BananaFamine
Billionaire Carves Name In Desert So Large It Can Be Seen From Space
Note: click on the image below to see on Google Maps. Harry Haydon writes in the Sun:
A desert sheikh has carved out a big name for himself — by having his moniker etched in capital letters visible from space. Workmen scoured “HAMAD” into the sand on the orders of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan.
The name is two miles across — with letters a kilometre high. It is so huge that the “H”, the first “A” and part of the “M” have been made into waterways. The mega-rich sheikh, 63 — a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi — in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates — boasts a £14billion fortune that is second only to the Saudi king’s.
Indian Company Produces Flat-Pack, $700 Houses
Reports Agence France-Presse via Raw Story:
The Indian company that launched the world’s cheapest car has unveiled its latest product for the fast-growing nation: a flat-pack house that costs just $700 and can be built in a week.
The Tata group, maker of the $2,500 Nano car, said that the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) home comes from a pre-fabricated kit that includes doors, windows and a roof.
“We have already prepared two-three different designs based on discussions with users and are gathering more feedback,” Sumitesh Das, the head of the project at Tata, told reporters in Hyderabad.
“Hopefully, in the next six-eight months we should be able to roll it out in the market nationally.”
The basic model of a so-called “Nano” house will cost 32,000 rupees ($720) and will use coconut fibre or jute for wall cladding and interiors. It has a life expectancy of 20 years.
California Prisoners Stage Hunger Strike Over Conditions
David Edwards writes on The Raw Story:
Between 50 and 100 inmates in solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have pledged to refuse to eat until officials agree to better conditions.
Isaac Ontiveros of the anti-prison group Critical Resistance explained the prisoners’ demands to DemocracyNow.
“End the use of group punishment and administrative abuse; abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria; comply with the commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement; provide adequate and nutritious food; and expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates.”
Ron Paul Won’t Seek Congressional Term In 2012
Ron Paul has declared that he’s all-in for his presidential bid. (Judging by a recent survey, he may very well stand a chance). John Tompkins writes for The Facts:
After serving almost 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Ron Paul told The Facts exclusively this morning he will not be seeking another term for the District 14 seat.
Paul, 75, will instead focus on his quest for the presidency in 2012. “I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election,” Paul said. “It’s about that time when I should change tactics.”
His announcement will give enough time for anyone with aspirations for his seat to think about running, he said. Paul didn’t want to wait for filing in the 2012 primary to let people know he wasn’t seeking reelection.
“I didn’t want to hold off until in December,” he said. “I thought it shouldn’t be any later than now.”…
Should Flogging Be an Alternative to Prison?
Adam Cohen asks in TIME:
Flogging someone with a cane causes intense pain and permanent bodily damage. An Australian who was flogged for drug trafficking in Malaysia in the 1970s recalled that the cane “chewed hungrily through layers of” his “skin and soft tissue” and “left furrows” on him that were “bloody pulp.”
It’s tough stuff and generally considered a barbaric punishment that the 21st century Western world would and should never consider. That makes it a bit startling to find a new book by a serious U.S. academic arguing that the U.S. should start flogging criminals. Peter Moskos’ In Defense of Flogging might seem like a satire — akin to Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” an essay advocating the eating of children — but it is as serious as a wooden stick lashing into a blood-splattered back.
Despite what you may think, Moskos is not pushing flogging as part of a “get tougher…
Cloud-Based Data Outside the U.S. Not Exempt From PATRIOT Act Spying
Stephen C. Webster writes on The Raw Story:
In the brave new world of cloud computing, where data is stored off-site in massive server farms instead of on a user’s local hard drive, privacy and security are paramount in the consumer’s mind.
Unfortunately for privacy advocates, their concerns are essentially moot thanks to the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which a key Microsoft official said recently permits the U.S. to spy on data stored within cloud servers across the European Union.
The revelation of transcontinental spying, which has long been suspected, came from Gordon Frazer, Microsoft U.K.’s managing director, speaking at an announcement event for the company’s new suite of office software.
Frazer’s admission was caught by ZDNet reporter Zack Whittaker, who’s long covered data security issues as they relate to the Patriot Act.
LulzSec Hack Revealed Cops’ Least Favorite iPhone Apps
[Site editor's note: Even though, they seemingly have called it quits, an intriguing swan song ... ] Andy Greenberg writes in Forbes:
… I noted a new suite of police-policing apps including OpenWatch and Cop Recorder, which turn your phone into a “reverse surveillance camera” for secretly recording run-ins with authority figures. Now it appears that police are well aware of those programs and others that complicate law enforcement, and at least some cops are none too happy about them.
That’s one of the revelations … by the hacker group LulzSec, which dumped a cache of files that it stole from the Arizona Police Department, calling Arizona a “racial profiling anti-immigrant police state.” A pair of documents among the hundreds leaked show concerns about how smartphones are being used for everything from recording interactions with police to evading speed traps.
One document labelled “Law Enforcement Sensitive” lists the following apps, and warns officers…
U.S. Expands Its Drone War Into Somalia
Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times:
The clandestine American military campaign to combat Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen is expanding to fight the Islamist militancy in Somalia, as new evidence indicates that insurgents in the two countries are forging closer ties and possibly plotting attacks against the United States, American officials say.
An American military drone aircraft attacked several Somalis in the militant group the Shabab late last month, the officials said, killing at least one of its midlevel operatives and wounding others.
The strike was carried out by the same Special Operations Command unit now battling militants in Yemen, and it represented an intensification of an American military campaign in a mostly lawless region where weak governments have allowed groups with links to Al Qaeda to flourish.
The Obama administration’s increased focus on Somalia comes as the White House has unveiled a new strategy to battle Al Qaeda in the post-Osama…
Was John Lennon A Closet Republican?
Photo: Roy Kerwood (CC)
Via the Toronto Sun:
John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death — according to the tragic Beatles star’s last personal assistant.
Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon’s death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.
In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn’t the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant.
He says, “John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.
“He’d met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event… Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe,…
Americans Growing Tired of Traffic Light Spy Cameras
Alex Johnson writes on MSNBC:
In more than 500 cities and towns in 25 states, silent sentries keep watch over intersections, snapping photos and shooting video of drivers who run red lights. The cameras are on the job in metropolises like Houston and Chicago and in small towns like Selmer, Tenn., population 4,700, where a single camera setup monitors traffic at the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and Mulberry Avenue.
One of the places is Los Angeles, where, if the Police Commission gets its way, the red light cameras will have to come down in a few weeks. That puts the nation’s second-largest city at the leading edge of an anti-camera movement that appears to have been gaining traction across the country in recent weeks.
A City Council committee is considering whether to continue the city’s camera contract over the objections of the commission, which voted unanimously to remove the camera system, which…
Rochester Police Ticket Supporters of Woman Who Taped Police From Her Own Front Yard (Video)
The video below is from a Rochester, New York, neighborhood meeting in support of Emily Good, the woman arrested for videotaping a traffic stop from her front yard. So Rochester police sent four squad cars to ticket the cars of meeting attendees who parked more than 12 inches from the curb. Yes, they even brought a ruler.
Chris Hedges’s Endgame Strategy: Why The Revolution Must Start In America
Synopsis via The Raw Story:
Pulitzer-winning author and former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges has a revolutionary worldview. In the video below, his recent “Endgame Strategy” piece for AdBusters is read aloud by George Atherton. His conclusions are chilling, but not entirely hopeless. “We will have to take care of ourselves,” he wrote. “We will have to rapidly create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and cultural values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out. It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global corporate dystopia. It is not much of a choice. But at least we still have one.
Food Ark: Will Seed Banks Save Our Sources of Food?
“Experts estimate that we have lost more than half of the world’s food varieties over the past century”. Charles Siebert writes in National Geographic:
Svalbard Vault Mountain (Cutaway). Illustration: Global Crop Diversity Trust
A crisis is looming: To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply — but we must take steps to save them.
Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. It seems counterintuitive, but then everything about this farm stands in stark contrast to the surrounding acres of neatly rowed corn and soybean fields that typify modern agriculture. Heritage Farm is devoted…
LulzSec Leaks Arizona Law Enforcement Papers
Rob Beschizza writes on BoingBoing:
LulzSec announced Thursday evening the publication at Pirate Bay of a trove of leaked material from Arizona law enforcement agencies. Arizona’s Department of Public Safety confirmed shortly thereafter that it was hacked.
In the press release included with the dump, a LulzSec affiliate outlines a more activist agenda than is usually associated with the group:
We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.
The documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive”, “not for public distribution”, and “for official use only” are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements.
Male Birth Control Pill On The Horizon
Reports LiveScience via MNN:
Equality for men may be on the horizon — contraceptive equality, that is. For more than a half century, women have been able to pop a pill to prevent pregnancy, but a pharmaceutical alternative has never emerged for men.
Now, research to interfere with the body’s ability to use vitamin A is showing some promise, because, in men, vitamin A is necessary for the production of sperm.
One recent study found that a compound that interferes with the body’s ability to use vitamin A rendered male mice sterile while they were receiving 8- or 16-week courses. But once the mice were taken off the compound, they resumed making sperm. Significantly, the researchers found no side effects, and the testosterone levels of the mice stayed normal, meaning no fluctuations in mousey libido.
“Our mice, they mate quite happily, so that is not something we have interfered with,” said Debra Wolgemuth, one…
Check Out Ron Paul’s Stock Portfolio (and for Other Members of Congress)
From Linette Lopez’s article in Business Insider. Here’s what Ron Paul does and full article here.
Well, this is predictable …Today members of Congress had to reveal their stock holdings. We were curious what anti-Fed, pro-gold Congressman Ron Paul held, and no surprise, he likes gold. Lots of it. Here are the stocks he owns:
Agnico Eagle Mines; Alumina Common; Anglo Gold Ashanti Ltd.; BrigusGold Corp. Com MPV (formerly Apollo Gold Corp); Barrick Gold Corp.; Claude Research Inc; Coeur D’Alene Minds Corp.; Gold Corp Inc; El Dorado Gold Corp.; IAM Gold Corp.; Kinross; Lexam Explorations Inc.; Mag Silver Corp.; Metalline Mining Co.; Mutual Securities Inc.; Newmont Mining Corp.; Pan American Silver; Petrol Oil and Gas; Silver Wheaton Corp; Virginia Mines Inc.; Vista Gold Corp.; Viterra Inc; Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd.; Allied Nevada Gold Corp.; Hecla Mining Co.
Looks like he’s doing well these days.
Click here to see what some of his fellow Representatives are holdings…
Why The World Isn’t As ‘Flat’ As Thomas Friedman Says…
Rana Foroohar writes in TIME:
Tis the season to be selfish. Right after the global financial crisis exploded in 2008, many economists fretted that countries looking to hold on to their share of a shrinking pie would become more self-interested and protectionist, plunging the planet into an even sharper downturn, just as happened in the 1930s after the Great Depression. Thanks to panic-fueled crisis management by policymakers, it didn’t happen. But after three years of pain and very little economic gain, it may be happening now.
The signs are everywhere. Europeans are in the middle of a potentially calamitous debt crisis, one that threatens not only the survival of the euro zone but the idea of the European Union itself: politicians are starting to talk about rolling back visa-free travel between countries. Meanwhile, OPEC is falling apart as the Saudis and the Iranians bicker over how to control the world’s energy spigots.…
Rabbinical Court Sentences Dog To Death By Stoning For Reincarnation
Reports Agence France-Presse via the Raw Story:
JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court’s judges 20 years ago, Ynet website reported Friday.
According to Ynet, the large dog made its way into the Monetary Affairs Court in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, frightening judges and plaintiffs.
Despite attempts to drive the dog out of the court, the hound refused to leave the premises.
One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously.
Their preferred divine retribution was for the lawyer’s spirit to move into the body of a dog, an animal considered impure by traditional Judaism.
New Apple Technology Stops iPhones From Filming Live Events
F@ck you, Apple (had to get that out of my system). Fox News reports:
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Fans at concerts and sports games may soon be stopped from using their iPhones to film the action —as a result of new technology being considered by Apple, The Times of London reported Thursday.
The California company has plans to build a system that will sense when a person is trying to film a live event using a cell phone and automatically switch off their camera.
A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then instruct the iPhone to disable its camera.
Apple declined to comment.
