The title says it all….
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Politics and the Asch Experiment Reply
Myself, being an armchair politic, have watched the world of politics from home either via the internet or television. I see our “leaders” in government do things that, in my opinion, are completely insane and irrational. Yet, I see many people support and follow their favorite politician and/or political party faithfully. I have to scratch my head and wonder in complete amazement how and why people can actually believe what I’m seeing before my eyes. Then today, I stumbled across a video about the Asch Experiment, and this helps explain perfectly what is occurring.
The Asche Experiment, according to Wikipedia, were a series of studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. These are also known as the “Asch Paradigm”.
In the basic Asch paradigm, the participants — the real subjects and the confederates — were all seated in a classroom. They were asked a variety of questions about the lines such as how long is A, compare the length of A to an everyday object, which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length, etc. The group was told to announce their answers to each question out loud. The confederates always provided their answers before the study participant, and always gave the same answer as each other. They answered a few questions correctly but eventually began providing incorrect responses.
In a control group, with no pressure to conform to an erroneous view, only one subject out of 35 ever gave an incorrect answer. Solomon Asch hypothesized that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong; however, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the questions (32%). Seventy-five percent of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.
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Therefore, I have come to conclude that the future of this country, and myself of a citizen of the US, is being built on one fact (although out of many others) that people conform to those around them. People, being social creatures, are in essence followers, and we are often following those who really do not have any business in the lead position. And who knows who our leaders are actually following? “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…” Should they really be leading? Or are they merely puppets for a stronger, more powerful force behind the curtain?
Activists see this and stand up for what they believe. Isn’t it time that we stop following based upon what those who we consider our peers believe, and start asking our own questions and making our own decisions?
Additionally, my opinion here is not based purely upon this video – but it did help pull things together in my mind. I have always been a people-watcher… forever watching, studying, and learning about the behavior of people. I have watched my friends in larger social circles conform to those who hold a more leadership position – and on occassion, what goes through my head is, “wtf…”
I know that I, myself, have fallen into this following pattern simply due to the fact that I have always been led to believe that if it’s in the media, it must be true. Now, especially in this incredible age of the internet, I see that the news often will only give you the information they want you to know… and the general public follows along like sheep believing everything they’ve been fed.
I implore you to seek out other channels of news, media… gather information, and come to your own conclusions. Stop following, but rather, become more of a participant – standing up for what you believe, and not always believing everything you hear.
British woman decapitated in Los Cristianos Spain Reply
UPDATE May 16, 2011: More on the man who beheaded British Woman, click here
A British woman has been stabbed and decapitated in Tenerife. The 60-year-old woman was reportedly attacked in a supermarket in the town of Los Cristianos on the island.
A Bulgarian man, believed to be homeless, has been detained by Spanish police. He was reportedly admitted to the psychiatric unit after knocking a stranger’s teeth out on the street.
Colin Kirkby, a 50-year-old British journalist who witnessed the attack, told MailOnline that the man probably picked up the knife inside the shop – and there was no apparent motivation.
‘A middle-aged English couple in the shop said it came out of the blue and there was no real disturbance, there are security guards in the centre that would have been on the scene quickly,’ he said.
‘The shop sells cheap souvenir sword-like blades and I think if he had walked into the shop with the blade he would have been stopped by security and that’s what people are thinking.’
Mr Kirkby added that it was so surreal he thought the ‘scruffy’ man, aged in his 20s, was carrying a ‘joke’ head.
‘I could hear people shouting and screaming and the guy was walking along the footpath slowly muttering to himself carrying the head – it was very surreal,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t hear what he was muttering and seemed to be oblivious to everything around him and was sort of rambling.
‘He was holding the head by the hair and I couldn’t help but think of the image in the Clash of the Titans where a man is beheaded.
‘One of the things was there wasn’t a lot of blood everywhere and there was no weapon on him.
‘He was not the smartest looking of guys and not well groomed, I don’t know if he was sleeping rough.’
He added that when the man was bundled to the floor by security he was not screaming and thrashing to get away.
For the full story on DailyMail.co.uk, please click here
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Haunting: The victim’s head lies on the ground covered only by a sheet as stunned crowds held back by police tape look on.
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Gruesome: The victim’s body is carried away on a stretcher from the shop where she was decapitated. Police arrived on the scene and sealed off the area.
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Wrestled to the ground: The man had been running through the town brandishing the woman’s head before being tackled by a motorcyclist.
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Popular: Millions of British tourists flock to Los Cristianos every year but this is understood to be the first attack of its kind on a holidaymaker in the area.
Friday the 13th… Thirteen interesting facts about the number 13 2
Some interesting facts about the number 13….
1. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.
2. Many cities don’t have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. This city tempted fate.
3. If you have 13 letters in your name, you’re said to have the devil’s luck. Like, this guy (Charles Manson).
4. Many airports skip the 13th gate.
5. Airplanes have no 13th aisle.
6. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.
7. More than 80% of high rises lack a 13th floor.
8. On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half.
9. Traditionally in hangings, there are 13 knots in the noose and 13 steps leading up to the moment of death.
10. French President Nicolas Sarkozy may know that in France, socialites called quatorziens (fourteeners) make themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.
11. Many say the No. 13 pointed to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.
12. Tarot Card number 13 is the Death Card, depicting the Grim Reaper.
13. Some say that the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (circa 1780 B.C.E.) is to blame for the No. 13 woes since the 13th law is omitted.
Okay, I’m adding a 14th as this is interesting, and goes against the pattern of the number 13 being unlucky:
13 -1/2: While the number thirteen is widely considered unlucky, especially in western cultures, it actually remains a popular symbol of luck as tattoos.
Pageant mom gives Botox to 8-Year-Old… and defends her actions 4
It never ceases to amaze me what people will do… giving Botox to an 8 year old girl, and waxing her legs. All in prep for her beauty pageants. Is this child abuse? This mother is living out her fallen dreams through her daughter, and taking away her childhood.
The girl tells about the pain… and claims she has wrinkles! What parent would purposely put their own child in agony as this woman has done?
The psychological scars will forever remain with this girl. She may very well grow up never believing her outer beauty is good enough, thus damaging her inner beauty. Forever seeking alterations to her body.
Video on this story:
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Can the child beauty pageant officials should ban this woman from entering this girl? This may be the only way of stopping her from torturing her own child. Statistics show half of girls ages 8 to 10 as being unhappy with their size, 40 percent of fourth graders admitting to previously being on a diet, and more than half of girls ages 9 to 15 having exercised to lose weight.
Being forced into a competition, whether the child likes it or not, hampers the confidence of the child. Moreover, she has to always look pretty, wear make-up and behave in an adult manner. Naturally, these children suffer from mental problems like low self-esteem, depression and eating disorders. Most of these girls are tall but have a low body mass index or BMI. Malnutrition sets in their body sometimes at the young age of 14 or 16.
And now… injecting botox and waxing legs…. What have we come to? How much longer until this mother has plastic surgery done on her child?
Parents, and society in general, need to focus more on the inner beauty. It is more than skin deep.
Donald Trump discloses how he styles his infamous hair Reply
Just what we all wanted to know...
Mt Etna erupts May 12, 2011. Footage of nighttime eruption. 1
Most active volcano in Continental Europe, Mount Etna, on Thursday (12 / 5) morning, again erupted. Mountain located on the island of Sicily, Italy, was accompanied by bursts of backfire hot lava and ash into the air.
Etna eruption occurred between the hours of 02:00 until 06:00 local time. Italian authorities closed the airport services in the city of Catania, the town nearest to Mount Etna, after warnings from the specialist mountain Institute of Volcanology in Catania.
In addition, workers also attempted to clear the airport runway from volcanic ash. The eruption of Mount Etna would create problems. Section, will take place next Sunday racing bike from the city of Messina to the Etna.
Etna, with an altitude of 3295 meters, is the most active volcano in Continental Europe. The mountain had last erupted in 1992.
Video of world’s longest Boilermaker domino chain… Reply
This took some work… and a lot of booze.
A Clockwork Orange 40th Anniversary. Recent pictures of Malcolm McDowell and trailer Reply
On May 31st, Warner Home Video will honor Kubrick and the film with A Clockwork Orange 40th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray ($34.99 SRP). The two-disc release includes two newly-produced bonus features: Turning Like Clockwork, a 25-minute documentary about the film’s “ultra-violence” and its cultural impact, and a short documentary where Malcolm McDowell reminiscences on working closely with the legendary director. This two-disc edition will also contain the feature-length documentaries, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures and O Lucky Malcolm! The 40th Anniversary Edition will be packaged in a 40-page Blu-ray book with rare photos and production notes.
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Here are some recent pictures of Malcolm McDowell (Alex)
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A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 darkly satirical science fiction film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel of the same name. The film, which was made in England, concerns Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and so-called ‘ultra-violence.’ He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, “friend”, “buddy”). The film tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured, contemporary adolescent slang comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.
This cinematic adaptation was produced, directed, and written by Stanley Kubrick. It features disturbing, violent images, to facilitate social commentary about psychiatry, youth gangs, and other contemporary social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain. A Clockwork Orange features a soundtrack comprising mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Walter Carlos (later known as Wendy Carlos). The now-iconic poster of A Clockwork Orange, and its images, were created by designer Bill Gold. The film also holds the Guinness World Record for being the first film in media history to use the Dolby Sound system.
From Wikipedia: A Clockwork Orange (film)
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Photos and official trailer of the movie
Pick Up America – 7 young volunteers picking up trash as they walk 3600 miles across America Reply
Pick Up America is a local, regional, and nationwide initiative committed to reducing plastic waste in our communities and waterways. The Pick Up Artists will coordinate community trash clean-ups while walking across the country to encourage alternatives to our nation’s throwaway mentality. The two year trek began on March 20, 2010 from Assateague Island, MD., and will span 13 states to the San Francisco Bay, Calif., sometime in November 2011.
There are 7 volunteers who are doing the entire cross country walk. Along the way, many local volunteers walk along, help pick up and bag the trash. The bags are left alongside there road where the following day, the state’s highway DOT will come by and pick up the bags.
The volunteers seperate the garbage as they go into recycling items which are taken to the local recycling areas. Each bag is weighed so they will have a total amount of trash picked up by the end of their journey.
Most common item is platic bottles, followed by cans, plastic bags and beer bottles. Also common are tires… everywhere.
Mission: Walk across the country, pick up trash, and inspire a transition to zero waste.
One of the goals is to help connect the churches with businesses with students and with environmental organizations. The biggest item is to help build coalitions pushing towards zero waste. To help transition where we are at a place where we’re not taking resources straight from the earth, using them once, then landfilling them.
Most importantly, Pick Up America is trying to get people to understand why we are producing so much trash in the first place.
Let’s all work together in transitioning to a country of zero waste.
Thank you, Pick Up America, for helping build awareness towards our environment and waste problems.
To read more about them, please click here to go to their site/blog, pickupamerica.wordpress.com
Facebook spam hit thousands Wed night with “Verify My Account” post. How to set your FB as secure Reply
Last night, Wed. May 11, 2011, I was just about to go to bed and doing one last peek at Facebook, when I saw someone posted on my wall. I take a look, and immediately knew it was spam – and that my friend did not send this. We’ve all seen these posts come through many times, I’m sure.
However, this one was different… suddenly, within a matters of seconds, there were over a hundred of this same posting on my wall coming from various friends posting to everyone in their friend list. Since most of my friends are a large local circle, many of us have anywhere from 20 to 100+ common friends amongst us. Therefore when a friend posted to another common friend, it showed on my wall. Within one refresh of my screen, my wall was entirely full of these posts.
The posting stated: “In order to PREVENT SPAM, I ask that you VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT. Click VERIFY MY ACCOUNT right next to comment below to start the process…”
When the recipient clicks on the ==VERIFY MY ACCOUNT==, they were NOT verifying their account, they went to javascript which then would post this same message on EVERYONE’S wall in their friend list.
I watched in utter amazement last night watching these posts fill my wall and spread faster than the Swine Flu did last year.
This appears to be phishing which is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. By clicking the the “verify your account”, the sender was then able to acquire your user information, including your password.
Now, I spent a few hours last night stepping my friends through the correct way to change your password on Facebook, especially in this situation. And simply, FIRST (very important)… go to your account / account settings / account security (change) / and click on:
Secure Browsing (https) Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible (make sure this box is checked) (see picture below)
After you have set (or verified) that you have a secure connection… THEN you need to change your password. If you change your password without a secure connection, and you have been phished, then the phisher will have your new password.
Although I have a bit an animosity towards Facebook for allowing something like this through, I do need to commend them on reacting quickly and shutting down this post. At one point, all posts on my wall were gone, and only new posts showed. It appeared as though they somehow stopped these posts, and others in between, from showing. This morning, all was normal.
I love the internet, but some people really need to find something better and more positively constructive to do then cause havoc for complete and total strangers.
Additionally, Facebook will NEVER ask for your credit card. If you get an email or post requesting you for your credit card… Run! “Run, Forrest, Run!”
We all know about doggie doors, but look who used this one…. (video) Reply
Okay… this took me by surprise…
Absolutely amazing animal pictures Reply
Absolutely breathtaking photography….
Humorous quotes about Rev Camping’s upcoming Judgement Day aka The Rapture 1
Close-up underwater footage of Fukushima reactor spent fuel pool in debris Reply
TEPCO released footage for the first time on Wednesday of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant Unit 3 reactor’s spent fuel pool. The fuel rods, covered in debris from the March explosions, weren’t visible in the footage but officials believe they are largely undamaged. In an operation filmed by a robot camera, 40 milliliters of water was collected from the spent fuel pool. The water is contaminated with high levels of radioactive material which needs further analysis for evaluation.
Toxic Justice: 20,000 in India killed from worst industrial accident in history – those responsible go unpunished ruled the courts 1
Seven Indian officials responsible for the worst technological disaster in history, had been released on bail after a court refused to give them stronger punishments. They were found guilty of a huge gas leak in 1984 at a U.S. owned plant (Union Carbide India Ltd), which resulted in the deaths of up to 20 thousand people. They never did any jail time, and were only fined $2,000.
Following a public outcry, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed the curative petitions for a direction to frame charges against Mr. Mahindra and others for culpable homicide not amounting to murder that would attract a maximum imprisonment of 10 years. The court just now rejected these petitions stating that it is too far past the time of the event.
The Gas Leak….
During the night of December 2-3, 1984, a storage tank containing methyl isocyanate (MIC) at the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked gas into the densely populated city of Bhopal, India. It was one of the worst industrial accidents in history.
Union Carbide India, Ltd. built a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India in the late 1970s in an effort to produce pesticides locally to help increase production on local farms. However, sales of pesticide didn’t materialize in the numbers hoped for and the plant was soon losing money. In 1979, the factory began to produce large amounts of the highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC), because it was a cheaper way to make the pesticide carbaryl. To also cut costs, training and maintenance in the factory were drastically cut back. Workers in the factory complained about the dangerous conditions and warned of possible disasters, but management did not take any action.
On the night of December 2-3, 1984, something began to go wrong in storage tank E610 which contained 40 tons of MIC. Water leaked into the tank which caused the MIC to heat up. Some sources say that water leaked into the tank during routine cleaning of a pipe but that the safety valves inside the pipe were faulty. The Union Carbide company claims that a saboteur placed the water inside the tank, although there has never been proof of this. It is also considered possible that once the tank began to overheat, workers threw water on the tank, not realizing they were adding to the problem
By 12:15 a.m. on the morning of December 3, 1984, MIC fumes were leaking out of the storage tank. Although there should have been six safety features that would have either prevented the leak or contained it, all six did not work properly that night. It is estimated that 27 tons of MIC gas escaped out of the container and spread across the densely populated city of Bhopal, India, which had a population of approximately 900,000 people. Although a warning siren was turned on, it was quickly turned off again so as to not cause panic.
Most residents of Bhopal were sleeping when the gas began to leak. Many woke up only because they heard their children coughing or found themselves choking on the fumes. As people jumped up from their beds, they felt their eyes and throat burning. Some choked on their own bile. Others fell to the ground in contortions of pain.
People ran and ran, but they did not know in which direction to go. Families were split up in the confusion. Many people fell to the ground unconscious and were then trampled upon.
Estimates of the death toll vary greatly. Most sources say at least 3,000 people died from immediate exposure to the gas, while higher estimates go up to 8,000. In the two decades following the night of the disaster, approximately 20,000 additional people have died from the damage they received from the gas.
Another 120,000 people live daily with the effects from the gas, including blindness, extreme shortness of breath, cancers, birth deformities, and early onset of menopause. Chemicals from the pesticide plant and from the leak have infiltrated the water system and the soil near the old factory and thus continue to cause poisoning in the people who live near it.
Just three days after the disaster, the chairman of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, was arrested. When he was released on bail, he fled the country. Although his whereabouts were unknown for many years, recently he was found living in the Hamptons in New York. Extradition procedures have not started because of political issues. Anderson continues to be wanted in India for culpable homicide for his role in the Bhopal disaster.
One of the worst parts of this tragedy is actually what has happened in the years following that fateful night in 1984. Although Union Carbide has paid some restitution to the victims, the company claims they are not liable for any damages because they blame a saboteur for the disaster and claim that the factory was in good working order before the gas leak. The victims of the Bhopal gas leak have received very little money. Many of the victims continue to live in ill health and are unable to work.
Video story of man impaled by pipe through mouth and survived 1
Linn that he had driven his car off the pavement near Bonanza Road and Christy Lane and hit a chain-link fence in a homeowner’s yard. A pole fastened atop the fence broke through the windshield, went through Linn just below the right side of his nose and ripped out teeth before slamming through the back window.
Impaled by pole through mouth – Man survives an…, posted with vodpod
Man survives being impaled by 2″ diameter pipe through mouth and head (photo of xray) Reply
Click here to see the video just posted from MSNBC
“We’re bringing in a patient with a foreign object impaled in his mouth,” radioed the paramedic to Dr Jay Coates in the UNLV Medical Center.
What wasn’t said was that the foreign object was a 2-inch diameter metal pole that had been driven through the man’s mouth and out through his neck.
“What the (expletive) am I going to do with this?” Coates remembered saying as he looked at the man sitting before him with 4 to 6 inches of pole sticking out of his mouth and neck. “I had to form a game plan fast.”
Emergency rescue personnel later would tell Linn that he had driven his car off the pavement near Bonanza Road and Christy Lane and hit a chain-link fence in a homeowner’s yard. A pole fastened atop the fence broke through the windshield, went through Linn just below the right side of his nose and ripped out teeth before slamming through the back window.
“All I remember is going to bed after a dinner and then waking up in a hospital,” he said in a phone interview from his Cedar City, Utah, home. “After seeing the pictures of the pole through my mouth and head that they took at the hospital, I’m glad I don’t remember. It really upsets my wife to see those pictures.”
He now theorizes that he woke up hungry late at night and drove to get a hamburger.
“I must have fallen asleep at the wheel,” he said.
Soon after Linn arrived at UMC, Coates had an X-ray done. It showed that the pole had missed Linn’s spine. He called in Moxley and Donahoe to help with the case.
Before Coates cut Linn open to examine just what internal damage had been done, he had do a tracheostomy: create a hole in the front of Linn’s neck and into his windpipe.
Without the tracheostomy, there was no way that a breathing tube could be put into his mouth for an exploratory operation under general anesthesia.
“That metal pole was blocking everything,” Coates said.
The tracheostomy was done under local anesthesia.
“I don’t remember him complaining or moaning in pain at all that night,” Coates said. “The body really has a way of protecting us.”
After Coates was assured the tracheostomy allowed Linn to breathe under general anesthesia, he put him out and then made an incision behind his right ear down to the base of his neck.
To his surprise, neither he nor Donahoe found the jugular vein or carotid artery visibly affected by the trauma.
“I couldn’t see all of the artery, though, so I was really afraid it might break loose when we pulled it out through the mouth,” he said.
It was Moxley’s job to pull the pipe out.
Before he began to pull, the back of the pipe behind Linn’s head had to be recut.
“There were some really sharp edges from where the rescue workers cut it to get him out of the car,” Moxley said. “We were afraid that when we pulled the pipe through his head, it would cut something.”
Just before Moxley began to pull on the pipe, Coates remembered that the team looked at one another and the tension level rose. Blood soon could be spewing from Linn’s head.
But nothing really happened as Moxley extricated the pipe. The artery and jugular had been pushed aside and compressed.
“In short, all of the bad things that could have happened, didn’t,” Moxley said.
If the pole had gone in just a fraction of inch differently, Linn would have died.
“People who are in accidents like this go to the morgue, not the emergency room,” Moxley said. “It’s just a miracle he lived.”
Before Moxley sent Linn to intensive care, he repaired a hole in Linn’s palate and put in plates and screws to move Linn’s broken jaw into proper position. His lip was sutured. Broken teeth were taken out of the back of his neck.
Today, Linn does exercises for his jaw.
“It was wired shut, and I can’t open it wide enough right now to get the dentures on my right side,” he said. “I hope that will happen in a couple of months along with some cosmetic surgery for my lip.”
His right shoulder was badly hurt in the crash and will require surgery within the next three months. Linn spent only two weeks in the hospital after the accident.
His friends try to help him through his recovery with humor.
“I had this one friend ask me whether I was going to the NASCAR race in Las Vegas. And I told him, no. And then he said, ‘I was sure you were. I thought you won the pole position.’ ”
Relics stolen from Forbidden City museum Reply
BEIJING, May 11 (UPI) — Several relics belonging to a Hong Kong museum have been stolen from a temporary exhibit at the Palace Museum in Beijing, Chinese officials said Wednesday.
A spokesman for the museum located in China’s Forbidden City said the missing items include small Western-style makeup cases encrusted with jewels, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
Feng Nai’en, an assistant curator, said a suspicious man being questioned by a museum staff member fled Sunday night after authorities were called.
Staff and armed police searched for the man but he apparently escaped with some pieces.
Two of the missing relics have been recovered but both were slightly damaged, Feng said.
He said the Palace Museum has issued a formal apology to the Hong Kong museum and is increasing security for the exhibit.
There was no information on the value, number or age of the missing items.
The last theft at the Palace Museum was in 1991.
Find Out if You’re a Target in the Biggest U.S. BitTorrent Lawsuit Ever Reply
More than 23,000 people will soon be notified by their internet service providers that their subscriber information is being turned over to lawyers suing over the 2010 Sylvester Stallone flick The Expendables.
As we first reported Monday, the case is the largest BitTorrent file-sharing lawsuit in U.S. history.
We just updated our IP Detective tool with the 23,322 IP addresses targeted between Feb. 5 and April 22 in the mass lawsuit filed by the Washington-based U.S. Copyright Group on behalf of Nu Image.
All told, more than 140,000 BitTorrent downloaders are being targeted in dozens of lawsuits across the country, many of them for downloading B-grade movies and porn. Film companies pay snoops to troll BitTorrent sites, dip into active torrents and capture the IP addresses of the peers who are downloading and uploading pieces of the files.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great resource on what to do if you’re a target.
As before, our (WIRED) widget also will attempt to check if you’re one of the nearly 6,000 targets in the controversial Nude Nuns with Big Guns case, or the OpenMind Solutions lawsuit going after nearly 3,000 alleged porn downloaders.
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange given peace prize (Video of award ceremony) 1
Julian Assange, the founder of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, has been awarded an award “for exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights”.
Mr Assange was given the Sydney Peace Medal at a ceremony at the Frontline Club in central London today.
Speaking at the event, Mr Assange referred to whistleblowers as “heroes” and said it appeared the website had played a “significant role” in the recent Arab uprisings in north Africa by releasing US diplomatic cables in December that were later translated into Arabic and French.
Mr Assange is currently staying in Norfolk while he fights extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual crimes, which he denies.
Full story here: The Telegraph | Christopher Hope 6:56PM BST 10 May 2011
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange given peace prize, posted with vodpod
Twit causes #superinjunction chaos on Twitter Reply
A Twitterer briefly brought down the asocial self-promotional site last night after posting what were claimed to be details of famous folk said to have shagged one another.
These folk with more money than morals have been hiding behind so-called superinjunctions in a bid – in many cases – to stop their spouses finding out they’ve been indulging in a bit of extra-marital hanky-panky.
Footballers, TV presenters and luvvies have been able to use the injunctions to stop newspapers running stories about their private lives. But the likes of Twitter it seems are beyond the reach of the law, so long as you can first find out who’s dipped their wick in whom, it seems.
The one bloke we do know to have used a superinjunction to stop the fact he had poked a woman he’s not married to is BBC journalist Andrew Marr, which is indeed bizarre as he’s the person perhaps least likely to have had such allegations about him believed – which may be why he came out and and confessed. A bit like John Major, he’s one of the few who’d go up in the public’s estimation on revelations he was able to pull.
Superinjunctions are apparently sent out to media outlets to let them know who doesn’t want certain things written about them. We didn’t get any, so we don’t know who we can’t write about and who’s fair game. At best we could probably ask Twitter.
We do know that Gabby Logan didn’t sleep with Alan Shearer because she said so, erm, on Twitter. And Gemima Khan didn’t sleep with Jeremy Clarkson because she’s got more sense – and she said so on Twitter. We’ve no idea who Ryan Giggs has been sleeping with.
There’s a #superinjunction hashtag on Twitter for those with nothing better to do.
Thinq | Written by Paul Hales on 09 May, 2011
The Trump Slumps… Reply
According to the latest poll by Public Policy Polling, Trump, the not-so-bashful candidate in waiting, has had one of the quickest rises — and now falls — in presidential politics. The Democratic polling company once had Trump leading the more than a dozen possible GOP contenders with 26%, but now the reality show host and businessman is down to 8%, in a tie for fifth place with Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Honestly, I find the GOP potential presidential candidates gene pools to be very frightening. I can only shudder at the thought of Trump-Bachmann ticket, with the Koch Brothers in the background with all the funding….
Incredible wildlife photos 1
Nature is so beautiful…
Facts from the American Health Security Act of 2011 Reply
The Affordable Care Act provides Americans economic and health security with protections against exorbitant premium hikes, better health benefits, and slower growth in health care costs. Conservatives in the Congress are intent on taking these benefits away
(1) While the United States of America spends on average nearly twice as much per capita on health care services as the next most costly nation, the United States ranks 32nd among all nations on life expectancy, and 41st on infant mortality.
(2) The number of uninsured Americans rose by more than 4,000,000 between 2008 and 2009 to a total of 51,000,000, or more than 1 of every 6 Americans.
(3) This rise in the number of uninsured Americans was the largest single-year increase since 1987 and was the result of a continued decline in private health coverage, primarily in employer-sponsored insurance.
(4) Small businesses around the country cannot afford to reinvest in their companies and create new jobs because their health care bills are going up 10 or 15 percent every year.
(5) American businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health care costs are so much higher than in other countries. Notably, auto- mobile manufacturers spend more on health care per automobile than on steel.
Though Republicans control the U.S. House and Democrats’ hold on the Senate took a hit in the 2010 election, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is trying once more to pass a Medicare-for-all single payer health care bill — something he tried to do in 2009 as an amendment to his party’s health care overhaul before Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) used a procedural move to force the progressive senator to withdraw his proposal.
The bill proposed by Sanders and McDermott is unlikely to pass; House Republicans have offered a spate of bills aimed at repealing parts of health reform that were viewed as mostly symbolic votes, since Democrats control the Senate and Oval Office.
Click here to view the full bill “American Health Security Act of 2011″
