Archive for June, 2011
The Werewolf Kung Fu Master
From Human Marvels:
Sometimes a story comes along that contains so many fanciful elements one must assume that it is the work of fiction. Such is the story of Su Kong Tai Djin.
Tai Djin was born in China in 1849. He was born unique, afflicted with hypertrichosis. Unlike Jo-Jo, who would be born a few decades later, Tai Djin was born into a highly superstitious family. As A result they saw his affliction as the work of demons and he was left in the forest to die.
A Shaolin monk traveling through the forest discovered the child and took him back to the Fukien Shaolin Temple. There Tai Djin was raised by the monks.
He was trained in martial arts and it quickly became apparent that he was exceptional in both appearance and ability.
Perhaps the most amazing part of that much the story is true. Su Kong Tai Djin was a real man, he…
Psychic Fiasco: Texas Mass Murder Raid a Hoax
Benjamin Radford writes in Discovery News:
A psychic called police on Monday night, describing a horrific scene of mass murder: 25 to 30 dismembered bodies near an unassuming ranch house about an hour outside of Houston, Texas. There were rotting limbs, headless corpses, and, chillingly, many were children.
Deputies from the Liberty County Sheriff’s office went to investigate but didn’t see anything amiss.
The psychic called a second time the next day, insisting that her visions were true. She provided more detailed information about the home and urged the police to return to a different part of the property. This time detectives called for backup and soon dozens of officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the FBI, and the Texas Rangers were on the scene — not to mention cadaver dogs, news helicopters, and gawkers.
Police investigated, and it all turned out to be a false alarm. There were no dead bodies; the…
‘Ordered Fear’ Plays a Strong Role in Market Chaos
From ScienceDaily:
When the current financial crisis hit, the failure of traditional economic doctrines to provide any sort of early warning shocked not only financial experts worldwide, but also governments and the general public, and we all began to question the effectiveness and validity of those doctrines.A research team based in Israel decided to investigate what went awry, searching for order in an apparently random system. They report their findings in the American Institute of Physics’ journal AIP Advances.
The novelty of their study is the incorporation of time variation of “human factors” into mathematical analysis. The team, led by Dr. Yoash Shapira, former head of the Atomic Energy Commission Research and currently a guest scientist at Tel Aviv University, along with Eshel Ben-Jacob, a professor of physics, Tel Aviv University School of Physics and Astronomy, and his doctoral student Dror Y. Kenett, hypothesized that temporal order (arrangement of events in time)…
Jilted Boyfriend Announces Ex-Girlfriend’s Abortion On Billboard
Via Fox News:
ALAMOGORDO, NM— A New Mexico man’s decision to lash out with a billboard ad saying his ex-girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes has touched off a legal debate over free speech and privacy rights.
The sign on Alamogordo’s main thoroughfare shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, “This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!”
Fultz’s ex-girlfriend has taken him to court for harassment and violation of privacy. A domestic court official has recommended the billboard be removed.
But Fultz’s attorney argues the order violates his client’s free speech rights.
“As distasteful and offensive as the sign may be to some, for over 200 years in this country the First Amendment protects distasteful and offensive speech,” Todd Holmes said.
The woman’s friends say she had a miscarriage, not an abortion, according to a…
Homophobic Men Most Aroused by Gay Male Porn
Nathan Heflick writes in Psychology Today:
Even a man who thought that women all want to have sex with their fathers and spend much of their life distraught because they lack a penis is right sometimes. This person, the legend that is Sigmund Freud, theorized that people often have the most hateful and negative attitudes towards things they secretly crave, but feel that they shouldn’t have.
If Freud is right, then perhaps men who are the most opposed to male homosexuality have particularly strong homosexual urges for other men.
One study asked heterosexal men their attitudes toward male homosexuality. Based on these scores, they then divided these men into two groups: men that are homophobic, and men who are not. These men were then shown three, four minute videos. One video depicted straight sex, one depicted lesbian sex and one depicted gay male sex. While this was happening, a device was attached to the male participant’s penises. This device has been found to be triggered by sexual arousal, but not other types of arousal.
10 Physical Gestures That Have Been Patented
Photo: Chris Kirkman (CC)
Interesting article from Annalee Newitz on io9.com:
If you’re making a flicking gesture with a pen near your computer, watch out. Microsoft may own the rights to the gesture you’re making. And if you like to draw letters of the alphabet using one penstroke per letter, you may one day find yourself paying a licensing fee to Xerox.
It sounds crazy, but tech companies have been patenting physical gestures for almost two decades now. In a world ruled by touchscreens, Kinect, and Guitar Hero, these businesses don’t want people making certain gestures without paying for it. Find out which gestures you’re making that may be infringing somebody’s patents.
People have been claiming exclusive ownership of physical moves for a while. Famous choreographer Martha Graham’s company copyrighted many of her iconic dances, and even sued a man who said the work was actually his. A few years ago, the guy who…
Washington Vs. Jefferson — Winner: Franklin By TKO
In the buildup to the 2012 elections, we can anticipate candidates attempting to appropriate inaccurate depictions of the legacies of the Founding Fathers. But when it comes to real history, pound for pound, and in any fight between Jefferson and Washington, I’d put my money on Ben Franklin.
In one recent article posted to disinfo.com, and the attendant readers’ comments particularly grabbed my imagination: “Dancing at the Memorial of a Slave Owner“, an examination of the events following the arrest of five persons for dancing near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Of course the real importance of the article bears upon the current state of civil rights and free speech in the United States, not on Mr. Jefferson’s personal stance on slavery. The impression the piece left with me was a reinforced sense of America as a declining cultural as well as economic and military power, clinging desperately onto past imagined…
How To Foreclose On A Bank
Patrick Rodgers, the Philly Vampire who foreclosed on a Wells Fargo Bank branch, has started a revolution against the banksters, it seems. Ann Carrns reports for the New York Times:
Now, a couple in Naples, Fla., have “foreclosed” on a Bank of America branch after the bank managed to foreclose on their home — even though they never had a mortgage on it. According to reports in The Naples News, Time and elsewhere, Warren Nyerges and his wife paid $165,000 in cash to buy the house from the bank, and never borrowed against it. But last February, in an apparent case of mistaken home identity, the bank began foreclosure proceedings against them.
The couple hired a lawyer and the bank action was eventually abandoned, but the couple then went to court and got a judgment for about $2,500 in attorney’s fees. When the bank didn’t pay, their lawyer, Todd Allen, showed up at a local bank branch last week with sheriff’s deputies and a moving truck…
Styrene Plates, Cups Found To Cause Cancer
Styrene 3D Balls
The only surprise here is that after years of delaying tactics by the plastics and chemical industries, the U.S. Government finally decided to tell its citizens that two very common compounds – styrene and formaldehyde – are carginogens. Rob Stein reports for the Washington Post:
Styrene, which is used to make those ubiquitous white foam coffee cups, food containers and many other products, is probably a human carcinogen, the federal government declared Friday.
The declaration came in the government’s latest update of its official list of known or possible carcinogens. It categorized formaldehyde, a chemical widely used to make many products, and a family of substances found in some herbal remedies as known carcinogens.
Officials stressed that the listings do not mean that any exposure to the substances will cause cancer. Instead, it means that the latest scientific evidence indicates that the agents can cause cancer in some people exposed to…
‘Magnetic Bubbles’ Found Around Solar System Edge
A digital image of the newly theorized 'foam zone'.
Is our solar system a ‘cosmic jacuzzi filled with magnetic bubbles’? The outer shield of our solar system was thought to be smooth, like soda gone flat, but new theory believes it may foam-like filled with “bubbles.” From National Geographic:
The edge of the solar system may be a frothy sea of giant magnetic “bubbles,” a new NASA study says.
The new findings may mean that our system’s magnetic barrier—once thought to be a smooth shield—may be letting in more harmful cosmic rays and energetic particles than previously thought.
The new “foam zone” theory is based on a computer model created using data from NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft, both launched in 1977 and currently about 10 billion miles (16 billion kilometers) from Earth.
In 2007 Voyager 1 recorded dramatic dips and rises in the amount of electrons it encountered as the craft traveled through the heliosphere—the “force…
Ellsberg Discusses How Crimes Nixon Committed Are Now Considered Legal
Photo: Thomas Good (CC)
Is President Obama getting away with some of the same offenses that led to Nixon’s resignation? Daniel Ellsberg thinks so. The Raw Story reports:
Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg said Tuesday that disgraced former Republican President Richard M. Nixon would “admire [President Barack] Obama’s boldness” in trying to stifle whistleblowers.
“Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life,” Ellsberg told CNN. “And his aide Henry Kissinger was not the last American official to win an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.”
“He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me — which forced his resignation facing impeachment — are now legal,” he continued.
“That includes burglarizing my former psychoanalyst’s office (for material to blackmail me into silence), warrantless wiretapping, using the…
Human Breast Milk Produced By Chinese GMO Cows
Impressive, but I’m holding out for genetically engineered cows that produce milkshakes. Good writes:
These cows were bred by inserting human genes into cloned cow embryos which were then implanted into surrogate cows. The plan is to have this milk in supermarkets within three years. China is well ahead of the Western world in terms of its comfort with genetically modified food. But let’s think about this. Could consumers get past the Freudian weirdness of drinking breast milk in the name of nutrition?
Could Using Your Gadgets in Mid-Air Really Bring Down The Plane?
Ina Fried tries to answer the question that surely everyone who flies asks themselves, at AllThingsD:
It seems hard for many to believe, but one air travel industry study has found that there may be some merit to the idea that small electronics could interfere enough with airplane navigation to cause a safety problem.
According to a confidential study unearthed by ABC News, a study by the International Air Transport Association trade group found some 75 incidents of potential interference reported between 2003 and 2009. The involved interference with everything from flight controls, to navigation to communications systems. The type of device suspected of causing interference varied, though the most commonly cited likely troublemaker was the cell phone.
Cell phone use is, of course, banned by the FAA during flights, though many people forget to turn off their devices or willingly ignore the warnings. It is increasingly common to hear a cell phone…
Kill Bill 2011: The Ongoing Sabotage Of Financial Reform
Some years back Thomas Franck nailed it in his book, The Wrecking Crew. It was subtitled “How Conservatives Rule” and showed how narrow self-interest and well practiced cynicism in the service of partisan warfare has crippled our political system resulting in a deep paralysis despite the threat of a collapse.
I call it sabotage, a tactic that goes way back and involves deliberate effort to insure that reforms are effectively undermined.
When the book came out, Publishers Weekly praised it and criticized it in the same breath, writing,
“Frank paints a complex and conspiracy-ridden picture that illuminates the sinister and controversial practices of the Republican Party in the 20th and 21st centuries. While Frank’s assessments and interpretations of key events, players and party doctrines is accurate and justifiable, his overwhelming blame of the Republican Party as the source of everything that’s wrong with this county and as the emblem of self-destructing government denies the…
U.S. Government Reports Admit Drug War Money Is Wasted
Senator Claire McCaskill
Brian Bennett reports for the LA Times:
As drug cartels wreak murderous havoc from Mexico to Panama, the Obama administration is unable to show that the billions of dollars spent in the war on drugs have significantly stemmed the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States, according to two government reports and outside experts.
The reports specifically criticize the government’s growing use of U.S. contractors, which were paid more than $3 billion to train local prosecutors and police, help eradicate fields of coca, operate surveillance equipment and otherwise battle the widening drug trade in Latin America over the last five years.
“We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we are getting in return,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that wrote one of the reports, which was released Wednesday.
“I think we have wasted our money hugely,” agreed Bruce…
Blackwater Video Game Now Available For Xbox
The game designers have opted to have your gun fire automatically when it hovers long enough over an enemy target. Kotaku Australia reviews the first-person-shooter Blackwater video game, out soon for Xbox Kinect and endorsed by founder Erik Prince:
This week was the first time we heard of publisher 505 Games’ Blackwater, an FPS that would cast you in the role of Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries.
The topic seemed thorny – the mercenary company, now renamed Xe Services, has been at the center of a multiple of controversies and the subject of highly critical Congressional hearings. Blackwater has been linked to the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians, and the alcohol-fueled fatal shooting of a security guard in the employ of the country’s vice president. According to 505, the game was designed in consultation with former mercenary agents, and with Erik Prince, the founder and former head of the hot-button security contractor.
Blackwater is an on-rails shooter…
Bilderberg 2011 Meeting Starts In Switzerland
Partial listing of Bilderberg Steering Committee from official site.
The fact that this report is from CNBC and not an obscure conspiracy theory website suggests that that the Bilderbergers don’t feel the need to hide their existence any longer…
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, naturally, isn’t attending this year, and his likely successor Christine Lagarde is in China, but the Bilderberg Conference which kicks off in the Swiss resort of St. Moritz on Thursday retains its conspiratorial chic and pulling power.
The attendee list of Bilderberg is still pretty much the only thing that is not a closely guarded secret, as 120 of the world’s richest and most powerful people meet behind closed doors, this time at the Suvretta House hotel in Switzerland, a venue which not only boasts a “fairytale castle” design, but also its own “Teddy World.”…
Andrew Kakabadse is professor of international management development at Cranfield University. For his recent book “Bilderberg People,” co-authored with Nada Kakabadse…
Living In A Biodome In The Arizona Desert
Cabinet Magazine looks at one of the strangest experiments in American history, the Biosphere, a Lord of the Flies-style misadventure in utopian scientific overoptimism that spawned a terrible Pauly Shore movie and a fad diet:
At 8:15 am on 26 September 1991, eight “bionauts,” as they called themselves, wearing identical red Star Trek–like jumpsuits (made for them by Marilyn Monroe’s former dressmaker) waved to the assembled crowd and climbed through an airlock door in the Arizona desert. They shut it behind them and opened another that led into a series of hermetically sealed greenhouses in which they would live for the next two years.
The three-acre complex of interconnected glass Mesoamerican pyramids, geodesic domes, and vaulted structures contained a tropical rain forest, a grassland savannah, a mangrove wetland, a farm, and a salt-water ocean with a wave machine and gravelly beach. This was Biosphere 2—the first biosphere being Earth—a $150 million experiment designed…
