Archive for May, 2011
Project Censored Director, Mickey Huff, Speaks Out on Media Censorship (Video)
Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored, has a Q & A session after his talk at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, CA on May 19, 2011. Mickey discusses 9/11 censorship in the alternative and corporate media, election fraud, Project Censored’s organizational mission and their 2011 book.
Why Don’t More People Care About Criminal Activity in Our Recent ‘Financial Crisis’? (Video)
If I had to pick one issue that I think many more people should really, really be curious about, I’d say the backstory behind so-called recent “financial crisis”, (which has been documented in such films as Inside Job, Capitalism: A Love Story and Plunder: The Crime of Our Time to name a few), is at the top of my list. Therefore, I was surprised when I saw at the end of the Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg comedy, The Other Guys, to find this “message” embedded in a mainstream entertainment film. As Gary Susman wrote on Moviefone’s Blog:
The movie may be a silly farce about New York cops who stumble upon a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme that threatens to defraud billions from city workers. But buried in the comedy is a serious point about what really constitutes grand theft these days, a point illustrated over the closing credits by a PowerPoint-like presentation full of jazzy infographics and serious statistics outlining just how much Wall Street and corporate leaders have enriched themselves at the expense of American workers and taxpayers…
It’s a fascinating sequence, both from a design perspective and from the unlikely prospect of seeing a major corporation (in this case, Sony) release a mass-entertainment movie that also wants to educate moviegoers about the legalized wealth-grab that’s benefiting major corporations…
The Sexual World Of Bankers
Strauss-Kahn And The Secret Culture Of Aggressive Sexuality In The High Pressure World Of Bankers And Banksters.
My colleague Mike Whitney asks:
“So, what are the chances that Strauss-Kahn will get a fair trial now that he’s been blasted as a serial sex offender in about 3,000 articles and in all the televised news reports?
Do you remember any Wall Street bankers being dragged off in handcuffs when they blew up the financial system and bilked people out of trillions of dollars?”
The answer to both questions is certainly Non, in French or No in English, but there’s more to the connection between Sex and Wall Street. Without commenting on the evidence in this case—which has been asserted, not proven– there is a deeper context that is being ignored.
I call it the “Testosterone Factor” in The Crime of Our Time, my book about how Wall Street criminally engineered the financial crisis.
Interesting isn’t it that there have been so…
Rapture Moved To October 21st
At this point, doesn’t it seem as if he is trying to run out the clock by repeatedly pushing back the doomsday date in the hopes of dying before he has to face responsibility for being a crappy predictor? The New York Times reports:
Here we go again. A California religious radio impresario who predicted — wrongly — that the end of the world would begin on May 21 revised his prophesy on Monday, saying now that the end is due in October.
In a rambling, 90-minute speech, broadcast both online and on his stations, Harold Camping, whose Family Radio network paid millions of dollars to promote his prediction, said that he was stunned when the rapture did not happen on Saturday.
What he decided, apparently, was that May 21 had been “an invisible judgment day,” of the spiritual variety, rather than his original vision of earthquakes and other disasters leading to five months…
Video: Are We Training Kids To Believe That Total Surveillance Is Normal?
Via TED Talks, Cory Doctorow discusses how parents’ and schools’ constant and total monitoring of kids’ internet usage and conversations trains young people to accept a complete lack of privacy, and total disclosure of their lives, as normal and good. Are today’s parents raising their children in a manner that plays into the hands of Big Brother?
Woman Selling Million-Dollar ‘Moon Rock’ Arrested
The wackiest part of this chain of events? That NASA has undercover agents who orchestrate stings to crack down on space crimes. Via the Guardian:
A woman who tried to sell what she said was a rare piece of moon rock for $1.7 million was detained when her would-be buyer turned out to be an undercover NASA agent, officials said Friday.
The gray rocks, which are considered national treasures and are illegal to sell, were given to each U.S. state and 136 countries by then-President Richard Nixon after U.S. moon missions and can sell for millions of dollars on the black market.
NASA investigators and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies detained the woman after she met Thursday with an undercover NASA investigator at a restaurant in Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the sheriff’s office said. The investigation was conducted over several months.
NASA planned to conduct tests to determine whether the…
How Area 51 Hid Secret Craft And Low-Tech Decoys
Via The CIA created Area 51 in 1955 to test and develop top secret U.S. military projects in the remote Nevada desert. More than 50 years later, the base still doesn’t officially exist and appears on no public U.S. government maps.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Area 51 was the epicenter of the OXCART project, intended to create the successor for the U-2 spy plane.
The OXCART plane was expected to be undetectable in the air as it flew surveillance and information-gathering missions over the Soviet Union. But Area 51 personnel soon found it necessary to conceal the craft from the Soviets eyes even when it was still being tested on the ground.
It was discovered that Soviet spy satellites, dubbed ash cans by Area 51 staff, were making regular rounds over Nevada.
[Continues at National Geographic]
Justices Ordered California To Reduce Amount Of Prisoners By 30,000
A Block in Alcatraz. Photo: Nonie
What do we do when prisons become overcrowded? According the new Supreme Court ruling (for California), we can release a few thousand early, transfer them to another state (make it some other place’s problem) or build bigger prisons. At no point was there any suggestion about how to reduce the amount of people sent to prisons (violent vs nonviolent offenses, helping crime-rich communities, etc.). The rule was a decision for immediate action of reducing prisoners in hope to better their standard of living. The New York Time reports:
Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, described a prison system…
Cynthia McKinney Slams U.S. On Libyan State TV
Cynthia McKinney
You can count on former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to speak her mind if she thinks something isn’t right. She really doesn’t think Western intervention in Libya is right! From CNN:
A former U.S. congresswoman slammed U.S. policy on Libyan state TV late Saturday and stressed the “last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war.”
The station is fiercely loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and her interview was spliced with what appeared to be rallies in support of the embattled Libyan leader.
“I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here. And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth,” former Rep. Cynthia McKinney said during a live interview.
…At one point during the interview, state TV cut to what it said were live airstrikes, hitting Gadhafi’s compound.
“Is that a bomb?”…
Harold Camping ‘Flabbergasted’ That Rapture Did Not Occur
The most amazing part? The response from his followers, many of whom drained their life savings in anticipation: “I don’t think I am going to stop listening to him…I gotta listen to him on Monday, see what he says on the radio.” Via the Atlantic Wire:
Harold Camping emerged from his Alameda, California home yesterday to face reporters for the first time since the Rapture that never happened. Wearing a light jacket and speaking over chirping birds, Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle he was “flabbergasted” that the world did not end on Saturday. “I’m looking for answers,” he told the reporter. “But now I have nothing else to say. I’ll be back to work Monday and will say more then.” Camping followers are similarly perplexed. “I don’t think I am going to stop listening to him,” one man added, heaving a deep sigh before continuing: “I don’t know, I gotta…
Tell Secretary Clinton To Say No To The Kochs
The Koch brothers stand to make millions from a pipeline that would carry the dirtiest oil on Earth through six states, one of America’s most important aquifers and almost 2,000 miles of American homes and farmland.
Congressional Republicans are trying to force the Obama administration to approve the pipeline with grandstanding hearings starting Monday, but gas prices would actually increase and construction would put American communities in danger. Another video from the Koch Brothers Exposed campaign:
Because the oil pipeline crosses an international border, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can intervene and stop this now. Share our petition and help reach the goal of 50,000 individuals telling Secretary Clinton to say No to the Kochs and Yes to protecting Americans at http://kochbrothersexposed.com/tellclintonno
Navy Turns To Online Gamers In Fight Against Somali Pirates
If you have spent the past fifteen years in a dank basement playing video games while immersed in a thin layer of Dorito crumbs, the U.S. military needs you to sort out the geopolitical mess around the Horn of Africa for them, please. AFP reports:
The Office of Naval Research plans this month to launch the US military’s first online war game to draw on the ideas of thousands of people instead of the traditional strategy session held inside the Pentagon’s offices.
“Piracy off the Horn of Africa has been an enduring problem that has many stakeholders. We selected this topic for the pilot scenario,” Schuette said.
The game will have three rounds over three weeks, with players in the first stage faced with a piracy scenario and asked to propose brief, Twitter-length solutions. Players will be presented with boxes labeled, “Innovate” and “Defend,” with questions such as: “What new resources could turn the…
Austrian Man Amputates His Hand To Replace It With Bionic One
Give this guy a hand for his courage. Won’t someone lend him a hand? … and so on. The BBC reports on our entry into the age of cyborgs, with laser-shooting eye transplants surely right around the corner:
An Austrian man has voluntarily had his hand amputated so he can be fitted with a bionic limb. The patient, called “Milo”, aged 26, lost the use of his right hand in a motorcycle accident a decade ago. After his stump heals in several weeks’ time, he will be fitted with a bionic hand which will be controlled by nerve signals in his own arm.
The patient, a Serbian national who has lived in Austria since childhood, suffered injuries to a leg and shoulder when he skidded off his motorcycle and smashed into a lamppost in 2001 while on holiday in Serbia.
A further operation involving the transplantation of muscle and nerve tissue into his forearm…
Amazonian Tribe Understands ‘Time’ Unlike The Rest of the World
I thought Pink Floyd had a good idea but these Amondawa folks are on the Money. Jason Palmer reports for BBC News:
The Amondawa lacks the linguistic structures that relate time and space — as in our idea of, for example, “working through the night”.
The study, in Language and Cognition, shows that while the Amondawa recognise events occuring in time, it does not exist as a separate concept. The idea is a controversial one, and further study will bear out if it is also true among other Amazon languages.
The Amondawa were first contacted by the outside world in 1986, and now researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Federal University of Rondonia in Brazil have begun to analyse the idea of time as it appears in Amondawa language.
“We’re really not saying these are a ‘people without time’ or ‘outside time’,” said Chris Sinha, a professor of psychology of language at the University of Portsmouth. “Amondawa people, like any other people, can talk about events and sequences of events,” he told BBC News.
Video Games Now Legally Considered An Art Form In The U.S.
Paul Tassi writes in Forbes:
Roger Ebert’s Twitter has informed me this morning that the government has attempted to prove him wrong in the seemingly endless “games as art” debate.The famed critic got many riled up when he said that no, games were not art, and in fact, they never possibly could be. He was hailed by some as an old man out of touch, but more pressingly, one who didn’t PLAY the games he was critiquing, which is rather essential to the experience.
But gamers have now found themselves an unlikely ally in the debate, the National Endowment for the Arts, which for 2012 has reclassified their definition of “art” to the following:
Projects may include high profile multi-part or single television and radio programs (documentaries and dramatic narratives); media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within an existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and interactive games. Short films, five minutes and under, will be considered in packages of three or more.
Catholic Church Officially Blames Hippies for Their Child Abuse Scandals
Via the LA Times:
Blame the flower children. That seems to be the chief conclusion of a new report about the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. The study, undertaken by John Jay College of Criminal Justice (PDF) at the request of America’s Catholic bishops, links the spike in child abuse by priests in the 1960s and ’70s to “the importance given to young people and popular culture” — along with the emergence of the feminist movement, a “singles culture” and a growing acceptance of homosexuality. It also cites crime, drugs, an increase in premarital sexual behavior and divorce.
The problem with this conclusion isn’t that it absolves molesting priests of responsibility. Even the study’s authors wouldn’t go that far. Rather, the flaw with the theory is that it’s unsupported by any data or evidence. It thus detracts from the report’s other findings, which are based on empirical research. Indeed, aside from its…
Jon Ronson on How to Spot A Psychopath (Video)
The Guardian has an excerpt of Jon Ronsom’s new book The Psychopath Test:
It was visiting hour at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital and patients began drifting in to sit with their loved ones at tables and chairs that had been fixed to the ground. They were mostly overweight, wearing loose, comfortable T-shirts and elasticated sweatpants. There probably wasn’t much to do in Broadmoor but eat. I wondered if any of them were famous. Broadmoor was where they sent Ian Brady, the Moors murderer, and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.
A man in his late 20s walked towards me. His arm was outstretched. He wasn’t wearing sweatpants. He was wearing a pinstripe jacket and trousers. He looked like a young businessman trying to make his way in the world, someone who wanted to show everyone that he was very, very sane. We shook hands.
“I’m Tony,” he said. He sat down.
“So I hear you faked your way in here,” I said. (Read More in the Guardian)
Ronson also created a video about his new project:
Indiana Supreme Court: You Have No Right to Resist Unlawful Police Entry
Crazy. Reports the AP via the News and Tribune:
INDIANAPOLIS — People have no right to resist if police officers illegally enter their home, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in a decision that overturns centuries of common law.
The court issued its 3-2 ruling on Thursday, contending that allowing residents to resist officers who enter their homes without any right would increase the risk of violent confrontation. If police enter a home illegally, the courts are the proper place to protest it, Justice Steven David said.
“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”
Brazil’s Biggest Bank Sued For Funding Amazon Deforestation
Brazil’s biggest bank — the state-run Banco do Brasil — is being sued for allegedly funding deforestation in the Amazon.
Public prosecutors say the bank lent money to companies that illegally cleared the rainforest and used labour practices bordering on slavery. The smaller state-owned Banco da Amazonia is also being sued.
Brazil says it has drastically reduced the rate of deforestation in the Amazon in recent years.
Prosecutors in the state of Para said they had uncovered 55 loans worth nearly $5m (£3m) that the Banco do Brasil approved to farms that had broken environmental and employment laws. They also said they had uncovered 37 loans worth $11m given to farms with similar violations by the Banco da Amazonia.
The loans violated Brazil’s constitution, environmental laws, banking regulations and international agreements signed by Brazil, the independent prosecutors at the Public Ministry said.
