Raymond
Promotions Director, Disinformation
Did Religion Have an Evolutionary Value?
Even Dawkins sees some value in religion, just not in the present. ScienceBlogs reports:
Richard Dawkins argues that humanity’s historical predisposition towards religion and supernatural beliefs may have held an evolutionary utility. “The rule of thumb: ‘Believe whatever your parents tell you,’ quite clearly could have survival value,” says Dawkins.
“Democratic War Room” Unleashed For Kagan Supreme Court Nomination
The political venom never flows more strongly than during the confirmation process. Will the Democrats run the table during this process, or is The Huffington Post just playing politics?
Photo: Doc Searls (CC)
In the hours following the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, the predominant feature of the debate has been the swift, campaign-like operation of Washington’s Democratic establishment.
Since President Obama introduced his Solicitor General as the choice to replace retired Justice John Paul Stevens, national airwaves and DC inboxes have been littered with a steady stream of material from Kagan backers.
One party official compared it (favorably) to a presidential campaign war room, with caffeine-aided staffers shooting out “rapid response” messages to Republican attacks and driving narratives either supportive of Kagan or mocking of the GOP.
It has been by design. At the White House, a team of aides overseen by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and run out of the…
Ash Cloud Disrupts Travel for 2nd Day
Just when you thought air traffic was back to normal … I’m headed for Europe this week, and I hope Vulcan will hold his wrath long enough for me to get across. CBC News Reports:
Air traffic to and from European destinations was disrupted by a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland for a second consecutive day Sunday.
The cloud is lingering over northwestern Scotland and a finger stretches into the airspace over northwestern Spain and Portugal.
An isolated cloud is affecting southern France and northern Switzerland, while another hangs over southern Switzerland, northern Italy, southern Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria.
Roughly 1,000 fewer flights took place in European airspace on Sunday, a drop of four per cent from the usual number for this time of year.
Hundreds of flights were canceled Saturday as plumes of ash again blew toward western Europe.
Spain closed 19 airports, while dozens of flights were also canceled in Portugal.
Air traffic…
Legalize Pot? Get Mom Onboard
Pot usage amongst young and middle-aged moms isn’t new and it isn’t a fad. The legalization lobby is smart to target these ladies to help get out the vote. MSNBC reports:
Moms got tougher drunk-driving laws on the books and were directly responsible for passing and then repealing alcohol Prohibition. Now marijuana activists are trying to enlist the nation’s mothers in legalization efforts with a sales pitch that pot is safer than booze.
The nation’s largest marijuana legalization lobby recently started a women’s group. The Moms4Marijuana website draws thousands. And just in time for Mother’s Day, a pot legalization group in Denver has created a pink-carnation web card asking moms to support legalization.
These marijuana moms argue that pot is no worse than alcohol, that teens shouldn’t face jail time for experimenting with it and that marijuana can even help new mothers treat postpartum depression. “I know so many mothers who support this but…
FCC Gives Hollywood The Right To Break Your TV/DVR … Just ‘Cause
It is always disheartening when something is made illegal because you could do something naughty with it. Techdirt reports:
Photo: Mattl (CC)
For a couple years now, the MPAA has been asking the FCC to break your TV/DVR, and let them effectively put a type of DRM (by enabling “Selectable Output Control” or SOC) on video content, such that you will not be able to access the content via third party devices, such as your DVR or your Slingbox. Effectively, they want to break the ability of your equipment to work. You wouldn’t be able to legally record the movie that was playing on your TV. The MPAA’s argument here makes absolutely no sense at all — and when they’re called on it, the doubletalk comes out.
The MPAA’s argument is that if it could block people from recording movies, they could release the movies on things like PPV before they release them on…
Herschel Captures the Birth of a Giant Star
The Universe is so large that you can look around and see events so rare that they only happen once in the course of millions of years. TG Daily reports:
Photo: European Space Agency
ESA’s Herschel telescope has snapped an embryonic star likely to turn into one of the biggest and brightest in our galaxy within the next few hundred thousand years.
The star-forming cloud RCW 120 already contains eight to ten times the mass of the Sun, and is still surrounded by an additional 2,000 solar masses of gas and dust from which it can feed further.
“This star can only grow bigger,” says Annie Zavagno of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille. But, she says, “According to our current understanding, you should not be able to form stars larger than eight solar masses.”
This is because the fierce light emitted by such large stars should blast away their birth clouds. Now that Herschel has observed…
MIT Researchers Print Solar Cell on Paper
What if everyday objects where constantly soaking up the power of the sun? This breakthrough from the folks at MIT could make that possible. Green Technology Daily reports:
Photo: Martin LaMonica, CNET
Scientists at the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center have successfully printed thin-film solar on paper. By coating white sheets of paper with organic semiconductors, the researchers are, in effect, able to turn an everyday object into a current-producing device.
MIT President Susan Hockfield and Paolo Scaroni, CEO of the Italian oil company Eni, officially dedicated the new research center last week. Vladimir Bulovic, the center’s director, took the opportunity to unveil the paper solar panel.
The process is said to be similar to an inkjet printer. Just as an inkjet deposits ink onto paper fairly quickly and cheaply, the MIT scientists are depositing carbon-based dyes, used as organic semiconductors, to absorb the sunlight and then convert it into solar electricity.
According to Bulovic, any…
British Taxpayers Ordered to Bail Out Euro
Looks like it’s Europe’s turn for a round of taxpayer funded bailouts. The Telegraph reports:
Photo: Julien Jorge (CC)
All 27 EU finance ministers have been summoned to Brussels on Sunday to sign up to a “European stabilisation mechanism. Britain will be unable to veto this as it will be put through under the “qualified majority voting” system.
The deal, effectively to shore up the euro, was denounced as a “stitch-up” last night after it emerged Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, had devised it behind closed doors and were attempting to push it through at a time when there is no clear government in Britain.
It was declared a “done deal” by the 16 euro zone leaders who met in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The decision was taken as David Cameron was locked in talks with the Liberal Democrats to try to form a government.
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor,…
Congress Members Bet on Fall in Stocks
This can’t possibly be a good sign. WSJ reports:
Photo: Asy arch (CC)
Some members of Congress made risky bets with their own money that U.S. stocks or bonds would fall during the financial crisis, a Wall Street Journal analysis of congressional disclosures shows.
Senators have criticized Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for profiting from the housing collapse. And Congress is considering legislation to curb Wall Street risk-taking, including the use of financial instruments known as derivatives and of leverage, or methods that amplify returns.
According to The Journal’s analysis of congressional disclosures, investment accounts of 13 members of Congress or their spouses show bearish bets made in 2008 via exchange-traded funds — portfolios that trade like stocks and mirror an index. These funds were leveraged; they used derivatives and other techniques to magnify the daily moves of the index they track.
There’s no evidence the legislators and their spouses used privileged information or failed to follow rules on…
Mystery Disease Linked to Missing Israeli Scientist
A strange fungus has stricken a number of people in the Pacific Northwest. Is it a bio-weapon gone wrong? Truthout reports:
Media outlets across the Northwest United States began reporting on April 24 that a strange, previously unknown strain of virulent airborne fungi that has already killed at least six people in Oregon, Washington and Idaho is spreading throughout the region. The fungus, according to expert microbiologists, who have expressed alarm about the emergence of the strain, is a new genotype of Cryptococcus gatti fungi. Cryptococcus gatti is normally found in tropical and subtropical locations in India, South America, Africa and Australia. Microbiologists in the United States are reporting that the strain found here, for reasons not yet fully understood, is far deadlier than any found overseas.
Physicians in the Pacific Northwest are reporting that an undetermined number of people in the region are ill from the effects of the strange strain. Physicians…
Times Square Bomb: The Right’s Nuttiest Theory
Was the recent incident in Times Square an attempt to demonize the labor and environmental movements? Mother Jones reports:
Photo: T.L. Miles (CC)
This much we know: A US citizen born in Pakistan has been arrested for allegedly parking a Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square Saturday night, loaded with fertilizer that doesn’t combust, a kid’s alarm clock that likely didn’t tick, several gallons of gas, some propane tanks, and a few M80 firecrackers.
Attorney General Eric Holder has released a statement saying Shahzad was “taken into custody at JFK Airport in New York as he attempted to board a flight to Dubai.” There’s a lot we have yet to learn about what this news means, but it probably rules out one favorite conservative theory about the attempted bombing — that left-wing protesters took advantage of May Day (aka International Workers’ Day) to make a big bang in New York’s neon-soaked seat of capitalism.
Even before the…
New U.S. Push to Regulate Internet Access
Since Michael Powell pulled my old college radio station off the air for a month back in 2005, I have always been afraid of the FCC. This story from WSJ reminds us that sometimes even the censors can be better friends to you than your ISP:
In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.
The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.
Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt “net neutrality” rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally,…
Lie-Detection Brain Scan Could Be Used in Court for First Time
This bizarre article from Wired shows how technology is catching up with the power of the brain. What does this mean for the idea of “justice?”
Illustration: Wikimedia Commons
A Brooklyn attorney hopes to break new ground this week when he offers a brain scan as evidence that a key witness in a civil trial is telling the truth, Wired.com has learned.
If the fMRI scan is admitted, it would be a legal first in the United States and could have major consequences for the future of neuroscience in court.
The lawyer, David Zevin, wants to use that evidence to break a he-said/she-said stalemate in an employer-retaliation case. He’s representing Cynette Wilson, a woman who claims that after she complained to temp agency CoreStaff Services about sexual harassment at a job site, she no longer received good assignments. Another worker at CoreStaff claims he heard her supervisor say that she should not be placed on…
Activist Spied On? Man Wins Settlement
Anyone who knows anything about Evergreen State College in Washington knows that there is nowhere in the world with a higher concentration of young hippies. Apparently, the state police went for the easy meat and got more than they bargained for. The Seattle Times reports:
Photo: Derek Redmon (CC)
A 22-year-old anti-war activist from The Evergreen State College will get $169,000 as part of a settlement with the State Patrol and two other law-enforcement agencies over allegations that their officers engaged in political spying and harassment.
Philip Chinn was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving by state patrol troopers in May 2007, while traveling to an anti-war protest at the Port of Grays Harbor in Aberdeen.
According to court documents, Chinn was pulled over after police had broadcast an “attempt to locate” his car, which was described as containing “three known anarchists.”
The criminal charge was dismissed after tests showed Chinn had no alcohol or drugs…
1970 Kent State Shootings are an Enduring History Lesson
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings, and this article from USA Today is a good reminder of the basic details. Disinfo.com readers who remember the event are invited to post their memories in the comments section.
Photo: Asfband (CC) via Wikimedia Commons
Forty springs ago, on the day the Vietnam War came home as it never had before, Mary Ann Vecchio was there. She’s the girl in the haunting photo — crying, kneeling over the student’s body.
That was Kent State University, May 4, 1970, a few days after Richard Nixon, who’d campaigned for president on an implicit promise to end the war, widened it by invading Cambodia.
Across the nation, students protested. At Kent State, where two days earlier the ROTC building was burned down, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four unarmed students, the closest of whom was nearly a football field away.
Vecchio found Jeffrey Miller…
Super Surprising Facts About ‘Our Enemy’ Iran Remind Us That We Don’t Know Squat
American’s aren’t exactly known for our knowledge of things like history and geography… This article from Alternet reminds us of how little we have bothered to learn about Iran:
What can possibly justify the relentless U.S. diplomatic (and mainstream media) assault on Iran ?
It cannot be argued that Iran is an aggressive state that is dangerous to its neighbors, as facts do not support this claim. It cannot be relevant that Iran adheres to Islamic fundamentalism, has a flawed democracy and denies women full western-style civil rights, as Saudi Arabia is more fundamentalist, far less democratic and more oppressive of women, yet it is a U.S. ally. It cannot be relevant that Iran has, over the years, had a nuclear research program, and is most likely pursuing the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, as Pakistan, India, Israel and other states are nuclear powers yet remain U.S. allies—indeed, Israel deceived the U.S. while…
Medical Marijuana Legal in Foggy Bottom, on Capitol Hill and all over Washington D.C.
Personally, I hope the smell stinks up the whole rotten town. This article from the Examiner gives more details:
Illustration: Oren neu dag (CC)
One of the biggest expenses the medical marijuana lobby has had to face is the cost getting US Congressmen and Senators out of town for a medical marijuana dispensary tour.
That expense was eliminated today with the unanimous passage of Initiative 59 by the Washington DC Council.
Currently, 14 states have effective medical marijuana laws and more than a dozen others are considering them. In November, South Dakotans will vote on a medical marijuana ballot initiative, and Arizona is expected to have one on the ballot as well. Eighty-one percent of Americans support medical marijuana laws, according to a January ABC News/Washington Post poll.
But getting federal legislation passed and changing DEA and FDA regulations has been up to the US Congress and the US Senate. For example, the AMA recommended last…
Not So Secret Weapons on Disinformation World News
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DARPA’s lost glider, big pharma’s bio-weapons, and psychedelic cures for addiction, all this week on Disinformation World News.
Don’t forget about the Disinformation Podcasts 2010 donation drive! If you enjoy what you’ve heard, give back a little to help keep our production going. More details in the episode.
Disinformation World News is a monthly news series with a humorous take on the strangest recent stories to hit the wire. Anchored by Raymond Wiley and Joe McFall, the series also featuring occult news from Austin Gandy’s Invisible College as well as little known history from Joe Nolan’s Insomnia.
We welcome listener-created segments, if they are of high quality. If you’re interested, please email me at ray@disinfo.com.
Rover Is Now the Longest-Running Mission to the Red Planet, If It Still Lives…
After a some rocky times with the red planet in the late 1990’s, NASA finally succeeded with the Mars Rover. This cute little fellow may be near the end of its life, but it has survived years past its original 90-day mission. Popsci reports:
from Wikimedia Commons
A stuck robotic rover may have overtaken NASA’s Viking probe as the longest-surviving mission on Mars — so long as it’s still alive. But its robotic twin Opportunity could also still grab the record next month if the Spirit rover has slipped into its final winter slumber.
The golf-cart-sized Mars Exploration Rovers have long since outlived their 90-day missions; they both celebrated their six-year anniversaries on the red planet in January. Rather than sigh over the voided warranties, NASA’s rover handlers have celebrated their hardware’s persistence on a rugged and alien world.
Time and tough conditions finally caught up to the rover twins more recently. Spirit had already…
The World of Tomorrow… In 1939 (photo)
The 1939 vision of the future looks a lot like Epcot Center… I wonder how history would have unfolded if humanity had avoided the Second World War. See Wired.com for a full gallery from the 1939/1940 World’s Fair.
The New York World’s Fair of 1939 and 1940 promised visitors they would be looking at the “World of Tomorrow.” Not everything they saw there came true, but plenty was close. One reason for that was the fair’s own lasting influence on American architecture and industrial design.
