Archive for December, 2011
Medical & Biology Students Reject Evolution In Favor Of Creationism
Charles Darwin. Maull and Polyblank for the Literary and Scientific Portrait Club (1855).
A growing number of biology and medical students are rejecting the very basis of their chosen subject in favor of creationism, reports Steve Jones in the Telegraph:
…Now, though, we have evolution, the grammar of biology. More and more, students do not like it. I no longer teach medics but I do have a lot of contact with biology undergraduates and go to many schools and to student conferences. Over the past decade there has grown up a determined denial by many people of the truths of modern science.
At University College London we have numbers of Islamic students, almost all dedicated, hard-working and able. Some, unfortunately, refuse to accept Darwin’s theory on faith grounds, as do some of their Christian fellows; and just a couple of years ago a Turkish anti-evolution speaker (a Dr Babuna, as I remember) was…
Turn Deceased Loved Ones’ Ashes Into Bullets
The 
Alabama-based company Holy Smoke will do just this, loading cremated remains into live shotgun rounds — allowing for numerous possibilities of sweetly perfect, Tarantino-esque posthumous vengeance:
My friend smiled and said “You know I’ve thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.”
I realized that my friend was describing almost exactly how I wanted my ashes to be spread. How perfect to have my family and friends honor me by using shotgun shells with a little bit of my ash in each one. Whether my shells get shot at…
Japanese Robot Girlfriend
My prediction — in the future, if you do not meet a husband/wife by age 40, you will have the option of being given a robot boyfriend/girlfriend:
Pretty interesting where robotics is going. It will really get interesting with the merging of artificial intelligence, prosthetic development, innovative CPU processing developments, low cost storage (SSD) and a connected Internet…. the next 50 years will allow for some crazy and perhaps scary, developments.
Occupy: WWJD?
BBC News asks What Would Jesus Do to OWS?
The Occupy movement has become the latest to use the slogan “what would Jesus do?”, something that has been questioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But where did the slogan come from and is there ever an answer to the question posed, asks Stephen Tomkins.
Like all the most enduring slogans, “what would Jesus do?” has inspired countless rewrites.
There has been everything from political parody – anti-war T-shirts asking “who would Jesus bomb?” – to the beyond parody such as the “what would Jesus eat?” biblical diet plan.
The original question “what would Jesus do?” has been taken seriously by millions of Christian teenagers who have worn it over the last 20 years as a reminder to live their life in the right way. But it’s now been co-opted by protesters outside London’s St Paul’s Cathedral threatened with eviction.
Particularly in the US, but also elsewhere,…
Why No Wall Street Prosecutions? It’s ‘Just Too Hard’
Are the architects of the financial crisis immune to prosecution simply because it would be too complex? So says an ex-official from the Justice Department. ProPublica writes:
Years after the financial crisis, there have still been no prosecutions of top executives at the major players in the financial crisis. Why’s that? Well, according to a now-departed Justice Department official who used to be in charge of investigating such matters, the Justice Department has decided that holding top Wall Street executives criminally accountable is too difficult a task.
David Cardona, who recently left the FBI for a job at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the Wall Street Journal that bringing financial wrongdoing to account is “better left to regulators,” who can bring civil cases:
While at the FBI, Mr. Cardona oversaw dozens of criminal probes of large financial firms. The FBI’s probes haven’t led to any successful prosecutions of high-profile executives in relation to…
Cartoon Jesus Destroys The World
A vintage film clip depicting the son of God’s vengeful return to Earth for Armageddon, during which he will smash cars, blow up buildings, and smite non-believers harshly and painfully. Seeing one of the bible’s most central predictions in animated form, one realizes that Jesus is essentially the American Godzilla:
The Evils Of A World Filled With Touchscreens
All signs point to our heading towards a future in which we will exist surrounded by software-enabled touchscreens. Why this could be a grave mistake, via Slate:
What touchscreens lack is something called affordance — an object’s built-in ability to tell you how it works. A doorknob affords turning. The button on a car stereo affords pushing. A touchscreen affords nothing. It relies on software for any affordance, which in turn relies on total immersion for the user.
What we want, apparently, is to surround ourselves with touchscreens of varying size—tiny ones in our pockets, medium-size models for our laps and dashboards, and massive versions for our walls. We want tomorrow’s vintage shops to be lined with identical, blank, anonymous slabs. We want things to be vessels for software, and nothing more. Immersion is a fantastic quality while flicking virtual birds at digital pigs in your smartphone. Immersion at 80 mph is…
Los Angeles Votes To End Corporate Personhood
The municipal government of Los Angeles has passed a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to assert that corporations are not guaranteed the rights of people, and that spending money is not the same as free speech. Largely symbolic, but hopefully part of something bigger. The Los Angeles Times reports:
At a packed City Council meeting that included remarks from a man in a top hat with fake money tucked in the pocket of his suit, Los Angeles lawmakers Tuesday called for more regulations on how much corporations can spend on political campaigns.
The vote in support of state and federal legislation that would end so-called “corporate personhood” is largely symbolic. But anti-corporate activist Mary Beth Fielder, who spoke in favor of the resolution, called it “a symbol that’s going to be heard around the world.”
The council resolution includes support for a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not entitled to…
Baby Boomers Returning To The Commune
About 100,000 people in the United States lives in so-called “intentional communities.” Via the Atlantic, as mainstream society atrophies, Anna Spinner looks at now-gray hippies migrating back to the utopian communes they left 40 years ago, to live out their days:
In late June of this year, Kathy, now 50, and her 62-year-old husband Bob drove with their 28-year-old daughter Joyce from Charlotte, North Carolina, to the Farm. Kathy visits about three times a year, but this was a special visit. It was the Farm’s 40th reunion, but it was also, more importantly, the visit when Kathy would finalize plans to build the home where she and Bob planned to spend the rest of their lives.
On the drive down, Kathy’s phone buzzed with texts and updates from the Farm Facebook group. Friends were posting photos and status updates. It was a big party and Kathy couldn’t wait to get there.
Crossing the…
Federal Lawsuit Claims Illuminati Groups Stole $1.1 Trillion
From Courthouse News Service:
An American expatriate in Bulgaria claims the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the Office of International Treasury Control and the Italian government conspired with a host of others to steal more than $1.1 trillion in financial instruments intended to support humanitarian purposes.
The 111-page federal complaint involves a range of entities common to conspiracy theorists, including the Vatican Illuminati, the Masons, the “Trilateral Trillenium Tripartite Gold Commission,” and the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Plaintiff Neil Keenan claims he was entrusted in 2009 with the financial instruments – which included U.S. Federal Reserve notes worth $124.5 billion, two Japanese government bonds with a combined face value of $19 billion, and one U.S. “Kennedy” bond with a face value of $1 billion – by an entity called the Dragon Family, which is a group of several wealthy and secretive Asian families.
“The Dragon family abstains from public view and knowledge, but, upon…
Lifestyle Causes 40% Of Cancers
OK, so now that you know you can drastically reduce your chances of developing cancer, will you change your lifestyle? Michelle Roberts reports for BBC News that you should:
Nearly half of cancers diagnosed in the UK each year – over 130,000 in total – are caused by avoidable life choices including smoking, drinking and eating the wrong things, a review reveals.
Tobacco is the biggest culprit, causing 23% of cases in men and 15.6% in women, says the Cancer Research UK report.
Next comes a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in men’s diets, while for women it is being overweight.
BBC News
The report is published in the British Journal of Cancer.
Its authors claim it is the most comprehensive analysis to date on the subject.
Lead author Prof Max Parkin said: “Many people believe cancer is down to fate or ‘in the genes’ and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get…
Third World Canada
The Canadian media’s furor and spin on the following story is demonstrable proof that any and all attempts to de-legitimise Indigenous self-government and exploit Aboriginal territories for resources is not only allowed, it is welcomed. These policies are based on historical paternalistic colonialism, which is explicitly intended to systematically disenfranchise Native peoples.
Note as per this story , Canada spends MORE than two times per capita on non-natives for social infrastructure (housing, education, healthcare) than it does on aboriginal people. The amount reported in the Al Jazeera story below, is the entire budget, and does not include any additional civil infrastructure (roads, transport links) funds, which is normally separate from social spending:
The Protests in Washington, DC …
Via Nation of Change:
Roughly 3,000 unemployed workers from around the country are expected in the nation’s capitol next week for four days of protests with labor, religious and social justice groups that say Congress cares more about America’s wealthiest 1 percent than it does the masses of struggling middle-class families.
Piggybacking on the Occupy Wall Street movement, the three-day “Take Back the Capitol” protest will open Monday with construction of a “Peoples Camp” on the National Mall as a base of operations. On Tuesday, protesters will hit Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress about extending federal unemployment benefits. The group walks to K Street on Wednesday to protest the political influence of corporate lobbyists.
And on Thursday, they’ll host a national prayer vigil for the unemployed on Capitol Hill. At the same time, the AFL-CIO will coordinate simultaneous protests at congressional district offices across the country to call for extending unemployment…
Joe Rogan Experience: Daniele Bolelli, Brian Redban
[Site editor's note: Thanks Camron for posting!] Disinfo gets the plug here : )
Some Atheist Scientists With Children Embrace Religious Traditions
Via ScienceDaily:
Some atheist scientists with children embrace religious traditions for social and personal reasons, according to research from Rice University and the University at Buffalo — The State University of New York (SUNY).
The study also found that some atheist scientists want their children to know about different religions so their children can make informed decisions about their own religious preferences.
“Our research shows just how tightly linked religion and family are in U.S. society — so much so that even some of society’s least religious people find religion to be important in their private lives,” said Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, the study’s principal investigator and co-author of a paper in the December issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
The researchers found that 17 percent of atheists with children attended a religious service more than once in the past year. The research was conducted through interviews with a…
Why Politicians Don’t Understand OWS
Frank Luntz. Photo: Larry D. Moore (CC)
Paul B. Farrell remixes Republican spinmeister Frank Luntz’s ten techniques for talking about Occupy, for MarketWatch:
Forget politics. The 99%, the Occupy Wall Street movement, is not about politics. But politicians don’t get it yet. The Dems sure don’t. And while Bill O’Reilly says the movement is already dead, insider Frank Luntz thinks OWS is not only very alive, but getting dangerously bigger. In fact, he’s very “scared” for his clients.
Warning: Will somebody please tell Luntz Occupy Wall Street is not about politics? This is class warfare, a revolution about economic inequality, not about political parties, political policies and political solutions … and it’s not going away any time soon.
Luntz is a conservative pollster so he’s making it all about politics. But he’s missing the point, and misleading his clients. Luntz is author of some great books like “Words That Matter” and “What Americans Really…
Occupy Melbourne Tent Monsters
Occupy Melbourne protesters pull a pleasing prank on local police — in their city, it’s illegal to camp in parks, so they realized that turning tents into clothing would make the perfect cop-baiting outfits:
Color Preferences Of The Insane
Does a shift towards favoring yellow, and then orange, occur among the mentally disturbed? This was the finding of an admittedly questionable 1931 study on the link between aesthetic preference and insanity. (Purple must be beyond all reason.) Via Neatorama:
The year 1931 stands out in the history of research about insane people’s favorite colors. That summer, Siegfried E. Katz of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital published a study called “Color Preference in the Insane.” The full citation is:
“Color Preference in the Insane,” Siegfried E. Katz, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 26, no. 2, July 1931, pp. 203–11.
Assisted by a Dr. Cheney, Dr. Katz tested 134 hospitalized mental patients. For simplicity’s sake, he limited the testing to six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. No black. No white. No shades of gray.
“These colors,” he wrote, “rectangular in shape, one and one-half inches square, cut from…
Iran Prepares For War
The Telegraph reports that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been put on a war footing amid increasing signs that the West is taking direct action to cripple Iran’s nuclear programme. But should the headline really be “Mainstream Media Prepare The West For War Against Iran”?
An order from Gen Mohammed Ali Jaafari, the commander of the guards, raised the operational readiness status of the country’s forces, initiating preparations for potential external strikes and covert attacks.
Western intelligence officials said the Islamic Republic had initiated plans to disperse long-range missiles, high explosives, artillery and guards units to key defensive positions.
The order was given in response to the mounting international pressure over Iran’s nuclear programme. Preparation for a confrontation has gathered pace following last month’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that produced evidence that Iran was actively working to produce nuclear weapons.
The Iranian leadership fears the country is being subjected to…
