June 2008
The Good News in Iraq (Don't Count on It) →
On March 19, 2003, as his shock-and-awe campaign against Iraq was being launched, George W. Bush addressed the nation. “My fellow citizens,” he began, “at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” We were entering Iraq, he insisted, “with...
Clifton Hicks - Single Girl, Married Girl
“Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times...”
– Jacob Riis (quoted by Peter Matthiessen, Book I, Shadow Country)
Worms, parasites drain US poor, expert says →
“Throughout the American South during the early twentieth century, malaria combined with hookworm infection and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency) to produce a generation of anemic, weak, and unproductive children and adults,” Dr. Peter Hotez of George Washington University and the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington wrote. The parasitic diseases are having similar effects now, he...
Leary →
A Russian Timothy Leary site.
“Don’t get caught on your point of view or you’ll impale yourself on...”
– Dr. Timothy Leary
Diabetes Cases Increase 15 Percent in 2 Years →
The number of Americans with diabetes increased by 15 percent in two years to 24 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 8 percent of the population now has the disease, mainly Type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and sedentary living, the agency said in a report using data from 2007.
Australian crocs hit by cane toad 'wave of death' →
Heading for the Exit Lane →
Report from CIBC World Markets (PDF file).
“Over the next four years we are likely to witness the greatest mass exocus of vehicles off America’s highways in history.”
Ecstasy Is the Key to Treating PTSD →
Some doctors believe MDMA could be the key to solving previously untreatable deep-rooted traumas. For a hard core of PTSD cases, no amount of antidepressants or psychotherapy can rid them of the horror of systematic abuse or a bad near-death experience, and the slightest reminder triggers vivid flashbacks.
Watch The first commercial brainwave reading headset: Emotiv EPOC
Why $140-a-barrel oil is no surprise →
The best simple summation of the of the oil problem I’ve seen.
Scientists warn of lack of vital phosphorus as... →
“Peak phosphorus”, say scientists, could hit the world in just 30 years. Crop-based biofuels, whose production methods and usage suck phosphorus out of the agricultural system in unprecedented volumes, have, researchers in Brazil say, made the problem many times worse. … Dana Cordell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney,...
Watch“Don’t Talk to the Police” by Professor James Duane
Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs →
Across the nation, the realization is taking hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a change with lasting consequences. The shift to costlier fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes set far from urban jobs.
How Smart Is the Octopus? →
Cephalopods belong to the same lineage that produced snails, clams, and other mollusks. A typical mollusk might have 20,000 neurons arranged in a diffuse net. The octopus has half a million neurons. The neurons in its head are massed into complex lobes, much the way our own brains are. In comparison with their body weight, octopuses have the biggest brains of all invertebrates. They’re even...
Neave Television →
Heavy industries join stampede to raise prices →
A new round of price increases hit the global economy Tuesday as some of the world’s largest industrial companies moved to pass rising raw materials costs more quickly to customers. Dow Chemical, the biggest U.S. chemical maker, said it would raise prices by up to 25 percent in July - the largest increase in its history - as its chief executive warned of a “relentless” rise in...
Watch
NASA Climate Scientist Says "We're Toast" →
James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the “dangerous level” for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. … Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here.
Question for Tom Waits: What's scary to you?
kiku:
luminol:
Waits’ response (via):
A dead man in the back seat of a car with a fly crawling on his eyeball.
Turbulence on any airline.
Sirens and searchlights combined.
Gunfire at night in bad neighbourhoods.
Car motor turning over but not starting, it’s getting dark and starting to rain.
Jail door closing.
Going around a sharp curve on the Pacific Coast Highway and the driver...
“The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and...”
– George Carlin
