Archive for December, 2011
MSNBC Finally Has A Good Ad, About the GI Bill (Video)
EIther hell has frozen over or I have shit my pants. Comments welcome …
UPDATE: NBC has removed this ad off the internet because Disinformation is talking about it …
Congressman Jim McDermott: “Those Things In The Bill Of Rights Are Being Taken Away From All Of Us!”
U.S. Ponzi Scheme Targeted Mormons
Reports the AP via Google News:
US financial regulators charged a father and son in Utah state with operating a $220 million property investment Ponzi scheme which targeted fellow members of the Mormon church.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Wendell Jacobson and his son Allen Jacobson, of Fountain Green in central Utah, with selling shares in their purported real estate business and using the funds from some investors to pay returns promised to others.
It said that since 2008 the two had solicited investments into their business of ostensibly buying, rehabilitating and then renting out properties.
They appeared to use the memberships in the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — the Mormon church — “to make connections and win over the trust of prospective investors,” the SEC said.
Securities in their businesses were sold to investors without registering with the SEC as required by law.
Why Do People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems?
Detail from Corrupt Legislation. Mural by Elihu Vedder (1896).
Via ScienceDaily:
Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in — a government, company, or marriage — even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably? Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust?
A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we’re motivated to defend the status quo — a process called “system justification.”System justification isn’t the same as acquiescence, explains Aaron C. Kay, a psychologist at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, who co-authored the paper with University of Waterloo graduate student Justin Friesen. “It’s pro-active. When someone comes to justify the status quo, they also come to see it as what should be.”
Reviewing laboratory and cross-national studies, the…
The Saga of Newt “Skywalker” Gingrich
I’m still waiting for Republican primary voters to get wind of all of Newt’s “big government” sci-fi ideas. Here’s a good history of them from Sharon Weinberger in Foreign Policy:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the surging candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has been simultaneously lauded for his devotion to technological innovation, and ridiculed for his warnings about futuristic weapons.
Gingrich, who has dabbled in science fiction and cited both futurist Alvin Toffler and the concept of “psychohistory” in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels as intellectual inspirations, has long been dubbed “Newt Skywalker” thanks to his vision of future warfare that blends fact and fantasy. This streak of futurism is, by his own admission, rooted in a political and philosophical belief about technology and power. ”I would rather rely on engineers than diplomats for security,” Gingrich told Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine in 1994, in reference to his support for missile defense.
Not all his…
eBook Readers Live in a Different Universe of Books
Amazon’s released their list of 2011’s best-selling books, revealing that 40% of the best-selling ebooks didn’t even make it onto their list of the best-selling print books!
The #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks of the year weren’t even available in print editions, while four of the top 10 best-selling print books didn’t make it into the top 100 best-selling ebooks. “It couldn’t be more clear that Kindle owners are choosing their material from an entirely different universe of books,” notes one Kindle site, which points out that five of the best-selling ebooks came from two million-selling ebook authors — Amanda Hocking and John Locke — who are still awaiting the release of their books in print. And five of Amazon’s best-selling ebooks were Kindle-only “Singles,” including a Stephen King short story which actually outsold another King novel that he’d released in both ebook and print formats. And Neal Stephenson’s “Reamde” was Amazon’s #99 best-selling…
Final Bill For US War In Iraq Will Be $4 Trillion
Just so you know, that’s $4,000,000,000,000. Christopher Hinton explains for Marketwatch:
The nine-year-old Iraq war came to an official end on Thursday, but paying for it will continue for decades until U.S. taxpayers have shelled out an estimated $4 trillion.
Over a 50-year period, that comes to $80 billion annually.
Although that only represents about 1% of nation’s gross domestic product, it’s more than half of the national budget deficit. It’s also roughly equal to what the U.S. spends on the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency combined each year.
Near the start of the war, the U.S. Defense Department estimated it would cost $50 billion to $80 billion. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was dismissed in 2002 after suggesting the price of invading and occupying Iraq could reach $200 billion.
“The direct costs for the war were about $800 billion, but the indirect costs, the costs you can’t easily…
You Can Remotely Hack Someone’s Insulin Pump To Kill Them
A McAfee researcher has shown that it is possible to remotely hijack an insulin pump implanted in someone’s body. We may someday have internal devices that keep our organs functioning into super-old age, but will live in fear of computer viruses that explode hearts by sending pacemakers into hyperdrive, et cetera. The Register writes:
In a hack fitting of a James Bond movie, a security researcher has devised an attack that hijacks nearby insulin pumps, enabling him to surreptitiously deliver fatal doses to diabetic patients who rely on them.
The attack on wireless insulin pumps made by medical devices giant Medtronic was demonstrated Tuesday at the Hacker Halted conference in Miami. It was delivered by McAfee’s Barnaby Jack, the same researcher who last year showed how to take control of two widely used models of automatic teller machines so he could to cause them to spit out a steady stream of dollar bills.
“With…
God’s Hit Man
[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.]
Since the dawn of time, God’s faithful followers have been locked in a war without mercy against the forces of evil. Christian theology (and Muslim too, for that matter) is clear on this matter. This is a fight that can’t stop until the final showdown at the end of times, when God’s partisans will drown their enemies once and for all in rivers of blood. Until then, the battle rages on, and the entire earth is divided in opposing armies. Neutrality is just not an option. Much like rust, Evil never sleeps, and its agents are constantly busy trying to hurt the followers of the one true faith. Given this outlook, it then logically follows that it is wise for God’s people to strike down the devil’s…
One Half Of Americans Are Poor Or Low Income
Photo: C. G. P. Grey (CC)
Shocking statistics courtesy of AP via CBS News:
Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.
The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.
“Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too `rich’ to qualify,” said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.
“The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal,” he said. “If Congress and the…
Alabama Looks To Replace Immigrant Workers With Prison Labor
A draconian law passed earlier this year has resulted in an exodus of illegal (and legal) immigrants from Alabama, and as a result, crops are rotting in fields on farms across the state. The solution? A return to chain gang days, reports AFP:
Alabama farmers have proposed using prisoners to work their fields to replace migrants who fled the state after it passed the country’s harshest anti-immigration law, officials said Tuesday.
The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industry officials met Tuesday in Mobile with farmers to discuss their proposal. A statement by the department said the meeting with the farmers was convened “to help solve the chronic labor shortages created by Alabama’s new immigration law.”
Known as HB56, the new law requires local police to verify the immigration status of anyone they have a “reasonable suspicion” of being in the country illegally.
The law touched off an exodus of mainly Hispanic workers who moved…
Swiss Government Study: Online Piracy Benefits Artists
Encouraging results regarding unauthorized downloading, via TorrentFreak:
The Swiss government has been conducting a study into the impact downloading has on society. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won’t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products.
The overall conclusion of the study is that the current copyright law, under which downloading copyrighted material for personal use is permitted, doesn’t have to change.
The entertainment industries have opposed all these technological inventions out of fear that their businesses would be crushed. This is not the right response according to the Swiss government, which favors the option of putting technology to good use instead of taking the repressive approach.
The government report further concludes that even in the current situation where piracy is rampant, the entertainment industries are not necessarily…
Let’s Prevent American Internet Censorship!
Writes Nick Meador:
[Note: This post has been censored by the author in protest of the "rogue sites legislation" (i.e., Internet censorship) currently being considered by U.S. Congress. The full text will be made available soon.]
Dear Internet friends,
As you may already know, I create audio/video mash-ups by crossing older films and music videos with newer music, with varying levels of editing to the original visual content. In a sense, it has become a hobby of mine over the past few years, and I find it very rewarding. My own activity has been inspired in some ways by the mash-up culture more prevalent in music during the last decade.
During my Masters of Journalism program in 2007-2008, I learned that this is legal behavior because of the “fair use” aspect of U.S. copyright law. That says people can use copyrighted works for non-commercial, transformative purposes that add value to the material but don’t hinder the profitability of the…
‘Indefinite Detention’ Bill Heads To Obama’s Desk As White House Drops Veto Threat
One more reason to vote for Ron Paul. The only candidate even speaking out over this absolute travesty of justice. Fox News fails to mention that this bill enables indefinite detention of American Citizens and revokes posse comitatus opening the door for martial law in America. Paul Joseph Watson writes on InfoWars:
UPDATE: Obama has dropped his threat to veto the bill and is now expected to sign it into law. Remember — it was Obama’s White House that demanded the law apply to U.S. citizens in the first place.
The bill which would codify into law the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens is about to be passed and sent to Obama’s desk to be signed into law, even as some news outlets still erroneously report that the legislation does not apply to U.S. citizens.
“The House on Wednesday afternoon approved the rule for the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), setting…
Is It Too Late? The Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Is Releasing Huge Fountains of Methane
Keep in mind that methane affects the atmosphere in multiple ways, and that another major Ice Age might be what’s really in the works. Steve Connor reports in the Independent:
Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane — a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide — have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.
The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.
In an exclusive interview with the Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.
“Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they…
OccupyWallStreet Economics
Photo: David Shankbone (CC)
J. D. Suss writes on Stories, Essays, Detritus:
Economics 101 teaches that the quantity of a product or service is determined by the demand, which is reflected by its price and is a function of its quality.
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement might be deconstructed using this same analysis:
The number and size of Occupations worldwide can be determined by the demand, reflected by the price we pay for sympathizing and participating—a direct result of discerning the quality of the values it promotes.
The individual making such a discernment wants an assurance of its quality before committing to the OWS Movement. He or she does not want to be bamboozled by some phony color revolution sponsored by a hidden power elite, or a false flag operation carried out by its governmental minions. An individual requires a solid basis upon which to make a reasoned choice that this Movement is in…
The Wrong Facebook Friends Can Sink Your Credit Rating
Adrianne Jeffries explains the downside of maintaining a social media presence for Betabeat:
Let’s take a trip with the Ghost of Christmas Future. The year is 2016, and George Bailey, a former banker, now a part-time consultant, is looking for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for a co-op in the super-hot neighborhood of Bedford Falls (BeFa). He has never missed a loan payment and has zero credit card debt. He submits his information to the online-only PotterBank.com, but halfway through the application process, the website asks for his Facebook login. Then his Twitter. Then LinkedIn. The cartoon loan officer avatar begins to frown as the algorithm discovers Mr. Bailey’s taxi-driving buddy Ernie was once turned down by PotterBank for a loan; then it starts browsing his daughter Zuzu’s photo album, “Saturday Nite!” And what was this tweet from a few years back: “FML, about to jump off a goddamn bridge”?
A new wave…
Presenting Earth 2.0
Is this where humankind will be living in a couple millenia? In a solar system 600 light years away spins the newly-spotted Kebler 22-b, a rocky planet with oceans covering two-thirds of its surface, and balmy temperatures approximating 70 degrees. The Herald Sun reports on the greatest hope for a replacement Earth:
A newly discovered planet about 600 light years from our little rock has scientists around the world in a spin, with many heralding it as the best chance yet of containing alien life.
The find, announced early last week by NASA, was uncovered by the US space agency’s Kepler spacecraft, launched on a planet-hunting mission in 2009.
The planet, Kepler-22b, is 2.4 times bigger than Earth, orbits a star slightly smaller than our sun and has an average temperature of 22C. It is also closer to its sun-like star, giving it a “year” of 290 days.
What makes this discovery so exciting is…
