Archive for March, 2011
Religion May Become Extinct In Nine Nations
Not to imply a causal relationship, but the nine countries pinpointed to become religion-free are among the healthiest, happiest, and most prosperous in the world — shouldn’t God be giving them a dose of wrath as comeuppance? BBC News reports:
A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers. The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
Read More: BBC News
Russia Sets Up University Institute To Study Yeti Sightings
Kevin Makice writes on Wired:
As geeks, we are encouraged to suspend our disbelief while simultaneously challenging everything we see and hear. In the words of Agent Mulder, we want to believe, but our geek roots are firmly planted in the scientific method.
That tension is possibly being resolved on one front. The Russians are establishing a scientific institute on the study of yetis, hairy ape-like creatures rumored to inhabit the Himalayas.
Officials in coal-mining region of Kemerovo Oblast announced plans today to open a Yeti Institute at the Kemerovo State University, a 38-year-old higher education entity in western Siberia. KSU boasts 31,000 students and is best known for reviving regional languages, like Shor. Yeti researcher Igor Burtsev reportedly claimed that 30 Russian scientists are currently studying yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, and the Institute could allow them to better collaborate.
Imagine Free Beer At Your Office, But You Are Recorded For How Much You Drink…
Photo: Strom Carlson (CC)
Ryan Flinn reports for Bloomberg:
At Yelp Inc.’s San Francisco headquarters, a keg refrigerator provides a never-ending supply of beer to employees, letting them drink as much as they like.
They just have to be comfortable with full disclosure: Workers badge in to an iPad application attached to the keg that records every ounce they drink.
“If you’re at the top of the leader board consistently, I don’t know if that’s a place that you’d want to be,” said Eric Singley, director of Yelp consumer and mobile products. “Luckily, that hasn’t really even been an issue.”
In a contemporary version of “Mad Men” and its bibulous ad executives, more dot-coms are embracing the idea of drinking at work. That means keeping bars stocked at all hours, installing kegerators and letting programmers tip back a few while they code. It also raises questions about the effect of alcohol on productivity and the safety of…
Indiana Prosecutor Resigns After Suggesting Staging ‘Fake Attack’ In Wisconsin
Vic Ryckaert and Kevin O’Neal report in the Indianapolis Star:
For the second time, an Indiana public official has lost his job because of provocative comments made about the political brouhaha in Wisconsin.
Carlos F. Lam, a Johnson County deputy prosecutor, resigned Thursday after acknowledging he sent an email last month urging Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to discredit labor union protests by orchestrating a fake assault on himself.
Possibly, Lam suggested, the pretend assailant might even use a firearm.
Lam’s boss, Prosecutor Bradley D. Cooper, accepted the resignation. He called Lam’s Feb. 19 email to Walker a “foolish suggestion.”
On Feb. 23, the Indiana Attorney General’s office fired deputy Atty. Gen. Jeff Cox after he suggested in blog posts and on Twitter that police use live ammunition on protesters who had poured into Wisconsin’s Capitol.
The political fight in Wisconsin erupted when Walker, a Republican, called for eliminating collective bargaining for public employees. That bill passed…
Why Is There Not More Male Nudity in Mainstream Films?
Stacie Adams writes on the Nervous Breakdown:
Today I bring you a subject that’s very close to my heart. And by heart I mean sex organs.
I’m a 31 year old heterosexual woman who is appalled by the lack of male nudity in movies. Tits and girl ass are legion in film, and that’s OK, I don’t mind it. But, in the interest of this equality I hear so much about, perhaps we can add some rock hard pectorals and v-shaped abdomens into the mix? Some chiseled male bums? A quick shot of the little guy?
Remember when action movies always had that scene of the anti-hero crying into his refrigerator, or gun, or eight ounce glass of whiskey over his dead dog, or kid, or wife? And remember how in these scenes said anti-hero would always be without pants and have an ass like Michelangelo’s David?
Well, those scenes were put there for…
Pee Power Offers Green Energy Alternative
Photo: Evert Meijs (CC)
Joanna Zelman writes on the Huffington Post:
Pee Power. It’s not a game created by first grade boys. Rather, it’s a new green technology.
The Guardian reports that Ohio University’s Gerardine Botte has invented a way to create hydrogen fuel from urine. Ammonia and urea, two compounds found in urine, are also a source for hydrogen. Placing an electrode in the wastewater and applying a current creates hydrogen gas.
The company that has commercialized “pee power” is called E3 Clean Technologies. Their “ammonia electrolysis” process is referred to as GreenBox technology. The GreenBox is expected to be ready by the end of next year. The technology will be targeted towards areas with large groups of people, such as city buildings, offices, and stadiums. Botte reports that an office building of about 300 people can generate two kilowatts of power… it’s unclear how much power could be generated if office managers…
Media Roots Interview With Cindy Sheehan
This is a special Media Roots TV interview conducted by Abby Martin with Cindy Sheehan, mother who has made the ultimate sacrifice and fearless anti-war activist. She relays her powerfully lucid point of view in a candid interview at her home on February 6th, 2011.
Just Keep Going, You Got Nothing To Lose (Video)
A thought-provoking video by Luke Rudkowski on happiness, freedom, government, humanity, and life in the words of subway passengers. Via WeAreChange.org:
Yellow Rain Falls In Tokyo? Pollen Excuse Exact Same As Chernobyl Yellow Rain Lie
Via the Intel Hub:
While the Japanese government continues to say that the yellow rain seen in Japan was simply “pollen,” many have been reminded of a very similar occurrence after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Almost on cue, the Japan Meteorological Agency has confirmed the rain to be pollen after receiving hundreds of calls from concerned citizens.
The ‘‘yellow rain’’ seen Wednesday in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo was caused by pollen, not radioactive materials as many residents had worried, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Thursday, reported the Japan Times.
That’s right, according to so called experts, enough pollen to cause hundreds to report their findings, rained down on Tokyo at the same time as a devastating nuclear disaster has released high levels of radiation at least 20 km from the nuclear plant.
This explanation has reminded many of the yellow rain that hit after the Chernobyl disaster.
Physicists Create Heaviest Form of Antimatter Ever Seen
Stephen Battersby writes on New Scientist:
A newly created form of antimatter is the heaviest and most complex anti-thing ever seen. Anti-helium nuclei, each containing two anti-protons and two anti-neutrons, have been created and detected at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Upton, New York.
Anti-particles have the opposite electrical charge to ordinary matter particles (anti-neutrons, which are electrically neutral, are made up of antiquarks that have the opposite charge to their normal quark counterparts). They annihilate on contact with matter, making them notoriously tricky to find and work with. Until recently, the most complex unit of antimatter ever seen was the counterpart of the helium-3 nucleus, which contains two protons and one neutron.
But experiments at RHIC are changing that. RHIC collides heavy atomic nuclei such as lead and gold to form microscopic fireballs, where energy is so densely packed that many new particles can be created.
IMF Prepares For “Threat To International Monetary System”
Tyler Durden writes on Zero Hedge:
There is a new threat to the international monetary system which means Europe May 2010 redux is imminent. US taxpayers: our condolences.
Back in April 2010, before Waddell and Reed sold a few shares of ES, effectively destroying the market on news that Europe was insolvent, we made the following observation: “The IMF has just announced that it is expanding its New Arrangement to Borrow (NAB) multilateral facility from its existing $50 billion by a whopping $500 billion (SDR333.5 billion), to $550 billion.” Little did we know that our conclusion “something big must be coming” would prove spot on just a month later after Greece, then Ireland, then Portugal, and soon Spain, Italy, Belgium, and pretty much all other European countries would topple like dominoes tethered together by a flawed monetary regime. Well, based on news from Dow Jones we can now safely predict the following: “something…
Self-Immolation and the Heart of Revolution
“It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” — Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International, at a Human Rights Day ceremony on 10th December 1961
In November, 1990 a man set himself on fire in front of the U.S. capitol, the news reports from the time say that the reasons for the man’s act were unknown, no riots were forthcoming. Last year the cultural shifts in Egypt, Yemen and Algeria proved a different outcome in light of similar self-immolation. As individuals express their anger, alienation and rejection in self willed conflagration it is igniting their communities into violent uprisings shaking the foundations of global culture.
As I’m writing this a young man sits in protest in a Palestinian Mosque, part of the March 15 Youth Coalition who set up tents in the Bethlehem municipality to demand a new Palestinian national council and a unified Palestine. He is threatening to set himself…
Eazy E: A Straight G Killed By HIV
Dutch mural by LJvanT. Photo: Ljvant (CC)
Joseph Allen remembers the troubling legacy of this misogynist mack-daddy, and reviews the disturbing HIV statistics as they presently stand. From RockStarMartyr.net:
To hear him tell it on his records, Eazy E was a ghetto-blasting geyser spewing bullets and semen in every direction. If Eazy wanted to screw in a lightbulb, he could just wrap his dick around it and let the world turn around his balls. And if some studio-gangsta criticized this method, E would pop a cap in that ass.
Eazy E succumbed to AIDS on March 26, 1995 at the age of 31, but his legacy lives on through brutal, bitch-slapping gangsta rap and various microscopic organisms. He was a set-claiming hero for alienated black youth, a jheri-curled Casanova for rap-lovin’ starfuckers, a total embarrassment to African American moral authorities, and for the suburban white community—the musical equivalent of a PCP-laced joint smoked in a highschool…
What’s So Great Up There in Heaven?
The main objective of the Christian scheme of life and death is to get to heaven after we die. Why? Because that’s where God is, and heaven without God would be like a sunny day without sunshine, an innate contradiction. Christians want to be with God because, they say, he is all-perfect, and eternity with him will be beyond the greatest happiness imaginable. But how many people stop to ask why this will be so.
Okay, so God is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Even greater. So what? What will this do for me? As they used to say years ago in my hometown of Italian, Slavic, and Nordic immigrants in northern Minnesota to measure the value of what one was doing, “Will it put a chicken on the table [to eat]?” How does God’s being so great and wonderful translate into our happiness being far greater than we could ever imagine if we are there with him? I don’t get it. So he’s incredible and magnificent and perfect and everything else, and I, along with millions of others, am by his side. Now what? Where do we go from there? I mean, what will we do in heaven besides worshiping the Lord?
All manner of pleasurable things have been envisioned by people through the years about heaven, the Disneyland of the Christian imagination…
A History Of Our Awkward Attempts To Communicate With Aliens
Lightspeed Magazine has a fun rundown of humanity’s historical efforts to send space transmissions to whatever intelligent life might be out there. The whole endeavor is slightly desperate and pathetic — “The chances of an alien civilization having the means, motive, and opportunity to catch any of these messages are slim; certainly it’s not likely that humanity will last long enough to catch any return messages.” Still, it’s nice knowing that Morse code and theremin music has been beamed into the heavens.
1. The Morse Message (1962)
This audio salute, one of the first radio signals intended specifically for interstellar intelligence, was meant as a test of the new Evpatoria Planetary Radar (EPR). In November 1962, the Unique Korenberg Telescope Array transmitted the greeting towards Venus, using simple Morse Code. Given the location of Venus in November 1962, the message is even now winging its way towards Libra.
Message Content: The words “MIR,” “LENIN,”…
Television Programming At The Moment It Dies
I’ve seen the most interesting thing on TV a thousand times, but never noticed it. Artist Stephan Tillmans photographs tube televisions at the split second they are turned off, to glorious effect. Via his website:
The television picture breaks down and creates a structure of light. The pictures refuse external reference and broach the issue of the difference between abstraction and concretion in photography.
Texas Man Fires Gun, Engages In Motel-Room Police Standoff Over Taco Bell Price Increase
In all seriousness, what is it about chain-restaurant fast food that so often drives Americans into insane, violent rages? San Antonio Express-News reports on local mayhem:
The price of the Beefy Crunch Burrito had gone up from 99 cents to $1.49 and the man at the Rigsby Road Taco Bell drive-thru had just ordered seven.
The fast food customer was so disgruntled by the price hike he shot an air gun at the manager, displayed an assault rifle and pistol while in the restaurant’s parking lot, fled as police were called, and pointed one of his weapons at three officers who pulled him over. Fleeing when they opened fire, he barricaded himself in his hotel room — all over $3.50 plus additional tax. All three of his weapons were found to be air-powered and not firearms.
The final incident in the burrito-triggered spree happened Sunday afternoon at the Rodeway Inn on North W.W. White…
Medical Marijuana Is Now A $1.7 Billion Market
Medical Marijuana shop in Denver, Colorado. Photo: O'Dea (CC)
The medical marijuana market has had a significant growth this year. With seven states who have opened shop and five more states planned to approve medical marijuana outlets this year, cannabis could save many states’ economies. Medical News Today reports:
Medical marijuana is now a serious $1.7 billion dollar market, according to a new report released this week by an independent financial analysis firm that specializes in new and unique markets. Currently, 24.8 million people are eligible to receive a recommendation and purchase marijuana legally under state laws, and approximately 730,000 people actually do.
Ted Rose, editor of the new State of the Medical Marijuana Market 2011 report, comments:
“Medical marijuana markets are rapidly growing across the country and will reach $1.7 billion this year. We undertook this effort because we noticed a dearth of reliable market information about this politically charged business. Hundreds of businesses exist…
