Archive for September, 2011
Carville: Panic Time For Obama
Never one to mince words, James Carville has a simple message for President Obama: “Panic!” From CNN:
People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic.
We are far past sending out talking points. Do not attempt to dumb it down. We cannot stand any more explanations. Have you talked to any Democratic senators lately? I have. It’s pretty damn clear they are not happy campers.
This is what I would say to President Barack Obama: The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed.
I don’t know how else to break this down. Simply put:
1. Fire somebody. No — fire a lot of people. This…
Best Tabloid Headline Ever?
I have to congratulate Gavon Laessig at Buzzfeed for bringing this to the world’s attention. Really quite extraordinary what the headline writers at the British tabloids are capable of!
Get ready to feel guilty after you stop laughing. Percy Foster was a 3-foot-6-inch dwarf who starred in the UK porno “Hi-Ho Hi-Ho, It’s Up Your Arse We Go.”
He bore an uncanny resemblance to celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. Welsh agriculture officials discovered Foster’s body in an underground chamber, leading to this grisly headline from British tabloid The Sunday Sport.
Quite possibly a new low in print journalism…
Samsung Claims That iPads Are Stolen From Kubrick
It’s fascinating to examine the point at which an element of science fiction actually comes true. Apple is in a legal struggle with Samsung to prevent it from selling tablet devices that resemble the iPad. Samsung’s defense: The iPad is in fact ripped off from a tablet design created by Stanley Kubrick for 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. FOSS Patents writes:
Late last night, Samsung filed its opposition brief to Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction in the United States.
One element of Samsung’s defense strategy is interesting enough that I wanted to report on it beforehand. Ever since Apple started to assert the design of the iPad against other manufacturers, many people have been wondering whether there’s actually prior art for the general design of the iPad in some futuristic devices shown in sci-fi movies and TV series. And indeed, Samsung’s lawyers make this claim now in their defense against Apple’s motion…
Ron Paul’s Campaign Mastermind Died Of Pneumonia, Penniless And Uninsured
In an arresting moment at Monday’s Republican presidential debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul about the hypothetical case of an uninsured young man who needs medical care, and whether “society should just let him die.” The debate audience cheered in approval, and Paul more or less agreed.
Gawker writes that the question wasn’t so hypothetical. Kent Snyder is credited with convincing Paul to run for president, and served brilliantly as his campaign manager, raising an astonishing $19.5 million. In 2008, just two weeks after the campaign ended, Snyder died at age 49 from pneumonia. He did not receive insurance through Paul, and was unable to afford it on his own due to a preexisting medical condition. His death left his mother with $400,000 in medical bills. (She is now in debt.) Say what you will, but he exemplified the free-market libertarian principles that he worked for while healthy:
After Snyder’s death, Paul posted a…
‘Wi-Fi Refugees’ Take Shelter In West Virginia Mountains
Is it mass hypochondria? More than ten million Americans believe they suffer from physical illness caused by cell phone and wireless internet networks. Some are upending their lives and retreating to remote Green Bank, West Virginia, a safe haven unpenetrated by Wi-Fi. Fast forward ten years, and you can bet they are going to be the last small band of humanity fighting the robot uprising. The BBC writes:
Dozens of Americans who claim to have been made ill by wi-fi and mobile phones have flocked to the town of Green Bank, West Virginia.
Diane Schou is unable to hold back the tears as she describes how she once lived in a shielded cage to protect her from the electromagnetic radiation caused by waves from wireless communication. “It’s a horrible thing to have to be a prisoner,” she says. “You become a technological leper because you can’t be around people.
Ms Schou is one of…
The Richest Politicians In Congress
Roll Call has crunched the financial data to figure out the wealthiest members of Congress and compiled a list the top 50. Ol’ mule John Kerry comes in third, followed by California representative Darrell Issa. The number one spot is held by Texas congressman Michael McCaul, who possesses about $300 million in assets, largely a result of his marriage to the daughter of Lowry Mays, the CEO and founder of the Clear Channel empire.
Looking at the entire list, the common theme, if any, is real estate investment and family money. Very few of the richest appear to have made their fortune from any activity that most people would consider a contribution to society — the most admirable is probably Issa, who founded an electronics company that manufactures car alarms. The surest conclusion to be drawn is that the estate tax will not be boosted anytime soon.
Is Less Reading Fiction Making Us Less Empathetic?
The Guardian discusses research on the powerful link between empathy and reading fiction — a novel is a singular experience in terms of being immersed in the interior life of another person, forcing us to undergo events through the protagonist’s eyes and placing us amongst their thoughts. Studies have pointed to a stunting of empathy in young adults over the past few decades — could one reason be the decline of reading of novels for pleasure?
Burying your head in a novel isn’t just a way to escape the world: psychologists are increasingly finding that reading can affect our personalities.
Researchers from the University at Buffalo gave 140 undergraduates passages from either Meyer’s Twilight or JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to read. The study’s authors, Dr. Shira Gabriel and Ariana Young, then applied what they dubbed the Twilight/Harry Potter Narrative Collective Assimilation Scale, which saw the students asked questions designed…
Marijuana Munchies Won’t Make You Fat
Three hash cakes made with hashish from different Amsterdam coffee shops.
Thanks to some fearless French researchers, we now know that you have nothing to fear from an attack of the munchies, reports Reuters:
Anybody who’s smoked marijuana knows about “the munchies,” that desire to eat everything within reach. But a study from France has found that, surprisingly, pot smokers are actually less likely than non-smokers to pack on weight.
Using data covering more than 50,000 U.S. adults, researchers headed by Yann Le Strat, a psychiatrist at the Louis-Mourier Hospital in Colombes, France, found that roughly 14 percent to 17 percent of the people reporting that they smoked pot at least three days per week were obese.
That compared with a 22 to 25 percent obesity rate among people who said they had not used pot in the past 12 months.
“Initially, we thought we made a mistake,” said Le Strat, adding that he and…
Record Number Of Americans Below Poverty Line
Grim statistics reported by the New York Times:
Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.
And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997.
Economists pointed to a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard.
“This is truly a lost decade,” Mr. Katz said. “We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it…
You Have A 1-in-3,200 Chance of Being Hit By A Falling Climate-Change Study Satellite This Month
And I thought all this space junk would just crash into itself up there. If you are struck, you can blame global warming! Andrew Hough writes in the Telegraph:
The $750 million (£468 million) Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) satellite, launched 20 years ago to study climate change, is set to breach the atmosphere within weeks.
In a new alert issued this week, officials warned pieces could land in densely populated areas on six continents including parts of Britain, Europe, North and South America and Asia.
Nasa claimed the risk to public safety from the “dead” satellite — which is orbiting just over 155 miles above the earth with an inclination of 57 degrees — was “extremely small”.
But senior space agency officials admitted they were “concerned” about the risk to billions of people when it starts falling uncontrolled out of orbit at any stage from later this month.
NASA admitted more than half a tonne…
Rick Perry’s Ties to Joel’s Army
The Prophet Joel as imagined by Michelangelo
Glenn Wright wrote recently in the Examiner (before Gov. Perry officially declared his presidential candidacy):
If Governor Rick Perry (R) of Texas runs for president of the United States, he will have one of the most unusual and specific bases for his platform of any candidate in many decades—the spiritual visions of the ancient Hebrew prophet Joel.
Perry has jumped on the “Joel’s Army” bandwagon, claiming in his promotional message for his The Response prayer and fasting event in Houston in August: “Some problems are beyond our power to solve, and according to the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, this historic hour demands a historic response.”
The language of Joel 2, written centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, and referring to a time after the return of the Hebrews from their Babylonian exile, has been reinterpreted by some Christian groups to be a prophecy referring to the “end time”…
The New Religion of Shaolin
Photo: Robin Chen (CC)
Chinese capitalism has something uniquely in common with historical Maoism: atheism. Vast economic growth met with a huge demand for traditional culture has meant Chinese cultural institutions are increasingly trading in their social values for growth-based business plans. Via the Independent:
Young men spring through the air, performing elegant punches and kicks; others bound across the dirt, swords flashing through the misty air. An ancient tree has dozens of small dents, made by “finger punches” of warrior monks over the centuries.
This is the Shaolin temple complex, in the mountains of central China, where kung fu was born 1,500 years ago. Now a place of pilgrimage for martial arts enthusiasts and Zen Buddhists, thousands of young people come to study kung fu, or wushu as it is known in China, in schools around the temple.
The commercial success of the temple is obvious, even if some of the sights are…
Bank of America Hands Out 30,000 Pink Slips To Boost Profits
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
Bank of America announced it would send 30,000 more people to the unemployment line in a massive layoff in the hopes of cutting costs. The majority of people cut would be those working in data centers and deposit systems, according to reports from Bloomberg.
The layoffs are part of a plan by CEO Brian T. Moynihan, who wishes to cut $5 billion in annual costs in order to bolster the bank’s profits and stock:
“Profit is under pressure mainly because of losses, legal costs and writedowns tied to the 2008 takeover of subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp. At the same time, revenue is shrinking as the U.S. economy slows. Moynihan has said that because the bank is one of the biggest consumer lenders, its fortunes are closely tied to home prices and the jobless rate.”
According to some admittedly unscientific data, the average salary for a Bank of America job is probably…
Addiction Is Not A Disease Of The Brain
Alva Noe explains at NPR:
Addiction has been moralized, medicalized, politicized, and criminalized. And, of course, many of us are addicts, have been addicts or have been close to addicts. Addiction runs very hot as a theme.
Part of what makes addiction so compelling is that it forms a kind of conceptual/political crossroads for thinking about human nature. After all, to make sense of addiction we need to make sense of what it is to be an agent who acts, with values, in the face of consequences, under pressure, with compulsion, out of need and desire. One needs a whole philosophy to understand addiction.
Today I want to respond to readers who were outraged by my willingness even to question whether addiction is a disease of the brain.
Let us first ask: what makes something — a substance or an activity — addictive? Is there a property shared by all the things to which…
Washington Health Sec.: Contagion Movie Is Very Real
[Note spoilers below and in the link.] Josh Kirns amps up fear of contagious diseases for Mynorthwest.com:
Talk about a horror movie. The global outbreak thriller “Contagion” topped the weekend box office and it prompted a lot of extra hand washing and increased hesitance to touch door knobs, hand rails, or just about anything else we all come in contact with. Of course it’s prompting many to ask if the fictional story of an unknown virus spreading around the world in a matter of days can come true.
“What was rolling around in my mind was when SARS happened,” Washington Secretary of Health Mary Selecky told Seattle’s Morning News on 97.3 KIRO FM. “And then of course, there was H1N1 (commonly known as Swine Flu,) it was an unknown novel virus just like in the movie.”
She said just like in the movie, we didn’t know what it was or how to treat…
Wikipedia Censoring 9/11 Truth
Whatever editorial credibility Wikipedia may once have had, this report in the New York Times totally destroys it:
As the nation marked this terrible anniversary, people invariably turned to Wikipedia to learn about the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Nearly two million page views were registered last September for the article “September 11 Attacks,” a typically Wikipedian effort with exhaustive, even picayune, details of the events, bolstered by nearly 289 footnotes. This September, the total page view number could be something like six million.
Likewise, readers have repeatedly turned to the article “9/11 Conspiracy Theories.” The article — similarly detailed with 299 footnotes purporting to explain accusations of faked video footage or controlled demolition of the two buildings — had 400,000 page views last September, and is on pace to have more than a million views this year.
One thing is certain, however. Not one of those visitors got to the conspiracy theories page…
Woman Mauls Elderly Man In Another Gulf Coast Vampire Attack
In a brutal incident reminiscent of one in Houston three weeks ago, a wheelchair-bound Florida man taking shelter from a storm had part of his face eaten off at an abandoned Hooters restaurant by a young woman claiming to be a vampire. Someone once told me that Pensacola is one of the worst places on Earth, and I’m starting to understand why. Via ABC Action News:
A St. Petersburg man who had dozed off in his motorized wheelchair woke up to find himself being attacked by a woman, according to police. Morton Ellis, 69, said he fell asleep after parking his wheelchair on the porch of a vacant Hooters to escape the rain.
He said the woman, 22-year-old Josephine Rebecca Smith, told him she was a vampire as she bit off chunks of his face and part of his lip.
Ellis managed to fend her off and called police. Officers found Smith at…
NYC’s Beloved Monster Island Closes
Surprisingly, the demise of non-profit music and art venue Monster Island (which was as weirdly charming as it name would imply) drew a write-up in this past weekend’s New York Times. Like its brethren Market Hotel and Silent Barn (both of which also shuttered their doors this past year) Monster Island stood in stark, defiant contrast to the commercially-oriented music club model. It helped to foster some of the city’s most acclaimed and exciting bands in recent years, before falling prey to the incessant steamroller of gentrification:
The concert was particularly poignant for the hundred or so people who stood listening intently in the bright light off the East River in Brooklyn because it was the last time they would be able to gather for a block party at Monster Island, a collection of performance spaces and studios in a faded commercial building covered with murals near the Williamsburg waterfront. Many…
Homophobic Politician Gay Sex Scandal Tracker
Gay Homophobe provides the service of tracking the most recent gay sex scandal involving a prominent anti-gay politician — and the sometimes fascinating explanations offered. For the Christian Right, the site is kind of equivalent to those “days since our last tornado” signs which all old Wild West towns had. (Or which I imagine they had?) In conclusion: who knows when the latest tornado in someone’s pants will arrive.
