Auction

Broke American states to privatize parks & roads?

Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize.

Valuables like these are in for a closer look as 44 states cope with deficits.

Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash.

They're gonna fuck up our parks and let our roads go to shit.

Ultraviolence

Many US teens believe "violent behavior is at least sometimes acceptable".

More than a quarter of all U.S. teenagers think violent behavior is at least sometimes acceptable, and one in five say they behaved violently toward another person in the past year, according to a new poll.

I always take surveys of young people with a grain of salt. I lied my ass off on those things back in the day.

Brain Photography

Scientists capture images from the human brain?

Japan's ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person's mind and display them on a computer monitor.

Crystal Ball

Can this software predict the future of music?

Using data collected from Gnutella, the most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing network in the United States, Prof. Shavitt has developed a computer algorithm that can spot an emerging artist several weeks or months before national success hits. "Until now, talent scouts for record companies used instinct to predict the next rock personality. Our software has an astonishing success rate ― about 30%, and in some cases up to 50%. We've crossed a new frontier in the record business," he says.

Home Away from Home

Chinese investors buying up foreclosed US homes.

Reporting from Shanghai -- Caravans of cash-rich Chinese in Hummers and Lincoln Navigators have been weaving through American neighborhoods in recent months, looking for foreclosures and other bargain properties to buy.

With housing prices crashing in the U.S., home-buying trips to America are becoming one of the more popular tour group packages in China. New U.S. visa rules for Chinese tourists and a loosening of foreign investment policies by China have made it easier for people such as Zhao Hongjun of Beijing to go house hunting across the Pacific.

Rewire

Is technology rewiring our brains?

Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at UCLA, argues that daily exposure to digital technologies such as the Internet and smart phones can alter how the brain works.

When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.

So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become weaker, he suggests. That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability to interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in traditional classroom learning.

What if one was socially awkward long before the internet?

The Coming Quake?

FEMA predicts a catastrophic earthquake for the American south and midwest.

FEMA predicted a large earthquake would cause "widespread and catastrophic physical damage" across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee -- home to some 44 million people.

Tennessee is likely to be hardest hit, according to the study that sought to gauge the impact of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in order to guide the government's response.

In Tennessee alone, it forecast hundreds of collapsed bridges, tens of thousands of severely damaged buildings and a half a million households without water.

Transportation systems and hospitals would be wrecked, and police and fire departments impaired, the study said.

Dire Predictions

A new intelligence report suggests tough times ahead.

...the latest Global Trends report says that rising economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil will offer the US more competition at the top of a multi-polar international system.

The EU is meanwhile predicted to become a "hobbled giant", unable to turn its economic power into diplomatic or military muscle.

A world with more power centres will be less stable than one with one or two superpowers, it says, offering more potential for conflict.

Global warming, along with rising populations and economic growth will put additional strains on natural resources, it warns, fuelling conflict around the globe as countries compete for them.

"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation and acquisition, but we cannot rule out a 19th Century-like scenario of arms races, territorial expansion and military rivalries," the report says.

"Types of conflict we have not seen for a while - such as over resources - could re-emerge."

Such conflicts and resource shortages could lead to the collapse of governments in Africa and South Asia, and the rise of organised crime in Eastern and Central Europe, it adds.

And the use of nuclear weapons will grow increasingly likely, the report says, as "rogue states" and militant groups gain greater access to them.

Read the article here.

One Step Closer to Zombies

"Quantum of Solace" director to lead an army of zombies.

One of the most hotly anticipated zombie (or is that post-zombie?) books finally has a director! According to Variety, the adaptation of Max Brooks' insanely popular "World War Z" has snagged Bond helmer Marc Forster for the job. It's like they didn't think it was buzzworthy enough, what with J. Michael Straczynski writing the script, and Brad Pitt's Plan B producing.

If you haven’t read the book, "World War Z" is a seriously detailed, often creepy account of the zombie apocalypse that wiped out humanity in the 2010s. Compiled by a U.N. Postwar Commission researcher, its a first-person retelling of the war that wiped out every country on the map. Forster was drawn to the project for its journalistic style. "The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like 'All the President’s Men.'"

I can't wait. The book was enjoyable and even frightening. I read it while alone in the woods before settling down next to a campfire for the evening. Yeah, kinda spooky.

Dark Flow

What's waiting for us in the depths of space?

On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.

Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger—a multiverse—and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Read more here.

SkyFi

How about a video skylight to spruce up the joint?

SkyV is a ceiling-mounted system of HD LCD screens integrated into a patent-pending, faux skylight framework. The system includes multi-channel graphics processors and specialized synchronization software for display of its terabytes of proprietary HD content. SkyV simulates a real skylight, presenting hours of visual content captured from beneath beautiful skies and trees world-wide.

Dumb and Dumber

Teens today are, like, more stupider and stuff than previous, um, generation.

Memory Hole

Can scientists delete certain memories?

Human Tracking

Sex offenders to be tracked by satellite?

No Going Home

The number of American homeless is "alarming".

"Everywhere I go, I hear there is an increase" in the need for housing aid, especially for families, says Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates federal programs. He says the main causes are job losses and foreclosures.

Other factors have been higher food and fuel prices hitting families with "no cushion," says Nan Roman of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Dog Eat Dog World

Our pets are feeling these hard times, too.

Stop the Vote

Certain people don't want you to vote this November.

As the moment of truth arrives, McCain-Palin attacks based on race, alleged "terrorist" ties and more are sure to increasingly dominate the GOP campaign. But far more insidious will be an all-out assault on voter registration in the name of "voter fraud," and on finding new ways to undermine the national vote, most importantly on electronic voting machines of the kind programmed by Michael Connell.

Message

Television network guilty of using subliminal advertising.

"rapid-cut graphics used in the program was a technique that attempted to convey information to viewers below or near the threshold of normal awareness"

Sand Castles

The Pope says the world's financial system is "built on sand".

Game Over?

Is the Western world about to become a lot less wealthy? Meanwhile the banksters will walk away smiling - set for life as they make their way East.

Digital Damage

Are cyberattacks the planet's biggest threat?

Under Your Skin

Folks in Mexico are getting microchipped.

Affluent Mexicans, terrified of soaring kidnapping rates, are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car.

More people, including a growing number of middle-class Mexicans, are seeking out the tiny chip designed by Xega, a Mexican security firm whose sales jumped 13 percent this year. The company said it had more than 2,000 clients.

Grow Your Own

Turn your lawn into a garden with the 10 most easy to grow veggies.

Kill Your TV

Are the internets killing the boob tube?

At least one industry analyst has declared "TV is dead" and welcomes Americans to a new age of video everywhere.

I don't have a t.v. anymore. I do have a device that turns my monitor into one, but I rarely watch the shit. Online video without all the brainwashing commercials is the way to go.

The Classrooms Have Eyes

CCTV cameras spying on UK students.

CCTV monitors classrooms at one in 14 schools, according to a survey.

The poll of teachers also found that almost a quarter feared there might be more cameras hidden around the campus that they did not know about.

Most said their schools were fitted with surveillance cameras. Almost 80 per cent said there were cameras at the entrance and more than 7 per cent said there were some in classrooms.

Nearly 10 per cent of teachers polled by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said there were cameras in the lavatories.

Land Grab

Foreign investors eye US foreclosures.

There's a new land grab starting in America.

Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country.

One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains, The Post has learned.

Superbug

The next generation of resistant infections impossible to treat?

Thugs of the State

This Big Brother shit is getting out of hand...

On 24 July it was reported that a painter and decorator called Gordon Williams was given an on-the-spot fine of £30 by Ceredigion council officials, after they observed him smoking a cigarette in his blue Suzuki van. You see, the officials had determined that this van was his "place of work" and therefore Mr Williams was breaking the new law banning all smoking in the workplace.

On 25 July it was reported that Haringey council officials had fined a boutique owner called Sangita Ibrahim for putting out her rubbish in black bin bags, rather than the grey sacks required by the council. The officials fined Ms Ibrahim £300 – made up of four fines of £75, one for each offending bag of the offending colour. Nicole Rosbrook, who works at the boutique, told the London Evening Standard: "The two guys who came in were incredibly rude to us – and to the customers. We were shocked, especially when they turned on the customers."

She added that "We had repeatedly asked the council for a delivery of grey bags, but it never came, so we had to use ordinary black bags. The two men actually went through the bags, leaving them open and rubbish strewn all over the pavement."

Read more here.

Where Will They Go?

The thought of growing old, ending up alone, disabled, and in a nursing home is awful enough... then you read this.

Since Jasmine Nguyen collapsed nine years ago, apparently from a seizure, the 32-year-old has lived in a nursing home in Lodi, Calif., dependent on a ventilator to breathe and the facility's staff for her daily needs.

But since early this year, the nursing home has been seeking to evict Ms. Nguyen and a dozen other residents in similar situations, potentially replacing them with shorter-term residents likely to bring more revenue.

Across the country, nursing homes are forcing out frail and ill residents. While federal law permits nursing-home evictions in some circumstances, state officials and patient advocates say facilities often go too far, seeking to evict those who are merely inconvenient or too costly. Residents with dementia or demanding families are among the most vulnerable, particularly if -- like Ms. Nguyen and the other Lodi residents -- they depend on Medicaid to pay their bills, the officials and advocates say.

Power House

This is the house that sun runs.

Mike Strizki's solar-hydrogen house has liberated him entirely from gas, electric and oil bills for the past two years.

No Money, No Yummy

Restaurant chains are closing as broke diners stay home.

Blood Money

Suicide spreads as a solution to overwhelming debt.

Suicide is becoming an increasingly popular response to debt. James Scurlock's brilliant documentary, Maxed Out, features the families of two college students who killed themselves after being overwhelmed by credit card debt. "All the people we talked to had considered suicide at least once".

The article points out the violence wasn't always directed inward.

...in the early 30s, a number of cities were so shaken by the resistance that they declared moratoriums on further evictions. A 1931 riot by Chicago tenants who had fallen behind on their rent, for example, had left three dead and three police officers injured.

According to Piven, these actions were often spontaneous. A group of unemployed men would get word of a scheduled eviction and march through the streets, gathering crowds as they went. Arriving at the site of the eviction, they would move the furniture back into the apartment and stay around to protect the threatened tenants. In one instance in Detroit, it took 100 cops to evict a single family. Also in Detroit, Piven said, "two families protected their apartments by shooting their landlord and were acquitted by a sympathetic jury."

Watching the Watchers

Security cameras to be installed in some UK movie theaters.

The Dawn of Doom

The doomsday sayer has always been with us.

Ever since Thomas Malthus predicted mass starvation for our species more than 200 years ago, doomsday scenarios have come and gone with regularity. The 20th century was full of them.

In 1910, it was feared the arrival of Halley's comet would bathe the world in a cloud of cyanide. There were publications announcing "End of the world, May 18." An enterprising company even sold "comet pills" to ward off the poison gas.

By 1950, TV evangelist Billy Graham had his own prediction for the end of the world. "We may have another year, maybe two years. Then I believe it is going to be over," he lamented.

Coincidence?

Power outage at CDC germ lab and stockpiles of plastic coffins?

Floating World

Is this the city of the future?



The Lilypad comprises of three marinas and three mountain regions with streets and structures strewn with foliage. "The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature," said Callebaut.

With high density populations living in low-lying areas -- The Netherlands, Polynesia, Bangladesh -- the ecopolis, its creator believes, could be the answer to mass human displacement that global warming is predicted to cause.

Strangling the Net

We're making global connections, spreading information, learning and growing over the internet. Our masters just cannot have that.

In the upcoming weeks watch for a report in Time Magazine that will attempt to smooth over the rough edges of a diabolical plot by Bell Canada and Telus, to begin charging per site fees on most Internet sites. The plan is to convert the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and then pay to visit sites beyond a cutoff point.

Read more here.

Passing Gas

Prepare for gas lines in autumn?

Where's the Beef?

US food supply is vanishing.

Worldwide, food prices have risen 45% in the past nine months, posing a crisis for millions, says the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Because of the current economics of food, and changes in federal farm subsidy programs designed to make farmers rely more on the markets, large U.S. reserves may be gone for a long time.

School Daze

This is funny in a sad way...