vulcan
Burning Man Has (Literally) Sold Out
Anyone going this year? If not, ever been? If not … Andrew Averill writes on SF Gate:
Many Burning Man festival participants climb a huge butterfly art structure to watch the sunrise over the playa. This year, the festival’s permit limits participants to 50,000 at one time.
When the first Burning Man event took place on San Francisco’s Baker Beach in 1986, it was such a lawless free-for-all that when it came time to burn The Man, a woman ran toward the engulfed 20-foot-tall humanoid structure and held its hand while wind blew the flames away from her.
Twenty-five years later, the annual event has become a mass sojourn into the Nevada Black Rock desert — one that some of its most loyal followers complain is becoming increasingly rigid and commercial.
And now it has come to this: For the first time ever, Burning Man has literally sold out. Organizers were forced to cap…
How Buzz Aldrin Answers Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorists (Video)
42 years ago today Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, and Buzz doesn’t enjoy anyone saying otherwise:
Here’s more on what got Buzz so worked up.
Never Forget 9/11. Religion Was the Cause …
From NonBelievers.org, the only statement on the site. Of course, DISCUSS!
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Monkey Wedding Called Illegal By Indian Officials
Humanity, look out. There is no way by causing this action, it will turn out well for all of humanity. Via the Huffington Post:
In the small village of Talwas, Rajasthan, Raju, a well-known cigarette smoking monkey, and his bride Chinki were married, according to Stuff.
Raju had become a local celebrity after Ramesh Saini, a rickshaw driver, adopted him three years ago when he found the monkey unconscious.
He’s been a surrogate son to the childless Ramesh ever since.
“I want to enjoy the feelings of a son’s marriage through Raju’s wedding.” Ramesh told the publication. “We will welcome the bride in our house … after the wedding with all rituals.”
Canadian Meteorite Has All the Building Blocks for Life
Interesting article from Tim Barribeau on io9.com:
The argument that life on Earth may have been seeded from the stars just received a major boost, as scientists have found the building blocks of life inside a meteorite that landed in British Columbia in 2000.
The Tagish Lake meteorite landed in January of that year, a streaking fireball that burst into more than 500 fragments which rained down on the lake. In its trip from the outer reaches of the asteroid belt it burned down from 56 tonnes to 1.3, and deep inside the fragments there are the basic building blocks of life, including the amino acids, sugars and hydrocarbons that could have jump started life on our planet.
This meteorite is the only uncontaminated example we’ve ever found, thanks to the quick actions of the people who spotted it. What the researchers have found is that the organic compounds in the rock date back to…
Cheery Optimists Die Younger
Via UPI:
Personality can affect longevity — those with the most optimism and cheerfulness die younger than their less positive counterparts, U.S. researchers found.
Study leader Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside; Leslie R. Martin, a psychology professor at La Sierra University in Riverside; and staff researchers — over a 20-year period — tanalyzed data from a study of 1,500 bright children who were about 10 years old when the study began in 1921.
“Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking,” Martin said in a statement. “It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest.”
Part of the explanation lies in studying the health behaviors of the study subject — the cheerful, happy-go-lucky kids tended to take more…
Christopher Hitchens Vs. Noam Chomsky on Osama Bin Laden
Hitchens Photo: Trockennasenaffe (CC) / Chomsky Photo: Duncan Rawlinson (CC)
Christopher Hitchens takes issue with Noam Chomsky’s recent Guernica article in Slate:
Anybody visiting the Middle East in the last decade has had the experience: meeting the hoarse and aggressive person who first denies that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and then proceeds to describe the attack as a justified vengeance for decades of American imperialism.
This cognitive dissonance — to give it a polite designation — does not always take that precise form. Sometimes the same person who hails the bravery of al-Qaida’s martyrs also believes that the Jews planned the “operation.” As far as I know, only leading British “Truther” David Shayler, a former intelligence agent who also announced his own divinity, has denied that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, took place at all. (It was apparently by means of a hologram that the…
If It’s Not Scottish It’s Crap: Scotland Toasts New Whisky-Powered Bioenergy Plant
Nuff said. More power to alternative energy efforts. Kirsty Scott reports in the Guardian:
It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries.
Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production.
Osama Is Dead, But Congress Wants a Wider War…
For all of you who chanted “USA! USA!” the night of the night of 1/2 May, if you are truly patriotic, you’ll ask what the hell is going on NOW. Spencer Ackerman writes in WIRED’s Danger Room:
Osama bin Laden is dead. 9/11 was ten years ago. So it’s not the most obvious time for a key congressional panel to expand the war on terrorism.
But that’s exactly what a section of the fiscal 2012 defense bill proposes to do. The so-called “Chairman’s Mark” of the bill, currently before the House Armed Services Committee, wants to update the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, to reflect that the al-Qaida of the present day is way different than the organization that attacked the U.S. on 9/11.
While the original Authorization tethered the war to those directly or indirectly responsible for 9/11, the new language authorizes “an armed conflict with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and associated…
Reuters Publishes Photos of Raid on Osama Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Compound
There are no photos of Osama Bin Laden (yet…). Note the photos are graphic. Via Reuters:
Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.
The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths. (More at Reuters)
Because I Can: How This American Celebrates Osama Bin Laden’s Demise (Video)
Adrian Chen on Gawker got in touch with the video’s creator:
I made this video because I felt like it represented a feeling many Americans shared regarding the brave and daring actions of our service members who tenaciously and doggedly pursued Osama Bin Laden. I feel like it represents something in the collective consciousness of America at that particular moment in time. A cathartic release.
Majority of Teens Don’t Know Who Osama Bin Laden Is, Search Data Shows
I did wonder how many college kids in those crowds cheering Sunday night the news kept reporting extensively on, even remembered in detail the events of 9/11. One figures that any herd, regardless of its intent, will attract those without the lights on upstairs.
While this article focuses on people younger than most of those in the crowds (so I guess teens aren’t hearing about 9/11 from their parents or in school) … more surprising to me, is it seems like a good percentage of people, the college age (and even older!), were searching for “Who Is Osama Bin Laden” shortly after the president’s speech Sunday night. Chloe Albanesius writes on PC Mag:
As I watched the crowds outside the White House on Sunday night, it seemed like many were college students from nearby George Washington University, and I wondered what many of them remembered from 9/11, seeing as how they were…
Kids Celebrating Osama Bin Laden’s Death (Photos)
Matt Stopera posts on BuzzFeed:
This is kind of disturbing. Check out these pictures of kids celebrating Osama’s death in Times Square…
What Does God Need With A Starship? (Video)
I don’t ask myself this enough. Thanks Jim. Happy Easter!
9/11 Truthers Angry At Charlie Sheen For Not Spreading Their Crackpot Theories
This is exactly what’s wrong with “Truthers” of any kind … just because Charlie Sheen drank the kool aid once, does not mean he has to use every opportunity to expose these theories. Making him do what you think is the very definition of fascism. Via New York Magazine:
You just cannot make everyone happy! The 9/11 Truth Movement’s Mark Dice tells TMZ that Charlie Sheen — who has, in the past, publicly stated his support for the organization — is losing his conspiracy-theorist base because he’s not “asking hard questions about what happened on 9/11 and the resulting wars” at his live show. (Which is something he should be doing instead of “bragging about smoking crack and sleeping with hookers.”) Also, says Dice, the Q&A formatting needs tweaking.
Scientology’s ‘Touch-Healing’ Global Disaster Response Squad: ‘Serving’ Haiti, Burma and Japan
Patrick Winn writes on GlobalPost:
BANGKOK, Thailand — After Cyclone Nargis left a trail of corpses along Burma’s coast in May 2008, foreign aid workers clamored to enter the military-controlled backwater.
Despite the world’s pleading, Burma’s paranoid generals forbade most foreign relief workers from entering the disaster zone. A frustrated U.K. threatened unauthorized air drops. The U.S. Navy was forced to float vessels loaded with life-saving supplies offshore.
But among the few who managed to access Burma’s worst-hit areas included adherents of the California-based Church of Scientology.
According to the church, miracles ensued after Scientologists touched down. Their team sought out traumatized Burmese for Scientology’s touch-healing techniques, professed to revive the spirit…
Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years … (Video)
Charles Q. Choi writes for National Geographic News:
Even a regional nuclear war could spark “unprecedented” global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models. Widespread famine and disease would likely follow, experts speculate.
During the Cold War a nuclear exchange between superpowers—such as the one feared for years between the United States and the former Soviet Union—was predicted to cause a “nuclear winter.”
In that scenario hundreds of nuclear explosions spark huge fires, whose smoke, dust, and ash blot out the sun for weeks amid a backdrop of dangerous radiation levels. Much of humanity eventually dies of starvation and disease.
