Tag Archives: news

Ha! We can't trust science after all!

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From discoverynews:

That Faster Than Light Neutrino Theory Is ‘Almost Certainly Wrong’

Ian O’Neill:

OK, so it seems this grand announcement was premature, especially as the OPERA research had yet to be reviewed by peers in the field. It’s little wonder that a flood of publications contradicting the OPERA results hit the arXiv preprint server faster than the (alleged) neutrinos themselves!

But was this a bad thing? Did CERN deliberately jump the gun? Was it the media’s fault for blowing the whole thing out of proportion?

To [ Lawrence M. Krauss, director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University], the way in which the CERN announcement was presented to the world is a cause for concern.

“A dramatic claim from a distinguished laboratory that turns out to be false reinforces the notion that somehow science is not to be trusted, that one can dismiss theories one finds inconvenient, even those whose predictions do agree with observations,” he said.

STUPID SCIENCE!  So wrong!!  I’m going go back to religion now.  It’s NEVER wrong!!

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The way we’ll all be getting around in the future?  From discoverynews:

Poo-Fueled Motorcycle

The country’s leading toilet maker, TOTO, has created Toilet Bike Neo, a talking hybrid toilet-motorcycle that runs entirely on — you guessed it — human waste.

Read more

Is that a toilet seat flipped up?  So, you literally use it as a toilet???  Well, as long as it comes with some sort of privacy shield, I suppose it’s fine. I mean, how embarrassing that would be!  You’re zooming down the highway when suddenly you run out of fuel.  NO PROBLEM!  You had Mexican food for lunch!  So, you just pull over and start to, uh, refuel, and then you get arrested for indecent exposure!!

I sometimes wonder about these “scientists”. :|

Herman Cain on #OccupyWallStreet: "If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!"

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Herman Cain on #OccupyWallStreet: “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!”

motherjones:

It’s like they’re not even pretending anymore.

Rich folks need to keep talking like this.  Seriously.  

They need to keep talking like this so when they finally get punched in the face or their home burned to the ground, they’ll be able to blame themselves.

Aw, who am I kidding? They’ll still blame us for everything.  Even though they’ve got our money (who do you think bought all those pizzas, Herman?) they still think that they don’t owe us anything, yet they still expect us to keep buying their shit (we can’t afford pizzas, anymore, Herman!).  

I still think rich folks need to keep talking like this though.  It’ll just speed things up more.

More proof that nothing you see in the media is real.. or at least it is questionable.. the White House tipped off the AP of Michelle Obama's Target trip before she went

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More proof that nothing you see in the media is real.. or at least it is questionable.. the White House tipped off the AP of Michelle Obama’s Target trip before she went

So, whether it’s a story on protesters getting entrapped only to be rewritten 20 minutes later to be a story on protesters getting arrested, or even  the little, unimportant things like the above, the media isn’t representing reality.  This whole “paying attention” thing is getting pretty tedious.

Then again, I suppose the idea is to get us to stop caring. >_<

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leftish:

The Revolution will not be Televised.

JOIN OCCUPYTOGETHER.ORG

Yeah, this is a pretty sad state, where it takes hours for the MSM to catch up to events that were being reported on by Twitter as they happened.  There’s no excuse for this, but there is an explanation—that all of our concerns, that the government is only out to protect and serve the rich and the corporations and that our rights as citizens trying to voice our own opinions, are true.

They arrested 700 people. 700!  That’s just here in NYC—yesterday on the Brooklyn Bridge.  I have no idea what’s happening in other cities that are doing “Occupy” style protests.  If that’s not enough, the rumor as of last night was that the cops ushered protesters onto the bridge so that they could arrest them.  Essentially, they were entrapped.  That’s illegal.  But these days, it’s no surprise when cops can get away with things that are illegal.

This is why I won’t join them.  I’m simply not brave enough to risk an arrest record or the chance I might get pepper sprayed or beaten up.  I don’t have health insurance, thanks to our lovely every-man-for-himself system we have.  However, I’ll do whatever I can to get their word out.  I hope you will too.


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An Act of Futility? (Killing an American citizen suspected of terror links)

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newsweek:

An article in the Apr 12, 2010 issue of Newsweek argues the killing of radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki would do more harm than good, as his links to attacks on American targets are speculative (at the time, administration officials today would likely disagree) and it’s not even known for certain if he is a member of al Qaeda.

As the lawyers and judge who will try Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab move this week to outline the contours of his hearing, the Obama administration is trying to prevent a repeat attack. The White House announced last week that the CIA will try to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaki, the Qaeda-linked American citizen living in Yemen who tutored Abdulmutallab. Awlaki will be hard to find—he is currently hiding in southern Yemen, protected by his powerful tribe—but if a drone operator has a shot, he will take it.

Today, a drone operator took that shot. Awlaki was killed. In the coming days, the Obama administration will have to defend its decision in taking out an American citizen by a drone-fired missile.

The rationale here seems self-evident. First, Awlaki has already been linked to two recent attacks in the U.S.: Abdulmutallab’s attempted bombing and also the Fort Hood rampage, where Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting spree at his home base, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others. (Hasan was advised over the Internet by Awlaki.) Second, Awlaki’s ability to speak English and recruit Westernized Muslims poses a continuing threat: just last month, he called on Muslims living in the United States to carry out similar strikes in the coming months. Eliminating him now, the White House claims, will do much to prevent a third attack. And third, the optics are great: Obama is a president who has promised to bring the fight to Al Qaeda.

Unfortunately, the administration’s argument is based more on frustration and assumption than real strategy. Killing Awlaki will do little to disrupt Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Inside that organization, he is a nobody—at best, a midlevel functionary in a local branch. There are dozens of men who could do more harm to the United States, and killing Awlaki would only embolden them and aid in recruitment. For an organization as resilient and adaptive as AQAP, his death would be a minor irritant, not a debilitating blow. The futility of such a strike should give Obama pause before he greenlights the assassination of a fellow citizen.

Read the rest of the piece. Do you think his killing is justified?

Unless that guy had a gun to someone’s head and refused to drop it, killing him was absolutely unjustified. This is disturbing to no end.  The American Founding Fucking Documents explain that all humans are created equal and that we all get certain rights—like the right to a trial.  Awlaki, to the best of my knowledge, never had a trial.  To the best of my knowledge, he never killed anyone either.  

You know, Timothy McVeigh once said that the reason he used violence to send a message to the USG was because he felt that violence is the only language the USG understands.  I don’t know if that’s true, but violence is certainly the language the USG likes to speak in.


– Download An Act of Futility? (Killing an American citizen suspected of terror links) as PDF –


Ron Paul: US-born al-Qaida cleric 'assassinated'

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Ron Paul: US-born al-Qaida cleric ‘assassinated’

thestealthblogger:

Memo to Jon Stewart: Shit like this is why the media doesn’t take Ron Paul seriously.

Because the media thinks executing Americans without trial is a good thing?

OH, duh—of course they do. The media loves death and destruction. #StupidMe

For the record I don’t like Ron Paul. I agree with him on a vast number of issues but disagree with him on quite a few, as well. The whole “assassinating American citizens because we don’t like them” is one of the things I agree with Ron Paul as it goes to the whole “protecting human rights” thing—you know, that’s the stuff the US Constitution guarantees all humans.  Cuz like, we’re all supposed to be created equal and stuff.

Or does that not apply to some folks?

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motherjones:

A Terror Plot Wile E. Coyote Might Love

Seriously, MSM? You all freaked out about a dude with a BS in physics, a model airplane, and big dreams? Yeah, here’s why that wouldn’t have worked.

NEWS FLASH: even Mother Jones doesn’t get that nearly every “terrorist” arrest on American soil involved suspects that had the want to harm America but no means to actually do it. The vast majority of the people the USG is keeping us safe from inside the US are just pissed at the government and these days who can blame them.

Funny thing is, I was going to blog about this (and probably still will at thepete.com) but it’s so much easier to just reblog someone else’s setup :)

My main point is that we really need to step back and get a sense of scale here. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again: during the Cold War we didn’t have a Patriot Act. We weren’t searched before we got on an airplane, we didn’t have cameras on every corner, we didn’t torture anyone and we didn’t arrest people without trial.  And all that was when we were up against “The Evil Empire”.  Al Qaeda is a handful of guys (thousands—maybe) and the Soviet Union was millions.  Why are we so fucking scared of a few people who don’t like us?  

OH NO, A MODEL AIRPLANE MIGHT GET ME! QUICK! FEEL MY BALLS, THAT WILL KEEP ME SAFE!

OH WOW, SOMEONE FORGOT A ROLLER BAG IN TIMES SQUARE FUCKING SAVE ME GOD!! (Oh, it’s just a bag of clothes forgotten by some tourist? Oh.)

OH MY GOD, THAT MAN HAS DARKER SKIN THAN ME! AND HE’S SPEAKING IN TONGUES!! (Ah, that’s President Obama and he’s talking about the economy, ah…)

HOLY SHIT! THERE’S A SCARY, FEARFUL PERSON STARING AT ME FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF A STRANGE GLASS PORTAL IN MY BATHROOM WALL!!

(Oh, that’s me, in  the mirror… oh…)

GROW UP, AMERICA.  YOU FUCKING PUSSIES.


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Taxpayers Subsidizing Junk Food?

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Taxpayers Subsidizing Junk Food?

natalia-saves-the-world:

“From 1995 to 2010, the government handed $16.9 billion in farm subsidies to people involved in making four common junk food ingredients: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and soy oils. Over the same time period, $262 million went to subsidizing apples. ”

“CALPIRG did some math: “If these agricultural subsidies went directly to consumers to allow them to purchase food, each of America’s 144 million taxpayers would be given $7.36 to spend on junk food and 11 cents with which to buy apples each year,” CALPIRG said in its statement. That’s “enough to buy 19 Twinkies but less than a quarter of one Red Delicious apple.”

Yet another one to file under “No Shit, Sherlock.”

And we subsidize these assholes directly by buying this unhealthy food.

I’m so happy to see a slow but definite emergence of a kind of “common sense.”  We’ve still got a long way to go, but perhaps one day we’ll all be able to understand how any system taken to the extreme (like capitalism) is a bad thing (sure, you and I know how obvious this is, but most folks? CLUELESS).  For years I’ve been hearing about how companies have a right to do what ever they want because they’ve got to earn a living.  

“Hey, the government is giving handouts to farmers? They should take ‘em! I’d take ‘em!”

“Outsourcing jobs and salaries to other countries? Good for them! Companies need to make as much money and save as much money as possible!”

“Companies can give as much as they want to political campaigns?  Why not? They’ve got as much a right to representation as we do!”

I could go on, but I really really don’t want to. :(


– Download Taxpayers Subsidizing Junk Food? as PDF –


In 1980, fewer than 500,000 Americans were in prison; today, the number is 2.3 million. To put that statistic in perspective, the median incarceration rate among all countries is 125 prisoners for every 100,000 people. In England, it’s 153; Germany, 89; Japan, a mere 63. In America, it’s 743, by far the highest in the world. Include all the U.S. residents currently on probation or parole, and our country’s correctional population soars to about 7.2 million—roughly one in every 31 Americans. All told, the U.S. incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, even though it’s home to only 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

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In 1980, fewer than 500,000 Americans were in prison; today, the number is 2.3 million. To put that statistic in perspective, the median incarceration rate among all countries is 125 prisoners for every 100,000 people. In England, it’s 153; Germany, 89; Japan, a mere 63. In America, it’s 743, by far the highest in the world. Include all the U.S. residents currently on probation or parole, and our country’s correctional population soars to about 7.2 million—roughly one in every 31 Americans. All told, the U.S. incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, even though it’s home to only 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

That’s Newsweek’s Andrew Romano, writer of this week’s profile of Jim Webb and his “crusade” to reform the criminal-justice system. (via newsweek)

Didn’t I just read some place that America has one of the highest poverty rates in the developed world?  I wonder if there’s a connection… O_O