Archive for October, 2011
‘It Never Ends’: LAPD Homicide Detective Tweets Photo of Dead Body
Simone Wilson writes on LA Weekly:
Local arts blog LA Taco is fuming over the “callous” Twitter activity of LAPD Homicide Detective Sal LaBarbera. (As of December 2007, according to the Los Angeles Times, La Barbera was “a 20-year homicide veteran who heads the Watts homicide squad in LAPD’s South Bureau.”)
LaBarbera is certainly active on Twitter — throwing out RTs, #FFs and hashtags like he was born to the social-media generation. (The detective is also big on @ing journalists from local news stations and the Times.) His handle on the medium is pretty impressive for a weathered murder cop…
… and right out ahead of other police departments’ slow struggle to incorporate social media into their investigative work.
Mitt Romney & Company: Making It Rain (Photo)
Via the Atlantic:
Mitt Romney made a lot of money, has a lot of money, and spends a lot of money campaigning. Now we know he also once posed with money.
The photo shows Romney with his colleagues at Bain Capital, which provided it to the Boston Globe. The Globe reports that Romney kept things loose at Bain’s office, despite the pressures of working there. After posing for a company-brochure photo, Romney and his Bain associates snapped it again with $10 and $20 bills. Romney led Bain Capital to grow from a staff of seven managing $37 million to a staff of 115 managing $4 billion, the Globe reports.
Bill Maher Interviews Controversial Pastor Robert Jeffress (Video)
Rick Perry-supporting Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress was in the news recently for calling Mormonism a cult and Bill Maher, for once, is without his usual snark to a man of the cloth:
Exploiting Anti-Semitism to Destroy Occupy Wall Street
MJ Rosenberg writes in the Jewish Journal:
An ugly old tradition is back: exploiting anti-Semitism to break the backs of popular movements that threaten the power of the wealthiest 1 percent of our population. It is being used to undermine the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has conservatives in a state of near panic.
I don’t know the first time the tactic was used, although it dates back almost to the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.
Perhaps its most famous use was by the viciously anti-Semitic Czar Nicholas, whose supporters concocted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion at the start of the 20th century to prevent Russians from joining socialist movements and other reform efforts that were fighting to get the czar to cede some power to an elected parliament.
The Protocols were a forged document purporting to show that a cabal of Jews met regularly to solidify their supposed control of the entire world.…
Royal Navy Finds 61 Bombs On Nudist Beach
Via the Telegraph:
Experts were called in after 26 bombs — including two submarine depth charges and at least six 10lb mortar bombs — were washed up on Leysdown Beach last month. And last week, during a two day search of the beach, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent — the Navy found another 61 bombs, taking the total to 87.
The team found mortars, submarine depth charges, a string of 10lb bombs, bullets and a string of other ordnance, some dating back to the late 19th century, during the sweep. The east side of the beach — often called Shellness — is an official nudist beach.
It is listed on the UK’s Naturist Factfile, which states: “This official naturist beach is located near Leysdown-on-Sea at the eastern end of the Isle of Sheppey on the north Kent coast.
This Is Why America Is Falling Behind (Video)
Where is the can-do attitude, America’s children?
Some Occupy Protesters Find Ben & Jerry’s Support Hard to Swallow
DailyFinanceAOL’s reports on the beginning of the co-option of the Occupy Movement. (So does this mean the protesters won’t be hunting down the rich and killing them? ; )
Ben & Jerry’s fed 600 protesters ice cream at Occupy Wall Street’s home base in New York’s Zuccotti Park on Tuesday. The Vermont-based ice cream vendor is the first large company to have declared public support of the movement, expressing its “deepest admiration” for the protesters in a statement released last weekend via the company’s website.
At the protest’s Food Committee headquarters in the center of Zuccotti park, hungry protesters line up to be served by volunteers in aprons, who rush around to keep donated food plentifully stocked on long buffet tables. On Tuesday afternoon, the free ice cream — served with little fanfare and no corporate logos — was devoured within hours.
But that evening, protesters expressed mixed feelings about corporations latching onto their…
Time Reversal: A Simple Particle Could Reveal New Physics
Shelley Littin writes in Space Daily:
A simple atomic nucleus could reveal properties associated with the mysterious phenomenon known as time reversal and lead to an explanation for one of the greatest mysteries of physics: the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.
The physics world was rocked recently by the news that a class of subatomic particles known as neutrinos may have broken the speed of light.
Adding to the rash of new ideas, University of Arizona theoretical physicist Bira van Kolck recently proposed that experiments with another small particle called a deuteron could lead to an explanation for one of the most daunting puzzles physicists face: the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe. A deuteron is a simple atomic nucleus, or the core of an atom. Its simplicity makes it one of the best objects for experiments in nuclear physics …
The Heartbreaking Right-Wing Version of ‘We Are the 99 Percent’
One would expect mocking of We Are The 53%, but in fact the site is “heartbreaking”, writes Gawker:
Did you know that if you are uninsured or jobless, you should just suck it up? That if you’re overworked or underemployed, you should be thankful? Learn all that—and more!—at “We Are the 53%,” the right wing’s incredibly depressing response to Occupy Wall Street!
We Are the 53%” was created thought up by CNN’s chief goat-fucking correspondent Erick Erickson as a response to “We Are the 99 Percent,” an Occupy Wall Street-affiliated blog that collects the stories of the underemployed, overworked, debt-ridden and uninsured victims of the recession. The blog, run by conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson, gets its name from the popular (and wildly simplistic!) Republican talking point that only 53 percent of households pay federal income taxes.
What makes “We Are the 53%” so heartbreaking isn’t that its contributors are enormous jerks—it’s that so…
De-Colonizing the Occupy Movement
Jess Yee at Racialicious takes a look at the Occupy Movement and what it means to the most marginalised of the 99 percent:
The “OCCUPY WALL STREET” slogan has gone viral and international now. From the protests on the streets of WALL STREET in the name of “ending capitalism” – organizers, protestors, and activists have been encouraged to “occupy” different places that symbolize greed and power. There’s just one problem: THE UNITED STATES IS ALREADY BEING OCCUPIED. THIS IS INDIGENOUS LAND. And it’s been occupied for quite some time now.
I also need to mention that New York City is Haudenosaunee territory and home to many other First Nations. Waiting to see if that’s been mentioned anywhere. (Author’s note: Manhattan “proper” is home to to the Lenape who were defrauded of the island by the Dutch in 1626 — see more from Tequila Sovereign).
Not that I’m surprised that this was a misstep in…
Switzerland’s Anti-PowerPoint Party
The best up-and-coming political force may be Switzerland’s Anti-PowerPoint Party. The intrepid Party is fighting the use of PowerPoint presentations in business, government, and education, arguing that use of PowerPoint costs their nation approximately 2.5 billion $USD yearly. (There is no methodology behind this number.)
Ultimately, the group is working to obtain 100,000 voter signatures, which would enable it to call for a national referendum to ban PowerPoint and other presentation software throughout Switzerland. Their website has a library of examples of terrible presentation slides:
The APPP sees itself as the advocate of approximately 250 Million people worldwide, who, every month, are obliged to be present during boring presentations in companies, universities, or at other institutions, and who had up to now no representation in politics.
War Is The Health of the States
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
Once again, the military industrial complex is howling about money, with its most fervent supporters knowing that the U.S. government is completely broke, but believing budget cuts have to come from somewhere that isn’t the DOD. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday that another round of cuts aside from the $350 billion called for in August is “nuts” and would be a “doomsday mechanism,” according to The Hill.
Since the year 2000, defense spending has increased 86%, not counting funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other money going to the general “War on Terror.” The DOD budget has increased in size every year, and by the end of FY2011, total military spending including ongoing wars will nearly hit $3 trillion.
In no uncertain terms, Panetta hinted that even if conflicts were to end, defense spending would not decrease “on his watch.” At…
2011 Nobel Prize to Dark Energy: Explained (Video)
Guest narrator Sean Carroll of Caltech describes dark energy and the acceleration of the universe, the discovery of which was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics on October 4th, from Minute Physics’ YouTube:
Media Roots: Why Occupy Oakland?
Abby Martin of Media Roots conducts on the spot interviews with Oakland residents about why they want change on the first two days of Occupy Oakland:
How To Protect The Future From Our Nuclear Waste?
Pasta&Vinegar on a fascinating 10,000-year design conundrum: how to house our radioactive waste in such a way that the next 400 generations will understand the danger, and not try to tamper or remove the markers. One would assume that over that period, most of our civilization, language, symbols, and physical structures as we know them will cease to exist:
“Permanent Markers Implementation Plan” is a project initiated in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Energy in order to provide a permanent record which identifies the location of nuclear waste repository and its dangers.
This report described the task handled by one of the expert group made of an anthropologist, an astronomer, an archaeologist, an environmental designer, a linguist, and a materials scientist. The brief for them was basic:
“The site must be marked. Aside from the legal requirement, the site will be indelibly imprinted by the human activity associated with waste disposal. We must…
Letter To The NYPD On Evicting The Protesters From Zuccotti Park
As of now, it appears that the forced removal and/or arrest of Occupy Wall Street protesters at Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s behest has been postponed. Via n+1, an open letter to the police concerning their possible marching orders:
Last night, we learned that because of the complaints of Brookfield Properties, the company that owns Zuccotti Park, Mayor Bloomberg has ordered the Occupy Wall Street protesters to remove themselves and their supplies from the Park at 7 AM tomorrow. If the protesters don’t leave, Bloomberg likely will order you and your colleagues to forcibly remove and arrest the men and women who have come there to protest the policies, politicians, and financial leaders responsible for the continuing economic crisis. As concerned citizens, we ask you not to follow this order.
Bloomberg and Brookfield Properties claim that the protesters must be removed in order to clean the Park. Anytime thousands of people assemble in a…
The Beauty Of OccupyWallStreet
Director Steven Greenstreet (Killer At Large) captures a side of the protests that goes unnoticed by most:
Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street from Steven Greenstreet on Vimeo.
A lot of fantastic media has been created about the “Occupy” movement. I was watching one video in particular and commented to a friend, “Wow, seeing all those super smart hot chicks at the protest makes me want to be there.” He replied, “Hmmm… Yeah, let’s go with that.”
We instantly went to Tumblr and made http://hotchicksofoccupywallstreet.tumblr.com. Our original ideas were admittedly sophomoric: Pics of hot chicks being all protesty, videos of hot chicks beating drums in slow-mo, etc. But when we arrived at Zuccotti Park in New York City, it evolved into something more.
There was a vibrant energy in the air, a warmth of community and family, and the voices we heard were so hopeful and passionate. Pretty faces were making signs, giving speeches, organizing crowds, handing out food, singing, dancing, debating, hugging and marching…
14 Shamans Murdered in Peru
Photo: BDean (CC)
Nancy R writes on Care2:
Fourteen traditional healers have been brutally murdered in Peru in the past 20 months, allegedly at the urging of a local mayor. The Peruvian government has sent a team of investigators to look into the incidents. While 14 shaman have disappeared, the bodies of only seven have been retrieved so far; the indigenous healers were shot, stabbed or hacked to death by machete.
Protestant Sect Members Suspected: The prosecutor’s office of Alto Amazonas province stated that the alleged murders were carried out by a man known locally at the “witch hunter,” at the behest of his brother, the mayor of the town of Balsa Puerto. A Peruvian government adviser and expert on Amazon cultures alleges that both are members of a Protestant sect that claims shamans are possessed by demons and must be eliminated. The Peruvian Times reports that the shamans had been planning to form an…
