Archive for March, 2011
Sammy Hagar Abducted By Aliens
Is revealing that he was abducted by aliens a good career move by Sammy Hagar, the sometime Van Halen frontman? This interview with Eric Spitznagel for MTV Hive will probably move a few copies of his new book Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock, at least!
Okay, let’s just cut to the chase. I’m just going to come out and ask it. Have you ever been abducted by aliens?
I think I have.
What? Really? I was kidding. You seriously believe that?
[Laughs.] Now you’re making me sound like a crazy person.
How is that crazy? I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened to you.
Remember the story in the book, where I have a dream about being contacted by aliens in the foothills above Fontana?
Yeah, yeah, I’ve got the page right here. “I saw a ship and two creatures inside of this ship… And they were connected to me, tapped into my mind through some…
If You’ve Wondered What Money Is With No Purpose: It’s Dubai
They have an an indoor ski resort in the middle of the desert. They also built fake islands. A. A. Gill writes in Vanity Fair:
Its skyline erupting from the desert in just two decades, Dubai is a cautionary tale about what money can’t buy: a culture of its own. After gorging on the Viagra of easy credit, the emirate has the world’s tallest building, the world’s most expensive racetrack, and a financial crisis to match. From the Western mercenaries and Asian drones who maintain the gaudy show to 100-odd families who are impervious to any economic reality…
The only way to make sense of Dubai is to never forget that it isn’t real. It’s a fable, a fairy tale, like The Arabian Nights. More correctly, it’s a cautionary tale. Dubai is the story of the three wishes, where, as every kid knows, with the third wish you demand three more wishes.…
‘Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?’ Farrakhan Asks Obama (Video)
Is this any way to speak to your president, Minister Farrakhan? Is it appropriate to call him “Brother” instead of “Mr. President” when you’re addressing him publicly? Who the hell do you think you are?
At about 7:58 minutes in: “You can’t order him [Gadaffi] to step down and get out; who the hell do you think you are?”
Accused Killer Claims Bible Made Him Do It
William Bender writes in the Philadephia News:
John Thomas told police he was inspired by the Old Testament when he slipped a rock inside one of Murray Seidman’s socks and used it to bludgeon the 70-year-old to death.
Unfortunately for Thomas, who was charged yesterday with first-degree murder, the Pennsylvania crimes code hews more closely to the Ten Commandments than the Book of Leviticus, which advocates the killing of homosexuals.
“I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock,” Thomas, 28, confessed Wednesday, more than two months after Seidman’s body was found inside his Lansdowne apartment, where the floor, walls and furniture were splattered with dried blood, according to police.
The World Is In Denial About Nuclear Risks
Fukushima Nuclear Reactors 1-4. Photo: National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs, Ministry of Land, Infastructure, Transport and Tourism
What will it take for our world to recognize the dangers that nuclear scientists and even Albert Einstein were warning about at the “dawn” of the nuclear age?
Amy Goodman reminds us of the prophetic statement by Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett who tried to find words to describe the horror he was seeing in Hiroshima in 1945 after the bomb fell.
“It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts … as a warning to the world.”
The world heard his warning, but seems to have ignored it. In fact, what followed has been decades of nuclear proliferation, the spread of nuclear power plants and the escalation of the arms race with new higher tech weaponry.
As Hiroshima becomes yesterday’s distant memory and Fukishima…
CNBC’s Larry Kudlow on Japan Quake: Be Grateful Human Toll Much Worse than Economic Toll (Video)
In case you were wondering why Wall Street is so detested by actual human beings, here’s CNBC’s Larry Kudlow:
This Video Will Tell You If You’re Prone to Mind Control
Oddly the original page seems to be done, here’s the cached version from New Scientist:
Are you easily influenced by what others do and say? If so, you’re just the type of person that hypnotists, magicians and mind-readers seek out as you’re more likely to fall for their mind tricks.
In this video, psychologist Richard Wiseman gives you the chance to find out how suggestible you are. Give it a go — even the most hardened skeptics might be surprised by the results.
If you tried the test, how far did your hands move? According to Wiseman, if they stayed level or shifted just a few inches apart then you aren’t that suggestible. But if they moved more than a few inches, you’re the perfect candidate for a magic trick.
Living Myths: Escape Into Life
The art journal Escape Into Life recently ran the full introduction to an upcoming book, The Immanence of Myth. For my part, it picks up where I left off in Generation Hex (Disinfo). I hope you enjoy:
Myths and legends die hard in America.
We love them for the extra dimension they provide,
the illusion of near-infinite possibility
to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. -Hunter S. Thompson
Myth is immanent. Myth is alive.
I know the idea of living myth is kind of hard to swallow at first. We think, and this thought is a myth too, that thoughts cannot be alive. What does it mean for myth to be immanent, let alone alive? What is myth, really? That’s where this book began, and I think that — now that it is being prepared for publication — that it has opened up the floor for the discussion of these ideas, more than having proven…
Russians Claim U.S. West Coast Fault Near ‘Total Failure’
You have to appreciate the work that went into this “Apocalypse Soon” report in the European Union Times. Not only do they build on the “Ring Of Fire – America Is Next Great Quake” scare propagated by Fox News, they also manage to work in mass animal deaths, the Supermoon, a comet on its way to smash into Earth and more!
A grim top-secret report prepared by Moscow’s Institute of Physics of the Earth for Prime Minister Putin on the catastrophic 9.0 magnitude Sendai Megaquake and Tsunami that hit Japan on March 11th is now warning that the “balance of our planet” has been altered after the titanic forces underlying this disaster has moved the Japanese Islands at least 13-feet closer to the North American West Coast Region and shortened the day by a couple of millionths of a second and tilted the Earth’s axis slightly.
According to this report, the Sendai Megaquake disaster is the “third…
The End Of Digg
Digg founder Kevin Rose has reportedly resigned from Digg in order to launch a new startup.
“When I took over as CEO six months ago,” commented Digg’s Matt Williams, “Kevin’s role changed to that of Founder and Board member…” Rose is now reportedly closing over $1 million in financing for a new start-up, and his attention is apparently already focusing on the future. “This comes just a matter of hours after TechCrunch noted that even Kevin Rose doesn’t use Digg any more, with his use of the site having dropped off massively over the last few months…”
Virginia Man With 4th Amendment Written on Chest Sues Over Airport Arrest
David Kravets writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:
A 21-year-old Virginia man who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on his body and stripped to his shorts at an airport security screening area is demanding $250,000 in damages for being detained on a disorderly conduct charge.
Aaron Tobey claims in a civil rights lawsuit (PDF) that in December he was handcuffed and held for about 90 minutes by the Transportation Security Administration at the Richmond International Airport after he began removing his clothing to display on his chest a magic-marker protest of airport security measures.
“Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,” his chest and gut read.
The University of Cincinnati student didn’t want to go through the advanced imaging technology X-ray machines that are cropping up at airports nationwide. Instead, when it was his turn to be screened, he was going…
Iran Launches World’s First Flying Saucer
Photo: FARS News Agency (Iran)
From the Times of India:
An aircraft created by scientists in Iran is, they claim, the world’s first flying saucer.
The unmanned spaceship, called the Zohal or Saturn in English, is designed for “aerial imaging” but can be used for “various missions” .
The hardline Fars news agency illustrated its story with a photo of a flying saucer, similar to one appearing in a 1950s Hollywood B-movie , hovering over an unidentified wooded landscape. The reports gave no indication of the spaceship’s size.
But they indicated it was small by claiming, somewhat bizarrely, that it can also fly indoors.
“Easy transportation and launch and flying, making less noise, are some of the advantages of the device ,” the Daily Mail quoted ISNA, Iran’s students’ news agency, as saying in its report. “The device belonging to the new generation of vertical flyers is designed for aerial photography.”
“It is equipped with autopilot, image…
U.S. Launches First Missiles Against Gaddafi Forces
U.S. Navy supercarrier USS Enterprise.
Reports CNN via the LA Times:
TRIPOLI, Libya — The U.S. military has launched its first missiles in Libya against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, a senior Defense Department official said Saturday.
Earlier, French fighter jets deployed over Libya fired at a military vehicle on Saturday, the country’s first strike against Moammar Gadhafi’s military forces who earlier attacked the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
The French Defense Ministry, which confirmed the strike, said its attack aircraft being used to take out tanks and artillery have deemed Benghazi and the surrounding area an “exclusion zone.”
The French are using surveillance aircraft and two frigates in the operation to protect civilians. The aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle will soon depart Toulon, France.
“Our air force will oppose any aggression by Colonel Gadhafi against the population of Benghazi,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking after an international, top-level meeting in Paris over the Libyan crisis.
“As of now, our…
Mass Privatization Can Kill
Source: BBC/The Lancet
The BBC reported in January of 2009:
The rapid mass privatisation which followed the break up of the Soviet Union fuelled an increase in death rates among men, research suggests.
The UK study blames rapidly rising unemployment resulting from the break-neck speed of reform.
The researchers said their findings should act as a warning to other nations that are beginning to embrace widespread market reform.
The study features online in The Lancet medical journal.
The researchers examined death rates among men of working age in the post-communist countries of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2002.
They conclude that as many as one million working-age men died due to the economic shock of mass privatisation policies.
Following the break up of the old Soviet regime in the early 1990s at least a quarter of large state-owned enterprises were transferred to the private sector in just two years.
This programme of mass privatisation was…
North Carolina Man Gets High On Fake Weed, Leads Cops On Chase To Save Girlfriend From Aliens, That Dr. Phil Told Him About…
Shelley Smith writes in the Salisbury Post:
The man who led deputies on a high-speed chase across northern and eastern Rowan County last night told authorities the reason he fled from officers at speeds up to 120 mph was because as he was watching television, Dr. Phil told him in a high-pitched voice that America was under an alien invasion. He told officers he drove off to save his girlfriend, authorities reported today.
Richard Donald Blanscet, 21, of 170 Sailboat Drive, was arrested after the chase, and admitted to smoking a synthetic marijuana – Mr. Nice Guy Herbal Smoke Blend – before the chase ensued. He was charged with driving while impaired, felony speeding to elude arrest and resisting a public officer. He was given a $2,500 secured bond.
Authorities said Deputy Josh McHone was dispatched to Blanscet’s home around 7:45 last night to assist fire and EMS with a combative patient who…
A Bad Job Damages Your Mental Health As Much As Unemployment
Writes Tim Barribeau on io9.com:
Being unemployed is generally regarded as detrimental to your mental health, with the prevailing wisdom being that gainful employment will fix you right up. Unfortunately, according to research published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a crappy job can be just as bad — if not worse — than unemployment.
Analyzing more than 7,000 working-age Australians across a great number of data points, the researchers found that people defined good jobs as ones that provided a defined social role and purpose, friendships, and structured time (among other things). Being hired into these kinds of jobs resulted in an overall improvement in mental health. Conversely, those in jobs that offered little control, were very demanding, and provided little support and reward lead to a general decrease in mental health.
Bath Salts Drug Craze: Anyone Want To “Take A Bath”?
Via Hipster Runoff:
When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven’t been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Snow, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Bathe in them, feed your plants with them, wave a machete or cut your face off on them! Or, better yet: don’t. I don’t know how many remember the invented jenkem craze, but this is a bit different. I had a “writer” write How To Be A Bi-Winner (article) as part of a “Journo-Scientilific” Gonzomentary study of the effects of these drugs on his nervous system. Clearly, it was not pretty. But with names like “WHITE LIGHTNING,” who wouldn’t want to inject these bath salts into their eyeball?
What’s Your Hobby? Knitted Breasts Created By 91-Year-Old
Via Newslite:
You might expect your granny to knit you a woolly jumper, but one pensioner has been defying expectations by using her needles to craft amazing knitted breasts.
Coral Charles-Dunne, 91, from Birmingham, has knitted dozens of the unusual educational tools as part of a project to inform expectant and new mums about breastfeeding.
She says spends about two hours creating each of the woolly boobs and makes them in a range of sizes, knitting for up to six hours per day.
The knitted breasts are then used by expectant moms to learn techniques for breast feeding … their partners probably use them to create an unusual game of football.
