Archive for December, 2011
Media Roots Radio: Cyberculture, NDAA, OWS, GOP
Via Media Roots:
Abby & Robbie Martin discuss the age of information in the 21st century and philosophize what the ability to instantaneously connect with people worldwide has done to modern society; the subjectivity of “truth” as history becomes re-written with every passing generation; Alan Moore v. Frank Miller on Occupy Wall Street; The passing of the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that allows the indefinite detention of American citizens; the GOP race as a parody of itself with the candidates running and how voting for Ron Paul would be a fun social experiment if nothing else than to spoil the GOP primary.
25 Ridiculous Reactions To #GodIsNotGreat
Matt Stopera writes on BuzzFeed:
After Christopher Hitchens passed away, the title of his book, God Is Not Great, started trending on Twitter. Here’s how some people, mostly “Christians,” reacted:
[Click above image for more Tweets]
Was Darwin Wrong About Emotions?
Via ScienceDaily:
Contrary to what many psychological scientists think, people do not all have the same set of biologically “basic” emotions, and those emotions are not automatically expressed on the faces of those around us, according to the author of a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.
This means a recent move to train security workers to recognize “basic” emotions from expressions might be misguided.”What I decided to do in this paper is remind readers of the evidence that runs contrary to the view that certain emotions are biologically basic, so that people scowl only when they’re angry or pout only when they’re sad,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University, the author of the new paper.
The commonly-held belief is that certain facial muscle movements (called expressions) evolved to express certain mental states and prepare the body to react in…
Strange Growth on Nuclear Waste Might Be “Biological in Nature”
Rob Pavey reports in the Augusta Chronicle:
Savannah River Site scientists are working to identify a strange growth found on racks of spent nuclear fuel collected from foreign governments.
The “white, string-like” material was found among thousands of spent fuel assemblies submerged in deep pools within the site’s L Area, according to a report filed by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a federal oversight panel.
“The growth, which resembles a spider web, has yet to be characterized, but may be biological in nature,” the report said. Savannah River National Laboratory collected a small sample in hopes of identifying the mystery lint — and determining whether it is alive …
Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution
Wait a second — does this make Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich a couple o’ them “Cafeteria Catholics”? From Francis X. Rocca at the Huffington Post:
VATICAN CITY (RNS)— Noting a “rising sense of frustration” at the worldwide economic recession, Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires “adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth.”
The pope’s words appeared in his message for the World Day of Peace 2012, released on Friday (Dec. 16) at the Vatican.
The message laments that “some currents of modern culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles, have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots, detaching it from charity and solidarity.”
Authentic education, Benedict writes, teaches the proper use of freedom with “respect for oneself and others, including those whose way of being and living differs greatly from one’s own.”
14-Year-Old Tasered By Police in Allentown, Pennsylvania (Video)
Via the Guardian:
CCTV footage shows a police officer pushing a 14-year-old girl against a parked car and firing a taser at her groin. Shortly before the taser was fired the teenager is seen raising her hands in surrender. She received hospital treatment after the incident in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
How Private Warmongers and the U.S. Military Infiltrated American Universities
Steve Horn and Allen Ruff recently 
reported in Truthout:
A matrix of closely tied university-based strategic studies ventures, the so-called Grand Strategy Programs (GSP), have cropped up on a number of elite campuses around the country, where they function to serve the national security warfare state.
In tandem with allied institutes and think tanks across the country, these programs, centered at Yale University, Duke University, the University of Texas at Austin, Columbia University, Temple University and, until recently, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, illustrate the increasingly influential role of a new breed of warrior academics in the post-9/11 United States. The network marks the ascent and influence of what might be called the “Long War University.”
Ostensibly created to train an up-and-coming elite to see a global “big picture,” this grand strategy network has brought together scores of foreign policy wonks heavily invested — literally and figuratively — in an unending quest to maintain US global…
Thomas Kean: “Aftershocks” From Planes Responsible for WTC Building 7 Destruction (Video)
Via We Are Change:
On September 13th, 2011, Thomas Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission and former governor of NJ, gave a lecture for the The Drew Forum, a series of public lectures at Drew University located in Madison, New Jersey. We Are Change was tipped off to the event by FreedumbFighter28. and attended. After the lecture, a question and answer session was opened up to the audience. When We Are Change asked Thomas Kean to address the collapse of WTC Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, and was not mentioned once in The 9/11 Commission Report, his answer was simply shocking.
Fecal Matter Transplants Used to Cure Intestinal Infection
C. difficile colonies on a blood agar plate.
James Gallagher reports in BBC News
Transplanting faecal matter from one person to another — the thought might turn your stomach, but it could be lifesaving.
Some doctors are using the procedure to repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria, which can become unbalanced in some diseases. Dr Alisdair MacConnachie, who thinks he is the only UK doctor to carry out the procedure for Clostridium difficle infection, describes it as a proven treatment. He says it should be used, but only as a treatment of last resort.
The logic is simple. C. difficile infection is caused by antibiotics wiping out swathes of bacteria in the gut. It gives the surviving C. difficile bacteria room to explode in numbers and produce masses of toxins which lead to diarrhoea and can be fatal.
The first-choice solution, more antibiotics, does not always work and some patients develop recurrent infection. The theory…
Ron Paul, Sioux City Debate (Video)
Ron Paul in Thursday’s debate in Sioux City, Iowa. Much of this highlight reel is him defending his position on Iran; he appears to be the only candidate up there that thinks going to war with Iran is a bad idea:
Orgies for Jesus
[Site editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new Disinformation title 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion, authored by Daniele Bolelli.]
What if Christian theology dismissed the virgin birth and other miracles as fairy tales? What if your pastor/priest told you to flush the Ten Commandments down the toilet and instead live life to the fullest? What if Sunday service at your local church consisted in a juicy orgy? All of this could have happened had Carpocrates had his way.
Carpo … who? The lead character in our story was the leader of a second century Christian community based in the Greek islands. Back in those days, early Christians couldn’t agree on just about anything. Official Christian doctrine hadn’t been fully established yet, so an extremely wide range of opinions and teachings fell under the label of “Christianity.” The only thing they had in common was that they all thought…
The Georgia Guidestones
Available now in audio book, eBook and paperback from Disinformation Books. Read the first chapter on Scribd. More info at the official website www.guidestones.us:
The Georgia Guidestones are a collection of standing stones near Elberton, Georgia. Built in 1980, they are primarily composed of six slabs of granite: one central pillar, four “major” stones that fan out from the center, and a capstone. The capstone has engravings on all four of its sides in four different ancient languages, all of which read, “Let these be guidestones to an Age of Reason,” when translated. The major stones are each engraved on both sides, and each side contains text in one of eight modern languages asserting ten guidelines.
These guidelines have proven extremely controversial, causing speculation and rumors of conspiracy that go far beyond northeast Georgia.
The Georgia Guidestones are at once a Rosetta Stone, an astronomical observatory, and a road map for rebuilding civilization. Theories…
Post-American Iraq By The Numbers
As we pull our troops out following eight years in Iraq, Barack Obama earlier this week called it a “moment of success” that came at heavy cost — “nearly 4,500 Americans made the ultimate sacrifice.” The president made no mention of the cost to Iraqis, so Juan Cole has this to add:
Population of Iraq: 30 million
Percentage of Iraqis who lived in slum conditions in 2000: 17
Percentage of Iraqis who live in slum conditions in 2011: 50Number of the 30 million Iraqis living below the poverty line: 7 million.
Number of Iraqis who died of violence 2003-2011: 150,000 to 400,000.
Orphans in Iraq: 4.5 million.Orphans living in the streets: 600,000.
Number of women, mainly widows, who are primary breadwinners in family: 2 million.
Iraqi refugees displaced by the American war to Syria: 1 million
Internally displaced persons in Iraq: 1.3 million
Proportion of displaced persons who have returned home since 2008: 1/8
Rank of Iraq on Corruption Index among 182 countries: 175
Scientists Develop Device To See Inside Dreams
Suspect that your spouse is enamored with another? For a fee, you’ll be able to get a recording of their dreams to playback and double check. The Telegraph reports:
The secret world of dreams has been unlocked with the invention of technology capable of illustrating images taken directly from human brains during sleep.
A team of Japanese scientists have created a device that enables the processing and imaging of thoughts and dreams as experienced in the brain to appear on a computer screen.
While researchers have so far only created technology that can reproduce simple images from the brain, the discovery paves the way for the ability to unlock people’s dreams and other brain processes.
A spokesman at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories said: “It was the first time in the world that it was possible to visualise what people see directly from the brain activity.
“By applying this technology, it may become possible to record and…
Nation’s Worst Mayor, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, Has Disabled Her Facebook Page
Because there is nothing better than a politician who can’t take the heat. Hey internets, why not make her leave Twitter too. Or better yet resign.
Worker-Owners of America, Unite!
Gar Alperovitz chimes in on the re-evolutionary convergence of capitalism and socialism into a hybrid paradigm in a recent article in the NY Times:
The Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.
But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.
Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses…
Christopher Hitchens, RIP
One of our finest writers and sharpest wits has died. Obituary from BBC News:
British-born author, literary critic and journalist Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62.
He died from pneumonia, a complication of the oesophageal cancer he had , at a Texas hospital.
Vanity Fair magazine, which announced his death, said there would “never be another like Christopher”.
He is survived by his wife, Carol Blue, and their daughter, Antonia, and his children from a previous marriage, Alexander and Sophia.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter described the writer as someone “of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar”.
“Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls.”
Hitchens was born in Portsmouth in 1949 and graduated from Oxford in 1970.
He began his career as a journalist in Britain in the 1970s and later moved to New York, becoming…
Joe Rogan & Duncan Trussell On ‘Indefinite Detention’
Fantastic and timely discussion of our current state of affairs on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast:
