Archive for November, 2011
The World’s First Cocaine Bar
Backpacking tourists flock to La Paz, Bolivia’s Route 36 for long nights of cocaine and Jenga. Is this what your neighborhood dive bar would look like if hard drugs were legalized? The Guardian writes:
The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. And he has seen it all.
La Paz, Bolivia, at 3,900m above sea level – an altitude where even two flights of stairs makes your heart race like a hummingbird – is home to the most celebrated bar in all of South America: Route 36, the world’s first cocaine lounge. I sit back to take in the scene – table after table of chatty young backpackers, many of whom are…
Did Hitler Escape Germany in 1945?
Could Hitler have lived out his days sunning himself on the beach in Villa Gessel, Argentina? Parapolitical reveals:
Adolf Hitler spoke briefly with one of the SS soldiers standing guard outside the Führerbunker, the last refuge of the inner circle of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. “Germany,” he said, “can hope for the future only if the whole world thinks I am dead.”
It seems impossible to believe that Adolf Hitler could not only have escaped Germany but, in fact, survived in relative comfort in Argentina until his death of natural causes in 1962. Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams’ new book Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler, which released earlier this month, presents a remarkable, linear account of a sequence of shadowy events occurring in the final days of World War II that is neatly timelined and meticulously sourced.
The book navigates the various stages of creation and execution of what may…
American Censorship Day
Today, November 16, 2011, is American Censorship Day. Congress is holding hearings on the first American Internet censorship system.
This bill can pass. If it does the Internet and free speech will never be the same. Amongst other aspects of the bill:
Website Blocking
The government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.
Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users
It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.
Chaos for the Internet
Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn’t be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.
Visit Americancensorship.org to help fight against passage of the bill.
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Does God Still Belong On Our Money?
An opinion piece by Skeptic Magazine’s Michael Shermer in the LA Times has stirred up lots of strong opinions amongst Angelenos. What do disinfonauts think?
The House voted 396-9 this week to reaffirm as the national motto the phrase “In God We Trust” and encouraged its pronouncement on public buildings and continued printing on the coin of the realm. The motto was made official in 1956 during the height of Cold War hysteria over godless communism and — in the words of Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper in “Dr. Strangelove” — “Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
As risible a reason as this was for knocking out a few bricks in the wall separating state and church, it was at least understandable in the context of the times. But today, what is the point of having this motto?…
OccupyWallStreet: The Police May Have Seized The Park But The Movement Moves On
It was strange, after all these weeks, to be on the outside looking in at a new set of occupiers that were there because they have the guns and we don’t.
When Mao said that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” he most assuredly did not have anything like Occupy Wall Street on his mind, but somehow the insight applies. Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park had now been power cleaned and was pristine. More than 200 had been arrested in the takeover that included selective physical violence against resisters. Soon, all the tents were gone: Medical, Media, The Kitchen and The Library, as well as all the work group locations that I showed in my film a week earlier.
Now there were cops in command, barricades on the outside and contractors employed by Brookfield Properties, the Park’s owner, on the inside, looking all corporate and regimented. Activists with badges calling themselves the “99%” were…
Police State Crackdown on Occupy Oakland (Video)
Abby Martin of Media Roots went to Occupy Oakland at 4:00 a.m. to cover the second police raid and crackdown against the peaceful protesters at Frank Ogawa Plaza.
The footage shows the intensity in the air leading up to the raid and the insane amount of police presence that showed up to destroy the encampment. Mayor Jean Quan’s legal adviser resigned at 2 a.m. in protest to the heavy police response.
The ‘Science of 9/11′ Discussed in Two U.S. Universities
Amidst the break down of the Zuccotti park Occupy Wall Street encampment, other tremors to the collective psyche are reverberating around our nations’ universities. Two events are set to discuss the science of the destruction of the three WTC towers on 9/11 this week.
The first being held at the University of Chattanooga at Tennessee entitled, “The Science of 911: What is the forensic science of investigating a disaster?” The second event features Professor Niels H. Harrit of Copenhagen University and the title of his lecture is “The Collapse of the Seventh Tower: A Physical & Chemical Analysis.”
Both events feature experts from an array of related disciplines including: Niels H. Harrit Ph.D. Chemistry University of Copenhagen Jim Hall, former National Transportation Safety Board Director. David Johnson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Planning, UT-Knoxville, Edwin Foster, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering, UT-Chattanooga, Tom Junod, Journalist, Esquire magazine, Felicia McGhee Hilt, Department of Communications,…
Oakland Mayor Admits U.S. Cities Coordinated Crackdown On Occupy Movement
Does this qualify as a conspiracy? Via Capitoilette, collusion between 18 city leaders regarding their efforts to break up the Occupy movement:
Embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, speaking in an interview with the BBC, casually mentioned that she was on a conference call with leaders of 18 US cities shortly before a wave of raids broke up Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country. “I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation. . . .”
Many witnesses to the wave of government crackdowns on numerous #occupy encampments have been wondering aloud if the rapid succession was more than a coincidence; Jean Quan’s casual remark seems to clearly imply that it was.
Cooling The Future: Artificial Glaciers?
BLDG BLOG examines the emerging field of ice engineering, which may prove more and more useful as naturally-occurring ice formations recede:
The city of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, will attempt to keep itself cool over the summer by way of a kind of artificial glacier.
According to the Guardian, this “geoengineering trial” will try to “’store’ freezing winter temperatures in a giant block of ice that will help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer.” Project directors “hope the process will reduce energy demand from air conditioners and regulate drinking water and irrigation supplies.” The cool air will presumably be pumped through the city via a continuous and monumental network of ducts.
The project aims to artificially create “naleds” — ultra-thick slabs of ice that occur naturally in far northern climes when rivers or springs push through cracks in the surface to seep outwards during the day and then…
Six Fictional Drugs With Unintended Side Effects
Substance D, Soma, Melange – they’ve all been part of our culture for decades. Gabe Habash looks at the side effects for Publishers Weekly:
In fiction and in reality, medicine is designed and set up to operate with the best of intentions, to eliminate pain and disease and the things that push us toward mortality. In theory. In practice, we know that there are holes in this theory. But for all the problems in the reality of medicine, at least we don’t have to worry about these 6 fictional drugs, which were designed to make the world a better place, but failed in all types of spectacular ways.
1. Altruizine from “Altruizine” by Stanislaw Lem
Unintended Side Effect: It makes people too altruistic.
Lem, one of the most widely-read sci-fi writers in the world, wrote a short story within his collection The Cyberiad about Altruizine, a metapsychotropic drug that causes the user to feel the pains and…
Mystery Lines In Chinese Desert
The interwebs are buzzing with conspiracy theories regarding mysterious lines in China’s Gobi Desert seen from space. Ted Thornhill reports for the Daily Mail:
A Google Maps satellite has spotted a series of bizarre structures during a sweep of the Gobi desert in China.
The internet is buzzing with theories about what their purpose is, with suggestions ranging from giant QR readers to practise targets for military satellites.
To add to the intrigue, they are located on the borders of Gansu province and Xinjiang in northwestern China – an area that the superpower uses to build military, space and nuclear equipment.
In fact, some of the sites are less than 100 miles from Jiuquan, where China’s space programme headquarters and launch pads can be found.
Some internet users have been trying to overlay one of the strange structures on to various U.S. city maps, worried that there may be a sinister military purpose behind them.
Others have pointed…
Zuccotti Park Retaken By NYPD
Zuccotti Park, pre-Occupation. Photo: Tony (CC)
So it’s finally happened. Breaking news (and so likely to change as the day goes on), reported by the New York Times:
Hundreds of police officers early Tuesday cleared the park in Lower Manhattan that had been the nexus of the Occupy Wall Street movement, arresting dozens of people there after warning that the nearly two-month-old camp would be “cleared and restored” but that demonstrators who did not leave would face arrest.
The protesters, about 200 of whom have been staying in the park overnight, initially resisted with chants of “Whose park? Our park!”
The massive operation in and around Zuccotti Park was intended to empty the birthplace of a protest movement that has inspired hundreds of tent cities from coast to coast. On Monday in Oakland, Calif., hundreds of police officers raided the main encampment there, arresting 33 people. Protesters returned later in the day. But the…
America is Not a Very Christian Nation
Stephen Prothero writes at CNN:
In the never-ending debate over whether the United States is a Christian nation, recent events support the nay-sayers. I am referring to the troubles of Herman Cain and Joe Paterno.
How we respond to ethical conundrums often boils down to empathy. In the abortion debate, do you identify with the woman who wants an abortion or with the fetus? Concerning the federal deficit, do you identify with the wealthy person who might see his taxes rise or with the poor person who might see her unemployment benefits extended?
One purpose of the world’s great religions is to widen our circle of empathy beyond ourselves and our families to others in our community, and in the wider world. Christianity, for example, has long taught that we should empathize with “the least of these,” and particularly with the poor and oppressed (see Luke 4:18).
The morality plays we are now witnessing —…
Where Will The Next Phase of Occupy Wall Street Take Us?
A week ago, I produced a TV documentary on inside the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York.
It was already somewhat obsolete by the time it aired.
The Park, once a buzzing center of debate and open-air meetings has gone residential in the sense that virtually every square inch of what was a half-acre political terrarium is now dominated by tents, an effort to insure more protection from the elements and some better level of personal security. As private spaces proliferated, public space shrunk.
Now, public health officials are raising the prospect of the spread of germs while violent incidents in other cities have police nationwide threatening to shut down the occupations in the name, of course, of preserving public safety.
The first happened in Oakland, a town with a long history of police violence that was on display when cops overran the camp, seriously hurting an Iraq veteran, and triggering a call…
Vladimir Putin Ad Shows Couple Having Sex In Voting Booth
Putin pushes the envelope, and points the way towards the future of political campaigning, by making pulling the voting lever seem to be some sort of sex act. Via Politico:
In a new ad for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, the weirdness of that country’s fake democracy is on full display.
The ad conflates voting and sex in a way that makes no sense but has great production values and a compelling beat. The slogan: “Let’s do it together.”
Israel’s Occupy Movement Achieves Victories
We usually associate the terms “occupy” and “Israel” in a different political context…But, this summer the country saw massive demonstrations (including tent cities) to draw attention to social inequality, in what was arguably a blueprint for Occupy Wall Street. And there have been encouraging results: the conservative Israeli government is shifting more of the tax burden onto corporations and the super-rich. Could this happen in the United States, also? Via GlobalPost:
Israel’s summertime protest movement, which was occupying “Wall Street” before it was cool, can now celebrate their first major tangible success.
At a Sunday cabinet meeting the government approved the restructuring of Israel’s tax system, shifting a few degrees of the social burden onto corporations and the very rich.
On Monday, legislators received the new tax plan for approval, alongside a lengthy list of demands for financial reform and social justice that were nonexistent when the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, was last in…
ODB, STDs, and Government Cheese
Did “the Government” kill the Ol’ Dirty Bastard? From RockStarMartyr.net:
Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s slurring, incoherent “singin’ rappin’” rhymes hit the mic so hard, you have to wipe oozing spittle off your face after listening to his deranged tracks. He spoke the tough truth from the mean streets, delving into the dark crevices of ghetto crackhouses and bitch’s booties, coming out the other side covered in doodoo brown and flashing a steel grille grin all the while. Some believe that the big “G” government” took notice and were highly pissed about it.
Raised in the housing projects of Brooklyn, ODB broke out with the “world domination” scheme masterminded by his cousins, RZA and GZA, whose hip hop exploits are succinctly described by Dirty’s biographer, Jaime Lowe:
“The foundation of Wu-Tang is in its lore, its urban mythology, its appropriation of kung fu, chess, Buddhism, Islam, bible studies, cartoons, comics, Staten Island; anything they came…
Google’s Elevator To Space
Google's Driverless Car. Photo: Steve Jurvetson (CC)
I kid you not, some of the geniuses at Google are working on an elevator to space, as reported by Clare Cain Miller and Nick Bilton for the New York Times:
In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined.
It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.
These are just a few of the dreams being chased at Google X, the clandestine lab where Google is tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. In interviews, a dozen people discussed the list; some work at the lab or…
