Author: NW0.eu

To the list of instructions you hear at airport checkpoints, add this: “Put your palms forward, please.”

Days after Debra Medina’s rising bid for Texas Governor was stung by controversy over comments about 9/11 on the Glenn Beck Show, it has emerged that former Vice Presidential candidate and “Tea Party’ darling Sarah Palin has done her one better– stating her support for a new 9/11 investigation just before the 2008 election, and going far beyond Medina’s mild statement.

ocweekly – Jeffrey Vallance, of the Fortean Times, wrote an account in 1994 that first exposed the world (nether and otherwise) of the haunting of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, which the National Archives has since renamed th…

By Dan Balz for the Washington Post:

Sen. Evan Bayh’s surprise decision not to seek reelection touched off a debate Tuesday among strategists and scholars about whether the Indiana senator’s depiction of the “brain dead” politics and hyper-partisanship of Congress is accurate or overblown — and, if accurate, whether walking away was the right decision.

Bayh dealt a triple blow to his Democratic Party and to President Obama with his announcement Monday that he is sick of the partisanship in Washington and will not seek a third term…

Becky Bohrer for Yahoo News/AP:

JUNEAU, Alaska — Sarah Palin is lashing out at the portrayal of a character with Down syndrome on the Fox animated comedy Family Guy:

In a Facebook posting headlined “Fox Hollywood — What a Disappointment,” the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and current Fox News contributor said Sunday night’s episode felt like “another kick in the gut.” Palin’s youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome.

The episode features the character Chris falling for a girl with Down syndrome. On a date, he asks what her parents do.

She replies: “My dad’s an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.”

Palin resigned as Alaska governor last summer. Palin’s oldest daughter, Bristol, also was quoted on her mother’s Facebook page, calling the show’s writers “heartless jerks.”…

smh – Australia will conduct the world’s first continent-wide environmental discovery survey, following Environment Minister Peter Garrett’s launch of a $10 million scientific program near Coffs Harbour.The program, which will take three years to compl…

France yesterday put in its bid for an unlikely prize, becoming the first western country to make even Australia look liberal when it comes to state powers of internet censorship.

Three big companies quit an influential lobbying group that had focused on shaping climate-change legislation, in the latest sign that support for an ambitious bill is melting away.

Via Disinformation

By Mike Jay at Brainwaving.com:
At the beginning of 1797, John Robison was a man with a solid and long-standing reputation in the British scientific establishment. He had been Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University for over twenty years, an authority on mathematics and optics, and had recently been appointed senior scientific contributor on […]

This column was scoffing at global warming back when global warming was still cool. But even we have been surprised at the extent of the past three months’ “meltdown” of global warmism, to use the metaphor that everyone seems to have settled on.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has been brought in to investigate the use of British passports in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

For those who have asked that we feature a wider variety of articles on climate change, here’s a “special report” from, of all places, the American Spectator:

Establishment figures intone about the substantial “body of science” supporting the notion of man-caused global warming. But based on recent events, they need to check the body’s pulse. The body is dead, and rapidly wasting away before our very eyes.

Over the past 3 months, a circus of scandals has played around the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its periodic Assessment Reports on global warming. The latest report issued in 2007 proclaimed a consensus regarding a 90% probability that mankind’s activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, were causing global warming that would lead to catastrophic results if drastic steps were not…

Another in the long line of creepily amazing products from Japan — a glowing, sweating, simulated baby (with a large, cartoonish, orb-like head). Want something to love that you can also unplug? This is it.

From the Mail & Guardian:

The arrest of a student for “swearing” at President Jacob Zuma’s convoy is a tactic of a police state, not a democracy, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Wednesday.

DA leader Helen Zille said the way the police acted was a reminder of the actions of the apartheid-era security police.

“They are reminiscent of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, which the African National Congress is increasingly trying to emulate,” said Zille.

Chumani Maxwele was arrested on Wednesday last week when he allegedly showed his middle finger to Zuma’s convoy while he was jogging in De Waal Street in Cape Town. He was arrested at gunpoint by police officers.

He allegedly had a bag pulled over his head and was first taken to Zuma’s residence, before he was taken to Rondebosch and…

From The Independent:

A month before marrying Jacqueline Bouvier, the future President was writing amorous notes to another woman.

If there was ever any doubt that John F Kennedy, the slain American President, was a hopeless romantic, if not an out-and-out rake with a foggy grasp of the commitments of marriage
, a newly revealed collection of love letters written in his own hand to a straw-haired Swedish siren will surely put it to rest.

True, the then young senator from Massachusetts first met the woman in question, Gunilla von Post, before his marriage to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier – but only one month before. It was the summer of 1953 and the pair – he 36 and she just 21 – were both on holiday on the French Riviera. They danced all night and…

The Afghan Taleban’s top military commander has been captured in Karachi in a secret raid by intelligence agents of Pakistan and the United States, according to official reports from both countries.

Here’s a lecture from my old buddy Damien at Blather.net. It is a good addition to the stories/discussions that are currently going around about the sub-culture of conspiracy theories.

From Blather:

This is the video of the talk I did at the Dublin Paracon 2009 on the subject of 9/11 and conspiracy theories. This talk resulted from a course called Digital Cultures, part of the MsC. in e-learning at the University of Edinburgh, where we were encouraged to carry out a ‘virtual ethnography’ on a community of our choice. I chose, for reasons passing understanding, the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, choosing some of the recent 9/11 films as a field site.

[Read more at Blather]

Marc Sheppard for Science & Public Policy Institute:

Unquestionably the world’s final authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s findings and recommendations have formed the bedrock of literally every climate-related initiative worldwide for more than a decade. Likewise, virtually all such future endeavors — be they Kyoto II, domestic cap-and-tax, or EPA carbon regulation, would inexorably be built upon the credibility of the same U.N. panel’s “expert” counsel. But a glut of ongoing recent discoveries of systemic fraud has rocked that foundation, and the entire man-made global warming house of cards is now teetering on the verge of complete collapse.

[full report available as a PDF download.]

From Crooks and Liars’ Video Cafe:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow calls out Beck for editing her criticism of him on her show and making sure his viewers didn’t see Rachel calling him out for his bullshit. I had said before that Dylan Ratigan was wasting his time engaging Beck. That’s because Ratigan actually thought it would be a good idea to either bring Beck on his show or go on Beck’s show. I do not think when Beck lies about one of them they should let it go unchallenged and am glad Rachel Maddow pointed out Beck’s hypocrisy here and how he edited her segment. Engaging him is a complete waste of time. He’s not going to come on MSNBC any time soon and he sure as hell isn’t going to bring either Ratigan or Maddow on his show any time soon and if he did they’d be in some debate box where he could hit the mute button any time he wanted instead of live on his set.

A shocking report from AFP shows that widespread obesity isn’t just an American problem:

Eight out of 10 men and nearly seven out of 10 women in England will be too fat by 2020, according to new data released Wednesday.

Researchers said that while recent research showed obesity among children levelling off, instances among adults show no sign of doing the same.

Some 41 percent of men aged 20 to 65 will be obese by 2020, with 40 percent overweight, according to the figures from the National Heart Forum, based on data from the Health Survey for England. That makes a total of 81 percent.

Among women, 36 percent will be obese and 32 percent overweight — a total of 68 percent.

By 2050, this will lead to sharp increases in the number of people suffering…