Archive for March, 2011
Gilbert Gottfried Fired As Voice Of Aflac Duck Over Japan Jokes
CNN reports:
The Aflac duck lost its voice Monday after the insurance giant fired the comedian behind the commercial quack for tweeting jokes about the earthquake and tsunami that has devastated Japan.
The Columbus, Georgia-based company fired Gilbert Gottfried less than an hour after discovering the tweets, according to a news release from Aflac.
“Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac,” Michael Zunda, the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said in a statement.
So far, the earthquake and tsunami have left more than 2,400 people dead, and thousands more in shelters or missing. Most of the tweets attributed to Gottfried make light of the natural disaster in either a flippant or sexual manner…
Arthur Magazine R.I.P. 2002–2011
On the Ides of March, a farewell from Arthur Magazine:
After years of service, Arthur departed the material plane today.
He died as he lived — free, high and a-dreaming of love, ‘neath vultures’ terrible gaze.
Thank you, and love to all.
arthur store * archives coming soon * email
Brain Science: Filling The Hole Left By The Atrophy Of Theology And Philosophy
Vladimir Putin, member of the Composure Class?
An essay written by David Brooks in the New Yorker earlier this year has become required reading among those he terms as the “Composure Class,” privileged members of an elite who “live in a society that prizes the development of career skills but is inarticulate when it comes to the things that matter most.” Fortunately, the new sciences of human nature can help these poor creatures make sense of their lives:
After the boom and bust, the mania and the meltdown, the Composure Class rose once again. Its members didn’t make their money through hedge-fund wizardry or by some big financial score. Theirs was a statelier ascent. They got good grades in school, established solid social connections, joined fine companies, medical practices, and law firms. Wealth settled down upon them gradually, like a gentle snow.
You can see a paragon of the Composure Class having an al-fresco…
Germany To Close Seven Nuclear Reactors For ‘Safety Review’
Brunsbüttel Nuclear Power Plant. Photo: Steffen Papenbroock (CC)
Could Japan’s tragedy be used as a wake-up call for other countries? Germany has decided to close some of it’s oldest nuclear reactors for safety checks after Japan’s nuclear crisis. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Germany said it would shut down its seven oldest nuclear reactors during a three-month “safety review,” a surprise reversal by Chancellor Angela Merkel whose government just months ago vouched for the plants’ safety.
Ms. Merkel’s center-right government, which already said on Monday that it would suspend a lifespan extension for country’s nuclear reactors, responded to growing public unease over nuclear power amid the Japanese crisis by agreeing to shut down the oldest of those plants. The sudden shift reflects concern within Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic party that it has been on the wrong side of an emotional political issue that analysts say could tip the balance in several upcoming regional elections.
Ms.…
Guatemalans Sue U.S. Over Syphilis Experiments
Depression-era STD education poster.
This seems like a classic tale in American history: Government finds a poverty-stricken community to perform experiments on, then years later the public realizes what happens and gets upset about. Well, it’s happened again. Via The American Lawyer:
A class action lawsuit on behalf of about 700 Guatemalans who were subjected to syphilis experiments by American doctors in the 1940s will be filed against the U.S. government in three days unless reparations of some kind are made to their families, plaintiffs attorneys said Tuesday.
The Obama administration apologized last October for U.S. government doctors infecting Guatemalans with the syphilis virus from 1946 to 1948 to study how the sexually transmitted disease is passed and whether penicillin treatment was effective.
The experiments came to light in 2009 through research by historian Susan Reverby, a professor of women and gender studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Because of the apology, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based…
Earthquake Moved Japan Closer to U.S., Shifted Earth’s Axis, Shortened Day
This is astounding. Paul Rincon reports for BBC News:
Japan’s coastline may have shifted by as much as 4m (13 ft) to the east following Friday’s 8.9 Magnitude earthquake, according to experts.
Data from the country’s Geonet network of around 1,200 GPS monitoring stations suggest a large displacement following the massive quake.
Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey (BGS) told BBC News the movement observed following the quake was “in line with what you get when you have an earthquake this big”.
The quake probably shifted Earth on its axis by about 6.5 inches (16.5cm) and caused the planet to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 millionths of a second.
Japan’s meteorological agency has proposed updating the magnitude of the earthquake to 9.0. [UPDATE: Has been changed to 9.0] This would make it the joint fifth biggest quake since instrumental records began, but other agencies have not…
Model Wins America’s First Laughter Championship At ‘Laugh Riot’
Gabrielle Rivera
Gabrielle Rivera, a 23 year old Puerto Rican model, was the decisive winner of the first California Ultimate Laughing Championship in front of over 200 people at the historic Fremont Cinema in San Luis Obispo, California Saturday night.
Rivera was declared “Best Laugher in California 2011.” She triumphed in the “Diabolical laugh,” “Snort laugh,” and “Laugh at Yourself” competitions before defeating 10 contenders in a series of knock down “Laughter Duels.” She said she practices by laughing at herself.
The San Luis Obispo Tribune called the event a “laugh riot” and local TV station KSBY reported that the contest brought smiles to the faces of San Luis Obispo residents.
As the organizer and speaking as a professional laughologist (I’m the director of Laughology, the first feature documentary on laughter), I would never have expected that a model would win the championship. In my (limited) experience, models are usually robots, but this woman really…
Japan Nuclear Radiation Likely To Reach California
The likes of Matt Drudge and Alex Jones have been banging the drum to create fear among U.S. citizens that radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster will reach North America. Now Neil Katz poses the same question for a mainstream outlet, CBS News. The conclusion he posts is:
“As for America, experts say for now we are in the clear. ‘It is true that radiation emanating from Japan is moving across the Pacific and it’s feasible that one could detect those radiation levels in California,’ says [Dr. Cham] Dallas. ‘But it’s certain that it wouldn’t be dangerous.’”
Do any disinformation readers have expertise in radiation safety issues? Can we be so certain that there is no danger as Dr. Dallas suggests? Please post your thoughts in the comments.
Here’s some more of Katz’s story:
As conditions worsen at four nuclear reactors in Japan, many here and abroad are worried about the health risks of radiation.
What…
Court Allows Colorado Man To Sue Secret Service, Depose Cheney
Fox News reports:
A Colorado man can sue two Secret Service agents who arrested him after he touched former Vice President Dick Cheney on the arm in 2006 and told him his Iraq War policies were “disgusting,” a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The ruling means Steven Howards can try to subpoena Cheney to testify about the incident, said David Lane, Howards’ attorney.
“I fully intend on deposing the former vice president,” Lane told The Associated Press.
Lane has been trying for years to subpoena Cheney, but his motion has been delayed as judges weighed the question of whether the Secret Service agents were immune in the case. He has said he wants to subpoena the former vice president because he’s “the best eyewitness to the case.”
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Howards can sue agents Virgil D. “Gus” Reichle Jr., and Dan Doyle on First Amendment grounds.…
Make Your Own Remote-Controlled CockroachBorg
Slightly modify the circuitry from a remote-controlled toy, attach to a household cockroach, and, voila! A living RoboRoach, whose movements can be controlled via electrical impulses. After watching the below video, this creature/machine will be scuttling through your nightmares for days.
Cancer Cells Are ‘Living Fossils’ Of Our Evolutionary Ancestors
Alasdair Wilkins reports for io9:
Cancer is one of the most difficult foes medical science has ever faced, but a controversial new idea might just show a way to victory. A group of scientists have evidence that cancer might be an evolutionary throwback to our most distant animal ancestor.
Astrobiologists Charles Lineweaver of the Australian National University and Paul Davies of Arizona State have proposed that cancerous cells are a so-called “living fossil”, the last remnant of a crucial evolutionary juncture some 600 million years ago. It’s been proposed before that cancer dates back to the beginning of multi-cellular animals, an evolutionary innovation that required cells to stop replicating whenever they wanted and start coordinating with the rest of the organism.
Cancer is what happens when these very ancient controls on cell replication break down, causing runaway cellular replication. But here’s where Lineweaver and Davies take the idea a step further – they suggest cancer actually is our earliest animal ancestor. They suggest these organisms were the first to figure out some measure of control over cell replication, but they lacked more precise control over cell growth.
This hypothesis, they argue, fits known tumor behavior better than the view that all cancer cells act independently. They point to angiogenesis, in which cancer cells built blood vessel networks to bring nutrients into the tumor, which suggests cooperation amongst the cells…
Critical Thinking Classes Coming To American Schools?
Rodin's 'Thinker.' Photo: Satyakamk (CC)
ScienceDaily reports:
Read the comments on any website and you may despair at Americans’ inability to argue well. Thankfully, educators now name argumentive reasoning as one of the basics students should leave school with.
But what are these skills and how do children acquire them? Deanna Kuhn and Amanda Crowell, of Columbia University’s Teachers College, have designed an innovative curriculum to foster their development and measured the results. Among their findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, dialogue is a better path to developing argument skills than writing.
“Children engage in conversation from very early on,” explains Kuhn. “It has a point in real life.” Fulfilling a writing assignment, on the other hand, largely entails figuring out what the teacher wants and delivering it. To the student, “that’s its only function.”
Kuhn and Crowell conducted a three-year intervention at an urban middle school whose students…
Meet Jack Black, Rat-Catcher To The Queen
From “The Rats of London” at victoriangothic.org:
If you were a rat in mid-century London, [Jack Black] was your nemesis. “Moist as rabbits, and quite as nice,” was how he described the rats he cooked for his own consumption. Sewer rats, he insisted, were just as good as barn rats, if you gave them a few days’ chase before killing them.
Rat-catching was a regular profession among London’s poor, allowing one to leverage a childhood spent peeking under floorboards and playing with filthy animals into a full and rewarding career. Armed with quick dogs and well-trained ferrets, Black and his colleagues ’sterminated rats by the hundred, collecting their fees on a cash-only basis. It was a “peculiar and exciting” line of work, according to Ike Matthews, who wrote the book on rat-catching; one where you could be own boss and turn long sojourns into the country with your hunting animals into a remunerative business.
Like many a…
How To Start Your Own Religion
One of the best films I saw at South By Southwest (SXSW) this year was Vikram Gandhi’s documentary Kumaré, in which New Jersey-born and raised Gandhi decides to pass himself off as an Indian guru (he is of Indian descent) to see if people will buy into his fake persona as a spiritually enlightened teacher. He succeeds all too well and faces a dilemma when it’s time to reveal the fraud.
Essentially Gandhi’s point is that spiritual gurus are frauds and anyone can be a guru if he can (so long as they are prepared to dress up, grow long beards, make up strange chants, etc.). With that in mind, I found a course on how to start your own religion, offered by 3rd Ward. I’m not sure if I’ll take it yet, but they do say the fastest way to make a million dollars is to become a millionaire…
Doctor Tells Judge He Smokes 30 Joints A Day For Health
NBC New York reports:
A former doctor told a judge in New Jersey that he’s “guilty as sin” of growing marijuana and smoking 30 joints a day.
Edwin Struve told a judge in Morris County he had 58 marijuana plants in his Chatham home that he’s been cultivating since he came home from the Army in 1968.
The Daily Record of Parsippany reports Struve and his lawyer said Struve used marijuana to relieve the effects of glaucoma and mild brain damage.
Officials are seeking to have the judge place Struve under supervised probation in the Morris County Prosecutor Office’s mental health program.
The program uses therapy, counseling and medication to address psychiatric problems behind the commission of crimes…
Germans Protesting Nuclear Power Form 75-Mile Human Chain
Reuters reports:
Opponents of nuclear power formed a 120-km (75-mile) human chain between reactor sites in Germany Saturday to protest against government plans to extend the power plants’ operation.
Around 120,000 peaceful demonstrators, according to police and organizers, linked arms in a chain running between the northern towns of Brunsbuettel and Kruemmel that passed through the city of Hamburg…
U.S. Government Only Responds To A Third Of FOIA Requests
So much for transparency of government: AP/Yahoo News reports that only a third of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests resulted in any information being released (let alone the full amount requested). One thing to bear in mind, of course, is that the United States is one of the very few nations to actually grant its citizens any right to review government documents.
Two years into its pledge to improve government transparency, the Obama administration took action on fewer requests for federal records from citizens, journalists, companies and others last year even as significantly more people asked for information. The administration disclosed at least some of what people wanted at about the same rate as the previous year.
People requested information 544,360 times last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act from the 35 largest agencies, up nearly 41,000 more than the previous year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press…
Has Atlantis Finally Been Found?
BBC reports:
A scientist says he may have found remains of the lost city of Atlantis.
Satellite photos of southern Spain reveal features on the ground appearing to match descriptions made by Greek scholar Plato of the fabled utopia.
Dr Rainer Kuehne thinks the “island” of Atlantis simply referred to a region of the southern Spanish coast destroyed by a flood between 800 BC and 500 BC.
The research has been reported as an ongoing project in the online edition of the journal Antiquity.
Satellite photos of a salt marsh region known as Marisma de Hinojos near the city of Cadiz show two rectangular structures in the mud and parts of concentric rings that may once have surrounded them.
[Continues at BBC]
Half Of All Tablet Users Transmit Sensitive Data
Evan-Amos (CC)
48% of tablet owners have used their tablet device to transmit sensitive data, according to a new online survey by Harris Interactive.
This compares to just 30% of smartphone users, though it’s younger adults (aged 18-34) who are more likely to than adults.
52% of tablet owners between the ages of 18 and 34 say they’re confident about transmitting sensitive data over their tablet device, versus just 41% between the ages of 35 and 34, and 28% between the ages of 45 and 54. (While just 33% of people over the age of 55 shared the same confidence.)
“There may be an psychological explanation for the main tablet vs smartphone security point,” notes one technology site. “Somebody using a tablet – even though its on a wireless connection – may think of it in the same way as a computer, where it’s well established people are usually happy to transmit sensitive data…With a…
