Archive for December, 2010
2010 Fortune 500: Wal-Mart’s Number One
Fortune 500 has come out with the top ranking stocks of 2010. Wal-Mart’s taken over the top stop, pushing Exxon to number two. Did the lack of employment encourage consumers to shop at Wal-Mart where they “roll back prices”? Read the Top 1000:
Rank Company Revenues Profits
1 Wal-Mart Stores 378,799.0 12,731.0
2 Exxon Mobil 372,824.0 40,610.0
3 Chevron 210,783.0 18,688.0
4 General Motors 182,347.0 -38,732.0
5 ConocoPhillips 178,558.0 11,891.0
6 General Electric 176,656.0 11,891.0
7 Ford Motor 172,468.0 -2,723.0
8 Citigroup 159,229.0 3,617.0
9 Bank of America 119,190.0 14,982.0
10 AT&T 118,928.0 11,951.0
Ultimate Christian Street Fighting: Brawling Over The Bible (Video)
WWJD, you ask? Apparently in these Church-goers’ minds, Jesus would kick your ass. Thanks to Christian Nightmares for the find. Reports KOB-TV:
It’s behavior you wouldn’t expect to see at church, and it was all caught on tape. KOB Eyewitness News 4 obtained video that shows members of two different Roswell churches fighting with each other.
The video was taken by members of Old Paths Baptist Church in Roswell while they say they were preaching outside of another church in the city on November 28th. Armed with signs, Bibles, and a camera, members of Old Paths Baptist Church took their message to the streets. “They may not like out method, they may think or method is too confrontational, never the less its our right to preach in public,” said street preacher Jeremy De Los Santos.
The Promiscuous Life of Julian Assange
Should we be concerned with Assange’s sex life? Is it deserving of the media attention or is it taking away from what WikiLeaks’ leaks? Via Daily Mail:
The two women who say they were sexually assaulted by the WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange would never have complained to police if he had agreed to take an HIV test, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
WikiLeaks’s Swedish co-ordinator, who worked closely with Mr Assange for months, said in an exclusive interview that he repeatedly begged his boss to have the test, both to head off the possible police investigation and for Mr Assange’s own peace of mind, given his promiscuous sex life.
‘The two women told me, that if he goes to the clinic for an HIV test, then we won’t go to the police,’ said Mr Assange’s colleague, who wishes to remain anonymous because he is a witness in the case brought by Swedish…
Erin Brockovich Where Are You? Hexavalent Chromium Found In 31 American Cities
Animation by Chris 73 (CC)
This is the best advertisement for reverse-osmosis walter filters that I’ve seen yet. Mind you, the intentionally-added fluoride in many public water systems is just as bad — although interested parties would have you believe otherwise. Don’t think that bottled water is the answer, either — many bottled waters contain chemicals too because 40% of bottled water is drawn from municipal supplies. From the Washington Post:
A new analysis showing the presence of a probable carcinogen in the tap water of 31 cities across the country, including the District and Bethesda, has raised questions about what consumers in those communities can do to reduce their exposure.
The chemical, hexavalent chromium, got public attention via the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich” and has been deemed a “probable carcinogen” by the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Although basic water filters such as those made by Brita and PUR do…
United Nations To Consider Global Regulation Of The Internet
Why does one frequently get the feeling that a free and open World Wide Web is doomed to become a figment of the past? At the UN, national governments are discussing ways to suppress “challenges such as WikiLeaks.” Via The Huffington Post:
Together with word this week that the Federal Communications Commission will be voting on net neutrality rules comes news that the United Nations is mulling new efforts that could shape Internet regulation.
“At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet – specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks,” wrote IT News.
The UN has announced that a “Working Group on Internet Governance,” made up solely of member states (governments), will consider changes to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a “forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on public policy…
Wikileaks And The Secrets That Deceive Us
In the days of Stalin’s Russia, not only would dissidents “disappear” but also even in the pre-digital era, photographs of officials at May Day reviewing stands would be erased from photographs when their political stars fell. Our own “Kremlinologists” would know who was in, and who was out by comparing last year’s pictures with this year’s.
That’s one way of concealing information.
Just last week, Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission pushed to have certain words removed from the report they were writing because they posed a conflict to their view that only the government was to blame for the financial collapse
Explained economist Paul Krugman:
Last week, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, all four Republicans on the commission voted to exclude the following terms from the report: “deregulation,” “shadow banking,” “interconnection,” and, yes, “Wall Street.”
When Democratic members refused to go along with this insistence that the story of Hamlet be…
Los Alamos Scientist: TSA Scanners Shred Human DNA
Ah, the joys holiday travel, with its long lines and tissue-withering radiation. A Los Alamos scientist raises an alarm regarding TSA scanners’ long-term effect on the human body, Veterans Today reports:
Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico recently published an abstract with colleagues, “DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field ” that reveals very disturbing—even shocking—evidence that the THz waves generated by TSA scanners is significantly damaging the DNA of the people being directed through the machines, and the TSA workers that are in close proximity to the scanners throughout their workday.
In layman’s terms what Alexandrov and his team discovered is that the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself:…
The Full Allegations Against Julian Assange
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Julian Assange. Photo: Espen Moe (CC)
The Guardian reports:
The case against Assange, which has been the subject of intense speculation and dispute in mainstream media and on the internet, is laid out in police material held in Stockholm to which the Guardian received unauthorised access.
Assange, who was released on bail on Thursday, denies the Swedish allegations and has not formally been charged with any offence. The two Swedish women behind the charges have been accused by his supporters of making malicious complaints or being “honeytraps” in a wider conspiracy to discredit him.
Assange’s UK lawyer, Mark Stephens, attributed the allegations to “dark forces”, saying: “The honeytrap has been sprung … After what we’ve seen so far you can reasonably conclude this is part of a greater plan.” The journalist John Pilger dismissed the case as a “political stunt” and in an interview with ABC news, Assange said Swedish prosecutors were withholding evidence which…
Why Did The South Secede?
An interesting take from Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family, in the New York Times:
On Dec. 20, 1860, 169 men — politicians and people of property — met in the ballroom of St. Andrew’s Hall in Charleston, S.C. After hours of debate, they issued the 158-word “Ordinance of Secession,” which repealed the consent of South Carolina to the Constitution and declared the state to be an independent country. Four days later, the same group drafted a seven-page “Declaration of the Immediate Causes,” explaining why they had decided to split the Union.
The authors of these papers flattered themselves that they’d conjured up a second American Revolution. Instead, the Secession Convention was the beginning of the Civil War, which killed some 620,000 Americans; an equivalent war today would send home more than six million body bags.
The next five years will include an all-you-can-eat special of national remembrance. Yet even after…
Vadim Chernobrov’s Secret Russian Time Machine
From Current.com:
Russian author Gennady Belimov published an article in which he described experiments led by Vadim Chernobrov, the inventor of a time machine in 1987. Chernobrov claims his machine can slow or speed up the course of time by tinkering with the Earth’s magnetic field…
The TSA Let a Loaded Gun Get on an Airplane (Video)
Kevin Quinn reports for ABC KTRK-TV:
HOUSTON (KTRK) — TSA checkpoints at airports are at the front lines of preventing terrorism. When you go through security, you expect to be scanned and searched. And you expect TSA to prevent contraband from getting on planes, but as we’ve learned, that doesn’t always happen.
Houston businessman Farid Seif says it was a startling discovery. He didn’t intend to bring a loaded gun on a flight out of Houston and can’t understand how TSA screeners didn’t catch it.
Nearing the height of last year’s Christmas travel season, TSA screeners at Bush Intercontinental Airport somehow missed a loaded pistol, one that was tucked away inside a carry-on computer bag. “I mean, this is not a small gun,” Seif said. “It’s a .40 caliber gun.”
Dec. 21, 2010: Total Lunar Eclipse, Winter Solstice, Two Years Until ‘End’ Of Mayan Calendar
This coming Tuesday could be quite interesting: in addition to the many winter solstice festivals carried out throughout the northern hemisphere, this year’s solstice also coincides with a total lunar eclipse for the first time in 456 years. The eclipse will be the first in three years and should be visible throughout North America and some of Europe. Look for the moon to appear pink — that is if you don’t have cloud cover and heavy snow.
This diagram shows how the moon appears reddish orange during a lunar eclipse. Source: Raycluster (CC)
For those taking note, December 21, 2010 also marks two years remaining in the countdown to the end of the 5,125 year Mayan Long Count Calendar, which famously ends on the winter solstice of 2012.
‘Operation Christmas’: Colombian Army Installs Giant Christmas Tree in Rebel-Held Territory (Video)
The BBC reports:
The Colombian army says it has installed a giant Christmas tree in Farc rebel territory, to encourage guerrilla fighters to demobilize. Special forces infiltrated the remote Macarena mountain range to dress a 25m (82 ft) high tree with 2,000 lights.
Movement sensors will make the tree light up when guerrillas approach. The army says it will put up trees in nine other rebel-held zones to spread the message that Christmas is a good time to abandon armed struggle.
The Colombian government says more than 2,000 guerrillas demobilized this year under a scheme that gives them amnesty and help to return to civilian life. “Operation Christmas,” as it was code named, was carried out by elite troops using Blackhawk helicopters.
The Most Annoying Word (What)Ever
Personally I would have voted for “like,” as more people than I care to think of are incapable of voicing a thought without using that once useful but now despicable word. “Whatever” is also fairly heinous, though! From Reuters:
Whatever you think about using grating words, at the end of the day it’s actually better not to say whatever, if you know what I mean.
For the second consecutive year “whatever’ topped a Marist poll as the most annoying word or phrase in the English language.
Nearly 39 percent of 1,020 Americans questioned in the survey deemed it the most irritating word, followed by “like” with 28 percent and the phrase “you know what I mean’ at 15 percent…
[continues at Reuters]
‘A Klingon Christmas Carol’ Attacks A Holiday Classic (Video)
First a Klingon opera, now this. Klingon (the language) sure has a lot of traction for one invented for a Star Trek movie in the ’80s. And this is also a non-Christianized version of the Dickens classic, because as I learned from the story, the Klingons killed their gods. Douglas Belkin reports in the Wall Street Journal:
The arc of “A Klingon Christmas Carol” follows the familiar Dickens script: An old miser is visited on a hallowed night by three ghosts who shepherd him through a voyage of self-discovery. The narrative has been rejiggered to match the Klingon world view.
For starters, since there is neither a messiah nor a celebration of his birth on the Klingon planet of Kronos, the action is pegged to the Klingon Feast of the Long Night. Carols and trees are replaced with drinking, fighting and mating rituals. And because Klingons are more concerned with bravery than kindness, the main character’s quest is for courage.
Public Finally Gets Some Airwaves Back: Congress Passes Local Community Radio Act
Finally, Congress passes the Local Community Radio Act, which has been sitting on the shelves for 10 years. The public finally gets some of its airwaves back. Reports Reclaim The Media:
With the clock ticking toward the end of this year’s Congress, the Senate on Saturday passed a new law which will enable community groups, churches and schools across the country to establish new non-commercial, low-power FM radio stations in their cities and towns.
The Local Community Radio Act, which will allow the FCC to issue possibly thousands of new noncommercial LPFM radio licenses, earned broad, bipartisan support after some ten years of organizing by grassroots media democracy advocates from coast to coast. Backers of the bill included a stupefying range of civil rights groups, religious organizations, musicians, unions and garage-bound radio dreamers around the country.
The FCC initially created the Low power FM service radio in 2002, as a way to counter the…
How the Rise of the Information War Gave Birth to a New Digital Culture
Rachel Haywire | experimenthaywire.net
What happened? For the past few years I’ve been nailing the death of the Internet into the coffin. I recently posted about The Death of Memetics and was all but ready to give up on creating any sort of digital revolution. The cancer had spread too fast and we were completely outnumbered. The new generation of cyber-thugs decided to shit on the city that we built for them. Anonymous was no longer about free information but getting depressed 12 year old goth girls to kill themselves. The mobbing of innocent people was not related to natural selection but sexual rejection. Bullycide everywhere.
Enter Julian Assange. Enter Wikileaks.
Enter the beginning of Information War I.
Suddenly Anonymous wakes up and suddenly we are rewriting the manifestos. The cancer is no longer relevant. We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive and we do not forget. We support the freedom of…
Chamber of Commerce Betrays America Again: Opposes 9/11 Responders Healthcare Bill
It seems that the Chamber of Commerce lobbied against the bill to give specialized healthcare to 9/11 rescuers which would have been fully paid for by closing a $7.4 billion dollar tax loophole that benefited FOREIGN corporations.
The very misnomered “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce is best known for throwing gobs of money into the last election at the idiotic Supreme Court’s urging, attempting to get a flood of corporate hacks masquerading as populists elected to Congress, and also for it’s fearless “leader”, Tom Donohue, who famously claimed he’d make any candidate who even dared MENTION helping the poor, bleed and cry.
Yeah. A real prince among men. And that is the real spirit of that organization. A giant eff you to anyone who isn’t a billionaire, that claims to work for small businesses, but doesn’t. Nathan Diebenow writes in RAW Story:
The US Chamber of Commerce lobbied to kill a bill that would…
Meet My Pet Buffalo: Rides in Car, Chugs Beer (Video)
Naeema Siddiqua writes in the Toronto Sun:
SPRUCE GROVE, ALTA.— A buffalo arriving at a bar in a convertible may seem like a figment of the imagination, but it actually happened.
Bailey Jr. is a 1,600-pound male bison that last Saturday arrived at a Spruce Grove bar, about 30 kilometres west of Edmonton, in a convertible for a pint of ale, while a British camera crew from Animal Planet captured the barley lover chugging down a root beer and a bottle of beer.
Not to worry, he had designated drivers with him — owners, Jim and Linda Sautner.
The film crew from London, England’s Oxford Scientific Films is part of a team that produces Fatal Attraction for Animal Planet. The documentary series looks at the psychological profile of people who have close relationships with big, dangerous and exotic animals.
