Archive for January, 2012
U.S. Army Routinely Monitors Social Media and Prepares Sentiment Briefs for Public Affairs Personnel
January 11th, 2012Via: Politico: News coverage of Pfc. Bradley Manning’s legal hearing last month on charges of being a key source for WikiLeaks was generally ‘negative’ but ‘balanced and factual,’ according to daily summaries of the proceedings prepared by Army public affairs personnel. The Army flacks also took a keen interest in news coverage of former Lt. […]
Mass Suicide Threats at Foxconn Xbox 360 Plant
January 11th, 2012Foxconn has a plan to deal with these pesky meatsacks, and I don’t mean suicide prevention nets. Foxconn Wants to Build “Intelligent Robotics Kingdom” to Replace Human Workers with Robots Foxconn: 1 Million Robots in 3 Years Via: Kotaku: On Jan. 2, over 300 employees at a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, China threatened to throw […]
Flashback 2002: 9/11 Hijackers Passports Were Issued by the CIA – U.S. Consulate Whistleblower
January 11th, 2012Click through for several links related to U.S. State Department whistleblower Michael Springman. Via: YouTube – Michael Springman, National Press Club, June 10, 2002:
U.S. Claims Immunity from Lawsuit Brought by Victims of Medical Atrocities in Guatemala
January 11th, 2012Via: CNN: The United States has rejected the grounds of a lawsuit stemming from experiments involving sexually transmitted diseases and human subjects in Guatemala between 1946 and 1948. At the same time, the government announced increased aid to Guatemala to fight STDs. In its first response to the class-action lawsuit filed last March by the […]
Bacteria in the Gut of Autistic Children Different from Non-Autistic Children
January 10th, 2012Via: Medical Express: Earlier work has revealed that autistic individuals with gastrointestinal symptoms often exhibit inflammation and other abnormalities in their upper and lower intestinal tracts. However, scientists do not know what causes the inflammation or how the condition relates to the developmental disorders that characterize autism. The research results appearing in mBio indicate the […]
Drones Now Make Up Nearly One-Third of U.S. Military Aircraft
January 10th, 2012Via: Wired: Remember when the military actually put human beings in the cockpits of its planes? They still do, but in far fewer numbers. According to a new congressional report acquired by Danger Room, drones now account for 31 percent of all military aircraft. To be fair, lots of those drones are tiny flying spies, […]
LEGO: Alien Conquest
January 10th, 2012I went looking for interesting LEGO sets for my sons at a local store and I found LEGO set 7052, which has a depiction of a UFO abducting a person on the box. See: alienconquest.lego.com.
Public School as Kafkaesque Nightmare
January 10th, 2012Via: Guardian: More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? The charge on the police docket was “disrupting class”. But that’s not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw […]
More of Greek’s Poor Abandoning Their Children
January 10th, 2012Via: BBC: Greece’s financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all – their children. One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. “I will not be coming to pick up Anna today […]
Safety Premium: Germany Sells Six-Month Bonds at Negative Yields for First Time
January 10th, 2012Via: BBC: Investors are flocking to havens to store their cash, amid continuing worries about the eurozone debt crisis. Germany sold 3.9bn euros (£3.2bn) of six-month bonds at an average yield of -0.0122%, the first auction with a negative yield. That means investors are effectively willing to pay Germany for the privilege of lending to […]
