U @ Q?

A yew tree at Wakehurst Place in South Sussex (Kew) appears to be over 600 years old.

Fantasy City Tours

A Tough Guide to Fantasy Cities, a loving tribute to Diana Wynne Jones.

Now With Added Pudding

Intel and Kraft's iSample vending kiosks rolls out to study shoppers.

The Japanese have something like this to second guess what the consumer wants and provide it for them. The US uses it to refine sales strategies. Lovely.

Fungi From Yuggoth?

The Hubble Space Telescope has spied signs of complex carbon molecules on the surface of Pluto.

No Bananas

Harry Houdini's rider, aka, his prop and show requirements.

Not awake yet

In Scientific American: The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People are Eccentric.

Raver Spaghetti

A gas cloud is eaten by a black hole will offer scientists a good opportunity to study black holes in action.

What teen want to Spider-Man or Daredevil?

Parkour as a means of escape in Gaza.

Chocolate Chip Brains!

Zombie head cookie jar.

Deadlier of the Species

At the beginning of WWII in Germany, a statue that appears to be a bipedal lion was found, perhaps a shaman in lion garb. After more studies and other related figurines have been found, archaeologists believe this 35,000 representation may possibly be a female shaman in lion garb.

Possible, as primitive man would have noted that in a pride of lions the female did the majority of the hunting.

Pass the Pork Rinds

A lower percentage of protein in your diet may lead to increased snacking.

Money Makes the World Go 'Round

The federal government spent $666,000 to determine that distant prayer will not halt HIV. Many possible cancer cures are not being studied so that superstition and religion can be studied as medical science.

Me and My Baby Grand

Colin Huggins, New York City's piano busker, and other street performers are now forbidden from performing in Washington Square Park.

Theme music: Muse

A US team has found the largest supermassive black holes at the center of two galaxies. Both have masses over 10b times the mass of our sun.

Insert Wookie scream here

Chocolate carbonite-frozen Han Solo. 

A good start

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and GMAC have all been taken to court by the state of Massachusetts for their foreclosure shenanigans. 

Don't stop here. It's white rabbit country!

And in 1967, Ralph Steadman illustrated Alice in Wonderland.

It's Alan Grant's world

Robotic wardens to patrol South Korean prisons.

So they came back?

Just announced: the discovery of eleven new species of bees, four of which are within the environs of New York City.

Zorro was Irish?

Irish caught up in the Spanish Inquisition.

Here comes the sun

A US-based team of scientists claims to have invented a material that releases over two weeks of night-vision light after just one minute's exposure to the sun.

No, no drug connection at all. At all.

Salvador Dali illustrated an edition of Alice in Wonderland in 1969. Here's the art.

And the GOP doesn't believe in climate change?

The Pentagon wants information on how climate change will affect national security.

More bull worship, eh, Mike?

Bloomberg LP is moving and restoring the Roman Temple of Mithras to it's original site.

WWHPLD

Antarctica's Gamburtsev "ghost mountains" explained.

Surfing the lakes of Europa

Current best available evidence says that lakes of water exist 3km under the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

But if they didn't have gov't funded free labor, might they not actually hire people? For wages?

Young job seekers in the UK are told to work for Tesco's for free or get kicked off the dole.

Taking STOCK

Senators Scott Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand introduce a bill that make it illegal for members of Congress to make money on Wall Street from information gleaned during performing their job.  Huh. I thought just enforcing insider trading laws on Congress should and would do the trick.

Scam scam scam scam

We've had multiple calls today from someone claiming to be Dr Max Peters representing the Pennsylvania Hospital Association. He refuses to believe the man he's calling for no longer works here. of course, he himself is dead. Filing this here so I can find it later.

Moist towelette part two

The female orgasm captured in a series of brain scans.

Thanks for helping the cause, Mike

New York court orders Bloomberg to show just cause for this morning's eviction.

Heavy metal flute and fiddle. You're welcome.

Vote the bastards out

Congress gets a pass on insider trading.

Project Repurpose

Turning an unfinished bank office building into a vertical park.

Erlik Part Two

More on the Garamantes, a lost civilization that lived in what is now Libya.

My Hatred For the Business Mentality Part 28

Borders closed not because people stopped reading or even stopped buying books at their chain. Borders closed because management didn't know how to sell books.

Dangerous reactionaries

Scotland Yard arrests UK hate group over planned terrorist activities against Occupy London.

Erlik & Crom!

Satellite images show cities from a lost civilization under the Sahara. Archaeologists are hoping to study them better with Qaddafy gone.

Libertine Bubble Theory

The origin of sex was interaction not reproduction.

He was most holy at behaving quite foully

Aleister Crowley is being credited with the blame for the deaths associated with Howard Carter's opening of King Tut's tomb, all filed under the banner "the Curse of Tutankhamun."

I want yesterday's future

Artistic renderings of O'Neill L-5 space habitats from the 1970s. 

"Your love is like a crocodile, chewing on an old bone..."

Erotic/love poetry from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. And, no, nothing ever changes.

Wild Horses

Cave art implies that leopard-spotted (dappled) horses existed beside humans in Europe 25,000 years ago.

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."

How Klout makes Facebook look like a bunch of privacy loving hippies.

Caution: Probably needs more tests, but looks good

A mixture of green tea and a red laser destroy rogue beta-amyloid plaques that crowd the brains of people with the disease.

Now Arzach, maybe?

Trailer for an unmade Incal movie, based on the work of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius.

Remember remember

For quick and easy protest covering. The money for Guy Fawkes bandannas doesn't go to an evil faceless multinational corporation.

Aging halted?

Doctor Rufo in Robert Heinlein's novel Glory Road said he liked having the appearance of a mature man and the hidden musculature and stamina of a man in his twenties (despite his circadian years) because it permitted him to surprise younger men in a fight and women in the bedroom. I endorse this opinion, and it looks like such a thing may be possible in the near future.

Killer Style

Nidar Singh, a 44 year old former food packer from Wolverhampton, is the last living practitioner of shastar vidya, a Sikh battlefield art developed in the 17th century.

At Ease

Lost Roman camp used by legionnaires that protected against German hordes discovered on the river Lippe near Olfen in Western Germany.

Passing of the seasons

Archaeologist claims to have found a 12,000 year old solstice site in Clarke County, Virginia.

Extra star in the heavens, Chinese edition

An explanation on how the first recorded supernova, China 185AD, could have grown so large, so fast. It was documented at the time as a guest star.

Audio interview with Richard Dawkins.

Law & Order: Wall Street

Citigroup settles to $285m on fraud charges from the SEC.

News OWS Can Use

How to escape from zip ties.

Rape, pillage, and farming

What have the Vikings ever done for us?

"From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us!"

Kitchen Tips

How to peal a head of garlic in ten seconds.

Mother Was a Lovely Beast

A cave is discovered where the she-wolf supposedly suckled the mythical founders of ancient Rome.

Program or Be Programmed

Interview with Douglas Rushkoff.

Won't be the last

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has declared bankruptcy. 

Every sperm is sacred

Mississippi wants to legislate that one becomes a person at conception.

It's too early. Wake me after the Christians have arrived.

An early Celtic "Stonehenge"-like calendar has been discovered in the Black Forest.

Mankin'ds Ancient Enemy Under the Microscope

The genome of the black death genome has been sequenced.

Better to marry or burn?

Think same sex marriage is the only way that marriage is being redefined form the 1950s "Leave It to Beaver" image*? Kate Bolick writes on the changing face of marriage, being a singleton, male female relations, and coupling up in this article for the Atlantic.



*An image that was largely flash in the pan, lasting only a couple of decades.

Biggest small thing discovered

Ocean trawl offshore in Chile discovers a "megavirus", .7 micrometers in diameter. The previous record holder was the Mimivirus, discovered in a UK water  cooling tower in 1992.

The Recession is Over?

The recently rehired are making 17% less than they were before.

Still don't think it's us against them?

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan are accused of charging veterans illegal fees to refinance their home loans.

Why, to me, science is better than religious faith

Dan Shechtman was ridiculed back in 1982 for his discovery of quasicrystals - atoms arranged in patterns that seem to violate laws of nature. Today, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for that discovery.

Expanding Universe

"This year's Nobel Prize in physics went to the discoverers of Dark Energy. For once, a finding bigger than the prize itself." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

All I'm Saying Is

"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” - John Lennon

That's not how I heard it.

Wayland Smith and the shoeing of the White Horse according to DailyKos.

Fashion Kills

Sandblasting jeans to give them the distressed, worn look gives factory workers an incurable lung disease.

Natural History Museum Event Bling

Tatty Devine has a large dinosaur necklace.

Illegal, Unethical, Not Necessarily Fattening

Koch Brothers are doing business with Tehran against US law.

Magical Mystery Tour

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have determined that use of psychedelic "magic" mushrooms can change the way people think and view the world for a year, possibly even causing a personality change lasting the course of one's life.

I recall one man who said, 40 years ago, that one could do that and control it with set and setting. He studied the psychological and physiological  effects of psychedelics. The government hounded him. arrested him, and let the man be crucified in the court of public opinion. He ended his life considered by many to be a washed up hippy burnout.

 I think some people owe Timothy Leary an apology.

The Memory Rag

B12 deficiency has been linked to memory problems.

Lock me up

Nonviolent offenders in an Alabama town given the choice between church or jail time.

No Thugs in Our House

This is not the first time Anthony Bologna has gone over the line in dealing with nonviolent protesters. Before this current macing of netted female protesters, Tony Baloney is also up on false arrest charges in his dealings during the 2004 Republican Convention.

That's Our Perry!

Texas oil refineries may get $135m at the expense of schools and communities.

Paging a madman in a blue box

10 books lost to history, and, no, I'm not crying.

Status quo is definitely not quo

"Europe will collapse because Goldman Sachs rules the world."

Shaman? I just like doing drugs with US students.

The neuroscience of ayahuasca.

Brian Cox, BBC Radio 6, and CERN's neutrinos

Brian Cox, UK's rock star physicist, on CERN's speeding neutrinos.

Everybody complains about the weather

CIA research into global warming is classified secret as pertaining to matters of national security.

I really, really hope I'm the only one to immediately think on reading the article that the CIA is afraid Sir August  de Wynter is planning to attack again.

Warp Factor Three, Mister Sulu

Scientists at CERN may have observed neutrino particles going faster than light.

Paranoia Strikes Deep

NYPD believes that immigrants assimilating into a new culture is the first sign someone will turn terrorist. Me, I'd follow Moroccan immigrants around, sure, but only to find the best Middle Eastern deli.

Cleveland Rocks

Rick Perry's co-chair says gays are responsible for tornadoes. 

So fly-over country is more a modern day Gomorrah than San Francisco? This'll shock 'em in Sunday School.

daily facepalm

Solyndra is defaulting on their government backed business loan. The media is painting Obama as the one at fault because he touted this loan as a good thing and Solyndra as a solid company. The loan went through in 2007, during the Bush Administration.

I want to learn the riddle of steel

Trinity College Dublin sacks Conan T Barbarian, Ph.d. from their teaching staff. Students are denied  the wisdom of the man who wrote "To Hear The Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature". It is believed that his conservative reactionary stance was to blame for the regents' decision.

Hardware or Software

Gulf War Syndrome is physiological, caused by nerve gas, and not psychological.

Zombiepocalypse PSA

Day the Music Died

Popular busking areas in Central Park have been taken away from musicians. There is possibly more to the matter than is presented in this BBC piece, but I support the musicians.

It's a start

NASA unveils new rocket for deep space missions. The SLS will be part of planned missions to Mars and the asteroids.

Plan to buy a bread machine real soon now

J. M. McDermott's mom's Chinese Five Spice Bread recipe.

No flying the very friendly skies then?

The War on Terror now equals War on Joining the Mile High Club. A pair of fighter jets were dispatched when a couple spent too much time in the restroom inflight.  The terrorists have won.

Straight, but not narrow

Sherwood Smith and Rachel Brown are instructed by an agent to "straighten" a gay viewpoint character in a YA if they want the agent to sell the novel.

Rachel replied, “Making a gay character straight is a line in the sand which I will not cross. That is a moral issue. I work with teenagers, and some of them are gay. They never get to read fantasy novels where people like them are the heroes, and that’s not right.”


Sherwood broke the silence. “Do you think the agent missed that Becky and Brisa [supporting characters] are a couple, too? Do they ever actually kiss on-page? No? I’M ADDING A LESBIAN KISS NOW!”

Tasteless

The things necessary to grow tomatoes (chemicals, worker conditions) may well make them inedible to me. 

"Slavery is what is happening. There is no way to gloss it. You can't say "slavery-like." You can't say "near-slavery." "Human trafficking" doesn't even do it credit. Here are some things that are in court records; it's all been proven.

"People are being bought and sold like chattels. People are locked and shackled in chains at night in order to prevent them from escaping. People are being beaten severely if they're too tired to work, too sick to work or don't want to work hard enough. People are beaten even more severely or murdered if they try to escape. They receive little or no pay for their efforts.

"That, to me, is slavery. It's like 1850, not 2011."

"The main problem is that tomatoes' ancestors come from desert areas. They're adapted to extremely dry, low-humidity areas. That's why Southern Italy and parts of California are so good for tomatoes; it doesn't rain all summer. Florida is notoriously humid, which is just perfect conditions for all of the funguses, rusts, blights, insects and pests that destroy tomatoes.

"That's why they have to use 110 different chemicals, fertilizers, fungicides and herbicides to even get a crop. Florida and California grow about the same amount of tomatoes. Florida uses eight times to get the same agricultural product.

"The second problem with Florida is - I'm not even going to call it soil, because it isn't. Florida tomatoes are grown in sand. Just like the sand on Daytona Beach, it's great to wiggle your toes in, but it contains zero nutrients. None.

"So they have to essentially pump in all the chemical food that the plant is going to need for its lifetime. Then they seal the row in plastic and hope they'll get a crop."

Moist Towelette?

The Science of the Female Orgasm:101

Kill 'Em All Good Hair

More on Rick Perry's execution of an innocent man.

People just liked it better that way

On this day in 1664, New Amsterdam becomes New York.

Oops

BBC journalist killed by NATO troops after they confused him for a suicide bomber.

Fly me to the moons

NASA's GRAIL mission will study the mysteries beneath the surface of the moon, and possibly discover more evidence pro or con on the paper in Nature hypothesizing a previous two moons.

45 Years Ago Today...

...Star Trek first aired.

Perry 2012*

Hunger has worsened in Texas while remaining the same in much of the rest of the US.

*What he's done to Texas he can do to the rest of the US!

Hate: Still taught in the South

The domestic partner of a man slain in a racial hate crime in Mississippi can't sue in a civil case. 

"Are Jobs Obsolete?"

Douglas Rushkoff asks that question, though perhaps he should have asked whether or not the set of circumstances that made having a job desirable (as opposed to a career or employment) has passed out of contemporary culture.

Is that possible?

At this point, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer has made their goal on Kickstarter. It's worth looking at the pitch page (or whatever it's called) just to see the most nonsexual eating of a banana ever.

Get in the Swing

An essay on Sparks with a short concert film.

Yes and no.

Our brains are hardwired to fear creativity.

I both agree and disagree. I'm just not awake enough yet to properly argue the points. (Yes, I know it's two. It was a long weekend.)

POTUS made GOP happy?

Obama scrapped plans to reduce ozone emissions.

Undamn that river!

Next month, officials in Olympic National Park in Washington will begin the process of dismantling the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams. Removing the dams will open up the river to salmon again. The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe tell of a time when the salmon was so thick in the Elwha River that a person could walk from shore to shore  stepping from the backs of the thrashing fish. Not sure I believe that, but it's fun to picture.

The squeal of an angry thoat

The site of ancient lake on Mars is seen in satellite photos.

Page Larry Niven

Researchers in China have a plan to deflect asteroids away from Earth with spacecraft powered by solar sails.

I'm told he has a special stance on this subject

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is calling for the criminalization of homosexuality.

Yummy

New shark species discovered in a Taiwan fish market.

Freelance Economy

Why the next economy is the freelance economy.

GOP Knows Their Base

Republican Party in Pima County is auctioning off a Glock to raise money for this election season. Pima County is, if you recall, in Giffords' district and she was shot by a Glock.

At least they're not committing sodomy

Unmarried cohabitation is illegal in Florida.

I want a chemical test on the Thames, please.

Salmon are now swimming back to a healthy Thames.

Set a thief to take a thief

An engineered anti-cancer virus shows promise on attacking tumors and leaving healthy tissue alone.

My hero

Woman saves her dachshund Fudge by punching a black bear in the face.

What's up, Sloop John B

An 18th century ship (merchant sloop?) has been discovered on the site of the World Trade Center. At one point that site was an anchorage for the Hudson River.

Oh, my

The story of Mary Jones aka Peter Sewally, a transvestite, African-American prostitute, picking pockets in New York City during the Regency and Victorian Eras.

Impossible Star

Star lacks materials astronomers have thought were necessary for low-mass stars to form.

Cue Muse Twice!

Chandra Observatory discovers a pair of supermassive black holes close to us...in a spiral galaxy 160m light years from Earth.

Good riddance

Key provisions of the Texas sonogram law are struck down.

Or yet a foreign merchant?

Call Alan Moore. German merchant yet another suspect in Jack the Ripper murders.

There are too many suspects. Even Miss Marple couldn't solve this one.

Economic Care in the Community

A report by the homeless charity Crisis and co-authored by academics at the University of York and Heriot-Watt University have noted a rise in UK homelessness accompanied by more visible signs of people sleeping rough, with the expectation that homelessness could spread to the middle class soon.

Warren Buffet does not stand alone

And now, wealthy Europeans line up to pay more taxes in the current world financial crisis.

Perhaps if Warren Ellis were in charge of Homeland Security

Let's end our long national nightmare of puppies. Twice as many Americans died of dog bites in 2010 as died of terrorism.

So the answer against something is more of the same?

God sent the hurricane as a message against government spending, says Bachmann.

For Given Value of King Arthur

The King's Knot, a site in Scotland that officially dates from the 1600s, appears to be older with references going back six centuries and perhaps even existing as a Roman fort.

They made a movie about my college years?

Johnny Depp in Hunter S Thompson's The Rum Diary

Wants To Avoid the Real World This Time

Representative Paul Ryan avoids his unemployed constituents in Kenosha Wisconsin having them thrown out of the building. Ryan was available for the Rotary Club for diner, $15 a head.

A Game of View

With a hurricane aiming straight for New York City, Teresa Nielsen Hayden takes on a journey to see how storms can change coastlines. Specifically, she follows Rye through it's past as a harbor town and it's current status as landlocked.

It'll be in Indy 5

Brazilian scientists find an underground river in the Amazon.

Edited to add: But it's not necessarily a river.

Diamonds are an astronaut's best friend?

An international research team, led by Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, has discovered a planet made of diamond orbiting a pulsar.

Did he sell Houston to the Daleks, too?

Governor Rick Perry has been implicated in a scheme to sell Texas teachers life insurance that would name Swiss banks as the beneficiary instead of the teachers' families.

"Said TE Lawrence, lifting his fork"

Saudis find evidence that horses were domesticated 9000 years ago years ago in the Arabian Peninsula.

Hey, baby, wanna come back to Lascaux to see my etchings?

Sex with neanderthals gave humans an immunity boost.

Cuz I'm the Taxman

While the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (behind Japan), loopholes in the tax code put the US on an even playing field with the rest of the world.

"But by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer, United States corporations pay only slightly more on average than their counterparts in other industrial countries. And some American corporations use aggressive strategies to pay less — often far less — than their competitors abroad and at home. A Government Accountability Office study released in 2008 found that 55 percent of United States companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a seven-year period it studied.


"The paradox of the United States tax code — high rates with a bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks — has made American multinationals “world leaders in tax avoidance,” according to Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California who was head of the Congressional joint committee on taxes. This has profound implications for businesses, the economy and thefederal budget.


"The United States is virtually alone in trying to tax its multinational corporations on their foreign earnings, but it allows companies to avoid those taxes indefinitely by keeping profits overseas. That encourages companies to use accounting maneuvers to shift profits to low-tax countries and to invest profits offshore, says David S. Miller, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York.

"Honeywell International, the New Jersey company that makes things as diverse as aerospace components and First Alert smoke detectors, reported in regulatory filings that in the last five years, it paid cash income taxes in the United States and abroad equal to 15 percent of its profits. On Friday, a Honeywell spokeswoman pointed out that the company had since made a large pension contribution, which effectively cut its profits and made its tax rate closer to 22 percent.

"A major domestic competitor, United Technologies, reported an average of 24 percent over that time. A German rival, Siemens, reported 29 percent of its total profit.

In addition to being complex and uneven, the United States corporate tax code is inefficient and has become a diminishing source of revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for about 9 percent of all federal revenue in 2010. At $191 billion, they were equal to 1.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Most industrial countries collect more from companies, about 2.5 percent of output. Only a portion of that disparity can be explained by the many types of businesses in the United States that elect to be taxed at an individual rate."

"

Take yourself of the gov't trough, Gov!

Governor Rick Scott of Florida has mandated drug testing for anyone on welfare within the state. The leading walk-in chain of clinics that will administer the test is owned by his family. The tests discovered that 2% of the people on welfare that have taken the test have been found to be positive for drug use. This means that the tests cost more money than they save off of "welfare cheats".

What's that Muse song again?

NASA researchers detail how a black hole devoured a star.

Can he stand at attention on New Years in Edinburgh?

Ex Royal Marine is sentenced to two years in jail for being naked in public. Again.

Not sure who'll learn first that the other isn't planning to change, Gough or the UK courts.

"Keep you feet off the tailpipe"

Galaxies running out of gas, creating less st,ars than before.

If it's not Scottish, it's crap!

BBC documentary on Scotland's comic book creators, Grant Morrison, Mark "Kick-Ass" Millar, Frank Quitely, and Alan Grant.

Harlequin is a tool of Satan

Dirty Girl Ministries fights a crusade against the evils of female masturbation.

What a waste of a good name! I can start a porn label under that name!

And twice a week is excessive? Oh, I am damned to Hell. There is no salvation for me.

Like the fabled unicorn

Reports say that bisexual men do exist. That's a relief. I'm sure they'll sleep better knowing that they are not the figment of some drug induced college hallucination.

We know DC leans a certain direction! (wink wink)

Park Service states that the earthquake did no damage to any area monuments while FoxNews reports the Washington monument is leaning after the quake.

"I feel my heart start tremblin' whenever you're around"

The differences between East and West Coast 'quakes. For example, thus: "In the east the underlying bedrock is pretty well-connected (like a concrete slab). Eastern earthquakes can travel farther that in the west, where the underlying topography is so chopped-up (like a brick patio) that the energy of a quake is dissipated closer to the epicenter." 


That last might explain why it felt stronger than the readings would suggest.

From the man that wrote the definitive London bio

Peter Ackroyd says rioting has long been a London tradition.

Chipping away at another tyrant

New legal ruling states that Google and Amazon do not need record label permission for "music lockers".

Paging the Killer Bs, Niven, Pournelle?

NASA and Tor Books announce a joint collaboration venture.

"Weird is a relative." - Dr Frank N Furter

Ann Vandermeer will no longer be the editor of Weird Tales following Marvin Kaye's purchase of the magazine.

"We named the dog Indiana"

Ancient crystal skulls appear to be only a couple hundred years old, give or take a decade.

Hmm.

Slow work day, eh?

Just in case...

...I ever want to find it again, the Rolling Stone interview with Grant Morrison.

Confession is good for the soul

GOP openly admits it's all for tax breaks for the rich and doesn't support tax breaks for middle and poor Americans.

Who loves you?

For Ray Bradbury's 91st birthday, the 1950 Dimension X radio adaption of "The Martian Chronicles".

Drug Testing

Modified ecstasy appears to work on some blood cancers.

"Islamic Extremist" vs Batshit Crazy Party

David Ramadan has Ed Meese's endorsement for a seat in Virginia's State Assembly. His opponents paint him as an Islamic extremist.

Nice texture

The military is using MDMA to treat PTSD of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Flip-flop like that can lead to comb-overs, GoodHair

After being warned that the HPV vaccine could lead to promiscuity, Rick Perry reverses himself on a decision requiring all girls in Texas between 11-12 get vaccinated.

Oh, shit

New evidence is uncovered strongly suggesting that the airplane crash in 1961 that killed UN Chief Dag Hammarskjöld was caused by being shot down over Rhodesia. The UK colonial authorities covered up the murder.

Out of the mouths of babes.

The witch trial that set a precedent for testimony from a minor. Before this, 14 was the legal limit.

William Gibson on cities.

You never know whom you might meet in the city. In a small town, you’re less likely to encounter people or things or situations you haven’t encountered previously. These people or things or situations may be wonderful or horrible, in either city or town, but cities have the numbers, the turnover. To a writer of fiction, this is extremely handy, a city being able, more or less believably, to mask excessive coincidence, producing, as Doyle taught me, whatever the narrative might require.

Should the populous mechanism of the fictive city fail to produce phenomena of sufficient weirdness, our literature of the fantastic often turns, quite reflexively, to dead cities, our most profoundly and mysteriously haunted artifacts.

Many deserted cities probably never were engines of choice. To stand in the vast plaza of the pre-Columbian Monte Albán, for instance, is to know that Monte Albán was about decreasing choice, narrowing it. Monte Albán was a control machine, an acoustically perfect environment with magnificent lines of sight: a theater of power. We don’t know why Monte Albán was as abruptly deserted as it may have been. Perhaps the show failed, finally, to come off, and no other was available, or possible, within that inflexible, uni-purposed structure.

Freedom of religion for who?

Would I lie to you?

An Iceni road, dating back to the Iron Age (75BC?), has been uncovered in East Anglia. The road, preserved in peat, was built out of timber.

Freedom From Speech?

Two kids (legal kids, ages 20 and 22) were sentenced to four years in jail for inciting riots on Facebook. Never mind that their actions did not cause rioting.

Page the Lorax!

A collection of previously uncollected Dr Seuss stories will be printed in September. It will consist of seven stories published previously in Redbook in the 1950s.

Cult of Jobs, meet Cult of Adams

A new app connects your phone to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Muse or Covenant?

Super dense stars may squash neutrons into cubes.

"..thinks Major Tom"

Dawn completes the first spiral orbit of Vesta and begins transmitting data.

"We stopped dreaming"

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Congress, budgets, and NASA.

Violet Blue on SlutWalk

"Yes: I think scantily clad girls marching in the streets around the world are agents of change for our species."

To anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I have female friends that dress in ways that would embarrass strippers. I (and they) think little if anything of it.

Must Not Make Jokes

Second century statue of Hercules (minus the head) found in Israel in what appears to have been a Roman bathhouse.

One for my baby

Date rape sensor can detect if a drink's been spiked through optical analysis.

Deadly Mouse

A bull named Mouse claims top dollar for his owners. He's killed three men during a Spanish festival over the last ten years.

Egypt, BART, & Cameron have this in common

Ailing ex-dictator gives his name to a fearful practice: the mubarak.

I still like the Cameron Initiative.

Notes on class warfare from the man whose class won

Warren Buffet has an op-ed in the New York Times, "Stop coddling the super rich". Here are the highlights:

"OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
(...)
"Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

"If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

(...)

"Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

"I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation."

Must check out Golau Glau later.

For anyone reading this that doesn't follow Warren Ellis on any of his various profiles, here is Electronic Encounters: Music Inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

19th century African-American village unearthed in Central Park. It appears to have been founded in the 1820s (while slavery was still legal in New York) and destroyed in the 1850s.

The Return of the Death Star

Leaked AT&T memo admits that the takeover of T-Mobile is supposed to create a monopoly.

They hate us for our freedom, Part II

BART prepares to shut down the cell network on it's line in preparation for protests on their cops being kill happy thugs AGAIN.

From now on, I'm calling a plan to shut down cell networks, social media, messaging systems as a way to stop insurrection as the Cameron Initiative.

Good US Conservative Values!

Indiana state representative Phillip Hinkle has been caught trying to pay an 18 year old male for sex. Hinkle is of the anti-gay branch of the GOP.

They hate us for our freedom

Counterfeit pilot IDs and uniforms will now be sufficient to circumvent airport security but be damned if you can travel tooth toothpaste.

"Bloody Mary is the girl for me"

Star Wars coins to be accepted as legitimate currency on the South Pacific island of Niue. Someone finally figures out how money works. Damned good show!

Could the US fall for it twice?

And Rick Perry officially joins the race for the White House.

Supposedly Governor Good Hair went to Iowa to meet with Michelle Bachmann. No word on whether he made it clear that he will fight her for the support of the batshit crazy wing of the GOP, or whether they'll join forces if one of them takes the nod. The latter is my guess. Bachmann is used to covering for and working with heavily closeted gay men.

Paranoid yet?

Richard Clarke claims the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers.

One of the few investigative reporters we have left

I'm going to have to find out exactly what Palast was investigating this time.

Posthuman Future One Day Closer

Call it an electronic temporary tattoo.  It will collect and transmit information about your heart rate, transmit signals between prosthesis and the brain, or simply provide a simple useful interface between man and machine.

Gother than thou

Extra solar Jupiter type planet absorbs more light than it reflects, making it "darker than coal" and blacker than any planet in our solar system.

And two more books on the way after Snuff!

NPR on Terry Pratchett's mission to make assisted dying legal in the UK.

Prison may be hell, boys, but it's good for business.

A Pennsylvania judge is sentenced to 28 years for a "kids for cash" racketeering scheme.  In short, as he sentenced kids to privately run youth offenders detention facilities, he received kickbacks, up to $2.8m.

If you ever wanted proof that youth was considered just another commodity, here it is.

You know better

"Corporation are people, too." - Mitt Romney

"Like Steve McQueen all I needs a fast machine"

US military loses contact with the Falcon HTV-2, the fastest plane ever built, 36 minutes into it's test flight.

UPDATE: Air Force says it crashed into the ocean.

"I licked the Big C once and I'll do it again"

Reprogrammed T-cells from a patients own immune system are "taught" to kill cancer successfully.

Blaming it on single mothers is naif, as well, Parliament.

David Cameron wants the rioters to be banned from social media as there apparently has never been riots before this, our modern age.

Diamonds are a grrl's best friend

Diamonds may be the answer for quantum computing.

Recipes: Corn, East Indian Style

Peanut tikkis with tamarind-date chutney, rice with corn, and bread and corn salad.

Sweet Christmas!

As much as Marvel and DC are taken to task when they mess up on matters of race, david Brothers of Comics Alliance points out where they get it right.

A, yes, a fairy tale wedding!

You ladies lose points for not knowing who Gollum is. The bride is obviously not offended.

"If it weren't for gravy and coffee, we'd starve to death."

1937 interview with L.M. Cox, an aging cowboy over life on the range in the late 1800s.

London's Burning

Photographer who took the picture of a woman leaping from a burning building in Croyden talks about being in the heat of it.

Probably going to stockpile all news of the London riots here rather than spam people on Facebook/Twitter/Google+ today. I think I want to keep track of this.

Better living through chemistry part 2

Medicine to better our brains.

Pumped Up Kicks

11 deaths and 73 serious adverse reactions on Pfizer's promotion of Neurontin, a seizure drug. Parke-Davis attempted to make it look like a drug test but administered it as "seeding trial".

First cut is the deepest

The tomb of a sacrificer in Peru has been discovered near Chiclayo. The tomb dates back to the 14th century, to the Pre-Incan Lambayeque culture that dated from 800 AD to 1375 AD.

God help us; we're doomed

The Tea Party is opposed to Pell Grants. Boehner wants to increase the amount to be used for those grants. 

The poor and middle class is opposed to assistance against rising school costs?

I agree with fucking Boehner?

I thought I'd live forever but now I'm not so sure.

Arctic scientist that exposed climate threat to polar bears is suspended. The suspension comes from within the Obama Administration. This is why I call Obama Bush 2.0. He is just as much owned by the oil companies as Shrub, he just isn't as obviously surrounded by openly evil greedy fucks who swim in a sea of hate.

Crowded skies

Trojan asteroid discovered in Earth's orbit.

Uncle Aleister would be proud!..Uh, no, not really

After an investigation, Dallas police discover that the Darkside Club* isn't really a church but a den of sex (with legal minors) and drugs.


*It all comes back to Grant Morrison and in this case his 7 Soldiers and Final Crisis.

Another nail in Murdoch's coffin

And now a piece of phone hacking can be directly tracked back to Rebekah Brooks of the News of the World. Now if they could only tie James Murdoch in, the Evil Empire could be destroyed.

Victim of love

Ancient city in what is now Syria survived collapse of civilizations in that region 4200 years ago. Why?

Op-ed on science and religion. I'd have something amusing (I hope) to say about it except I'm waiting on the two slowest men in the world at work and really can't stop to give it the attention it needs. Linking to read this weekend.

SDCC Thursday so far

DC Comics has their "New 52" panel. Wouldn't care except Paul Cornell is a good writer so I'm kinda looking forward to his books.

Chris Roberson is writing a Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes crossover. (Ditto Roberson)

Tim and Ben Truman are doing a Hawken, a supernatural western, for IDW. Tim Truman has been one of my favorite comic book artists since, I dunno, 198something-or-other.

"I forgive you, boy, but don't leave town"

Greg Palast on why the deficit isn't Obama's fault. Among other things, he brings up the three dozen Virginia Class submarines that Bush ordered at $1.8b a pop. The V-Class are designed to fight Soviet submarines.Congressman Cantor voted to let Bush have those subs. This is the same Cantor that is steadfastly opposed to raising the debt ceiling and taxing the rich.

Every possible location has a simple explanation

Every women's magazine in one cover.

And I think it's gonna be a long long time

Are you familiar with NASA's Spinoff? It lists what NASA has developed, much of which is open for public use if they can figure out a way to use it.

Because I'm not at the Nerd Prom (but who wants to be in San Diego in the Summer?)

IDW announces a Wally Wood EC Stories Artists Edition.

Comics Beat goes over Preview Night, including Vertigo's The Unexpected, more on Archie's Kevin Keller getting his own book, and Marvel Comics done-in-one graphic novels featuring their top tier characters.

Sailing the Seas of Fate

Scientific American on the case for a multiverse.

An admission in a pop news source that women went a-viking along with the men. Considering that the Norse settled Britain, it seems rather idiotic to assume that they planned to pick up a wife in fair Albion. Settling means households, families, and not a way to get free of the spousal unit for the weekend.

"Dorte was a hot Danish sandwich when I married her, and now the only thing hot about that witch is her temper." Possible but no.

Why "is" "isn't"

Nepal to remeasure Mount Everest to determine how how high it "really" "is".

No, not really

Live in Texas? Glad you have a job? Thank a drug dealer!

Governor Good-Hair's pusher ineligible for any thanks from me.

Better Living Though Chemistry

Michelle Bachman medicated to deal with constant migraines. Says it won't be issue if she becomes president.

Chase Bank sends man to jail over a forged check, except it wasn't. Now, he has no job and no car.

keeping time to an old slave drum

Dead Can Dance looking at getting together to record a new album and touring in 2012.

"like a halo in reverse"

One man found guilty of willfully shooting another man in the head is suing over being called an "inmate" while in prison as, he says, it implies that he's gay.

"you and me in the summertime"

Not even presidents have a need to no about all the operations at Area 51.

*

The city of Kobe, Japan builds a 50-ton statue of Gigantor.


*I've started following the grand tradition of making as a headline lyrics to the song I'm listening to. Someone on TurntableFM is playing a country version of "Gin & Juice". No. Just...no.

"I could dress in black and read Camus"

The overgrown squalor of Six Flags New Orleans (formerly Jazzland) since it's been abandoned for six years following Hurricane Katrina.

"She Looked right through me"

Funky Buddha Maple Bacon Porter.

Hey, I don't name them.

Lordosis

A comment or two on the highly sexualized pose used by most female comic book characters and especially when coupled with the phrase "strong female".

"Our own TNH and I used to have a plot in which the worst offenders of this sort of female costuming/posing would be paraded onto a stage at Comic Con, forced to wear five inch heels, posed in those butt-and-tits-out lordosis poses, and left there for an hour...just to see long they would last, and how many of them could walk afterward.

"I suppose that was mean of us." - Madeleine Robins

Goldman Sachs fires US employees to move 1000 jobs to Singapore.

"I Will Survive, my Precious"

To amuse during work: During an interview with Neil Gaiman, Adam "Mythbusters" Savage breaks into "I Will Survive" as performed by Gollum of Lord of the Rings.

We Are In the Science Fiction Future

ISS crew mans escape pods as debris comes at the satellite.

"Fun With Ropes"

Onion's AVClub interviews Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos.

"I discovered I was pervy as a teenager, and for a long time, I was very ashamed of it and held it in. In fact, the only public evidence of that is that song, because I thought I was a freak. Then at some point in the ’90s, I met some people that were outwardly kinky, and totally proud to be it, and I discovered the whole world of the fetish lifestyle, and I was like, “Oh, so I don’t have to be in the closet about being kinky.” So I’ve been an outward kinkster for a while now. But yeah, definitely, “Fun With Ropes” is all about bondage, and a super-funny song that was still loved. Belinda still loves to sing that song, which I adore about her."

Thyme for a Beer

Article in Smithsonian about beer archaelogist Patrick McGovern, a man who has reverse engineered ancient beer recipes that includes beer with carrots and thyme.

They Hate Us for Our Freedom

95 year old woman, in the terminal stages of leukemia and flying to be with her family during her final days, was asked told to get out of her wheelchair and remove her adult diaper for TSA screening.

Yes, bin Laden is dead. He still won.

Mayan Tombs

A video camera was dropped into the Mayan tomb in Palenque in south-eastern Mexico. The tomb dates between 431AD and 550AD and is believed to be the final resting place of K'uk Bahlam I, the city's first ruler or Ix Yohl Ik'nal, an early female ruler. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History has only been aware of the tomb for a decade.

But He'll Have Health Care For That Year, Eh?

US citizen faces one year in prison in Canada for having manga on his laptop. The CBLDF is putting together a coalition to handle the case.

Fingering Trigger Warnings

I've been rather annoyed (to put it mildly) on people placing trigger warnings all over so as not to set anybody off I'm usually polite about this unless the person who claims to need it (or is worried about others) is an asshole.  Caitlín R. Kiernan, a woman who by her own admission has had multiple issues of PTSD, has taken the practitioners of trigger warnings to task. "I will not be a member of the congregation of the Church of Protect Me From That Which Might Make Me Cry."

Gender Neutral Society?

The dream of the 90's may be alive in Portland (as they say on IFC's Portlandia), but is the dream of Warhol's Factory in the 70's, that of a gender neutral society, starting?

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows Department

Ron Paul and Barney Frank collaborate on a bill to end pot prohibition. It will permit states to legalize, legislate, and tax marijuana.

Swing Heil, Baby!

HBGary had plans underway to spy on everyone for corporate interests and to attack those that believed that government should be responsive to the people.

"Good news, everyone."

Georgia's anti-immigration bill worked. Because of this, crops are now going unharvested. So who wants to tell farmers that they won't be able to make ends meet because either they won't have product to sell or, if the do, they'll sell at a loss for having to pay a minimum wage to the laborers?

Reality is What You Can Get Away With*

Quantum version of a conjurer's trick shows that reality really is what you make it.


*I really need to get my Robert Anton Wilson books out of storage.

Summer Solstice Hymn

To Steve Jobs,

Fuck off!

007, James Bond

Agnostic's Prayer

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen. - Roger Zelazny

Really?!

Why drugs often list headaches under possible side-effects.

Two More From the BBC

32,000 year old fossils discovered in the Ukraine, possibly the oldest evidence of modern humans.

James May explains the science behind hangovers.

Heavier Geekery Than the Flash Gordon Wedding March

A Millennium Falcon wedding cake.

The Damned Human Race

70 year old man in Pennsylvania stoned to death because he was gay and the neighbor "knew" that the Bible named that punishment for "faggotry".

Hey, kid! You ever masturbated? Because that same book in the Bible names stoning as the punishment for those that "cast their seed upon the ground". Of course, you could've followed the lesson of he whom your religion is named for, Yeshua ben Yosef called Christ, who once said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

Fucking human race. It's time for the next team to take over.

GENIUS!

After letting big business damage weather patterns, Congress is using the excuse of a destroyed economy (caused by financial institutions gievn the go ahead by Congress) to shut down weather satellites.

Mwah hah ha!

Cthulhu lollypops!

I know what I'm giving out next Valentines Day.

RIP Clarence Clemons

We Call That a Dilithium Necklace

From Discovery magazine: How science fiction can aid us to ask more questions about gender and sexuality. 

Evidence: Ruby Rhod

And here's Voltaire making the Star Trek argument:

If It's Not Scottish, Your Modern Stone Age Family is Crap!

Prehistoric settlement discovered on Scottish island.

Astronomic Two From the B, the B, the C

Astronomers watch a star get eaten by a black hole.

The Spitzer space telescope has snapped a false color image of the RCW 120 nebula, 4300 light years thataway in the constellation Scorpius.

More Surprised Than I Should Be

After his resignation this morning, Anthony Weiner is given a job offer by Larry Flynt.

Cats & Dogs Living Together

It looks like same sex marriage will pass in New York. Good. Call me an old reactionary, but I'm opposed to Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman living in sin. They should be legally married in their home state.

New York Archibishop Timothy Dolan says that same sex marriage will open the door to communism. I thought anyone old enough to believe that was dead, or close enough.

Likewise, ex-New York Giants receiver claims same sex marriage will lead to anarchy. Funny, I'd think that same sex couples flouting the law and being married illegally would more lead to anarchy. Shows what I know.

Seperation of Church & State Myth Myth

But this argument ignores a historical fact. It's not Jefferson's metaphor. Even in 1802, separation was already deeply rooted in American religious history.  In 1644, the American theologian Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist congregation in the British New World, coined the phrase to signify the protection that the church needed in order to prevent misuse and corruption by political leaders: "The church of the Jews under the Old Testament in the type and the church of the Christians under the New Testament in the antitype were both separate from the world; and when they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made his garden a wilderness."