Archive for February, 2008
Catch of the Day: Cocaine
February 9th, 2008This is such a surreal story. I enjoyed it very much. Via: New Zealand Herald: At first glance, Bluefields in Nicaragua looks like any other rum-soaked, Rastafarian-packed, hammock-infested Caribbean paradise. But Bluefields has a secret. People here don’t have to work. Every week, sometimes every day, 35kg sacks of cocaine drift in from the sea. […]
Abandoned 5.5 Ton Anchor Found Near Damaged Fiber Optic Cable
February 9th, 2008Magic Anchor theories are already swirling around the blathersphere. Rather than wasting any more words on this, speculating about what went on in Davy Jones’ Locker, I put together an image for all Magic Anchor theorists to consider. Have a nice day. Via: AP: An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea […]
Surveillance Drift Nets to Be Legalized
February 8th, 2008Blah, blah. Total surveillance. Blah, blah. Via: Wired: In a Senate floor speech, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) inadvertently made plain that the proposed changes to the nation’s spying laws radically expand how the government wiretaps inside the United States. Rockefeller was decrying an amendment that would require the government to discard non-emergency evidence if […]
Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda
February 8th, 2008I particularly like the retarded musings of one of the co-authors of the research: “Why is it happening? Is it some kind of chemical in the diet soda, or something about the behavior of diet soda drinkers?” Holy crap. Are we to believe that a professor of epidemiology needs to be told about the links […]
Britain Is Slithering Down the Road Towards a Police State
February 8th, 2008Via: Guardian: The machine is out of control. Personal surveillance in Britain is so extensive that no democratic oversight is remotely plausible. Some 800 organisations, including the police, the revenue, local and central government, demanded (and almost always got) 253,000 intrusions on citizen privacy in the last recorded year, 2006. This is way beyond that […]
Google to Invest Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Alternative Energy Technologies
February 8th, 2008Google is looking at multiple technologies, but geothermal is the least surprising. MIT researchers found that geothermal power could meet the world’s annual energy needs 250,000 times over. Via: Reuters: Google Inc is prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in big commercial alternative-energy projects that traditionally have had trouble getting financing, the executive […]
Department of Homeland Security Copying Personal Data and Stealing Laptop Computers from Travelers
February 8th, 2008Via: Washington Post: “I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,” said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she […]
China: Coalmine Fire Put Out After Half a Century
February 8th, 2008The is the most incredible thing I’ve read since the one about the massive plastic trash tip in the Pacific Ocean. Via: Times Online: After a three-year effort and untold quantities of water, Chinese firefighters have extinguished a fire that had been burning underground in a coalmine for more than 50 years. The blaze had […]
France: Vaccine Companies Face Manslaughter Investigation
February 7th, 2008Via: Reuters: French authorities have opened a formal investigation into two managers from drugs groups GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur over a vaccination campaign in the 1990s, a judicial source said late on Thursday. Judge Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy also opened an investigation for manslaughter against Sanofi Pasteur MSD, a joint venture between Sanofi Aventis and Merck, the […]
Secret Camp Inside Guantanamo
February 7th, 2008Via: AP: Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. Related: Inside […]
