The media loves to run headlines that sound shocking and a majority of people seem unwilling to read the actual content of articles meaning baseless information becomes widely circulated. Take this article titled Wi-Fi Near Testes Could Decrease Male Fertility: Study. After reading the headline many people probably go, “Gosh Wi-Fi is killing my sperm, we need to ban it!” Truth be told the study is meaningless because of the following fact:
A team of Argentine scientists placed healthy sperm under a laptop running a Wi-Fi connection. After four hours, the Wi-Fi-exposed sperm showed signs of damage including slowed motility and increased DNA fragmentation, the researchers found. Healthy sperm stored for the same time and temperature away from the computer didn’t show the damage.
Sounds like a pretty solid method so long as you ignore this tidbit towards the end:
The study, however, is far from conclusive on the effect of Wi-Fi on male fertility, mostly because the study was done with in vitro (out of the body) sperm. To continue to advance knowledge in this area, the authors of the paper suggested further in vivo (in organism) studies.
So the study didn’t test sperm in testicles, which is very important because the type of radiation emitted at the power levels we use for our wireless devices (Wi-Fi and cell phones for instance) don’t penetrate skin all that well. This study would be akin to demonstrating ultraviolet radiation kills sperm when they’re outside of a body. Being one purpose of skin is to protect the internal organs from ultraviolet radiation this is one of those no-shit-sherlock results.
This study is nothing more than sensationalist bullshit meant to generate scary headlines to up newspaper sales and page hits. People who read articles before parroting what the headline states need not worry about these traps but it appears as though a large portion of our population does not do this.
Something that isn’t covered well enough in American history classes is the number of people butchered by Joseph Stalin. Stalin ordered the death of more people than Hitler yet we are still willing to gloss over that fact since the Soviet Union was our ally during World War II. Imagine though that you were the child of one of these murderous individuals, how would you go through life? In many cases the children of murderous authoritarians end up taking after their parents and end up being the next rulers of the countries their parents terrorized. Lana Parker took a different route, she defected to the United States and eventually returned to the Soviet Union which makes her case far more interesting:
Her three successive names were signposts on a twisted, bewildering road that took her from Stalin’s Kremlin, where she was the “little princess,” to the West in a celebrated defection, then back to the Soviet Union in a puzzling homecoming, and finally to decades of obscurity, wandering and poverty.
At her birth, on Feb. 28, 1926, she was named Svetlana Stalina, the only daughter and last surviving child of the brutal Soviet tyrant Josef Stalin. After he died in 1953, she took her mother’s last name, Alliluyeva. In 1970, after her defection and an American marriage, she became and remained Lana Peters.
Ms. Peters died of colon cancer on Nov. 22 in Richland County, Wis., the county’s corporation counsel, Benjamin Southwick, said on Monday. She was 85.
It is interesting to note that she defected after her father’s death and the defection didn’t appear to be related with the actions of Joseph Stalin. Personally I’ve always wondered what it must be like having a father or mother known first and foremost as a murdering tyrant. Some children end up following the parent’s footsteps while others seem to completely rebel and choose a different path in life. What shapes these decisions is most interesting to investigate and speculate on.
While she did publish an autobiography after defecting to the United States I would find it interesting if she were to have written another one later in her life after her return and eventual second departure from the Soviet Union. I’m sure her outlook would have been different and would certainly have been worth reading.
Not surprisingly the Norwegian man who killed 77 people earlier this year has been diagnosed as insane:
Psychiatrists assessing self-confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik have concluded that he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
[…]
Breivik admits carrying out the attacks but has pleaded not guilty to charges.
He has previously said the attacks were atrocious but “necessary”.
The two psychiatrists, in their report, concluded that he lived in his “own delusional universe where all his thoughts and acts are guided by his delusions”.
I would argue that anybody willing to kill people outside of self-defense are already a little messed up in the head but somebody willing to kill 77 fellow humans has nothing but bad wiring upstairs. Many people may feel as though this is giving the murderer an easy out but as I said previously Norway has a maximum prison sentence of 21 years unless the person is judged a high risk to society. The fact that this murderer has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia may very well be the justification used to keep the man imprisoned for the rest of his life.
Of course the gun control nuts are going to latch onto this diagnosis as a demonstration of why strong checks of mental history are required. More to the point the boys over at the Brady Campaign are probably going to use this incident to demand mental health evaluations be performed on all persons wishing to buy a gun. While such a tactic would work exceptionally well at preventing poor people from purchasing firearms (mental health evaluations aren’t cheap after all) they wouldn’t lower the rate of gun crime in this country in the slightest since many mental disorders don’t manifest until later in a person’s life.
Members of Occupy Wall Street are claiming the New York Police Department (NYPD) has destroyed around 5,000 books during their raid of Zuccotti Park. Now the occupiers are demanding the destroyed books be replaced:
fter police raided Occupy Wall Street’s encampment at Zuccotti Park last Tuesday, the reported destruction of as many as 5,000 books in Occupy’s “People’s Library” sparked an outcry by protesters and bibliophiles across the country.
The remains of the People’s Library (Occupy Wall Street) “This breaks my heart. This is [expletive] 1984,” an Occupy Philadelphia protester said at the time. “[Expletive] Nazis,” Occupy protester Dylan Bozlee said. Even Salman Rushdie joined the furor: “Nazis destroyed books to ‘purify’ German culture. Bigots do it in the name of God, or Allah. What’s Bloomberg’s excuse? ‘Hygiene?’ ”
Today, Occupy Wall Street held a news conference about the library, and reported that 79 percent of books were missing or wrecked. The remaining books are reportedly in the condition pictured at left. Occupy’s attorney is demanding that the city replace every missing book.
I consider myself a bibliophile so I’m going to be a bit biased here but if these charges are factual it’s a rather disgusting move by NYPD. Truthfully I doubt the books were destroyed to censor the ideas contained within, it was more likely a case of the police simply not discriminating what they threw in the trash. Yet it is sad that 5,000 titles were destroyed as opposed to being collected and donated to a library or something along those lines.
The USS George H.W. Bush, the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, has reportedly parked off the Syrian coast. The move comes as the U.S. embassy in Damascus urged Americans to “immediately” leave the country.
[…]
Some Arab publications have reported this week that a no-fly zone will soon be put in place over Syria — similar to the one implemented over Libya last spring. And while such reports in the Arab press are often met with skepticism by western observers, the financial news service ZeroHedge flagged down a report from the respected private intelligence company Stratfor stating that CVN 77, better known as the George H.W. Bush, had left the strategically vital Straits of Hormuz for the Syrian coast.
Parking aircraft carriers off of their coast and telling American citizens within the country to leave is not a good sign for those living in the country. After Libya Obama has learned that he can move our country into war without so much as a nod of Congress’s head so there is little chance of preventing this war from starting if our Dear Leader desires it. I guess it makes sense to move into Syria as we’re not currently risking the lives of enough soliders or sinking enough money into overthrowing regimes we originally put into power.
It would be nice if our country adopted a foreign policies that involved something besides killing foreigners. Were we to do that we’d save trillions of dollars and reduce the amount of hatred directed towards our country by outside nations.
It appears as thought the police are becoming more militarized every day. First every department started establishing Special Weapons and Tactic (SWAT) teams, then they started arming themselves with armored personel carriers, and now they’re starting to classify everything:
Police departments around the country are moving to shield their radio communications from the public as cheap, user-friendly technology has made it easy for anyone to use handheld devices to keep tabs on officers responding to crimes.
The practice of encryption has become increasingly common from Florida to New York and west to California, with law enforcement officials saying they want to keep criminals from using officers’ internal chatter to evade them.
I find it funny that the police agencies moving to encrypt their communications, according to the article, are located in such havens of freedom such as New York and California. What is funny is their excuse, they’re claim of wanting to prevent criminals from listening into radio transmissions is dubious. Usually the police respond to crimes that have already happened meaning it’s unlikely a criminal is going to gain much advantage by having a police scanner on hand. While many criminals are idiots some are smart enough to realize the police will be soon to arrive after a call is made to 911.
Perhaps the police are getting sick of the public listening into their misdeeds. Then again I think the most likely reason they’re moving to encrypt their radio communications is because they’re getting a case of over classification from the military.
MY DEAR SIR: The Maryland legislature assembles to-morrow at Annapolis, and not improbably will take action to arm the people of that State against the United States. The question has been submitted to and considered by me whether it would not be justifiable, upon the ground of necessary defense, for you, as General in Chief of the United States Army, to arrest or disperse the members of that body. I think it would not be justifiable nor efficient for the desired object.
First. They have a clearly legal right to assemble, and we can not know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful, and if we wait until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion will not lessen the effect of their action.
Secondly. We can not permanently prevent their action. If we arrest them, we can not long hold them as prisoners, and when liberated they will immediately reassemble and take their action; and precisely the same if we simply disperse them–they will immediately reassemble in some other place.
I therefore conclude that it is only left to the Commanding General to watch and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their people against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt and efficient means to counteract, even, if necessary, to the bombardment of their cities and, in the extremest necessity, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
Your obedient servant,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Emphasis mine. It’s pretty ballsy, even today, for a president to openly say, “Do as I say or face bombardment of your cities. Also fuck habeas corpus, I’m not dealing with pesky little things like the rule of law.” Remember that Maryland hadn’t seceded from the Union at this point (and ultimately never did) yet the President threatened to bombard their cities anyways. It’s usually considered bad taste to threaten violence against those who haven’t actually initiated violence against you yet (and in the case of secession no violence was ever initiated until the North decided to declare bloody war agains the South).
This executive order clearly displays that Lincoln was on a power trip while he was in office and cared more about authority than anything else, including the lives of American people. His threat didn’t imply the capture or assassination of Maryland government officials but indiscriminate bombarding of Maryland cities.
I also find it disturbing that Lincoln signed a letter threatening to kill people of Maryland with, “Your obedient servant.” A property ending to the letter would have been, “Your lord and master.” If you’re going to be a tyrannical asshole you should at least be honest about it.
The researchers interviewed 52 convicted murderers, 14 of them ranked as psychopaths according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, a 20-item assessment, and asked them to describe their crimes in detail. Using computer programs to analyze what the men said, the researchers found that those with psychopathic scores showed a lack of emotion, spoke in terms of cause-and-effect when describing their crimes, and focused their attention on basic needs, such as food, drink and money.
[…]
To examine the emotional content of the murderers’ speech, Hancock and his colleagues looked at a number of factors, including how frequently they described their crimes using the past tense. The use of the past tense can be an indicator of psychological detachment, and the researchers found that the psychopaths used it more than the present tense when compared with the nonpsychopaths. They also found more dysfluencies — the “uhs” and “ums” that interrupt speech — among psychopaths. Nearly universal in speech, dysfluencies indicate that the speaker needs some time to think about what they are saying.
So psychopaths have a tendency to be accurate in their speech? I don’t know about you but I almost exclusively talk bout past events using the past tense. When I say I traveled to Las Vegas for Defcon I dont state it as, “I’m going to Las Vegas for Defcon.” or, “I’m at Las Vegas for Defcon.” To me talking about past events in the present or future tense is a little more concerning than using the correct past tense.
On top of that I know a great number of people who constantly use dysfluencies in their speech and they certainly do not fit the description of being psychopaths. Using criteria like this would label a huge number of people and myself as psychopaths.
I’m not sure what the goal of this research is but if it’s detecting psychopaths then I guarantee a great number of false positives are going to be generated. I would also like to point out the fact that this research was performed on a very small sample size (52) and nothing stated in the article leads me to believe any real control group was used for comparison. This has all the red flags of a research projects done to acquire government grants by delivering results the state desires.
Still finding this entire occupy movement very interesting I’ve continued visiting the Minneapolis occupation periodically. While little of interest has been happening this weekend the occupiers came up with a plan of action and decide to have a large number of their crew head down to a foreclosed home in southern Minneapolis and occupy it at the invitation of the owner. OK who owns the home is a rather murky question which I’ll explain in a bit.
As can be expected the police eventually arrived to evict the occupiers. I will commend the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) on their general willingness to provide occupiers a means of leaving without arrest and avoiding the use of violence to get their point across. The entire home occupation was being broadcast on Occupy Minneapolis’s LiveStream (I check it sometimes to see if they’re doing anything interesting that could be worth blogging about). As I brought up the LiveStream I noticed the police were in the house so I watched as the cops booted everybody out of the home. MPD allowed anybody who wanted to leave without being arrest to do so and only one person, going by the name Panda, remained in the home. Expectedly the police did arrest him although I’m not sure on what charges (it may be trespassing, it may be breaking and entering, it may be attempted burglary, I honestly am not sure).
Another occupier, named Devin, decided to stand in front of the police car that Panda was being held in. When I saw this I thought that the action was a nice gesture but as nobody was standing behind the police car they’re just going to throw it in reverse, back out of there, and laugh at the Devin. I was wrong:
Judging by comments and attitudes towards the occupy movements I can guess that most of you reading this are likely against the whole idea. I’ve stated before that I’m glad people realize that they’re being fucked over and have finally stood up and screamed about it but also feel as though many of the occupiers don’t understand how they’re being fucked over. There are many members of Occupy who are protesting the existence of the Federal Reserve, a message I completely support and there are occupiers who are protesting the existence of capitalism, a message I completely oppose (although I realize most of them don’t actually understand what capitalism is and instead believe what we have in the United States qualifies therefore I see them as misguided).
Still I feel whether you support the occupiers or not you can agree the police driving their car into Devin was an unnecessary flexing of their muscles. Devin was actually arrested because, apparently, it’s a crime to get pushed around by a police cruiser. As the police had an unobstructed means of leaving (backing out) I feel the act of driving into Devin was excessive. It would have been one thing had the police arrested Devin before driving into him for obstruction of justice, while I wouldn’t have agreed with that either at least it would have been involved some decency. Instead MPD officers decided it would be a jolly good time to push him around on a snow-slick road to show off the fact a police cruiser can move a man without difficulty.
After these events concluded I ventured down to the home. By the time I arrived many of the occupiers had moved back into the dwelling, an act I found bold considering what just went down (I believed it would be unlikely that those in the home would avoid being arrested a second time). I had no such desire to face possible arrest so I stayed on the public sidewalk for the duration of my vist. This is when things got truly interesting in my opinion.
While the area was surrounded more or less by police cruisers none of the officers ever made a move for the house. One police cruiser finally drove down the street, stopped, and a couple of officers conversed with one of the occupiers. Parts of the conversation were overheard by me and I caught enough to learn that the owner of the building was in question. U.S. Bank performed the foreclosure but it seems they were unable to provide a title or promissory note demonstrating their ownership. This is a far more common occurrence in recent foreclosures than most people realize and it should be brought to light. Due to the number of people involved in the mortgage business and the constant shifting around of said mortgages the owner of many properties is in dispute. This lead to a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that effectively nullified some foreclosures.
Many foreclosures are being performed without any actual proof of ownership on behalf of the loaning agencies. People are being kicked out of dwellings by people who claim ownership but have no means of backing such claims. This practice is quite disgusting in my never humble opinion. From a libertarian perspective proof of ownership is crucial before actions can be taken to enforce property rights. If you find a discarded watch and somebody later claims that they are the rightful owners of the watch their statement should be taken with a gain of salt unless they can produce proof of ownership. The same goes for property foreclosures: if a loaning agency claims ownership of a home and wishes to kick the person(s) living there out because payments have not been made then the police should first demand proof of ownership from the agency before going through with the eviction. Proof of ownership has often not been required before evictions have been served and that needs to stop.
Once again I find the Occupy movement pointing out a fact of crucial importance without actually pointing it out. In the shouts of housing being a human right (in the argument of positive vs. negative rights I’m a firm believer in negative rights) many occupiers claim foreclosures should be illegal. What they usually don’t say is that these foreclosures are often illegal because the foreclosing agency can’t provide proof that they own the property. It would be far more beneficial if the occupiers presented this fact first and foremost instead of presenting arguments claiming home ownership is a human right. The former is a legal procedure which should be abided by in courts while the latter is a belief that directly conflicts with the founding principles of this country and thus is a difficult argument to make.
New York police have dismantled the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park and arrested about 200 people following a raid in the early hours.
[…]
Police spokesman Paul Browne said most people left the park when ordered, but that a small group of people had refused.
[…]
The city authorities and Mayor Bloomberg had come under pressure from residents and businesses to shut down the camp, which had about 200 occupants as it neared its two-month anniversary.
Something doesn’t add up. The dictionary definition of the word “most” is, “Greatest in amount or degree.” Therefore if there were 200 people camping in the park and most of them left that means at least 101 people would have had to leave. If 101 people left an encampment of 200 people that would leave 99 people (perhaps they’re the true 99%). So how the hell did the NYPD manage to arrest 200 people if most of the people left?