I can't believe that came from your mouth!
Archive for May, 2007
Verizon Records Disclosure Free Speech
May 8th
Its an interesting way to look at the case of AT&T, Verizon, and other phone companies who voluntarily turn over phone records to the NSA to allow them to be searched for terrorist related chatter.
EFF and the ACLU want to prevent these phone companies from participating in the program, and they are being sued over it. But Verizon says it amounts to a SLAPP Suit to prevent them from exercising free speech to petition the government.
From ARS Technica here:
Verizon is one of the phone companies currently being sued over its alleged disclosure of customer phone records to the NSA. In a response to the court last week, the company asked for the entire consolidated case against it to be thrown out—on free speech grounds.
The response also alleges that the case should be thrown out because even looking into the issue could violate state secrets, of course, but a much longer section of the response tries to make the case that Verizon has a First Amendment right to “petition” the government. “Based on plaintiffs’ own allegations, defendants’ right to communicate such information to the government is fully protected by the Free Speech and Petition Clauses of the First Amendment,” argue Verizon’s lawyers.
Essentially, the argument is that turning over truthful information to the government is free speech, and the EFF and ACLU can’t do anything about it. In fact, Verizon basically argues that the entire lawsuit is a giant SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit, and that the case is an attempt to deter the company from exercising its First Amendment right to turn over customer calling information to government security services.
“Communicating facts to the government is protected petitioning activity,” says the response, even when the communication of those facts would normally be illegal or would violate a company’s owner promises to its customers. Verizon argues that, if the EFF and other groups have concerns about customer call records, the only proper remedy “is to impose restrictions on the government, not on the speaker’s right to communicate.”
Verizon lost employees on 9/11. I think they do their memory justice to participate in any program that will prevent a recurrence of those tragic events.
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Loading ...Employee Recognition
May 8th
I really like to stay “under the radar” as much as possible at work. The less interaction I have with all of my fellow employees, the happier I tend to be. Seriously, all I need is a cardboard box and an internet connection and I’m fine.
Which, given that about me, I have no idea why, in retrospect, I told anyone that I once had training in CPR. An email went around the office asking, in the guise of a “survey,” how many employees were trained in CPR. Lots of these types of surveys go around for one reason or another, and since my company likes to be mentioned in magazines about being a super-healthy company to work for, or one of the nicest, or the most progressive because they allow gay roommates to share healthcare, or whatever else the company wants to brand itself this month- I figured that was why the company needed to know if I was trained in CPR.
So I wrote back an email that yes, I was trained.
Today I got this. Framed behind glass on simulated marble stone.
I am supposed to hang this outside my office door. Which adjoins the employee breakroom for my building’s floor.
So apparantly I’m supposed to be the one people run to come get when someone keels over in their cube. And I don’t like my coworkers that much to begin with.
Any mouth-to-mouth I give will amount to me bending over them and yelling “Get off the floor before you freaking Die!”
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Jihadists Busted Planning to Attack Ft. Dix
May 8th
Some scummy Muslims were arrested in the planning stages of an attack against New Jersey’s Army Base of Fort Dix. They had been training for months in the mountains, and when they tried to purchase automatic weapons from an undercover FBI agent, they were busted.
The FBI was tipped off by a video store clerk who was disgusted that the bearded worshippers of Mo wanted him to burn a DVD showing them running through the woods practicing terror attacks.
From the AP here:
Six Islamic militants from Yugoslavia and the Middle East were arrested on charges of plotting to attack the Fort Dix Army post and “kill as many soldiers as possible,” authorities said Tuesday.
The FBI was tipped off to the group in early 2006 after someone brought a video to a store to be copied onto DVD, according to the agency’s criminal complaint. The video showed 10 men, including the six arrested, shooting assault weapons in militia style and calling for jihad, the complaint said.
“What concerns us is, obviously, they began conducting surveillance and weapons training in the woods and were discussing killing large numbers of soldiers,” said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.
One of the suspects had a job delivering pizzas to the base and used that opportunity to scout out the possible attack.
Smith said the men had been under surveillance for 16 months and practiced their attacks in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania. He said they also watched Osama bin Laden videos.
Officials said four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey. All had lived in the United States for years. Three were in the United States illegally, two had work permits, and the other is a U.S. citizen.
The men were identified in court papers as Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka, Serdar Tatar and Agron Abdullahu. Checks with Immigration and Customs Enforcement show that Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka and Shain Duka are illegally living in the United States, according to FBI complaints unsealed with their arrests.
Five of the men lived in Cherry Hill, a Philadelphia suburb about 20 miles from Fort Dix. The men were arrested Monday trying to buy automatic weapons in a sale setup by law enforcement authorities who had been investigating the men, the official said.
Muslim groups are already complaining that it is unfair to paint all Muslims as terrorists and jihadists. All I can say is when Muslims get on TV saying that jihad is immoral and wrong and against their religion, then people might stop making this obvious equation.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...MySpace House Parties
May 8th
I have seen a disturbing trend in the UK regarding house parties and MySpace. If word of a house party gets onto myspace, you can kiss the house goodbye. The latest victim of this phenomena is Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics.
From the Dailymail here:
Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox might well be feeling, as in the words of her hit song, just like she’s walking on broken glass today.
The popstar, 52, has been hit with a hefty repair bill after her 16-year-old daughter became the latest victim of gatecrashers who get wind of a party on the internet. It is understood that the information about the party spread on websites like MySpace.
Their £2 million family home in north London was trashed when more than a hundred youngsters forced entry. Party-goers daubed graffiti on walls, broke pictures and lampshades, tore apart books, urinated and vomited on carpets, flooded the kitchen and had a pitch battle in the garden.
But as things got worse people were urinating on the carpet in the corner of the living room, then there was graffiti being scrawled on and even etched into the walls, pictures were being taken down and damaged, CDs went missing, books were taken off bookshelves and pages were inexplicably ripped out.
‘Lola’s friends were totally outnumbered and the gate-crashers would not leave. The front door was locked shut to make sure no one else could get in, but the ones outside actually rammed it in, breaking its hinges.’
Eventually Lola’s girlfriends called the police – as did the next door neighbours – and they were all turned out onto the street at about midnight. A friend of the family added last night that Lola had been punished by bring ‘grounded’ by her parents for an indefinite period.
Why do teens in the UK trash someone’s home? What is the appeal? Why aren’t they housebroken?
But here’s a tip. Madonna’s daughter Lourdes is having a kickass party at her house this Friday night. Everyone is invited, and all of the beer, gin and whiskey you can drink will be served to everyone free of charge. Spread the word!
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Joe Ballmann- Teacher and Kid Toucher
May 7th
Another local teacher was busted trying to get his man-boy love on. Sick bastard was supposed to be teaching English, but from everything I’ve read, he was doing everything except for teaching. He had foosball tournaments in his classroom.
Ballmann let kids play a playstation in his classroom. He built obstacle courses out of filing cabinets. As far as reading went, it was comic books and Simpsons cartoons. And of course, there was the project where students made funny videos and watched Saturday Night Live skits.
He also got nominated for teacher of the year- somehow. Maybe it was for giving great massages to his boy students, ’cause it certainly wasn’t for teaching. Yet one more reason to homeschool, folks.
From Gazette.net here:
An English teacher at a Rockville middle school who had chloroform and torn pictures of children in his home has been arrested for sexually abusing a student on numerous occasions.
Joseph Robert Ballmann, 47, of the 11100 block of Cedarwood Drive, is being held on $150,000 bond on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, third-degree sexual offense and sexual solicitation of a minor.
A now 15-year-old boy told police that Ballmann engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with him beginning when the boy was a seventh-grader at Robert Frost Middle School and continuing into the next school year. (That’s 12 years old, folks!)
The incidents occurred at Ballmann’s home between spring 2004 and May 2005.
Ballmann has been employed by Montgomery County Public Schools for about 18 years. He was placed on administrative leave from Robert Frost on Wednesday.
A search of Ballmann’s home turned up a pipe that appeared to be a bomb, explosives, handcuffs, chloroform, mace, pepper spray, torn pictures of children in the garbage and a handgun.
From NBC4 here:
The victim told police that he would visit Ballman’s house because the two had developed a close relationship. The teen said that on several occasions Ballmann showed him pornographic video, on five occasions he was given massages and on two occasions he was naked and Ballmann touched him inappropriately.
When I was a kid, my english teachers made me conjugate verbs and taught me sentence structure. And what is the deal with the chloroform and the torn up pictures of kids?
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(5 votes, average: 4.00 out of 6) Loading ...Paranoia Screening Not Required for Secret Clearance
May 7th
It seems like a simple question that the government should ask their employees who need to get a Secret or Top Secret clearance- “Do you think anyone is out to “get” you?”
One government contractor on travel in Canada was so paranoid that when he saw a Canadian Commemorative Quarter with a red poppy stamped into its obverse, he became convinced that the Canucks were trying to spy on him using a secret transmitter embedded in the quarter.
He even put the quarter under a microscope and discovered an unusual “mesh” material that could only be sophisticated nano-technology that made the coin work without a powersource! He threw the coin away and was later alarmed when someone stuck two more transmitter coins into his outside suit jacket! He knew those coins weren’t his because he kept his coins tightly wrapped in plastic in an inside jacket pocket.
Uncle Sam’s DoD intel service had to be warned that the Canadians had advanced spy technology embedded in their coins, so he wrote a memo which led to an embarrassing official notice by the DoD warning about coins being used as GPS locators and transmitters.
From NBC4 here:
An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defense Department’s false espionage warning earlier this year.
The odd-looking — but harmless — “poppy coin” was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as “anomalous” and “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology.”
The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada’s flower of remembrance – inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors’ accounts.
“It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source,” wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. “Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top.”
The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red color from rubbing off.
The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defense Security Service, an agency of the Defense Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
One contractor believed someone had placed two of the quarters in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier. “Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket,” the contractor wrote.
Intelligence and technology experts were flabbergasted over the warning when it was first publicized earlier this year. The warning suggested that such transmitters could be used surreptitiously to track the movements of people carrying the coins.
“I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn’t give it away or spend it,” said H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian.
This reminds me of a memo I once saw saying how cans of Coca-Cola should be banned from all classified spaces on military and intelligence installations because some cans had cellphones and GPS trackers in it as part of a game promotion.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Spiderman 3 Was Goofy Marvel Team-Up
May 7th
Like many others, I saw Spiderman 3 on opening weekend. The movie pulled in almost 150 million on its opening, which is the all-time biggest open for any movie ever. At least until Pirates 3 opens later this summer.
As a Spiderman fan, I thought the movie fell way short compared to the last one. Director Sam Raimi and his writers blew the potential of a great story by not sticking to the original comic book storyline of the black suit.
In the original comics, the black suit bonded to Peter Parker, and once that happened, the suit would transform to any clothing style that Peter imagined. This would have been a far better mechanism for explaining Peter’s “emo” transformation in the middle of the movie.
Also, the suit from the comic books was far darker and had much more power over Peter. In the middle of the night, while Peter was sleeping, the suit would take Peter webslinging through New York to prey on criminals. These small facts about the black suit would not have taken up much time in the movie, and would have added much more depth to the alien suit than the movie portrayed.
In fact, one scene that should have been cut from the movie was left in, much to the embarrassment of all Spidey fans. What the hell was that stupid piano playing and dance number in the Jazz club about?
Also, I think that moviegoers understand that it is supposed to be Toby McGuire in the Spiderman suit. Yet somehow, Spidey only wears the mask twice in the whole picture. He is the only superhero with a secret identity that refuses to wear his mask.
Finally, the finale of the movie where Spiderman teams up with Gobbie Junior was about the dumbest Marvel Team-Up since Spidey joined forces with the cast of Saturday Night Live.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Global Warming Consensus? Bah!
May 6th
Hey, here is a crotchety curmudgeon and absolute expert on Climate Change that says that Global Warming hysteria is a hoax. His name is Reid Bryson. He discovered the Jet Stream. And he was a paleo-climatologist before anyone knew what one was.
From WECNmagazine here:
Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day, delving into the science some say he invented.
Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.” He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.
Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right.
Bryson mentions the retreat of Alpine glaciers, common grist for current headlines. “What do they find when the ice sheets retreat, in the Alps?”
We recall the two-year-old report saying a mature forest and agricultural water-management structures had been discovered emerging from the ice, seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. Bryson interrupts excitedly.
“A silver mine! The guys had stacked up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring to mine more silver, only the snow never went,” he says. “There used to be less ice than now. It’s just getting back to normal.”
Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…
A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.
So its not big cars that contribute to global warming. Its tobacco chewers. But Sheryl “One Square” Crow, the scrawny cancerous vegan seems to think that global warming is settled science and just wishes she could get all of the conservatives in the country to “shut up” and not argue back.
From HuffPo here:
Clearly, the subject of global warming remains a partisan issue in the minds of many conservatives. It appears to me that many on the right want to see this as a liberal issue, as demonstrated in the continued debate, rather than accepting the peer-reviewed science that is so clearly laid out for us earthlings.
CO2 is not a pollutant. Its a byproduct of life. The only way to curb CO2 is to curb life. And unfortunately, there are groups that are already advocating eliminating people as a solution to this fake crisis.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Domino and Strawberries
May 4th
Ever see a cat eat strawberries? I hadn’t either. My wife’s cat would eat strawberries, yogurt, grapes, and her favorite food in the world was cantaloupe. Domino could smell someone cutting into a cantaloupe from 50 yards away and would run into the room meowing loudly demanding her share.
She was a black and white tuxedo cat, and very small as far as cats go. Full grown, she was only about half the size of most cats, and her fur was softer than a baby bunny. Like most tuxedo cats, she had the ubiquitous cowl of black on her head, and her black spots made cute shapes on her white sides. On one side was the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head, complete with mouse ears. On the other side was a perfect shaped black heart on a field of white.
My wife had Domino since she was just five years old. She got the cat as a Christmas present and in most pictures and videos of her growing up, Domino is always at her side. At our wedding there was a slide show of photos of our lives separately as we grew up, and then together as we dated and planned our future together. There was a picture of my then five-year-old wife holding Domino as a kitten, followed by me holding Domino on my lap when we were dating in 2005.
Domino went deaf a few years ago and she started moving slower. Not long ago she developed cancer. Sadly, we had to put her down this morning to keep her from suffering any more pain. Domino was 20 years old. As cats go, she had a long and full life. She will be sorely missed.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Mormon Maybe, But Scientologist?
May 3rd
Mitt Romney, all around Mr. Nice Guy, former governor of Massachusettes, Mormon, and leading contender for the Republican nomination for President of the US recently told Slate that his favorite book was the bible, followed by his favorite novel of-
Battlefield Earth. By Scientology’s founder L Ron Hubbard. Its like the Book of Mormon to Scientology’s Bible of Dianetics.
Mitt, tell us it was a joke. Maybe you think that winning the powerful Scientologist lobby is something cool, but you are scaring the hell out of the rest of us.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Ironman’s Suit Revealed
May 3rd
I know Spiderman 3 is opening tomorrow. I’m definitely going to see it sometime this weekend. Maybe Sunday. But there are more Marvel superheroes making appearances in upcoming movies, and I have been really excited about Ironman, starring Robert Downey Junior.
Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive sneak peak at the suit that will be in the movie, and it looks absolutely authentic- right out of the comics. The suit is designed by Oscar Winner Stan Winston, the brains behind the FX of Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and the Terminator.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Chinese Abortions Reduce Global Warming
May 3rd
The Chinese One Child Per Family law should be credited for not allowing China’s pollution to be worse than it already is. In fact, the Chinese government is arguing that it should be credited toward Kyoto compliance.
This billboard in China says: “Keep the birth rate low to enhance the quality of the population.”
From Reuters here:
“China is already doing a lot (to reduce Global Warming),” said Hu Tao, of China’s State Environmental Protection Administration.
He said China’s one-child per couple policy introduced in the early 1980s, for instance, had a side-effect of braking global warming by limiting the population to 1.3 billion against a projected 1.6 billion without the policy.
“This has reduced greenhouse gas emissions,” he told a conference in Oslo last month. China is the number two emitter of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, behind the United States and ahead of Russia.
Developing nations argue that they should get credit for policies that have helped slow rising emissions. They note that east European nations in Kyoto get credit for the collapse of Soviet-era smokestack industries — unrelated to deliberate efforts to fight global warming.
So… eliminating a population the size of the United States since 1980 should be the equivalent of knocking down smokestacks??!! Just how does China enforce this policy of one child per family? Forced abortions and sterilization, of course!
From NPR here:
During the past week, dozens of women in southwest China have been forced to have abortions even as late as nine months into the pregnancy, according to evidence uncovered by NPR.
China’s strict family planning laws permit urban married couples to have only one child each, but in some of the recent cases — in Guangxi Province — women say they were forced to abort what would have been their first child because they were unmarried.
Liang Yage and his wife Wei Linrong had one child and believed that — like many other couples — they could pay a fine and keep their second baby. Wei was 7 months pregnant when 10 family planning officials visited her at home on April 16.
Liang describes how they told her that she would have to have an abortion, “You don’t have any more room for maneuver,” he says they told her. “If you don’t go [to the hospital], we’ll carry you.” The couple was then driven to Youjiang district maternity hospital in Baise city.
“I was scared,” Wei told NPR. “The hospital was full of women who’d been brought in forcibly. There wasn’t a single spare bed. The family planning people said forced abortions and forced sterilizations were both being carried out. We saw women being pulled in one by one.”
The officials gave Wei three injections in the lower abdomen. Contractions started the next afternoon, and continued for almost 16 hours. Her child was stillborn.
Hey, anything to reduce impact of exhaled CO2 in accordance to the fake new religion of “Global Warming.” At least Chinese women have freedom of Choice- either walk to a forced abortion or be transported by the state.
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(1 votes, average: 6.00 out of 6) Loading ...Brits Still Bitter Over Surrendering Marines
May 3rd
That is, if you judge it by this Ebay Item. Its a “Royal Marine Surrender Kit, and it contains a package of zipties, a white flag, a pen and notepad to write your capture memoirs, and a black blindfold.
Operating instructions included say:
- Actions on sighting enemy gun boat, place all weapons on the deck.
- Calmly raise both hands into the air.
- Reach into the Royal Marines surrender pouch and withdraw the issue white flag.
- Then take out the issued plasty cuffs as the enemy wont be expecting the sudden surrender without a fight. last thing we want to do is antagonize them!
- Blame the female for the navigation error.
- Once encamped in enemy POW camp use the issue pen & notepad to start recording your experience`s for the big payout from the press on release!
Points to note!
The RM issue flag has been tried and tested in multiple theatre’s of operations from the Falklands to Iran, it measures 6″ X 10″ and can easily be seen from at least 1000 metres in open water.
The Royal Marines could fight if they were allowed to, right? Thanks to the Reg for the story.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Reason 118 to Homeschool
May 2nd
Students peeing in the classroom. Teachers suspended for letting students pee in the classroom. NAACP trying to start race riots over idiot black child who peed in a classroom.
From NBC4 here:
School officials on Tuesday cleared a science teacher who was accused of forcing a 14-year-old boy to urinate into a bottle during class, saying the eighth grader acted on his own.
The district cited rules that instruct teachers not to let students out of class during the first and last 10 minutes of a period. Goethe Middle School teacher Peter Stanzler told the boy, Michael Patterson, to wait until the class had settled down before going to the bathroom, the district said in a statement.
“Less than five minutes into the class period, the student urinated into a bottle and discarded it in a trash can,” the statement said. “Shocked at the student’s actions, the teacher told the student to dispose of the bottle in the restroom and wash his hands.”The student claims he repeatedly asked to use the bathroom and was told to relieve himself into a bottle about 20 to 30 minutes into the period. He said the teacher threatened him with suspension if he left the classroom, although the district disputed that in its statement.
Michael Patterson is black and Stanzler is white. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has described the incident as a civil rights issue and, along with Jacko, demanded that the teacher be fired. It also wants school officials to rescind Patterson’s suspension.
I don’t remember too much crap like this happening when I went to school, but I do remember sitting around a lot waiting to learn something. And check out the science curriculum at this lame middle school in Sacramento. They try to teach evolution by dressing up teddy bears as some stupid hybrid animal. Isn’t creating a critter from scratch more along the lines of creationism?
Anyways, check out this top ten list of reasons to homeschool that has my wife and I excited. Number 5 is:
It does not take six to eight hours a day to homeschool your child. Most of the time children spend at school consists of waiting. Design a plan that works for your family and be prepared to scratch it several times and start over. Don’t sacrifice your family’s happiness to “school” your children. There are many ways families homeschool; find what works for you and your family.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Giant Robots Fascinate Mankind
May 2nd
I have to admit, I’m a sucker for giant robots as much as the next guy. They make movies about giant robots. Transformers is coming out July 4th. Iron Giant was a great kid’s movie. Popular video games such as Mech Warrior feature giant robots fighting each other to the death. And some of the most popular kids cartoons such as Voltron featured giant robots.
I think this fascination of giant battling automatons has been the dream of every boy for generations, but was only within the reach of being realized at the height of the industrial revolution. Thanks to Malcontents, I found PaleoFuture, a blog dedicated to what our ancestors thought the future would be like. And in their future of long ago, the French were supposed to build 1000 foot tall robots that would do battle with other nations’ robots.
This picture was published by the Fresno Bee back in 1934. About nine years before the below CG animated film was to have taken place. Awesomeness follows if you click the picture.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...More Proof Green Movement is a Religion
May 2nd
My brother sent this along. For earth worshipers, the green movement is a government-sanctioned religious movement. And their bible is apparently a copy of Al Gore’s Book, Inconvenient Truth. In hotels in San Francisco, the Gideon’s Bible is being thrown away and is being replaced by the eco-religionist’s bible.
From Bloomberg here:
Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won’t find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s book about global warming.
They’ll also find the Gaia equipped with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled paper as it marches toward becoming California’s first hotel certified as “green,” or benevolent to the environment.
Wen-I Chang opened the 132-room Gaia in the town of American Canyon last year. He’s building other green hotels in Anderson and Merced and said he hopes to develop at least six more within three years.
Chang said he became an environmentalist in 1999, when he couldn’t get a glass of water at a restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, because of a shortage in the area.
“I started thinking that there are many ways I can save water,” said Chang, 62. “I changed my shower habit from eight minutes to two minutes.”
Then he changed his building habits, after 10 years of developing Holiday Inn and Hilton franchises. Chang said 43 cities have asked him to build green hotels. Some offer incentives to help cover construction costs, which were about 15 percent more for the Gaia. Chang said it’s saving 25 percent on electricity and almost 50 percent on water, which may enable the hotel to turn profitable next month.
Reviews for this hotel are not always favorable.
From the TripAdvisor here:
The overall theme of the hotel I adore. I’m into the green movement.
I booked two rooms for myself and an out of state client. He stayed on the upper floor in an extended king and had no complaints. I stayed in a basic king on the lower floor and was rudely woken up at 6am the next morning from the guest (contractor/worker) that was staying in the room next door. I even wear ear plugs. The walls are not properly insulated for sound. You can hear the telephone ring in the room next door.
Even thought the hotel had only a handful of guest I was irritated that hotel management stuck a bunch of guests side by side in the back of the hotel. We could have been easily separated between empty rooms to insulate us from noise.
While the carpets and room colors are beautiful the construction behind the paint and carpet lacks integrity.
Maybe in a socialist paradise, businessmen don’t have to turn a profit. But “green” buildings are expensive, inefficient, and ugly. Probably dangerous too. Smart businessmen will invest wisely in this country and use affordable, traditional materials in construction.
And why can’t a Gideon Bible live in a so-called “green” hotel? I think its because eco-religionists and followers of the green movement don’t want to be reminded that the Earth is not the real God.
Also Blogging:
Moonbattery
HotAir
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(1 votes, average: 6.00 out of 6) Loading ...UK Hacker Kook to Flee to Sealand?
May 1st
Gary McKinnon, the world’s kookiest hacker, claims that he was offered “assylum” from the tiny micronation of Sealand. Once there, I suppose that Sealand would have to change its name to Dorkland.
From PCW here:
Gary Mckinnon, who faces extradition to the US for allegedly hacking into military computers, has been offered asylum by the self-styled breakaway state of Sealand, it was claimed at the Infosec security conference today.
The “state”, a World War II fort known as Roughs Tower in the North Sea just north of the Thames, was declared an independent principality in 1967 by a former major called Paddy Roy Bates. He dubbed himself Prince Roy.
Mckinnon sat on a ‘hackers panel’ at Infosec to debate new changes to the Computer Misuse Act. The claim about Sealand was made by one of his fellow panellists, a “security analyst” identified only as Mark.
And according to the Torrentfreak blog, Sealand is not for sale to the Pirate Bay group because of concerns over copyright. But sheltering a hacker is okay?
Previous McKinnon stories here. Previous Sealand stories here.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Prince Charles the Moonbat
May 1st
Prince Chuckie says that Global Warming is like World War 2. But without the deaths of millions of people, or the untold destruction of families and cities. And of course, like all Global Warming doomsayers, he is much too important to practice what he preaches.
From the AFP here:
Prince Charles compared the challenge of tackling climate change to the Allies’ struggle in World War II during a speech to business leaders Tuesday.
Addressing representatives from firms including Barclays Bank, British Airways and Rolls-Royce at Saint James’s Palace, Charles said that “we need to act very rapidly indeed” to avert environmental disaster.
“We can do it, just think what they did in the last war. Things that seemed impossible were achieved almost overnight,” the heir to the throne added.
Charles has long harbored a passionate interest in green issues — he has described climate change as “the biggest threat to mankind” while facing criticism that his own lifestyle does not match his rhetoric.
But he raised eyebrows among figures including Britain’s Environment Secretary, David Miliband, when he flew to the United States to pick up an environmental award.
Moonbattery is also covering this.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Why is This News?
May 1st
Scientists in England made an amazing discovery. Pot makes you paranoid!
From the AP here:
New findings on marijuana’s damaging effect on the brain show the drug triggers temporary psychotic symptoms in some people, including hallucinations and paranoid delusions, doctors say.
Small doses of THC produced temporary psychotic symptoms in people, including hallucinations and paranoid delusions, doctors said.
In analyzing MRI scans of the study’s subjects, McGuire and his colleagues found that THC interfered with activity in the inferior frontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with paranoia.
“THC is switching off that regulator,” McGuire said, effectively unleashing the paranoia usually kept under control by the frontal cortex.
In another study scientists found that marijuana worsens psychotic symptoms of schizophrenics.
While D’Souza had intended to study marijuana’s impact on schizophrenics in more patients, the study was stopped prematurely because the impact was so pronounced that it would have been unethical to test it on more people with schizophrenia.
Next scientists may tell us the shocking theory about how ducks float.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Rosslyn Chapel Runes Cracked
May 1st
For 600 years, historians, cryptologists, clergy and celts have visited Rosslyn Chapel in Edinburgh, Scotland to decipher the strange symbols on the chapel’s arches. They knew the architects were trying to tell them something, but no one could figure it out. The runes even figured prominently in Dan Brown’s Davinci Code novel.
It turns out that the code was a song. And the runes is the pattern produced when individual notes are played next to a drumhead covered with sand!
The musicians who decrypted the song will be performing a live concert of the music at the chapel next week.
From Reuters here:
A Scottish church which featured in the best-selling novel “The Da Vinci Code” has revealed another mystery hidden in secret code for almost 600 years.
A father and son who became fascinated by symbols carved into the chapel’s arches say they have deciphered a musical score encrypted in them. Thomas Mitchell, a 75-year-old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker, and his composer and pianist son Stuart, described the piece as “frozen music.”
The 15th Century Rosslyn Chapel, about seven miles south of the Scottish capital Edinburgh, featured in the last part of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” the bestselling novel that was turned into a Hollywood film.
Stuart Mitchell said he and his father were intrigued by 13 intricately carved angel musicians on the arches of the chapel and by 213 carved cubes depicting geometric-type patterns.
Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches. The two men matched each of the patterns on the carved cubes to a Chladni pitch, and were able finally to unlock the melody.
The Mitchells have called the piece The Rosslyn Motet and added words from a contemporary hymn to complete it.
Click here to hear part of the song.
Click the video below to see how this was figured out, including an obvious overlooked clue where an angel holds a musical staff and points to three keynotes in the song.
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