Archive for September, 2010
All Drugs Have Been Legal in Portugal Since 2001: Did Decriminalization Work?
Interesting article in TIME from last year. Maia Szalavitz writes:
Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It’s not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled “coffee shops,” Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don’t enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal’s drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal’s new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a…
Images Released Of North Korean Heir Kim Jong Un
New images have been captured of Kim Jong Un, the son of Kim Jong Il, and the new heir in North Korea. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The first public images of Kim Jong Un as an adult, released Thursday by North Korean state media, showed the son of dictator Kim Jong Il bearing a striking resemblance to his father and grandfather, putting to rest one of the biggest mysteries about the nation’s heir apparent—what he looks like today.
The younger Kim, believed to be 26 or 27 years old, stood out in sea of older faces in video images and a photo of top North Korean officials taken Tuesday at a meeting of more than 1,000 representatives of the ruling Workers’ Party.
[continues at The Wall Street Journal]
Via Associated Press:
Obesity In Children Caused By Common Cold Virus
Photo: Walter Siegmund (CC)
Nothing to do with eating too many high-fructose corn syrup-laden foods and gallons of sugary drinks, of course! Hard to believe this is a serious story, but here it is from Discovery News:
Childhood obesity is not only an epidemic, it may be an infectious disease transmitted by a common cold virus, a new study suggests.
Children exposed to adenovirus-36 were more likely to be obese than were children who had no evidence of infection, according to a study published online Sept. 20 in Pediatrics. The new study is the latest to link the virus to obesity in people. Recent studies of Korean children and both American and Italian adults have shown that obese people are more likely to have antibodies against the virus — a sign of a prior infection — than normal-weight people are.
Adenoviruses are some of the many viruses responsible for causing colds and stomach ailments…
Dimensional Shift with Graham Hancock & Alex Grey
Reality Sandwich invites you to embark on a five-day transformative journey into the mystical realms of tomorrow at our RS Fall Retreat, Dimensional Shift. Explore, discuss, and manifest new dimensions of possibilities with visionary artists and Cosm co-founders Alex and Allyson Grey, renowned “Fingerprints of the Gods” author and “Inter-dimensional Indiana Jones” Graham Hancock, “Heaven’s Mirror” photographer Santha Faila, RS publisher and digital democracy pioneer Ken Jordan, Evolver.net director and Bioenergetic healer Jonathan Talat Phillips, and RS creative director and Universus artist Michael Robinson. Mitch Shultz, director of “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” will host a special screening and Q&A about the film; sculpture artist Harlan Emil Gruber will have us soaking up the “evolving energies” and sacred geometry of the Earth with his Sapphire Portal, and Scott Whitaker will spin electrifying dance beats with his mobile, solar-powered DJ booth and art installation, The Solar Saucer. Also featuring Evolver SF’s yogini Regina Gelfo and…
Cannabis Rx: Cutting Through the Misinformation
Andrew Weil, MD gives a nice plug for the classic disinformation anthology Under The Influence: The Disinformation Guide to Drugs in this post about the medical benefits of marijuana for the Huffington Post:
If an American doctor of the late 19th century stepped into a time warp and emerged in 2010, he would be shocked by the multitude of pharmaceuticals that today’s physicians use. But as he pondered this array (and wondered, as I do, whether most are really necessary), he would soon notice an equally surprising omission, and exclaim, “Where’s my Cannabis indica?”
No wonder — the poor fellow would feel nearly helpless without it. In his day, labor pains, asthma, nervous disorders and even colicky babies were treated with a fluid extract of Cannabis indica, also known as “Indian hemp.” (Cannabis is generally seen as having three species — sativa, indica and ruderalis — but crossbreeding is common, especially between sativa and indica.) At least…
Las Vegas Hotel Accidentally Produces “Death Ray”
A hotel in the Las Vegas desert was built with a super-reflective, concave exterior that concentrates sunlight to create an unintentional “death ray.” People lounging outside have complained of burning, singed hair, and the feeling of being cooked alive. Just more proof that Vegas is evil.
Las Vegas resorts have long vied to be known as the hottest place in town. But that’s not such a great distinction for Vdara, a 10-month-old Strip hotel-condo where a “death ray” of strong Nevada sunlight reflects off the concave, all-glass facade and onto sections of the pool deck throughout the day.
Chicago attorney Bill Pintas felt its power firsthand after returning to his lounge chair after a swim last week. “It felt like I had a chemical burn. I couldn’t imagine why my head was burning,” said Pintas, who owns a condo in the 57-story building. “Within 30 seconds, the back of my legs and…
Video From A Homemade Spacecraft
Did you know that it was this cheap and easy to build and launch your own spacecraft? One New York resident went ahead and did it. Video from a camera attached to a weather balloon that rose into the upper stratosphere and recorded the blackness of space.
Jon Stewart’s False “Moderation”
Mark Engler at Dissent writes:
Back in December 2007, I was visiting my home state of Iowa. The presidential primary season was in full flower. It seemed like you couldn’t make a run to the supermarket without bumping into Hillary. My brothers and I joked with a neighbor (perhaps the strongest Biden supporter in the precinct) that the future vice president had been so ingratiating that we expected to see him come over soon to personally shovel the snow off her sidewalk.
That month, I went out to see both John Edwards and Barack Obama stump. Obama gave a solid speech, but he was far less specific and unrelenting in taking on corporate power than Edwards. Instead, Obama stuffed his speech with a lot of filler. He savored lines such as, “I don’t want to be president of Red State America or Blue State America. I want to be president of the United…
Recipe For Disaster? India Divides Sacred Site Between Muslims and Hindus
I almost hate to say it, but is this the next Jerusalem? From the Wall Street Journal:
NEW DELHI—An Indian court ruled Thursday that a sacred site claimed by both Hindus and Muslims should be divided, in a complex decision that will test whether India has moved beyond the violent religious passions that bedeviled the nation in the 1990s.
In the ruling, two of the three judges in the case found that the site be divided into three parts—two for the Hindu side and one for Muslims. Two of the judges also found that the site was the birthplace of Lord Ram, a significant ruling for the Hindu side. The court said no action would be taken for three months and the Muslim side said it would appeal to the Supreme Court of India.
The case, before the Allahabad High Court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has been running since 1950…
When The Taliban Calls, Should You Answer?
How can we cover a war when we only cover one side? Do we live in a “Republic of Fear?”
There is a saying I may be twisting in the retelling to the effect of what you do unto others will be done onto you. In Karmic terms, it boils down to what goes around cones around. These thoughts come to mind as I wrestle with a dilemma that seems to be worming its way out of the soil of a country at war overseas and with itself.
Earlier this week, I received a friend request on Facebook from one Abdullah Musafir. He identified himself as from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. His wall was filled with Islamic proverbs and reports on the killing of Western forces and battles with “cowardly terrorists,” i.e., NATO, Afghan soldiers and US Troops. There were reference to the destruction of “puppet” police vehicles and the use…
Google Blacklist – Words That Google Instant Doesn’t Like
Thanks to 2600.com for highlighting some very odd blacklisting behavior from the “not evil” people at Google:
Google Instant is the latest incarnation of the search engine that fills in potential responses as you type them into the Google search bar. Some people think this is great while others feel like Google is reading their minds and are freaked out by it. We believe it’s fun for at least one reason.
Like everything these days, great care must be taken to ensure that as few people as possible are offended by anything. Google Instant is no exception. Somewhere within Google there exists a master list of “bad words” and evil concepts that Google Instant is programmed to not act upon, lest someone see something offensive in the instant results… even if that’s exactly what they typed into the search bar. We call it Google Blacklist.
Give it a try. Go to the Google home…
A Thoroughly Modern Suicide
Blame the messenger if you like, but if this isn’t a sign of the times, I don’t know what is. Story everywhere, this version from the New York Post:
It was a fatal blow struck from cyberspace.
A shy Rutgers freshman was so humiliated when two cruel classmates secretly streamed live video of his gay encounter that he leaped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, authorities said yesterday.
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry,” Tyler Clementi, 18, posted on his Facebook page just eight minutes before his plunge at around 8:50 p.m. on Sept. 22…
Should We Clone Neanderthals?
Reconstruction of Neanderthal man. Hermann Schaaffhausen (1888).
From the recent March/April issue of Archaeology. Zach Zorich writes:
If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 years those beads have been gathering tiny fragments of DNA from samples of dissolved organic materials, including pieces of Neanderthal bone. Genetic sequences have given paleoanthropologists a new line of evidence for testing ideas about the biology of our closest extinct relative.
The first studies of Neanderthal DNA focused on the genetic sequences of mitochondria, the microscopic organelles that convert food to energy within cells. In 2005, however, 454 began a collaborative project with the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, to sequence the full genetic code of a Neanderthal woman who died in Croatia’s Vindija…
DARPA Is Actually Working on A Flying Humvee
I guess we can’t be surprised the military would get a flying car before the rest of us. Spencer Ackerman writes in WIRED’s Danger Room:
In the spring, the futurists at Darpa rethought troop transport. Instead of adding armor or changing the shape to deflect bomb blasts, the agency reasoned, why not let it leap into the sky at the first sign of danger or inconvenience? That’s exactly what Darpa’s “Transformer” project is supposed to be: a mashup of a helicopter, plane and armored truck. And it just came a step closer to reality.
AAI Corporation, a Maryland-based aerospace and defense company, won a $3.05 million contract with Darpa to see if it the technology behind the Transformer can, well, get off the ground, Aviation Week reports. Based on so-called “compound helicopter” technology that the company is developing with Carter Aviation Technologies, the gist is that AAI’s design for the Transformer envisions it…
Woman Molested Own Grandson To Exorcise ‘A Sexual Demon’
John McCann writes in the Herald-Sun:
DURHAM, North Carolina — A grandmother who authorities say committed sexual acts with her grandson because she believed she needed to get a demon off him insisted she understood rejecting a plea offer could mean more than a decade in prison.
The woman made it clear she’d allow jurors to give thumbs up or down on what she did and didn’t do with her own child’s child. Toni Stowers-Moore wants a trial.
Addressing concern about the defendant’s sanity, Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens on Thursday ruled Stowers-Moore is competent to stand trial based on the findings of a certified forensic examiner. That trial is expected to start Monday.
Stowers-Moore, 52, is charged with statutory rape/sex offense in which the defendant is six years older than the victim, incest with a child and sexual battery. The crimes allegedly occurred between July 28, 2008 and Aug. 1, 2008, Durham Police…
Earth-Sized Planet Discovered in Perfect Position to Support Earth-Like Life
Seth Borenstein writes on the AP via Yahoo News:
Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right.
Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.
It’s just right. Just like Earth. “This really is the first Goldilocks planet,” said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.
Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets…
University to Track Disinformation Campaigns on Twitter
A Truthy diffusion network. (C) Indiana University
From ScienceDaily:
Astroturfers, Twitter-bombers and smear campaigners need beware this election season as a group of leading Indiana University information and computer scientists have unleashed Truthy.indiana.edu, a sophisticated new Twitter-based research tool that combines data mining, social network analysis and crowdsourcing to uncover deceptive tactics and misinformation leading up to the Nov. 2 elections.
Combing through thousands of tweets per hour in search of political keywords, the team based out of IU’s School of Informatics and Computing will isolate patterns of interest and then insert those memes (ideas or patterns passed by imitation) into Twitter’s application programming interface (API) to obtain more information about the meme’s history.
“When we identify a trend we go back and examine how it was started, where the main injection points were, and any associated memes,” said Filippo Menczer, an associate professor of computer science and informatics. “When we drill down we’ll…
U.S. To Drop Drug-Filled Mice On Guam To Kill Snakes
The government is fighting the out-of-control scourge of brown tree snakes in Guam’s jungles by showering the island with drug-filled mouse carcasses. The rain of dead mice mostly like fulfills some biblical prophesies as well. National Geographic reports:
Dead mice packed with drugs were recently airdropped into Guam’s dense jungle canopy—part of a new effort to kill an invasive species of snake on the U.S. Pacific island territory.
In the U.S. government-funded project, tablets of concentrated acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, are placed in dead thumb-size mice, which are then used as bait for brown tree snakes.
Only about 80 milligrams of acetaminophen—equal to a child’s dose of Tylenol—are needed to kill an adult brown tree snake. Once ingested via a dead mouse, it typically takes about 60 hours for the drug to kill a snake.
Inadvertently introduced to Guam (map) from the Solomon Islands after World War II, brown tree snakes are responsible…
James Cameron To Fund Legal Action Over Canadian Oil Sands
The Vancouver Sun reports that Hollywood luminary-cum-Earth savior James Cameron has committed financial support to aboriginals for legal action against the Canadian federal and regional governments for oil sands pollution in Alberta:
Canadian-born director James Cameron agreed Tuesday to help aboriginal communities with legal action against the Alberta and federal governments to stop water-borne pollution from the oilsands.
The director, famous for movies such as Avatar and Titanic, met with community leaders and residents in Fort Chipewyan. The small town of 1,200 has been complaining for years about unusual rates of cancer and other illnesses among residents. The majority believe the disease is caused by air and water pollution from oilsands development, which they say also contaminates the wild foods they eat…
