Saturday 26 February 2005

pope pic
HURRY UP AND DIE YOU STUPID OLD CUNT.

archive...

Pope Rejects Condoms As a Counter to AIDS

There are 122 million Catholics in Africa
Whenever the Pope visits them he explains that the only acceptable form of family planning is strict sexual abstinence.

plus...

Pope calls for halt to 'evil' gay marriages
The Vatican urged Catholic politicians to actively campaign against legalising gay marriages which it said were evil, deviant and posed a grave threat to society.

The papal note says people extending cohabitation rights "need to be reminded that the approval or legalisation of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil".

meanwhile...

the vatican during the holocaust
.....a 27,000-word article, by Daniel J Goldhagen in American magazine New Republic (2002), accuses the Roman Catholic Church of providing the intellectual stimulus for Nazism and the Holocaust.

.....while in 1933 Pacelli signed a controversial concordat with Germany. Hitler said the treaty showed the Vatican was recognising his Nationalist Socialist state, while Pacelli said it showed Hitler would respect Church laws.

.....there were those who had knowledge of the genocide being perpetrated against the Jewish people and who failed to speak out. Among these were 'sons and daughters of the Church' who must necessarily include members of the clergy and the hierarchy. Some remained silent because of fear that their words could lead to further loss of life and others remained silent for less noble reasons.
Freddie Robins subverts the medium of knitting. in her Knitted Houses of Crime series she knitted replicas of houses associated with high profile crimes committed by women. there is also her mutant wool jumpers, and her experimental website looks at the similarities between using the internet and knitting.

(via near near future)
LINK SWARM

spiked
the memory hole
plausible futures

south america daily
japan times
usAfrica Online

Singularity institute
better humans
Damn foreigner

Veiled 4 Allah
kurzweil ai

the hacktivist
wearcam
wired

front pages
what really happened
the paperboy

new scientist
nanobiotech news
hactivismo

future facing
technology review

mobitopia
plasticbag.org
green fairy

libertythink
news from reality
disinformation

protest net
uk indymedia
Index on Censorship

Feminists Against Censorship
@ccess Censorship

palestine indymedia
libération france
aljazeera
each of us during our lifetimes comes into contact with an unmeasurabley large amount of information, which we mostly forget. but some information just sticks in the mind. like for me there was a series of about 6 books i read back in the early 80s and this is one of the bits that has remained in my head ever since...

the author and his mentor are walking together one day. the author notices a worm on the path. he bends down, picks it up and places it somewhere else that he believes to be better and safer for the worm. but his mentor is furious with him, telling him that he is simply interfering and arrogant to assume that the worm wasn't exactly where it wanted or needed to be at that time.
This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.
william burroughs:

"WORDS OF ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE"

"People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people.

Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old.

Never intefere in a boy-and-girl fight.

Beware of whores who say they don't want money. The hell they don't. What they mean is they want more money. Much more.

If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, Get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.

Avoid fuck-ups. We all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, No matter how good it sounds, Turns into a disaster.

Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly: I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal fool.

Now some of you may encounter the Devil's Bargain, If you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving, At least to a priest, But not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment.

He tries the easy ones first. You know like money, All the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetary? Money won't buy. Not much left to spend it on, eh gramps? Getting too old to cut the mustard.

Well time hits the hardest blows. Especially below the belt. How's a young body grab you? Like three card monte, like pea under the shell, Now you see it, now you don't.

Haven't you forgotten something, gramps? In order to feel something, You've got to be there. You have to be eighteen. You're not eighteen. You are seventy-eight. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on.

Well they always try the easiest ones first. How about an honorable bargain? You always wanted to be a doctor, Well now's your chance. Why don't you become a great healer And benefit humanity?

What's wrong with that?

Just about everything. Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains Involving exchange Of qualitative merchandise Like souls For quantitative merchandise Like time and money.

So piss off Satan And don't take me for dumber than I look.

An old junk pusher told me - Watch whose money you pick up."

Tuesday 22 February 2005

"The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time"
text on things

bath

MADE IN EU PE NE JAMMAIS LAISSER LE BEBE SANS SURVEILLANCE DANS LE BAIN MEME UN COURT MOMENT CONFORME AUX EXIGENCES SE SECURITE DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CHILD UNATTENDED IN THE BATH. LASSEN SIE IHR KIND NICHT OHNE AUF- SICHT IN DER BADE- WANNE 2
LINK SWARM

random Blog
trip
futurismic

brainwaves
the dullest blog in the world
loom

neural signals
globalise resistance
World Transhumanist association

the cur
extropy institute
anarcho-transhumanism

Gay Porn Blog
cyborg democracy
warblogger watch

die puny humans
amor mundi
blog of my barometer

the blog of death
caren
once i noticed i was on fire i decided to relax and enjoy the fall
the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (TDPF)

Transform is seeking to reform policies that have attempted to control drug use through criminal justice enforcement, a failed approach that has been enormously destructive.

Rather than eliminating drugs from society, drug prohibition has served only to criminalise millions of users and to create lucrative and dangerous illegal markets controlled by organised criminals.

Dismantling prohibition and regulating the market will have a number of direct and immediate impacts:

10 Reasons to legalise all drugs

plus...

research using psychedelic drugs is returning to Harvard

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

Heffter Institute, supporting psychedelic consciousness research

Headache sufferers who seek relief in hallucinogenic drugs
"Everything is a religious war these days"
interview with Rufus Wainwright

on life in contemporary america as a gay man:

The previous day, he says, a German journalist had asked him if he felt like a Jew in 1933. If anything, he said, he felt like a homosexual in 1933. "I think that the Americans who elected Bush into office are probably worried about terrorists, but enemy number one, their source of all evil, is gay people."

archive...

after the nazi concentration camps were liberated, gay prisoners were not offered any justice.

the allied judges, who wrote the german constitution after the liberation, determined that the homosexual concentration camp prisoners were criminals, not victims.... not persecuted.

these men were therefore forced into silence by the shame of their situation. the feeling of isolation must have been deadening.

The Allied Military Government of Germany repealed countless laws and decrees.

Left unchanged, however, was the 1935 Nazi revision of Paragraph 175.

Under the Allied occupation, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment regardless of time served in the concentration camps.

The Nazi version of Paragraph 175 remained on the books of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) until the law was revised in 1969 to decriminalize homosexual relations between men over the age of 21.

The continued legal and social prohibitions against homosexuality in Germany hindered acknowledgement that homosexuals were victims of Nazi persecution. In June 1956, West Germany's Federal Reparation Law for Victims of National Socialism declared that internment in a concentration camp for homosexuality did not qualify an individual to receive compensation.

Homosexuals murdered by the Nazis received their first public commemoration in a May 8, 1985, speech by West German President Richard von Weizsäcker-the fortieth anniversary of the war's end. Four years after re-unification in 1990, Germany abolished Paragraph 175. In May 2002, the German parliament completed legislation to pardon all homosexuals convicted under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi era.

Liberation Was for Others: Memoirs of a Gay Survivor of the Nazi Holocaust (1997) by Pierre Seel (Perseus Book Group). ASIN 0306807564.

An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (1999) by Gad Beck (University of Wisconsin Press). ISBN 0299165000.

The History of the Gay Male and Lesbian Experience during World War II

Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945

Men With the Pink Triangle: The True, Life-And-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps

The Pink Triangle : The Nazi War Against Homosexuals

Auschwitz Concentration Camp: The Pink-Triangle Prisoners
An Introduction to Activism on the Internet
the Committee to Protect Bloggers
a group blog and non-profit-in-formation to track and lobby on behalf of arrested Web loggers around the world.

"Free Mojtaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi Day"

International Bloggers' Bill of Rights

reporters without borders

Saturday 19 February 2005

Embracing the Artificial Limb
Think Tank

a glowing life-like brain in a bubbling self contained unit
"paedophiles are not monsters"

Actor Kevin Bacon has said that it is misleading for films to "100 percent demonise" paedophiles, following his performance in controversial film The Woodsman.

The actor told the BBC that it was important to recognise that the sexual abuse of children is a very complex theme, and that paedophiles are not simple "monsters".

"I never set out to make him sympathetic - I only set out to make him human, and the audience will hopefully make their own decision about whether they empathise with him or not."

Friday 18 February 2005

Inflatable Technologies for Sculpture in Earth Orbit

A number of artists have made proposals for creating monumental artworks to be placed in Earth orbit which could be seen with unaided vision by those on Earth. While there has been a variety of technologies suggested most of the proposals have utilized some form of inflatable space technology.

(via growabrain)
Momoyo Torimitsu : "Somehow I don't feel comfortable"

plus...

Kidrobot presents The Dunny Show
peter zokosky
joan's monets

"Every Christmas, My Aunt Joan gives me a Monet calendar. After a couple years the same old paintings became dull. So she started enhancing the master's works with a variety of stickers. Observe how dinosaurs, teddy bears, and farm machinery bring new life to tired old impressionism."
Vehicle to autonomous biped robot conversion for the Mini Cooper r50
Underwater gnome garden 'returns'

A secret underwater attraction that lured several divers to their deaths at the bottom of Wastwater in the Lake District. the gnomes were well known among the diving community. police divers say there is a rumour that the garden has returned at a depth beyond which they are allowed.

(via b3ta)
Fight Club Trivia
Bacteria Based Battery Coming Soon

A microbe, Rhodoferax ferrireducens, found in marine sediments, is able to convert sugar into electricity with a higher efficiency than any previously known organism.
Echidna and Typhon's children are the Nemean Lion, Cerberus, Ladon, ,the Sphinx, the Hydra and the Chimera.

the Chimera is a monster, depicted as an animal with the head of a lion, the body of a she-goat, and the tail of a dragon

chimeras

faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones taken from cows and pigs. And for years scientists have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have?

imagine.... genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice.

Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.
Semenex

"nothing works better than Semenex in making semen taste yummy"

"(Semenex) tastes a lot like liquid pumpkin pie. I was really surprised!"

plus...

manties: panties for men
The same actors appear time after time

President George W Bush has nominated John Negroponte as the first US director of national intelligence. Mr Negroponte has been ambassador to Honduras, the UN and recently to Iraq.

he is a controversial figure because of his involvement in covert funding of the Contras in Nicaragua and his alleged covering up of human rights abuses carried out by CIA-trained operatives in Honduras in the 1980s.

US determination to destroy opposition to its domination in Latin America stemmed from its defeat in Vietnam. The 1972 team in Paris helping Kissinger negotiate with the Vietnamese included John Negroponte

From 1981 to 1985 Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras. During his tenure, he oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year. Critics say that during his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic.

Negroponte supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the US, and which some critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. Allegedly, in August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site.

Later, the Honduras Commission on Human Rights accused Negroponte himself of human rights violations.

Speaking of Negroponte and other senior US officials, an ex-Honduran congressman, Efrain Diaz, told the Baltimore Sun, which in 1995 published an extensive investigation of US activities in Honduras:

Their attitude was one of tolerance and silence. They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned about innocent people being killed.

Argentinian officers trained members of the Honduran army in techniques of mass repression while John Negroponte was ambassador in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa from 1981 to 1985. There he worked closely with Honduran armed forces chief Gustavo Alvarez Martinez to impose a "national security" state on the Argentine model – that is, a police state based on extra-judicial murder.

As US ambassador in Honduras, John Negroponte displayed cynical contempt for US Congress and legitimacy, shamelessly violating the 1983 Boland Amendment restricting aid to the Contra.

On Negroponte's recommendation, the Reagan government gave Alvarez Martinez the Legion of Merit in 1983 for "encouraging democracy." Alvarez Martinez was reponsible for disappearing over 140 trades unionists, students and other leaders of the Honduran popular movement between 1981 and 1984. In 1989, in a test case, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights convicted Honduras of forcibly disappearing four people between 1981 and 1983. During that period, under Negroponte's proconsulship, Argentinian and Israeli terrorists helped the Honduran military refine their techniques of repression.

see a wave of torture and murder Originally published June 11, 1995

meanwhile...

US torture evidence in Afghanistan and Iraq

New evidence has emerged that US forces in Afghanistan engaged in widespread Abu Ghraib-style abuse, taking "trophy photographs" of detainees and carrying out rape and sexual humiliation.

The documents also indicate that US soldiers covered up abuse in Afghanistan and in Iraq - even after the Abu Ghraib scandal last year.

"It is further proof that the army is not seriously investigating credible allegations of abuse," said Jameel Jaffar, a lawyer for the ACLU.

plus...

There Is No Tomorrow

once upon a time, James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

according to a recent Gallup poll Forty-five percent of Americans believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.

the Rapture Index. Google it and you will understand why the best-selling books in America today are the twelve volumes of the Left Behind series which have earned multi-millions of dollars for their co-authors who earlier this year completed a triumphant tour of the Bible Belt whose buckle holds in place George W. Bush's armour of the Lord.

These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the l9th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative millions of people believe to be literally true.

According to this narrative, Jesus will return to earth only when certain conditions are met: when Israel has been established as a state; when Israel then occupies the rest of its "biblical lands;" when the third temple has been rebuilt on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques; and, then, when legions of the Antichrist attack Israel. This will trigger a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon during which all the Jews who have not converted will be burned. Then the Messiah returns to earth. The Rapture occurs once the big battle begins. "True believers" will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation which follow.

Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? on wednesday the Kyoto Protocol came into force, requiring countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. the world's top polluter - the US - has not signed up to the treaty.

Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right...

Thursday 17 February 2005

"numbers are my friends"

Daniel Tammet is 26, autistic and a mathematical genius. He lives with extraordinary ability and disability. Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do, It just comes to them. But Daniel can. he is able to see numbers as shapes, colours and textures. "When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think."

He speaks seven languages (French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto) and is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern Europe.

He was born on January 31 1979. He smiles as he points out that 31, 19, 79 and 1979 are all prime numbers

he has to drink his cups of tea at exactly the same time every day. Things have to happen in the same order: he always brushes his teeth before he has his shower. "I have tried to be more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable."

He lives on the Kent coast, but never goes near the beach - there are too many pebbles to count.

He met the great love of his life, a software engineer called Neil, online. they live together.

The only aspect of Tammet's autism that causes them problems is his lack of empathy. "There's a saying in Judaism, if somebody has a relative who has hanged themselves, don't ask them where you should hang your coat. I need to remember that. Like the time I kept quizzing a friend of Neil's who had just lost her mother. I was asking her all these questions about faith and death. But that's down to my condition - no taboos."

(via linkbunnies)
09h09

Tous les jours un autoportrait à 09h09

(via linkmachinego)

Wednesday 16 February 2005

cruise-ship retirement

"Cruise ships could be considered as a floating assisted-living facility," says Lee Lindquist, a geriatrician at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. She has now proposed a new model for old-age living, which she calls "cruise-ship care", to be published in November's Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

A year in a regular "assisted-living facility" costs Americans, on average, around $28,500 a year. In large cities such as Chicago, costs are even higher, topping $40,000.

Living in a dedicated cabin aboard the Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas, on the other hand, rings in at a rather competitive $33,260 a year.

Luxury liners offer many of the same amenities as old folks' homes: meals and housekeeping, laundry and hair-dressing services, and even an escort to dinner. They have handgrips in the toilets and walk-in showers. And they also provide plenty of things that land-based facilities do not - such as premium-grade ozone, nightly entertainment and round-the-clock access to medical care.

plus...

Young Blood Rejuvenates Old Muscles
age-related inability to repair many tissues, from liver to brain, may depend on the environment of regenerative cells rather than just the cells themselves.
Colorado Professor Fires Back as He Defends His Positions

"Certain questions were posed to me the day I wrote this essay. I was watching [the 9/11 attacks] in real time and I heard someone say it was senseless. I said, 'How can they positively know that? Do you really believe this operation had no purpose?' "
Veil of ignorance

The veil of ignorance is a concept introduced by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. It is a method of determining the morality of a certain issue...
american puritanism

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a bill authorising huge fines for "indecency".

The bill, passed by 389 votes to 38 on Wednesday, boosts the maximum penalty for firms and individual entertainers to $500,000 (£265,000). But the bill, supported by the White House, cannot become law until the Senate approves similar legislation.

Democrat Jan Schakowsky, who opposed the bill, said: "We would see self and actual censorship rise to new and undesirable heights."
Passport ban for two more Britons

The uk government has refused to issue passports to two more British men freed from the us concentration camp, Guantanamo Bay.

Solicitor Gareth Peirce, who represents Moazzam Begg and Richard Belmar , said letters from the home secretary indicated he had made his decision based on information obtained while they were in US custody.

"At no time of course was any moment of their custody lawful," she said.

"Each was kidnapped by US forces in Pakistan, neither was made the subject of any process of extradition or deportation, both were tortured in Bagram airbase and tortured in Guantanamo Bay.

"Their entire captivity was and was meant to be inhuman and degrading.

"We have asked the Home Secretary for disclosure in its entirety of the information upon which he relies and the circumstances in which it was obtained."
intrusive mandatory urine tests at work? try the whizzinator
A Visual History of Imps Whispering On Magic Posters
This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday 15 February 2005

gorilla cover gallery

(via growabrain)
Display Stirs Controversy In Land Park usa

Hanging from a house in Land Park, a soldier's uniform in a noose dangles from a rooftop. The words "your tax dollars at work" are scrolled across the chest.

The homeowners behind the controversy are Steve and Virginia Pearcy. They released a statement saying, "There will always be people who are offended by political speech, and the most important forum of all ... is one's own residence. The First Amendment is meaningless unless dissent is allowed."

Some neighbors agree.

"Even if you don't agree with it, he has the right to state his opinion. I don't find it offensive at all," Land Park resident Cece Williams said.

(via whatreallyhappened.com)

archive...

US teens regard their constitutional right to freedom of speech as excessive

A significant number of US high-school students regard their constitutional right to freedom of speech as excessive, according to a new survey. Over a third of the 100,000 students questioned felt the First Amendment went "too far" in guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, worship and assembly.

Only half felt newspapers should be allowed to publish stories that did not have the government's approval.

Roughly half the students polled wrongly believed the US government had the right to censor the internet, while two-thirds believed it was illegal to burn the US flag - another misconception.

The president of the John S and James L Knight Foundation, which conducted the research, said: "Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to this nation's future."
Andy Warhol... "I could never finally figure out if more things happened in the sixties because there was more awake time for them to happen in (since so many people were on amphetamine), or if people started taking amphetamine because there were so many things to do that they needed to have more awake time to do them in... Seeing everybody so up all the time made me think that sleep was becoming pretty obsolete, so I decided I'd better quickly do a movie of a person sleeping."

The second film that Warhol made (after Sleep) was Andy Warhol Films Jack Smith Filming Normal Love.... "Jack Smith was filming a lot out there, and I picked something up from him for my own movies - the way he used anyone who happened to be around that day, and also how he just kept shooting until the actors got bored... The second thing I ever shot with a 16mm camera was a little newsreel of the people out there filming for Jack."

FREDDY HERKO danced naked around the living room, occasionally making a run toward the windows. At the time Dodd wondered whether this was going to be the "suicide performance" that Herko had been promising his friends during the weeks prior - "it was obvious that Freddy had to do it now: the time and the place were right, the decor was right, the music was right." Herko made another long run and leaped out the window.

Andy Warhol... "I filmed Freddy three times. The first time was just a short dance thing on a roof... The second was a segment for The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys where Freddy sat nervously in a chair for three minutes, smoking a cigarette. And the third was called Rollerskate, and Freddy was the star of it. He put a skate on one foot and we filmed him rolling on it all over town and over in Brooklyn Heights, day and night, gliding in dance attitudes and looking as perfect as the ornament on the hood of a car. We filmed glide after glide of him, keeping the camera going. When it came time to take the skate off, his foot was bleeding, but he'd been smiling the whole while and he was still smiling, wearing a WMCA Good Guys sweatshirt."
random SourceWatch page
...formerly called the "Disinfopedia"

a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests.
No passports for british Guantanamo pair

A letter sent to Martin Mubanga and Feroz Abbasi said their British passport would not be issued in the light of evidence gathered against them by the US.

"I would be extremely concerned if the home secretary has taken this decision based on some promise given to America."

"We were told that there were no conditions. If it now emerges there were conditions, this raises serious questions."

"if he has based it on evidence, we want absolute, categoric assurances that the evidence he has based it on was not gained from Guantanamo Bay under torture...."
McLibel pair win legal aid case

Helen Steel and David Morris, from north London, should have been awarded legal aid in their long-running fight against a McDonald's libel action, (the longest civil or criminal action in English legal history... a total of 314 days spent in court).

The European Court of Human Rights said the lack of such aid effectively denied the pair the right to a fair trial.

mcspotlight.org
Engineered HIV Hunts Down Cancer

The researchers began with a version of HIV lacking viral pieces that cause AIDS. They swapped the virus's viral coat with that of another virus, sindbis, that normally infects insects and birds.

This change reprogrammed the virus so that it no longer targeted T cells but, instead, targeted molecules on the surface of many cancer cells. These molecules, called P-glycoproteins, make cells resistant to chemotherapy.

"They act like soccer goalies and punt therapeutic drugs out of the cancer cell. This prevents the drug from taking effect and allows the tumor to continue growing unchecked."

To show that their modified virus is a cancer-seeker, Chen and colleagues tagged it with luciferase, the protein that makes fireflies glow.

They found that the virus traveled through the bloodstream and went straight to cancer -melanoma- that had migrated to the lungs....

Monday 14 February 2005

china closed 12,575 web-cafes between October to December

Reporters sans frontières - Internet - China
"China is the world's biggest prison for cyber-dissidents."
SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY

extract...

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT SUPERMAN: AND THE REST OF US, TOO

by MARK WAID

...Up until the spring of 2002, it had been a good, long while since anyone had stumped me with a Superman question. That changed the day I had to face one that, oddly, it had never even occurred to me to ask:

"Why does he do what he does?"

(via gravity lens)
The Grey Sweatsuit Revolution is a voluntary experiment in personal and social expression via the limitation of one's superficial identity to a grey sweatsuit for a pre-determined and extended period of time, such as a season, or for the rest of your life

Fuck using clothes as a form of expression. Think of something more valid, like what you do with your time or what you have to say. See what happens when your clothes don't speak for you....
The Mirror newspaper's "messages of love"

Tara from Bristol...

"hi jamie i still really like u and i no your going out wid that girl but nick says she is a piece of shit .i think your really sexy and hot loving you 2day and always and i think about u every day love u always tara xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

John from Cambridge...

"To my darling wife even though our divorce came through on 14th February six years ago you are my one true love and I think about you every minute and only want to make you happy still if only you could see."

(via greenfairy.com)

plus...

fuck valentine's day

also...

March 14th is now officially "Steak and Blowjob Day". Simple, effective and self explanatory. No cards, no flowers, no special nights on the town; the name of the holiday explains it all, just a steak and a BJ. Thats it.
from blog to Digital Lifestyle Aggregator

(via plasticbag.org)
leigh bowery xtravaganza

plus...

leighboweryfilm.com

Sunday 13 February 2005

warholstars
Scientists reported last week that male rhesus monkeys will "pay" to check out pictures of female monkey bottoms or images of socially dominant members of their species.

"Zoo tempts gay penguins to go straight"

Keepers at the zoo ordered DNA tests to be carried out on the penguins after they had been mating for years without producing any chicks.

It was only then they realised that six of the birds were living in homosexual partnerships.
Bliss

"I've made this CD," he says. It's self-produced, burned at home, wrapped in a Xeroxed piece of paper."
Hapax legomenon

A hapax legomenon (pl. hapax legomena, though sometimes called hapaxes for short) is a word that occurs only once in a given body of text.
The World Naked Bike Ride in the UK

Saturday 11 June, 2005

Some cities will ride today Sunday, Feb 13, 2005
On the weekends, Marc runs 1300 feet of extension cord from his kitchen to the local park three blocks away where he hooks up a coffee maker and serves free coffee to all who visit.

He takes no money or tips, so people feel obliged to offer their conversation and baked goods in trade. So far, about 500 people have visited The Mobile Coffee Unit; he has taken Polaroid pictures of almost every one of them.

MARC HOROWITZ

Saturday 12 February 2005

New Holograph Machine

Developed by Chad Dyner at IO2, the surprisingly compact Heliodisplay, which is about the size of an average PC case laid on its side (and only a bit noisier), is said to intake air, "alter" it, then expel it and use lasers to project the image onto the "still invisible" conditioned air...
the Rorschach test (pronounced "ror-shock")

Watch how you phrase things. Say "This looks like ..." or "This could be ..." never "This is..." After all, you're supposed to realize that it is just a blot of ink on a card.

(via b3ta)


Iran's death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie is still valid - 16 years after it was issued.

The Revolutionary Guards' statement comes a month after Ayatollah Khomeini's successor Ayatollah Khamenei said he still believed the British novelist deserved to die.

religious authorities in Iran say the only person who can lift the sentence was the man who imposed it, Ayatollah Khomeini, who died in 1989.

Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami has previously said the death sentence should be considered closed.

plus...

The Satanic Verses
coined by the historian Sir William Muir to refer to several verses alleged to have been part of an early version of the Qur'an and later expunged.

The Satanic Verses
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling for the death of Salman Rushdie. On February 14, 1989, he broadcast this message on Iranian radio: "I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an, and all those involved in its publication who are aware of its content are sentenced to death."
Proud to be a 'terrorist'

Martin Lewis is proud that First Direct accused him of "consumer terrorism". He believes his website, moneysavingexpert.com, is spearheading a revolution in consumerism, exploiting loopholes and taking revenge on companies.

"A company's job is to make money. There's nothing wrong with that. But they spend billions on marketing to us, and there is no form of organisation which effectively fights back."

"My site is a free to use, ad-free, consumer revenge site. It's about consumers banding together. You can ask a question about a company in the chat forums and people will give you their opinions very quickly. But what people like most is spotting loopholes so that, rather than them making money out of you, you make money out of the companies."
(via kirsty jb)

archive...

Ethical shoplifting and A Guide to Political Shoplifting

A Complete Manual of Billboard Subversion and Destruction
Genetically modified plants may be the green solution for cleaning up contaminated soils.

researchers are trying to design plants that draw the toxins out of the ground. Phytoremediation - the use of plants to absorb or break down contaminants - has been used over the past decade with varying success. Genetic engineering offers the potential to ramp up the slow-growing phytoremediation industry with a new generation of toxin-cleaning super plants.
Two hundred years ago, three-quarters of the world's population were in bondage of one kind or another.

Eighty thousand slaves were trafficked every year from Africa to the New World.

Ship owners, slave traders, sugar exporters, chocolate makers and plantation owners were earning fortunes. Only one MP, William Wilberforce, was active in the abolitionists' cause. Yet with organisation, enthusiasm and imaginative campaigning, the abolitionists eventually forced parliament to hear the cries of the suffering slaves and bend to the will of the British people. "It was the first time in history," writes Hochschild, "that a large number of people became outraged, and stayed outraged for many years over someone else's rights."

previously in "King Leopold's Ghost", Adam Hochschild's acclaimed account of the Belgian Congo, we were told the tale of one of most terrible abuses of human rights: the theft of a vast country and the killing of between five and eight million of its inhabitants.

Now, in Bury the Chains, he brings us the story of the most successful episodes of human rights activism, relating how, in just a few years at the end of the 18th century, a small group of men (and one woman) took on the vested interests of state, church and big business - and won.

archive...

War is a racket

"I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism."

"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street."

...General Smedley D. Butler, former U.S. Marine Commandant, November 1935
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings

More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds.

the Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need to be protected.

More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business.
Luminescent Paper

Paper Produces Own Glow for Nighttime Viewing

hidden in the Brightec paper is an invisible layer of luminescent chemicals - material that absorbs energy from light sources and later releases it as a subdued glow when left in the dark.

As a result, Brightec's paper produces images that look normal under bright light. But once the lights go out, the paper gives off a glow bright enough to show off the image in full detail with very little color distortion. And just five minutes or so of exposure to bright light will charge the paper to glow an entire night.


Nazi and East German Propaganda

Propaganda was central to Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The German Propaganda Archive includes both propaganda itself and material produced for the guidance of propagandists. access to the primary material to help people understand the two great totalitarian systems of the twentieth century.
wewantyoursoul.com

You can receive a guaranteed CASH SUM for life, in exchange for an agreement that entitles WWYS the rights to your soul from now until all eternity.

plus...

How do I sell my soul to the Devil?

"To become a Satanist, it is unnecessary to sell your soul to the Devil or make a pact with Satan. This threat was devised by Christianity to terrorize people so they would not stray from the fold." [ The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, p61 ]
Cocoon for Men
your first stop for a second childhood

"It's a big scary world out there, full of responsibilities, difficult situations and death. But you simply don't want to face it...."

(via linkmachinego)

archive...

hikikomori

Friday 11 February 2005

"open-source" alternative Plant biotech

Scientists need to pay for licences if they use Agrobacterium; thought to be the only bacterium able to transfer foreign genes into plants.

But new research in Nature shows other bacteria can carry out gene transfer.

This could allow scientists to avoid the complex patent licencing process, which some say stifles innovation.

The open-source method is not bound by the patent system. So scientists are free to use the technique without commercial restrictions, but must share any improvements they make to this scientific "toolkit".

The team hopes this approach to managing intellectual property could jumpstart research into agricultural biotechnology in developing countries, addressing issues of hunger and poverty.

The team behind the Nature paper has also launched a collaborative research platform on the internet called BioForge, which will allow scientists to develop new technology within a protected "commons".
Lucifer's Toy Chest

Banned Toys

"The following toys are banned from purchase."

"Be warned: If one of these items is found in your home or on your person, then you'll have to find yourself another place to worship, for you are no longer welcome at this Godly church...."

plus...

the landover baptist store


Mitochondria

Have you ever wondered how your cells get their energy? Mitochondria provides about 90% of the energy that cells, and thus tissues, organs and the body as a whole needs to function.

The primary function of mitochondria is to convert food into energy. They convert the food we eat into basic chemicals that the cell can use. Mitochondria convert the potential energy of food molecules into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used as a source of energy. Hence, they are known as the cells powerhouse.

mitochondria replicate by fission if the long-term energy demands of a cell increase.

For example, fat storage cells, which require little energy, have very few mitochondria, but energy-demanding muscle cells tend to have many.

Mitochondria are generally theorised to be highly adapted symbiotic bacteria, probably belonging to the alpha-proteo bacteria (with the closest known candidate being Rickettsia, the causative agent of typhus),

Mitochondria are unusual among organelles in that they contain ribosomes and their own genetic material.

These and similar pieces of evidence motivate the endosymbiotic theory ...Essentially this widely accepted hypothesis postulates that the ancestors of modern mitochondria were independent bacteria that colonized the interior of the ancient precursor of all organisms with complex cells.

archive...

People Are Human-Bacteria Hybrid

Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human.

They are bacterial.

we are best viewed as walking "superorganisms," highly complex conglomerations of human, fungal, bacterial and viral cells.

More than 500 different species of bacteria exist in our bodies, making up more than 100 trillion cells.

Because our bodies are made of only some several trillion human cells, we are somewhat outnumbered by the aliens. It follows that most of the genes in our bodies are from bacteria, too.

The bugs are talking to each other

"new research suggests that microbial life is highly social, intricately networked, and teeming with interactions.

Bassler and other researchers have determined that bacteria communicate using molecules comparable to pheromones. By tapping into this cell-to-cell network, microbes are able to collectively track changes in their environment, conspire with their own species, build mutually beneficial alliances with other types of bacteria, gain advantages over competitors, and communicate with their hosts - the sort of collective strategizing typically ascribed to bees, ants, and people, not to bacteria."

New clothes stab bugs with molecular daggers

"Tiny molecular daggers that latch onto fibres stab and destroy microbes have been created, meaning "killer clothes" may soon be available.

Anti-fungal socks could take on athlete's foot while, on a more serious note, military uniforms could kill anthrax.

The molecular dagger has two sections. The stubby end, or dagger handle, is made of two interlinked, nitrogen-rich carbon rings. The "blade" is a carbon chain up to 16 atoms long, populated only by hydrogen atoms. It has a strong affinity for fatty surfaces.

When bacterial or fungal spores approach the fabric, their negatively charged fatty membranes are attracted to positive charges on the nitrogen-rich rings and to the fat-seeking blades. This forces the bug or spore onto the blade, which then penetrates the bacterial membrane.

Once inside, this charged end wreaks havoc and kills the spore by disrupting the delicate bonds inside. Each spore encounters a number of these molecular chains and eventually breaks up."
gametheory.net

"A resource for educators and students of game theory"
ISPs

(p0rnography, with the figures removed)
The Cuddly Menace
outerspace

A project by Andre Stubbe and Markus Lerner, Berlin University of the Arts (Udk Berlin)

Outerspace, a cute little robot arm that, once it gets used to you, behaves a bit like a pet.

The movements of Outerspace are based on its curiosity in exploring the surrounding space. It looks for light, motion, finally contact. As he finds something interesting, this again increases its curiosity, to find out even more. The same thing happens in the mind of the observer, when he approaches the object...

Thursday 10 February 2005

new york times:

9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings

In the months before the Sept 11th attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.

The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."....

... The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said

plus...

Religious abuse at Guantanamo (bbc)

prisoners held at the US concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being subjected to routine religious humiliation...

..."One method of humiliation reportedly includes non-Muslim interrogators throwing the Koran on the ground and stepping on it."

(though when you think about it, anyone who can be tortured by merely witnessing a book getting stamped on, torture through symbolism, is someone living life with alice through the looking glass, aren't they?)

but beyond that its also reported by Marc Falkoff, a lawyer who helped to compile the accounts, that some of his clients have been threatened with rape.

"No-one should be subjected to that kind of treatment. We Americans would not want our POWs to be submitted to it," he said.
recycled posts....

THE TIME TRAVEL TALE OF JOHN TITOR

Although there is debate over the exact date it started, on November 02, 2000, a person calling themselves Timetravel_0, and later John Titor, started posting on a public forum that he was a time traveler from the year 2036.

On March 24, 2001, John Titor told us he would be leaving our time and returning to 2036. After that, he was never heard from again. Speculation and investigation about who John Titor was and why he was online continues to this day.

a million billion of them every second

British physicists are pushing back the boundaries of super-precise timing. with a clock technology that relies on the behaviour of extremely cold atoms watched over by ultra-quick lasers.

in 2001 the US National Institute of Standards and Technology led the way with a set-up based on the energy transitions of a single, cooled mercury ion (an atom with an electron stripped off).

Lasers were used to set the ion jumping and count the ticks - just over a million billion of them every second.

Now the National Physical Laboratory has weighed in with a similar set-up but based on a super-cooled strontium ion. According to the Science journal report, it is "a factor of three more accurate than any previously reported optical frequency measurement".

plus...

Fully functional clock ... printed on paper

Berlin and London-based company rAndom has developed the Watch Paper, a clock printed onto ordinary paper.

Using a heat sensitive coating, the minutes and hours blur from one into the other in a very subtle way.

Using segmented LED displays and running from a tiny chip, Watch Paper can be integrated into Wallpaper of any printable size. It appears only when it is needed in order to be an un-obtrusive element of the interior

The Time Travel Fund

"The premise is that you invest a small amount of money, and in some distant future when time travel is possible your descendants use the astronomical interest on that money to come back and retrieve you."

The Time Travel Institute

"...is dedicated to the research and exploration of the temporal sciences. Together, we can make the future happen... today!"

stephen's time travel website

future me
write yourself a letter to be delivered in the future
recycled post...

pdf: Transhuman Theonarcissism

..... "As an active religion Transhuman Theonarcissism can be said to begin in the 38th century, with the writings of John Mugabe-Lee. Mugabe-Lee taught that one could hope to live forever, with one's powers becoming ever greater, until one was eventually effectively a god.

He believed that one's godlike future self is able to reach back through time to aid one's current self. In his teachings, one's divine future self is the proper object for one's worship, prayers, and petitions.

The religion remained a small cult until the 40th century, when the TL10 technologies for stasis and mind transfer made the goal of eternal life more plausible. Since that time it has grown rapidly and it now counts as a significant religion.

Theonarcissism has been discouraged (and even persecuted) in many parts of the cluster on practical as well as theological grounds" .....
Mind-controlled robot

Spanish engineer José del R. Millán has recently been elected by Scientific American as one of the research leaders in 2004 for his experiences that allowed a small robot to move around a model house, while the bot itself handled time-sensitive maneuvers such as avoiding obstacles.

Each user chooses three mental states that produce distinguishable brain-wave patterns and trains the system in a few hour-long sessions. These states are then used as "forward," "left" and "right" commands.

Millán is currently leading the Mental Augmentation through Determination of Intended Action (MAIA) project to come up with a mind-controlled wheelchair, and a mind-controlled robotic arm that could be be used for future prosthesis. Don't hold your breath: the scientist doesn't expect the mind-controlled wheelchair to be ready before 2015.

(via near near future)
Space racers unite in federation

The Personal Spaceflight Federation, whose establishment was announced Tuesday, brings together a who's who of space entrepreneurs, including SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, whose team won the $10 million X Prize last October, and video-game genius John Carmack, whose Armadillo Aerospace team was among the leading contenders for the prize.

The industry group plans to work with federal regulators to help draw up the "rules of the road" for suborbital space tourism, following up on last year's landmark law on private-sector spaceflight...

(via futurismic)

archive...

Association of Autonomous Astronauts

we're a world-wide network of local, community-based groups, all dedicated to building our own space ships.

We have been fooled, conned into letting governments and armies get into space on our behalf. Occasionally they will dangle little tit bits in front of us like "life on Mars" or "ice on the Moon", but nothing really changes. It must be apparent that their interests are not ours. Now is the time for everyone, for all of us here to do it for ourselves - and for each other.
2154: The Future of Time Design


video: 1994
the putrid stench of corporate mediocrity

TOP-EARNING MUSIC ACTS of 2004

1.Prince £30.4m ... $56.5m
2.Madonna £29.5m ... $54.9m
3.Metallica £23.1m ... $43.1m
4.Elton John £23m ... $42.7m
5.Jimmy Buffett
6.Rod Stewart
7.Shania Twain
8.Phil Collins
9.Linkin Park
10.Simon and Garfunkel
1984 photo pool
Tony Blair says sorry to people wrongly imprisoned over 1974 IRA bombings

Tuesday 8 February 2005



Project Blinkenlights: Arcade Games
Baghdad's blast wall art

In a dull Baghdad world of concrete and razor-wire, chicanes and blast barriers, a little colour has just re-appeared. Art finds a place amid a scarred city's sandbags and concrete

Every official building or media base these days has a frontage of four-metre (13ft) high concrete walls to protect against bombs and mortars, but Iraqis have begun to see the grey expanse as a public canvas.

There is of course graffiti, but mostly great swirling apolitical exuberance - everything from retro-Chagall to prog-rock album-cover teenage fantasies....
(via near near future)
batmanfanfilms.com
featuring new and independent fan made Batman films, movies, trailers, teasers, first-looks, upcoming projects, screenplays, and more.
peewee.com
Official Website for Pee-wee's Playhouse and Pee-wee Herman, Paul Reubens, Miss Yvonne, Cowboy Curtis, Jambi the Genie, Reba the Mail Lady, Captain Carl, Tito, the King of Cartoons
celebrity skin and bodily fluids
"We're your best source for celebrity waste and bacteria!"

(via growabrain)
robo-desire

Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to them reproducing. He says the software, which will be installed in a robot within the next three months, will give the machines the ability to feel, reason and desire.

Kim, a leading authority on technology and ethics of robotics, said: "Christians may not like it, but we must consider this the origin of an artificial species. Until now, most researchers in this field have focused only on the functionality of the machines, but we think in terms of the essence of the creatures." That "essence" is a computer code, which determines a robot's propensity to "feel" happy, sad, angry, sleepy, hungry or afraid. Kim says this software is modelled on human DNA, though equivalent to a single strand of genetic code rather than the complex double helix of a real chromosome.

Kim said: "Robots will have their own personalities and emotion..."


Printable Skin: 'Inkjet' Breakthrough Makes Human Tissue

the Ink-Jet Printing of Human Cells Project at the University of Manchester

By manufacturing human skin cells using a printer similar to an inkjet, scientists have taken a significant first step toward generating new skin. The process, which could revolutionize the treatment of major skin wounds, could be ready for clinical trials in five years.

Scientists expect to eventually build commercial skin printers for hospital use. Doctors would take cells from a patient's body, multiply them, and suspend them in a nutrient-rich liquid similar to ink. A technician would enter measurements of a patient's wound into a computer and feed the suspended cells into the printer.

The cells would then be seeded on a plastic tissue scaffold, which provides shape and stability to the new piece of skin as it develops. The scaffold would also anchor the perfectly shaped piece of skin over the wound, once applied, keeping the graft in place until it takes hold.

The scaffold would dissolve naturally over time, just as some stitches do.

(via gravity lens)

archive...

the Tissue Culture & Art Project

Saturday 5 February 2005

moto

eating his own words... When The Sous-Chef is an Inkjet

the sushi made by Homaro Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.

At least two or three food items made of paper are likely to be included in a meal at Moto, which might include 10 or more tasting courses. Even the menu is edible; diners crunch it up into a bowl of gazpacho, creating Mr. Cantu's version of alphabet soup.

He also prepares edible photographs flavored to fit a theme: an image of a cow, for example, might taste like filet mignon.

He is working on ways to invisibly support food, including injecting helium into foams and spherical encapsulations that would be lighter than air.

Cantu is also developing a course that floats. He starts with a cube made of a special kind of whipped silicone (invented by NASA) and, in a smoker, imbues it with various food aromas. The server then holds it above the table and spins it to release its designated fragrance. The material, which contains air pockets, become lighter than air when heated, so it remains suspended for a short time.

Aroma, you understand, is the next frontier.

It's hard to know what to make of the corkscrew cutlery handles stuffed with shaggy aromatic herbs....

(via growabrain)
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism

the greatest acts of heresy that a citizen can possibly commit is to read Emmanuel Goldstein's Book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.

The government portrays the book as the centerpiece of the Resistance ... the ultimate tome of all that is evil ... which is the reason Winston coveted it so. But when you get right down to it, all this book does is explain the structure of society in straightforward and honest manner. And under a totalitarian regime, that is the single greatest act of thoughtcrime possible.

newspeakdictionary.com

archive...

"the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.

The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand

The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.

The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.

to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors..."
(...Emmanuel Goldstein ... The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.)

plus...

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
(...Goering at Nuremberg)

also...

groovy popular terrorism
General Lyman Lemnitzer OPERATION NORTHWOODS
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
INDUCING CONSENT aldous huxley 1962
EDWARD BERNAYS (1891 - 1995)
"Public relations embraces the "engineering of consent"

Thursday 3 February 2005

Bright Orange US Prison Overalls

£37.50

the genuine artical imported from the US from the main supplier to US correctional institutions.

(via linkmachinego)
At a panel discussion in San Diego Tuesday, a top Marine, Lt. Gen. James Mattis tells an audience that, among other things, it is "fun to shoot some people." Mattis leads Camp Pendleton's 1st Marine Division in Iraq.
Land of the Dead

the fourth of George Romero's zombie quadrilogy: RELEASE DATE October 21, 2005

In the film, the zombies having taken over the world and those left alive are confined to a walled-in city that keeps out the corpse corps. Anarchy rules the streets, with the wealthy insulated and living in fortified skyscrapers.

The drama revolves around a group of scavengers who must thwart an attempt to overthrow the city while the dead are evolving from brainless slow-moving creatures into more advanced creatures.
THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER

"WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
heroin report

Research says it is possible to live normally while regularly taking heroin

The Glasgow Caledonian University study of 126 users of the class A drug found many were holding down normal jobs and relationships and passing exams.

Lord Victor Adebowale, the chief executive of specialist alcohol and drug organisation Turning Point, said the report was not saying that heroin was safe. He explained: "It says that if you have a job, if you have a house, an income, are well educated and have a health system to support you, it's possible to survive an addiction to a pretty serious substance."

The report's author, Dr David Shewan, added: "this study shows that the chemical properties of specific substances, including heroin, should not be assumed to inevitably lead to addictive and destructive patterns of drug use.

"Drug research should incorporate this previously hidden population to more fully inform theory and practice.

The 126 people studied in Glasgow had been taking heroin for an average of seven years and were not receiving treatment for their drug use.

Most of those involved in the study were in a relationship and a third had children. three quarters of the sample group were employed and a third were placed at the top end of the job sector.

The group seemed reasonably satisfied with their level of physical health, with almost 48% describing their health as good and just 7% describing it as bad or fairly bad.


plus...

heroin safe and fun
misconceptions about heroin
"You can easily edit the election."

The uk government is keen to deploy e-voting despite blatant evidence of ballot rigging in the recent US presidential election test run.

"We must be extremely cautious of the surge towards electronic voting. Before importing US voting systems into Britain, any software secrets in the machine technology must be made transparent. Software must be properly certified, and there must be paper trails. If these conditions cannot be met, electronic voting should not be introduced."

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything."
(....Joseph Stalin)

Wednesday 2 February 2005

cartoon
Bertrand Russell 1872-1970...

"Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position."

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

(...Bertrand Russell 1872-1970)
Rotterdam Film Festival show for Baghdad Blogger film

The film has been directed by the man who calls himself Salam Pax, the author of the "Baghdad Blogger", about Iraqi life during and after the war. The movie version comes in the form of a series of shorts made by Pax on a hand-held camera.

Baghdad Blogger is among a number of films about Iraq showcased at the Dutch festival, which runs until Sunday.

Director Oday Rasheed's Underexposure, one of Iraq's first features to emerge since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, is made on discarded 1980s Kodak film taken from the remains for the former Ministry of Culture building.

"Saddam's regime was hell, but now I think the hell has doubled," Rasheed said.

The festival was also due to screen murdered Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh's film about the treatment of woman under Islam, but it was withdrawn due to safety fears. Van Gogh was shot and stabbed in November 2004, following death threats he received about his film Submission.
"Japan snaps up 'lucky' Kit Kats"

Students in Japan have reportedly caused sales of Kit Kat bars to soar, by adopting them as lucky charms. The name of the chocolate bar resembles a Japanese expression - "kitto katsu" - used by students to wish each other luck before exams.

The phrase has been translated roughly as: "I hope you will win."

Kit Kat is made by the multinational food company Nestle, and has introduced a range of flavours designed for the Japanese market, including green tea flavour.

The Kit Kat was originally developed by Britain's Rowntree confectionery company back in 1935, but until 1937 was called the Chocolate Crisp.