It’s RECOVERY WITHOUT MEETINGS - from codependence, dope addiction, booze addiction…in short, any destructive pattern you’d like to delete from your own internal wiring. It then teaches you how to MAXIMIZE YOUR WORK ETHIC with TIME MANAGEMENT and ORGANIZATION BUILDING after you eliminate the toxic patterns and SERENITY VAMPIRES. A USER’S MANUAL FOR THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE is a post-modern guide for today’s realist - everyone who knows that meditating on rainbows, angels and puppies won’t fix them.

According to the most recent estimates, the economies of some eastern European countries, after posting double-digit growth for nearly a decade, will contract by up to 5% this year, with inflation peaking at more than 13%. Many fear Romania, which joined the European Union with Bulgaria in 2007, may be the next to suffer major breakdowns in public order.

“In a few months there will be people in the streets, that much is certain,” said Luca Niculescu, a media executive in Bucharest. “Every day we hear about another factory shutting or moving overseas. There is a new government that has not shown itself too effective. We have got used to very high growth rates. It’s an explosive cocktail.”

One security source said: “This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.

“It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda.”

According to Robert Cialdini in his book on persuasion, he defined six "weapons of influence":

• Reciprocation - People tend to return a favor. Thus, the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1937.

• Commitment and Consistency - If people commit on what they think is right they will die, verbally or in writing, they are more likely to honor that commitment. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy. See cognitive dissonance.
• Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.
• Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents, such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.
• Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people whom they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype.
• Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a "limited time only" encourages sales.

Abstract: A model consistent with string theory is proposed for so-called paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (ESP). Our mathematical skills are assumed to derive from a special 'mental vacuum state', whose origin is explained on the basis of anthropic and biological arguments, taking into account the need for the informational processes associated with such a state to be of a life-supporting character. ESP is then explained in terms of shared 'thought bubbles' generated by the participants out of the mental vacuum state. The paper concludes with a critique of arguments sometimes made claiming to 'rule out' the possible existence of paranormal phenomena.

Gonzalez had endured several break-ins at his trailer when the four boys, ranging in age from 11 to 15, broke in. Gonzalez, who was in a nearby building at the time, went into the trailer and confronted the boys with a 16-gauge shotgun. Then he forced the boys, who were unarmed, to their knees, attorneys on both sides say.

The boys say they were begging for forgiveness when Gonzalez hit them with the barrel of the shotgun and kicked them repeatedly. Then, the medical examiner testified, Anguiano was shot in the back at close range. Two mashed Twinkies and some cookies were stuffed in the pockets of his shorts.

Another boy, Jesus Soto Jr., now 16, testified that Gonzalez ordered them at gunpoint to take Anguiano's body outside.

Teachers have spent the last two weeks mocking up “alien” hand prints, as well as strange symbols, and todays stunt forms the final chapter of an exercise staff hope will stimulate their imagination and teach creative writing skills.”

I thought at first that children must have been terrified. But apparently, that was not the situation. Just read this:

“Donte Nelson, 10, of Edgware, said: “I’m not scared of the alien because I’ll keep it and put it in my pocket. They’ve got big heads and small bodies.”

Twenty years in the making, the world’s largest atom smasher, built near Geneva, Switzerland, was designed to investigate dark matter, the big bang, and other mysteries of the early universe. (Interactive: understanding the God particle.)

Operators hurled the first beam of low-energy particles through the collider’s 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground track just over a week ago.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Still, Kise was surprised at his e-mail snafu, as Pelzer reports:

Told by a reporter that the e-mail had been sent to him and others in the media, Kise said, “F*ck, tell me I didn’t send it to the wrong list.”

Kise said the talking points were meant for McCain volunteers.

Among the document’s “Topline Messaging”:

• To address our nation’s financial crisis, John McCain will suspend his campaign and return to Washington. He has spoken to Sen. Obama and informed him of his decision and asked Sen. Obama to join him. The campaign is suspending its advertising and fund-raising.

Obama spokesperson Bill Burton, clearly, didn’t get Kise’s memo. As TPM reports, Burton challenged the McCain campaign’s assertion that McCain “asked Sen. Obama to join him,” saying it was the Obama campaign that first broached the possibility of joint action on the financial crisis

It will provide easy access to Google's web-based email service, Gmail, as well as a host of other Google products, including Docs, its productivity suite, and Google Maps.

The Dream is expected to contain a GPS chip, allowing it to double as a mobile sat-nav, and Google may also provide additional tools for the device to help push location-specific information to the phone's owner, such as weather forecasts, travel updates and restaurant recommendations.

The launch of the so-called "Google phone" will pit the search giant in direct competition with the likes of Apple's popular iPhone and the BlackBerry mobile email device.

The thing that is bothering me the MOST about the bodybugg… is the whole subscription website thing. i understand, expensive technology… someone has to pay for it (i’m fine with paying the up front cost.  There is no reason other than GREED that they only have a  website version to “download the data” - the hardware only works with a Windows PC so the whole “universal” idea of the web is null here. There isnt anything that would really require it to be web only vs a desktop version. I just think they should allow BOTH web version for everything “food tracker, calorie expendature and intake” and a desktop version that will DL the data and free up that precious “memory”.

In the analogy it’s “give” the razor away and sell the razor blades.

Not only do they seem to be selling the “razor” at a high price but then they get you having to buy the razor blades too.

I put $600 down on a 24 hour fitness 3 year pass

$600/3 years = $200/12 months = $16 after that its just $45 a year = $3.75 a month… this is for all the sport and active 24Hours in the nation….

Compare that to

Bodybugg: $199-$350 and the digital display $99 and the subscription $14.95-$99.95

City Cats . . . outtakes from the book Urban Tails

 adobe cards . com

The recent onslaught of hate mail I received is a cruel reminder that racism is a like a simmering pot ready to boil over. But it's diametrically opposed to what democracy should represent.

I move in diverse circles and was raised in an upper-middle-class family with parents who exposed us to a wide range of experiences. My family includes several races and religions and a range of political views.

But from what I've been seeing lately, including the reaction to my column, the racial, economic, cultural and religious divides are getting wider. Most of the 2,000 negative responses used language so foul my ears curled.

These excerpts are some of the milder ones: Jerry Caruso threatened: "Pleeeeease bring it, we'll extinguish you." Michael Babich from Wichita, Kan., accused me of "calling for rampant crime and a plague of locusts."

Letterman discusses guests including Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern, with the most moving remarks about musician Warren Zevon, who appeared on "Late Show" shortly before his 2003 death from cancer.

Letterman recalled his "heartbreaking" meeting with Zevon in a dressing room after the show.

"Here's a guy who had months to live and we're making small talk. And as we're talking, he's taking his guitar strap and hooking it, wrapping it around, then he puts the guitar into the case and he flips the snaps on the case and says, `Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it.' And I just started sobbing.

The Ecology of Intentions: How to make Memes and Influence People: Culturology

by Adam Westoby (1944-1994)

Contents

1. Foreword by Daniel C. Dennett
2. Brief Background to Manuscript "Ecology of Intentions" by Mark Westoby
3. The complete July 1994 draft (with bibliography)
4. Appendices
1. Bibliography of works by Adam Westoby
2. Obituaries by John Spencer and Ron Glatter

 fucking nice

myspace.com/neopostnow

Noise tracks only using self generated vocals and filter effects in Ableton Live.

Dreamcaptcha

The cute little devils began sprouting bumps on their backs, which later turned into wing-like growths, during a recent spell of hot weather in China's Sichuan province.

Cat owner Feng says her Tom cat grew wings after becoming stressed during the recent mating season

How the Spanish Inquisition Stole the New World from England!!

When introducing his running mate, Obama said, "So let me introduce to you the next president - the next vice president of the US of America, Joe Biden."

And then when it was Biden's turn to speak, the Delaware senator called the presumptive Democratic nominee "Barack America" instead of Barack Obama.

"My friends, I don't have to tell you, this election year the choice is clear. One man stands ready to deliver change we desperately need. A man I’m proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next president of the United States, Barack America,” Biden said, per ABC News' Sunlen Miller.

Top 10 Positive Factors

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Anchor Text of Inbound Link
3. Global Link Popularity of Site
4. Age of Site
5. Link Popularity within the Site'...
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Lin...
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topic...
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linkin...
10. Topical Relationship of Linking ...

Top 5 Negative Factors

1. Server is Often Inaccessible to ...
2. Content Very Similar or Duplicat...
3. External Links to Low Quality/Sp...
4. Participation in Link Schemes or...
5. Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Man...

Most Controversial Factors

1. Manual Authority/Weight Given to...
2. Relevance of Site's Primary Subj...
3. Participation in Link Schemes or...
4. Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Man...
5. Global Link Popularity of Linkin...
6. Quality of the Document Content ...
7. Domain Extension of Linking Site...
8. Server is Often Inaccessible to ...
9. External Links to Low Quality/Sp...
10. TLD Extension of Site (edu, gov,...

In fact, about 4,800 laptops are lost at airport checkpoints every day, according to a study conducted this year by the Ponemon Institute for the Dell computer company. It is not known how may are quickly recovered, an institute official said.

But a checkpoint-friendly carrying case could potentially alleviate problems caused when folks grab the wrong computer by mistake, or grab the bag and forget the computer, he said.

The Georgia "Bigfoot Body" story is a hoax orchestrated by a veteran media hoaxer named Tom Biscardi.

Here's how it got started.

Here's how it ended.

And here's the costume used for the fake dead bigfoot.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority  filed a federal complaint Friday to keep a group of MIT students from discussing a loophole they found within the fare system for Boston's subway, called the "T." The students were set to present their findings at the DEFCON 16 annual hackers' conference in Las Vegas Sunday. A judge issued a temporary restraining order, though, forcing them to cancel the talk and keep quiet.

Here's the problem: The MBTA's complaint included a full copy of the students' presentation. Being that it's now part of public record, that document has found its way onto the Internet -- and, potentially, onto the screens of millions.

Sergei Ivanov defended the invasion of Georgian territory by charging the government with perpetrating "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia.

"Their political goal was to eliminate the population, a tiny population of Southern Ossetia, because without it, it's impossible to integrate back Southern Ossetia into Georgia," Ivanov told CNN.

The group, known as "Body Hunters" and lead by psychic detective Gale St. John, is "blind driving" around Central Florida in search for the toddler who was last seen June 16, Local6.com reported.

"We will not even look at street names," psychic detective Gale St. John told the TV station and its Web site on Monday. "We drive and go completely on feeling instinct, chasing down what we call a person signature."

In the online video, Hilton — clad in a leopard-print swimsuit and heels while lounging poolside — announces her candidacy for president and suggests an energy plan that combines elements of McCain's offshore oil drilling plan and Barack Obama's incentives for new energy technology. She also suggests a running mate: R&B singer Rihanna.

"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead," she says in the video.

Rhodes said the video was directed by Jake Szymanski and produced by Chris Henchy of Gary Sanchez Productions. She said the video took a few hours to shoot at the house where Hilton was staying at in the Hamptons. Rhodes also said Hilton was not compensated for appearing in the video "because she decided she just wanted to do it for fun."

Given everything that has happened over the last seven years -- not just with the anthrax attacks but with countless episodes of Government deceit and corruption -- it's astonishing (and more than a little disturbing) how many people are willing, even eager, to assume that the Government's accusations against Ivins are accurate even without seeing a shred of evidence to support those claims.

When you add on to that the magnitude of this case and the ample reasons for error and deceit -- it's the first lethal bioterrorism attack on the U.S., one which, according to the Government itself, originated at a U.S. Government facility, perpetrated by a U.S. Army scientist, that was then used by numerous factions inside the Government and out to ratchet up fear levels and falsely blame Iraq and/or Al Qaeda for the attacks and, thereafter, was blamed on someone who appears to have been completely innocent -- what minimally rational person would be willing to assume that the Government's uncorroborated, unexamined, untested claims are accurate?

What is the position of the Bush Administration on the torture of children, since one of its most influential legal architects is advocating the President’s right to order the crushing of a child’s testicles?

This fascist logic has nothing to do with "getting information" as Yoo has argued. The legal theory developed by Yoo and a few others and adopted by the Administration has resulted in thousands being abducted from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world, mostly at random. People have been raped, electrocuted, nearly drowned and tortured literally to death in U.S.-run torture centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. And there is much still to come out. What about the secret centers in Europe or the many still-suppressed photos from Abu Ghraib? What can explain this sadistic, indiscriminate, barbaric brutality except a need to instill widespread fear among people all over the world?

All sales proceeds at PatriotShop.US support our Mission of Service to America's Armed Services, and help ensure that The Patriot Post is distributed to hundreds of thousands of military personnel and students without a fee...

After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.

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Antikythera Mechanism Research Project

Fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient astronomical computer built by the Greeks around 80 B.C. It was found on a shipwreck by sponge divers in 1900, and its exact function still eludes scholars.

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Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism (Nature)

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The new findings, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, on Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with Archimedes.

These days, if an exclusionary body refuses to share beyond the in-crowd, at least one of those insiders will probably share it with the world. Information is free and the closed companies see their brand suffer as they try in vain to crush the dissenters on a global and very public stage. Their insular reporting hierarchies inevitably ensure that the same ideas and strategies eventually become recycled again and again, and that the truth is filtered through the instinct of self-preservation. Secrecy is like evolution in a vacuum or asexual reproduction. There is little pressure for real change beyond the cold, hard truth of the quarterly earnings report.

Is it even possible to keep secrets anymore? Do you remember all the conspiracy theories you read about in college? Have you noticed that most of them have now been recorded as historical fact? Have you considered that within 10 years the majority of elected officials will have public digital paper trails stretching across the fabled Information Superhighway? And there will be bands of saavy developers eager to crunch the data from those paper trails and render them in pretty visualizations that really show just exactly how honorable/charitable/pious/two-faced/depraved your future senator really is.

Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he believed overfishing has forced the penguins to swim further from shore to find fish to eat "and that leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the strong ocean currents."

Niteroi, the state's biggest zoo, already has already received about 100 penguins for treatment this year and many are drenched in petroleum, Muniz said. The Campos oil field that supplies most of Brazil's oil lies offshore.

Muniz said he hadn't seen penguins suffering from the effects of other pollutants, but he pointed out that already dead penguins aren't brought in for treatment.

While this path to soulful realization seems too good to be true, experts in this area warn that there are hazards. Individuals have reported being overwhelmed by intimacy or seeking out dangerous liaisons in desiring more.

In being transported to this altered, super-dreamlike state, know that things may be nonsensical. You will likely lose all sense of reality. You may not recognize your lover or feel like yourself. The experience can be destabilizing. You may be sick afterward from the intensity.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has been a "total failure" in everything from the economy to the war to energy policy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. In an interview on CNN, the California Democrat was asked to respond to video of the president criticizing the Democratic-led Congress for heading into the final 26 days of the legislative session without having passed a single government spending bill.

Pelosi shot back in unusually personal terms.

"You know, God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject," Pelosi replied. She then tsk-tsked Bush for "challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again."

From the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the Central Bank established itself as the official dollar manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold, thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to inflate for war and welfare.

By 1945, further restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that system came to an end in 1971.

It's the post Bretton-Woods system that was responsible for globalizing inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting, and we're seeing what it's like to suffer the consequences of the many previous economic errors.

Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited from this very flawed system. Because the world accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas (indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our dollars and gave us goods and services were only too anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed us to export our inflation and delay the consequences we now are starting to see.

But it was never destined to last, and now we have to pay the piper.

I'm now personally involved in the videogame industry, so my views on piracy have altered somewhat. But it doesn't change the fact that the majority of Filipinos and other people in the region continue to buy pirated games simply because 1) It's all they've known, and 2) Even if they knew better, they simply cannot afford original games. Publishers and console manufacturers like Nintendo are convinced that once they stop piracy, the money from all those lost sales will suddenly come flowing into their coffers. For whatever reason they never take into account their prospective market's spending ability. Thus, an underground economy has been built around the needs of the low-income Asian gamer to help them support their addiction. It's not hard to relate: If you had $300 a month to spend on rent, food and all of your other expenses, how high would a $60 game be on your list?

continued on page 2

Players would still have the option of playing anonymously, but registering would allow winnings to be direct-deposited.

The corporation also wants to use the database of players to analyze its market, creating loyalty programs and members-only contests.

The unsourced report by the newspaper's Washington correspondent said: "The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a U.S. interests section in Tehran, a halfway house to setting up a full embassy.

"The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country."

Now, you may argue that McDonald's and the other megacorps that the AFA has tried to boycott in the past, including Wal-Mart (for selling "Brokeback Mountain" DVDs to unsuspecting toddlers), the Disney Corporation (for its overall corporate support of the evil gay agenda) and the Ford Motor Company (for advertising in gay magazines), aren't shrugging off Wildmon's wide-eyed cult out of the goodness of their gay-loving hearts. It's not like the majority of McD's honchos actually give a damn about gay rights, or gay marriage, or social justice, or the deeper aspects of love.

Nossir, they do so purely for economic reasons, because it's just good PR, because they are safe in the knowledge that the AFA's rantings have exactly zero effect on their bottom line and lots of their own employees are gay -- and by the way discrimination based on sexual orientation is thoroughly illegal -- and therefore it simply makes more business sense to support tolerance than it does to endorse homophobia and general spiritual stupidity. Isn't that right, Boy Scouts of America? You bet it is.

As we think about the role of the Internet People in political actions, I can't help but wonder what it means that there's more mobilization than information. The conversation seems to circle around "compromise" rather than focus on the dynamics of the provisions and the logic behind them. This seems quite odd to me.

PS: In a tangential, but related political reality check, the Telcos are now suing cities that have decided to provide Internet access as a public good. So on one hand, the government is providing immunity to Telcos and, on the other, the Telcos are now suing to stop the government from serving the people. Gotta love it.

Update: Moments after posting this, the NYTimes reported FISA passed. Obama voted for the bill. Attempts to eradicate the immunity provisions failed. And, much to my irritation, the age old privacy myth was voiced by Senator Bond who said there was nothing to fear in the bill "unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial."

Welcome to Chaoism.net.  This site has been created for and dedicated to the study and practice of Chaos Magic. 

Chaos Magic, a "system" created in the 1970's, focuses on the acquisition of results through the use of recognised key methods of operation.  It's focus is on the aspects of magic that make things work rather than on the performances that surround them.

Additionally, Chaos Magic has a unique approach to belief, recognising that while there is no absolute truth in many belief systems and yet they continue to provide results to their followers, Chaos Magic adopts the use of belief as a magical tool rather than a series of defining boundaries.

Wonder how they managed that.

What is to stop a candidate from spreading messages covertly and overtly online. I have a pretty good idea of how I would do it.

Regardless of your political persuasion you have to admit the strong use of languaging from both sides (is there just two?). Contract With America, Drive By Media, Soccer Moms are used by the Right leaning politicos to get their idea across quickly and emotionally. Left leaning zealots (did I just do something?) have used words like a Woman's Right to Choose, dubed the NRA "Gun Toting", "Tax the Rich", The Environment, Religious Whackos. All words meant to invoke emotion and embed meaning.

Showtime and producer Sara Colleton (“Riding In Cars With Boys,” “Live From Baghdad,” “The Painted Veil,” “Dexter”) are developing a TV show based on the DC/Vertigo comic book “The Exterminators.”

The Hollywood Reporter describes:

Created by Simon Oliver and Tony Moore, the comic centers on an ex-con who joins an exterminator company, working with a freakish supporting cast of characters. A mystery surrounding his girlfriend and the manufacturer of an insect poison percolates on the periphery, and the insects are much more dangerous than they seem.

Find all of The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter here.

The biography of George Costanza is five times as long as that of Tim O'Reilly.

As Wikipedia matures, there are hard decisions to be made about depth and breadth. Shouldn't Tim's entry be many pages long? He's one of the great thinkers of our time. If IBM and Jones Soda get entries, why not your brand (or my old summer camp, which was ruthlessly deleted)?

All that has been unconscious is becoming conscious.

A tentative proposal, drafted by federal officials, sets a goal of eliminating the disease - not just controlling it in bison and in elk.

Livestock officials say infected elk herds around Yellowstone must be culled - an explosive proposition for a prized big game species that has thrived under the protection of a dedicated constituency of hunting groups. Nevertheless, pressure is mounting to kill or capture more of the animals.

At the moment it is still unclear what this means for future cases, such as the upcoming court case between Mininova and BREIN. In the ruling the court places a lot of emphasis on the tracker, as an essential component of the infringement process. Mininova does not operate a BitTorrent tracker.

It is however very unlikely that Leaseweb will ever host a BitTorrent tracker again. The ISP that once was a safe haven for most torrent sites is most likely done fighting.

People should be rioting in the streets and throwing bricks through the windows of the Swedish embassy, but nothing happens. Nothing.

And now this. I'm just a timid geek, but being under constant assault like this is starting to make me really mad. BLOODY FUCKING HELL

The combination of the telecoms letting Bush illegally spy on us BEFORE September 11, and the politicized Bush Justice Department punishing the company that refused - refused because it was illegal - is the reason so many of us are so adamant that Democrats should not be passing a law giving these companies immunity. The President can't spy on people without warrants, and the telecoms knew that. They knew it was illegal to spy on us without warrants but they went along with it. Why? Why didn't they ask the Bush administration to just get warrants? And why would Democrats vote to let them off the hook?

If you’re a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, Dan Brown, Zecharia Sitchin or Erich von Daniken then you’ll love Quest for Middle-earth.

An HFEA spokesman said it had approved an application from the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, for the creation of hybrid embryos. The centre has been offered a 12 month licence with effect from today, July 1.

Studies have shown 90 per cent of cats that have fallen up to 32 storeys have survived. Ironically, those falling from higher than six storeys are more likely to survive - and they suffer fewer injuries.

The theory is when cats reach full velocity, they relax and spread themselves out like a flying squirrel and land on their bellies, not their feet.

Another possible explanation is that cats that die in a fall from great heights are less likely to be brought to the vet.

Allegations in the affidavits include a claim by a 14-year-old that, at age 9, she was initiated into a "program for sex" called "Breckenridge" and that a male relative was to be her trainer. The girl told police that she was told she would be killed if she didn't cooperate.

The teenager told authorities that Brooke was to be inducted into the sex ring the day she disappeared.

there were a couple of important details that Mrs. McCain was leaving out. Chiefly, that on Aug. 22, the day that all the Cindy-beats-drug-addiction hero stories were splashed across the wires and airwaves, Maricopa County was busy unsealing a 212-page extortion investigation into one of her ex-employees, Tom Gosinski, who had sued her for wrongful termination and tipped off the Drug Enforcement Agency that she had written bogus painkiller prescriptions in his name. The McCains knew that Aug. 22 was going to be the first day the public found out about Cindy's illegal drug problems; they just got out in front of it with a heart-rending story, scrubbed clean of seamy details and juicy context.

The extortion investigation into Gosinski − which, by the way, was initiated at the behest of legendary Washington fixer and McCain family friend John Dowd − quietly died nine months later.

Does any of this matter, in a world where Vicodin and Percocet should be easier for all of us to get without having to shake a baby upside-down? Not unless you care to know the darkest corner of McCainiac damage control/suppression, or if you're relying on Newsweek for warts-and-all political reporting.

"What am I going to do with this? Nobody wants to touch this neighborhood. I'm stuck. So this is not my little American family dream that we had."

Red flags mark spots in the ground where metal has been found and needs further inspection. "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs are everywhere.

Evidently, this isn’t the first time Boing Boing has removed a post because of a perceived microfeud. In February this year, Rex Sorgatz wrote, “BoingBoing linked to me yesterday. For 10 minutes. Then someone apparently told them that I’m the guy who hates on BoingBoing. Post deleted.”

From the post in question:

One of these days I’m going to do a take-down article on a sacred cow of the internet: BoingBoing. I’ve already got a few ledes written: “BoingBoing, the pretend-thinking-man’s Fark,” “BoingBoing, your source for two-week-old links,” “BoingBoing, keeping post-hippiness alive since 1991….” And so on. Truth is, I like Cory and Xeni and the gang — they’re swell people. And I bet I’m the only one here who owns every single issue of bOING bOING — the magazine. But BoingBoing is clearly the most over-rated blog on the internet (which is easy to declare, since it’s also the third-most-popular).

Those are the words of a disgruntled fan, not a hater. There’s nothing there that wouldn’t get published in a print magazine Letters to the Editor section. Seems like Boing Boing should listen to Will Leitch’s parting words: “Someone Hates You Online. Try Not To Be Offended.”

She turned to her husband, Wade, and said: "Oh no. Something is really wrong."

She started the next day on her own translation of the Coptic transcription, also posted on the National Geographic Web site. That's when she came across what she considered a major, almost unbelievable error. It had to do with the translation of the word "daimon," which Jesus uses to address Judas. The National Geographic team translates this as "spirit," an unusual choice and inconsistent with translations of other early Christian texts, where it is usually rendered as "demon." In this passage, however, Jesus' calling Judas a demon would completely alter the meaning. "O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?" becomes "O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?" A gentle inquiry turns into a vicious rebuke.

Then there's the number 13. The Gospel of Judas is thought to have been written by a sect of Gnostics known as Sethians, for whom the number 13 would indicate a realm ruled by the demon Ialdabaoth. Calling someone a demon from the 13th realm would not be a compliment. In another passage, the National Geographic translation says that Judas "would ascend to the holy generation." But DeConick says it's clear from the transcription that a negative has been left out and that Judas will not ascend to the holy generation (this error has been corrected in the second edition). DeConick also objected to a phrase that says Judas has been "set apart for the holy generation." She argues it should be translated "set apart from the holy generation" — again, the opposite meaning. In the later critical edition, the National Geographic translators offer both as legitimate possibilities.

These discoveries filled her with dread.

Lord Hanuman image

Earlier this week, according to reports in India, Obama representative Carolyn Sauvage-Mar accepted the gold-plated statue, promising to pass it on to the candidate after is it sanctified through ritual Hindu prayers.

American intelligence officials say that the Qaeda hunt in Pakistan, code-named Operation Cannonball by the CIA in 2006, was often undermined by bitter disagreements within the Bush administration and within the intelligence agency, including about whether American commandos should launch ground raids inside the tribal areas.

Inside the CIA, the fights included clashes between the agency's outposts in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Islamabad. There were also battles between field officers and the counterterrorism center at CIA headquarters, whose preference for carrying out raids remotely, via Predator missile strikes, was derided by officers in the Islamabad station as the work of "boys with toys."

The cause of the collision near Flagstaff Medical Center is being investigated. Hospital spokeswoman Starla Addair said she did not have any information to release.

The crash started a 10-acre brush fire that authorities were able to extinguish, said Coconino County sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair.

I first came upon the word 'egregore' in The Magician, his training and his work, by W. E. Butler, Aquarian Paperback, 1982 (1959), p.155, where Butler writes that:

"A clear idea of the nature of the magical Egregore, or group form, should be built up in the mind in order that the aspirant may understand what part he plays in the whole complex scheme, and thereby may know how closely he is guided and aided in his chosen work."

It was at that point that the Air Canada clerk at Gate 27 approached me.

“Excuse me,” he said, “you can't say those words. Those words are illegal.”

2 Billion may Suffer from Mobile Cancer by 2020: Australian Health Research Institute Reports  

New Delhi, Delhi, India, Friday, June 20, 2008 -- (Business Wire India)
The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost 1/3 rd of world population (about 2 billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy etc. According to the reports the tissues of children are tender and are likely to be more effected by use of any wireless gadget and devices and they should not be encouraged to use mobile phone. The fatal and volumetric effects of Electromagnetic Radiation emitted mainly by mobile phones, Mobile phone antenna, tower, Mast, Transmission Tower, Microwave oven, wireless devices, system and equipment. These dangerous effects have been certified and confirmed repeatedly by many leading medical and scientific research institutions of the world including Ministries of health of various governments, W.H.O. and now have been admitted and confirmed by Govt. of India in their recent press releases.

Sceptics have suggested the sightings could be huge man-made lanterns floating into the sky.

But the boffin, of Llangynidr, said: “It was too big. It was way above the horizon and stayed there for 15 minutes. It was a bit smaller than a full moon – quite big and high up.”

Jack recorded the phenomenon on his mobile phone – but when they examined the pictures later, they found only three of the seven lights showed up.

"As Ostanes said, there are several different kinds of it; he professes to divine (divina promittit) from water, globes, air, stars, lamps, basins and axes, and by many other methods, and besides to converse with ghosts and those in the underworld" (xxx.2.8-10).^[5] By the end of the first century, "Ostanes" is cited as an authority on alchemy, necromancy, divination, and on the mystical properties of plants and stones.^[4] Both his legend and literary output attributed to him increased with time, and by the fourth century "he had become one of the great authorities in alchemy" and "much medieval alchemical material circulated under his name."^[4]

This "authority" continued in Arabic and Persian alchemical literature, such as an Arabic treatise titled Kitab al-Fusul al-ithnay ‘ashar fi 'ilm al-hajar al-mukarram (The Book of the Twelve Chapters on the Honourable Stone).^[6][7]

In character Enki is not a jester or trickster god, he is never a cheat, and although fooled, he is not a fool. Enki uses his magic for the good of others when called upon to help either a god, a goddess or a human. Enki is always true to his own essence as a masculine nurturer. He is fundamentally a trouble-shooter god, and avoids or disarms those who bring conflict and death to the world. He is the mediator whose compassion and sense of humor breaks and disarms the wrath of his stern half-brother, Enlil, king of the gods.

The books now known as the Corpus Hermeticum were part of a renaissance of syncretistic and intellectualized pagan thought that took place around the 2nd century. Other examples of this cultural movement would include Neoplatonist philosophy, the Chaldaean Oracles, late Orphic and Pythagorean literature, as well as much of Gnosticism.

Unlike some Gnostic writings, the Hermetica contain no explicit allusions to Jewish or Christian texts — and this choice seems deliberate. They do, however, contain some unconscious echoes of Biblical themes, underscoring the close if uneasy intermingling of Jewish, Greek and Egyptian currents in Hellenistic Alexandria. Unlike Orphic literature, the works of the Hermetica are unconcerned with the genealogical tedia of Greek mythology. And compared with Chaldaean Oracles and Neoplatonist philosophy, the Hermetic texts dwell far less on the technical minutiae of metaphysical philosophy: their concerns are practical in nature, their ends a spiritual rebirth through the enlightenment of the mind:

Seeing within myself an immaterial vision that came from the mercy of god, I went out of myself into an immortal body, and now I am not what I was before. I have been born in mind!"^[3]

The cryptic alchemical precept: "One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth." has been attributed to Maria Prophetissa and was called the Axiom of Maria. Psychologist Carl Jung used this as a metaphor for the process of wholeness and individuation.

John was poorly received by the populace of Brandenburg, as his administration was incompetent, leading to unrest in the countryside. Rather than governing, John was more interested in artificially creating gold through alchemy, thereby receiving the cognomen "the Alchemist". Realizing the danger Brandenburg was in, Frederick I granted John Franconian lands in Brandenburg-Kulmbach on June 7, 1437, territory rich with mines for the Alchemist to indulge his hobby in. The governance of Brandenburg passed to Frederick I's second-oldest son, Frederick II.

Riders were offered oral sex for $100, according to Miami Beach police who impounded the limousine bus and arrested its operator early on Sunday.

The sleek black bus cruised the South Beach neighborhood popular among tourists and club-goers, offering rides and unlimited drinks for $40.

The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation

The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a person. The contents of this revelation could not be received empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. Here are the ten major principles of the gnostic revelation:

1. The creator of this world is demented.
2. The world is not as it appears, in order to hide the evil in it, a delusive veil obscuring it and the deranged deity.
3. There is another, better realm of God, and all our efforts are to be directed toward
   a: returning there
   b: bringing it here
4. Our actual lives stretch thousands of years back, and we can be made to remember our origin in the stars.
5. Each of us has a divine counterpart unfallen who can reach a hand down to us to awaken us. This other personality is the authentic waking self; the one we have now is asleep and minor. We are in fact asleep, and in the hands of a dangerous magician disguised as a good god, the deranged creator deity. The bleakness, the evil and pain in this world, the fact that it is a deterministic prison controlled by the demented creator causes us willingly to split with the reality principle early in life, and so to speak willingly fall asleep in delusion.
6. You can pass from the delusional prison world into the peaceful kingdom if the True Good God places you under His grace and allows you to see reality through His eyes.
   
7. Christ gave, rather than received, revelation; he taught his followers how to enter the kingdom while still alive, where other mystery religions only bring about amnesis: knowledge of it at the "other time" in "the other realm," not here. He causes it to come here, and is the living agency to the Sole Good God (i.e. the Logos).
   
8. Probably the real, secret Christian church still exists, long underground, with the living Corpus Christi as its head or ruler, the members absorbed into it. Through participation in it they probably have vast, seemingly magical powers.
   
9. The division into "two times" (good and evil) and "two realms" (good and evil) will abruptly end with victory for the good time here, as the presently invisible kingdom separates and becomes visible. We cannot know the date.
10. During this time period we are on the sifting bridge being judged according to which power we give allegiance to, the deranged creator demiurge of this world or the One Good God and his kingdom, whom we know through Christ.

To know these ten principles of Gnostic Christianity is to court disaster.

It now appears that mere exposure to an object is especially likely to increase liking for that object when people are unaware of this exposure (Bornstein 1989; Bornstein and D’Agostino 1992).

A now classic study by Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc (1980) established that people will come to prefer previously seen objects even if they have never been aware of seeing them.

Why are public figures increasingly appearing whose whole identity is wrapped around driving others batty? Why does it seem as though more people are starting to write controversial books purely to make money off of the attention they receive when others attack them? Why are reputable publications publishing these authors' tirades against others that are intended specifically to draw them out in a public fight? I guess we know the answer... Or at least the equation. Attention = money. And in the world of media, attention = advertising revenue.

Some who spoke to the newspaper were optimistic about the end of civilization.

"You know, maybe it's really not that bad that the Netherlands will be destroyed," Petra Faile said. "I don't like it here anymore. Take immigration, for example. They keep letting people in. And then we have to build more houses, which makes the Netherlands even heavier. The country will sink even lower, which will make the flooding worse."

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

“To a lot of us he just seemed so much the master of his emotions, but I read those letters, and he just lost it,” Mr. Baldwin said. “It wasn’t the only thing like that. He wrote one paper about his ideas early on that sounds like a raving maniac.”

In Mr. Baldwin’s view those episodes missed the point. “Focusing on the affair is like spending all your time thinking about van Gogh’s ear instead of his paintings,” he said. “It’s very off track.”

Mr. Katz disagreed, saying that the seemingly crazy writings were important because they showed that in recurrent dark periods Fuller was not trying only to persuade others his ideas were important, but to persuade himself that he mattered. The letters, Mr. Katz suggested, were a form of self-encouragement as Fuller struggled to find a reason for going on.

"It's really about prognosis, not diagnosis," says Mr. Wilkerson, a former insurance industry executive. "Whether an employee has ADHD, depression or diabetes is immaterial. ... You don't need to know what's wrong with someone in order to facilitate their getting care and getting back to work."

Signs in the workplace

About 4 per cent of the adult population has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The three major facets of ADHD are inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity; in adults, the outer symptoms of hyperactivity often become internalized - instead of the person physically racing around a room, their mind is racing. Here are some symptoms of adult ADHD that may surface at work:

            Why shouldn’t we seriously consider a legally available and produced Marijuana inhaler to ingest ADHD medication in combination with counseling on coping strategies. With so many studies showing consistently improved brain functioning for chronic Marijuana users, the risks are extremely low. Ideally users would employ inhalers with metered doses. The dispensing of Marijuana would be indistinguishable from the dispensing of Advair, the mood swings would become far less intense [a major improvement over our present situation] and we could concentrate on other coping strategies to augment the “less effective” treatment.  Since it would appear similar to Asthma drugs the use would carry far less stigma – but the stigma is another issue that is only exacerbated by our current mantra of drug war lies and is another problem altogether.

Despite his confusion, Mr. Long was amused when told during a break in the court proceeding that his case could ultimately alter the marijuana possession laws in Canada.

"Yeahhhhh!" he shouted, pumping both arms in the air, shortly before the smiling court guards asked him to put his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed and returned to custody.

Bosses have been warned by the head of the Local Government Association (LGA) that they risk alienating the public for so-called snooping.

They may also be stripped of the right to use spying methods.

While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.

By comparison for 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s discharges and 36 percent of the Air Force’s were women, according to the statistics.

The trillions of gallons of floodwater help trap the oxygen-depleted water near the gulf floor. The fresh water, which stays at the surface because it is less dense, forms a physical barrier that keeps oxygen in the air from mixing with the water covering the dead zone area, DiMarco said.

Scientists are just starting to study how the increasing size of the dead zone is affecting fish.

We want to provide an immediate, honest and viable response to these needs and have the required experience to undertake this ambitious project.

Anthony Brown said he shut down the fuel injection system of his car and replaced it with a mechanism that runs on any type of water and a small amount of gas, WKMG-TV, Orlando, Fla., reported Wednesday.

No plasma-propelled aircraft has successfully taken flight on Earth. Such designs have found some success in space, where gravity and drag are minimal, but a vehicle hoping to fly within Earth’s atmosphere will need at least an order of magnitude more thrust, Roy said.

Radio talk show host Michael Reagan is calling for the murder of political activist, Mark Dice, after hearing that Dice is mailing letters and DVDs to troops in Iraq. Reagan wants to pay for the bullets.

Audio link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJO-kUINMs

"What we find is that there are side-effects, but they are not serious," Jean-Paul Collet of the University of B.C. said yesterday.

Collet, along with researchers from McGill University Health Centre and McGill University in Montreal, summarized the adverse effects recorded in 31 studies of ingested, medical cannabis use. Smoking pot was excluded.

 (Albany, N.Y.)  A newly updated analysis released today, co-authored by Dr. Mitch Earleywine, associate professor of psychology at the Albany campus of the State University of New York, shows that state medical marijuana laws have not increased teen marijuana use, despite fears that have been raised when such measures are considered. Teen marijuana use has consistently declined in states with medical marijuana laws, and generally more markedly than national averages.

The report, based entirely on data from federal and state government-funded drug use surveys, is available at http://www.mpp.org/teens.

FERNDALE, Mich. (AP) — Ferndale voters will get the chance to legalize the sale of marijuana within city limits for medical purposes.

The Detroit News reports the proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot would allow the National Organization for Positive Medicine to obtain a court order to distribute and sell medical marijuana to "sick" patients.

The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reports the group's Carl M. Swanson collected enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot in the Detroit suburb.

The Reactable was exhibited at this year’s Vision Show in Boston, and though it ended its 2007 world tour stint with Icelandic singer Bjork, it was still certainly one of the most popular interactive displays at the 2008 show.

Genes, then, appear to be first-order replicators to Ms. Blackmore. Memes, our cultural replications which have altered our genetic capabilities. Temes, are apparently Variation, Selection, and Copying occurring OUTSIDE of humans themselves.

The “third replicator point” Blackstone suggests is again a dangerous point in evolution:

The danger lies in knowing that when temes have the capacity to replicate outside of us, then we may very well no longer be needed by the temes:

“Not everyone writes things down in a notebook and then transcribes them into a diary. Fewer still will take that diary, clean it up a bit, and read it in front of an audience.”

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Anne Fishbein

David Sedaris

WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES

By David Sedaris

323 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $25.99.

Related

Books: What You Read Is What He Is, Sort Of (June 8, 2008)

Times Topics: David Sedaris

That basic formula for both his personal essays and his popular public-radio broadcasts has made Mr. Sedaris a best-selling author with a huge following, and his writing seems a perfect mirror of a confessional culture that revels in personal revelation — a self-dramatizing, post-Seinfeldian talk-show culture in which nothing (not even a boil on one’s butt or the use of a catheter with a self-adhesive condom) is too embarrassing or too private or too trivial to recount.

A.P. vice president Jim Kennedy says they will issue guidelines telling bloggers what is acceptable and what isn't, over and above what the law says is acceptable. They will "attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.?s copyright."

Those that disregard the guidelines risk being sued by the A.P., despite the fact that such use may fall under the concept of fair use.

Lillian Axe Website

Lillian Axe MySpace page

Steve Blaze Website

Steve Blaze MySpace page

Near Life Experience

Jamais Cascio at Open the Future is on to something big with a new concept he calls the Participatory Decepticon, the yang to the yin that is the Participatory Panopticon. The general idea is that we’re beginning to see instances of modified/corrupted video content that can greatly benefit the deceiver via a spike of monetizable attention.

“Such a deception wouldn’t stand for very long, but would almost certainly last long enough set off a wave of furious blog posts and mainstream media attention,” argues Cascio, citing political videos as an example.

After an eighth-month investigation in which it interviewed 66 released terrorism detainees and local officials mostly in Afghanistan, McClatchy Newspapers says it found most of those imprisoned at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are low-level Taliban members, innocent villagers or ordinary criminals.

The newspaper chain said its investigation concluded that many of the Guantanamo detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies, and most still being held because U.S. officials are wary of mistakenly letting a terrorist go free.

Politics Apocalypse is a concept album available for free to download, and even at name your own price in professionally pressed CD format.

Politics Apocalypse gives you the opportunity to directly support the artists by donating whatever you think the music is worth to you.

Depending on which branch of Freemasonry is involved the initiate needs to symbolically excavate and clear seven or nine secret chambers to at last reach the lost word. These seven or nine secret chambers are the seven chakra energy centers within the body and also the one directly above the head and beneath the feet for a total of nine.

In the OAK Energy Ball meditation this process is actually done with very real results. This method was known in the past but lost. Only OAK has rediscovered the true experiential meaning of this very important degree.

Persuasion as Science,
Not Art

The scientific study of persuasion
has been continuing for over half a century now. Yet, the research on
persuasion is somewhat of a secret science, often lying dormant in the
pages of academic journals. Considering the large body of research that’s
been produced on the subject, it might be useful to take a moment to
think about why this research is so often overlooked. It’s no surprise
that people who are faced with choices about how to influence others,
including important program or policy choices, will often base their
decisions on thinking that’s grounded in the established theories and
practices of fields such as economics, finance, and public policy. However,
what’s puzzling is how frequently decision-makers fail to use established
psychological theories and practices to guide them in their choices.

One potential explanation for this
tendency is that, unlike the fields of economics, finance, and public
policy, which tend to require learning from outsiders to achieve even
a minimal level of competence, people believe they already possess an
intuitive understanding of psychological principles simply by virtue
of living life and interacting with others. As a consequence, they’re
less likely to learn and to consult the psychological research when
making decisions, setting policies, or generating solutions to problems.
This overconfidence inevitably leads people to miss golden opportunities
for psychologically informed social influence — or worse still, to
misuse psychological principles to the detriment of themselves and others.

 I too run open WiFi - running an open network makes the most sense, especially with the number of gadgets (sony milo, nintendo wii, ultraportable notebook, etc) that I and my wife have around the house, and the friends that come over.

Though the company did not reveal the details, it “succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA,” said Hirasawa Kiyoshi, the company’s president. This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time, the company said.

With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems, Genepax said.

On the Yankton Indian Nation, about 50 South Dakota police units recently swarmed a group of Yankton peacefully standing in defense of their sovereign land from a corporate hog farm under construction near the Head Start. About 40 Dakota from Yankton were arrested in two waves of arrests. The arrests and construction are now being challenged in court, but the construction of the disease-producing hog farm has accelerated.
The radio topics include global climate change, nuclear testing and gold mining on Western Shoshone lands and violations of treaty rights. Another issue is the loss of Paiute traditional hunting and gathering rights. Scientists are battling Paiutes for 10,000 year old Spirit Cave Man. Paiutes have gone to federal court in an effort to rebury the remains with respect. In Kansas, the Kickapoo are a nation without water and having to haul all their water.
Other interviews focus on the proliferation of censored news concerning Navajo coal mining and relocation, Nazi-type forces at the US/Mexico border and the destruction of Tohono O’odham ancestors’ remains for the border wall. The news has also been censored on ceremonial and religious rights denied to Native inmates in U.S. prisons.

Those interviewed include Mohawks at the northern border, Navajo from Big Mountain, Arizona, Apache and Tohono O’odham from the southern border and Maori from New Zealand.

They were brought in after spending an average of six hours a day on their phones, talking, texting or playing games.

Their parents became concerned that the children, aged 12 and 13, were unable to carry out normal activities without their handsets. They were failing at school and deceiving relatives in an attempt to obtain more money for phone cards.

However, it may take a year to wean them off the "drug", said Dr Maite Utgès, director of the Child and Youth Mental Health Centre in Lleida, north-east Spain, where they have been treated for the past three months.

More authentic facts regarding Simon Magus are contained in Hippolytus' "Refutatio Heresiarum," vi. 7-20, where extracts are given from a workascribed to Simon and entitled "The Great Revelation." In this work an elaborate Gnostic system of the emanation of the Deity is presented, describing the unfolding of the world in six pairs, male and female, in the upper and lower regions, among which also the sun and the moon ("Selene") play a part and in which he himself is "the standing one; he who stands, has stood, and will stand." His stay at Rome, where he attracted attention by his miracles, and his contest with Peter are mentioned in this work and in all the patristic writings of the early centuries. He is said to have had a celestial chariot upon which he was seen flying through the air. He could not, however, withstand the superior magic powers of Peter, and fell from the chariot, breaking his legs (Syriac "Didascalia," i. 18; Arnobius, "Contra Gentes," ii. 12). He raised the souls of prophets from Hades (Tertullian, "De Anima," xxxiv).

The most elaborate legendary story is told of him, especially with reference to his contest with Peter, in the Clementine writings, where there is an occasional blending of the character and utterances of Simon Magus with those of Paul. Certain characteristic expressions, however, are found there which point to historic facts. He calls himself the manifested power of the great hidden Deity ("Hel Kisai" = "Elkesai" in Gnostic lore; "Recognitiones," i. 72, ii. 37; comp. "the one who will stand [abide] forever"; "Recognitiones," ii. 7, iii. 11; "Homilies," ii. 24); his spouse Helena (or Selene = "the Moon") is the mother Wisdom, one with the highest Deity, who came down to earth under that name ("Recognitiones," ii. 8-9, 39; "Homilies," ii. 23).

There were accusations by Christians that he was a demon in human form, with the story of Simon the wizard as the cultural equivalent of Merlin during the Middle Ages.

The apocryphal Acts of Peter gives a legendary tale of Simon Magus' death. Simon is performing magic in the Forum, and in order to prove himself to be a god, he levitates up into the air above the Forum. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and he stops mid-air and falls into a place called the Sacra Via (meaning, Holy Way), breaking his legs "in three parts". The previously non-hostile crowd then stones him. Now gravely injured, he had some people carry him on a bed at night from Rome to Aricia, and was brought from there to Terracina to a person named Castor, who on accusations of sorcery was banished from Rome. The Acts then continue that he died "while being sorely cut by two physicians".^[2]

Another apocryphal document, the Acts of Peter and Paul gives a slightly different version of the above incident, which was shown in the context of a debate in front of the Emperor Nero. In this version, Paul the Apostle is present along with Peter, Simon levitates from a high wooden tower made upon his request, and dies "divided into four parts" due to the fall. Peter and Paul were then put in prison by Nero while ordering Simon's body be kept carefully for three days (thinking he would rise again).^[3]

The Simonians used magic and theurgy, incantations and love-potions; they declared idolatry a matter of indifference that was neither good nor bad, proclaimed fornication to be perfect love, and led very disorderly, immoral lives. In general, they regarded nothing in itself as good or bad by nature. It was not good works that made men blessed, in the next world, but the grace bestowed by Simon and Helena on those who united with them. All of this, however, is information provided to us via the secondhand hearsay of the Simonians' heresiologist opponents. It is doubtful that these detractors would faithfully and accurately report the truth about Simon and his followers, that is, if they even actually had such information in the first place.

The Simonians venerated and worshiped Simon under the image of Zeus, and Helena under that of Athene. The sect flourished in Syria, in various districts of Asia Minor and at Rome. In the third century remnants of it still existed (Origen, "Contra Cels.", I, 57; VI, 11), which survived until the fourth century. Eusebius ("Hist. eccl.", II, xiii) calls the Simonians the most immoral and depraved of mankind.

Standing 45 stories tall and little more than 50 feet deep, this statuesque green structure is bound to make an sustainable impact that we hope others will follow.

With $400 million going into a mere 177 residential unit, you can be sure that nothing will be spared in the new residence. Each unit will run the width of the building with views from the balconies on the north and the south façade.

Vaughn at Mind Hacks has a short post, Memes exist: tell your friends (clever, Vaughn, very clever), which links to a couple of meme-related talks at TED. Daniel linked to a lot of the TED talks back in April (TED: Ideas Worth Spreading), but Vaughn focuses on videos of Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore, both of whom are ardent meme advocates.

I’ve watched both talks, more than a half hour of my finite lifespan that I will never get back (okay, I’ve wasted part of my finite life doing worse… I think), so I need to unburden myself. I think ‘memetics’ is one of the bigger crocks hatched in recent decades, hiding in the shadow of respectable evolutionary theory, suggesting that anyone who doesn’t immediately concede to the ‘awesome-ness’ of meme-ness is somehow afraid of evolutionary theory.

"Everyone who was in the shop, and it's a big shop, came to see Emilie at work and were all amazed and stunned at her relaxed demeanour.

"Emilie has always been interested in all mediums of art and has always been curious about new art forms.

He doesn't say how it "backfired," but isn't doing nothing, as has been the record industry norm for almost a decade now, clearly already backfired? Criticizing Radiohead for daring to try out a new distribution and payment model solidifies their image as an industry that cares not about music fans nor artists, but rather about the revenue each generate for shareholders and executives on the payroll.

Summit Entertainment is entering the comic book adaptation business, picking up the movie rights to WildStorm/DC Comics’ "Red."

During a routine renovation project on a Colonial-era building, experts uncovered pieces of a wall as well as a basalt floor believed to have been part of a dark room where Montezuma meditated, archaeology team leader Elsa Hernandez said Monday.

ISP’s have resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, according to a leaked report. Despite some people dismissing the story as a hoax, the wider plan to kill the traditional Internet and replace it with a regulated and controlled Internet 2 is manifestly provable.

"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."

The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.

He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.

Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

 -

State officials have yet to assess the full impact of the damage. They're waiting for state and federal law enforcement agencies to conclude their arson investigation.

In water samples taken in October 2006, concentrations of the drug measured around 1 part per trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Water department officials say their drinking water meets the highest standard of quality.

The AP reported in March that trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals have been detected in drinking water systems for 24 major U.S. metropolitan areas, affecting 41 million Americans.

Four hours and forty minutes later, he's done, having listed every possible crime committed by the George W. Bush administration. Some may say a few of the 35 didn't exactly amount to high crimes and misdemeanors. Maybe not. But they were certainly all crimes.

Is this the first time George W. Bush has been called a "liar" and a "war criminal" on the floor of Congress? I'm guessing the answer is "yes." Long, long overdue.

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers' identification and ask whether they have a "legitimate purpose" to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

We consider this Initiation entry into the egregore of the Order. When we cross this threshold our entire being crosses and our very essence will be contained and to a degree controlled by this egregore. The egregore is a force stronger than us and we voluntarily submit in the understanding that such submission will mold us in the way we are meant to be molded. In a way the egregore of the Order is a “soul catcher” and we place our “trust” in it.

If adopted at the 34th G8 summit in July 2008, the treaty would establish an international coalition against copyright infringement, imposing a strong, top-down enforcement regime of copyright laws in developed nations. The proposed agreement would allow border officials to search laptops, MP3 players, and cellular phones for copyright-infringing content. It would also impose new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers (ISPs), including perfunctory disclosure of customer information, and restrict the use of online privacy tools. The proposal specifies a plan to encourage developing nations to accept the legal regime.

The European Commission, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other government agencies have acknowledged participating in ACTA negotiations, but they have not released documents relating to the proposed agreement. Public interest advocates in Canada filed an access to information request but received only a document stating the title of the agreement, with everything else blacked out.

I'm sick of zombie outbreak films, The Walking Dead has me hungry for people living in a zombie infested world

One Northwest Airlines Airbus A330 had just landed and was taxiing to the gate area. It clipped the wing of another plane of the same type at a neighboring gate.

Hogan says there were no passengers on the plane sitting at the gate. Both planes had some damage to the wing tips.

These are the stories Wil loves to tell, because they are the closest to his heart: stories about being a huge geek, passing his geeky hobbies and values along to his own children, and vividly painting what it meant to grow up in the ’70s and come of age in the ’80s as part of the video game/D&D/BBS/Star Wars figures generation.

Unable to afford a proper camera crew and equipment, The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from the city, decided to make use of the cameras seen all over British streets. With an estimated 13 million CCTV cameras in Britain, suitable locations were not hard to come by.

They set up their equipment, drum kit and all, in eighty locations around Manchester – including on a bus – and proceeded to play to the cameras. Afterwards they wrote to the companies or organisations involved and asked for the footage under the Freedom of Information Act.

• Admin’s blog

• Blogger PR
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• conversation marketing
• online brand promotion
• online marketing
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• reputation management

The deal-breaker for me is the apparent lack of any sort of public UI. Plurk’s runtime layer is opaque at the moment, though this may be the plan given the teen gimmicks.

- UI is strangely awkward. Branding is trying to be cute but alt-y. Too much UI.
- Branding is also focusing on self-celebrity with a no-age twist: “It’s instant gratification, instant self-indulgence, instant celebrity, instantly YOU.”

Thirtyseven on Jun 05, 2008 at 3:13 PM permalink

I will still be very focused on conflict and the “Invisible Warfare” model, so there will be more brainfood on the way.

Memwar is still being constructed. This outline is an older timeline - amusing to see it half this kind of half-life.

 best television documentary channel online

• psychological and cognitive effects such as euphoria (commonly referred to as a "high"), dysphoria (a "low"), anxiety, personality changes, hallucinations, misperceptions, sedation, and memory impairment
• fidgeting, muscle twitching, and general weakness
• pain relief
• suppression of nausea
• increase in appetite
• tolerance (with long-term use) - this seems to develop with most of the behavioural effects, including the "high"
• increase in heart rate (with short-term use)
• decrease in heart rate (with long-term use)
• decrease in blood pressure (because of widened blood vessels; it is this effect that causes red eyes)
• increase in breathing (at low doses)
• expansion of airway and coughing - tolerance develops to these effects
• smoked-related lung damage (with long-term use)
• impairment of the body's ability to fight bacterial infections (with long-term use)
• men: hormonal imbalances and decrease in sperm count and mobility (with long-term use; tolerance may develop to these effects)
• women: hormonal imbalances and suppression of ovulation (with long-term use)

What are the medical uses of marijuana, and is there any evidence to support its use?

• Many consider smoked marijuana to have anti-nausea benefits, but there is no evidence to support claims that marijuana is as good as or better than existing anti-nausea medications.
  
• The capsule form of cannabis (dronabinol) is used to treat chemotherapy-induced nausea and to stimulate a person's appetite in cases of AIDS-related weight loss. It has been shown to significantly increase appetite, but it also causes undesirable side effects such as dizziness and confusion. A major concern associated with its use by those with AIDS or cancer is the risk of increased difficulty in fighting infections.
  
• A few published studies suggest that smoking marijuana helps people with multiple sclerosis as well as those with spinal cord injuries to relieve their symptoms.
  
• Dronabinol was found to provide significant pain relief but it can cause drowsiness and mental clouding.
  
• The high intraocular pressure (pressure inside the eye) that occurs with glaucoma can be reduced by marijuana use (taken in capsule form, or smoked); this is supported by a few reports from treatment of glaucoma patients.
  
• Marijuana has also been considered for the treatment of many psychiatric disorders such as depression, sleep disorders, and Alzheimer's disease, but no evidence exists to prove its effectiveness in these areas.

Early studies explored the role of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol—an active ingredient in marijuana) or smoked marijuana in treating spasticity, tremor, and balance control in small numbers of people with MS. Most of these studies were done with THC. Because THC can be given by mouth, it is easier to control the dose. The results of these studies were mixed, and participants reported a variety of uncomfortable side effects. In addition, smoked marijuana poses health risks that are at least as significant as those associated with tobacco.

• For spasticity (unusual muscle tension or stiffness)
  Studies of THC for spasticity have had mixed results. While some people reported feeling "looseness" and less spasticity, this could not always be confirmed by objective testing done by physicians. Even at its best, effects lasted less than three hours. Side effects, especially at higher doses, included weakness, dry mouth, dizziness, mental clouding, short-term memory impairment, space-time distortions and lack of coordination.
• For tremor (uncontrolled movements)
  In a small study of THC involving eight seriously disabled individuals with significant tremor and ataxia (lack of muscle coordination), two people reported improvement in tremor that could be confirmed by an examination by a physician and another three reported improvement in tremor that could not be confirmed. All eight patients taking THC experienced a "high," and two reported feelings of discomfort and unease

Earthquake Details

Wilcutt's blood alcohol content was only 0.02, the equivalent of one drink. She wasn't even close to the legal limit.

No matter. Shannon Wilcutt was busted anyway. Her little boy was taken from her as she was handcuffed, arrested, and entered into the justice system. That meant weekly random alcohol tests, weekly phone calls to a court-appointed "counselor," and the looming possibility of heavy fines and a three-year license revocation, not to mention jail time.

It would take two years and thousands of dollars for Wilcutt to be vindicated.

A UK man was arrested recently after officers from the Greater Manchester Police Department mistook a life-size Lara Croft figure for an armed man.

As reported by the Daily Mail, David Williams, 42, owns a computer shop and received the statue of the Tomb Raider heroine as a promotional item. Deciding to sell it on Ebay, he took Lara home.

Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory — "GRAIL" for short. It's a new NASA mission slated for launch in 2011 that will probe the moon's quirky gravity field. Data from GRAIL will help scientists understand forces at play beneath the lunar surface and learn how the moon, Earth and other terrestrial planets evolved.

"We're going to study the moon's interior from crust to core,

• :

So please, make yourself a crumpet (or even a full-scale crump, or an American-named snack if the crumpet is alien to you and your people), brew yourself the most aggressive available flagon of tea, strap yourself into a secured bath, and enjoy the rampant wildfire that is ‘Wil, Indy’’s contribution to the canon of great human prose.

Amazing stuff indeed, although looking a little further into the site gets a little worrying:

Be aware of people that offer plans, parts or a rocket belt that has not flown and tested because you will be killed.

Not "could be killed" but "will be killed". This is just one of several oddities, although as this is a Mexican setup it could just be a simple matter of translation. I'll be holding off for a while. You can go first.

Product page [TAM via Warren Ellis]

Obama is Arab, Jack Stern's friends told him in Aventura. (He's not.)

He is a part of Chicago's large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray. (Wrong again.)

Wright is the godfather of Obama's children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton. (No, he's not.)

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale (Incorrect.)

Michelle Obama has proven so hostile and argumentative that the campaign is keeping her silent, said Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach. ( Obama campaigns frequently, drawing crowds in her own right.)

He might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler. (Extremely unlikely, given his denunciation of Farrakhan.)

“Fellow nations, please don’t look down on Americans or America as a whole; you can’t expect us not to break down, to break down and cry, if not scream and rend things, breaking the intact and annihilating the already broken; nor can we be expected not to put things in our mouths or other cavities that were never intended for such ingress, or not to run naked and screaming through the dark and sticky passageways of a night that will never end.”

If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.

With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."

 New! Google Nation

Lagomorphs — any of various plant-eating mammals having fully-furred feet and two pairs of upper incisors — consume only difficult-to-digest plant materials, and because food passes through their bitty bodies so quickly, it is impossible for them to assimilate every dietary requirement with a single pass.

Therefore, reingesting the chow and encasing excrement is obligatory.

In Spanish, it’s called “caca” and “poo-poo.” In French, it’s “merde.”

While people are not generally fond of poo, and will go to great lengths to wipe thoughts and images of it out of their minds, the fact remains that whatever you call it — doo-doo, stool, droppings, dung, excrement, scat, dung or feces — bodily waste has long been hailed as the most useful substance on the planet.

In March 2008, Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I - IV, a brand new 36 track instrumental collection, under a Creative Commons license (Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike to be specific).

Now, the Chris Titan Show and Infictive Research will be collaborating to piece together a series of words to accompany the sounds provided to the public by Mr. Trent Reznor and company: Project “Haunted.” These words will then be muddled and muddied with before they’re recorded, spoken word over the music, and released as an episode of the Chris Titan Show.

"Wow, wow, wow," he said as he surveyed the audience.

"We have had a lot of rallies," he added. "This is the most spectacular setting, the most spectacular crowd we have had this entire campaign."

fucking around was not on the schedule of events. They brought real weapons. Real uniforms. Real armoured personnel carriers. To real Chernobyl. The results (and resulting photgraphy) is a sight to behold.

Сталкер в реале [via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

"When officers went there, they said it was like stepping into a place frozen in time.

"The cup she had been drinking tea from was still on a table next to the chair she had been sitting in and the house was full of things no one had seen for decades. Nothing had been disturbed for decades, even though there were more than a few cobwebs in there."

From the Back Cover

Mobilizing Generation 2.0

Mobilizing Generation 2.0 is a practical and immediately useful guide for nonprofits, political campaigns, organizers, and individuals who want to better understand how to use Web 2.0 technologies. In easy-to-understand terms, this accessible book describes how readers can leverage new media (blogs, socialnetworking websites, photo- and video-sharing websites, mobile phones, wikis, online maps, and virtual worlds) to recruit,?engage, and?mobilize?young people.

Bringing together valuable guidance; big picture advice from recognized experts like Seth Godin, Evan Williams, and Mitch Kapor; as well as real-life stories of success; the book provides the information you need on the most widely used technologies like Blogger, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Second Life. Chapter by chapter, the author walks you through How Organizations Are Using It, How It Works, How to Get Started, Strategic Considerations, and Challenges and Opportunities.

I wear my Avon Hello Kitty rhinestone earrings (pictured above) with pride. I would love an entire collection of jewelry featuring the friendly feline; however, most it is so outrageously priced.

A spokesman for the National Archives said they were now becoming available after several requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, and also because of a "proactive move by the Ministry of Defence for an open and transparent government".

Much of the previously classified paperwork is made up of correspondence from the public sent to government officials, such as the MoD and then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

1. For the more on the two-speed brain and emotional neutrality see the work of brain researcher Antonio Damasio at:
http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/med/neurology/neurologymds/damasioa.html

2. Interviews with Dr. Damasio:
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~husn/BRAIN/vol8-spring2001/damasio.htm
http://www.harcourtbooks.com/authorinterviews/bookinterview_damasio.asp

3. Damasio's books on this subject are:
Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain,
and more recently, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/anthony.campbell1/bookreviews/r/damasio-2.html

4. For background on "Adrenal Fatigue", see Dr. James L. Wilson's site at:
http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/drwilson.php
and his books on the subject:
http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/products/index.php

This syndrome has also been witnessed by acupuncture pioneers Mark and Warner Seem.

This experiment is systematically altering the function, development and structure of human brains and bodies in hundreds of millions of people around the world. Where this experiment is going to take us nobody is certain. What is certain is that it will have a profound impact on personal lives, the viability of families, extended work and living communities, and on the governance of nations. The United States of America is the place where the experiment is the farthest along. In a nation like ours, where we take only a few days of vacation after surviving serial 80 hour work weeks, grinding commutes, and unhealthy consumer habits followed by numbing hours of media consumption, our population is already fully embedded in the experiment like a population of eager lab rats.

Do the rats recognize the maze?

     If you listen carefully, there are words being whispered that describe this experiment, most of them describing its symptoms. Some call it the quickening, others refer to it as burnout, some diagnose it as "adrenal fatigue", some perceive the arrival of a condition of "emotional neutrality", and for most of us we think of it as being wired or multitasked. We start our children in the experiment at a very early age, with Gameboy-like devices, and on into the harder core 3D visual system stimulants. Each generation becomes more obese and therefore most comfortable before a visually stimulating display.

From the back, we see that the large power cell/backpack has been faithfully reproduced. Perhaps the biggest surprise was, against all odds (and the office betting pool), Pierre actually managed to keep a hint of the original skirt! Now, instead of it being an actual, fabric skirt designed to hide deficiencies in the costume, we have a piece of flexible armor, further protecting the mechanisms within.

Since the '90s, boomers have plotted to turn us into the redheaded stepchild of generations. We were slackers. Cynical. We loved Pauly Shore. (Okay, their animosity is legitimate here.) Even our name, Generation X, was a slur, indicating namelessness and the feeling of being overshadowed by the boom. As defined in Wikipedia, "X referred to the namelessness of a generation that was coming into an awareness of its existence as a separate group but feeling overshadowed by the boomer generation." Overshadowed? How about kicked to the curb with nothing but the jewel case from In Utero to keep us warm?

BOOK OF THE TIMES New book Millennials Rising crowns Generation Y as the new "greatest generation"

Sure, Generation X survived AIDS, Reagan, the Cold War, Tipper Gore, and A Flock of Seagulls, but those adversities, suggest Strauss and Howe, pale in comparison to what Millennials face today. Consider the stress of having to juggle a 30-hour work week while simultaneously maintaining Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr accounts. It's enough to make your head spin! And maybe the Millennials never faced Hitler's forces on the beaches of Normandy, but had they been around in 1944 (and had the technology existed), you can bet they would have blogged about it.

The opening night movie, Blindness, sees City Of God director Fernando Mereilles turn up the horror factor in a story of humanity divided into two camps - those who can see and an increasingly disturbing "society of the blind".

"It's being pitched as a Children Of Men meets Day of the Dead, which has got me interested," says Dinning.

Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, who calls himself “Fusion Man”, becomes the first person to fly with jet-fuel powered wings strapped to his back. He completed several loops at 300km/h (186mph) above the Alps.

"Thank you for caring so much about our country," Clinton said in a video sent yesterday to supporters. "And now it's on to West Virginia and Kentucky and Oregon, and we'll stay in touch."

Not mentioned in her apparent video swan song are the final three primaries, in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, to be held after next week - leading to speculation that she might pull the plug on her campaign after what are expected to be strong wins in West Virginia and Kentucky.

• TorrentSpy Slapped with $110 Million Judgement
•  MPAA Demands $15 Million from The Pirate Bay
• Isohunt Founder at Center of U.S. Torrent-Tracking Legal Battle
• Infringement ‘Detrimental To the Public Health, Safety’ ?
•  Nine Inch Nails’ Reznor gives a freebie to fans

The case against Fung is already having ramifications for its U.S.-based users. Fung said he has cut them off from the Torrentbox and Podtropolis trackers. Fung said he feared that the American courts, as they did in the TorrentSpy case, would demand that he turn over the names or IP addresses of its U.S. users.

His servers, he said, are in Toronto, and were located in the United States -- a fact he said that has given the U.S. courts legal jurisdiction to decide the case.

His attorney, Ira Rothken, said "there is no other ruling I'm aware of in the history of jurisprudence that having a search engine for dot-torrent files is legal or not."

Gary Fung remembers years ago when the first computer he operated was a Pentium 90.

His programming skills have grown considerably since that first computer and his mastery of Pascal. Combined with his business acumen, the 25-year-old Fung now heads the popular BitTorrent search engine Isohunt and two tracking sites, Podtropolis and Torrentbox.

the anti-patriotic perception seems to have jumped from e-mail in-boxes to some media outlets, perhaps fueling some voters' ongoing uneasiness. Additionally, both senators' campaigns are trying to convince  superdelegates of their electability.  Clinton's meeting with superdelegates this afternoon on Capitol Hill. The Obama campaign announced Wednesday that it has received an additional three superdelegate endorsements. Yet this kind of sentiment  expressed  through voter interviews -- however remote -- could play a factor.

Some on the internet note how absurd that perception of Obama really is.

"How can Barack Obama be a radical Christian, a Muslim, and a Marxist at the same time?" asks Adam J. Blust on Twitter.

 ha.  my wedding is better

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "Witches, clowns and sirens day," the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

The communications regulator said that sensors could be implanted into people at risk of heart attack or diabetic collapse that would allow doctors to monitor them remotely.

If the “in-body network” recorded that the person had suddenly collapsed, it would send an alert, via a nearby base station at their home, to a surgery or hospital.

 "I told him that I was helping out the National Weather Service in San Angelo, and they were relaying my reports to Midland.  He told me he didn't care, and that I needed to go."

Barnes thought it was his obligation to stay put and follow the storms, a decision that landed him in jail.  "He jumped out and put me in handcuffs.  I turned around and I remember him slamming me up against his vehicle, and then it all got kind of scary."

Dear Sony,

As I was signed to you, there was a promise of fame and fortune. The first impression of the arrangement was that while you take majority of the money made with my work, should there be any left after expenses, I could get some after a year or so. Now it seems that there is no money, nor is it ever coming. Not only did you fail to react when it could have made a difference, you also never issued any legal action against the consumers stealing my music or the ISP’s providing the means to do so or the companies making it easier and easier. You only started to campaign that it is wrong to steal my work once there already was a generation of kids grown to steal it, taught that it is ok. That everyone does it. To such an extent it is hard to find a parent or teacher telling the kids off, when they do it. Steal from me. Then you, as music industry, decided to make the legal downloading and buyingf my work harder, as the illegal stealers were making it easier.

I never made any money from the records to begin with. Only the royalties from radio play and the gigs and tours made my fortune. What has changed is that you started to tease my fans. Telling them that it is criminal to acquire my music. To have them change their easy ways to your stupid and difficult ways, that you change all the time, in order to listen to me and my work.

How about this, you fuck off and put up an torrent and FTP server, where all my music shall be forever to be downloaded for free. I will give you 10% of my gig profits, you can still keep all of the royalties from the record sales (lol).

Yours playfully,

Recording Artist

Remember the crazy guy who claims he has specially bred giant Japanese crab lice that don’t bite? And that they make great pets? (“Like Sea Monkeys in Your Pants!”)

So, when I wrote about that–and how utterly full of shit that website is–I got an email from a reporter. The LoveBugz.net website offers to send you your very own “pets” if you send them your address and a buck. The reporter wanted to buy some lice and have me look at them.

I thought the site was just a creative ad-farm scheme, so said “Sure! Send ‘em to me!”
Because, seriously.
It had to be a a scam. Who is going to go to the Better Business Bureau and complain that they didn’t get the pubic lice they paid for?

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking.

From Hagakure (In the Shadow of Leaves),
a series of commentaries by Yamamoto Tsunetomo,
as recorded by Tashiro Tsuramoto

Experts say that "false positives" are rare, but when the police department tested additional pills -- including an Aleve tablet provided by the Herald-Tribune -- the results were the same: Aleve shows up as amphetamines.

Eight Belles went down on the track after her second-place finish today, broke two ankles, and was euthanized.

Showing a sisterhood with the female horse, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., during a trip to Louisville this week had said she was going to bet on Eight Belles to win, place, and show.

A meme-focused vision of culture and consciousness acknowledges forthrightly that memes are not mere random effluvia of the human experience but powerful control mechanisms that impose a largely invisible deep structure on a wide range of complex phenomena - language, scientific thinking, political behavior, productive work, religion, philosophical discourse, even history itself.

But consider the matter more closely. What if it were possible to construct a new science of the meme - memetic engineering - analogous to the discipline of genetic engineering?

Since the mid-1970s, there have been widespread allegations of the existence of a well-organized intergenerational satanic cult whose members sexually molest, torture, and murder children across the United States. In the 1980s there was a panic regarding SRA, which was largely triggered by a fictional book called Michelle Remembers (1980) by Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder, M.D. The book was published as fact but has subsequently been shown to be a hoax by at least three independent investigators. Pazder was Smith's therapist. Subsequent to their book,