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half blog. half zine. half not good with fractions.
MonthDecember 2007
Occult musician and artist (and somtimes Foolish People collaborator) Skerror has a new blog up showcasing his art.
Wired News rounds up this year’s most radical geo-engineering ideas:
Vertical Farming
Better Cows
Carbon Scrubbers
Hurricane Control
Cloud Making Ships
Better Trees
Ocean Fertilization
Man-made Mt. Pinatubo
Space mirrors
The Status Quo
In a recent study published by the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, Health Canada researchers found higher levels of certain toxins in marijuana smoke than in tobacco smoke. The researchers used a smoking machine to compare cigarettes made from Players brand fine-cut tobacco with cigarettes made from cannabis produced by Prairie Plant Systems of Saskatoon, which grows medical marijuana under contract with Health Canada. The marijuana smoke had 20 times as much ammonia and five times as much hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides, possibly due to higher levels of nitrate fertilizer traces in the marijuana. Then again, only the tobacco smoke contained the potent carcinogens known as tobacco-specific nitrosamines, and it had “moderately higher levels” of potentially hazardous compounds such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Guess which comparison was emphasized in the press coverage.
Jacob Sullum also points out that tobacco ends up being more dangerous because tobacco smokers smoke much more tobacco per day than pot heads smoke cannabis per day. They don’t mention the whole “pot nowadays is so much stronger than when we were kids” hype. Stronger pot is safer because it requires less smoking.
Researchers find each of the following myths either unproven or untrue:
People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
We use only 10% of our brains
Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals
I’m visiting my parents in Wyoming for the holidays, and here’s an appropriate regional news story that’s making international news:
Descendants of the American Indian chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse yesterday declared their independence from the United States, announcing they were withdrawing from treaties signed with the federal government 150 years ago.
The Lakota Indians, whose territory includes parts of Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, sent a delegation to the State Department in Washington to deliver the news.
“We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,” said Russell Means, an Indian rights activist.
The tribal group said it was unilaterally pulling out from a series of treaties signed in the 19th century that it described as “worthless words on worthless paper” because they had been “repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life”.
Mr Means said the new country would issue passports and driving licences, and its citizens would live tax-free.
Radley Balko rounds up the years worst instances of government power grabs and absurd violations of civil liberties: from middle schoolers being charged with sex crimes to people’s cars being seized for merely talking to an undercover cop posing as a prostitute.
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