Archive for September, 2011
Aum Shinrikyo Cult Recruitment Anime
Japan’s Tokyo-based Aum Shinrikyo (”Supreme Truth”) religious cult reached peak notoriety in 1995 when members conducted a string of terrorist attacks on the subway system, releasing sarin gas that killed thirteen people and injured thousands. Police raided the group’s compound and found a massive biological weapons stockpile including anthrax and Ebola cultures and chemicals that could produce enough sarin to kill millions of people.
Before their undoing, the cult used anime videos as their recruitment tool, portraying the secret origins of human life and the heroics of founder/guru Shoko Asahara. Even unsubtitled, they’re a fascinating view:
Face Substitution In Realtime
On the internet you can be whomever you wish to be — it gets truer every day. In the future, when video-chatting, the first step will be to pick which face you want to use:
Jesse Ventura Back With More Conspiracy Theories
Like him or loathe him, Jesse Ventura has achieved the mostly impossible: giving national TV airtime to conspiracy theories (of the unofficial variety). TVByTheNumbers regurgitates the press release that a third season of conspiracies is coming soon, with Jesse’s son and Oliver Stone’s son joining the team:
If there’s an urban legend or Conspiracy Theory out there, Jesse Ventura is determined to get to the bottom of it. The soldier, wrestler, politician and best-selling author is hitting the road for the third season of truTV’s hit series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. The new season promises even more mystery and mayhem as the rebel and freethinker investigates secrets “they” don’t want people to know. Upping the ante against alleged cover-ups, Jesse and veteran team member June Sarpong will be joined by a “new generation” of conspiracy busters: Jesse’s own son, Tyrel Ventura, and Sean Stone, son of controversial Oscar®-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone…
Prescription Drug Use Now Kills More People Than Traffic Accidents
Photo: 51fifty (CC)
Via the Inquisitr:
In 1979 the U.S. Government began tracking drug-related deaths and for the first time those deaths have surpassed the number of traffic fatalities on an annual basis. The most recent statistics which were taken in 2009 shows that 37,485 people died in traffic related accidents while 36,284 people died from drug related activities in a one year period.
Surprisingly the main culprit of those deaths were not street illegal drugs but rather prescription options including Xanax, OxyContin and the main culprit Vicodin which killed more people than cocaine and heroin combined.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times a Santa Barbara sheriff said: “The problem is right here under our noses in our medicine cabinets.”
The study also revealed that traffic related fatalities have actually fallen by a third since the 1970s even as the number of drivers using American roadways continues to increase, while drug related deaths have doubled in…
Noam Chomsky: 2012 GOP Candidates Views are “Off the International Spectrum of Sane Behavior”
I think Professor Chomsky says it best…
Watch the full interview on Democracy Now!
Realtors In Cars
The Realtors In Cars tumblr captures one of the strangest of internet trends — realtors making videos of themselves sitting in their cars, providing life advice and “wisdom” gleaned from the real estate field, the lowdown on hot new properties, and contemplation on all cosmic matters. Questions abound: Why are all of the realtors in their cars? Why are they all seemingly driving through the same drab, gray area? And, is this what society has come to?
Where Does Debt Come From?
Via Naked Capitalism, a fascinating interview with economic anthropologist David Graeber about the history of debt over the last 5,000 years (and the oft-intertwined history of slavery):
Since antiquity the worst-case scenario that everyone felt would lead to total social breakdown was a major debt crisis; ordinary people would become so indebted to the top one or two percent of the population that they would start selling family members into slavery, or eventually, even themselves.
Well, what happened this time around? Instead of creating some sort of overarching institution to protect debtors, they create these grandiose, world-scale institutions like the IMF or S&P to protect creditors. They essentially declare (in defiance of all traditional economic logic) that no debtor should ever be allowed to default. Needless to say the result is catastrophic. We are experiencing something that to me, at least, looks exactly like what the ancients were most afraid of: a…
Mutually Assured Destruction Vs. Mutually Assured Respect
Here he goes again … crazy man. From the Daily Paul:
Man Has Raised His Arm Continuously For 38 Years
Is his now-gnarled arm a beacon of peace? A symbol of rejection of earthly pleasures? A crystal-clear example of the insanity of religion? In pondering Amar Mahant’s arm, everyone will see what they want to see — like a Cheeto said to resemble both Jesus and Elvis. Via the West Australian:
In 1970 Amar Mahant [of New Delhi] left his job, family and friends to dedicate himself to his religious beliefs. In 1973, the clerk raised his hand in honour of Hindu deity Shiva – and he hasn’t put it down since. It’s now been 38 years.
Amar’s followers claim his sacrifice is a beacon of peace, while others say he has given up the use of a limb in order to separate himself from the pleasures of mortal life.
Amar’s sacrifice has turned his arm into a useless stump of flesh and bone, with a gnarled hand and unclipped fingernails hanging from…
Israel And Turkey, Friends No More
Istanbul, Turkey: Let me begin with shvitz, a Yiddish term I believe that refers to special baths.
When the hotel I was staying at in Istanbul advertised that guests were welcome to enjoy the Turkish Bath in their basement, I took them up on it. There were two other blondish guys in their birthday suits in the small room sweltering in the small room when I got there. They were drinking beer and conversing in a strange language I later identified as Swedish.
I was in town to speak at a session on Internet freedom at the 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2011) at Sabanci Center. They were there, as I slowly learned as engineers loaned out to the America’s Westinghouse Corporation to build some nuclear plants in Turkey. Apparently, they were to have been built by the Tokyo Electric company that now has a nuclear disaster of their own on their…
The PETA XXX Porn Site
Elisabetta Canalis models for PETA
Ethical Porn? Ray Sanchez reports for Reuters:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, no stranger to attention-grabbing campaigns featuring nude women, plans to launch a pornography website in the name of animal rights.
The nonprofit organization, whose controversial campaigns draw criticism from women’s rights groups, said it hopes to raise awareness of veganism through a mix of pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering.
“We’re hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn’t anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site,” said Lindsay Rajt, PETA’s associate director of campaigns.
PETA has been accused of campaigning for animal rights at the cost of exploiting women. A Facebook group, Real Women Against PETA, was launched after the organization paid for a billboard showing an obese woman with the message: “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber.…
Read/Write Your Own Genetic Code
Prof. George Church. Photo: Steve Jurvetson (CC)
Once home genetic engineering kits become standard can we expect home brew X-Men? BBC News‘ Karen Weintraub reports on some experiments at Harvard University that may signal the beginning of DIY genetic engineering:
You have to wonder what’s going on in the DNA of Harvard genetics professor George Church.
What extra bit of code does he have that the rest of us don’t? If genes tell the story of a person’s life, then some altered sequence of ‘A’s, ‘C’s, ‘G’s and ‘T’s must be at play, because his brain works like almost no one else’s.
About 30 years ago, Prof Church was one of a handful of people who dreamed up the idea of sequencing the entire human genome – every letter in the code that separates us from fruit flies as well as our parents. His lab was the first to come up with a machine…
Solar Plant Pollutes River in China … Riots Ensue
What does sustainability truly mean in an industrial world? Villagers in Zhejiang Province are wondering the same thing since the production of solar cells and batteries at a factory in the area has effectively poisoned their river and their children … Via the BBC:
Hundreds of villagers in eastern China have held three days of protests at a solar panel plant over pollution fears. Around 500 people started gathering at Zhejiang Jinko Solar company in Haining city, Zhejiang province, on Thursday. Some of protesters stormed the factory, overturning several company cars and destroying offices, officials said. Residents in the nearby village of Hongxiao said they became concerned after the deaths of a large number of river fish.
One 64-year-old villager told the Associated Press that the factory — located close to a school and kindergarten – discharges waste into the river and spews dense smoke out of a dozen chimneys. “The villagers…
The Terrifying Hollow Face Illusion (Video)
Great find from Esther Inglis-Arkell on io9.com:
Stephen Fry and the panelists on the BBC show QI are struck by the strange motions of the inverted face of Albert Einstein demonstrating the Hollow Face Illusion, and a little side-variation of the illusion.
We’ve told you about the Hollow Face Illusion before. This illusion involves a sculpted face, but instead of the usual convex human face of a sculpture, the sculpture is flipped and we’re shown the inside of the face. In this case, it looks like Einstein stuck his face in some molten plastic and we’re looking at the impression.
In Defense of the Clueless Fan (aka Groupie 2.0)
Photo: RTFM07 (CC)
After reading the Disinformation article “In Defense of the Hipster” I decided that I would defend another subculture that may in fact be universally hated more than the utterly despised (especially by its own kind) hipster. Why does everybody hate the Clueless Fan? The new and enthusiastic kid on the block who asks every writer/musician/comic book artist/filmmaker to take a look at their work. The Groupie 2.0. The type of person who just happens to be a huge fan and supporter of the work that came before them. The Uberfan who is now ready to work with their idols yet completely misunderstands the way that their industry works.
What does one do with the Clueless Fan? Does one post their emails on their blogs so their fanbase can get a good laugh? Does this humiliate the Clueless Fan to the point of psychotic revenge-stalking? These are questions we may not…
Antimagnets That Nullify Magnetic Fields
Via PES Wiki:
Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have obtained a formula for building a ” Antimagnet.” that can nullify the magnetic field, a discovery that was published in the New Journal of Physics.
UAB researchers publish in New Journal of Physics a formula to create a device capable of blocking any type of magnetic field. The antimagnet will make it possible for people with pacemakers to undergo magnetic resonances and to control the magnetic fields of technological devices.
Researchers worked to obtain a formula which will cover three objectives. First, an object’s magnetic field will not penetrate the exterior once it is covered by the antimagnet. Second, everything cloaked by the antimagnet will be protected from external magnetic fields and the object inside will be undetectable. Third, all materials used to create the antimagnet must be available, i.e. the antimagnet must be manufactured with the use of existing technology.
The formula…
Protecting Their Prosperity
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
Even though the U.S. military spends more than 6 times that of our next competitor (China), the GOP is still pushing the narrative that any more cuts in spending to the Pentagon’s budget would be “disastrous” and spell “doomsday” for the military. The Hill reports House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif) said he’d even be willing to support tax increases before more cuts to the military’s budget. Predictably, 13 freshmen Republicans on McKeon’s panel, many of which are Tea Party darlings, feel “enough is enough” and believe federal spending cuts need to come from entitlement programs.
McKeon said “It’s time to focus our fiscal restraint on the driver of our debt, not the protector of our prosperity.”
In addition to McKeon’s doomsday forecasting, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) also voiced concerns earlier this month regarding proposed defense spending cuts. In a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta,…
