Have you ever had a week of Mondays? I finally got a moment to post somethin’!
Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.
* Instead of saying how bad things are going in California, I think it’s better to show of this next clip of an early classic Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called “Conan the Barbarian” as a allegory. Imagine Schwarzenegger as the modern day governor and everyone on horseback as a line item on the California budget. There’s gonna’ be cuts. Lots and lots and lots of vicious, deep, nasty DAAAAAAYUM kinds of cuts coming. Grab the popcorn! [BLOOMBERG] and [BUSINESS INSIDER]
* The oil rig owner of the massive BP gulf oil spill would like to only pay $27 million for destroying the Gulf of Mexico. No more. Because paying more would not be fair! There’s still the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean (there’s still a lot of clean areas!), the Indian Ocean, the Arctic ocean and the Southern Ocean to screw up! [WALL STREET JOURNAL]
* You know when you’re winning stupid amounts of money in Vegas because you’re always getting a 10 and an Ace on every hand of blackjack? No? Yeah, me either. Well, something similar happened to the “getting a 10 and an Ace” on every hand in the financial market recently. Four big banks scored a absolutely perfect 61 day run. If this happened in Vegas, I would expect a nice pair of concrete shoes to go with my new lead-based body ventilation. [NY TIMES]
* This week, “Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.” OK, first off, flinging the happy little critters of the ocean into the stratosphere might be somewhat bad. And ten tons of seawater a second? In addition to needing a filter made of diamonds twelve inches thick, they’re going to need a massive no-fly zone around that contraption. Meh. He’s got the money to do it all. Go Bill! Go Bill! It’s yo’ birf-day! It’s yo’ birf-day! [TIMESONLINE.CO.UK]
* On the flipside of “I can’t comprehend this level of money” news stories, “the Treasury Department said Wednesday the April deficit soared to $82.7 billion. That was significantly higher than last year’s April deficit of $20 billion and the largest imbalance for that month on record.” [NY TIMES]
That’s all I got for this week! Have a great weekend ya’ll!
According to the video info, this shows… “Oil and gas stream from the riser of the Deepwater Horizon well May 11, 2010. This video is from the larger of two existing leaks on the riser. This leak is located approximately 460 feet from the top of the blowout preventer and rests on the sea floor at a depth of about 5,000 feet. (Courtesy video)”
Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.
* According to CBS Evening News, nearly every copier built since 2002 has a secret hard drive that keeps a copy of everything that has ever been copied or printed on it. DAAAAAAMN!! Three words : office Christmas parties. I’ll say no more.
* The Greek crisis is really is turning into a “sun-exploding pushing earth into a black-hole filled with angry flying vampire bat-baboons and drunk wonk-eyed former leprechauns off their meds” kind of bad. Spiegel has the writeup. Oh, by the way, don’t binge on pizza and tamales and green and red chili with Tabasco after 2 am no matter how great they all smell together…. the dreams and nightmares that follow would make Tim Burton freak. [SPIEGEL]
* Speakin’ of the Greek crisis, Brian Williams explains this week’s stock market “free fall” in 2 minutes and 47 seconds on the David Letterman show. Fair warning: some ugly brutal truth ensues in this 2 minutes and 47 seconds. Props to Letterman for the funny outtro.
* A sniper took out TWO living moving targets from 1.5 miles away in two consecutive shots?!? Can someone hand the solid gold “pimp hand of death” award to this man? [DAILYMAIL.CO.UK]
* The latest risk to your health? SITTING! “Short of sitting on a spike, you can’t do much worse than a standard office chair,” says Galen Cranz, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. At the very end of the article, it says “(James A. Levine, an obesity specialist at the Mayo Clinic) talked to Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Salo accounting about letting him design their offices and keep people walking and working as much as possible….and he partnered with Steelcase to manufacture a $4,500 version of the machine.” Sounds like he made a little cash on this new study. Hmmmm…. how about instead of selling a product, I’ll give away the TL;DR version for free – get yo’ butt out of the chair and exercise once in awhile! [BUSINESS WEEK]
* Speaking of exercise, scientists have just found out that exercising outside helps you stay healthy! Next up, eating healthy foods and not stuffing your face with pie keeps you from being a Chunky McChubbster! Film at 11. [YAHOO]
Typical hikers in the Northwest Territories
* File this under “AAAAAAAAA!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIIIIIIIVES!!!!” Grizzly Bears and Polar Bears are now interbreeding. I think SRAWs will soon be mandatory equipment for walking around in the Northwest Territories. So what should these things be called? Grolar Bears? Pizzly Bears? How about just sticking with AAAAAAAAA!!! That pretty much covers them I think. [THESTAR.COM]
* Wanna feel better about some recent questionable choices you’ve made? Just wash your hands! Somehow, washing your hands removes guilt and doubts about recent decisions you’ve made. I’m gonna go test that out! I’ll buy a new motorcycle this weekend, and then come home and wash my hands! I’ll probably need to wash my wife’s hands too come to think of it. [SCIENCE DAILY]
* A dog named “Kanellos” has showed up at every single Greek protest for the last two years. Coincidence? Hmmm. Maybe that’s not an ordinary dog. Lemme go unpack my PKE meter and proton pack. Anybody seen Venkman? [GUARDIAN.CO.UK]
* Nintendo wants to kick Apple’s butt? Calling them out as the “enemy of the future”? You would think these two would be best friends! Somebody schedule a sit-down with these two! [TIMESONLINE.CO.UK]
* Aside from being a bunch of stupid thugs with delusions of adequacy, the TSA employees who work the body scanners are apparently slightly sensitive about their undersized wee-wees. Seriously! A “guinea pig during an employee training session on full-body scanning equipment” got his junk revealed for everyone to see when he went through the full body scanner. Well duh! What part of “full body scanner” did he not understand? Anyhow, Dr. Evil wasn’t too happy about everyone making fun of mini-me over the course of *a year*, so he eventually went postal in the parking lot, beating a co-worker with a large baton, and then “demanded the witness kneel down and say, “I’m sorry.”” Seriously! Freud would have a ball with this mess! Pun intended. [MIAMI TIMES]
* The headline says it all. “The once mighty Jordan River, where Christians believe Jesus was baptised, is now little more than a polluted stream that could die next year”. Right. Seriously. When we can’t even keep a river with blisteringly obvious historical value intact, there’s some big problems that need to be dealt with. [ABC.NET.AU]
* “Even dyed-in-the-wool preservationists from the WWF agree… Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped. … Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning.” In other words – terminate all the animals caught in the oil slick as humanely as possible. This sucks. The animals were in their own environment doing their own thing when BP got them all killed. Nice job, guys! [SPIEGEL.DE]
* Babies have a built in morality code! They even go so far to put the baby-smackdown on “bad” puppets! Veeeeery interesting study. [NY TIMES]
* It’s raining on the North Pole? For the first time ever? “Dashing through the slush… in a one horse power sleigh…” just doesn’t sound right. [CBC.CA]
* Google is actually coming out with a future predictor? A real working future predictor? Um… “amazing!” and “burn it!” are tied for first place in my head on this. [BOSTON.COM] has the story and the promo vids are below.
* Are we our bodies or are we just our microbes? Dude. That’s like asking if the galaxy is made of stars or do the stars make up the galaxy? Trippy. [TECHNOLOGY REVIEW]
* Beautiful women can be bad for your health. Allow me to quote Jack Nicholson/The Joker on this so called “problem”….. “If you gotta go, go with a smile.” [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]
* Stephen Hawking is now talking about how to build a time machine! Between this new topic and his jibber jabber last week about visiting aliens, I think the Men In Black are overdue to flashy thing him. Or at least put him on the next shuttle back to Antares. The dude is leaking secrets. [DAILYMAIL.CO.UK]
* Speaking of aliens… “Russian regional president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov claims he was abducted by aliens. Now, a Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate his claims to make sure he didn’t give any state secrets to the space visitors.” Ok then! How about we try less vodka and more sunlight for you guys? Yes? Повторяйте за мной. “Нет больше водки. Спасибо!” [GIZMODO]
* Scientists have gone too far! Not content with the perfectly logical idea that metal doesn’t smell because it doesn’t have noses, it turns out metal has no smell at all. In fact…. the smell is actually your sweat and the metal interacting! Dude. Ew. [BIO ED ONLINE]
* You know something is bad when the industry that was using tons of a product suddenly drops them like a bad habit and runs far far away. High Fructose Corn syrup? Extraordinarily bad for you. Specifically the “High” and the “Fructose” and the “Corn Syrup” part. [BNET]
* And finally, can a katana blade really cut a bullet that has been fired from a pistol in half? The answer is….. YES.
Stunning. Wicked cool. Stupidly dangerous kinds of awesome. But now, the zen question… The katana blade *can* cut a bullet in half. But can the wielder of the katana blade do the same? I shall meditate on this while playing Xbox this weekend.
There’s a pretty good Humble Indie Game Bundle going on now.
Like the video says, it’s five games for PC, Mac or Linux and a donation to two charities (the EFF and Child’s Play) for any amount you want! You can legitimately get everything for $1 if you like!
There’s an awesome graphic on the New York Times’ website that shows how much the EU countries all owe each other. It all comes down to Britain, France and Germany loaning Ireland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain some serious money.
Taking a moment to look at how much Germany is owed, you can see that…
Ireland owes them $184 billion
Greece owes them $45 billion
Italy owes them $190 billion
Portugal owes them $47 billion
Spain owes them $238 billion
…you get $704 billion!
Even more stunning is how much France is owed.
Ireland owes them $60 billion
Greece owes them $75 billion
Italy owes them $511 billion (daaaaaaaaaamn!)
Portugal owes them $45 billion
Spain owes them $220 billion
…that’s a staggering $911 billion these countries owe to France!
This is nuts. No wonder everyone is freaking out that Germany wants to stop loaning these other countries more money. And no wonder Germany wants to stop loaning money as well!
Click the graphic to enlarge on the New York Times website.
Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.
—– JUMBO SIZED EDITION —–
* 10,000 people are about to undergo forced sterilization in China. This isn’t mentioned anywhere in the US mainstream media, but it’s all over Europe. This sounds like an evil rat bastard thing they’re doing until you realize…. wait, no, it is an evil rat bastard thing they’re doing. Nevermind. [SKY.COM]
* A commanding officer in the military in Iraq tells his subordinates… “If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every mother****** on the street.” The solider under his command says… “and you couldn’t just disobey orders to shoot, because they could just make your life hell in Iraq. So like with myself, I would shoot up into the roof of a building instead of down on the ground toward civilians. But I’ve seen it many times, where people are just walking down the street and an IED goes off and the troops open fire and kill them.” BTW, this soldier interviewed is the Army Ranger who saved the children in the van from that infamous Apache shootout a few weeks ago. He has a lot to say. Definitely read this to see how things in Iraq *really* are. Oh, and Obama… why the HELL are we still in Iraq? [WSWS]
* How trusting would you be if you heard that a judge and a prosecutor were having a secret ongoing affair with each other? Would you trust or believe any judgment in the cases they made together? The US Supreme Court did! They said it was OK to the point of letting a man stay on death row! Has no one on the Supreme Court ever heard the “If you do this for me…” compromise-thing in a relationship? [WASHINGTON POST]
* Speaking of trusting, it’s really a sad commentary on our society when someone who has a condition where they automatically and completely trust everyone is the “problem”. It’s called Williams Syndrome, and this story about a child affected with it will really will make you think about the world. Hollywood? Are you paying attention? This has “academy award” written all over it. [NPR]
* Speaking of Hollywood, they now want “real” women for their movies and are looking at casting outside of California. Apparently the local “actresses” are too plastic for them. Good idea Hollywood! Run with it and try casting “real” men next! [NY TIMES]
* The latest hot supplement is Omega-3 fatty acids. “Research shows they promote heart health and reduce pain in people with rheumatoid arthritis. They also may help treat autism, bipolar disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, ADHD and prostate cancer.” But it doesn’t do windows or laundry? Next! [LA TIMES]
* You’ll never ever see this in the mainstream media…. new research shows fizzy drinks and processed foods are linked to premature aging! D’oh! [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]
* Trick question… if the medical care is so good in this country, why is it far cheaper to fly to London to have the same procedures done? [CNN]
You never saw this
* There were two super secret military rocket launches in the US this week. Well, OK, obviously not so secret because those launches are on the internet with a lot of photos. Anyhow, the first launch was the military version of the space shuttle, which “can stay in orbit for up to 270 days, whereas the Shuttle can last only 16 days” and is designed for “launch(ing) a surge of small satellites during periods of high international tension.” The second was a “prototype of a new weapon that can hit any target around the world in less than an hour.” Soooo maybe this is the first step toward a space military that can say “nuke ’em from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” And by the way, why was this launch completely glossed over in the US and only covered by the Times Online overseas? [TIMES ONLINE]
* In the “I see this going wrong in all sorts of ways” category, the “gene that allows growing a new head” has been identified! And we need to have two heads because? Wait. Seriously. Don’t answer that. [THE REGISTER]
* In another of the “I see this going wrong in all sorts of ways” category, “Scientists in California plan to use the world’s biggest laser to set off a nuclear reaction so intense it will make a star bloom on the surface of the Earth. If they succeed they say they could solve the planet’s energy crisis.” Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! A star ON the Earth? I think those scientists missed a teeny little detail in their plan! [CNN]
* NASA screws up a balloon launch. I mean, come on! Just let go of the string! It works every single time for me! [YAHOO]
* Those dirty rotten bastiches who send spam emails have pulled an idea from computer technical support companies…. they’re getting people in developing countries to work for them. [NY TIMES]
* Speaking of dirty rotten tricks, when GM said they paid back their loan “in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule.” It turns out… no. It’s all a bunch of lies. [REASON]
* In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I think anybody who says they are doing something “for the children” has ulterior motives. Exhibit A: An anti-piracy group said at their latest convention that ”Child pornography is great! By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites.” [CHRISTIAN ENGSTROM]
* A corrupt attorney at Homeland Security? Taking bribes? Noooooooo! [JUDICIAL WATCH]
* Infertility might begin in the womb? Wait… how does that work? [INDEPENDENT.CO.UK]
* The most blindingly obvious idea yet – use the Sahara to generate solar power. Good luck getting everyone in the area to play nice long enough to get the generators installed, though. [GUARDIAN]
* On the not-so-blindingly obvious side of things, Texas says the state’s water can handle “10 times more bacteria in some of the state’s creeks, rivers and lakes” so more dumping is OK! WTF!! I have an idea. Make the state senators drink a glass of water every day from Texas lakes and streams while they are in session. If the water can handle “10 times more bacteria” and not taste barfiliciously funky, they shouldn’t have a problem! [AUSTIN POST]
—>WARNING : POLITICAL RANT STARTS HERE<—
* Obama said to Wall Street this week “I Do Think at Some Point You’ve Made Enough Money.” Right. Where to start with this comment… how about by **whose** definition have you made enough money? The ones who have money already? And who is to say what the limit is? If I had 100 million dollars, I can guarantee it’s not enough for all of my dreams to come true. I would love to help Bill Gates create safe nuclear energy systems across the nation. I would love to create a national food bank with a computerized warehousing system to rival WalMart to help in feeding the truly destitute who have nothing to eat. I would love to re-establish a sustainable space program and have tiered space stations (plural!) that gradually expand out into our solar system. I would love to push stem cell research *hard* in the hopes of stopping all the thousands of variations of the damned “big C”. The problem isn’t who has “enough” money and who is making “enough” money. It’s the bozos who do stupid, petty and trivial things with the money they have and with the government who tries to mandate controls on individuals’ lifestyles. The video of his comment is below…
—>END OF POLITICAL RANT<—
* “A sudden change in the Atlantic Gulf Stream, which new research has linked to the mass extinction of dinosaurs, may happen again, many scientists fear. The shift could be abrupt, and climate experts advise that we must continue to monitor the present warning signs, such as influxes of fresh water into the North Atlantic, and slowdowns of the Atlantic Gulf Stream.” Daaaaaaamn. Just in time for the oil spill! [DISCOVERY]
* Finally, the SciFi channel (now known as the uber macho name SyFy) is abandoning most science fiction programming and is now airing WWE Smackdown. You gotta give them partial credit here. Is the WWE Science? No. Is it Fiction? Ah-hah! [MSNBC]
If you have one of those prescription bottles with the highly annoying child proof catch-lock on the side…
Prescription Medicine Cap 1
…and if you want to make it a lot easier to open, just flip the prescription lid over! There are threads on the top of the prescription lid so you can seal the medicine vial with just a twist or two.
Prescription Medicine Cap 2
No more child proof catch-lock things to hassle with!
Like the saying goes, it may be old news to everyone else, but it’s new news to me.
Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.
* Picking up strange objects that hundreds of anonymous people have used before you is a bad idea. A recent study shows there are tons of Herpes and E.Coli on those beauty tester products at cosmetic counters! Yuck! [STYLECASTER]
* That stolen phone from Apple? Looks like Apple is going to file charges for theft. Say goodbye to the website Gizmodo! [ELECTRONISTA]
* Want to see if your kid will be successful in life? Grab a bag of marshmallows and watch this study to see how to test ’em! [CBS NEWS]
* In other kid-research news, everybody needs to let kids play more! Play really develops children’s brains! [THE ATLANTIC]
* Hey Hollywood! Here’s my pitch for the week. Double Jeapordy? Amateur hour. Triple jeapordy? Ah, that’s the trick! Getting someone who committed a crime re-tried and convicted on the same charges that were dismissed at the first trial! How? I have the script framework online at [ABC NEWS]
* Google has been asked 3,500 times in the last 6 months by assorted governments for user’s information. They made a nice map showing the who and the where. [WIRED]
* A mega-giant jellyfish was spotted swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. Considering how much the mini-size jellyfish hurt when they sting with their microscopic barbs, this monster must immediately put you in a coma if it grazes you! [BBC.CO.UK]
* Melt in brain implants are coming! Considering how many people have already artificially melted their brains, this should go over quite well. [SCIENCE CODEX]
* How does the brain slow down time? Mind blowing quote : “The implication is that we don’t really have a direct experience of what we’re feeling ‘right now,’ but only a memory – an unreliable memory – of what we thought it felt like some seconds or milliseconds ago. The vivid present tense we all think we inhabit might itself be a retroactive illusion.” Dude. So I’m actually experiencing life as a memory? Soooo where am I and who’s really guiding the ship? [PSYCHOLOGY TODAY]
* Scientific research shows that psychopaths are not deterred by fearful faces. One psychopath in the study, when shown a photo of a fearful face, said “I don’t know what that expression is called, but I know it’s what people look like right before I stab them.” OK, so now that we have correlation established, let’s work on that causation bit. [SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN]
* New scientific research has also found out that meditation is really good for you. Might I also seriously recommend a good tea to go with it? Not the local stuff mind you… get “London Cuppa” or a quality Ceylon based tea to start off with. [SCIENCE DAILY]
* Next time somebody is getting all “HULK SMASH” on something, they may actually be a heart patient trying to save their own lives! New research shows that “bottled up anger is deadly for heart patients” so they gotta get it out ASAP. [REUTERS]
Tickle This!
* Tickle Me Elmo creator Bruce Lund just created… a rifle-sized weapon for the military called the “Big Hurt”?!? Lund plans on going back to making toys full time after this weapon gets bought by the military. As an extra special bonus, Lund says the weapon has a “stun” and a “kill” setting, and it will be up to the shooter to decide which setting is necessary. Dude. On the one hand I’m psyched that there’s a pre-phaser that’s finally going to see the light of day in my lifetime. But on the other hand, I’ll never be able to look at Elmo the same way again. [POPULAR MECHANICS]
* Some toymaker technician saw the movie “Never Say Never Again” and actually made a toy that shocks the hell out of you! The point is to hold on to the toy as long as possible and be the last one holding it! Story at [BOING BOING] and toy link at [BRANDO]. BONUS: Here’s the clip from “Never Say Never Again” I was talking about. How many brain cells did it take to remember that moment all this time?
* Balloon boy’s parents just agreed to pay $36k in restitution for wasting everybody’s time and sympathy. Considering what national prominence this story had, I don’t think that fine is enough. Especially since that poor kid is stigmatized/traumatized for life. [9NEWS]
* And finally, on the more looney side of things, the EU now says traveling for tourism is a human right! “The plan — just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined — would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing “difficult social, financial or personal” circumstances. The disabled and elderly can also be accompanied by one other person. The EU and its taxpayers are slated to fund 30% of the cost of these tours, which could range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation.” OK, maybe it’s a gut reaction here, but all I have to say is WHAAAAAT???? [OTTAWACITIZEN]
