Saturday, August 4, 2012

Porn queen Jenna Jameson endorses Mitt Romney for President

"Here's an endorsement that may not get trumpeted with a press release or public appearance. Retired porn star queen Jenna Jameson has thrown in with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, citing the party's preference for low taxes on the wealthy."

"When you’re rich, you want a Republican in office."
- Jenna Jameson

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Friday, August 3, 2012

U.S. has killed at least 8 million people in the last 50 years

"In the last 50 years, the United States has promoted, financed and participated in over 200 incursions and 20 separate wars, killing over 8,000,000 people.

1952 - 79, 70,000 Iranians killed. ( Ayatollah Khomeini, US public enemy for the 1980s, was on the CIA payroll while in exile in Paris in 1970s, as were Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden at different times and in different places. )

1954 - 120,000 Guatemalans killed

1954 - 1975, 4,000,000 Vietnamese and Cambodians killed.

1965 - 3,000 Dominican Republicans killed

1965 - 800,000 Indonesians killed

1973 - 30,000 Chileans killed

1975 - 250,000 East Timorese killed

1970s - 1,000,000 Angolans killed

1984 - 30,000 Nicaraguans killed

1980s - 80,000 El Salvadoreans killed

1989 - 8,000 Panamanians killed in an attempt to capture George H. Bush's CIA partner now turned enemy, Manuel Noriega,

1980s - over 700,000 Libyans, Grenadians, Somalians, Haitians, Afghanistanis, Sudanese, Brazilians, Argentineans and Yugoslavians killed,

1991 - over 1,000,000 Iraqis killed, including over 500,000 children -- about which Madeline Albright ( then, Secretary of State ) said "their deaths are worth the cost". While George W. Bush owns over 80% of the oil wells in Kuwait, trouble will continue there.

US report proposes aircraft carrier base in Western Australia

"A recently published review of US military deployments by a prominent Washington think tank has brought into sharp focus the ramifications of the Australian government’s unconditional support for the Obama administration’s confrontational “pivot” against China in the Asia-Pacific.

Australia figured prominently in the changes suggested by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to the US posture in the region. The most dramatic proposal is to relocate an aircraft carrier battle group from the American Atlantic coast to HMAS Stirling, an Indian Ocean naval base near Perth, the state capital of Western Australia (WA)."

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Many Fortune 500 firms pay less in income taxes than you

"A recent study examined 280 of the largest companies in America and the taxes they paid in 2008, 2009, and 2010. All were Fortune 500 companies. And all were profitable. In fact, their pre-tax profit over that period totaled $1.4 trillion.

Yet a whopping 25% of them paid federal taxes at a rate of less than 10% (compared to the standard 35% corporate tax rate). And 30 of these companies paid absolutely no income tax on their profits between 2008 and 2010.

The 78 companies that enjoyed at least one year of paying no income tax had profits equaling $156 billion.

Yet instead of the $55 billion in tax revenue you'd assume the government would have received (at the 35% corporate rate), these companies (all of which -- again -- were profitable) received refund checks from the government totaling $21.8 billion.

We're talking corporate giants ranging from Duke Energy and Eli Lilly to ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs.

Eliminate these tax breaks, and the U.S. Treasury would be $473 billion richer today.

Even worse, 134 of the 280 companies examined were content paying foreign taxes at a rate one-third higher than they paid in America."
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Thursday, August 2, 2012

2045: a new era for humanity

the best way to measure intelligence could be brain imaging

"Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found they could determine 10 percent of individual differences in intelligence by determining the strength of neural pathways, specifically those branching out from the left lateral prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain. That part, their research suggests, acts as a director for the rest of the brain, overseeing how the individual pieces work in tandem and tweaking the process when necessary."

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digital pills make their way to market

"Digestible microchips embedded in drugs may soon tell doctors whether a patient is taking their medications as prescribed.  These sensors are the first ingestible devices approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To some, they signify the beginning of an era in digital medicine."

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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Handcuffed Man Shot Dead in Back of Police Car, Cops Say He Shot Himself

"A young black man is dead after he was shot in the head while  in the back of a police squad car.  Chavis Carter was arrested and charged with possession of drugs and missing a court date, according to police.

Sergeant Lyle Waterworth of the Jonesboro, AR police department says Carter was searched before he was arrested, then placed in handcuffs.

So how did Carter end up dead? Police allege that they must have missed a gun Carter had in his possession during the search, thus allowing him to shoot himself in the head. Yes, you read right, police allege that a handcuffed man in the back of a squad car shot himself in the head.

Officers say the heard a “thump”, then turned and realized that Carter had shot himself in the head.

Carter’s mother says her son was not suicidal, and had even called his girlfriend to tell her he’d be calling her from jail soon. And police searched the suspect twice, so how’d they miss the gun? Also, the gunshot wound was to Carter’s right temple, but Carter’s mother says her son was left handed."

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DNA database of men who pay for sex?

"For the last six years, police across the United States have been empowered by federal and state law to collect DNA from the people they arrest in order to build a government DNA database. The database includes those who have yet to face trial as well as people who are later found innocent. Now a group of researchers, law enforcement and conservative campaigners want to exploit people's concerns about being included in such a database in order to scare people out of involvement in the sex trade."

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Deep DNA memory theories: Can we remember our ancestors lives?

"Research into the nature of DNA has revealed that this material within each cell of our bodies has important implications for who each one of us is, on many levels.

In addition to determining our physical characteristics, our vulnerabilities to certain diseases, and maybe even our personality, is it possible that the DNA helix holds some of the important memories of our ancestors?

Theories that suggest that we can tap into the deep nature of DNA to uncover ancient memories are not new.

In the 1960s, some psychological researchers claimed that there may be keys that unlock our DNA, revealing experiences of generations of our relatives who lived long before our present time."

Notable media mentions:

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Pentagon Wants to Monitor Facebook, Twitter to Predict Terrorism

"The Pentagon wants computer programs that predict “cyber terrorism events” by detecting how criminal groups and hackers interact on the Internet, contracting databases indicate.

The military research arm wants scientists to build the tools to comb through networking sites — such as Facebook and Twitter — to analyze the group dynamics of online communities.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fund the development of algorithms that make sense of the chatter of more than 1 million Internet users, and track how online groups evolve.

The goal is to help strategists identify how communities are recruiting and collaborating, who they are targeting, and the shifting allegiances in these spaces.

DARPA is interested in software that can spot conflicts between groups and weak links that the Pentagon and law enforcement could exploit for “strategic military operations” and espionage prevention."

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