Archive for November, 2011
I’m High on Crystal Meth: Time to Kill and Eat A Bobcat
Via the Mercury News:
A 38-year-old Morgan Hill man has been charged with being high on methamphetamine, owning a stash of sharp cockfighting ankle spikes, and skinning a bobcat before he ate it.
Henry Arnibal was not charged with eating a bobcat. That’s not illegal, but killing one without a permit is against the law, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Lowney said. Arnibal didn’t have a permit. All the charges, filed Monday, are fish and game violations, except for the penal drug charge. All are misdemeanors.
Arnibal was arrested Nov. 7 on Sleepy Valley Road in unincorporated Morgan Hill. He was allegedly high on meth. Deputies found 50 roosters, gaffs, sharp hooks that are attached to roosters’ legs for illegal cockfights, and the preserved carcass of a bobcat. Arnibal told authorities that the large feline had eaten five of his roosters, according to Lowney. He killed it with a .22-caliber rifle, authorities allege.
Frank Miller (Comic Book Legend) Slams the Occupy Movement
Well, he is responsible for the “Goddamn Batman” after all … Says Frank:
Everybody’s been too damn polite about this nonsense:
The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.
“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” – HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached – is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.
This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness…
Media Roots: Greg Palast on OccupyWallStreet & U.S. Corporatocracy
On November 14, 2011, Abby Martin of Media Roots interviewed award-winning journalist and best-selling author Greg Palast after his talk at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. Greg Palast, a freelance journalist for the BBC as well as British newspaper The Observer, discusses his newly published book Vultures’ Picnic, corporate collusion, the bought-and-paid-for-media establishment, the role of citizen journalism around the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and the value of organisations such as Project Censored.
Spy Drone Used on Police at Protests in Poland
Disinfo.com Note: Some commenters have stated this is not Occupy-related, when you have a movement without hierarchy this can be expected to happen. Disinformation is more concerned about the counter-tech to observe activism, so that is why we posted this story. Spencer Ackerman reports at Wired’s Danger Room:
Incredible Off The Shelf Surveillance Gear
The Wall Street Journal catalogs the new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001:
The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.
The documents—the highlights of which are cataloged and searchable here—were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month.
The documents fall into five general categories: hacking, intercept…
Pepsi Getting Heat for Use of Aborted Fetal Cells in Flavor Research
David Bohon writes in the New American:
Shareholders of PepsiCo have filed a resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to force the company to stop contracting with a research firm that uses cells from aborted babies in its process of producing artificial flavor enhancers. According to LifeNews.com, Pepsi has “ignored concerns and criticism from dozens of pro-life groups and tens of thousands of pro-life people who voiced their opposition to PepsiCo contracting with biotech company Senomyx even after it was found to be testing their food additives using fetal cells from abortions.”
On its website Senomyx explains that its flavor research programs “focus on the discovery and development of savory, sweet and salt flavor ingredients that are intended to allow for the reduction of MSG, sugar and salt in food and beverage products. Using isolated human taste receptors, we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical…
Occupy Toronto Says “Thank You” to Police?
This letter has been seen circulating amongst protesters at Occupy Toronto. As the camp faces the possibility of eviction, some of the occupiers have been seen toting stacks of letters and handing them out to police on the camp’s perimeter.
Some protesters are irked over the fact that the letter was not passed through any General Assembly while others are pleased to see “the viewpoint of the reasonable” achieve a seat of prominence in the public eye, as some mainstream news media have broadcast the letter on the 6 o’clock news.
The question to be asked is, does this letter help or hurt the movement?
Bankers Undemocratically Installed As Heads Of Italy And Greece
In case you missed it, over the past eight days, the prime ministers of two major European nations stepped down. The newly appointed, not elected, leaders of Italy and Greece will be Mario Monti (formerly of Goldman Sachs) and Lucas Papademos (formerly head of the Central Bank of Greece). A signal that marriage between capitalism and democracy is coming to an end? The Independent writes:
The ascension of Mario Monti to the Italian prime ministership is remarkable for more reasons than it is possible to count. By replacing the scandal-surfing Silvio Berlusconi, Italy has dislodged the undislodgeable. By imposing rule by unelected technocrats, it has suspended the normal rules of democracy, and maybe democracy itself. And by putting a senior adviser at Goldman Sachs in charge of a Western nation, it has taken to new heights the political power of an investment bank that you might have thought was prohibitively politically toxic.
This…
The Story Of Broke (Video)
The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better.
High Childhood IQ Linked to Subsequent Illicit Drug Use
Via ScienceDaily:
A high childhood IQ may be linked to subsequent illegal drug use, particularly among women, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The authors base their findings on data from just under 8,000 people in the 1970 British Cohort Study, a large ongoing population based study, which looks at lifetime drug use, socioeconomic factors, and educational attainment.
The IQ scores of the participants were measured at the ages of 5 and 10 years, using a validated scale, and information was gathered on self reported levels of psychological distress and drug use at the age of 16, and again at the age of 30 (drug use only) . Drug use included cannabis; cocaine; uppers (speed and wiz); downers (blues, tanks, barbiturates); LSD (acid); and heroin.
By the age of 30, around one in three men (35.4%) and one in six women (15.9%) had used cannabis, while 8.6%…
Retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis Slammed NYPD Conduct on OccupyWallStreet (Video)
Congress Starts Pushing an Online Sales Tax
Ten U.S. Senators are now proposing a “Marketplace Fairness Act,” which creates a new system letting states collect sales taxes from purchases made online. “It’s about closing a tax loophole,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, part of a bipartisan coalition which has already introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives.
Strangely, Amazon has just issued a press release saying they support the bill, calling it “a win-win resolution,” according to one Kindle blog, though they may just be hoping to lobby for exemptions from each individual state.
“Instead of a national sales tax, these new taxes will only be imposed at the individual discretion of each separate state legislature, and that’s an area where multi-billion dollar companies like Amazon can still exert a lot of pressure.
Ron Paul’s 89 Seconds in CBS News GOP Presidential Debate
1.5 minutes out of 1 hour … it’s a quickie, but 89 seconds is all it takes to (come) on CBS. And 89 seconds is not bad if you’re facing the military industrial complex and mainstream media. Ron Paul’s the only one making any sense in the debates (though “sense” doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to electing a candidate). Let’s give him a chance to debate President Obama … you can make it happen, all you have to do is vote for Ron Paul in the first round (Obama’s gonna win anyway). OWS, climb aboard.
FDA Allows Meat and Produce To Be Blasted with Radioactive Nuclear Waste
Photo: DMKTirpitz (CC)
Ethan A. Huff writes on Natural News:
The use of pesticides and the presence of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are not the only major differentiating factors between conventional food and organic food. According to GreenMedInfo.com, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows the conventional food supply to be irradiated with nuclear waste at extremely high levels, and also treated with deadly bacteriophage virus “cocktails” in order to make it “safe” for consumers.
It is a dirty little secret of the factory food industry, and one that has remained largely veiled thanks to a lack of effective regulation concerning proper labeling. But everything from herbs and spices to vegetables and fruit is effectively murdered with Cobalt-60 gamma radiation derived from the waste of nuclear reactors before being sold to customers.
According to data listed on the FDA’s own website, fresh conventional foods are typically blasted with 1 kilogray (kGy) of gamma radiation,…
This Weekend in Portland, OR: 5th Annual EsoZone Alternative Culture and Thought Festival
The fifth annual EsoZone Portland event will be held this weekend at p:ear, Friday evening November 18th and Saturday November 19th (see the website for schedule and location information).
EsoZone is festival celebrating alternative culture and thought. It follows a hybrid unconference/conference model, meaning that in addition to pre-programmed content, participants can propose their own sessions to share their own ideas, projects and skills with the group.
This years presentations include:
- Tom Henderson, author of the forthcoming book Punk Rock Mathematics, on illusory nature of self.
- Eric Schiller of Beyond Growth on “digital hipsterism” and the rise of anti-intellectualism in social media.
- Yoga for Slackers lead by Loren mccRory.
- Grant Writing for Artists and Other Alien Beings lead by Amanda Sledz.
- Anarcho-Sewing lead by Jillian Ordes-Finley.
Plus music and performances, and whatever sessions are proposed by this year’s participants.
Congress Declares Pizza A Vegetable For School Lunches
Pizza contains two tablespoons of tomato paste and thus will remain the healthy, vegetable portion of children’s lunch across the nation. The move draws criticism from nutritionists but kudos from the head of the American Frozen Food Institute, reports MSNBC:
Congress wants to keep pizza and french fries on school lunch lines, fighting back against an Obama administration proposal to make school lunches healthier.
The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year, which included limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line and delaying limits on sodium and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains. The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to prevent that.
Food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes, and…
Using Prisoners As Unpaid Firefighter Squads
Cities and towns from coast to coast are straining under the weight of budget shortfalls, so what are they to do? Lay off essential public employees and replace them with slave labor by prisoners — it’s what Camden County, Georgia is doing in regards to firefighters. Will the next step be unpaid prisoners teaching your kids?
Quest For The Ultimate Human Killing Machine
Guilt, tiredness, stress, shock – can specialized drugs help to mute the qualities that make soldiers human, asks Michael Hanlon in the Independent (with thanks to disinfo reader Freeman for the tip):
…The era of The Terminator, the perfect robotic killing machine, is decades away; to date, all efforts to create a humanoid robot that can climb the stairs, let alone fight the Taliban, have been risible. But scientists are reporting breakthroughs with the next-best thing – the creation of human terminators, who feel less pain, less terror and less fatigue than “non-enhanced” soldiers and whose very bodies may be augmented by powerful machines.
Efforts to understand the brain of the soldier and put this knowledge to good use have been going on for some time. Professor Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at Pennsylvania State University, studies the way neuroscience is being co-opted by the military. “Right now, this is the fastest-growing area of…
