Ralph Bernardo
Managing Editor, Disinformation
When Twitter Can Make You A Jailbird
RICHARD LARDNER writes on the AP via Yahoo News
Maxi Sopo was having so much fun “living in paradise” in Mexico that he posted about it on Facebook so all his friends could follow his adventures. Others were watching, too: A federal prosecutor in Seattle, where Sopo was wanted on bank fraud charges.
Tracking Sopo through his public “friends” list, the prosecutor found his address and had Mexican authorities arrest him. Instead of sipping pina coladas, Sopo is awaiting extradition to the U.S.
Sopo learned the hard way: The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.
Law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, even going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice…
Mainstream Media Collectively Forgets Anniversary of the Start of the Iraq War
Glynnis MacNicol writes on Mediaite:
Things I have gleaned from my Twitter feed [on March 20th]: It is the second anniversary of the death of Arthur C. Clarke. Things that are noticeably absent: Any mention that today is the 7th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.
But let’s forget Twitter for a second — though it’s a great measure of where the hive mind is focused — and turn to some more “reliable” news sources. There’s not a single op-ed in the New York Times today to mark the anniversary, or pontificate on where it all went wrong (update: there is a photo slideshow from this weekend’s Magazine). Nor the Wall St. Journal to tell us what went right. Nothing in the Washington Post either. Nor the LA Times. I can’t even find a single link on Drudge. Perhaps even more shocking is that I can’t find anything on Andrew Sullivan.
It’s almost as though where the media is concerned the Iraq War didn’t happen.
Well, Robert Greenwald did not forget: Iraq: Thousands Dead, $747.3 Billion Spent And Not Any Safer
Researchers Turn Mosquitoes Into Flying Vaccinators
Thanks scientists for taking mosquitoes from an “annoying” level to now a plot line for a super-villain. Martin Enserink writes on ScienceNOW:
Here’s a study to file under “unworkable but very cool.” A group of Japanese researchers has developed a mosquito that spreads vaccine instead of disease. Even the researchers admit, however, that regulatory and ethical problems will prevent the critters from ever taking wing — at least for the delivery of human vaccines.
Scientists have dreamed up various ways to tinker with insects’ DNA to fight disease. One option is to create strains of mosquitoes that are resistant to infections with parasites or viruses, or that are unable to pass the pathogens on to humans. These would somehow have to replace the natural, disease-bearing mosquitoes, which is a tall order. Another…
Houston Bus Driver Runs Red Light Into Train, Asks Right Afterward: “Was That Light Green?”
KTRK-TV Houston reports that future Darwin Award nominee, bus driver Debra Harrison, not only ran a red light right into a train … but right afterward said to the bus passengers, “was that light green?”
Nineteen people were hurt, and Harrison has been involved in five accidents in the last three years according to KTRK-TV Houston. Below is the raw footage of the “accident” below from the AP:
The Health Care Industry Apocalypse In ‘Repo Men’
Annalee Newitz reviews Repo Men on io9.com:
With health care a source of fierce debate in America, a movie like Repo Men was bound to be made. A bloody satire of the marriage between medicine and capitalism, it’s about repo men who collect on overdue artificial organs.
A cult musical about this same topic, called Repo! The Genetic Opera, came out last year, though Repo Men itself was based on a novel called The Repossession Mambo. The idea of scary semi-serial killers who kill to repossess mechanical organs seems to be in the air. Indeed, one of the best parts of Repo Men is the way it captures the sentiments of millions of people who feel dicked over by hospitals and medical insurance companies right now. But the movie’s strength is also its problem: Evil medical corporations are a pretty easy target, and Repo Men gives us a black-and-white view of a problem that is in reality all shades of gray.
The World’s Only Immortal Animal
Bryan Nelson of the Mother Nature Network writes via Yahoo Green:
The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand,…
The Mystery Of Cursed French Bread (A Secret CIA Experiment?)
Ted Goodman on PhyOrg recounts the strange events of August 16, 1951, when dozens of villagers in the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit were struck with unexplainable and horrifying hallucinations of fire and snakes and beasts of all kinds, from, what was described as by villagers, eating le pain maudit (”cursed bread”).
Recently on Russia Today, Hank Albarelli, author of A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments, suggests this incident was part of a CIA-funded experiment on foreign soil with LSD. According to Albarelli, five hundred people were affected by the “experiment” — resulting in forty people being taken to a nearby psychiatric institute and at least three suicides.
Albarelli specifically discusses this incident at around 5:10 into this video, and relates it to the work of Frank Olson, the subject of his book.
Social Security to Start Paying Out More Than It Takes In (Again)
Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont received the first Social Security payment on January 31, 1940.
I have never had any expectations I that ever will collect Social Security … let’s see how Congress deals with this crisis (again). This entitlement system (from an accounting standpoint) sure does hope you die before you get old…
STEPHEN OHLEMACHER writes on the AP via Yahoo News:
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.
It’s time to start cashing them in.
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.
Not anymore. This year, for…
Tea Partiers Mock And Scorn Apparent Parkinson’s Victim
Below is a clip from a video report on the Columbus Dispatch:
In a scene reminiscent of non-violent civil rights confrontations from the 1960s, Ohio Tea Partiers quickly turned ugly when facing off with health care advocates in front of Ohio Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s office Tuesday.
In shocking video taken by a Columbus Dispatch reporter Doral Chenowith yesterday, Tea Party protestors mock a seated counter-protestor with a sign indicating he has Parkinson’s disease. They then proceed to hurl wadded up bills at him shouting, “I’ll decide when to give you money!”
Work Kills More People Than War
Here is another chapter from Russ Kick’s classic bite-size Disinformation book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.
For more on Russ Kick, check out his website, The Memory Hole.
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The United Nations’ International Labor Organization has revealed some horrifying stats:
The ILO estimates that approximately two million workers lose their lives annually due to occupational injuries and illnesses, with accidents causing at least 350,000 deaths a year. For every fatal accident, there are an estimated 1,000 non-fatal injuries, many of which result in lost earnings, permanent disability and poverty.
The death toll at work, much of which is attributable to unsafe working practices, is the equivalent of 5,000 workers dying each day, three persons every minute. This is more than double the figure for deaths from warfare (650,000 deaths per year).…
Lady Gaga: Puppet of Illuminati Mind Control?
Disinformation World News first “uncovered” this Illuminati plot back in August of last year. Here’s more analysis from Max Fisher of Vigilant Citizen’s The Hidden Meaning of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” on the Atlantic Wire. Check out the video below and make up your own mind…
ALLEGATION: Lady Gaga is a pawn of the Illuminati and a peddler of the occult. Her music video “Telephone” is a brazen attempt at recruiting teenagers into mind control programs.
LADY GAGA IS: “A mind-controlled drone who kills people”
“TELEPHONE” VIDEO IS ABOUT: “Ritual murder of average Americans in a diner by mind-controlled slaves” and “mind control, a covert practice used by the military, the CIA, religious cults and the Illuminati elite. It is used to program human beings to become mental slaves and to execute specific tasks.”
LYRICAL EVIDENCE: “By ‘kinda busy’, Gaga means she has dissociated from reality. Real life is calling her brain but she ‘has no service’, she’s not there. Gaga is not thinking or talking for herself anymore, her head and her heart have been dissociated from her core personality due to [Illuminati/CIA] Monarch programming.”
Health Care Insurer Assurant, Targeted HIV Patients to Drop Coverage
Talk about a terrible name regarding these circumstances … “Assurant” Health? Why purchase health insurance in the first place if this can happen? Murray Waas writes on Reuters:
WASHINGTON — In May 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.
Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.
So he hired an attorney — not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.
But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney’s letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.
Secret Document Calls Wikileaks ‘Threat’ to U.S. Army
David Kravets writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:
Wikileaks presents a “threat to the U.S. Army” and publishes “potentially actionable information” for targeting military personnel, according to a classified intelligence report posted on the whistleblowing site.
The 32-page report entitled Wikileaks.org — An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups? indicates the government’s concern that “current employees or moles” within the Defense Department or the U.S. government “are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.” To stop this, the 2008 report had suggested a campaign to expose and punish those who leak to the site, which was founded in 2007 by Chinese dissidents, journalists and mathematicians.
“Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the…
Lehman Brothers Was More Dangerous Than Enron
Here’s an excellent explanation from The Dylan Ratigan Show of an arcane “accounting gimmick”, employed by Lehman Brothers as the firm failed in 2007 and 2008.
According to the 2,200-page court examiner’s report this practice, known as “Repo 105″ (“Repo”? Really, why not call it “Steal 105″?), was like “a drug” propelling the bank to conceal the true nature of its financial health.
The collapse of “venerable” Wall Street investment house Lehman Brothers was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Here’s Dylan Ratigan and Eliot Spitzer making sense of what is clearly a crime against the economic health of the United States:
Texting From Beyond the Grave, On Your Headstone
Leave a message for your descendants 3,200 years from now?!? I guess you can assuming we don’t blow it all to hell, and our ape overloads are ruling the planet. This company has the same name as those language DVDs, but they are definitely thinking “long-term” … James Williams writes on Discovery News:
Generally a headstone conveys two very basic facts about the person interred below it — their name plus the two most important dates of their life. Thanks to some new technology, headstones can now convey much more that: a photo and note written by the deceased, delivered right to your phone.
The product is called RosettaStone and comes from a company called Objecs. If you were to purchase a RosettaStone, you’d receive what looks like a granite iPod with a few…
Obama Says Will Not Campaign for Any Democratic Congressmen Not Supporting Health Care Reform
Looks like the arm twisting is working, as one of the strongest critics of this current effort, Dennis Kucinich, just announced he will vote for the bill. Alex Spillius writes on the Telegraph:
The president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill.
A one-night presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds which would otherwise take months to accumulate through cold-calling by campaign volunteers.
Mr Obama’s threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week.
Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.
How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media
Whether you agree with this guy’s politics or not, it is worth knowing who Andrew Breitbart is. In the recent issue of WIRED, Noah Shachtman profiles someone who really does direct the major media discourse in the United States. I am sure lots of people heard about this story (and saw this video), but how many paid attention to this one?
Andrew Breitbart has been waiting 45 minutes for a filet mignon. He drums his fingers on the table in this plush Italian restaurant off Times Square, a place where the media types he regularly trashes used to flaunt their expense accounts — back when they still had them. Breitbart looks around for a waiter and launches into a stem-winder about collusion between Hollywood and the press — the “subtle and not-so-subtle use of propaganda to make a center-right nation move to the left.
“It’s not just the nightly news,” he says. “You’re also getting television shows that reflect the same worldview, where Republicans are always the bad guys. Al Qaeda’s never the bad guy. The Republican is always the bad guy.”
From anyone else, this would be just talk — or talking points. (No terrorist bad guys on TV? Really?) But Breitbart is one of the people who rams those points into the popular consciousness. Until last September, the beefy 41-year-old with graying blond hair was a largely covert power in the right-wing media, the hidden hand behind the popular Drudge Report who also, weirdly, cofounded the liberal Huffington Post. But then he struck out on his own…
NASA Close to (Dis)Proving the Existence of a ‘Death Star’ in our Solar System
Charlie Jane Anders has a fun post on io9.com about the Nemesis theory, which the WISE telescope will prove or disprove, hopefully, soon.
The reason I say “fun” post is it’s very unlikely a Nemesis star does exist, as we have been able to figure out masses and orbits in the solar system with a high degree of accuracy for quite some time. Meaning if an object this massive was this close — Nemesis is thought to be a red dwarf star or brown dwarf — we’d have to account for it in the astronomy.
In any event, I do expect Nibiru devotees to disagree with this opinion, or if/when WISE doesn’t find it.
Charlie’s post refers to an article in Astrobiology Magazine, which is sponsored by NASA. Check out what they have to say, Leslie…
Sizing Up Sperm: The Most Extreme Race on Earth (Video)
Wow, I had no idea that sperm have to fight Morlocks along the way! National Geographic presents Sizing Up Sperm:
Each of us was the grand prize in an ultimate reality competition, the amazing race a sperm makes on the road to fertilization.
Millions of sperm compete while overcoming armies of antibodies, treacherous terrain and impossible odds to reach their single-minded goal.
To illustrate the full weight of the challenge, Sizing Up Sperm uses real people to represent 250 million sperm on their marathon quest to be first to reach a single egg.
