A World of Religion
In honour of the recent “world’s largest” gathering of atheists in Washington D.C, a reminder of their place in the great scheme of things — there are less than 150 million of them at last global count:
Still beats the Wiccans, Bahai’i and Yazidis combined. On the other hand, secularism (separation of church and state) counts as 1.1 billion.
Reference: ‘Graphic: A demographic breakdown of the world of religion‘, National Post, 23 March 2012
A New Evolutionary Theory: The Black Queen Hypothesis
Photo: Liko81 (CC)
Via ScienceDaily:
Microorganisms can sometimes lose the ability to perform a function that appears to be necessary for their survival, and yet they still somehow manage to endure and multiply. How can this be? The authors of an opinion piece appearing in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, on March 27 explain their ideas about the matter. They say microbes that shed necessary functions are getting others to do the hard work for them, an adaptation that can encourage microorganisms to live in cooperative communities.
The Black Queen Hypothesis, as they call it, puts forth the idea that some of the needs of microorganisms can be met by other organisms, enabling microbes that rely on one another to live more efficiently by paring down the genes they have to carry around. In these cases, it would make evolutionary sense for a microbe to lose a…
Minnesota School Board Interferes With Senior’s Porn Star Prom Date
What a little genius. USA Today says:
A Minnesota school district has quashed a high school’s senior plan to bring a porn star to his senior prom.
Mike Stone, 18, had tweeted hundreds of porn actresses with an invitation to the Tartan High School prom May 12 until adult film star Megan Piper accepted his proposal.
Piper tells KSTP-TV’s Mark Saxenmeyer that she missed her own prom and couldn’t turn down Stone’s invitation.
“It was a sweet gesture. It was so cute. I couldn’t say no,” she tells the Twin Cities TV station.
The adult film star adds that she had no intention of turning the evening into a sordid spectacle: “I don’t plan to show up butt naked or anything. I’m going to wear a pretty prom dress.”
Greece’s Cashless, Euro-Free Currency Working
Reports Jon Henley in the Guardian:
In recent weeks, Theodoros Mavridis has bought fresh eggs, tsipourou (the local brandy), fruit, olives, olive oil, jam, and soap. He has also had some legal advice, and enjoyed the services of an accountant to help fill in his tax return.
None of it has cost him a euro, because he had previously done a spot of electrical work – repairing a TV, sorting out a dodgy light – for some of the 800-odd members of a fast-growing exchange network in the port town of Volos, midway between Athens and Thessaloniki.
In return for his expert labour, Mavridis received a number of Local Alternative Units (known as tems in Greek) in his online network account. In return for the eggs, olive oil, tax advice and the rest, he transferred tems into other people’s accounts. “It’s an easier, more direct way of exchanging goods and services,” said Bernhardt Koppold, a…
Is Democracy An Illusion?
John Stoehr writes on Al Jazeera:
In the US, the dominant political discourse consists of ideas put forth by the ruling class.
Karl Marx never visited the United States, but he nevertheless understood the country, because he understood capitalism. As you know, there’s no American ideology that’s mightier than capitalism. Equality, justice and the rule of law are nice and all, but money talks.
In their 1846 book The German Ideology, Marx and co-author Frederick Engels took a look at human history and made a plain but controversial observation. In any given historical period, the ideas that people generally think are the best and most important ideas are usually the ideas of the people in charge. If you have a lot of money and own a lot of property, then you have the power to propagandise your worldview and you have incentive to avoid appearing as if you’re propagandising your worldview. Or, as…
Anarchism and Enlightenment
Illustration: H0utw (CC)
A reproduction of Gary Snyder’s 1969 seminal text “Buddhist Anarchism” found on The Anarchist Library:
Buddhism holds that the universe and all creatures in it are intrinsically in a state of complete wisdom, love and compassion; acting in natural response and mutual interdependence. The personal realization of this from-the-beginning state cannot be had for and by one-“self” — because it is not fully realized unless one has given the self up; and away.
In the Buddhist view, that which obstructs the effortless manifestation of this is Ignorance, which projects into fear and needless craving. Historically, Buddhist philosophers have failed to analyze out the degree to which ignorance and suffering are caused or encouraged by social factors, considering fear-and-desire to be given facts of the human condition. Consequently the major concern of Buddhist philosophy is epistemology and “psychology” with no attention paid to historical or sociological problems. Although Mahayana Buddhism has…
Pravda Chided U.S. Media for Ignoring Sherrif Joe Arpaio Investigation
Dianna Cotter wrote on Pravda:
A singularly remarkable event has taken place in the United States of America. This event occurred in Arizona on March 1st and was an earth shattering revelation.
A long awaited press conference was given by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a five time elected Sheriff, which should have made national and international headlines. Arpaio’s credentials include serving in the United States Army from 1950 to 1953, service as a federal narcotics agent serving in countries all over the world with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and served as the head of the Arizona DEA. Without doubt, this is a serious Law Enforcement Officer, not one to be taken in by tin-foil-hat wearing loons.
Yet, in the five days since his revelations there has been little in the way of serious reporting on the findings he presented in his presser. With 6 short videos, the Sheriff and his…
Can Fuel be Created from Human Fat?
This article proposes a new “transfer of energy stores that can ease our fuel burden” by harvesting human body fat for fuel!
“In energy terms, the average BTU of a gallon of human body fat is actually 11% higher than the BTU of a gallon of diesel gasoline,” reports science writer James Kent — noting that the IRS is already granting a 50-cent-per-gallon incentive for the conversion of other animal fats. (And he tells the story of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who powered his SUV with fat from his liposuction patients — plus his girlfriend’s SUV.)
While fat-sucking may seem like a strange response to gas shortages, there’s the equivalent of 637 million gallons of fuel stored in our fat, and the average person carries at least two gallons of high-grade biodiesel fuel in their body. (This article even suggests low-cost liposuction clinics — possibly covered by Medicare, and receiving government subsidies…
The Involuntary Conspiracy
Alex Wallenwein wrote on News With Views:
Okay, so maybe there isn’t a consciously planned conspiracy to subject the world to a one world government. But consider whether there may be such a thing as a “sub-conscious conspiracy.”
What nonsense! How can there be a conspiracy that is subconscious, when the very meaning of the word implies a conscious design to do something, right?
But consider the possibility that there is such a commonality of essential flaws in human nature that makes it appear, from the outside, that there is an active, conscious, and purposeful conspiracy at work. So then, what is human nature? To what extent is human thinking, and therefore action, driven by ego? And what is ego, if it is not the potentially unrestrained drive towards more and more individual power?
If we are willing to be honest with ourselves, we can witness this tendency, and this process, in ourselves at…
Peter Russell: The Primacy Of Consciousness
A rather fascinating and important lecture from Peter Russell. Could the fundamental nature of reality actually be consciousness?
In his documentary Peter Russell explores the reasons why consciousness may be the fundamental essence of the Universe. Many have made such claims from metaphysical perspectives, but the possibility has always been ignored by the scientific community. In this talk, he discusses the problems the materialist scientific world view has with consciousness and proposes an alternative world view which, rather than contradicting science, makes new sense of much of modern physics. He presents a reasoned argument that shows how they are pointing towards the one thing science has always avoided considering — the primary nature of consciousness.
Freeman-on-the-Land: Canada’s ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Movement?
I’m aware of the seemingly growing movement of Freeman in Canada, I’ve done a little research of the idea in Canada and the UK, but Americans might be more familiar with the idea of a Sovereign Citizen. The ideas are interesting and appealing to many who see the take over of society by corporations and the erosion of citizens right, plus the ever increasing regulations being forced upon the general public. I’m neither for or against Freeman, I’m not sure if what Freeman say is true, you’re better researching it for yourself. Full report by the CBC is available here:
After the First Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours a Night
Stephanie Hegarty reports in BBC News:
We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night – but it could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.
In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.
It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep.
Though sleep scientists were impressed by the study, among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists …
Nassim Haramein: Fraud or Sage?
Will the new age messiah of free energy please stand up! You may recognize Nassim Haramein from his cameo in the recent internet film “Thrive”. Surely many are wondering if there is any legitimacy to his credentials or theories and one curious skeptic has taken him to task in the following article. Via Up:
I’d like to outline here some very sound reasons for asserting that Nassim Haramein is grossly misleading people by claiming to have any depth of scientific understanding behind his ideas. If you’d prefer to just see some straightforward examples, try some of these — but do come back when you’re done … (Alternatively, read this if you think I’m just being a bit horrid.)
On many of his videos, and on the main page of his Resonance Project’s website, he displays a “prestigious” award for one of his physics papers. What is this?
His certificate looks at first to have been awarded for best paper…
Gaming Society
Jane McGonigal, in a recent article on Alternet, posits that gaming, and the camaraderie created by co-operative gaming has the potential to transform society:
Tech futurist and game designer Jane [McGonigal] on how computer games can help the fight against AIDS, heal disabilities, increase optimism, and make us better people.
There are 183 million active computer game players in the United States. The average young person will spend 10,000 hours gaming by the age of 21. More than 5 million “extreme” gamers in the U.S. play an average of 45 hours a week. Videogames took in about $15.5 billion last year.
Most of what you hear about this phenomenon is doom and gloom — people becoming addicted, isolated and socially inept. Some worry that gaming is pulling people away from productive work, fulfilling relationships and real life. But game designer Jane McGonigal says the reason for the mass exodus to virtual worlds is…
The New Disinfocast with Matt Staggs
iTunesThe Disinformation Company is excited to announce the return of the Disinformation Podcasts with The Disinfocast, hosted by Matt Staggs. Matt Staggs is a writer and longtime aficionado of the curious and bizarre. A career spent in journalism and psychology has led Matt to to the understanding that exploring why people believe the things they do is just as important as the things themselves. When he’s not reading, podcasting or writing, you can usually find Matt arguing over a table full of strange books and funny dice. Follow him on Twitter at @mattstaggs.
Matt’s first guest will surely be familiar to listeners of the Disinformation Podcasts over the years, it’s former host, now author of The Georgia Guidestones: America’s Most Mysterious Monument: Raymond Wiley!
Join Raymond and Matt as they discuss this great mystery: the Georgia Guidestones are at once a Rosetta Stone, an astronomical observatory, and a road map for…
Direct Action In Action: Occupy Piccolo
Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:
A group of parents, students, teachers and activists occupied an elementary school in Chicago over the weekend to protest what the city calls a “turnaround,” which would shake up the staff and put the school under the authority of the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a private organization opponents say fails to produce results. Parents of students at Piccolo Elementary School in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood voted overwhelmingly against the proposed turnaround measures and developed a counter proposal, but their voices were ignored by City and Chicago Public Schools officials.
About 15 people stayed inside the school, while more than 100 helped to set up tents out front to show solidarity. Despite the cold, a few dozen stayed in shifts throughout the night, and well more than 100 supporters came back the next day to show their solidarity. Despite being denied food and in one person’s case,…
Indigenous People on Climate Change
A fresh and very interesting Q & A discussion of climate change in relationship to indigenous worldviews. Via Science Magazine:
The Arctic has become the frontline for observing the effects of anthropogenic climate change, from rising ocean temperatures to shrinking sea ice cover. These changes have greatly impacted the traditional practices of indigenous Arctic communities, which rely on sea ice for hunting and travel. In recent years, climate scientists have sought the multigenerational and intimate knowledge that indigenous people have of their environment. How can scientists use this knowledge to improve climate projections and models while respecting indigenous culture?
Igor Krupnik, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, has studied the indigenous communities of Alaska and northern Russia for 40 years. Yesterday, he gave a talk at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW) on environmental observations that indigenous experts recorded from 2000 to 2010. I…
Ron Paul’s Rally Speech In Twin Falls, Idaho
Somebody get this guy a teleprompter; he keeps talking about living in a free society and peace and dismantling the federal reserve and the military industrial complex and ending the war on drugs….
