Author Archive | majestic

The Price of Fame? An Early Death

By on April 18, 2013 in News 0

Warhol graveSo is it better to die old in obscurity or young in the limelight? From Reuters:

The price of fame can be high with an international study on Thursday finding that people who enjoy successful entertainment or sporting careers tend to die younger.

Researchers Richard Epstein and Catherine Epstein said the study, based on analysing 1,000 New York Times obituaries from 2009-2011, found film, music, stage performers and sports people died at an average age of 77.2 years.

This compared to an average lifespan of 78.5 years for creative workers, 81.7 for professionals and academics, and 83 years for people in business, military and political careers.

The Australian-based researchers said these earlier deaths could indicate that performers and sports stars took more risks in life, either to reach their goals or due to their success…

Continue Reading · 0

Western Style Diet Leads To Early Death

By on April 16, 2013 in News 0

English breakfast - catorze14No doubt the headline will cause some septuagenarians who eat nothing but processed meat and fried food to claim the “Western style diet” never hurt them, but a new study shows that for most people eating this stuff is likely to shorten your life. From Alpha Galileo Foundation:

Data from a new study of British adults suggest that adherence to a “Western-style” diet (fried and sweet food, processed and red meat, refined grains, and high-fat dairy products) reduces a person’s likelihood of achieving older ages in good health and with higher functionality. Study results appear in the May issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

“The impact of diet on specific age-related diseases has been studied extensively, but few investigations have adopted a more holistic approach to determine the association of diet with overall health at older ages,” says lead investigator Tasnime Akbaraly, PhD, Inserm, Montpellier, France. “We examined whether diet, assessed in midlife, using dietary patterns and adherence to the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), is associated with aging phenotypes, identified after a mean 16-year follow-up.”

The AHEI is a validated index of diet quality, originally designed to provide dietary guidelines with the specific intention to combat major chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Guantanamo Hunger Striker Tells His Story

By on April 15, 2013 in News 0

SamirThis may be the most important report out of Gitmo ever. If it doesn’t cause Americans to seriously question the indefinite detention of prisoners without trial, what will? (Not to mention the brutal “medical” treatment at the hands of American doctors.) Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call (in Arabic, translated to English):

One man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.

I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.

I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

10 things Coke, Pepsi and the Soda Industry Won’t Tell You

By on April 15, 2013 in News 0

high-fructose-corn-syrup-soda-bottlesIn New York City you can’t avoid ads encouraging people to fight for their right to drink enormous amounts of carbonated high fructose corn syrup-laden beverages–no matter the cost to their health. The fact that these drinks are a major cause of obesity is just one of the many things the fizzy pop purveyors don’t want to admit. MarketWatch picks ten:

1. “The hottest new beverage is water.”

People aren’t losing their thirst, but they are going back to basics. Water is one of the fastest-growing segments of the beverage industry, studies suggest, while sales for traditional fizzy drinks are on the decline. From 2009 to 2011, sales of regular soft drinks declined by 1.9% to $27 billion, according to a 2012 report from market research group Mintel. “It would seem that the category has seen its peak and is now retreating,” the study reported. (Consumers are choosing more low- and no-calorie beverages, says a spokesman for the American Beverage Association.)

The decline is part of a shift in consumer tastes.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Is The Loch Ness Monster Just A Conspiracy To Boost Scottish Tourism?

By on April 15, 2013 in News 0

Loch Ness RocksEvery kid in Britain grows up with the Loch Ness Monster as part of their cryptozoological cultural heritage, but could it just be a conspiracy to boost tourism in Scotland? Emma Ailes reports for BBC News:

It is 80 years since hotel manageress Mrs Aldie Mackay first reported seeing a “whale-like fish” in the waters of Loch Ness.

Now an academic at St Andrew’s University is trawling through 1,000 eye-witness accounts since to see what they can tell us.

He wryly notes more than a few hotel proprietors among typical spotters. So is “Nessie” just a conspiracy to boost tourism?

It was 14 April 1933 and Mrs Mackay, manageress of the Drumnadrochit Hotel, was driving with her husband along the road to Inverness.

As they drove, she glanced out across the still calm waters of Loch Ness towards Aldourie Castle. There, in the water, she saw something.

In a rare interview years later, she described the moment to marine biologist and founder of The Loch Ness Project, Adrian Shine.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

So Ray Kurzweil Wants To Live Forever…

By on April 14, 2013 in News 0

Ray Kurzweil blue backgroundOk, so Ray Kurzweil is a man of above average intelligence and achievement, even if he only just got his first job (Google, of course), but is a desire to live forever a wise choice or foolish hubris? The Wall Street Journal reports on his quest for immortality:

Ray Kurzweil must encounter his share of interviewers whose first question is: What do you hope your obituary will say?

This is a trick question. Mr. Kurzweil famously hopes an obituary won’t be necessary. And in the event of his unexpected demise, he is widely reported to have signed a deal to have himself frozen so his intelligence can be revived when technology is equipped for the job.

Mr. Kurzweil is the closest thing to a Thomas Edison of our time, an inventor known for inventing. He first came to public attention in 1965, at age 17, appearing on Steve Allen’s TV show “I’ve Got a Secret” to demonstrate a homemade computer he built to compose original music in the style of the great masters.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Gitmo Prisoners Stage Violent Rebellion

By on April 14, 2013 in News 0

GuantanamoThe unrest at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (a/k/a Gitmo) that has seen brutal force feeding of hunger strikers exploded this weekend as detainees staged a rebellion armed with broomsticks and batons. From AP:

Months of increased tension at the Guantanamo Bay prison boiled over into a clash between guards and detainees Saturday as the military closed a communal section of the facility and moved its inmates into single cells.

The violence erupted during an early morning raid that military officials said was necessary because prisoners had covered up security cameras and windows as part of a weekslong protest and hunger strike over their indefinite confinement and conditions at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Prisoners fought guards with makeshift weapons that included broomsticks and mop handles when troops arrived to move them out of a communal wing of the section of the prison known as Camp 6, said Navy Capt.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

London Throws Party Celebrating Death Of Margaret Thatcher

By on April 13, 2013 in News 1

Anti-Margaret Thatcher badge, 1980sReuters reports that only “hundreds” of people turned up for “the party of a lifetime” celebrating the death of reviled (and occasionally revered) former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher in London today:

Several hundred people turned up for a “party” in central London on Saturday to celebrate the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a mass protest predicted by some failed to materialize.

The British capital’s mayor had warned of potential rioting as organizers promised thousands of opponents of Thatcher, who died aged 87 on Monday, would descend on London’s Trafalgar Square to mark the passing of a leader who was loved and loathed in equal measure.

Current British politicians and world leaders past and present have paid tributes to the former premier, Britain’s longest serving prime minister in over a century, but she continues to divide Britons over policies which saw her crush trade unions and privatize swathes of industry.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 1

Americans and Their Conspiracy Theories

By on April 12, 2013 in News 0

Apollo 15 flag, rover, LM, IrwinAs you all know, we’re not scared of a conspiracy theory or two here at disinformation, but we’re also skeptical, wanting to hear multiple views. Not so Jeff Nesbit of US News:

There’s just no polite way to put it.

There are big, entire parts of American society that believe in things that just aren’t true – and a recent national survey by Public Policy Polling only confirms it.

Name your conspiracy theory, and some segment of America believes it, the PPP survey found. The handful of news reports and blog posts on the PPP poll last week focused on the usual political subjects that always seem to float through the Internet ether.

About a fifth of Republican voters believe President Barack Obama is the anti-christ, for instance. Three quarters of Democrats believe former President George W. Bush’s administration lied about weapons of mass destruction in the run up to the Iraq war, while three quarters of Republicans don’t.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

States Outlaw Videotaping of Animal Cruelty

By on April 8, 2013 in News 0

Dead-pigWhat kind of society passes laws like these? Well about 12 states in the US, for a start. Richard A. Oppel, Jr. reports for the New York Times:

On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks.

Each video — all shot in the last two years by undercover animal rights activists — drew a swift response: Federal prosecutors in Tennessee charged the horse trainer and other workers, who have pleaded guilty, with violating the Horse Protection Act. Local authorities in Wyoming charged nine farm employees with cruelty to animals. And the egg supplier, which operates in Iowa and other states, lost one of its biggest customers, McDonald’s, which said the video played a part in its decision.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0