Archive for May, 2011
World Health Org Study Says Mobile Phones ‘Possibly Carcinogenic’
Last week I was at the BookExpo trade show and a couple of dubious characters manning an outlying booth tried to sell me an ugly looking sticky thing to place on my iPhone and supposedly cut down harmful radiation. They measured the radiation coming from the iPhone on some sort of scanner and of course the needle jumped off the scale. But their device, whatever it was, made my iPhone ugly so I didn’t buy it.
I might have to track them down in the wake of what seems like a convincing study that the radiation from cell phones really is hazardous for humans. Labeling them as “possibly carcinogenic,’’ a panel of 31 WHO scientists deems them to be in the same category of harm as certain dry cleaning chemicals and pesticides.
Crikey! Aussies To Be Fined For Swearing
What the f*#^? The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Australians may have a love of plain speaking but new laws are set to curtail some of their more colourful language with police issuing on-the-spot fines for obnoxious swearing.
The country’s second most populous state Victoria is due to approve new legislation this week under which police will be able to slap fines of up to Aus$240 (US$257) on people using offensive words or phrases.
Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said the penalties, similar to those issued for speeding or parking illegally, would free up police time.
“This will give the police the tools they need to be able to act against this sort of obnoxious behaviour on the spot, rather than having to drag offenders off to court and take up time and money in proceedings,” he said.
But even the state’s top lawyer admitted to swearing sometimes. “Occasionally I mutter things under my breath as probably everybody…
Resurrecting Reznor’s Lost Art-Band Discovery, ‘Mondo Vanilli’
Finally the truth can be told — about how the editor of Mondo 2000 magazine was offered a six-album deal with Trent Reznor’s label for a performance art/virtual reality band called “Mondo Vanilli” in 1993. (”Would I be the first mildly overweight, weird-looking lead singer to launch into rock stardom at 41 years old?”)
Mondo editor R. U. Sirius remembers fondly that Reznor “was still excited about us after the psilocybin wore off,” recalls the poop-and-diapers piece of performance art that disgusted the hipsters in San Francisco, and shares the legendary sad-eyed “Keane painting” mocking Reznor that may have ultimately spoiled the deal…
But their one “lost album” from 1993 is finally available online.
Bombs Explode In IKEA Stores Across Europe
Photo: Sbotig (CC)
IKEA’s business has been booming. Although no one was significantly injured, this coordinated attack had alarm clocks exploding in three different European countries. Via Reuters:
French, Belgian and Dutch police have launched investigations after minor explosions struck IKEA [IKEA.UL] stores in each country late on Monday in what appears to have been a coordinated attack.
No one was seriously hurt in the blasts at the world’s biggest furniture retailer, although two workers in Belgium suffered minor injuries.
Rigged alarm clocks blew up in IKEA stores in Ghent in Belgium and Lille in France, and there was an explosion in a bin outside the IKEA store in Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
The alarm clocks were linked to small amounts of gunpowder, and prosecutors said they did not think that the bombers had intended to cause significant injury.
“Federal police with dogs did a sweep of other stores but there was nothing suspect that was…
Arrested For Dancing at the Jefferson Memorial (Video)
I wonder how Thomas Jefferson would have felt about this. Via the Huffington Post:
The dancers were protesting an appeals court ruling handed down last week that the national monuments are places for reflection and contemplation — and that dancing distracted from such an experience.
In 2008, Mary Brooke Oberwetter and a group of friends went to the Jefferson to commemorate the president’s 265th birthday by dancing silently, while listening to music on headphones. Park Police ordered the revelers to disperse and arrested them when they did not.
Oberwetter sued on free speech grounds, but the appeals court ruled last week that her conduct was indeed prohibited “because it stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration” that Park Service regulations are designed to preserve.
Saturday’s protest was staged during the day, on Memorial Day weekend, in order to draw maximum attention:
How To Disappear Completely
CSO interviews skip tracer Frank Ahearn about how to vanish from society, skipping off to a tropical island or a clean start in North Dakota, if you don’t want to be found. The key is to put out a flood of misinformation:
You can’t legally change an identity. Identities are kind of this myth. Where do you get one from? And how do you know where it’s from and that it hasn’t been given to fifty other people? Who knows if it’s on the Megan’s Law list or if it belongs to someone who owes the IRS $100,000?
But sometimes you can open a corporation, depending on what you do, and work on a 1099. So, what we do in a nutshell, is make you a virtual entity where you work for this corporation. You lease your apartment through this corporation, your electricity, your phone. Everything about you exists under the corporation. The…
The U.S. Double-Dip Recession Is Here
Photo: Brendel (CC)
The media today are telling us what we already know: the United States is firmly in the grip of a double-dip recession, at least so far as home values are concerned. Shannon Bond has the details for the Financial Times:
US home prices slumped for an eighth straight month in March, dropping below the bottom previously recorded in the housing bust in a sign of the persistent weakness of residential real estate.
A separate report showed consumer confidence sagged in May as Americans grew more pessimistic about the job market and inflation expectations rose.
Prices of single-family houses in the 20 largest US cities fell 0.2 per cent from February to March on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. The decline was in line with economists’ expectations and left the index at 138.16, below its low point of 139.26 in April 2009 and the lowest level…
Many Public Schools Begin Charging Students For Attending Class, Textbook Use, Teachers’ Materials
This is so sad: in school districts across the country, the concept of a free public education is fading into the past. The Wall Street Journal writes:
Public schools across the country, struggling with cuts in state funding, are shifting costs to students and their parents by imposing or boosting fees for everything from enrolling in honors English to riding the bus.
At high schools in several states, it can cost more than $200 just to walk in the door, thanks to registration fees, technology fees and unspecified “instructional fees.”
Though public schools have long charged for extras such as driver’s education and field trips, many are now asking parents to pay for supplies needed to take core classes—from biology-lab safety goggles to algebra workbooks to the printer ink used to run off grammar exercises in language arts. In some schools, each class comes with a price tag, to be paid at registration. Some…
Will You Buy The $100,000 Personal Jetpack? (Video)
Good to know the emergency parachute works! David Murphy reports on the still mythical (but not for much longer) personal jetpack from Martin Aircraft, for PC Mag:
Were only life as cool as The Rocketeer, we’ve often asked ourselves: Flying around the sky with a huge, flame-spewing propulsion device perilously strapped to our backs. It would sure cut down the evening commute… and fry most of our pants.
Well, the $100,000 Martin Aircraft jetpack is but one step closer to actual reality, thanks to a recent and successful test of the system’s emergency parachute…
Media Roots Radio: Osama Propaganda, Police Power, GOP & Obama’s 2012 Run-up
Via Media Roots Radio:
This episode covers new Bin Laden propaganda, the recent ruling giving police the power to break into homes without warrants and the media circus surrounding the GOP and Obama’s election run-up for 2012.
Meet Kenny, An Inbred White Tiger (Photos)
Via Prose Before Hos:
Kenny is a white tiger ‘selectively’ inbred while in captivity in the United States. As zoo’s and exotic pet stores have increased the demand for white tigers, breeders have attempted to recreate the ideal white tiger — large snout, blue eyes, white fur — through relying on a limited pool of captive white tigers.
The result? An astoundingly high rate of deformities and health issues. For example, Kenny is mentally retarded and has significant physical limitations.
My God — It’s Full of Stars! (Video)
Video made from images by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado at the Very Large Telescope:
Old Drinkers Protected Against Dementia
But you have to reach 75, life is not fair. Richard Alleyne writes in the Telegraph:
Scientists found pensioners aged 75 or over who like a daily pint or glass of wine are helping to stave off senility.
Those who drink alcohol are 30 per cent less likely to develop dementia and 40 per cent less likely to suffer Alzheimer’s than those who were teetotal, according to the research.
A study of more than 3,200 German people aged 75 or over attending GPs, who were free of dementia, were studied and checked 18 months and three years later.
Associations between alcohol consumption, type of alcohol – wine, beer, mixed alcohol beverages – and incident dementia were examined.
“People should be aware that we are talking about mild/moderate consumption of alcohol,” said Professor Siegfried Weyerer from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany.
U.S. Military Orders Millions of Employees to Spy on Each Other
Had to imagine there would be drastic action taken. Sam Biddle writes on Gizmodo:
The faces at the Pentagon are still mighty red since WikiLeaks. And they don’t want a repeat. A new directive from the Department of Defense aims at squelching leaks — by deputizing a massive number of employees as involuntary snitches.
The document, titled “Counterintelligence Awareness and Reporting (CIAR),” directs DoD employees, military and civilian alike, to “Report, in accordance…the contacts, activities, indicators, and behaviors” of their coworkers. And given the WikiLeaks story, this means keeping tabs on your neighbor’s computer. Suspicious (and must-report) behavior includes:
“Unauthorized possession or operation of cameras, recording devices, computers, and communication devices where classified information is handled or stored.”
“Discussions of classified information over a non-secure communication device.”
“Unauthorized copying, printing, faxing, e-mailing, or transmitting classified material.”
WikiSecrets: The Inside Story of Bradley Manning & The Largest Intelligence Breach in U.S. History (Video)
Worth watching, available now on Frontline’s website. Here’s part one of five:
FBI Recovers Stolen Ferrari, Crashes It, Then Refuses To Pay Owner
Photo: J.Smith831 (CC)
Via Russia Today:
In 2008 the FBI managed to track down a stolen Ferrari — much to the owners delight — but not for long. An agent decided to take the car for a spin before it was returned to the owner. He crashed it and no one is willing to pay-up.
The owner is suing the US Justice Department because the FBI refuses to pay the estimate $750,000 in damages to the vehicle.
The Ferrari F50 was initially stolen in 2003 from a dealer in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. After it was reported stolen the ownership was transferred to Motors Insurance. The vehicle is only one of 50 1995 Ferrari F50 sports cars in the United States.
After the sports car was found it was taken to an FBI facility in Lexington, Kentucky for the duration of the investigation. While in Kentucky however it met its demise.
FBI agent Fred Kingston was instructed to…
Has Bigfoot Been Filmed on This Hiker’s iPhone (Video)?
Annie Bishop reports on KXLY4 News:
SPOKANE, Wash.— A Spokane woman out for a day hike along the Spokane river claims to have proof of the mysterious and elusive Bigfoot.
Samantha, who did not give her last name, and her friends were hiking at Downriver Park over the weekend when they captured Bigfoot by using their iPhone camera.
Samantha posted a YouTube video of the creature a few days later.
Married Couples Are No Longer a Majority in U.S.
Sabrina Tavernise writes in the New York Times:
Married couples have dropped below half of all American households for the first time, the Census Bureau says, a milestone in the evolution of the American family toward less traditional forms.
Married couples represented just 48 percent of American households in 2010, according to data being made public Thursday and analyzed by the Brookings Institution. This was slightly less than in 2000, but far below the 78 percent of households occupied by married couples in 1950.
What is more, just a fifth of households were traditional families — married couples with children — down from about a quarter a decade ago, and from 43 percent in 1950, as the iconic image of the American family continues to break apart.
In recent history, the marriage rate among Americans was at its highest in the 1950s, when the institution defined gender roles, family life and a person’s place…
