Archive | January, 2010

Was the Moon Created by a Nuclear Explosion on Earth?

By on January 30, 2010 in News 4

From the Daily Mail:

How the Moon was created and came to orbit the Earth has long puzzled scientists.

The most commonly held theory is that when the solar system was first formed, an object collided with Earth, knocking off a chunk of rock that fell into orbit around it.

But now two scientists have come up with a new explanation. They believe the Moon did not break away from the Earth because of an impact or an explosion in space, but because of a nuclear explosion on Earth itself.

Similarities: Lunar samples from moon landings have shown that the material of the moon is nearly identical to Earth’sTheir idea is based on the fission theory which was first outlined in the 19th century.

The fission theory suggested that the Earth and Moon were both created out of the same blob of spinning molten rock – with a part becoming separated which later became the moon.

… Read the rest

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The Weird World of Occult America — How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation

By on January 30, 2010 in News 3

Alternet reviews Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation:

If witch-burning Puritans are the original jocks of American history, then the mystics surrounding Johannes Kelpius are the first goths. While the rest of the British colonies were still dutifully worshipping their angry Christian god, Kelpius and his followers—who fled Austria to settle in Philadelphia during the late seventeenth-century—busied themselves with astrology, alchemy, Kabbalah, and other “dark arts” with tangled roots in the Italian Renaissance, the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, and various (often fabricated) antiquities. We meet Kelpius early in Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, an uneven but always interesting account of 400 years of New World Strange. Among the several misconceptions Horowitz seeks to dispel, the most foundational is the idea that Colonial America provided shelter only for persecuted Christian sects. Almost from the beginning, North America was also home to a fair number of those who, like Kelpius, had more arcane spiritual interests.

Horowitz never claims that these beliefs were as formative an influence as Christianity in the making of America, but after finishing his book, one can’t help but wonder if maybe Ouija boards don’t belong next to King James in every motel room…

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The Truth About Flight 253 Has Been Revealed

By on January 30, 2010 in News 4

By Kurt Haskell on the Lori’s Liberal Realm blog:

The Sharp Dressed Man Who Assisted Mutallab Onto Flight 253 Was A U.S. Government Agent

Since our flight landed on Christmas Day, Lori and I have been doing everything in our power to uncover the truth about why we were almost blown up in the air over Detroit. The truth is now finally out after the publication of the following Detroit News article:

Let me quote from the article:

“Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab’s visa wasn’t taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would’ve foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

“Revocation action would’ve disclosed what they were doing,” Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, “rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort.”‘

Now it all becomes apparent.

… Read the rest

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EXHIBIT A: Denis Leary Vs. Bill Hicks

By on January 30, 2010 in News 40

Andy Gately from Austin Underground submitted this lead to us:

“Did comedian Denis Leary steal fellow comic Bill Hicks’ stand-up act and persona? You be the judge. This is the definitive, side by side comparison of the two artists, with all the similar material in question:

EXHIBIT A: Leary Vs. Hicks is an experimental documentary about the potential for artistic theft in the world of stand-up comedy, and the allegation that performer Denis Leary lifted much of his persona and act from fellow comedian Hicks. Culled from hours of archive footage and presented here for the first time, the similarities in question are shown back-to-back, allowing viewers to decide for themselves. The film premiered at the Austin Underground Film Festival, in the town Bill Hicks called home.

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Wolf Moon, Largest of 2010, Appears Tonight With Support By Mars

By on January 30, 2010 in News 7

Full Moon. Photo: Bresson ThomasFor those of you not in a part of the world too cold (or too far) to go outside and take a look, today brings a rare appearance of the year’s largest full moon, with a bonus appearance by planet Mars, just to the left of the moon. This report from National Geographic:

The biggest full moon of 2010 will rise in the east tonight, and it’ll appear with a bright sidekick: Mars will cozy up just to the left of the supersize moon.

January’s full moon is also called the wolf moon, according to Native American tradition associating this month’s full moon with wolves howling in the cold midwinter.

The 2010 wolf moon will appear 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than any other full moon this year, because our cosmic neighbor will actually be closer to Earth than usual.

The moon will be at its closest perigee—the nearest it gets to our planet during its egg-shaped orbit—for 2010 at 4:04 a.m.

… Read the rest

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Professors Help U.S. Army With Social Media Networks Research

By on January 30, 2010 in News 0

By Molly Johnson for Indiana Daily Student:

IU statistics professor Stanley Wasserman points at the map of the “Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem” from the New York Times that he has tacked to his bulletin board. “Networks are hot,” he says.

Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, have pervaded almost every aspect of our society –they help us make friends, get jobs, and now, thanks to a new military effort, they could help us catch terrorists.

The project, sponsored by the U.S. Army, will urge researchers, including two professors at IU, to come up with new ways to analyze data surrounding networks. The project is designed to aid military operations, including anti-terrorism efforts, and to explain how knowledge is spread between peers in the modern military, according to the IU press release.

“They want to be able to understand networks better, all kinds of networks,” said Wasserman, one of the IU professors on the team.

… Read the rest

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Under Obama in Afghanistan, US Conducts Night Raids, Runs Hidden Detention Centers

By on January 30, 2010 in News 0

NightvisionBy Anand Gopal for Alternet:

Even if inherited from the Bush administration, the Afghan night raids, the accompanying killings are now after a year in office, Obama’s official policy.

One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town’s bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost’s dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom.

But the hunt turned up nothing. Spring and summer came and went with no sign of Ismatullah. Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat, handwritten note on Red Cross stationary to the family.

… Read the rest

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Landlords Want Office-Crashing Meteorite

By on January 29, 2010 in News 4

What would you do with a meteorite if it crashed into your office?  Sell it?  Make a dragon-slaying sword with a black blade?  The doctors in the story resisted the temptation to do any of these things, and decided to donate their meteorite to the Smithsonian so everyone could see evidence of the strangest day at the office in American history.  Just when you though this fortean tale had a happy ending, enter the evil landlord….

From UPI:

A meteorite that dropped into a Virginia doctors’ office is now at the center of an ownership battle between the doctors and their landlords.Dr. Marc Gallini and Dr. Frank Ciampi said they were in the process of donating the small meteorite that crashed into their Lorton office Jan. 18 to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History when their landlords, brothers Deniz and Erol Mutlu, claimed ownership of the rock, The Washington Post reported Friday.

… Read the rest

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WikiLeaks Shuts Due to Lack of Funds, Hopes to be Back Soon

By on January 29, 2010 in News 0

From Google News:

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has temporarily shut down because of financial difficulties.WikiLeaks.org announced it was suspending operations in a message on its homepage that included an appeal to the public for donations.

“To concentrate on raising the funds necessary to keep us alive into 2010, we have reluctantly suspended all other operations, but will be back soon,” it said.

WikiLeaks, which relies on public contributions for much of its funding, said it had raised “just over 130,000 dollars for this year but cannot meaningfully continue operations until costs are covered.”

It said its costs are 200,000 dollars a year and 600,000 dollars a year if staff are paid.

WikiLeaks, run by Sunshine Press, describes itself as a “non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public.”

[Read more at Google News]… Read the rest

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Why The iPad Must Be Hacked: To Prevent Crap Futurism

By on January 29, 2010 in News 10

Crap FuturismAfter reading Gizmodo’s “8 Things That Suck About the iPad” and seeing this image illustrating that article for me, I really though the iPad was nothing more than a bulky, expensive iPhone. But there is one difference, it’s not a phone — something that you want to be totally reliable (work all the time). While many people jailbreak their iPhone to provide greater control over what you can do with it, I have been resistant to due to concern I might screw it up.

But after reading Annalee Newitz’s io9.com article about the iPad I realize the iPad is a device that you buy to hack. Not only that, it must be hacked. She makes the excellent point that Apple’s latest “must-have” device is nothing like a computer, it’s more like a television:

Apple is marketing the iPad as a computer, when really it’s nothing more than a media-consumption device — a convergence television, if you will. Think of it this way: One of the fundamental attributes of computers is that they are interactive and reconfigurable. You can change the way a computer behaves at a very deep level. Interactivity on the iPad consists of touching icons on the screen to change which application you’re using. Hardly more interactive than changing channels on a TV. Sure, you can compose a short email or text message; you can use the Brushes app to draw a sketch. But those activities are not the same thing as programming the device to do something new. Unlike a computer, the iPad is simply not reconfigurable.

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