The Thief

It's a Big, Beautiful World. Don't Waste it On the Couch.

2012-02-16T20:50:00.003-06:00

I came across an article on Forbes.com entitled "How to Be More Interesting."

This should be obvious to most people. But I've found that the obvious is surprisingly overlooked a lot of times. I do it. A lot of people around me do it. It's OK. But if you need some inspiration, a reminder on how to suck it up and stop sucking, take a look at this short, fun piece.

My favorite quote: "If your arrogance is more obvious than your expertise, you are someone other people avoid." Amen.

And this is my favorite graphic.

Maybe they're just two symtoms of the same disease - worrying too much about what other people think.

Where's the fun in that?

Prevent Global Sameness

2012-02-07T13:09:00.000-06:00

your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Doomsday Preppers

2012-02-05T11:09:00.004-06:00

I was introduced to this TV show over the weekend. Holy smokes - this will give you some perspective! From the immortal words of Bob Dylan:

"I will not go down under the ground
'Cause somebody tells me that death's coming 'round
And I will not carry myself down to die
When I go to my grave my head will be held high

Let me die in my footsteps
before I go down under the ground"

Let Me Die in My Footsteps

I will not go down under the ground
'Cause somebody tells me that death's comin' 'round
An' I will not carry myself down to die
When I go to my grave my head will be high,

Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

There`s been rumors of war and wars that have been
The meaning of the life has been lost in the wind
And some people thinkin' that the end is close by
'Stead of learnin' to live they are learning to die.

Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

I don`t know if I`m smart but I think I can see
When someone is pullin` the wool over me
And if this war comes and death`s all around
Let me die on this land `fore I die underground.

Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

There`s always been people that have to cause fear
They`ve been talking of the war now for many long years
I have read all their statements and I`ve not said a word
But now Lawd God, let my poor voice be heard.

Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

If I had rubies and riches and crowns
I`d buy the whole world and change things around
I`d throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea
For they are mistakes of a past history.

Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

Let me drink from the waters where the mountain streams flood
Let me smell of wildflowers flow free through my blood
Let me sleep in your meadows with the green grassy leaves
Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.

Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

Go out in your country where the land meets the sun
See the craters and the canyons where the waterfalls run
Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho
Let every state in this union seep in your souls.

And you`ll die in your footsteps
Before you go down under the ground.

What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

2012-02-03T12:49:00.002-06:00

hypocrites - they'd be hilarious, sad people if they weren't in power:

from boingboing.net

Rep. Jud McMillin, a Republican in the Indiana General Assembly, has withdrawn a bill requiring mandatory drug-testing for welfare recipients. The withdrawal was occasioned by an amendment introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Rep. Ryan Dvorak. The amendment would require mandatory drug testing for members of the Indiana General Assembly, as well.

"After [the amendment] passed, Rep. McMillin got pretty upset and pulled his bill," Dvorak said. "If anything, I think it points out some of the hypocrisy. ... If we're going to impose standards on drug testing, then it should apply to everybody who receives government money."

Resolving to Evolve

2012-02-01T10:34:00.002-06:00

It’s January 31st, and I’m a month into a number of personal resolutions. To some people, most people, stuff like this is nonsense. A day is a day and a year is a year, and they don’t ever change their habits or lifestyles. It is what it is. And maybe you are perfect, or maybe you don’t care, but I am neither. I want more.

I’ve found that I need to set guidelines, tricks for my mind to remember and goals that will motivate me, otherwise, nothing will ever change. I have a default setting, and it’s lazy and involves pizza. We all make mistakes, but I do All I Can – that is what Sharon Van Etten is singing at this very moment as I am writing this. Fitting. True.

Happy to say I’ve stayed 98% true to my ‘No Wheat January’ goal. Made an exception last Friday for a beer, lest I die by whiskey old fashions, but have maintained the diet otherwise. No bread, pasta, cookies, cakes, crackers, etc. etc. I feel great.

But going without has taught me something about extremes, and the way it can be compensated by other things that aren’t necessarily good. For February and on, I need to evaluate finding balance. Not the ‘all or nothing’ propositions that resolutions often are. Strive for improvement, but don’t over-correct.

Moving forward, I’m still saying no to wheat, but if I’m eating out with friends and there’s shared things, I’m not going to say no. My lifestyle isn’t going to be reworked.

Some of my other resolutions have been additions, not prohibitions, and they will continue. Daily multi-vitamin and salmon oil pills. Regular shots of wheat grass (yum). Fruit Every Day (my new motto) – I like an orange for breakfast (blood oranges are in season and are delicious) and some other type of fruit for afternoon snack. Vegetables, Vegetables, Vegetables – in multitude and with variety. I cooked a collard green side dish the other weekend, great stuff. I made a beans and root vegetable variety stew (carrots, turnips, parsnips, radishes), also great. Experimenting with new vegetables is making me a better cook, on top of the number one reason why I do anything, it’s fun. Throw in stretching, exercising, and drinking lots of water, and I’m built to last!

So that is what I have going on, in addition to lots of other personal and professional goals that I’m not going to spell out. But they are in the same vein – daily and weekly goals that help remind and motivate me to do certain things. And if you haven’t set any resolutions for yourself yet, it’s not too late. In fact, I found one article suggesting February is a better time to start anyway!

I’m inviting everyone to join me in my top goal – Fruit Feb. I’m doing 2 pieces a day, you can go with one. But make it every day!

Benefits of Fruit

• Fruits are low in calories and fat and are a source of simple sugars, fiber, and vitamins, which are essential for optimizing our health.
• Fruits provide plenty of soluble dietary fiber, which helps to ward of cholesterol and fats from the body and to get relief from constipation as well.
• Fruits contain many anti-oxidants like poly-phenolic flavonoids, vitamin-C, anthocyanins. These compounds, firstly, help body protect from oxidant stress, diseases, and cancers, and secondly, help body develop capacity to fight against these ailments by boosting our immunity level. Many fruits, when compared to vegetables and cereals, have very high anti-oxidant values which is something measured by their "Oxygen Radical Absorbent Capacity" or ORAC.
• Anthocyanins are flavonoid category of poly-phenolic compounds found in some "blue fruits" like blue-black grapes, mulberries, acai berry, chokeberries, blueberries, blackberries, and in many vegetables featuring blue or deep purple color. Eating fruits rich in blue pigments offers many health benefits. These compounds have potent anti-oxidant properties, remove free radicals from the body, and thus offer protection against cancers, aging, infections etc. These pigments tend to concentrate just underneath the skin.
• Fruit’s health benefiting properties are because of their richness in vitamins, minerals, micro-nutrients, anti-oxidants which helps body prevent or at least prolong the natural changes of aging by protecting and rejuvenating cells, tissues and organs in the human body. The overall benefits are manifold! Fruit nutrition benefits are infinite!

Sincere Question of the Day

2012-01-30T09:32:00.004-06:00

Why is a loyal, active, youthful supporter base a problem when it comes to Ron Paul?

That's what got Obama in office.

He's the only candidate that I see as posing a real threat to Obama's reelection, and it's almost comical how clearly you can see behind the curtain that the Republican establishment will not let that happen. I don't understand why. If they embraced him, he'd have the Republican base who will Vote Republican even if Judas himself was the nominee (note: I'm not certain he hasn't been already), and on top of that, you'd have a real grab for the swing, independent voters that really do decide an election (assuming it's not just pre-programmed into the Diebold machines). I think it's because they* don't have their hooks in him and they know it. He'd be a loose cannon, too risky.

* lobbyists & the money elite they work for: bankers, large corporations, investment firms, defense contractors, oil companies, Koch brothers. in other words, the establishment as we know it. can't go messing with the status quo!

This is what gives me hope

2012-01-27T09:54:00.002-06:00

From the Guarduan:

"Russian police don't take kindly to opposition protesters – even if they're 5cm high and made of plastic.

Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: "I'm for clean elections" and "A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin".

"Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events – using toys with placards at mini-protests," Andrei Mulintsev, the city's deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. "In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event."

Activists set up the display after authorities repeatedly rejected their request to hold a sanctioned demonstration of the kind held in Moscow to protest disputed parliamentary elections results and Vladimir Putin's expected return to the presidency in a March vote."

continue reading.

It's sad because it takes a cutesy photo like this, one that is complete internet blog bait, to get some international attention. Again, my new enemy NPR, I remember about 2 months ago driving to get my sister after work and NPR was doing nothing but gossiping about Republican candidates, so I switched around finally to see what other talk radio stations were out there. I found one other news talk station that was airing a very loose call in show that was featuring a long phone conversation with an American journalist in Russia. She explained why people were upset and what it took to get them so mad to protest in such a major and historic way. This conversation was at least 15 minutes long, not a 4 minute and forget it style piece a la NoPointRadio. That really woke me up to how much were missing out on. (And let me add, I get "woken up" all the time. I find it has to be a continual process because it starts to fade and you slip back into complacency.)

All that aside, what can we do to help these people? This doll protest is one of the greatest, funniest things ever. I love that the human spirit can turn desperate times into not only desperate, but creative and funny measures. Here's another example: a Banksy supported art collective painted this giant phallus on a draw bridge that faced the local FSB headquarters (aka the successor to the KGB).

lol's.

What You Don't Know Is Hurting You. And Me. And Everyone Else On This Planet.

2012-01-24T17:47:00.006-06:00

I’m currently reading “Vulture’s Picnic” by Greg Palast (long, gushing review to come in the near future). I googled Exxon last night, and this is the latest news headline, dated January 19, 2012.

“Exxon to pay $1.6M penalty for Yellowstone River spill”

What I’ve learned from his book so far, is that to oil companies, it’s cheaper to Pay the Victims than to Prevent the Crime. (made this jpg to illustrate. do i have to put some sort of "supposedly" disclaimer so I don't get the hounds sicked on me? I hate that it's dangerous to have an opinion in this country today). In other words, if they took all the measures necessary (and very often times legally required but un-enforced) it is much cheaper to just pay for the cleanup and buy off the local victims. Preventative measures like P.I.G.S to examine the pipeline structure, valid cleanup plans and actually equipment built and ready along with personnel trained and prepared to react when the inevitable happen, all that is just money spent on “what if” when they could spend half that on a lazy “oh shit” response should the time come.

AND THE TIME ALWAYS COMES.

Yellowstone. Prince William Sound, Alaska. The entire Gulf Coast. These are areas that are just ruined now. There’s no going back. Irreplaceable habitats, and the local economies inextricably linked to these areas devastated. Lives ruined. Futures lost. History lost.

Instead of the bare minimum payments for cleanup costs, why don’t we demand a portion of the enormous profits that are being made off of these operations? They’ve taken a resource that belongs to no one except whoever successfully called “dibs” last, and they’ve recklessly extracted and transported it through highly sensitive areas. The bare minimum is not good enough. They do not deserve to make such ridiculous profit off of this at the expense of humanity itself. *

And if we’re not going to demand more money – seemingly the only value these type of people hold – can we at least get some lawmakers with guts and follow through to hold them to tighter scrutiny? Safety and prevention. Clear cut demands on what a total “clean up” would be defined as. That’d all be “nice.”

AND FINALLY. My rant the other day on NPR. This story is CASE IN POINT on what is being missed by supposedly mainstream “liberal” media. I checked nytimes.com, huffingtonpost.com and NPR for coverage. NY Times had (seriously, not an exaggeration) – 1 paragraph. 1 lousy paragraph, and that was on a “green blog” with a title “On our Radar” and was followed by a few other miscellaneous things. I really think framing things like this as a “green” issue, as if it’s a cozy cuddly, that’d be nice to do type thing, instead of a five-alarm crime against our heritage and future well-being, is just, well, sad.

Huffington Post and NPR just posted an Associated Press piece about it. (I didn’t see anything on NPR that it actually made it to the airwaves). And – surprise, surprise – it’s the blandest collection of words you could ever imagine. Emotionless robots write for the AP. There isn’t a pulse to be found in those letters. It makes it sound as dry as the meeting notes from a local PTA gathering. Instead it’s belying the fact that YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, pretty much the face of this country, was defiled by corporate negligence.

Here’s my favorite, infuriating bits of info from the AP article:

The same day the settlement was announced:
“Also Thursday, Exxon increased its estimate of how much crude spilled into the river during the July 1 accident near Laurel to 1,509 barrels, or more than 63,000 gallons.”

Here’s some money. Oh, by the way, it’s a lot worse than we admitted. Bye-now!
“It contains provisions to shield the company against any future lawsuits from state agencies.”

And what have they done so far?
“Only about 10 barrels of crude were recovered by cleanup crews. That's less than 1 percent of the total spilled, federal officials have said.”

“There were hundreds and hundreds of acres of land affected and it was a major oil spill.”

Yep, here ya go! 1.6 million should cover it, right boys? [carelessly shakes a bit of change out from the bottom of his pockets] Pleasure doing business with ya. See you next time!

Is there no justice in this world?**

* [Sidenote: I’m not a socialist, so go boink yourself if you want to say that. When it comes to LIMITED, ESSENTIAL RESOURCES of which no one person or company can say they created, why does the public get skinned for that? Go build a widget factory, and I won’t give a crap what you do with your profit. As long as you don’t shit on your neighbor in the process. There needs to be rights and oversights to entities that endanger the public good. STOP REPEATING small minded & loaded terminology to protect your own greed and fear based ideology. IT’S DO OR DIE TIME – stop defending the purveyors of our own demise.]

** [Trick question. There’s not. Greg Palast has proven that to me beyond a doubt.]

Seen on the Streets

2012-01-23T19:00:00.001-06:00

Saw this Sunday morning - someone must have hacked the bus stop ad. Love it. Really love it.

I'm Grateful for the Women Who Came Before Me

2012-01-21T15:13:00.005-06:00

Roe vs. Wade turns 39 today.

Can someone explain to me: why do otherwise rational, leave politics out of it libertarians like Ron Paul, also support pro-life movements? And at the same time, don't support welfare and programs that actually help kids who are here and need support. I really, really (really) don't get it.

Let's leave headlines like this to the Onion.

Supreme Court Overturns 'Right v. Wrong'

WASHINGTON—Striking down the judicial precedent that established the legal supremacy of right over wrong more than two centuries ago, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned Right v. Wrong.

The landmark reversal—a bitterly contested 5-4 decision that has been widely praised by murderers, rapists, bigots, usurers, and pro-wrong advocates nationwide—nullifies all previously lawful forms of right and makes it very difficult for Americans to make ethical decisions or be generally decent human beings without facing criminal charges.

"It is the opinion of this court that the Constitution was crafted in such a manner as to uphold and encourage practices that are not right and, ideally, are very wrong," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, which also included Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, and John Roberts. "Despite the compelling case for goodness, truth, and justice made by our predecessors in the case of Right v. Wrong, we firmly believe that malice, dishonesty, and injustice were the framers' original intent."

(p.s. the main headline link is to a really intense article in Mother Jones entitled "The Way It Was")

All Things Consider (and by "All" we just mean bland, distracting fluff pieces with an occasional foreign affairs story)

2012-01-19T19:20:00.005-06:00

On the way home from the grocery store this evening, about a 7 minute drive, I heard on NPR not once, not twice, but three separate mentions of Rick Perry dropping out of the race. IN SEVEN MINUTES.

This is EXACTLY why I have no faith in our future. The supposed voice of the people and the "fair and balanced" gives 90% of their broadcast each evening to this sideshow circus. WHY?

It's distracting minor leagues bullshit. Mention it once and move on. OUR SOCIETY IS ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE. I really don't care about has beens and never be's. TELL ME ABOUT THE 'IS HAPPENINGS' AND THE 'OH SHIT' type stuff. ENOUGH ALREADY!

It's sad because I have a friend who, in trying to proclaim their breadth of news analysis, said they listen to both Fox News and NPR. OK, you have the far right and the just right of center. Trust me. TRUST ME! There is a whole other range of news in the spectrum that those two don't come remotely close to touching.

For example, everyone who is either cheering me on right now or raising their nose in disgust and disbelief should read the latest book by Greg Palast's "Vulture's Picnic." That shows you what real reporting can do.

In the meantime, I'll just continue doing what I usually do: swing between cowering in fear beneath my covers, forging plans for total self-sustainability, and trying to stab and poke at the big beast with things like this blog.

2012-01-18T08:55:00.003-06:00

2012-01-17T16:17:00.001-06:00

Complain = More of the Same

Create = Design Your Own Fate

MLK Day: many footsteps, many paths to follow

2012-01-16T18:12:00.009-06:00

I am an avid and devoted listener of WTF with Marc Maron. It’s an intersection of a lot of things I really love: I really (really) love funny people, I really love learning about other people’s lives, I really love learning about successful people’s lives, I really love creative people who have the courage to take the path less traveled, and I really love Marc Maron and his sensitive intellectualism.

This morning’s interview was particularly interesting and powerful, and I wanted to take a moment to reflect and promote it on my corner of the internet. It’s an extremely intelligent, honest & passionate conversation with Todd Glass, a successful comedian, who comes out of the closet as a forty-something year old man.

Why was he in the closet for so long? He’s not religious, his family is supportive of who he is, it seems that he just really feared judgment and being defined by his sexuality.

Why did he come out of the closet at long last? Kids are dying because of the persistent homophobia in society and what it can be internalized as, and he knew his conscious would no longer allow him to stay behind that safe curtain of compassionate neutrality. And also, as Marc puts it, holding a secret becomes something that you contract and grow around, and after awhile, your emotional health and personal evolution becomes hinged on acknowledging and releasing that secret.

My summarizing will never do this justice, so I encourage people to take a moment and listen. It’s so worth it, I swear! He really made clear, and opened my mind (which I previously held as being wide open already) to a lot of things.

But, to that conversation, my addendum is this graphic I’ve been wanting to put together for awhile (since watching a documentary on William Burroughs). “Gay” has been an adjective my generation in particular has held onto as a word not associated with sexuality necessarily, but just a descriptor for something being stupid, uncool, etc. And what Todd really opened my eyes to, is the way that simply hurts people on a deep and personal level. And it’s not right.

Not only is it not right to perpetuate that hurt and shame, but it’s just not right because being gay is NOT stupid and uncool. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! Being bold enough to be gay often times means you’re also bold enough to breakdown other standards, to make breakthroughs in a number of disciplines because you have elevated yourself beyond the dimensions of societal boundaries. It’s fucking rock n roll! It’s the best any of us can hope to be! If there’s any goal any one person can hope for or should strive towards achieving in this life, it’s to come to terms with who you truly are, and as such, live a life in pursuit of your true passions and as your true self. That’s the hero’s journey.

And that’s hard! That’s really hard for anyone. And I want to do my best to not only achieve that for myself, but to help make it an easier world for all of us to do the same. Thanks to Todd Glass and Marc Maron for paving the way!

“Within the typical secondary school curriculum, homosexuals do not exist. They are 'nonpersons' in the finest Stalinist sense. They have fought no battles, held no offices, explored nowhere, written no literature, built nothing, invented nothing and solved no equations. The lesson to the heterosexual student is abundantly clear: homosexuals do nothing of consequence. To the homosexual student, the message has even greater power: no one who has ever felt as you do has done anything worth mentioning.” - Gerald Unks, editor, The Gay Teen

Historical figures referenced were found at http://www.lambda.org/famous.htm.

addendum: (here is a link to Todd's own very funny podcast, where this week he has what I'd call a post WTF wrap up, where he just sorta gets some other things off his chest in a loose way, and with the support of his BFF, the fabulous Sarah Silverman. I don't know why I liked this whole to-do so much, I just did.)

The Truth is Out There (We Just Choose Not to Find It)

2012-01-15T13:06:00.006-06:00

Unbelievably believable. The NY Times Editor recently asked the question: "I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about."

It's funny how, at the end of this article covering the consequence of this question on the UK's Guardian (again, not surprised), it says that in order to maintain a reputation of neutrality amongst politicians and advertisers, it means newspapers cannot fact-check & debunk a lot of things politicians say. So being "neutral" means ignoring or being unconcerned with the actual truth.

FAIL.

Fail, fail, fail. Thank God for the new age of the internet and independent bloggers. (and on that note, a reminder to protest SOPA please). What a complete dark age we'd be in if the gatekeepers of information were only these old dinosaurs, concerned not with their readers and their duty as the 4th estate, but with playing nice.

The New York Times public editor's very public utterance

from the Guardian:

Thursday, Arthur Brisbane, the public editor of the New York Times, went to his readers with a question:

"I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about."

Brisbane (who, as public editor, speaks only for himself, not the Times) referred to two recent stories: the claim that Clarence Thomas had "misunderstood" a financial reporting form when he left out key information, and Mitt Romney's assertion that President Obama gives speeches "apologising" for America. Brisbane asked whether news reporters should have the freedom to investigate and respond to those comments.

The reaction from readers was swift, voluminous, negative and incredulous.

"Is this a joke? THIS IS YOUR JOB."

"If the purpose of the NYT is to be an inoffensive container for ad copy, then by all means continue to do nothing more than paraphrase those press releases."

"I hope you can help me, Mr Brisbane, because I'm an editor, currently unemployed: is fecklessness now a job requirement?"

Brisbane had clearly not been expecting this excoriating and one-sided a reaction. Brisbane has since tried to clarify his views twice. The first was on the media blog JimRomenesko.com:

"What I was trying to ask was whether reporters should always rebut dubious facts in the body of the stories they are writing. I was hoping for diverse and even nuanced responses to what I think is a difficult question."

The second was on the NY Times site:

"My inquiry related to whether the Times, in the text of news columns, should more aggressively rebut 'facts' that are offered by newsmakers when those 'facts' are in question. I consider this a difficult question, not an obvious one."

This only added fuel to the fire.

Now, it's worth noting that Brisbane's question makes perfect sense, considered from the newsroom's perspective. Romney's claim that Obama makes speeches "apologising" for America isn't readily amenable to fact-checking. Instead, Romney relied on what are sometimes called "weasel words", in which an allegation is alluded to, without being made head-on. (Romney, for instance, never quotes any of the president's speeches when making this assertion.) For Brisbane, the open question was whether a hard news reporter should be calling out those kinds of statements, or should simply quote the source accurately.

Continue Reading

Is this the twilight of blues music?

2012-01-10T21:19:00.004-06:00

I came across this article just now. How? How does anyone find anything on this interwebs: I stumbled into it.

Let me retrace. I googled "John Lee Hooker lessons." Why? Because I want to learn some John Lee Hooker songs on my guitar. That's why. And on the blues website with a video lesson, to the side it had a repost of a tweet that said "97-year old blues artist wins a grammy." So I clicked on that to see - was that Honeyboy? I couldn't remember how old he was when he died, but maybe they just awarded him something and I didn't know about it. But nope - it was another old boy I have a sweet spot for - Hubert Sumlin. Hubert! And from that article, I finally came to this final destination: a link to a piece entitled "Is this the twilight of blues music?"

Oh, boy. I don't like hearing that. I really don't. But this author makes a good point - we lost a lot of good people in 2011, certainly last of their generations. So Happy to say that I've seen all three name checked in this article: Honeyboy Edwards, Hubert Sumlin and Pinetop Perkins. I even had a conversation with Honeyboy! One of those great little moments I'll always be glad I went for, as I stood at the Hideout waiting for him to go on, and noticed, hey, he's just sitting at the back of the room enjoying a beer. Should I go over there? Should I? This mid-twenties little white girl, who hides an old soul and a love of the blues inside? I did. I went for it, and he seemed grateful for the company. Anyway, that's not my point, to brag on that.

My point is: that this article makes some good points. Especially about the lack of support for Chicago blues clubs, and those clubs who are stuck in a routine, afraid to shake things up. I'll certainly agree with that. As for his analogy to blues being like Gregorian chant, I must say: whoa dude, back that train up. Apples to oranges, apples to oranges my friend.

The blues exists and thrives in all shapes and forms. It will not be some dusty thing on the shelf. It's just not - it's influence is too wide and too deep. There's too many musicphiles that go right to that source. Look at Keith Richards or Jack White. Ask them if they're Gregorian chant revivalists or true blue channelers of a primal art form. Ask them.

Anyway, no offense, but this article itself had that familiar Tribune flavor of all polish, no soul. Maybe it's his editor, the way he's conditioned after years of employment, or maybe he's kinda stiff himself and that's why he can't see the many threads modern blues continues to weave. Of course they don't play it on the radio. Does anything good come from commercial channels of any sort? No. I dare say no.

But things do leak through. Maybe someday, that thing will be the blues again.

From ChicagoTribune.com:

"They buried Hubert Sumlin two weeks ago at Washington Memory Gardens Cemetery in Homewood, laying to rest the man whose ferocious guitar riffs galvanized Howlin' Wolf's classic recordings of the 1950s and '60s.

Just before Sumlin's casket was lowered into the ground, young Chicago blues artist Shemekia Copeland stood at his graveside and sang "Life's a Rainbow," her arms outstretched to the coffin. Barely 30 people showed up at the funeral — which was paid for by Sumlin admirers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards — bidding silent farewell to a bluesman who left Chicago years ago, dying in New Jersey at age 80.

As the wind blew across the cemetery grounds, Chicago blues musician Todd Park Mohr stepped near the casket and chanted a song of his own. It honored a man who helped define Chicago blues a couple generations ago, at long-forgotten clubs such as Silvio's, on the West Side:

Fly away from here, Mr. Sumlin.

The ground in New Jersey has gone cold. ...

When you ever gonna learn,

Chicago always gonna be your home.

Drive away from this evil world, Mr. Sumlin.

Drive that old car back to Silvio's.

"

Continue reading.

You do not have to wait for the future distopia to arrive. It is here. You are it's maker.

2012-01-07T14:18:00.004-06:00

If you own a Mac product and do not listen to this radio piece, you will not get into heaven.

Wait. Wait, this just in. That goes for anyone who owns ANY piece of electronic equipment made in China. Sorry, God said.

the full slogan, finally revealed

2012-01-04T20:19:00.000-06:00

Wheat Belly.

2012-01-02T19:13:00.003-06:00

Dear People in My Life,

Preface: You may realize by now that I am a curious person. I question things. I don’t just take it at face value. I want to know the whole story. I love fringe and outsider thinking. And this leads me into some very off-the-beaten-path territories sometimes. But I love trying on new thought and belief systems in search of greater truths. To me, it’s fun. But to others, I can see that it clearly threatens them in some deep way, making them defensive, dismissive, or most often, just generally uncomfortable – “can we talk about pop culture and the minutia of our day now?” Yes, I guess so.

Doesn’t stop me!

So the latest path that I’ve been following can be generally filed under the label of “nutrition.” It’s a natural extension from my love of food, which led to a love of cooking, which led to interest in farming and thinking about food sources, and now, I’ve just been thinking about what is the best for the human body. What is the fuel that makes a healthy mind and body, and what is the crap that turns us into sloven miscreants? I don’t know about you, but I want to be the best possible version of myself.

It’s amazing to me how much there is to know, and how so much of it is just not obvious. We eat 3 times a day, every day! It’s something we cannot avoid!! And yet, I’d wager most people just don’t put too much thought into it. They eat what’s available and easy.

So my latest guide down this path has been a podcast called “Gnostic Media” hosted by Jan Irvin. He’s had a series of interviews with doctors and nutritionists to discuss a variety of whole health applications. For the past few weeks, I’ve been obsessed with the idea that one such individual advocated – that the modern diet has excluded a slew of essential minerals and anti-oxidants, and that a large percentage of modern diseases have been the result.

But it’s not like our ancestors took vitamins, you nay-sayers might be thinking. Well, this doctor explains that we used to cook with wood ash, and it would get in our food. And that wood ash would be spread into the vegetable gardens as well, and that this was the source of essential minerals that we have been missing out on when we switch to electrical, stove-top cooking. This Doctor claims to have cured everything from type 2 diabetes to alzheimers’s by introducing the missing minerals en masse to patients. I can’t go into this any further, or I’ll lose track of my main point. If you are interested, listen here to the podcast on minerals.

What I really wanted to share is today’s interview on……Wheat Belly!

He says wheat creates that gross fat that wraps around your organs and causes a distended belly. And that by just eliminating wheat, you can take inches off your waistline, as well as correcting a lot of other health problems from IBS to skin problems. Again, if you want the details, listen to the interview here. Or read testimonials on Dr. Davis’ website.

Now. If you want to be on the same page as me, of course, first listen to those podcasts. And then, please join me in a wheat free diet! I’m avoiding wheat at all costs, starting immediately. And come New Years, that is my #1 resolution. I am going to go at least 4 wks completely wheat free, and will report back on any changes I notice. And hopefully, I’ll keep it going from there, but I’m giving it at least that much time to figure out for myself what the benefits might be.

I think it will be hard, but not impossible. Biggest pitfalls are obviously beer, pizza, pasta and bread. But it’s not a resolution if it’s not a challenge. Wish me luck!

And people in my life whom I love and want to live long, happy, disease-free lives: please join me in taking nothing for granted when it comes to what we consume. I swear – it will be fun! (and for another day, get me started on water.)

From a Macleans interview with Dr. Davis:

"William Davis, a preventive cardiologist who practices in Milwaukee, Wis., argues in his new book Wheat Belly that wheat is bad for your health—so bad that it should carry a surgeon general’s warning.

Q: You say the crux of the problem with wheat is that the stuff we eat today has been genetically altered. How is it different than the wheat our grandparents ate?
A: First of all, it looks different. If you held up a conventional wheat plant from 50 years ago against a modern, high-yield dwarf wheat plant, you would see that today’s plant is about 2½ feet shorter. It’s stockier, so it can support a much heavier seedbed, and it grows much faster. The great irony here is that the term “genetic modification” refers to the actual insertion or deletion of a gene, and that’s not what’s happened with wheat. Instead, the plant has been hybridized and crossbred to make it resistant to drought and fungi, and to vastly increase yield per acre. Agricultural geneticists have shown that wheat proteins undergo structural change with hybridization, and that the hybrid contains proteins that are found in neither parent plant. Now, it shouldn’t be the case that every single new agricultural hybrid has to be checked and tested, that would be absurd. But we’ve created thousands of what I call Frankengrains over the past 50 years, using pretty extreme techniques, and their safety for human consumption has never been tested or even questioned.

Q: How does wheat make us fat, exactly?
A: It contains amylopectin A, which is more efficiently converted to blood sugar than just about any other carbohydrate, including table sugar. In fact, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar to a higher level than a candy bar does. And then, after about two hours, your blood sugar plunges and you get shaky, your brain feels foggy, you’re hungry. So let’s say you have an English muffin for breakfast. Two hours later you’re starving, so you have a handful of crackers, and then some potato chips, and your blood sugar rises again. That cycle of highs and lows just keeps going throughout the day, so you’re constantly feeling hungry and constantly eating. Dieticians have responded to this by advising that we graze throughout the day, which is just nonsense. If you eliminate wheat from your diet, you’re no longer hungry between meals because you’ve stopped that cycle. You’ve cut out the appetite stimulant, and consequently you lose weight very quickly. I’ve seen this with thousands of patients.

Q: You seem to be saying that aside from anything else, wheat is essentially the single cause of the obesity epidemic.
A: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all obesity is due to wheat. There are kids, of course, who drink Coca-Cola and sit in front of video games for many hours a day. But I’m speaking to the relatively health-minded people who think they’re doing the right thing by limiting fat consumption and eating more whole grains, and there’s a clear subset of people who are doing that and gaining weight and don’t understand why. It causes tremendous heartache. They come into my office and say, “I exercise five times a week, I’ve cut my fat intake, I watch portion size and eat my whole grains—but I’ve gone up three dress sizes.”
"

Examples of Wheat:
Bran
Bread
Breading, coating mixes
Communion wafers
Couscous
Croutons
Granola
Farina
Flour or cereal products
Pasta
Pastry and pies
Pizza
Semolina
Soy sauce
Spelt
Teriyaki sauce
Wheat breakfast cereals

Happy Birthday Jean-Michel Basquiat.

2011-12-22T22:32:00.001-06:00

(I wish there were more people like you in this world.)

Merry Winter Solstice!

2011-12-21T21:43:00.003-06:00

"If you live in this hemisphere, it’s your signal to celebrate. The shortest day is here! After the winter solstice, the days will get longer, and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices.

When is the solstice where I live?

The solstice happens at the same instant for all of us, everywhere on Earth. But our clocks say different times.

In 2011, the December solstice takes place on Wednesday, December 21 at 11:30 p.m. CST (Thursday, December 22 at 5:30 UTC)."

Happy Birthday Bradley Manning!!

2011-12-17T12:40:00.004-06:00

War crimes whistle-blower Bradley Manning turns 24 years old today. He made the courageous decision to follow his inner conscious instead of the fuzzy "rights" and "wrongs" as defined by everyone's crazy & corrupt big brother, the US government. Would you have done the same thing?

He's one of the bravest young people I can think of, and I hope they have mercy on him at his trial, which is just beginning. Unfortunately, all that can be guaranteed is that history will vindicate him as a hero. That much, I'm sure of.

In honor of his birthday, I wanted to take time to post about Bradley. And in the process, I discovered this excellent song by Graham Nash (yes, that Graham Nash) and James Raymond (son of David Crosby).

Please share this video & take time talk about Bradley Manning! We can't forget where he's at & what he's going through.

(and if you want to take it a step further, like I did, click the link above and donate to his defense fund. what a great birthday present!)

Thinker

2011-11-30T19:00:00.003-06:00

This was made with one rectangular piece of paper and a pair of scissors.

Let your brain turn this puzzle around for awhile. Solution at the link above.

CITIZEN ACTION!

2011-11-28T09:16:00.002-06:00

ACTION ALERT!

Have you heard? The Senate is voting today on a bill that includes provisions to essentially turn America into a battlefield, where you and I can be locked up and held indefinitely without charge or trial.

Are you frightened by the brutal police response to OWS? Do you actually get teary-eyed when you think of Bradley Manning, the boy-next-door turned war crimes whistle blower (wikileaks), being held and tortured for this long? I do! I am!

Take a moment TODAY and sign the ACLU petition letter to your Senator to tell them NO! This has got to stop. There is a legal system in this country for a reason. If you can't lock them up within the law, we will not change the laws to give these prison planet psycho's more power!

Here's the ACLU article with more description. And here's the link to the petition.

And below in stars is what I added in my letter.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Senator,

I strongly urge the Senate to oppose sections 1031 and 1032 in S.1253, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA).

*** You betray everything this country stands for if you vote this into law. What would our forefathers say? We didn't build this country and come this far to treat our citizens like criminals within our own borders. The LEGAL SYSTEM is there for a reason.

I hope you will stand on the right side of history. ***

If enacted, sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA would:

1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside the United States;

(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and

(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.

These provisions in the NDAA are inconsistent with fundamental American values embodied in the Constitution. I urge the Senate reject the NDAA and its indefinite detention provisions.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]

Avoid Frustrating Conversations with OWS Business Cards!

2011-11-22T20:53:00.009-06:00

Just in time for the holidays! Are you sick of having dinner conversations with friends or family members who are opinionated and/or uninformed about Occupy Wall Street? Well these "business cards" are just the thing! When it becomes clear that calm conversations and reason won’t work, or that you are being talked at rather than listened to, give them this card so they can process the info on their own terms.

Version #1: Someone innocently, or condescendingly ask, “What is it about? What do they want? There is no purpose”? Hand them one of these!

Version #2: You find yourself with someone who starts spewing false facts and negative characterizations? Here’s your card!

Version #3: Think all they need is to have an honest look at why they are so personally threatened by OWS? Here’s a handy questionnaire to invite introspection.

Here's a link to the PDF so you can print multiple copies. DESIGNED TO BE PRINTED DOUBLE-SIDED. Odd pages= front. Even pages = back.

(And please, steal and remix for your own purposes! I tried to upload a word doc to google docs, and it screwed up my formatting. So PDF it is. If you want to edit, I'd say copy the text, go to Word, click on Tools > Labels > Options > Business card. Paste and play!)

Versions 2 & 3, front:

Back:

This 28-Year-Old's Startup Is Moving $350 Million And Wants To Completely Kill Credit Cards

2011-11-11T16:10:00.003-06:00

Great Article. I like the cut of this guy's gib. Innovative is the operative word here. Innovative.

* * *
There's a tiny 12-person startup churning out of Des Moines, Iowa.

Dwolla was founded by 28-year-old Ben Milne; it's an innovative online payment system that sidesteps credit cards completely.

Milne has no finance background yet his little operation is moving between $30 and $50 million per month; it's on track to move more than $350 million in the next year.
Unlike PayPal, Dwolla doesn't take a percentage of the transaction. It only asks for $0.25 whether it's moving $1 or $1,000.

We interviewed Milne about how he is building a credit card killer and Square rival from the middle of the nation where VCs and press are scarce.

BI: We hear you're making credit card companies angry. How are you doing that?

Ben Milne: Ultimately we're trying to build the next Visa, not the next PayPal. We're building a human network based on how we think the future of payments will work. The current model needs to be blown up.

Dwolla started out of my old company. I owned a speaker manufacturing company and we sold everything directly through a website. I got really obsessed with interchange fees and how not to pay them. Every time a merchant gets paid with a credit card they have to give up a percentage. In my case, I was losing $55,000 a year to credit card companies. I felt like they were stealing from me -- I was getting paid and somebody was taking money out of my pocket.

So I thought, how do I get paid through a website without paying credit card fees? We pitched a bank, and amazingly enough they said, "We'll give it a shot."
That was three years ago, so we've been working on the project for a really long time. In December of last year we figured out how to legally do what we do.

Continue Reading.

Finally, Things That Make Sense

2011-11-09T18:24:00.004-06:00

I am a girl scout, or was, and this image pretty much sums up my interests now as an adult!

and I see guys like this around Milwaukee all the time.

Glad to see that Girls and Boys Scouts are being run by hipsters now! Makes a lot of sense.

Maybe they could add badges like, "Front Row" when you manage to politely get to the front stage of a concert without spilling your beer. Or "Thai -namite" when you order your 100th Thai or Curry dish. Or "Vintage Vanguard" when you look down and realize: everything i'm wearing right now just happens to be home-made or used.

Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind

2011-11-09T18:14:00.002-06:00

So this is happening:

"The secretive oil billionaires the Koch brothers are close to launching a nationwide database connecting millions of Americans who share their anti-government and libertarian views, a move that will further enhance the tycoons' political influence and that could prove significant in next year's presidential election.

The voter file was set up by the Kochs 18 months ago with $2.5m of their seed money, and is being developed by a hand-picked team of the brothers' advisers. It has been given the name Themis, after the Greek goddess who imposes divine order on human affairs.

The database will bring together information from a plethora of right-wing groups, tea party organisations and conservative-leaning thinktanks. Each one has valuable data on their membership – including personal email addresses and phone numbers, as well as more general information useful to political campaign strategists such as occupation, income bracket and so on.

By pooling the information, the hope is to create a data resource that is far more potent than the sum of its parts. Themis will in effect become an electoral roll of right-wing America, allowing the Koch brothers to further enhance their power base in a way that is sympathetic to, but wholly independent of, the Republican party."

Keep Reading.

***

I had to google image search these dudes to know: what do the so-called Koch brothers look like?

And all I find is these two piles of cold mashed potatoes:

Can you imagine even talking to guys like this? Like sitting down and having dinner with these two zombies? Throw in dudes like Karl Rove, and ohmygod. F-ing gravy train. I couldn't handle it! Whether or not they were in the seat of power right now. I feel like I'm catching psoriasis just looking at this picture!

2011-11-09T18:12:00.002-06:00

I really love street art in general, and whole-heartedly approve of hacking political signs to tell the truth, like this:

Wow, Voters we can Trust

2011-11-09T18:05:00.002-06:00

Well, well, well. How do you like them apples? Big day today for the Good Guys. Ohio’s anti-union bill? Voted down. Mississippi’s anti-women’s rights amendment (a.k.a. defining personhood at conception)? Voted down. Arizona’s anti-immigration politician? Voted out.

We don’t have to wring our hands and worry that insane ideas will be passed into law and carried out as such. The people have common sense! The talking heads are wrong! Woo-hoo! There is still hope!

But as a side note, can you explain something to me, Republicans and Libertarians? Why do some people want “less government” and more “free markets” and then really support the opposite with the legislations they endorse? If it’s a free market, why can’t people join together in a union and make decisions as such? Why does government have to interfere? That’s more freedom, that’s less. If it’s less government you are after, why can’t people freely come in and out of our country? That’s not less, that’s more government interference. If you want the government out of our personal lives (like mandating healthcare), why can’t gay people marry and women make private decisions with their doctors? That’s not less, that’s a whole lot more. And as a dead serious question, just for Christians: how can you be a millionaire and be Christ-like? You can’t! “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Jesus supported the weak and needy. He didn’t use his resources to pad his lifestyle. If you’re not going above and beyond to be giving and charitable, you’re not Christ-like a.k.a. not Christian.

I really don’t get it. As a student of Rhetoric, I just can’t leap past these gaps in logic and move on, like it seems most do. All arguments breakdown after that point. The entire thing loses its validity.

That said, it seems today is a victorious day for reason! Enjoy this feeling while it lasts.

I Beg Your Pardon?

2011-11-06T16:23:00.004-06:00

Internet Harvesting. Isn't it an interesting phenomenon?

Take this for example. Buzz Feed has a post entitled "32 Inexplicable Photos From Russia." It seems what they did was just take a bunch of pictures from a Russian photographers livejournal page, with the bare minimum for attribution. These photos are in fact unique - but I think it is because this individual is a great photographer, not necessarily because Russia is so different, as the subtext of this post is and which you see clearly demonstrated in the comment section where rampant US-centric racism runs wild. People are weird all over this damn planet! It's the POV, and all this photographer did was do an amazing job at framing weird moments.

So that being said, click the link above to browse through a great photo set.

um. um. um. what?

2011-11-04T15:14:00.002-05:00

"the way I feel sometimes its too hard to sit still
things are so passionate times are so real
sometimes I try an chill mellow down blowing smoke
smile on my face but its really no joke
you feel it in the streets people breathe without hope"

...

"sit and come and relax riddle of the mac, its the patch
imma solider in the middle of iraq
well say about noonish commin out the whip
and lookin at me curious, a young Iraqi kid
carrying laundry, whats wrong G? hungry?
no, gimme oil or get fuck out my country"

How Fear Drove World Rice Markets Insane

2011-11-03T14:51:00.002-05:00

I heard this piece on NPR yesterday evening, and found it interesting. It's a different angle on the global food supply, and great insight into the crazy web we've built up.

**************************************************************************

Nothing is more basic and simple than food. Yet it comes to us courtesy of a long, complicated supply chain that spans the globe.

That chain delivers food cheaply — but it can break. Four years ago, it blew up in most spectacular fashion, affecting hundreds of millions of people who rely on rice for sustenance. That crash — the great rice crisis of 2008 — was a true disaster for some of the poorest people in Asia and West Africa.

And the most frightening thing about it is that no one can guarantee that it won't happen again — because the decisions that created it were all, somehow, perfectly reasonable.

Continue Reading and/or Listen to the Radio piece.

update: As a side note, here is a great link to information on how to grow your OWN rice! In a container! On your patio! As a burgeoning urban farmer, I really like this type of thing.

Everything I need to Know, I learned from BizKids

2011-11-02T19:09:00.005-05:00

I came home from work today. I turned on the TV. It was still on PBS from watching Will Ferrell being honored for the Mark Twain prize on Monday night. I didn't touch the remote again because I was distracted by my computer, and before I knew it, I was watching this: BizKids.

It had some insightful money tips, and some inspiring stories! I think I need to catch this on TV more often.

http://bizkids.com/show

A guru's Guru

2011-10-31T16:16:00.005-05:00

To a certain degree, I’ve been filtering in various articles, TV and radio episodes covering the life and legacy of Steve Jobs. And by far, this article - “What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really?” - has been the most interesting.

How do you define a person? I agree that in life and death, look at what a person does, what they create and produce, first and foremost, rather than just what they say. But what lies behind that is a person’s belief system, and it is amazing how in most of the coverage of Steve Jobs, the fact that he was a devout Buddhist rarely takes center stage. It’s telling, but not surprising, that the message is filtered through Western media and comes out significantly watered down. Even Job’s official biographer demonstrates these biases, as this article points out. It’s too bad, because I want to know more about this – what does a man who’s critical of EVERYTHING and scrutinizes every last detail – what is it about Buddhism that passed the test?

“Why would a former phone phreak who perseverated over the design of motherboards be interested in doing that? Using the mind to watch the mind, and ultimately to change how the mind works, is known in cognitive psychology as metacognition. Beneath the poetic cultural trappings of Buddhism, what intensive meditation offers to long-term practitioners is a kind of metacognitive hack of the human operating system (a metaphor that probably crossed Jobs’ mind at some point.) Sitting zazen offered Jobs a practical technique for upgrading the motherboard in his head.”

I love that. It’s a great metaphor, and a bridge for the 21st century person to contextualize ancient wisdom and apply it to their own life.

For me personally, I find when I read about great people, it’s always in the back of my head to see how we stack up. How are we alike, how are we different, and most importantly, how can I learn from this person and be better? I’m going to buy the two books referenced in this article, and start there.

Simplicity. Love. Focus. And no shortcuts! I’m taking those mantras as well.

(update! I made this gif to illustrate my point.)

(update again! wth? why don't most photo hosts want to play nice with gifs? I thought there is a gif renaissance. {lol - andy always yells at me when I say stuff like that})

This link is worth exploring

2011-10-29T11:36:00.000-05:00

Rule of Male Succession to British Monarchy Is Abolished

2011-10-28T17:51:00.003-05:00

"The 16 countries that recognize the British monarch as head of state struck a historic blow for women's rights on Friday, abolishing male precedence in the order of succession to the throne."

In honor, Iron & Wine's song - "Woman King"

World Wild West

2011-10-28T17:46:00.002-05:00

Here are two interesting opinions on some of the true perils of social networks like Facebook. It’s not just the commonly toted problem that your feed might get bombarded with crazy over-sharers from people you haven't seen in a decade. It's pulling us all into the web, and we need to be mindful of what this new space is, and what are the hidden or unforeseen dangers and disadvantages.

It's not just that we volunteer too much information, but that someone gets to profit off of that. Not that what you say lives on forever, and employers can find it. But that you're being funneled into only being allowed to be one person, when that's not ever true.

We need to fight for the Wild West internet. We need Anonymous but we also need the EFF. We can be both cowboys and indians, we just need to make sure that nobody takes our guns away. Nobody takes that freedom and power away. And we all have to be vigilant, because I don't think it's necessarily a malevolent, profit hungry corporation that will do it. I think that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and sometimes (often times) the people in charge just don't get it. And don't or won't listen to those who do.

And in my opinion, these guys do:

You Are Not Facebook's Customer by Douglas Rushkoff.

Isn't it Weird

2011-10-27T18:52:00.007-05:00

How Gaddafi was in love with Condoleeza Rice? Ha. It's the funniest thing to me. He had someone write her a love song even - "Black Rose in the White House." Just goes to show, no matter how important or powerful a person gets, we're all still just kids running around the playground.

Made this image in homage.

Analyze This.

2011-10-20T16:48:00.002-05:00

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

"AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power."

PSA: Huffington Post is Completely Worthless

2011-10-19T15:30:00.001-05:00

I really hate Huffington Post. They suck so badly.

Case in point: Naomi Wolf, arrested outside of their stupid "Game Changer" event (where they have the balls to put her in a room with Kim Kardashian. Unreal.)

Looking for articles on the arrest, and reading quite a few, from the NY Post to the Guardian, they all explained to some degree of why she was arrested: she was defending the protesters rights, calling bullshit on the police who said the event holders (huffpost) had a permit to control the sidewalks (which they didn't and I guess cannot legally).

Does HuffPost explain this? NO. They have 4 weak paragraphs on it. And not on the main page, but under the business section.

UGH! I'm boycotting HuffPost indefinitely. Piece of trash. I'm really outraged and indignant that they have the audacity to censor and bury this story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/naomi-wolf-arrested-femin_n_1018846.html

http://news.google.com/news/more?q=naomi+wolf&hl=en&safe=on&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS430US430&prmd=imvnsuob&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1165&bih=751&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dHv8lxFjzU8IwCMiuuwLGDKL0B1TM&ei=kjKfTrebLOWIsAKbjJWNCg&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CC0QqgIwAA

2011-08-07T09:55:00.001-05:00

Compassion is a Virtue

2011-07-26T21:40:00.001-05:00

I just wrote my Senator about the Debt ceiling - here's what I said:

********************************************************************************

Dear Senator Johnson,

I’m writing in regards to the debt ceiling, and to implore you to listen to your constituents as we proclaim “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”

STOP HOLDING AMERICA HOSTAGE.

Appeasing a fringe group of ideologues is not as important as securing the well being of your friends, neighbors and the rest of middle America who just want the personal political maneuvering to stop.

Please, be a leader. Be responsible. Be compassionate. This is not a game of winner takes all, my way or the highway. America is a two-way street and COMPROMISE is not only the high road, but your civic duty.

Respectfully Yours,
Kelly Barron

Milwaukee, 53202

Bike to Work Week

2011-06-12T11:48:00.003-05:00

It’s Bike to Work Week here in Milwaukee, sponsored and promoted by the Bicycle Federation of Milwaukee. Since my new assignment has me working just south of downtown, and a quick 2.7 miles from my place, I’ve been all over biking to work and this coordinated event is just a landmark to keep me going.

I ride a gold Trek Pure, sort of an old man bike, I admit. But like most things, I absolutely don’t base my decisions on popular trends – bike styles or otherwise. So yeah, no fix gear for this girl. Having a big cruiser suits me great because I can sit upright, and so I don’t have that pushing pressure on my shoulders and wrists. I have a big seat, and so avoid tired bike butt syndrome. And I even have a rearview mirror, which is a must for riding in city traffic because you are constantly aware of the cars surrounding you on all angles. Ooh, and my bike rack and hanging bike bag – perfect for trips to the farmers market or whole foods or the library, all places I frequent especially in summer months. So yeah – fat tire cruiser. Perfect for me – a city biker who mostly rides for distance and pleasure. Not speed.

So that is the anatomy of my steed. The second crucial component to biking to work is figuring out what to wear. It’s gotta be versatile – bike friendly and work appropriate. Bike friendly = no skirts, gotta have legging or pants that are stretchy. And then there’s a matter of a top that I can layer up with something else because it’s hot while riding in and don’t want to sweat too much, but gotta layer on something that’s OK and dressy for the office once I do get there. So yeah, a lot of cotton and stretch and swapping of layers.

So I stuff my bag/briefcase type thing into my bike bag. I put my Stone Creek coffee I make each morning into a thermal water bottle and stuff that inside too. I get my helmet on, my shades on, and I launch down the sidewalk. I’ve mapped my optimal route and luckily it’s mostly downhill in the morning route. I can leave my house at 8:00 and be in my desk chair by 8:30. Love it. Absolutely love it.

So all this week, I’ve stopped by the Alterra that has been hosting morning commuters with a tent for coffee and pastry (and conveniently already on my way). Today I also got BFW 2011 bike ride / map guide. So lots of bike rides ahead of me - (lord willing) – recreational and commuting.

Scott Walker Has Painting Of Poor Children Removed From Wisconsin Governor’s Mansion

2011-06-09T16:37:00.003-05:00

Via disinfo and mother jones, another ridiculously callous move by Wisconsin's own Imperial Walker. I think that's how politicians like him can do what they do (lead by greed and fear while throwing the American people under the bus). They create a bubble of self-delusion. They just don't want to face the victims of their own greedy, self-serving politics. It makes me sick! Don't worry though - the "Wisconsin Spring" is still alive and well!!

************************

"Other politicians can slash taxes for the rich while cutting funds for teachers and struggling families, but few can throw in some Mr. Burns-style symbolic nose-thumbing like the Wisconsin governor. Via Mother Jones:

Walker has made headlines again after he removed a painting (see right) depicting three Milwaukee children—one had been homeless, one from low-income family, and a third who had lost family members in a drunk-driving accident—from the Governor’s mansion.

The painting, hung over the mantel, was intended to remind state leaders of the people they represent. Scott Walker and his wife Tonette replaced it with a portrait of Old Abe, a Civil War-era bald eagle from Wisconsin.

Si Se Puede

2011-05-24T08:11:00.003-05:00

May Day March for Labor and Immigrants Rights

When is the last time you’ve been in a situation that gave you goose bumps? This May Day, my friends and I joined a Labor/Immigrants Rights march, and I felt that electric feeling the entire time. We road the bus down to Bayview to join the starting point outside of the Latino community center. I didn’t know what to expect, and frankly, thought not many people would be making the 2.5 miles march to the lakefront and would opt instead to meet there for the schedule speakers (including the head of the AFL-CIO).

Was I wrong. We rounded the corner to a throng of people milling around a 3 city block radius. Signs colored the entire landscape, with every other person hoisting the now iconic red and blue Wisconsin fist poster. Speakers were addressing the crowds, speaking in Spanish so I really couldn’t tell what was happening. And before long, we started to march. Everyone was chanting in unison, mostly Spanish phrases like ‘si se puede!’ It was a great feeling to be the fish out of water – I couldn’t understand a thing, and I didn’t look like the people around me, but that didn’t matter. Everyone’s hearts were in the same place! It was energetic yet peaceful, with lots of families with strollers, teenagers, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, etc.

So we marched. We marched through downtown Milwaukee, with signs and chants and a sea of people shoulder to shoulder filling up at least 3 full city blocks. And when we got to the lakefront, the crowd paused and pooled together in order to make a unified entrance to the event. And it was truly chilling. We somehow found ourselves in front of this march, looking backwards at the mass of people with a large sign reading “Solidarity March” acting as the billboard for the people behind it. Words really don’t do a thing like this justice. But luckily, I took video! (Posted below).

I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. It was a great feeling to be apart of something that seemed so authentic and real. It’s not an article on HuffPost, it’s not a petition email from the ACLU, and it’s not an exasperated comment below a Facebook
update. It was real people making a real presence. People getting out of their houses and joining together and standing up for themselves and what they believe in. Power to the people! Power to the working class! Hateful politicians and greedy corporations will not be allowed to marginalize the masses. Si se puede!

*******
Here is a link to a video I took of the march ascending on veteran's park.

Politics: The People vs. Goldman Sachs

2011-05-17T14:20:00.004-05:00

This article is great, and required reading if you want to hold court in any conversation related to the country's financial status.

I also want to say - Matt Taibbi is one of my favorite people in the world. Sorry, everyone else I know. This guy is doing the work. Plus, he's a great writer in and of itself, with lines like "a satanic derivative structure." I just like that he used such a strong adjective - he's following in Hunter S's footsteps, and at Rolling Stone, no less.

******************************************************************************

"They were $13 billion short. That's big — 50 percent of their risk. It was so completely disproportionate."

Lloyd Blankfein went to Washington and testified under oath that Goldman Sachs didn't make a massive short bet and didn't bet against its clients. The Levin report proves that Goldman spent the whole summer of 2007 riding a "big short" and took a multibillion-dollar bet against its clients, a bet that incidentally made them enormous profits. Are we all missing something? Is there some different and higher standard of triple- and quadruple-lying that applies to bank CEOs but not to baseball players?

A DARLING PARTY

2011-05-07T09:06:00.004-05:00

As some of you may know, Wisconsin has been engaged in a number of recall efforts on the heels of Scott Walker's union busting legislation. Recalls are focusing on the Republican Senators who helped force through the bill with no debate or room for negotiations. (I know most media outlets make it sound like there are equal recall efforts for Democratic Senators too. In actuality, there might be small groups pushing it, but it’s a snowballs chance, and not in line with the true pulse of the Wisconsin people.)

Since debate and negotiation were taken off the table during the drafting of and crooked passing of this legislation, this has left the thousands of Wisconsinites with no other recourse but to recall their local Senators and force a new election. With even life-long Republicans feeling betrayed by their party, this bill strikes at the knees of the working class values Wisconsin has long stood for, and people of all stripes are now out in droves collecting signatures in order to tell these Republican Senators that they no longer represent their constituency.

Close to Milwaukee, Republican Senator Alberta Darling has been the focus of these recall efforts. Dedicated volunteers have been collecting signatures and putting the word out with signs, stickers and all means of localized communication. With the submission deadline for the recall signatures looming, the Recall Alberta Darling campaign put together a benefit event to help seal the efforts. But with so much momentum, the rally turned into a celebration, having collected and submitted the signatures needed a week early.

Held at the new bar Riverwest Public House, the nation's second non-profit/cooperative bar, people poured in early Friday evening. Braving the rain and forgoing Good Friday traditions, people came to celebrate the campaign with speeches, music, and a display of the signs and banners collected from the historic Madison Capitol protests. A truly diverse crowd, this hipster neighborhood bar was not only filled with the prototypical Friday night crowd, but at least half the crowd were older, blue-collar men and woman who probably haven’t been to a Friday night rock show in decades, if ever.

Channel 12 News made an appearance, with their anchorman rushing past the volunteers collecting the cover charge (a.k.a. my friend & I) in order to survey the room. To my knowledge, the event never made the air. (I’m sure more important things than a grassroots political upheaval were happening in this sleepy city that night, maybe a sale at Macy's or a golf tournament announcement.)

Overall, the night was a big success. Filled to capacity, the event was well orchestrated with a great line up of speakers (including Democrat Senator Chris Larson and Ruth Conniff, writer for the Progressive), several Milwaukee bands, and 88.9 DJ Dori Zori ending the night with a vivacious dance party. It was a another positive milestone in the labor movement, with the individuals who made the recall happen joining together as a group and celebrating the fruits of collective action. Solidarity!

Milwaukee, We Have a Problem

2011-03-21T21:01:00.004-05:00

Back from Houston. Modern travel is really amazing, I don't think our minds or bodies have fully evolved to it yet. Jet lag is one thing, which is interesting. But just the fish out of water feeling I've had stepping off the plane from cold Milwaukee and feeling the humidity that was so unfamiliar. Having to mentally switch gears to wearing less, seeing sunshine, the mindset that goes along with being in the middle of summer. And now I'm back and its gray and its like that never happened. But Spring is here, right?

Jet Lag May Cause Stupidty

"SAN DIEGO — In addition to making you groggy and dazed, jet lag may make you stupid. A study presented November 15 at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting finds that hamsters suffering extreme, chronic jet lag had about half the normal rate of new neuron birth in a part of the brain. What’s more, these animals showed deficits in learning and memory."

2011-03-19T17:22:00.003-05:00

Ahhh - Houston! I just dropped a bag full of tequila and hot sauce. It shattered all over the sidewalk.

At least it wasn't this: $130.00 hot sauce. Who knew!

Rodeo!

2011-03-18T18:35:00.003-05:00

We went to the Houston Rodeo on Friday night. Apparently, it's the world's largest (although Vegas has bigger cash prizes). As far as food and vendors goes, unless we missed a section, it wasn't that big. But my comparison is the Wisconsin State Fair, one of the greatest things I did last year (ahem, chocolate covered bacon, cream puffs, etc.). But the actual rodeo itself was awesome. It was inside the Astrodome, which is pretty huge. It always amazes me to be around that many people in one space, and just look at one of the small sections and think: that is like my entire hometown. As if all 6,000 people got off their couches and gathered in one area. Times ten.

The greatest event was when the cowboys chase after a steer, jump off their horse onto the steer and try to wrestle it to the ground. They literal body slam the poor things. And whoever does that the fastest wins.

Now those cowboys are cool, but the rodeo clowns are the most impressive. They jump in front of the bulls when the riders get thrown, so that the bulls don't attack them. They dive right in front of the bulls face! Just to distract them and save the riders lives. It was pretty awesome.

And last but not least, here's the cutest thing that happened. They had little kids, maybe 5 years old, ride on sheep to see who can go the farthest. They just hold onto their necks for dear life as they trot across the floor. So this little girl wins, she's decked out in little pink cowgirl gear, and the announcer goes to interview her afterwards. She says to the little girl, how did you learn to do this? And the girl is shy, and so pulls the announcer in so she can whisper in her ear the answer. And what does she say? "I practiced on my daddy." It was so cute I nearly cried!

yeehaw.

Marchin' on Madison

2011-03-16T22:34:00.007-05:00

It's been a few days now since the monumental March on Madison this past Saturday. I'll let the pictures below tell a thousand more words. But overall, I just want to say I'm extremely disappointed by the lack of coverage in the mainstream media. Disappointed, but not shocked. Estimates were 100,000 people gathered that day - when is the last time that has happened in an American city? In the grounded, middle of the road Midwest?

And the gathering was so inspiring and peaceful. It wasn't centered on any celebrity or rebel rouser. It was really about the people that made up the protest itself - as I said about the smaller Milwaukee protest, people from all walks of life.

This isn't just about Scott Walker. It's not about the deficit, because any idiot knows that the bargaining rights of the union had nothing to do with that. And anyone with the smallest bit of inference ability can realize that money is being spent in other areas that grease the palms of the powers that be.

This really is about class warfare. That's what the general feeling on the streets was, as we circled round and round the capitol building. Average people have been screwed by the wealthy for too long and this union busting bill is a last shot that broke open a lot of frustration by a lot of good, hard-working people.

Today's Letter is C is for Crowds

2011-03-14T21:36:00.004-05:00

It's Monday and I'm still very tired from the weekend. I went to Madison on Saturday to take part in the union protests. I really want to write a great summary of it - I haven't seen anything in the media so far that has truly done the occasion justice - but after a long day of writing at work, and a long weekend of hanging around, I can't muster the strength.

Here's 2 of my favorite photos for now......

Something Stirring in Wisconsin

2011-03-10T22:04:00.005-06:00

There's something in the air here in Wisconsin right now. I got the news of the bill passing last night as I opened up my computer at the Coin, where I was meeting a friend to do some work. First I heard was from an email from the Milwaukee IndyMedia mailing list I signed up for years ago now. I think that's indicative of how news is traveling - about this ongoing polical struggle, and of course, in this new digital empowered age as well. It's links and who you "know" in your personal cybernetwork. Not necessarily from the spigot of direct news outlets.

After work tonight, I went to meet the same friends at the rally at the Milwaukee Courthouse. There were about a hundred people there I would say (I'll also say I'm worse than Fox News at trying to guesstimate crowds. I never know how to gauge that sort of thing). Diverse crowd of young and old, kids to grandparents, college looking kids, granola looking couples, laborers and teachers. A lot of people had signs, of course; reading the signs is one of my favorite things about a rally. Jesse Jackson was supposed to be there, but at about 5:45pm he was still on route from Madison. People were taking turns giving short speeches on the microphone that was set up on the courthouse steps, overlooking the small yard and central fountain.

Now I like signs, but I really love speeches. I love speeches, I have to say it again. It's one of my favorite things in the whole world - a great speech is equal to some of my favorite songs. They can be like songs - and some people tonight were actually signing. But overall, it was impassioned people telling their story and speaking to and summarizing the zeitgeist as they saw it. I wish this would happen all the time.

My friend ended up speaking as well. When Cori and I realized Eric was going to go up - we were standing in the grass and he had been to the right of the microphone, about ten feet back, just holding a sign in the sidelines that said something like "Recall Darling - Ask Me How." He is volunteering for the Alberta Darling recall campaign, and had a petition we had put together at the bar last night. Anyway, when we realized he was going to say something, it was great. We were laughing and instantly became nervous for him because he had some big acts to follow. He did a great job though - I'll post the video.

So what I'm saying is, this is great. I love it. I'm going to Madison on Saturday - I made that decision last weekend, and am now more excited than ever to participate in this historic unfolding.

But what I think is the most amazing thing I've seen so far is this footage from the lone Democratic Senator during the bill passing last night. His exasperation is so palpable. The way the capitol exploded with chants of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" I just have to laugh at the Republicans as they sat at that table, silent, becoming palm bearers in one of the most tragic chapters of American Democracy. And you can just tell they're so scared to break party lines and actually have to make some decisions for themselves if they want to follow their conscious. It's funny because its so disgusting, it's laugh or squirm with awkwardness at how uncomfortable it is to watch someone lose their integrity like that.

But the Democratic Senator - wow, that was his time to shine and he took it. Repeating the law, looking so shocked that the other members were literally ignoring it. It's like all legitimacy to what they were doing was swept away, the smoke cleared, and here he is realizing that there was nothing to stop it. The smoke screen of democracy blown away. He did his best, he gave a great address to the people of Wisconsin after the Republican storms off. And how much more American does it get than him washing it all down with a gas station glass of soda. Ha.

Walker, We Will Recall You

2011-03-09T19:34:00.003-06:00

I saw these posters on the storefront on Brady Street tonight. I think they're great examples of the arty, independent and involved spirit of the people of Milwaukee and abound.

As I sit here tonight, we're finding out that Walker pulled some shady manuevering to ram the union-busting bill through. So much for civility and debate. The people are in this now, and you can't match the creativity and will of the committed - no matter how many Koch Brothers dollars you have in the world. This isn't over!

As MM said, good luck: you've woken the sleeping giant.

Anti-government protests around the world (big photo gallery)

2011-02-23T12:51:00.000-06:00

Chrissie Wellington interview: The iron lady

2011-01-02T15:47:00.001-06:00

"Chrissie Wellington did not even discover sport until her early twenties. Now, the civil servant from rural Norfolk is the greatest female endurance athlete on the planet. Here, she describes the sacrifices she has made for ironman triathlon and why they are all worthwhile"

Kids write Santa this year for basic needs instead of toys

2010-12-15T17:47:00.001-06:00

USA Today: "Santa Claus and his elves are seeing more heartbreaking letters this year as children cite their parents' economic troubles in their wish lists.
U.S. Postal Service workers who handle letters addressed to Santa at the North Pole say more letters ask for basics — coats, socks and shoes — rather than Barbie dolls, video games and computers.

At New York City's main post office, Head Elf Pete Fontana and 22 staff elves will sort 2 million letters in Operation Santa, which connects needy children with "Secret Santas" who answer their wishes.

Fontana, a customer relations coordinator for the Postal Service, has been head elf for 15 years.

"The need is greater this year than I've ever seen it," he says. "One little girl didn't want anything for herself. She wanted a winter coat for her mother.""

2010-12-11T09:36:00.001-06:00

Duct-tape crimes: ‘There, I Fixed It’ taps our inner MacGyvers

2010-12-10T07:21:00.002-06:00

A wise man (or woman) once said: “All of life’s problems can be solved with two things — duct tape and WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn’t, you need duct tape. And if it doesn’t move and it should, you need WD-40.”
If this quote speaks to you on any level, you may already be a fan of There, I Fixed It, a blog that harnesses photographic evidence of ingenious do-it-yourselfers gone wild.
More about Home & Garden
Move over, man caves: Moms want ’em, too
Small projects to spruce up your home
Martha Stewart shares her top 50 kitchen tips
Video: Interior decorating myths debunked
Is that staph on your sweater? 10 germ hideouts
It’s a site worth visiting at this time of year as you hunt down the perfect present for that weekend warrior on your gift list. After perusing photos of, say, a car engine’s air intake hose replaced by a Pringles can, or a water pipe repaired with a dog chew toy and a C-clamp, you might opt to get your DIY-er a nice, safe fruitcake instead of a new set of tools.
There, I Fixed It is part of the ever-growing Cheezburger Network, a collection of sites beloved by Web surfers who adore a) zany humor, b) zany photos and c) photo-caption-writing contests. The network includes I Can Has Cheezburger? (funny cat photos), I Has a Hotdog (funny dog photos) and FAIL Blog (funny photos of, well, complete and utter failures).

http://thereifixedit.failblog.org/
This fix-it job appeared under the headline, "Good news is you can never get rear-ended."
At the helm of the network is Ben Huh, a 33-year-old Seattle resident who knows how to tap into the general mood of the Internet at any given moment in time. He said There, I Fixed It works because it touches people’s everyday lives.
“People think to themselves, ‘I thought about doing that, but I didn’t actually do it,’ ” Huh said. “It’s actually kind of genius, but in a horrific way.”
Brilliant — and dangerous
All of the photos that run on the site (and on other Cheezburger sites) are submitted by users. They get screened by living, breathing employees who make sure they’re appropriate for online publication, and then the community of users takes over. Users vote for their favorite images and determine which ones appear on the home page.
Gallery: THAT’S how you fixed it?? (on this page)
Huh has a staff of about 50 people overseeing more than 40 sites, which, combined, get 16.5 million unique visitors a month. His growing company relies on Web advertising, and it also makes money from sales of books, T-shirts and other merchandise.

Cheezburger Network
Ben Huh, 33, has an uncanny ability to tap into the general mood of the Internet.
FAIL Blog is the Cheezburger Network’s most popular site, and next up is I Can Has Cheezburger. There, I Fixed It is another biggie for the company; Huh said it gets millions of page views each month.
He said the fix-it photos that come pouring in each day never cease to fascinate.
“Some of the simple ones are kind of genius, but kind of dangerous,” Huh said. “This one person had wired an LCD TV on top of their showerhead. It’s kind of ingenious in that it’s not going to get wet — but do you really need to watch TV that badly?”

Google News Politics: Anti Sarah Palin Post Gets Google Censorship Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=77695#ixzz1

2010-11-27T17:04:00.000-06:00

Yep. You read that correctly: "Google News Politics: Anti Sarah Palin Post Gets Google Censorship." That's another way of saying this blogger's Zennie62.com blog was not included in Google News after a blog post called "Will Sarah Palin Ever Shut Up?"

Prior to Friday, November 19th, when that post, and others on Zennie62 for that day were included on Google News, then taken off and moved to Google Blog Search, Zennie62.com had become a major presence on Google News, outperforming many news sites, and showing a way toward a positive future for media that can be done by anyone. A truly democratic effort. But what's Google News?

Google News is a news aggregator that places the "news of the day" from news websites, blogs, and now videos, into categories for content consumption by people like you and me. It was created by Google Google's principal scientist Krishna Bharat, and launched September 2002.

According to the Online Journalism Review, Krishna's objective was to create a news portal that helped sort through the "flood" of information produced online after September 11, 2001.

In 2003, Krishna said that Google News was "a force for democracy."

Yeah. Right.

Unfortunately, given the way this blogger was handled this week, that's not true at all in 2010.

Google News has evolved to become a force for censorship, a protector of traditional news sites against the dreaded independent blogs and bloggers like me, and a breakwater against harsh, muckraking criticism of the high-and-mighty named Sarah Palin. Google News is starting to look more like a dictatorship than a representation of democratic America.

If I post on SFGate.com, that's a traditional news site, but having the same post at Zennie62.com, suddenly became an issue for Google News after my deliberately controversial attack on the PR system that's pushing Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at an unwilling public. Now, the Zennie62.com blogger's stepped out of his "place" and here's Google News to push him back there.

To repeat, Sarah Palin is pushed by Fox News, CNN, and even MSNBC, and television shows like Dancing With The Stars at an American public, thousands of times a day on a daily basis. That, coupled with Palin's recent comments that she's considering running against President Obama in 2012, make it look as if we're being "primed" to "accept" the idea of Palin as President. Or, to go a step further, America's being brainwashed to accept the idea.

Just a search on Google News for Sarah Palin today, Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010 at 9:45 PM EST reveals posts on her, her daughter Bristol, and a quarter-page below three conservative blogs, Red State (on Google News?), NewsBusters, and PowerLine. Liberal blog competitors are nowhere to be seen at all.

But go over to Google Blog Search and search for Sarah Palin, and the Liberal blogs appear: The Daily Beast, TMZ.com, Palinfacts.com, and VF Daily, to name a few, all with negative posts about Sarah Palin's new TV show Sarah Palin's America. Hey, Zennie62.com is there as well, now. (All the Liberal blogs together in the basement! Let's party!)

Why are The Daily Beast and VF Daily not on Google News? That's news in itself.

But the overall finding that Liberal blogs have been banished to Google Blog Search, and Conservative blogs are visible on Google News is alarming. So much for Google News being Krishna's "Force for Democracy."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=77695#ixzz16WjsIpUw

Robert Reich (The Perfect Storm)

2010-10-19T00:20:00.000-05:00

Robert Reich (The Perfect Storm): "It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans.

The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us.

Who are these people? With the exception of a few entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, they’re top executives of big corporations and Wall Street, hedge-fund managers, and private equity managers. They include the Koch brothers, whose wealth increased by billions last year, and who are now funding tea party candidates across the nation.

Which gets us to the second part of the perfect storm. A relatively few Americans are buying our democracy as never before. And they’re doing it completely in secret.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into advertisements for and against candidates — without a trace of where the dollars are coming from. They’re laundered through a handful of groups. Fred Maleck, whom you may remember as deputy director of Richard Nixon’s notorious Committee to Reelect the President (dubbed Creep in the Watergate scandal), is running one of them. Republican operative Karl Rove runs another. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a third.

Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made

2010-10-14T20:59:00.000-05:00

PhysOrg: "Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet, a study by University of Manchester scientists has strongly suggested.

The study of remains and literature from ancient Egypt and Greece and earlier periods – carried out at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and published in Nature Reviews Cancer – includes the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy.
Finding only one case of the disease in the investigation of hundreds of Egyptian mummies, with few references to cancer in literary evidence, proves that cancer was extremely rare in antiquity. The disease rate has risen massively since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer – proving that the rise is not simply due to people living longer.
Professor Rosalie David, at the Faculty of Life Sciences, said: “In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.”
She added: “The important thing about our study is that it gives a historical perspective to this disease. We can make very clear statements on the cancer rates in societies because we have a full overview. We have looked at millennia, not one hundred years, and have masses of data.”"

At 113 degrees, downtown L.A. hits all-time record high

2010-09-27T16:38:00.000-05:00

LA Times: "It's not just you. Monday turned out to be the hottest day ever recorded -- at least in downtown L.A.
At 12:15 p.m., the weather station at USC hit the 113-degree mark, breaking the old all-time high of 112 set on June 26, 1990.
It makes Monday the hottest day ever since records in downtown L.A. started being kept in 1877, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service.
Seto said the record was impressive, "especially after such a cool summer."
As of noon, Weather.com reported that Santa Monica had hit 106, West Hollywood was at 111, and Long Beach was at 107.
The National Weather Service warned of extreme heat and red-flag fire dangers Monday. A small fire broke out in Ladera Heights but was quickly put out. Another small brush fire was contained Sunday night in South Pasadena.
On the energy front, California consumers were expected to use more than 45,000 megawatts by peak afternoon hours, said Gregg Fishman, a spokesman for Cal-ISO, which coordinates power for 85% of the state's grid. "

Baltimore honors late rocker Frank Zappa with bust

2010-09-20T06:57:00.002-05:00

BALTIMORE — Rocker Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore but gained greater popular acclaim in Europe than in the United States. On Sunday, devout European fans of the late musician brought his mustachioed likeness back home in the form of a bronze bust.
Several hundred fans gathered on a sweltering afternoon as city officials dedicated the bust of the ponytailed rocker outside an east Baltimore library. The bust is a replica of another in a public square in Vilnius, Lithuania, and was donated to the city by Zappa enthusiasts in the small Baltic nation.
"The spirit of Frank Zappa is alive and well in Baltimore," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.
The mayor joined Zappa's widow, Gail, and three of his grown children in watching as a curtain was drawn back to reveal the bust set atop a 12-foot steel pole. Later, Zappa's son, Dweezil, took the stage with his tribute band, Zappa Plays Zappa.

Zappa was known for everything from novelty rock songs to elaborate classical compositions. He died of prostate cancer in 1993 at 52.
Sunday's ceremony marked the 25th anniversary of Zappa's testimony before Congress on freedom of expression for recording artists, though the scheduling was coincidental. Zappa had testified against proposed warning labels about lyrical content, calling them a path to censorshiop.

speaks for itself

2010-09-01T20:03:00.001-05:00

DRAMATIC DRIFTWOOD WASHES ASHORE

2010-08-16T03:28:00.002-05:00

This huge piece of driftwood washed up on the beach at La Push, a small community in Clallam County, Washington.

La Push, surrounded by the lush forest of the Olympic National Park, is located on the northwest coast of Washington’s most westerly peninsula, at the mouth of the Quillayute River.

The tree is a Sequoia Semper Virens, or Costal Redwood, only grown in Monterey, California.

It would have travelled hundreds of miles before being washed up on the beach at La Push.

Suit alleges Disney, other top sites spied on users

2010-08-14T21:54:00.000-05:00

A lawsuit filed in federal court last week alleges that a group of well-known Web sites, including those owned by Disney, Warner Bros. Records, and Demand Media, broke the law by covertly tracking the Web movements of their users, including children.

Attorneys representing a group of minors and their parents filed the suit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, records show. The suit alleges that Clearspring Technologies, a software company that creates widgets and also offers a way to serve ads via widgets, is at the center of the wrongdoing.
Web site operators such as Disney, Playlist.com, and SodaHead are "Clearspring Flash Cookie Affiliates," the plaintiffs allege in their suit. Clearspring set "Flash cookies on (affiliate site) users' computers...online tracking device(s) which would allow access to and disclosure of Internet users' online activities."
The Web sites working with Clearspring knew users weren't just tracked at sites owned by affiliates, but were followed without their knowledge wherever they went online, the defendants wrote in their suit.
Clearspring and Disney representatives were not immediately available for comment Saturday. A representative for Warner Music Group, parent company of Warner Bros. Records, declined to comment.
A similar lawsuit was filed last month against Clearspring rival Quantcast, as well as a host of that company's clients, including ABC and NBC. The same law firms that filed that suit--Parisi & Havens, and the Law Office of Joseph Malley--were responsible for filing the recent complaint.
All the news lately about Web privacy--or the lack thereof--is enough to make anyone paranoid about logging on. The Wall Street Journal recently published an expose on Web privacy and concluded that "one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet...is the business of spying on Internet users." And we've seen controversies over privacy at Google and at Facebook. While Congress is looking into improving privacy protections for Web users, it would seem some people are going to take up the issue in court.
The suit against Clearspring was filed on the same day that researchers from UC Berkeley issued a report on how more than half of the Internet's best known Web sites use Adobe's Flash technology to surreptitiously gather information about their users, according to a report in Wired.com.

Man Scrawls World’s Biggest Message With GPS ‘Pen’

2010-08-14T21:36:00.007-05:00

One man drove 12,238 miles across 30 states to scrawl a message that can only be viewed using Google Earth. His big shoutout: “Read Ayn Rand.”

Nick Newcomen did a road trip over 30 days that covered stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. First, he identified on a map the route he would need to drive to spell out the message. He put a GPS device in his car to trace the route he would follow. Then, he hit the road.

“The main reason I did it is because I am an Ayn Rand fan,” he says. “In my opinion if more people would read her books and take her ideas seriously, the country and world would be a better place — freer, more prosperous and we would have a more optimistic view of the future.”

Newcomen, unlike previous GPS artists, actually traveled the lines he traced on the map. He used a GPS logger (Qstarz BT-Q1000X) to “ink” the message. Starting his trip in Marshall, Texas, he turned on the device when he wanted to write a letter and turned off the device between letters. The recorded GPS data was loaded into Google Earth to produce the image above.

“The first word I wrote actually was the word ‘Rand’, then I went up North to do the word ‘Read’ and finished it with ‘Ayn,’” says Newcomen.

Breath test may be able to detect common cancers

2010-08-11T06:08:00.000-05:00

An "electronic nose" could be used as a simple breath test to detect lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancers, Israeli scientists said Wednesday.
Using the sensor to pinpoint chemical variations, the team found they could not only distinguish between healthy and malignant breath but also identify the four different common tumor types.
While more work is needed to develop the technology, the early success could lead to the development of a cheap, easy-to-use and portable test to help diagnose cancer earlier.
"If we can confirm these initial results in large-scale studies, this new technology could become a simple tool for early diagnosis of cancer along with imaging," said Abraham Kuten of Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
Kuten and his colleagues studied the breath of 177 people -- some healthy and some with various types of cancer -- to detect the different chemicals emitted from the surface of cancer cells as they grow.

'I Write Like' Website Goes Viral, Authors Bewildered

2010-07-17T13:18:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK — For anyone who has ever thought Charles Dickens was lurking inside his or her prose, a new website claims it can find your inner author.

The recently launched I Write Like has one simple gimmick: You paste a few paragraphs that exemplify your writing, then click "analyze" and – poof! – you get a badge telling you that you write like Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway or Chuck Palahniuk.

The site's traffic has soared in recent days and its arrival has lit up the blogosphere. Gawker tried a transcript from one of the leaked Mel Gibson phone calls. The suggested author: Margaret Atwood.

The New Yorker found that an invitation to a birthday party was James Joycean. Many others were aghast to discover they wrote similarly to "The Da Vinci Code" scribe Dan Brown.

The New York Times tried putting in actual novels, such as "Moby-Dick." Herman Melville, it turns out, writes less like himself than King, according to I Write Like.

Atwood, herself, tried the site only to discover she also apparently writes like King. "Who knew?" she tweeted.

Obviously, I Write Like isn't an exact science. But simply the idea of an algorithm that can reveal traces of influence in writing has proven wildly popular.

Though the site might seem the idle dalliance of an English professor on summer break, it was created by Dmitry Chestnykh, a 27-year-old Russian software programmer currently living in Montenegro. Though he speaks English reasonably well, it's his second language.

"I wanted it to be an educational thing and also to help people write better," he said.

Chestnykh modeled the site on software for e-mail spam filters. This means that the site's text analysis is largely keyword based. Even if you write in short, declarative, Hemingwayesque sentences, its your word choice that may determine your comparison.

Most writers will tell you, though, that the most telling signs of influence come from punctuation, rhythm and structure. I Write Like does account for some elements of style by things such as number of words per sentence.

Chestnykh has uploaded works by about 50 authors – three books for each, he said. That, too, explains some of its shortcomings. Melville, for example, isn't in the system.

But Chestnykh never expected the sudden success of the site and he plans to improve its accuracy by including more books and adding a probability percentage for each result. He hopes it can eventually be profitable.

"I think that people really like to know how they write, even if it's not accurate results," said Chestnykh. "Still it's fun for them."

It's easy to find a laugh. Obama's Oval Office speech in June? David Foster Wallace. Lady Gaga's lyrics to "Alejandro"? William Shakespeare.

Whatever the deficiencies of I Write Like, it does exude a love of writing and its many techniques. The site's blog updates with inspiring quotations from writers, and Chestnykh – whose company, Coding Robots, is also working on blog editing and diary writing software – shows a love of literature. He counts Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Agatha Christie among his favorites.

"I had a typewriter when I was 6 years old," he said. "But I'm not a published writer and I don't think I write very good."

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

2010-07-14T06:21:00.001-05:00

It is an age-old riddle that has perplexed generations: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Now British scientists claim to have finally come up with the definitive answer: The chicken.
The scientific and philosophical mystery was purportedly unraveled by researchers at Sheffield and Warwick universities, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.
The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken.
The protein speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential in protecting the delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.
"It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.
"The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," he said.

NASA delivers Mars in high definition

2010-07-13T06:54:00.003-05:00

A virtual rendering of the planet Mars, provided by the WorldWide Telescope program, is centered on Arsia Mons, one of the suggested targets for a human mission to the Red Planet.
NASA is partnering with Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope to offer half a billion high-resolution images of Red Planet sights, ranging from past rover tracks to future landing zones for Mars-bound astronauts. The collaboration is part of NASA’s public-private strategy for making cosmic imagery more widely available to students and space fans.
"We want to have this be an example of what public outreach means ... not just putting things up on a website, but really connecting with an audience," Chris Kemp, chief technology officer for information technology at NASA Headquarters, told me today.
"Our hope is that this inspires the next generation of explorers to continue the scientific discovery process," Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said in today's announcement about the project.
The virtual Mars database was unveiled today at a gathering for researchers at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash. (Microsoft and NBC Universal are partners in the msnbc.com joint venture.) It's now available as part of the latest version of the WorldWide Telescope as well as WWT's Web-based client.
The good stuff includes a new series of Mars-themed guided tours, narrated by a couple of NASA's best-known Marsologists, Carol Stoker and Jim Garvin. Stoker's tour addresses the question"Is there life on Mars?" and focuses on the findings of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. Garvin traces the three geological ages of Mars (Noachian, Hesperian and Amazonian) and points out three of the leading sites for future human missions to Mars:
• Jezero Crater in Nili Fossae, which provides a window on the Noachian age, when water is thought to have flowed freely on Mars.
• Mangala Valles, whose channels may record the transition between that ancient warm, wet planet and the current cold, dry world.
• Arsia Mons, one of Mars' giant shield volcanoes, which is the site of glacial deposits as well as caves that could provide a haven for human visitors.
You can zoom in on high-resolution views of the planet, fly over mountains and craters and touch down for a virtual landing on the Martian surface. "The new Mars experience allows people to feel as though they're actually there," Dan Fay, director of Microsoft Research's Earth, Energy and Environment effort, said in a NASA news feature.
The dataset includes 13,000 gigapixel-scale images from the main camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, known as the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment or HiRISE for short. Those giga-images are blended with 74,000 images from an earlier probe, Mars Global Surveyor, then broken down into mosaics that comprise a half-billion smaller pictures.

India fights surge in honor killings

2010-07-10T06:43:00.000-05:00

KODERMA, India — When Nirupama Pathak left this remote mining region for graduate school in New Delhi, she seemed to be leaving the old India for the new. Her parents paid her tuition and did not resist when she wanted to choose her own career. But choosing a husband was another matter.
Her family was Brahmin, the highest Hindu caste, and when Ms. Pathak, 22, announced she was secretly engaged to a young man from a caste lower than hers, her family began pressing her to change her mind. They warned of social ostracism and accused her of defiling their religion.
Days after Ms. Pathak returned home in late April, she was found dead in her bedroom. The police have arrested her mother, Sudha Pathak, on suspicion of murder, while the family contends that the death was a suicide.
The postmortem report revealed another unexpected element to the case: Ms. Pathak was pregnant.
“One thing is absolutely clear,” said Prashant Bhushan, a social activist and lawyer now advising Ms. Pathak’s fiancé. “Her family was trying their level best to prevent her from marrying that boy. The pressure was such that either she was driven to suicide or she was killed.”
In India, where the tension between traditional and modern mores reverberates throughout society, Ms. Pathak’s death comes amid an apparent resurgence of so-called honor killings against couples who breach Hindu marriage traditions.
This week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ordered a cabinet-level commission to consider tougher penalties in honor killings.
In June, India’s Supreme Court sent notices to seven Indian states, as well as to the national government, seeking responses about what was being done to address the problem.
The phenomenon of honor killings is most prevalent in some northern states, especially Haryana, where village caste councils, or khap panchayats, often operate as an extralegal morals police force, issuing edicts against couples who marry outside their caste or who marry within the same village — considered a religious violation since villages are often regarded as extended families.
Even as the court system has sought to curb these councils, politicians have hesitated, since the councils often control significant vote blocs in local elections.
New cases of killings or harassment appear in the Indian news media almost every week. Last month, the police arrested three men for the honor killings of a couple in New Delhi who had married outside their castes, as well as the murder of a woman who eloped with a man from another caste.
Two of the suspects are accused of murdering their sisters, and an uncle of the slain couple spoke of their murders as justifiable.
“What is wrong in it?” the uncle, Dharmaveer Nagar, told the Indian news media. “Murder is wrong, but this is socially the best thing that has been done.”
An ancient attitude
Intercaste marriages are protected under Indian law, yet social attitudes remain largely resistant. In a 2006 survey cited in a United Nations report, 76 percent of respondents deemed the practice unacceptable. An overwhelming majority of Hindu couples continue to marry within their castes, and newspapers are filled with marital advertisements in which parents, seeking to arrange a marriage for a son or daughter, specify caste among lists of desired attributes like profession and educational achievement.
“This is part and parcel of our culture, that you marry into your own caste,” said Dharmendra Pathak, the father of Ms. Pathak, during an interview in his home. “Every society has its own culture. Every society has its own traditions.”
Yet Indian society is also rapidly changing, with a new generation more likely to mix with people from different backgrounds as young people commingle on college campuses or in the workplace.
Ms. Pathak had studied journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass Communications in New Delhi before taking a job at a financial newspaper. At school, she had met Priyabhanshu Ranjan, a top student whose family was from a middle-upper caste, the Kayastha.
“The day I proposed, she said, ‘My family will not accept this. My family is very conservative,’ ” Mr. Ranjan recalled. “I used to try to convince her that once we got married, they would accept it.”
Ms. Pathak deliberated over the proposal for months before accepting in early 2009. Convinced her family would disapprove, she kept her engagement a secret for more than a year, until she learned that her father was interviewing prospective Brahmin grooms in New Delhi to arrange a marriage for her. Her parents were also renovating the family home for a wedding celebration.

Annual "Mud Day" Celebration Lets Kids Get Dirty

2010-07-07T21:59:00.004-05:00

Rachael Natiw (L), age 12, of Canton, Michigan, and her friend Alyssa Braun, age 12, of Canton, relax in a giant lake of mud at the annual Mud Day celebration July 8, 2008 in Westland, Michigan. Sponsored by the Wayne County Parks Department, the event consists of 200 tons of topsoil mixed with 20,000 gallons of water, and about 1000 children 12 and under.

Indians 'Shocked,' 'Offended' By Joel Stein's TIME Article

2010-07-04T19:23:00.000-05:00

Joel Stein says he was going for humor in his opinion piece, "My Own Private India," which ran in Monday's TIME Magazine. But the Indian-American community — members of which serve as the butt of many of Stein's jokes — aren't laughing.

Stein's piece focuses on the cultural changes immigration has brought to his hometown of Edison, N.J. since he grew up there in the 1970's and 80's:

"I am very much in favor of immigration everywhere in the U.S. except Edison, N.J. The mostly white suburban town I left when I graduated from high school in 1989 — the town that was called Menlo Park when Thomas Alva Edison set up shop there and was later renamed in his honor — has become home to one of the biggest Indian communities in the U.S., as familiar to people in India as how to instruct stupid Americans to reboot their Internet routers....

For a while, we assumed all Indians were geniuses. Then, in the 1980s, the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins, and we were no longer so sure about the genius thing. In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.
Stein's cracks are not exclusively directed at Indian immigrants — he pokes fun at himself and his (presumably white) childhood friends:

"The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas," wrote Mr. Stein. "The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime."
Several organizations have responded with outrage, criticizing TIME's decision to publish the article. For example, the advocacy group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) issued a statement and online petition in response to Stein's piece.

"Most offensive is his remarkably blasé tone about the discrimination and hate crimes that targeted the New Jersey South Asian Community during the 1980s," the SAALT statement reads.

Both Stein and TIME have issued online apologies, saying they never intended to offend readers.

TIME statement:
We sincerely regret that any of our readers were upset by Joel Stein's recent humor column "My Own Private India." It was in no way intended to cause offense.

The Curious Case of Bill Murray

2010-06-30T21:40:00.002-05:00

In a feature story in this week’s issue, Entertainment Weekly asks Bill Murray about his elusive, unpredictable ways and uncovers exactly what it takes for filmmakers to get him into their movies nowadays.
Bill Murray is Hollywood’s White Whale. There have always been sightings of the enigmatic actor, and a generation of young filmmakers came in to the biz with the Quixotic dream of eventually landing him for their passion projects. Wes Anderson (Rushmore) pulled it off. So did Sofia Coppola—though it took her months to get him to call her back before he even read Lost in Translation. Today, in lieu of an agent or publicist, Murray makes do with a 1-800 number, where producers, studio heads, and journalists can leave their messages at the beep. “Getting in touch with Bill Murray remains one of life’s greatest mysteries,” says Rob Burnett, executive producer of Late Show with David Letterman. “The plus/minus on that return call can be anywhere from 24 hours to six months. That’s just how it is.”
What’s odd is that Murray is often hiding in plain sight. There he is, toying with the gallery at Pebble Beach. There he is, playing himself in a web-short about hyper-vigilant fact-checkers. There he is, rooting for his beloved Cubs at Wrigley Field, or tending bar in Austin, or reading Emily Dickinson poems to beefy New York construction workers. Heck, he once showed up at Monmouth Park, the New Jersey racetrack where I worked while in college, and signed my brother’s program with the baffling but beautiful line, “Forty percent discount after 6 p.m. — Bill Murray.”
There’s a scene in Groundhog Day where Murray’s calendar-challenged Phil Connors plays chicken with an approaching train and then says, “I’m not going to live by their rules anymore!” Murray has done the same thing in his own career. He has his own code, and woe to the costar, the grip, or the studio executive who violates it. During the filming of Groundhog Day, producers pleaded with Murray that he hire a personal assistant to facilitate better communications between the studio and their star. Murray acquiesced, sort of, hiring a deaf-mute who spoke only American Sign Language. Don’t worry, Murray explained, I’m going to learn sign language. “That’s anti-communication,” says Groundhog Day director Harold Ramis. “You know, ‘Let’s not talk.’”

2010-06-30T21:40:00.000-05:00

There's more water on the moon than anyone thought

2010-06-24T22:33:00.003-05:00

(Reuters) - There is far more water on the moon than just about anyone thought and it is likely widespread deep under its surface, according to a report released on Monday.

Recent moon missions have shown frozen water in shadowed craters on the moon's surface, and ice under the gray dust. It could have been carried there by bits of comets as asteroids hitting the surface, however.

But a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows there is much more water on the moon than that -- findings important for future moon missions.

"Water may be ubiquitous within the lunar interior," the researchers concluded in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"For over 40 years we thought the moon was dry," said Francis McCubbin of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who led the study.

"We found that the minimum water content ranged from 64 parts per billion to 5 parts per million -- at least two orders of magnitude greater than previous results."

The water is not immediately accessible -- it is incorporated in the rocky interior of the moon, according to the report, published here

Bilderberg 2010: What we have learned

2010-06-15T14:46:00.000-05:00

A huge agenda of global issues was crammed into four days of 'secret' meetings by a mysterious group of power brokers. But who elected them and why are we paying for them?

Weary and bramble-scratched, elated by the press coverage, and sick of riot vans and lukewarm Spanish omelette baguettes, we return from Bilderberg 2010 with the following thoughts uppermost in our tired mind:
• 'Global cooling' is on the cards
Check out the agenda for Bilderberg 2010: "Financial reform, security, cyber technology, energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, world food problem, global cooling, social networking, medical science, EU-US relations." That list is a window into your future. Don't think for one minute that it isn't. And don't ignore it, because it isn't ignoring you.
I love how "social networking" must fry the Bilderbergian mind. On the one hand, as Zuckerberg of Facebook says, privacy is no longer a social norm so it's okay to milk the networking sites for information, social trends and dissident thinking; however, you can't stop the people from arranging a meet-up to discuss internet censorship or the rights and wrongs of "global cooling". Speaking of which, Bill Gates (Bilderberg 2010) is funding "cloud whitening" technology; trials start soon. Global dimming isn't just something that happens every time Big Brother starts. On the basis of this agenda, I think we can expect a lot of statements about cutting-edge cloud-technology trials in the next 12 months. If it works in Dubai, it can work in Britain too...
• You can't keep a good story down
If I had to pick the point when Bilderberg finally broke through into mainstream news, it would be when the BBC News Blog published a round-up of Bilderberg reports. Twelve months ago, this would have been barely conceivable. This year, Kissinger must be spitting chips.
• People love their 'leaders'
I know this sounds peculiar, or at least it does to me, but this year's Bilderbloggings have quite commonly been met with outrage at the idea that we should submit Bilderberg to greater scrutiny. You hear people talk about the delegates at Bilderberg as their "leaders", and you see the delegates mythologised as the greatest and the best – whose benign Olympian machinations should progress untroubled by the interference of public and press. "Leaders" like the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, and the chairman of Kissinger Associates Inc.
I'm baffled to the point of punching tree trunks to witness the determination of some folk to throw themselves in front of these heads of corporations and presidents of banks and to wave their arms protectively, yelping: "Leave them alone! Let them strategise for the good of the world in peace! How could they possibly have a frank discussion with our politicians if we were privy to it? Stop this unseemly prying!" I mean, seriously. The day that Marcus Agius, chairman of Barclays, strategises for my good is the day he repays me the hundreds of pounds of bank charges he's been levying on me since my schooldays. The day that Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, sits around a table with the express concern of making the world a better, more beautiful place for all of us, is the day that my arse grows teeth and eats my hat.
Do this: Look at the list of participants and ask yourself one simple question: what's their bottom line?

For ‘99ers,’ a job can feel like a mirage

2010-06-03T06:06:00.002-05:00

They call themselves “99ers,” because they have exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.

Their savings have been depleted, along with their dreams of a comfortable financial future. In many cases, their credit is shot too after years of living on the financial edge and relying on plastic to cover the most basic expenses.

They have lost many things: homes, cars, valuables, relationships, health insurance, even the cell phones and computers that provide the lifeline to the one thing they need most — a job.

For some, it is any job — a job washing dishes, cleaning toilets or taking orders at McDonald’s. Others, even in the face of such dire financial hardship, still refuse to accept a menial job that offers far less money — and respect — than their previous positions as managers, teachers, architects or administrative assistants.

Desperate for work, some 99ers, such as Florida native Diana Johnston, have gone back to school in the hopes that they can reinvent themselves as nurses or technicians. But the cost of education deters some, including 35-year-old Jeremy Hawking, who questions the wisdom of taking on more debt when he is already struggling to make ends meet.

The 99ers lost their jobs in mid-2008 or before, meaning they were among the earliest victims of a tenacious recession that took hold in December 2007. Yet they could be among those who will have the hardest time getting a new job even now that companies have warily started hiring again.

That’s because being unemployed can build on itself as people lose the financial means to apply for jobs or go to job interviews, get worn down by the stress of being jobless and no longer have the most up-to-date skills.

As of May 1, there were around 419,000 people collecting “Tier IV” unemployment benefits — the last stage of payments before a worker exhausts all unemployment aid available under the federal unemployment extensions, according to the Department of Labor. The DOL does not have data on how many people have exhausted 99 weeks of benefits since the recession began.

The situation is especially worrisome in this recession, in which millions of jobs have been lost and few, so far, have come back. That has left employers free to be extremely picky about who they hire.

“We’re in this humongous hole, and we just hit bottom,” said Sylvia Allegretto, an economist with Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UC Berkeley. “We’re just starting to climb out of it.”

Keeper of secrets

2010-05-26T20:05:00.002-05:00

N A VERY short time, Julian Assange has become one of the most intriguing people in the world. The mysterious Australian founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks is as elusive as the public servants, spooks and - he assures me - cabinet ministers who regularly drop their bombshells from the anonymity of his cyberspace bolt-hole.

Of no fixed address, or time zone, Assange has never publicly admitted he is the brains behind the website that has so radically rewritten the rules in the information era. (He acknowledges registering a website, Leaks.org, in 1999, but denies ever having done anything with it.) He has never even admitted his age - although this is not so hard to work out from the parts of his life that journalists have so far been able to piece together.

''Are you 38?'' I ask. He gives an unintelligible response. So that's a yes? ''Something like that.''

Far more tantalising, however, is what he says are some very, very big leaks to come - apparently within weeks. ''Right now we are sitting on history-making stuff,'' he says.

Wikileaks appeared on the internet three years ago. It acts as an electronic dead drop for highly sensitive, or secret information: the pure stuff, in other words, published straight from the secret files to the world. No filters, no rewriting, no spin. Created by an online network of dissidents, journalists, academics, technology experts and mathematicians from various countries, all with similar political views and values apparently, the website also uses technology that makes the original sources of the leaks untraceable.

(Full article linked in title. Very interesting - worth checking out)

Bechdel Test

2010-05-26T20:02:00.002-05:00

“The Bechdel test” requires a movie to pass three questions:

1) Does it have two or more women in it (who have names) ?

2) Do they talk to one another?

3) Do they talk to one another about something other than a man?

Many movies apparently don’t pass the test…

After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all

2010-05-24T07:06:00.000-05:00

The great American writer left instructions not to publish his autobiography until 100 years after his death, which is now

Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published.

The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.

That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist.

Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted the first-hand account of his life kept under wraps for so long. Some believe it was because he wanted to talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Others argue that the time lag prevented him from having to worry about offending friends.

One thing's for sure: by delaying publication, the author, who was fond of his celebrity status, has ensured that he'll be gossiped about during the 21st century. A section of the memoir will detail his little-known but scandalous relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after the death of his wife Olivia in 1904. Twain was so close to Lyon that she once bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. But she was abruptly sacked in 1909, after the author claimed she had "hypnotised" him into giving her power of attorney over his estate.

Their ill-fated relationship will be recounted in full in a 400-page addendum, which Twain wrote during the last year of his life. It provides a remarkable account of how the dying novelist's final months were overshadowed by personal upheavals.

"Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It's completely at odds with the impression most people have of him," says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain's Other Woman.

"There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn't such a happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile."

Twain, who was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, had made several attempts to start work on autobiography, beginning in 1870, but only really hit his stride with the work in 1906, when he appointed a stenographer to transcribe his dictated reminiscences.

Another potential motivation for leaving the book to be posthumously published concerns Twain's legacy as a Great American. Michael Shelden, who this year published Man in White, an account of Twain's final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image.

"He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there."

In other sections of the autobiography, Twain makes cruel observations about his supposed friends, acquaintances and one of his landladies.

Parts of the book have already seen the light of day in other publications. Small excerpts were run by US magazines before Twain's death (since he needed the money). His estate has allowed parts of it to be adapted for publication in three previous books described as "autobiographies".

Panera Bread Combines Free Markets and Nonprofits in Missouri

2010-05-19T11:57:00.000-05:00

In a test run to see if expenses can get covered at the end of the day, Panera Bread has opened a unique new location in Clayton, MO that combines the benefits of nonprofit status with the fundamental principle of the free market system: let the market determine what an item is worth. But it adds a unique qualifier to the traditional concept of the need determining price: human nature.

The menu is exactly the same as other Panera locations (sick foodies can check that out here if they aren’t familiar with Panera’s offerings) but instead of charging a fixed price for each item, this special little spot will ask only what customers can afford. “Take what you need, leave your fair share,” says the sign at their entrance, just in case one is confused by such a foreign transaction model. No prices? Do we even know how to value items independently any more?

Panera is hopeful that the “Cares Cafe” model will thrive and grow to a series of donation-based stores that rely more on empathy than capitalism. “Hopefully we’ll be able to open them across the country, but our original St. Louis location must succeed first!” tweeted the fine folks behind Panera’s official Twitter account.

Can someone confirm Missouri rules on sales taxes related to the sale of food? And is it a sale if the exchange is really a donation? I’m really confused.

Anyway, not everyone is thrilled about this concept. Though it is obviously well-intentioned, the donation model may not necessarily transfer outside of St Louis. Trends consultant Marian Salzman reality-checked USAToday saying “while young people are very much attuned to helping out and making a difference, if they find themselves sitting next to other customers with whom they don’t feel comfortable, they’re not coming back.” You know, as in the possibility of homeless and otherwise destitute individuals (of which our country has plenty nowadays) lounging around with the nerve to eat a cheap meal.

Hedging against operating losses, this particular location has one slight difference from other Panera stores: its bread (except for sandwich bread) is really day old product from other locations around the St Louis metro. Hey, nothing wrong with getting the most out of inventory with a horrible turnover rate.

In the end, it’s hard to say whether this nonprofit experiment will float but if it does, Panera wants to open two more within six months. Good luck with that.

Bank Of America Protest: Dozens Storm Bank Branch In DC

2010-05-17T12:02:00.000-05:00

Dozens of noisy purple-shirted SEIU protesters stormed a Bank of America branch near the U.S. Capitol on Monday, forcing the bank to close down as confused customers looked on and tellers retreated to an interior room.

Other groups from SEIU and National People's Action were set to stage protests at BofA's and JPMorgan Chase's lobby shops downtown as part of a daylong anti-K Street extravaganza.

A security guard told HuffPost the branch would be closed only temporarily.

From there, the group blocked an intersection in D.C.'s tiny Chinatown, then stopped by a Citibank branch. "Corporate greed has got to go!"

At 11:00 a.m., hundreds of protesters from SEIU and National People's Action merged at the offices of Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, who boasts Bank of America among his massive client list. "We're fired up to take down Wall Street," they chanted.

The group is now headed to K Street.

Journalists Sue St. Paul, Minnesota Over 2008 Republican Convention Arrests

2010-05-07T07:08:00.002-05:00

The three were among an estimated 40 to 50 journalists who were arrested covering street protests at the convention in downtown St. Paul, along with about 800 demonstrators and bystanders.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Minnesota, alleges that authorities violated the First Amendment freedoms of Goodman, her producers and other journalists by interfering with their right to gather news.

Goodman's daily program airs on over 750 radio and TV stations in North America.

"During the RNC, law enforcement arrested journalists without probable cause, physically assaulted them, detained them for lengthy periods, and searched and seized their belongings, including their cameras, video, and other media equipment, even though many of these individuals displayed their press credentials prominently and repeatedly identified themselves as members of the media," the lawsuit alleges.

Goodman, and her producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, are asking the court to issue a permanent injunction against authorities to prevent interference with their journalistic rights in the future; to declare the actions that restricted their work unconstitutional; and to award unspecified compensatory and punitive monetary damages, including reimbursement for lost or damaged property and medical expenses.

Salazar and Kouddous were arrested Sept. 1, 2008, on the opening day of the convention as riot police massed near the convention hall. The complaint says they were visibly wearing their press passes and holding their equipment and identified themselves as journalists.

The complaint says Salazar was videotaping as officers corralled journalists and bystanders in a parking lot. It says the officers pushed her to the ground, knocking her video camera from her hands. Officers slammed Kouddous against a wall after he shouted to officers arresting Salazar that she was a member of the press. And it says Goodman was arrested and pushed to the ground after she went to the arrest site and asked officers to release her producers.

Salazar was left bloodied with cuts, scratches and bruises on her face, the complaint says. Kouddous suffered injuries that it says resulted in long-term numbness in his hands, chest pains for several weeks, and scars on his arms. Goodman experienced several weeks of pain and tingling from her left elbow to her thumb as a result of handcuffs that were too tight, it says.

Activist spied on? Man wins settlement

2010-05-06T18:56:00.002-05:00

A 22-year-old antiwar 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.

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 in his system. Chinn sued last year, alleging false arrest and violations of his right to free speech.

The State Patrol has agreed to pay Chinn $109,000, and the city of Aberdeen and Grays Harbor County each will pay $30,000 toward the settlement. The three agencies have also agreed to pay his lawyer's fees, which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimates at more than $375,000.

The ACLU took up Chinn's cause because it believes the case and other allegations suggest that spying on dissidents by local enforcement, at the behest of the military, "appears to be far more pervasive than we had thought," said ACLU spokesman Doug Honig.

A spokesman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord says the military did not provide any intelligence to law enforcement in the Chinn case.

In the spring of 2007, Chinn was a student at Evergreen and was involved in protesting the use of civilian ports for military purposes, according to one of his attorneys, Lawrence Hildes. Materiel intended for Iraq was being moved through the ports at Aberdeen, Olympia and elsewhere, and there had been a number of public protests.

Documents filed by Chinn's attorneys state that "state and local law-enforcement agencies, military entities and others" responded to the protests by developing "incident-action plans" aimed at disrupting them. The service branches involved allegedly include the Army, the Navy and the Coast Guard, according to court pleadings.

"Based on assumptions regarding individuals associated with anarchist philosophies, the Action Plan was designed to deter and prevent individuals believed to be 'anarchists' or associated with anarchists from participating in the anti-war demonstrations," according to the documents.

The lawsuit alleges that Chinn was under surveillance when he left his house in Olympia headed for a protest in Aberdeen on May 6, 2007.

Aberdeen Police Assistant Chief Dave Timmons acknowledged that his detectives had been watching Chinn and others as the city geared up to respond to the planned protest. Similar protests in Tacoma and Olympia earlier had turned violent, with arrests and vandalism, and Timmons said "we wanted to be aware of what their plans were."

Dow throws a party, mainly zombies attend

2010-05-06T10:23:00.000-05:00

Bucolic Prospect park in Brooklyn, NY played host to a bizarre spectacle on Sunday, as a dramatically under-attended Dow-sponsored "Run for Water" was infiltrated and turned upside down by hundreds of furious activists, including a hundred dressed as Dow spokespeople.

New Yorkers who came to the park expecting a light run followed by a free concert found themselves unwitting extras in a macabre and chaotic scene as runners keeled over dead, Dow-branded grim reapers chased participants, and a hundred fake Dow representatives harangued other protesters and and handed out literature that explained Dow's greenwashing program in frank detail.

The actions called attention to Dow's toxic legacy in places like India (the Bhopal Catastrophe), Vietnam (Agent Orange) and Midland Michigan (Dioxin Contamination), and to the absurdity of a company with serious water issues all over the world sponsoring the Live Earth Run For Water.

After race cancellations in London, Milan, Berlin, and Sweden, on-site Dow brand managers were in damage-control mode. But their job was made harder by the hundred fake "Dow" spokespeople who loudly but clumsily proclaimed Dow's position ("Our race! Our earth!" and "Run for water! Run for your life!"), spoke with many runners, screamed at the other protesters, passed out beautifully-produced literature, and all in all looked a whole lot better than the real Dow reps, who seemed eager to make themselves scarce.

"I don't know what's going on here," said Tracey Von Sloop, a Queens woman who attended the race. "All I know is these people are both crazy, and Dow is f*ing sick. I'm outta here."

The event was the latest blow to Dow's greenwashing efforts, the most visible element of which is the "Human Element" multi-media advertising campaign, one of the most expensive, and successful, marketing efforts in recent history. It even won an "Effie Award" for the most effective corporate advertising campaign in North America.

"Effective," perhaps -- but also completely misleading. To name just a few examples of Dow's water-related issues: Dow refuses to clean up the groundwater in Bhopal, India, site of the largest industrial disaster in human history, committed by Dow's fully-owned subsidiary, Union Carbide. As a result, children continue to be born there with debilitating birth defects. Dow has also dumped hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic chemical byproducts into wetlands of Louisiana, and has even poisoned its own backyard, leaving record levels of dioxins downriver from its global headquarters in Midland, Michigan.

"We thought it must be a joke when we first heard that Dow Chemical Company was sponsoring a run for clean water," said Yes Woman Whitney Black. "Sadly, it was not. One of the world's worst polluters trying to greenwash its image instead of taking responsibility for drinking water and ecosystems it has poisoned around the world? What an awfully unfunny way to start off Earth Week. We decided the event needed a little comic relief."

Irony was piled on irony throughout the race, which Dow absurdly claimed was going to be "the largest solutions-based initiative aimed at solving the global water crisis in history." At one point, organizers were caught on tape dramatically throwing out excess water left over because of an embarrassingly low turnout.

Groups organizing the action included the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, New York Whale and Dolphin Action League, the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, the Wetlands Activism Collective, Global Justice for Animals and the Environment, Kids For A Better Future, The Yes Men, and hundreds of assorted volunteers, activists and mischief makers.

Milwaukee Considers Arizona Travel Ban

2010-05-03T18:25:00.000-05:00

MILWAUKEE – When the Milwaukee Common Council meets Tuesday, Aldermen may consider a controversial proposal to boycott certain Arizona businesses because of that state’s new immigration law.

Supporters say the Arizona law helps law enforcement officers deal with illegal immigration. However, critics say the law encourages racial profiling. A draft of the Milwaukee resolution was introduced Monday. It calls for city employees to stop traveling to Arizona for conventions or other events. It also prevents the city from making “investments in financial institutions with companies based in or having a major presence in the State of Arizona.” Alderman Jim Witkowiak sponsored the measure, which also includes language to encourage the federal government to take action on immigration reform issues. Witkowiak said he was angry about the Arizona law. “Basically, what they’re proposing leaves the door open for possible racial profiling which is a thing of the past and I hope never gets resurrected,” he said. Witkowiak has the support of Voces de la Frontera, an advocacy group that sponsored a rally in Milwaukee on Saturday to denounce the Arizona law. “Sometimes, unfortunately, it does take hitting people in the pocket book to really get them to do the right thing,” said Voces de la Frontera executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz. However, most alderman oppose the boycott portion of the resolution. “I think we need to take a better look at this before we decide to boycott it,” said Alderman Robert Puente. Mayor Tom Barrett also said he opposed the resolution. “We would be punishing people in Arizona who had no part of this. Instead, I’m going to put my resources and my energy into trying to urge the Federal government to address the immigration issue,” Barrett said. Late Monday, Witkowiak said he was considering revising the resolution to remove the sections about boycotting certain Arizona businesses. He indicated there was enough support on the common council to pass a resolution encouraging the federal government to take action but said there were not enough votes to pass economic sanctions against Arizona businesses.

Dnt Txt N Drv

2010-04-26T13:48:00.001-05:00

Oprah Winfrey in the NY Times:
"WHEN I started out as a TV reporter in Nashville in 1973, a death from drunken driving was big news. One person killed by a drunken driver would lead our local broadcast. Then, as the number of drunken driving deaths across the country continued to rise, the stakes for coverage got even higher. One death wasn’t good enough anymore. Two deaths — that would warrant a report. Then a whole family had to die before the news would merit mention at the top of the broadcast. The country, all of us, had gotten used to the idea of drunken driving. I just kept thinking: How many people have to die before we “get it”?
Fortunately, we did get it, and since 1980, the number of annual traffic fatalities due to drunken driving has decreased to under 15,500 from more than 30,000. But in recent years, another kind of tragic story has begun to emerge with ever greater frequency. This time, we are mourning the deaths of those killed by people talking or sending text messages on their cellphones while they drive.
Earlier this month, I visited Shelley and Daren Forney, a couple in Fort Collins, Colo., whose 9-year-old daughter, Erica, was on her bicycle, just 15 pedals from her front door, when she was struck and killed by a driver who was distracted by a cellphone. I think about Erica’s death and how senseless and stupid it was — caused by a driver distracted by a phone call that just couldn’t wait.
Sadly, there are far too many stories like hers. At least 6,000 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2008, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the number is rising. A lot of good work already is happening to try to change this. President Obama signed an executive order banning texting while driving on federal business. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is pushing for tougher laws and more enforcement. States are passing laws, too. Local groups are gaining strength, spurred by too many deaths close to home.
But we are hesitant to change. I saw this firsthand when I instituted a policy at my company that forbids employees from using their phones for company business while driving. I heard countless stories about how hard it was for people to stop talking and texting while driving. Everyone is busy. Everyone feels she needs to use time in the car to get things done. But what happened to just driving?"

Toxic Airborne Fungus From Oregon Spreading Across West Coast

2010-04-22T18:06:00.004-05:00

Cryptococcus gattii is an airborne fungus usually found in the tropics. But researchers announced today that new, deadly strains are thriving in Oregon, and spreading. These strains kill 25% of people who come into contact with them.

A paper published this afternoon in PLoS Pathogens offers details on the new strain of C. gattii, and how it came to the Pacific Northwest. After several local animals died from exposure to the airborne fungus, researchers realized that this wasn't an imported problem - the animals had lived their whole lives in Oregon, so they couldn't have been exposed in the tropics. There must be a local version of the toxic fungus. They gathered a sample and examined its genome, only to discover that this was a new strain of an already-virulent lifeform. They dubbed these strains VGII.

Said researcher Edmond Byrnes III:

This novel fungus is worrisome because it appears to be a threat to otherwise healthy people. Typically, we more often see this fungal disease associated with transplant recipients and HIV-infected patients, but that is not what we are seeing yet.
How did a tropical toxin wind up in Oregon? The researchers believe climate change may have something to do with it. Plus, these new strains are probably better adapted to the region. They likely evolved from an outbreak of C. gattii in British Columbia in 1999. The fungus then spread to Washington and Oregon.

Real-life Avatar - James Cameron speaks out against dam in Brazilian Amazon

2010-04-13T19:56:00.003-05:00

A real-life Avatar conflict is playing out in the Brazilian Amazon as indigenous groups fight against the construction of a giant hydroelectric dam in the heart of the rainforest, the Oscar-winning director James Cameron has warned.

The planned Belo Monte dam, approved in February, has drawn fury from environmental and Indian groups who say it will destroy a vast area of rainforest and the way of life of dozens of indigenous communities.

As the Brazilian Government prepares to open the project to bids, the director of the sci-fi phenomenon has become an international champion of the campaign against it, and of the tribes which he says are ready to lay down their lives to protect their lands.

“I’m drawn into a situation where a real-life Avatar confrontation is in progress,” Mr Cameron said as he arrived in Brazil along with the film’s stars Sigourney Weaver and Joel David Moore. “What’s happening in Avatar is happening in Brazil and places like India and China, where traditional villages are displaced by big infrastructure projects,” he said, referring to the film’s depiction of a conflict on the fictional planet of Pandora between the Na’vi race and a human army bent on exploiting its minerals.

Mr Cameron attended protests in the capital, Brasilia, on Monday before travelling with the actors up the Xingu river, the Amazon tributary where the dam is planned, to visit indigenous communities.

He said Belo Monte was “going to be an ecological disaster” and insisted that “the knowledge of indigenous people, who learned how to live with nature” was one of Brazil’s greatest resources.

Mr Cameron is not the first celebrity to throw the international spotlight on to the project, originally planned 20 years ago but abandoned amid widespread criticism at home. That campaign was spearheaded internationally by the British rock star Sting, who returned to Brazil in November to urge the government to listen to tribal leaders.

The £11 billion dam would be the third largest in the world, with a generating capacity of 11 Gigawatts; a contribution the government says is vital to meeting rising energy needs. But critics note it will flood 500 square kilometres of rainforest and divert the river’s flow away from tens of thousands of indigenous people who depend on it for their survival. An estimated 20,000 people will be displaced.

Best places to spot UFOs

2010-04-13T06:33:00.002-05:00

It was just another winter night in Stephenville, Texas, when Steve Allen, a 30-year aviation veteran, saw something that defied all logic—an eerily silent, mile-wide craft ringed in lights that would “rearrange themselves” racing across the sky at what he estimated to be 3,000 miles per hour.

“I don’t know if it was a biblical experience or somebody from a different universe, but it was definitely not from around these parts,” Allen told a reporter from the Empire-Tribune after the sighting on Jan. 8, 2008. Similar reports poured in from across Erath County.

The Stephenville Lights incident wasn’t a onetime event—another mass sighting followed in October 2008, and individual reports from the area still trickle in. This corner of Texas along with the eastern Nevada desert are fast emerging as the U.S.’s newest UFO “hot spots”—places with the best odds of a spotting. Similarly active places exist around the globe, with some even attracting a new kind of tourist.

These days, it seems people can’t get enough of the UFO phenomena. Television shows such as the History Channel’s UFO Hunters and alternative radio programs like Coast to Coast AM—where an estimated three million listeners tune in each night to hear from hardworking UFO investigators, among other thought-provoking interviewees—are more popular than ever.
Sightings, too, are on the rise, according to MUFON, or the Mutual UFO Network, which has more than 3,000 members in 25 countries and 750 trained field investigators worldwide. The 41-year-old organization is one of the go-to places to report a sighting; it receives some 400 a month in the U.S. alone.
“Of course, 80 percent of these sightings can be explained. But 20 percent are truly unidentified objects, and those are the ones that will make your hair curl,” says MUFON’s international director, Clifford Clift.
Believing the time is right, even the famed SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute is conducting its first-ever public conference this year devoted to the age-old question: are we alone? SETIcon, slated for Aug. 13–15, in Santa Clara, Calif., will also unveil the institute’s newest scientific advances in its ongoing search for intelligent life from other planets.
“Using radio telescopes, we hope to trip across a planet with inhabitants clever enough to build radio transmitters,” says senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak. “If we do so, then the proof won’t be limited to fuzzy photos, secret government documents, or personal anecdotes. It will be up in the sky—where anyone can check it out.”
Mexico City, for example, has been a near-constant sky-watch since the solar eclipse of 1991, when a UFO was captured on video among the cloud shadows. Since then, whole fleets—literally hundreds of unexplained lights—have appeared over the world’s largest city. Or take Warminster, England, near Stonehenge, where for the past 50 years nighttime overhead visitations and mysterious booming noises have been considered ho-hum normal.

16-year-old accuses mom of Facebook slander

2010-04-08T06:43:00.000-05:00

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - The mother of a 16-year-old boy said she shut him out of his Facebookaccount after reading he had driven home at 95 mph one night because he was mad at a girl. His response: a harassment complaint at the local courthouse.

"If I'm found guilty on this it is going to be open season" on parents, Denise New, the mother, said Wednesday.

New, of Arkadelphia, Ark., said many of her son's postings didn't reflect well on him, so after he failed to log off the social networking site one day last month, she posted her own items on his account and changed his password to keep him from using it again.

"The things he was posting in Facebook would make any decent parent's eyes pop out and his jaw drop," Denise New said. "He had been warned before about things he had been posting."

Lane New, who lives with his grandmother, filed a complaint with prosecutors who approved a harassment charge March 26. His mother said she was doing what any good parent would do.

"Just because I don't have custody doesn't mean I don't care about him," Denise New said.

Neither New would say Wednesday which items on his Facebook site the boy had found slanderous.

"I probably made maybe three, maybe four actual postings — the rest of it was a conversation between my son, me and his personal friends," Denise New said.

In his handwritten complaint to prosecutors, Lane New wrote "Denise first hacked my Facebook and changed my password. She also changed the password to my e-mail so I could not change it. She posted things that involve slander and personal facts about my life."

As economy sours, vendors crowd Venice Beach

2010-03-29T16:02:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES - Sand and surf are the least of the attractions making Venice Beach one of Los Angeles' top tourist draws.

On summer weekends, some 150,000 exhibitionists and gawkers flock to the neighborhood to see and be seen in a Bohemian rhapsody of bongo-bangers, dreadlocked artists and acrobatic gymnasts.

In recent months, though, that freewheeling hippie circus has gotten edgy thanks to a stubbornly sour economy heightening competition for the 200 peddler spaces along the 1.5-mile long asphalt strip bordering the beach.

That has longtime storeowners and artists steamed, and residents in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood clamoring for a clamp down on the increased noise and transients.

"It's become a real free-for-all, really aggressive," said Therese Dietlin, who has distributed alternative political literature for nine years on the boardwalk, which is lined with cafes, medical marijuana clinics and souvenir shops.

Recently, she said, a woman selling Buddhas and incense kicked her table across the boardwalk claiming that Dietlin had set up her table in her space. "It never used to be like that," she said.

The city has responded with new rules to give more people a chance at a space on the strip, but the peak summer season looms more chaotic than ever.

For the first time, the city has been giving out all the vendor spaces in its weekly lotteries. People from as far away as New York and Florida are participating, said Victor Jauregui, senior director of the Venice Beach Recreation Center, which runs the lottery.

The number of performers wanting a spot has jumped by 80 percent over the past year, while the number of vendors has doubled. That's led to some boisterous raffles.

Man Files $530K Lawsuit Against Neighbor For Using WiFi, iPhone, Dimmer Switches

2010-03-29T15:58:00.000-05:00

Beware your home electronics -- your phones, wireless routers, even your dimmer switches -- because they might be making your neighbor ill. Or at least that's what one man in New Mexico is saying in a lawsuit against a technology-loving former friend.

According to the plaintiff, he'd bought his current house in Santa Fe, NM, because it was the least likely one to trigger his "electromagnetic sensitivities." But then when a friend of his purchased the home that backed up to his property, he claims her constant use of electronics was causing him nausea, vertigo, aches, dizziness, arrhythmia and insomnia.

The plaintiff says he asked the defendant to curb her use of the devices he believed were triggering his sensitivity, but "basically, she refused."

So he's suing for $530,000.

For her part, the defendant says she attempted to comply with her friend's requests, but felt harassed.

"I decided to bring it all to an end, stop trying to accommodate a neighbor and attempted to start concentrating on my own life again," she said. "Being the target of this lawsuit has affected me very adversely... I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."

The Wisdom of Woz

2010-03-29T15:04:00.000-05:00

The Wisdom of Woz
Why Apple's cofounder wants two iPads.

By Daniel Lyons | NEWSWEEK
Published Mar 26, 2010

Steve Wozniak stopped working at Apple in the late 1980s, but he's never stopped being a fan. Daniel Lyons caught up with Woz as he was driving through a snowstorm in Green River, Wyo., on his way to judge a high-school robotics competition.

What do you think of the iPad?
I'm out here on the road with four cell phones and two GPS devices, trying to look at maps, and I wish I had an iPad with me now.

The iPad will change the way you use computers, read books, and watch TV—as long as you're willing to do it the Steve Jobs way.

Do you think it will be a big hit?
The iPad could lower the cost of acquiring computers for students. I think it's going to be huge in the education market. Think about students going off to college. They want an Apple product, but their parents don't want to spend that much. Now they have the ideal thing. They can go to college and someone may have a whacked-out $6,000 laptop, but the guy with the iPad will get all the attention.

Who else is the target audience for this?
My wife's parents—they're not ready for the complicated computer world. They have these old computers. But the iPad simplifies things. It's like a restart. We all say we want things to be simpler. All of a sudden we have this simple thing.

What about you?
At first I thought, this is not for me. I have the iPhone for mobility and a computer for my computer life. With the iPhone there are certain things it just doesn't do well, mostly in browsing. It's horrible to navigate a map on an iPhone because of the screen size.

So have you ordered one?
I've ordered one for a friend. Then I ordered two for myself. One with the Wi-Fi and one with the 3G. And I'll go to the store on Friday night and wait in line, just for fun.

What phones do you have with you now?
I have two iPhones, a [Google] Nexus One, a [Motorola] Droid, plus a Garmin [GPS] and TomTom [GPS]. I turn them all on at the same time, plus the navigation system in my Prius.

2010-03-24T21:24:00.000-05:00

The five most promising cost controls in the health-care bill

2010-03-22T15:26:00.001-05:00

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post:
"It's hard to overstate how important the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) -- which makes the official judgments on how much bills cost and save -- is in Washington. But the rest of the country doesn't know what the CBO is, and it doesn't care. "Washington may live and die by the pronouncements of the Congressional Budget Office," wrote pollsters Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen in the Wall Street Journal, "but 81 percent of voters say it's likely [health care reform] will end up costing more than projected."

That's left Democrats in a worst-of-both-worlds situation: They've built a bill that Washington's toughest scorekeeper says will cut the deficit by more than a trillion dollars over 20 years. They're getting attacked for the taxes and Medicare reforms that save all that money. But the country doesn't believe the savings are real.

One of the problems Democrats have had is that it's very easy to understand the one thing the bill does to spend money -- purchase insurance for people who can't afford it -- and considerably harder to explain the many things it does to save money. Another is that a lot of the savings have to do with changing how medicine is practiced, which people are less familiar with than how insurance is purchased.

But the fact that the cost controls are complicated and numerous doesn't mean they're absent, or that they won't work. So here are five of the bill's best ideas, and how they're meant to work."