-free (unless he’s wearing that yellow outfit again, he deserves to be pulled over for that).
In all seriousness, I’ve always suspected these cameras were more about making money than any “public safety” concern, and it really looks like the reason for abandonment in Arizona was civil disobedience over ticket payment by a large majority of Arizona’s speedsters. (Although apparently there is an incident of murder reported below.) Alex Spillius writes in the Telegraph:
Arizona has turned off every speed camera on its highways after complaints that they violated privacy and were designed to generate revenue rather than promote road safety.
A spokesman for Jan Brewer, the state’s Republican governor, said she “was uncomfortable with the intrusive nature of the system”, which was inherited from her Democratic predecessor. Opening in October 2008, the scheme was first in the United States to use speed cameras across a whole state. Amid objections of Big Brother-ism, numerous cameras were vandalised, while the operator of a van carrying a mobile camera was shot dead in a lay-by in April 2009.
The 76 cameras took 2.7 million photographs, but only 16 percent of drivers who received a speeding ticket paid up.
The Illustrated Guide To What A Ph.D. Is
Matt Might writes on his blog:
Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is.
It’s hard to describe it in words. So, I use pictures.
Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:
By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little…
Matt Simmons “Apparently” Drowned At His Home Sunday Night
[Notice the word "apparently" in the title]
Matt Simmons “apparently” drowned at his home Sunday night
NORTH HAVEN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) – The Knox County Sheriff’s Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.
Simmons was a leading investment banker for the energy industry and had recently retired to work full time on the new Ocean Energy Institute.
He was a leading proponent of offshore wind power and had started raising money to develop and build offshore turbines.
The news release fails to mention Simmons was the leading proponent of sending a small nuclear bomb down the BP leaking well
Vogue’s Oil Spill Fashion Spread
The centerpiece of this month’s Vogue Italia is a 24-page fashion spread dedicated to the Gulf oil spill — that is, featuring models mimicking dying, oil-covered, beached animals. Nice as it is to see the fashion world engaging in real issues, spending thousands of dollars on a spread to sell luxury items to the rich may not be the most sensitive way of doing so. Via Refinery29:
There’s no denying that these images from the oil spill editorial in Vogue Italia’s August 2010 issue are beautiful. The 24 pages of Kristen McMenamy, shot by Steven Meisel, are realistic interpretations of images of injured, oiled animals that have inundated the news media since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April. As beautiful and provocative as they are, we can’t help but feel uneasy. Creating beauty and glamour out of tragedy seems quite fucked up to us, not to mention wasteful and hypocritical, seeing as…
Over 100 People Strip-Down and Ride For Breast Cancer
Is there a better way to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research than getting a crowd of people to ride a rollercoaster naked? I can’t think of one. More than 200 people showed up in Southend, Essex to ride the Green Scream. As well as breaking a record amount of nude people on a single rollercoaster, £22,000 were raised for the Southend Hospital breast care unit. ITN News:
Tiny Workers Helping To Clean Up Oil Spill
Photo from Heimholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI)
Not only are human workers trying to clean up BP’s oil spill, but bacteria workers are looking at the task as a feast. Alcanivorax bacterium can be found munching on bits of oil, a convenient taste palette to increase the clean up efforts. However, how will the increase of bacteria effect the remaining wildlife? NY Times has the report:
Among the hidden stars of the gulf cleanup is an oil-hungry bacterium that Dr. Seuss could have named — Alcanivorax. It and fellow microbes are breaking down a significant amount of the oil that gushed into the environment from BP’s runaway well, scientists say. The microbial feasting is known as biodegradation.
On Wednesday, a report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said early observations showed that the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill “is biodegrading quickly,” adding that scientists were working to measure how quickly and how…
Obama and the Collective Psychological Meltdown of Fox News
By Jason Easley at Politicususa:
As President Obama’s first term moves along, Fox News is becoming more and more detached from reality. It used to be that FNC would broadcast stories that might have had a small basis in truth, but FNC has mirrored the slow psychological destruction of the Right, until all that remains now are delusions, dreams and conspiracy theories.
Fox News has gotten so desperate to bring down Obama and the Democrats that they are making up absolutely implausible stories. For example, the recent claim on Fox and Friends that Obama and the Democrats are planning a special tax hike just for Red States. Here is the video from Media Matters:
Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy asked…
A New Blockbuster From Washington: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report
Call me a cynic, but somehow I smell a whitewash in the vein of the Warren Commission report and the 9/11 Commission report, and this time the Feds want to charge some serious dollars for hoodwinking the citizenry. From the Washington Post:
The government commission tasked with writing a public report to expose the causes of the financial crisis is keeping the structure of its own publishing deal private.
On Aug. 3, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a presidential body, announced that it had chosen Little, Brown and Co. to publish its final report about the meltdown — an anticipated and authoritative account pieced together by well-known journalist Matt Cooper. It did not mention, however, that the deal had unusual terms for the publication of a public document, including an agreement by Little, Brown to pay an advance to the government and the stipulation that a portion of the proceeds from sales…
Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art
From the very cool Wish You Were Here:
There’s something very fitting about having to locate the Propaganda Poster Art Center by entering a nondescript apartment complex in the old French Concession sector, finding building B, making your way down a hallway and then tromping down stairs to the basement.
There, for your perusal, is a collection of more than 5000 propaganda prints dating from 1949 (and the establishment of the People’s Republic) to 1979, post-Mao, when the posters were destroyed en masse. Luckily, Yang Pei Ming started collecting them, and now he owns and runs this two-room monument to a bygone, mystifying era.
By now, the dominant themes and graphic style of these images is familiar—Mao, workers, battle, Eastern abundance vs. Western oppression, etc.—and there’s no shortage of red ink used, but there’s plenty here you may not have seen before, such as “We must not fight our brother” posters urging a…
Are We In a Recession or Not?
Photo: Fletcher6 (CC)
Matt Taibbi says it depends on whether you’re standing on Wall Street or Main Street, on his blog at Rolling Stone:
“Everyone agrees that the recession is over.” – Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council
“Of course not.” – Outgoing Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer, when asked if the recession was over.
The two senior White House economic advisers made their comments on the same day…
If you’re on Wall Street, and you’ve seen the stock markets recover and the banks go from virtual insolvency two years ago back to record profit numbers now, then like Summers you’ll think “everybody agrees” that the recession is over.
If however you’re just some schmuck looking for a job somewhere outside the Beltway and/or lower Manhattan, and you’re noticing that the only easy job openings this year were temp gig taking census surveys (and even those have dried up), then your view…
The Maxine Waters Investigation: What is Iran Doing in this Picture?
The timing of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which on August 2, 2010 formally brought a case against Congresswoman Maxine Waters, one of America’s most enduring liberal and fierce Anti War politicians, and the WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of Army documents related to the war in Afghanistan may be connected.
Speculation by bloggers, including John Young of Cryptome.com, and an expose at The Intel Hub that the WikiLeaks is part of a disinformation operation, and that the documents themselves could even be fake, should put every left leaning American on Yellow alert.
Fox News wasted no time exploiting the WikiLeaks documents to further vilify Iran, pointing out that the documents indicate the U.S. belief that Iran is arming the Taliban insurgency. This adds another layer to Fox’s steady stream of propaganda that has flowed over the years advocating for an attack on the country, and stands as a reason why…
Obama’s Economic Team Bails As System Fails
In Washington, the Obama economic team has sprung a leak. First, Budget Director Peter Orszag, the calculating numbers savant, bailed. And now, “distinguished” economist Christina Romer, the only woman in that inner circle boys club has quit too. (Would you want to be around Larry Summers all day long?)
Why this crew of losers wasn’t fired eludes me despite their claims of having prevented a worst collapse. No doubt, they know more than they are saying, and, perhaps, now that they are no longer selling, they may be willing to do some telling on just how bad it is and what went wrong.
Who’s next? Could Ben Bernanke be leaving the Fed for Fed-Ex?
Economist Max Wolfe has none of the political restraints of power. At the news of another 131, 000 jobs gone, at all the talk of permanent unemployment as the “new normal,” he sighed with a tinge of optimism:
“We have…
Young Girls Developing Breasts By Age 7 or 8
The question that the media fail to adequately address, even though they love these headlines, is why? My guess is that it must be environmental — something in the food, water or air that our children are exposed to. Other ideas? Report from the LA Times:
Doctors and parents were stunned when research published more than a decade ago found American girls were beginning puberty at much younger ages, some as early as 7. A new study released Sunday suggests the average age at which puberty begins may still be falling for white and Latina girls.
According to the paper, which appears in the journal Pediatrics, almost 25% of African American girls have reached a stage of breast development marking the onset of puberty by age 7, as had almost 15% of Latina girls and more than 10% of white girls.
Those percentages are significantly higher than in 1997, when a landmark study…
