Raymond
Anti-war Soldier Faces 10 Years in Jail
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
A British soldier who faces up to 10 years in jail for speaking out against the war in Afghanistan will go before a military judge this week to discover if he will remain in an army jail while he awaits trial.
In an escalation of the Ministry of Defence’s legal action against him, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, 27, was arrested and charged last week with five counts of disobeying lawful commands and standing orders in relation to his public opposition to the war expressed at an anti-war rally last month.
He had already been charged with desertion for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan.
[Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald]
Satan: The Great Motivator
From the Boston Globe:
What makes economies grow? It’s a question that has occupied thinkers for centuries. Most of us would tick off things like education levels, openness to trade, natural resources, and political systems.
Here’s one you might not have considered: hell.
A pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practices. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies – and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell.
That hell could matter to economic growth might seem surprising, since you can’t prove it exists, let alone quantify it. It stands as one of the more intriguing findings in a growing body of recent research exploring how religion…
How Hitler and the Nazis Tried to Steal Christmas
From the Telegraph:
The Nazi Party tried their best to remove Christ from Christmas by paganising carols, producing glittering swastika, iron cross and toy grenade baubles for the fir tree, research for a new exhibition has found.
Many of the changes made under Hitler, put in place to remove the influence of the Jewish-born baby Jesus, are still in use today, much to the alarm of modern Germans.
The swastika-shaped baking trays and wrapping paper adorned with Nazi symbols have long gone, but traces of the Third Reich Christmas can still be found in the subtly rewritten lyrics of favourite carols.
The discoveries have been highlighted by a new exhibition at the National Socialism Documentation Centre in Cologne.
[Read more at the Telegraph]
Can Mind-Altering Drugs have Mental Health Benefits?
From the Telegraph:
New studies are testing whether psychedelic drugs such as LSD and MDMA can treat OCD, post traumatic stress and cancer related anxiety.
On September 19 this year, 12 people gathered in the suburban Hermsdorf district of Berlin for a group psychotherapy session that allegedly involved illegal drugs. A day later, two of the participants were dead and another in a coma. The substances used and exact cause of death have yet to be confirmed. Local newspaper reports have claimed that heroin and MDMA (ecstasy) were taken, but other drugs may have been in circulation.
Garri Rober, the therapist who led the session which included his wife, Elke, is facing possible charges in connection with the deaths and on suspicion of supplying illegal drugs. The other nine participants were released from…
Liberation Psychology for the U.S. Are we too demoralized to protest?
From Z Magazine:
The term “liberation psychology” was popularized by Ignacio Martin-Baró (1942-1989), the psychologist, priest, and activist who was assassinated in El Salvador by government troops. Martin-Baró focused on the oppression of his fellow Salvadorans, Central Americans, and Latin Americans. It is increasingly apparent that U.S. citizens need Martin-Baró’s insights along with their own special kind of liberation psychology.Why, in the United States, when the majority of people oppose the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry and the military occupation in Iraq, are the streets not regularly occupied with large numbers of protesters? Given 47 million people in the U.S. without health insurance and many millions more who are under-insured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage, and given the current sellout by their elected officials to the…
NZ Crew to Drill for Whisky in Antarctic
From MSN News:
A team of New Zealanders is preparing to drill in Antarctica in the New Year, and they hope to strike – whisky.
Among the supplies British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton abandoned on his unsuccessful 1909 expedition to the pole were two crates of the now extinct rare old brand of McKinlay and Co whisky.
Now Whyte & Mackay, the drinks giant that owns McKinlay and Co, has asked for a sample of the drink for a series of experiments, the Telegraph newspaper reported in London.
The New Zealanders will use special drills to free the trapped crates and rescue a bottle from the crates, discarded near the Cape Royds hut used by the Nimrod expedition, or at least draw off a sample using a syringe.
[Read more at MSN News]
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How Right-Wing Cult Leader Sun Myung Moon Bought Washington
From Alternet:
With money, media and promotion of a conservative political agenda, a self-styled Messiah and convicted felon became a frequent guest at the White House.
“Moon looked on the media as almost the nervous system for a global empire. Moon was the brain, and the media are to be, or were to be, the communications vehicle for his body politic surrounding the globe.”
In January 1992, PBS Frontline broadcast a film I directed that documented the amazing rise, fall and subsequent resurrection of Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church movement. The documentary showed how, through an adroit combination of money, media and the consistent promotion of a conservative political agenda, a self-styled Messiah and convicted felon had rapidly reinvented himself and was soon hailed at the White House.
At the time, few Americans paid…
Scientist Announces that she is Call Girl and Blogger Belle de Jour
From the Guardian:
One of the best kept literary secrets of the decade was revealed last night when 34-year-old scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti announced she was the writer masquerading as call girl Belle de Jour.
The author behind the bestselling books detailing her secret life as a prostitute decided to come out to one of her fiercest critics, Sunday Times columnist India Knight, after claiming anonymity had become “no fun”. “I couldn’t even go to my own book launch party”, she said.
Until last week, even her agent was unaware of her name. But now Magnanti, a respected specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology in a hospital research group in Bristol, has spoken of the time six years ago she worked as a £300 an hour prostitute working through a London escort…
Animation: pitcher Dock Ellis’s no-hitter while on LSD
From BoingBoing:
We’ve posted before about Dock Ellis. He was the baseball player who in 1970 pitched a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates while tripping balls on LSD. Ellis died last year. In his honor, James Blagden and Chris Isenberg animated Ellis’s retelling of his acid adventure on the mound. “Dock Ellis’s Legendary LSD No-Hitter animation“
[Read more at BoingBoing]
No, It’s not Elitist to Think the Tea-Baggers Are Idiots
From Alternet:
A post over at the Seminal is taking “liberal elitism” to task for not taking the Tea Party people seriously, and that that will lead to the election of Sarah Palin and other such ilk.
To quote our vice president, malarkey.
While I have long argued that there is too much elitism on the left for my tastes, there’s a wide gulf between holding your nose in the air for no good reason and dumbing yourself down in order to appeal to the lowest common idiotic denominator. Suck is the case with the Tea Party group and their leaders like Palin.
Far from the liberals in the ’70s who were clearly not responsive enough to the middle class, leading to the rise of Nixon and resentment politics, today’s left has gone to great…
“Restless Vagina Syndrome”: Big Pharma’s Newest Fake Disease
From Alternet:
It’s not your fault, ladies (and certainly not your partner’s), that you don’t orgasm every time you have intercourse, or that you lack the libido of a 17-year-old boy. You have a disease: female sexual dysfunction (FSD), and the pharmaceutical industry wants to help.
You are among the “43 percent of American women [who] experience some degree of impaired sexual function,” according to a Journal of the American Medical Association article. The FDA’s evolving definition of FSD includes decreased desire or arousal, sexual pain and orgasm difficulties — but only if the woman feels “personal distress” about it.
So, convincing women to feel distress is a key component of the drug company strategy to market a multi-billion-dollar pill that will cure billions of women of what may not ail them.
By promoting…
Britain’s Last WWI Veteran Shuns Remembrance Day
From Yahoo News:
Britain’s last surviving World War I veteran shunned Remembrance Day commemorations Wednesday because he was against the glorification of war, his family was reported as saying.Claude Choules, 108, lives in a nursing home in Perth, Australia and in July became Britain’s sole survivor from the 1914-1918 war, following the death of fellow veteran Harry Patch, aged 111.
Choules served on HMS Revenge during a 41-year naval career that spanned both world wars, witnessing the surrender of the German Imperial Navy in 1918 and the scuttling of the fleet in Scapa Flow.
But his daughter Daphne Edinger said Choules had been scarred by his experiences and chose not to celebrate the Armistice or other veterans’ days.
[Read more at Yahoo News]
Afghanistan and the “Other” Vietnam War
From Truthout:
When discussing the Vietnam War or comparing it to America’s other conflicts, such as the current one in Afghanistan, the “other” Vietnam War is rarely mentioned. This is very unfortunate, because it might be just the correct path to pursue in seeking a peaceful solution.
And much like President Barack Obama, who inherited the hostilities in Afghanistan, then-President Johnson inherited the Vietnam War. As the war dragged on, some personal aides claimed Johnson was never more ecstatic over Vietnam than when pledging to send billions of dollars to help toward construction and agricultural projects and the economic growth of Southeast Asia and the Mekong River region.
[Read more at Truthout]
