May 2012
96 posts
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“PRINCETON, NJ — The Gallup Economic Confidence Index held at -16 last...”
– Americans’ Economic Confidence Stable at Four-Year High
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If you're an American citizen, under NDAA... →
A Few Ways To Get Yourself Detained Indefinitely:
Interview a member of the Taliban
Attend a fundraiser
Write a book
Organize a demonstration
Help out a friend
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Re-visiting Assange’s show - Salon.com →
Wow, I didn’t even know that Julian Assange had a TV show. You can find it here
When it was announced last month that the Kremlin-backed network RT would broadcast a new show from Julian Assange, American media figures predictably erupted with mockery and scorn despite not having seen a single episode (nobody provokes the animosity of America’s establishment media class more than...
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Why Airplanes Have Ashtrays →
It’s likely not what you think.
Yes, you read me right. You’ve probably even seen them yourself. In airplane bathrooms, there is an ashtray (complete with No Smoking sticker) for the people who smoke in the bathroom, even though they shouldn’t.
When I first started bringing this up to people, I encountered the same reaction again and again. People would say, “oh, it just costs...
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Congressmen Seek To Lift USA Propaganda Ban →
Yeah, that was the problem. Americans weren’t getting enough propaganda. The march to fascism continues.
An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill.
The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the...
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Photoshop in the 1950's: Pin-Up girls before and... →
Tons more here
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WatchA lot of possibilities here that you don’t think of at first.
MIT Media Lab continually yields creations that will one day make our lives easier, better, and more fun. A new development that just passed its Kickstarter funding mark, MaKey MaKey, clearly lands in the “more fun” category. MaKey MaKey is a board laden with a number of ports that connect directly to your computer. Connect...
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Mexico's Drug War: 50,000 Dead in 6 Years →
So, seems like that’s working out, then.
Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón began an all-out assault on drug cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 people have lost their lives across the country in a nearly-continuous string of shootouts, bombings, and ever-bloodier murders. Just last weekend, 49 decapitated bodies were reportedly discovered on a highway in northern Mexico....
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U.S. drones targeting rescuers and mourners,... →
On December 30 of last year, ABC News reported on a 16-year-old Pakistani boy, Tariq Khan, who was killed with his 12-year-old cousin when a car in which he was riding was hit with a missile fired by a U.S. drone. As I noted at the time, the report contained this extraordinary passage buried in the middle:
Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed’s deaths, Akbar did not provide...
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Poll: 74 Percent of Americans, Including 67... →
In my ongoing series entitled “Fucking government, y u no do what we want”?
A poll conducted earlier this month by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project finds that 76 percent of Americans want President Barack Obama to end his crackdown on medical marijuana in states where medicinal use of the plant is legal.
According to MPP’s...
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Your Very Own Air Guitar →
Do you like music? Do you like lasers? Do you like making music by using lasers? Would you like doing all that without holding a heavy and awkward box of wood and strings? How silly of us to even ask: of course you would. BAM! Introducing the Air Guitar.
The Air Guitar distills decades of design and style into a single handheld device, enabling anyone to create music with the press of a...
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76% of Americans Favor Military Cuts →
Now if we could just get a government that actually gave a rats ass what we wanted…
Seventy-six percent of survey-takers, including 90 percent of Democrats and 67 percent of Republicans, say they would cut the Pentagon’s budget. That places the majority of respondents at odds with Democratic President Barack Obama’s policies and the proposed budgets of the majority...
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Hot Wheels
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Jill Stein is the Green Party Presidential... →
Glad to hear, I liked her the best.
After winning Green Party primaries in Maryland and Delaware, Dr. Jill Stein announced this weekend that she crossed the 50% threshold to winning the Green Party’s 2012 presidential nomination. With 200.5 delegates required to win the nomination, and 105.5 delegates in hand, Dr. Stein has moved from frontrunner to prospective nominee. She has won...
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George Lucas Does Something Likeable For a Change:... →
George Lucas’ rich neighbors don’t want him building a movie studio in their backyard. His response is the best thing he’s done in years.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, for four decades Lucas has owned a large swath of land in Marin County in the North San Francisco Bay and has spent the past few years trying to transform the ranch on it into a massive,...
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Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new... →
First. U.S. schools suspend millions of kids — 3,328,750, to be exact. Since the 1970s, says a National Education Policy Center report published in October 2011, the suspension rate’s nearly doubled for white kids, to 6%. It’s more than doubled for Hispanics to 7%, and to a stunning 15% for blacks. For Native Americans, it’s almost tripled, from 3% to 8%.
Second. If you think all these...
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Good Posture Can Improve A Beer Gut →
Lord knows I need all the help I can get on that
The Benefits of Good Posture
There are several ways that good posture can improve both mind and body. Below we list a few of them:
Improves organ function. When we’re slouched forward, our rib cage is actually pushing down on our internal organs. All this mushing can cause digestive problems. By having good posture, we keep things nice...
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Norway's controversial 'cushy prison' experiment →
Sometimes if you want to bring out the humanity in a person, you have to treat them like a human.
Can a prison possibly justify treating its inmates with saunas, sunbeds and deckchairs if that prison has the lowest reoffending rate in Europe? Live reports from Norway on the penal system that runs contrary to all our instincts - but achieves everything we could wish for
When he recently...
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How to save on mall rent →
Move out and you miss out on that critical foot traffic that only a mall can give. Stay and you pay exorbitant rent. Seems like the small business owner in a shopping centre is stuck between a rock and a hard place. But there is an alternative: kiosks. These are basically little stalls that are erected in the middle of the walkways - they are not strictly letting spaces. What would normally...
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George W. Bush, Dick Cheney Convicted Of War... →
It would restore my faith in humanity if justice was served here.
This past Friday, a five panel tribunal delivered a unanimous guilty verdict after a week long trial that, unsurprisingly, was not covered by American media.
The witnesses included several ex-Guantanamo detainees that gave testimony on the conditions and human rights violations that were systematically carried out under...
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The Flying Hovercraft - Hammacher Schlemmer →
Here’s a fun new way to kill yourself. A mini Ekranoplan.
This is the hovercraft that glides over land and water yet also soars in the air up to 70 mph with the aid of integrated wings. A 130-hp twin-cylinder, liquid-cooled gasoline engine — turbocharged and fuel-injected — drives its 60” wood/carbon composite thrust propeller while a 1,100-rpm 34” lift fan...
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Secrets of the first practical artificial leaf →
Man I hope some of this stuff starts actually being used in the real world. It would be great if I could just put up a couple solar panels and start getting hydrogen which could be used at night or in a hydrogen car. This solves the battery problem with electric solar. I wonder how efficient it is, though. Photosynthesis is extremely efficient, so if that’s what they are claiming,...