BROTHER B

2012-01-24T12:08:00.003-05:00

Are our brains being boggled by Google? Study says humans now use the internet as our main 'memory' - instead of our heads

People remember where to look up information - not the info itself
People actively forget information if they think they can look it up later
Tests on how people remembered items they would normally Google

Last updated at 2:52 PM on 24th January 2012

Helping hand? Harvard researchers found that we now use the internet to remember 'for us' - and decide not to store facts if we think we can Google them later

The Internet is becoming our main source of memory instead of our own brains, a study has concluded.

In the age of Google, our minds are adapting so that we are experts at knowing where to find information even though we don’t recall what it is.

The researchers found that when we want to know something we use the Internet as an ‘external memory’ just as computers use an external hard drive.

Nowadays we are so reliant on our smart phones and laptops that we go into ‘withdrawal when we can’t find out something immediately’.

And such is our dependence that having our Internet connection severed is growing ‘more and more like losing a friend’.

Researchers from Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Columbia University in the U.S. carried out four tests to check their theory.

They involved giving test participants a trivia quiz and then seeing whether they recognised computer-related words more quickly than other words.

The other tests involved seeing if people remembered 40 pieces information they would typically later have normally looked up.

The third and fourth parts of the study involved checking how well people remember where to look up information on-line and whether or not they remembered the location more than the actual data.

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The results showed that when people don’t believe they will need information for a later test, they do not recall it at the same rate as when they do believe they will need it.

In fact, some of those in the study ‘actively did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statements they had read’, the paper says.

'People actively do not make the effort to remember when they think they can look up information later,' says the study

The other results showed that when continuous Internet access is expected, people are better at remembering where they can find it than the details.

The study was lead by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor at the department of psychology at Columbia University.

In their paper, the researchers say that we now have access to the Internet 24 hours a day meaning we are 'seldom offline unless by choice' and it is 'hard to remember how we found information before the Internet became a ubiquitous presence in our lives'.

The paper reads: ‘The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made accessing information as easy as lifting a finger.

‘No longer do we have to make costly efforts to find the things we want. We can ‘Google’ the old classmate, find articles online, or look up the actor who was on the tip of our tongue.

‘When faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it.

‘The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves.’

The study is not the first to touch on such anxieties and similar fears were addressed in ‘The Shallows: How the Internet is rewiring our brains’, a book released last year.

Its author, American technologist Nicholas Carr, talks of how we are unable to concentrate for long periods because of how using the web has affected us.

In research he commissioned for the book, test subjects said they were unable to read copies of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ because their minds had been altered.

Others were disturbed at how they could only think in ‘staccato’ bursts because they had become little more than ‘decoders of information'.

2012-01-21T14:38:00.002-05:00

The 20 best job-quitting scenes of all time (with video)

These characters are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

Features

Posted January 17th, 2012, 7:01 AM by Bryan Enk

Quitting one’s job can make for some great drama (and comedy) in the movies. Here are some of the best moments of deciding to embrace a life of unemployment — or rather, in most cases, a life of freedom from The Man.

1. “Fight Club” (1999)

This is, for many, the best scene in David Fincher’s ode to masculinity in a hopelessly emasculated society, as the Narrator (Edward Norton) goes to physical extremes — on himself — in blackmailing his boss (Zach Grenier). “Fight Club” is usually at its best whenever Brad Pitt’s id-driven Tyler Durden is around, but Norton really shines in this tour-de-force moment of self-mutilation — it’s both funny and scary watching him punch himself in the face and crash through glass as the boss is too awestruck to realize just how screwed he is now. Jack’s Smirking Revenge, indeed.

2. “American Beauty” (1999)

When Kevin Spacey takes on that smarmy, self-righteous tone he’s so good at, there’s no actor more intimidating — or scathingly funny. Spacey’s Lester Burnham is a put-upon suburban father and husband who suddenly has an epiphany of almost supernatural proportions that leads to a series of radical life changes, one of which is quitting his job at an advertising agency in the most satisfying way possible. Thank goodness we have the movies to fuel our fantasies of telling off our bosses so we don’t go around pulling this kind of crap ourselves.

3. “Reality Bites” (1994)

John Mahoney makes for one of the worst movie bosses of all time as the host of an intolerably cheesy talk show, with Winona Ryder playing his emotionally abused assistant. When it comes time for Winona to instigate her own firing, director Ben Stiller can’t help but go a little too far with the wacky shenanigans (this is the guy behind the sketch comedy show, “The Ben Stiller Show,” after all) as Mahoney makes a fool (or, rather, a prick) of himself on television thanks to some tampered-with notecards (that cutaway shot to the aghast audience is especially wretched), but how can you not help but cheer when Winona Ryder gets her revenge against a big jerk? Hopelessly dated now, “Reality Bites” now serves as a historical piece documenting the trials and tribulations of employment-phobic Generation X.

4. “The Apartment” (1960)

“You dig?” Fred MacMurray dares condescend to Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder’s mischievous comedy. Lemmon plays an executive who tries to rise in the ranks of his company (all the way up to the 27th Floor, in fact) by letting the higher-ups use his apartment for trysts; things get complicated when he embarks on a romance of his own and starts to realize that the whole arrangement is rather, well, gross. If you want to be cynical about it, Lemmon’s C.C. Baxter could be seen as a younger version of Shelly ‘The Machine’ Levene, the washed-up salesman he played 32 years later in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” though we’d like to think Baxter went on to a lucrative career and never needed to rob his own office.

5. “Breaking Away” (1979)

Watch as a young Rorschach from “Watchman” literally punches the clock! People seem to have forgotten that Jackie Earle Haley was quite the renowned child actor, stealing bases (and scenes) as Kelly Leak in “The Bad News Bears” and coming of age as Moocher in “Breaking Away.” Mooch needs a job, but he doesn’t need a job where the boss calls him “Shorty” — quitting within 30 seconds of your first day has to be some sort of record, and Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid (looking considerably older than his co-stars) and Daniel Stern heartily approve.

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2012-01-17T15:32:00.002-05:00

Microsoft Creates ‘Avoid Ghetto’ Feature For GPS

Posted by JacobSloan on January 17, 2012

There are very few areas in the United States in which merely driving through on a main thoroughfare is a serious danger, so personal safety is not what this is about — it’s an app to avoid people of a lower socioeconomic status. Via the Inquisitr:

Microsoft Corporation is taking heat for a patent it filed for what is being called the “Avoid Ghetto” GPS App. The app esentially links up with your GPS or Smartphone and when you are approaching an area that, based on crime statistics or racial make-up, is deemed undesirable it gives you directions around it.
Sarah E. Chinn, author of Technology and the Logic of American Racism, made an interesting point where she stressed that even though it may give people less of a nervous feeling to not get lost and wind up in a really bad neighborhood, the vast majority of crime is committed by people that know each other so this app would not really improve driver safety.
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Posted in: Apps, Cars, Crime, driving, GPS, neighborhoods

2012-01-14T13:25:00.001-05:00

Orgies for Jesus

Posted by Daniele Bolelli on December 17, 2011

[Site editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new Disinformation title 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion,authored by Daniele Bolelli.]

What if Christian theology dismissed the virgin birth and other miracles as fairy tales? What if your pastor/priest told you to flush the Ten Commandments down the toilet and instead live life to the fullest? What if Sunday service at your local church consisted in a juicy orgy? All of this could have happened had Carpocrates had his way.

Carpo … who? The lead character in our story was the leader of a second century Christian community based in the Greek islands. Back in those days, early Christians couldn’t agree on just about anything. Official Christian doctrine hadn’t been fully established yet, so an extremely wide range of opinions and teachings fell under the label of “Christianity.” The only thing they had in common was that they all thought Jesus was a cool guy. Other than that, everything else was up for debate since they couldn’t even agree on which books should become official scriptures. Some Christians believed their religion was to remain exclusively for Jewish people. Others wanted to open it to all ethnicities. Some believed Jesus and God were one. Others were far from sold about this. Some were strict ascetics. Others enjoyed a very sensual life. Some promoted women as leaders within their groups. Others felt women were good to cook dinner and make babies, but religious leaders? Ha!

In the midst of this very chaotic beginning, Carpocrates emerged as a particularly charismatic preacher, who soon attracted enough of a following as to give birth to his own branch of Christianity. His ideas were just a tad on the wild side. Jesus—Carpocrates argued—was as human as anyone else. He was a visionary whose brilliance and wisdom put him in touch with God, but was not God himself. This didn’t diminish Jesus’s status in Carpocrates’s eyes, since it set him up as a model of behavior that regular human beings could hope to emulate. The whole story of the virgin birth made Carpocrates laugh. In his view, good old Jesus was conceived in the old fashioned way: through sweaty sex. The depth of Jesus’s wisdom was enough for Carpocrates to admire and love him, so he felt no need for any supernatural special effects.

Since this beginning was apparently not controversial enough, Carpocrates promptly taught his followers to reject Mosaic Law as well as the prevailing morality of his times as mere human opinions, not divine commandments. A goodie-goodie morality was according to Carpocrates nothing but a cage built by those who were too scared by life’s intensity. The soul could only achieve freedom and fulfillment by experiencing all of life, without discriminating too much. Only in this way, it would free itself from the cycle of reincarnation …

Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention that? Carpocrates’s followers—like the members of many other early Christian sects—fully believed in reincarnation. And just like several tantric schools found in the history of both Hinduism and Buddhism, they also believed that human beings should explore every emotion without holding back. Sensual pleasure in their eyes was not any less sacred than the most spiritual practices, so good food, sex and every other earthly joy was embraced as a stepping stone toward liberation.

This determination to live life to the fullest went hand in hand with another radical notion. Carp considered differences in wealth and social class as unnatural perversions. Since everyone is born naked and equal in front of God, human attempts to gain status at the expense of others were misguided and ultimately against God’s plan. The cure for the very human tendency toward ego aggrandizing was to discourage the evil of private property. Instead, everything—from material possessions to sexual partners—was to be held in common. Coupled with Carp’s insistence on indulging in sensual pleasures, this idea led his followers to regularly stage sexual orgies as part of their spiritual practices … which makes you wonder: just how different would the world be had mainstream forms of Christianity decided to embrace Carpocrates rather than stern moralists like Saint Paul and Saint Augustine? I think it’s a safe bet that church attendance would be much higher.

2012-01-14T13:19:00.001-05:00

The Continuing Media Blackout Of Ron Paul

Posted by JacobSloan on January 13, 2012

How to lie with technically-accurate charts, via Partial Objects:

CBS reports the results of the Suffolk University Poll for the NH Primary. Ron Paul came in second, as evidenced by this graphic.
I don’t like Ron Paul, but you can’t help but shudder when you see this happening. Journalists remind us they need and deserve unfettered access in order to give the public the truth, but evidently they need the access to decide what should be true.
The excuse for this omission is that Ron Paul is not a viable candidate despite his early popularity, and that’s a fair guess; but it’s a lie. Huntsman, Palin, and Bachmann never stood a chance, and yet they were given plenty of coverage. Why do I still know the name Dick Gephardt?

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2012-01-03T20:16:00.001-05:00

116digg
Do you have a favorite drunkard?

Some amazing man or woman, past or present, who stands colossus-like atop the Big Keg, the ground below littered with crushed empties and the blacked-out carcasses of lesser beings? A verging demigod, whose prowess with a bottle leaves you shaking your head in pop-eyed adoration? Lots of us do.

In addition to their wrist-raising abilities, we deify great drinkers because they indulge their lust for intoxication while simultaneously operating at the peak of their powers in whatever their chosen profession. In other words, great drunks are also great writers, actors, athletes, scientists, statesmen, philosophers, and so on.

I have a favorite drunkard. He was an athlete—a professional wrestler in fact—but he was also a gifted entertainer and a true artist. His parents named him Andre Rene Rousimoff, but we knew him as The Eighth Wonder of the World, Andre the Giant.

For two decades, from the late 1960s through the mid 1980s, Andre the Giant was the highest paid professional wrestler in the business and a household name across the globe. Promoters fought tooth and nail to book Andre, as his presence on a card all but guaranteed a sell-out. Fans cheered his every move, and mobbed him on the street as if he were a great big Beatle.

For proof of his drawing power, look no further than Wrestlemania IIIin 1987. The main event was Andre vs. Hulk Hogan. The show drew the first million-dollar gate in wrestling history, set a pay-per-view record that lasted a decade, and set the all-time indoor attendance record forany live event ever—78,000+ butts in seats at the Pontiac Silver Dome in Detroit—destroying the previous record set by some rock band called the Rolling Stones. His rematch with Hogan two months later, broadcast live on NBC, attracted 33 million viewers, making it the most watched wrestling match ever.

Known to his friends simply as “Giant” or “Boss,” Andre was born on May 19th, 1946, in Grenoble, France, the child of Russian immigrants. Shortly after his birth, he was diagnosed with a rare glandular disease, acromegaly, which caused his body to over-produce growth hormones. As a result, Andre grew to a height of somewhere between 6’11” and 7’5” and a weight of over 500 pounds (his actual height and weight have been speculated about for decades—the business is notorious for inflating wrestlers’ statistics—but Andre’s illness sometimes made him slouch or bow his shoulders, so he might well have been the advertised 7’5”). He first wrestled as Andre the Butcher, but it was Vincent J. McMahon Sr., owner of New York’s World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), who christened him “Andre the Giant.”

While it can be argued that a miniscule handful of professional wrestlers matched Andre’s in-ring achievements (Gorgeous George back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, perhaps; Dusty Rhodes in the ‘70s, and Hulk Hogan, without a doubt, in the ‘80s), no other wrestler ever matched his exploits as a drunkard. In fact, no other human has ever matched Andre as a drinker. He is the zenith. He is the Mount Everest of inebriation.
As far as great drunkards go, there is Andre the Giant, and then there is everyone else.

The big man loved two things: wrestling and booze—mostly booze—and his appetites were of mythic proportion.

First, consider the number 7,000. It’s an important number, and a rather scary one considering its context, which is this—it has been estimated that Andre the Giant drank 7,000 calories worth of boozeevery day. The figure doesn’t include food. Just booze.

7,000 calories.

Every day.

I don’t know about you, but it makes my brain turn somersaults. Hell, it makes my brain perform an entire floor routine, complete with colored ribbons.

When Andre arrived in New York to begin his long working relationship with the McMahon family, his reputation as both a serious student of the nightlife and an extravagant spender was already a topic of speculation and wonder among East Coast wrestlers and promoters. Andre might make $15,000-$20,000 for a single appearance at Madison Square Garden, and a substantial amount of that went to settling the bar tabs he piled up as he boozed his way up and down Manhattan until sunrise. Andre’s generosity matched his size. He often invited a gang of fellow wrestlers along for the ride, as he disliked drinking alone, and picked up some truly staggering tabs. Andre was going to have a good time and went out of his way to make sure everyone else did too.

Worried about his headliner, Vince McMahon Sr. assigned a “handler” to the Giant—long-time wrestler, manager, and road agent, Arnold Skaaland, whose only job when Andre was in town was to keep him out of serious trouble and get him to the arena in time to wrestle. Skaaland was an old-school drinker in his own right, but Andre blew his mind. On one occasion he could only watch goggle-eyed as Andre went about demolishing a dozen or so quarts of beer as a “warm-up” for a match.

With Skaaland on the job, Vince Sr. knew Andre was in capable hands, but the promoter still worried about how the Giant would cope with the insane amount of travel required of a wrestling superstar. Andre loathed flying—no commercial airliner could accommodate such a massive man without resorting to the luggage compartment—and his opinion of most cars wasn’t much sunnier, because aspects of his disease caused intense pain in his knees, hips and lower back when he remained too long in a cramped position. When a tight schedule left a plane or car as the only option, Andre eased his discomfort by getting good and hammered.

Vince Sr. pondered the situation and arrived at a novel solution. He wanted to keep the big man happy, so he bought a trailer and had it customized just for Andre. With plenty of room to spread out and relax, Andre could now travel in a semblance of comfort, which allowed him to do some serious boozing. During trips Andre consumed beer at the incredible rate of a case every ninety minutes, with bottles of vodka or top-rate French wine thrown in for variety.

Sadly, the trailer wasn’t available outside the WWWF territory; Vince Sr. wasn’t about to do the competition any favors. Andre didn’t expect other promoters to pony up a trailer just for him, so he commissioned a customized Lincoln Continental. With the front seat now positioned about where the back seat would normally be, Andre had a little leg room. He carried his luggage and wrestling gear in the trunk and towed his necessities in a trailer. Lined with plastic tarps, the rickety trailer was filled with ice and cases of Budweiser tallboys. As he cruised the nation’s highways, Andre kept a case on the seat beside him, stopping only for food, more ice, and another case or two if he ran low.

As famous as Andre was in this country, he was even bigger in Japan. He spent a few months out of every year over there, where he was treated like a living god and pocketed five-figure payoffs for a single night’s work. That being said, Andre didn’t really like Japan. Everything was too small. Hotel beds were like bassinets and it was all but impossible for him to shower or go to the bathroom in their Lilliputian facilities. He was known to rip the door off his hotel bathroom and make use of the toilet by sitting sideways with his legs sticking out into the main room.
Getting from show to show presented its own problems. Japanese promoters preferred to transport the gaijin wrestlers by bus, vehicles which steadfastly refused to house giants. In order to placate their star import, promoters removed several rows of seats from the back of the bus, creating something of a private cabin for Andre, a place spacious enough for him to stretch out or catch a nap. Mostly, though, Andre used the space as a comfortable spot to do his drinking.

A very green rookie wrestler named Hulk Hogan toured Japan several times with Andre and witnessed the Giant’s alcohol consumption first hand. According to Hogan, Andre drank, at a minimum, a case of tall boys during each bus ride. When he finished a can Andre would belch, crush the can in his dinner-platter-sized hand, and bounce the empty off the back of Hogan’s head. Hogan learned to count each thunk, so he could anticipate when Andre was running low. Whenever the bus stopped, it was Hogan’s job to scamper off to the nearest store, buy as many cases of beer as he could carry, and make it back before the bus departed, a sight that never failed to make Andre roar his bassoon-like laugh.

On one tour, Andre’s Japanese sponsors rewarded him with a case of expensive plum wine. Andre settled down in the back of the bus and started drinking. Four hours later, the bus arrived at the next venue, and Andre was polishing off the last bottle of wine.

Sixteen bottles of wine in four hours is a considerable feat, but it gets better. Andre proceeded straight to the ring and wrestled three matches, including a twenty-man battle royal. The 16 bottles of plum wine had no discernible effect on Andre’s in-ring ability. By the end of the evening, Andre had sweated off the wine and found himself growing cranky. He dispatched Hogan for a few cases of beer. Hogan hurried to do as Andre asked, knowing from painful experience that a drunken Giant was a happy Giant, and a happy Giant was less likely to fracture some vital part of an opponent’s anatomy in a fit of grumpiness.

In 1977, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes wrestled Andre at Madison Square Garden. Afterwards, the old friends went out on the town. They adjourned to one of Andre’s favorite watering holes and took stools at the bar (Andre occupied two). Several hours and some 100 beers later (around 75 of them were Andre’s), they decided to head back to their hotel. Andre looked at taxis with the same scorn as most other conveyances and announced that he and Dusty would walk, which was problem because Dusty was having trouble maintaining a vertical position. Andre studied the situation, and a twinkling grin blossomed across his huge face. People who spent any time with the big man quickly learned to watch for that grin. It was a harbinger of danger. It meant that Andre was contemplating something risky, something with potential legal ramifications, but also, most assuredly, something fun.

A moment later, the two huge wrestlers attacked a pair of horse-drawn carriages. Dusty threw a handful of paper money at one driver while Andre hauled the other from his seat with one hand. While one driver cursed and the other scrabbled around on the ground collecting his windfall, Andre and Dusty thundered off in the carriages. They raced through the Manhattan streets, dodging cars and pedestrians for fifteen blocks before ditching the carriages and lathered horses a block from their hotel. By the time the cops arrived, Andre and Dusty were enjoying snifters of brandy in the hotel bar, appearing as innocent as angels. The next day, they main-evented another card at the Garden. Another sell-out. Two pros at the top of their games.

Another time, in the ‘70s, Andre was holding court at a beach-front bar in the Carolinas, boozing it up with fellow wrestlers Blackjack Mulligan, Dick Murdoch, and the inimitable Ric Flair. They’d been drinking with gusto for hours when Flair goaded Mulligan and Murdoch into some slap-boxing with Andre, who had poured over 60 beers down his gullet. One of the two “accidentally” sucker-punched Andre. The Giant became enraged, grabbed both Mulligan (6’5”, 250 lbs.) and Murdoch (6’3”, 240 lbs.) and dragged them into the ocean, one in each hand, where he proceeded to hold them under water. Flair intervened, and Andre released the men, assuring them he was only playing around. Murdoch and Mulligan, who had nearly drowned, weren’t so sure, but neither messed with Andre the Giant again. They also picked up the tab.

On another occasion, Andre was touring the Kansas City territory and went out for drinks after a show with Bobby Heenan and several other wrestlers. When the bartender hollered last call, Andre, slightly annoyed, announced that he didn’t care to leave. Rather than risk an altercation with his hulking customer, the bartender told Andre he could stay only if he was drinking, imagining, surely, that he would soon be rid of the big fella. Andre thanked the man, and proceeded to order 40 vodka tonics. He sat there drinking them, one after another, finishing the last at just after five in the morning.

When ill health forced Andre to largely quit wrestling in the late ‘80s, he accepted the role of Fezzik in Rob Reiner’s movie The Princess Bride.Everyone on the set loved the big man, with the possible exception of Reiner himself. Ever the sociable fellow, he kept fellow cast members Mandy Patinkin and Carey Elwes out night after night, drinking and otherwise goofing around. The actors were incapable of matching Andre’s intake, but certainly gave it a serious try. As a result, they often showed up on set still loaded or suffering from the sort of hangovers that make death seem a pleasant alternative. Reiner tried to get Andre to leave the actors alone, but Andre could only be Andre, and the other cast members continued to pay the price.

The shooting schedule required Andre to be in England for about a month. When his part wrapped, Andre checked out of his suite at the Hyatt in London and flew back to his ranch in North Carolina. His bar bill for the month-long stay?

Just a shade over $40,000.

Now, if everything I’ve described so far isn’t proof enough that Andre the Giant was the greatest drunkard who ever lived, these last two stories should set my claim in granite.

You won’t find it in the Guinness Book of World Records, but Andre the Giant holds the world record for the largest number of beers consumed in a single sitting. These were standard 12-ounce bottles of beer, nothing fancy, but during a six-hour period Andre drank 119 of them. It was one of the few times Andre got drunk enough to pass out, which he did in a hallway at his hotel. His companions, quite drunk themselves, couldn’t move the big man. Fearing trouble with cops, they stole a piano cover from the lounge and draped it over Andre’s inert form. He slept peacefully until morning, unmolested by anyone. Perhaps the hotel people thought he was a piece of furniture.

Think about it: 119 beers in six hours. That’s a beer every three minutes, non stop. That’s beyond epic. It’s beyond the ken of mortal men. It’s god-like.

Giants are not made long for this world, and toward the end of his life injuries and health problems caused by the acromegaly caught up with Andre. It became difficult just to walk, let alone wrestle, so he retired to his North Carolina ranch to drink wine and watch the countryside. He declined myriad requests for a comeback, despite promises of lavish payoffs. He was simply in too much pain to perform at the level he demanded of himself. Then he received a call from Vince McMahon Jr.

McMahon was in the midst of taking his WWF promotion national. He’d scored big-time with his Wrestlemania events on pay-per-view, and asWrestlemania III approached, Vince Jr. was hot to make it the biggest thing yet. To make that happen, he needed Andre the Giant.

Andre was in France visiting his ailing father when the call came. He thanked Vince Jr. but said there was no way he could get back in a ring, even though he very much wanted to. Not willing to give up, Vince Jr. flew to France to speak with Andre in person. He took Andre to see doctors specializing in back and knee maladies. Radical back surgery was proposed. If successful, the procedure would lessen Andre’s pain and perhaps make it possible for him to get in the ring for Wrestlemania. If Andre was game, Vince Jr. agreed to pay for the entire cost of the surgery.

The time arrived, and the anesthesiologist was frantic. He had never put a person of Andre’s size under the gas before and had no idea how much to use. Various experts were brought in but no solution presented itself until one of the doctors asked Andre if he was a drinker. Andre responded that, yes, he’d been known to tip a glass from time to time. The doctor then wanted to know how much Andre drank and how much it took to get him drunk.

“Well,” rumbled the Giant, “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.”

And thus was a solution found. The gas-passer was able to extrapolate a correct mixture for Andre by analyzing his alcohol intake. It was a medical breakthrough, and the system is still used to this day.

Five months later, Andre the Giant wrestled a “body-slam” match against Hulk Hogan and brought down the house.

Two liters of vodka. Warm and fuzzy. Side by side like that, the two sentences hardly make any sense. For most of us, two liters of vodka means a one-way ticket to Blackout Island aboard the good shipRegurgitania.

After Wrestlemania, Andre retired for good. His beloved father died in 1993 and Andre returned to France to be with his family. He was still there when, on January 26th, 1993, Andre died in his sleep of heart failure at the age of 47.

The key to Andre the Giant is this — even as a youth he knew that his disease would dramatically shorten his life. He knew there was no cure, and lived every day with the understanding that death could shamble around the very next corner. Knowledge of this sort can darken a life.

It did not darken Andre’s.

He chose instead to pack his days with as much insane, drunken fun as they could hold. Instead of languishing in the darkness, he chose to walk in the sun.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now. Andre the Giant was an inspiration. I would pay a fortune for the opportunity to go back in time 30 years to watch such a master practice his craft, in the ring and at the bar.

Andre the Giant was the very embodiment of what being a drunkard is all about.
—Richard English

2011-12-29T13:45:00.002-05:00

‘Nixon’s Darkest Secrets’: New biography digs up rumors of Richard Nixon’s gay affair with Mafia banker

Former White House reporter Don Fulsom’s book says 37th President was a drunk and a wife beater

BY PHILIP CAULFIELD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, December 28 2011, 4:13 PM

John Rous/AP

President Richard Nixon and his pal Bebe Rebozo in Key Biscayne, Fla., in 1969. A new book by a former White House reporter claims the two may have been lovers.

A new book by an ex-White House reporter claims that President Richard Nixon was a mobbed-up drunk who beat the First Lady and may have had a decades-long gay affair with a shady Miami-area businessman.

In the shocking new biography "Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President," former United Press International Washington bureau chief Don Fulsom writes that Tricky Dick had mob ties for more than 20 years before he was elected in 1968 and lusted after his best pal, dashing Cuban-American playboy Charles (Bebe) Rebozo.

Nixon and Rebozo, who the feds believe laundered money for mob kingpins in Florida and Cuba, swam, sunbathed and dined together during guys-only vacations in exclusive Key Biscayne, Fla., and were once spotted holding hands under the table during a dinner with K Street power brokers, according to a report on the book in the Daily Mail.

Another Washington reporter told Fulsom that he once spotted a boozy Nixon nuzzling Rebozo "the way you'd cuddle your senior prom date."

The pair's friendship was no secret to Washington insiders, and the book claims that there were whispers that the two were more than just pals up until Nixon's death in 1994. (Rebozo was by his side. He died four years later.)

White House aides at the time said Rebozo was nothing more than "the guy who mixed the martinis" and showed the notoriously stuffy Nixon how to hobnob, the Mail said.

The new book also charges that Nixon guzzled bathtubs of booze — earning the name "Our Drunk" from his own staff — and abused First Lady Pat Nixon.

Fulsom writes that an aide had to coach Nixon on how to kiss Mrs. Nixon so that they'd come across as a loving couple, the Mail said.

But behind closed doors, Nixon called his wife a “f------ b----” and often beat her before, during and after his presidency, the book claims.

Macmillan, the book's publisher, said that "Nixon's Darkest Secrets" is based on Fulsom's reporting during the Nixon administration, along with interviews with members of Congress, former White House staffers and others from the 37th President's inner circle.

He also covered the Johnson, Ford, Reagan and Clinton presidencies and teaches a course on the Watergate scandal at American University.

The Nixon Foundation has not commented on the book.

2011-12-24T15:31:00.002-05:00

The psychedelic secrets of Santa Claus

Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans.
Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, most of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe.
The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as "fly agaric." These mushrooms are now commonly seen in books of fairy tales, and are usually associated with magic and fairies. This is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and were used by ancient peoples for insight and transcendental experiences.

Most of the major elements of the modern Christmas celebration, such as Santa Claus, Christmas trees, magical reindeer and the giving of gifts, are originally based upon the traditions surrounding the harvest and consumption of these most sacred mushrooms.

The world tree

These ancient peoples, including the Lapps of modern-day Finland, and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes, believed in the idea of a World Tree. The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the "middle earth" of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.

The amanita muscaria mushrooms grow only under certain types of trees, mostly firs and evergreens. The mushroom caps are the fruit of the larger mycelium beneath the soil which exists in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the tree. To ancient people, these mushrooms were literally "the fruit of the tree."

The North Star was also considered sacred, since all other stars in the sky revolved around its fixed point. They associated this "Pole Star" with the World Tree and the central axis of the universe. The top of the World Tree touched the North Star, and the spirit of the shaman would climb the metaphorical tree, thereby passing into the realm of the gods. This is the true meaning of the star on top of the modern Christmas tree, and also the reason that the super-shaman Santa makes his home at the North Pole.

Ancient peoples were amazed at how these magical mushrooms sprang from the earth without any visible seed. They considered this "virgin birth" to have been the result of the morning dew, which was seen as the semen of the deity. The silver tinsel we drape onto our modern Christmas tree represents this divine fluid.

Reindeer games

The active ingredients of the amanita mushrooms are not metabolized by the body, and so they remain active in the urine. In fact, it is safer to drink the urine of one who has consumed the mushrooms than to eat the mushrooms directly, as many of the toxic compounds are processed and eliminated on the first pass through the body.

It was common practice among ancient people to recycle the potent effects of the mushroom by drinking each other's urine. The amanita's ingredients can remain potent even after six passes through the human body. Some scholars argue that this is the origin of the phrase "to get pissed," as this urine-drinking activity preceded alcohol by thousands of years.

Reindeer were the sacred animals of these semi-nomadic people, as the reindeer provided food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Reindeer are also fond of eating the amanita mushrooms; they will seek them out, then prance about while under their influence. Often the urine of tripped-out reindeer would be consumed for its psychedelic effects.

This effect goes the other way too, as reindeer also enjoy the urine of a human, especially one who has consumed the mushrooms. In fact, reindeer will seek out human urine to drink, and some tribesmen carry sealskin containers of their own collected piss, which they use to attract stray reindeer back into the herd.

The effects of the amanita mushroom usually include sensations of size distortion and flying. The feeling of flying could account for the legends of flying reindeer, and legends of shamanic journeys included stories of winged reindeer, transporting their riders up to the highest branches of the World Tree.

Santa Claus, super shaman

Although the modern image of Santa Claus was created at least in part by the advertising department of Coca-Cola, in truth his appearance, clothing, mannerisms and companions all mark him as the reincarnation of these ancient mushroom gathering shamans.

One of the side effects of eating amanita mushrooms is that the skin and facial features take on a flushed, ruddy glow. This is why Santa is always shown with glowing red cheeks and nose. Even Santa's jolly "Ho, ho, ho!" is the euphoric laugh of one who has indulged in the magic fungus.

Santa also dresses like a mushroom gatherer. When it was time to go out and harvest the magical mushrooms, the ancient shamans would dress much like Santa, wearing red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots.

These peoples lived in dwellings made of birch and reindeer hide, called "yurts." Somewhat similar to a teepee, the yurt's central smokehole is often also used as an entrance. After gathering the mushrooms from under the sacred trees where they appeared, the shamans would fill their sacks and return home. Climbing down the chimney-..entrances, they would share out the mushroom's gifts with those within.

The amanita mushroom needs to be dried before being consumed; the drying process reduces the mushroom's toxicity while increasing its potency. The shaman would guide the group in stringing the mushrooms and hanging them around the hearth-fire to dry. This tradition is echoed in the modern stringing of popcorn and other items.

The psychedelic journeys taken under the influence of the amanita were also symbolized by a stick reaching up through the smokehole in the top of the yurt. The smokehole was the portal where the spirit of the shaman exited the physical plane.

Santa's famous magical journey, where his sleigh takes him around the whole planet in a single night, is developed from the "heavenly chariot," used by the gods from whom Santa and other shamanic figures are descended. The chariot of Odin, Thor and even the Egyptian god Osiris is now known as the Big Dipper, which circles around the North Star in a 24-hour period.

In different versions of the ancient story, the chariot was pulled by reindeer or horses. As the animals grow exhausted, their mingled spit and blood falls to the ground, forming the amanita mushrooms.

St Nicholas and Old Nick

Saint Nicholas is a legendary figure who supposedly lived during the fourth Century. His cult spread quickly and Nicholas became the patron saint of many varied groups, including judges, pawnbrokers, criminals, merchants, sailors, bakers, travelers, the poor, and children.

Most religious historians agree that St Nicholas did not actually exist as a real person, and was instead a Christianized version of earlier Pagan gods. Nicholas' legends were mainly created out of stories about the Teutonic god called Hold Nickar, known as Poseidon to the Greeks. This powerful sea god was known to gallop through the sky during the winter solstice, granting boons to his worshippers below.

When the Catholic Church created the character of St Nicholas, they took his name from "Nickar" and gave him Poseidon's title of "the Sailor." There are thousands of churches named in St Nicholas' honor, most of which were converted from temples to Poseidon and Hold Nickar. (As the ancient pagan deities were demonized by the Christian church, Hold Nickar's name also became associated with Satan, known as "Old Nick!")

Local traditions were incorporated into the new Christian holidays to make them more acceptable to the new converts. To these early Christians, Saint Nicholas became a sort of "super-shaman" who was overlaid upon their own shamanic cultural practices. Many images of Saint Nicholas from these early times show him wearing red and white, or standing in front of a red background with white spots, the design of the amanita mushroom.

St Nicholas also adopted some of the qualities of the legendary "Grandmother Befana" from Italy, who filled children's stockings with gifts. Her shrine at Bari, Italy, became a shrine to St Nicholas.

Modern world, ancient traditions

Some psychologists have discussed the "cognitive dissonance" which occurs when children are encouraged to believe in the literal existence of Santa Claus, only to have their parents' lie revealed when they are older. By so deceiving our children we rob them of a richer heritage, for the actual origin of these ancient rituals is rooted deep in our history and our collective unconscious. By better understanding the truths within these popular celebrations, we can better understand the modern world, and our place in it.

Many people in the modern world have rejected Christmas as being too commercial, claiming that this ritual of giving is actually a celebration of materialism and greed. Yet the true spirit of this winter festival lies not in the exchange of plastic toys, but in celebrating a gift from the earth: the fruiting top of a magical mushroom, and the revelatory experiences it can provide.

Instead of perpetuating outdated and confusing holiday myths, it might be more fulfilling to return to the original source of these seasonal celebrations. How about getting back to basics and enjoying some magical mushrooms with your loved ones this solstice? What better gift can a family share than a little piece of love and enlightenment?

From the Desk of Anyeot
Minister Paul E Jones
AIM- Anyeot
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ICQ- 10929390
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Sharing the Oneness of God, Religion and Humanity
Bringing Revival, Renewal and Restoration to all God's People
Teaching Ancient Wisdom for Today
Bringing Love and Light to Everyone
www.gracewatcher.org

2011-12-20T16:02:00.002-05:00

LISTEN

THE OTHER HALF: RUSTIC OVERTONES INTERVIEW

Posted on December 8, 2011 by MATTHEW RICKETT Email

Dave Gutter, lead singer/guitarist/songwriter from Rustic Overtones and Paranoid Social Club took some time to chat about his show at Church on Saturday December 10th, his goals for Rustic Overtones, and hibernation.

How’s everything with the Overtones?
Oh it’s great. We got our own studio [Limited Productions Limited] which is, like, the guiltiest pleasure ever. We just got a new drummer and keyboardist from the Royal Hammer and they’re doing a great job. And we’re, basically, just playing a ton of music and getting our new album ready.

What are your goals for the Overtones?

Put out records. Tour. Get out to all the fans, all the people that connect with our music.

Where do you see Rustic Overtones in the next year?
We’re kind of in a cycle we go through based on the seasons up here in Maine. Summer is all about going live and playing festivals, really getting a good release of music. In the fall the kids are back in school so it’s usually college towns and tours. Winter is usually hibernation where we hole up in our studio for hours on end. That’s where the albums get made. The spring we usually put out a new record and it starts all over again.

Do you think it’s important to have that kind of cycle? To go with the seasons like that?
Yes, I think it’s absolutely crucial to not have everything be perfect all the time.

There’s nothing wrong with dark winter nights.

It’s a part of what creates our music and our personalities. And the warmth you have to get from people. People united in both happiness and like “shit this sucks,” or “shit, my car won’t start.” If you listen to music from around the country – or around the world – in the south the music is very happy and relaxed and lazy, even hip-hop is all about partying and having fun. Music from colder areas is a little more serious, not that we’re all serious, we have fun and games but bands in the Northeast have that kind of edge. I mean … I’d sound like fucking Jimmy Buffet if I lived in a tropical climate.

What side projects are you working on right now?
Well I have another band called Paranoid Social Club with Overtones bassist, Jon Roods. Today [12/8/11] I’m doing some solo acoustic shows in Boston at WBUR and Unregular Radio. I also have a show coming up in Dover, New Hampshire before Church on Saturday.

Do you use the studio you’ve set up in Portland as mainly Overtones? How much of that studio is used for your side projects as well?
It depends on the mood. I write the songs and then I put them in a pile. So this is the Rustic pile and it’s more spiritual it’s more how I feel and the Paranoid pile is more unifying and trying identify how everyone else feels. One’s very self indulgent and one’s very observant. Some songs will seem better as a Rustic song with horns and a big arrangement and others are more punk and for Paraonid.

We can, really, do anything we want with the arrangement of musicians we’ve sorrouned ourselves with.”

What can people expect from your show at Church on Saturday night?
The people that have seen us before: They know. We give 100% all the time. The people that haven’t seen us yet: It’s gonna be some loud soul music with some punk rock and a lot of energy.

We’re bringing some high energy to Church because, you know, you have to. It’s Church.

You collaborated with David Bowie on Viva Nueva!, what was he like in person?
He was awesome. We spent a better part of the summer summer with his bass player/producer Tony Visconti. One day we were just dicking around playing a bunch of instruments and making all kinds of noise — I think one of us was stoned and eating a sandwich with half of it on him — and then David Bowie just walks in the studio. We all immediately just shaped right up.

Him and our horns section hit it off real well since that’s kind of a big part of his music. We went out to eat at restaurants. Musem of Rock ‘n’ Roll history and the museum of Television and Film where he did an interview and mentioned collaborating with us along with all of his other collaborations — which was wild to be put in the same breath as those other bands. He introduced us to Joey Romane.

He smokes everywhere he goes so when you’re with Bowie, you can smoke anywhere you want. Bowie would light up and then we would light up right behind him. People would shoot us dirty looks knowing that we were just riding off him. I used to actually take his cigarette butts and mail them back to my Mom. He would get these Marlboro cigarettes with brown filters from over seas so they’re even more special.

My Mom was all excited to be getting theseDavid Bowie cigarette butts.

Rustic Overtones will be purging and pontificating wintery soul and punk at Church on Saturday December 10th.

2011-12-20T11:38:00.002-05:00

Freddie Mercury Wasn’t Nearly
As Gay As You Are

November 24, 2011 By JoeBot

You call Freddie a faggot. You think his mustache was pure trash. You are disgusted by the glans flexed in his spandex. You dig into the details of Mercury’s mercurial libido, but I’ll tell you right now that being thatconcerned about a rock star’s sex life is fucking gay, man. Vicarious hairy ass.

You fantasize about the sloppy meat between a superstar’s sheets like an imaginary groupie choking on phantom fellatio. You feed on rumors like a junky at a pain clinic fire sale. You’re a bottom-feeder sniffing at the hem of a musical Messiah’s garment, cowering in the shadows of his ball sack. Not only would Freddie Mercury not fuck you, he wouldn’t be flattered that you care who he fucked. So call him a faggot if you want to. No one denies he was gay—he was the frontman for QUEEN, for Chrissakes. He just wasn’t as gay as you are.

That doesn’t mean that Mercury never slept with women. Men don’t grow mustaches like that and not get down with the ladies at some point. He probably had a hundred women, which is ninety-nine more than you will—if we count self-administered handjobs, anyway.

Reading through the quotes in Freddie Mercury: His Life in His Own Words, it becomes clear that the singer was passionate about women, especially the only love of his life, Mary Austin.

“I’m gay as a daffodil, dears. But I couldn’t fall in love with a man the way I could with a girl…”

“I treat Mary as my common-law wife and we’re getting on fine…We believe in each other, so fuck everybody else.”

Maybe fucking everybody else was the problem, because Freddie certainly did a lot of that—men, women, midgets, wombats, God only knows what else, who cares? It’s none of your business. Stop snooping.

After seven years of living together, he and Mary called it quits. But Freddie would carry on (carry oooon…) because nothing really matters…

“Sometimes a good friend is much more valuable than a lover. Apart from Mary, I don’t have any real friends.”

I’m sure his buddies didn’t appreciate that, and you can be damn sure that his hairdresser and lover of over a decade wore a squished up sour face after hearing it. Jim Hutton lived with Mercury for the last six years of his life, remaining by his bedside like a loyal pet, and yet Freddie had the gall to say: “If I go first, I’m going to leave everything to [Mary Austin]. Nobody else gets a penny—except my cats.” And Freddie followed through, like a true-to-life, thuper thweet, find-em-fuck-em-and-give-em-AIDS rock star. Freddie lived life on his own flamboyant terms. Fuck everybody else.

Yeah, Freddie performed at Bob Geldof’s globally-broadcast, egalitarian charity ball in 1985. But Freddie didn’t get guilt-tripped into doing Live Aid. Those starving Ethiopians couldn’t piss on his fabulous parade. Causes are so gay. No, he played Live Aid because playing the biggest humanitarian concert of the century is just sooo Freddie Mercury.

“To be honest, let’s face it, all us rock stars still want to be in the limelight and this is going to showcase us. Let’s be open about it…it’s going to be a worldwide audience, an all over simultaneous broadcast…I doubt there is one artist that’s going to appear who hasn’t realized that fact…

“Even if I didn’t do it, the poverty would still be there. It’s something that will always be there. We’ll do all we can do to help because it’s a wonderful thing. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m doing it out of pride.”

It was all about entertainment. Left wing musicians hauling millions off to their mansions or right wing writers peddling psuedo-empowerment to the servant classes—Mercury was beyond such hypocrisy and pretention. Having a message is for fags.

“We think a show should be a spectacle and we’ve been slagged off in the press for our flamboyant stage show. But that’s the whole point…

“I feel incredibly strong on stage…The adrenaline’s there, you feel like the devil and it’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful. But I know in myself that I would never misuse it…I’m much too wonderful for that, darlings!”

Mercury’s honest appraisal of his exalted status was refreshing to realistic rock fans. This was an age that viewed the martyrdom of John Lennon as a precursor to a cultural apocalypse, a generation bred to worship anyone with a TV face and a microphone. Mercury was a shallow breath of fresh air.

“I’m not the Messiah or anything—I don’t want to preach to [the audience]…My job is not to teach them, my job is to make music. I don’t want to change their lives overnight, I don’t want to involve the audience in peace messages or anything like that. It’s escapism…”

Queen was the rare result of talent, will, and greed. They crafted songs with the care of a jeweler cutting a diamond, producing both snappy hits and epic ballads. The audience could never be too big, the lights could never be too bright, the showmanship could never be too superficial.

“I was once thinking of being carried on stage by Nubian slaves and being fanned by them…But where to find a Nubian slave?”

Freddie wasn’t about to take himself too seriously. He was all laughter and leather. Topless tarts and bottomless mic stands. Macho men and mustaches. Overbites and undergarments. White tights and spotlights. Like fat bottom girls, he made the rockin’ world go round.

It made him miserable in the end. He became distrustful of the hanger-on hobnobbers who slipped into his life just to slurp on his fame like psychic vampires fighting over an infected used tampon.

Freddie had risen to the height of social approval and material wealth. He had an eight-bedroom Victorian-style mansion built in Kensington, West London. Marble floors and mahogany staircases. Shopping sprees to Harrods, Cartier, and Asprey. Lalique and Galle vases. Midgets serving trays of cocaine. You couldn’t attract more rats with all the cheese in Wisconsin.

“It’s like I’m handicapped, because people immediately go for my so-called stage persona. No one loves the real me. Inside, they’re all in love with my fame and stardom.”

Freddie became more and more emotionally isolated and shackled by the cold chains of betrayal. He trusted no one further than he could smack them with his cock, so that wound up being the only personal connection he could hope for. The sad part is, his sordid love life is all you ass-hammers even care about.

“My sex drive is enormous. I sleep with men, women, cats—you name it. I’ll go to bed with anything! My bed is so huge it can comfortably sleep six.”

Does that titillate you? Captivate you? Are you happy now that you’ve had a peek beneath his sheets? I’ll bet you want to know whonow. What are their names? What positions did he prefer? What did his lovers look like? What did they smell like? Did their wiry mustaches ever get stuck together like velcro?

You ask too many questions, and Freddie was never one for answering questions, anyway. Questions are fucking queer. In the last years of Freddie’s life, people were always asking probing personal questions. Why doesn’t he play shows anymore? What happened to the wild parties? Why does he look so unhealthy? Is he love sick? On drugs? HIV positive?

Freddie had nothing to say about it. He became somewhat reclusive. He “stopped having sex and started growing tulips.” The clock ticked by slowly. Inquiring minds wanted to know.

Then suddenly, on November 23, 1991, Mercury came clean with a public statement that he indeed had AIDS. A thousand gay assholes simultaneously slammed shut in abject terror. The next day, Freddie was dead.

I know, I know, you say he got what he deserved. Promiscuity leads to decadence. The wages of sin is death. Sodomy causes pain in the end. God hates fags. And maybe you’re right. AIDS is a nasty way to go, generally reserved for certain proclivities, so that has to mean something. Ask yourself this, though:

If God kills queers because he hates their man-loving ways, and none of us live forever, then does God hate us all, each for our own special reasons?

Death cuts every one of us down, but life only raises up so many rock heroes. How ironic that Freddie Mercury became one of the brightest stars in the world because he was so fantastically flaming, and yet you’ll just sneer from the sidelines because you’re so fucking gay.

[In memory of Seth Putnam]

2011-12-20T11:34:00.002-05:00

TREND WATCH: CHOLOMBIAN SIDEBURNS ARE MY NEW FAVORITE (LINKS)

12.14.11WRITTEN BY VINCE MANCINI

Much like they did with the Mexican Pointy Boot phenomenon, Vice brings us news of the “Cholombian” subculture of Monterrey, and more importantly, pictures of their mega-sick sideburns. Finally I don’t have to worry about trying to grow them from my face!|Vice|

MORNING LINKS
Do you like sharing silly pictures and crap? Check out this new app a friend of mine started. (IT’S FREE!) I know some handsome fellas like Burnsy and I are already using it. If you like pictures I take of rape vans, this is a good place to find them. |Crowdfail|

This Week in Posters: Battleships, Ghost Riders, & Spider-Men |Film Drunk|

The 10 Freakiest Commercials of 2011 |Warming Glow|

The Robert Downey Jr. Acting Venn Diagram |UPROXX|

Before Hollywood Ruins Them: 15 Sci-Fi and Supernatural Scripts On The 2011 Black List |Gamma Squad|

Waka Flocka On Wiz Khalifa’s Success: “All Hype” |Smoking Section|

The 45 Best Mugshots Of 2011 |Buzzfeed|

Lindsay Lohan bails on “contractually obligated” Ellen interview. |TheSuperficial|

German guy attempts to hold many mugs of beer, fails. |Videogum|

11 offbeat holidays you still have time to celebrate. |MentalFloss|

Time’s person of the year: “the protestor.” |TheDailyWhat|

9 insane celebrity political endorsements. |ScreenJunkies|

Derek Jeter gives sports memorabilia to ladies he bangs. |HolyTaco|

Ashley is your bikini skank of the day, or whatever we’re calling this. |GorillaMask|

Seanbaby’s Library of a Madman – Invisibility & Levitation |Adult Swim|

A Gallery of Classic 8-Bit Mashups from Drew Wise |Unreality|

2011-12-16T12:04:00.002-05:00

Pogues top Christmas song list

5:35 AM Friday Dec 16, 2011

EXPAND

Shane MacGowan and Kirsy MacColl's 'Fairytale of New York' has been named the most-played UK Christmas song. Photo / File

The Pogues can now raise a glass of the hard stuff after Fairytale of New York was named the most-played UK Christmas song of the century.

The booze-soaked waltz, performed by Shane MacGowan and the late Kirsty MacColl as warring lovers, reached No2 when released in 1987, kept from the top spot by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of Always on my Mind.

It has returned to the Christmas Top 20 on seven occasions, peaking at No3 in 2005 and 2007. This week the song is poised for another tilt at the top.

On its failure to become the Christmas No1 in 1987, MacGowan once ungenerously said: "We were beaten by two queens and a drum machine."

However, its elevation to modern standard has been confirmed by another chart compiled by the music licensing body PPL, which totals up every public airing a song has received - from radio and TV plays to being used as background music in shops, bars, gyms and restaurants - since 2000.

It has leapfrogged Wham's Last Christmas and Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas is You to become the most-played festive song this century. It has even outperformed perennials such as Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody and Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.The Pogues benefited this year from the song's use in a Tesco Christmas TV campaign.

Royalties from its airings have assisted MacColl's family in their campaign to uncover the truth about her death at the age of 41. She was hit by a boat while swimming in Mexico in 2000.

Voted the public's favourite Christmas song in a 2004 poll,Fairytale of New Yorkattracted controversy over its use of the words "scumbag", "maggot" and "faggot". Radio 1 bleeped out "faggot" in 2007 to "avoid offence" but climbed down after complaints from listeners and MacColl's mother, Jean.

Since MacColl's death, The Pogues have continued to perform their tale of a drunken Irish immigrant's reverie using guest singers, including Katie Melua and Imelda May.

The 1980s are the most successful decade according to the PPL chart, providing more than half of the top 20 most popular festive tunes.

- The Independent

THE END IS VERY NEAR!

2011-12-13T17:16:00.000-05:00

TOM CRUISE IS SEXY ROCK GOD: ROCK OF AGES TRAILER IS HERE

12.13.11WRITTEN BY VINCE MANCINI

Rock of Ages has a trailer

From the director of Hairspray...

Aw, crap. I don't know if I--

Based on the hit Broadway musical...

Um, yeeeah, you know, this doesn't exactly sound like my cup of t--

Starring Tom Cruise...

Waiter! Check please!

THOSE FUN-HATING SHRIVS ARE TRYING TO STOP ROCK N ROLL! ... AGAIN!

Mother of God, was that a "We're Not Gonna Take It"/"We Built This City" hybrid medley? YAAAAAGHHHHH, MAKE IT STOP! IT'S LIKE I'VE BEEN SKULLF*CKED BY NIGHTMARE DICKS!

Game over, man, game over. Adam Shankman must be stopped. I've been trying to get you people to listen for years. WHAT'S IT GOING TO TAKE?

[Rock of Ages, opens June 1st, 2012. If the apocalypse happens in 2012, it will be because of this.]

2011-12-11T11:23:00.001-05:00

Shocking 9/11 Architecture

Posted by majestic on December 11, 2011

Gawker says what we’re all thinking (aside from the architects perhaps):

“AAAAAGH! YOU HAVE ERECTED A TERRIFYING MONUMENT TO THE NIGHTMARES OF 9/11!!!” was probably not the reaction that Seoul-based Yongsan Dream Hub corporation had in mind when they unveiled their plans today for an ambitious new construction project: Two high-rises connected by a “pixelated cloud” structure that, tragically, calls to mind the kinds of images you don’t really want to call to mind when looking at a new set of twin towers…

Via Gawker

Full story at Gawker.

2011-12-10T09:54:00.001-05:00

Cosmic Cycles of Violence: John Lennon and Dimebag Darrell Gunned Down on December 8

Posted by cybercasualty on December 8, 2011

Courtesy of Brandt Hardin

From RockStarMartyr.net:

Pantera’s furious music was propelled by guitarist Darrell Abbott’s maniacal claws ripping across a Washburn fretboard. The music was aggression distilled, warfare on vinyl, the hellish harmonics of testosterone-pumped teenagers smashing beer bottles and crucifixes, the pentatonic expression of sociopathic sexual impulse turned loose on loose pussy, power chords and possession, amplifiers and alcohol, whammy bars and whimsical youth. Pantera was pissed. And yet, no one remembers the jolly Dimebag Darrell being particularly pissed in day-to-day life. Not nearly as pissed as John Lennon was, anyway.

Behind the lead Beatle’s circular granny glasses and tireless promotion of peace burned a fury unmatched by most metal enthusiasts. Lennon was pissed at his parents, pissed at his bandmates, pissed at his stay-at-home wife, pissed at Her Majesty the Queen, pissed at America’s war machine, pissed at the world for not giving peace a chance. Lennon was fucking hostile. But…

MORE
Posted

2011-12-05T17:15:00.001-05:00

BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

Canadian cult phenomenon The Trailer Park Boys return to Dublin for some inebriated festive misadventures, but not before giving us their insights into nudity, NASA and why Ricky once punched Saint Nick…

Rachel Beckwith, 02 Dec 2011

It’s after midday, so it would be silly of me to think I’d be talking to three sober Canadians – especially when those Canadians happen to be the perpetually intoxicated Trailer Park Boys. Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are currently on the road with their new December show that takes a candid look at the season. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, exactly how festive are they feeling right now?

“I’m at a 10,” says Ricky in a spaced-out drawl. “Because Dublin is actually the North Pole and Santa Claus is there. Bubbles has promised that I’m going to meet the real Santa Claus and I can’t wait. I need to apologise, because last year I got into a fight with him and I punched him in the nose. He kneed me in the nuts. And I want to apologise, I feel bad for it.”

A surreal start that I could easily sidestep. But I’m curious: how exactly does one get into a fight with jolly Saint Nick?

“Well I thought that he was actually a mole Santa stealing my gifts not leaving gifts,” Ricky explains. “So, it was a misunderstanding. I was drunk…”

Surprising, really, considering the ex-con character is nearly always seen with a rum and coke in hand. The title of the trio’s new show –Dear Santa, Go F**k Yourself – suggests that Ricky isn’t the only one who has beef with Christmas time.

“Basically I want to go round different cities of the world,” Bubbles chips in, “and just try hard to get people to learn the true meaning of Christmas and spread some holiday spirit and go back to it being about fun, not how much money you can spend.”

Ricky interrupts with an important announcement: “Before I forget about this, can you warn all the people over in Dublin to not leave anything in their cars if they’re coming to the show? Because Julianwill break into their cars during the intermission and probably steal whatever they have. He’s very greasy.” Duly noted.

For the new show, fellow Sunnyvale residents Mr. Lahey and Randy will be joining the boys on stage for the first time. Will the presence of the ex-policeman and his sidekick help deter them from bad behaviour?

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2011-12-04T13:10:00.001-05:00

U.S. Senate Backs Indefinite Detention of American Citizens

Posted by Join Or DIE on December 4, 2011

Via the World Socialist Web Site:

The US Senate voted Thursday night to approve a military funding bill that codifies into law the criminal state practices begun under Bush — and continued under Obama — in the name of the “global war on terror.”
It explicitly authorizes the military’s indefinite detention without trial of American citizens and mandates that all non-citizens charged as terrorists—including those arrested on US soil—be detained indefinitely by the military rather than brought to trial in a civilian court.
The legislation was part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides $662 billion to finance the US military machine and its multiple wars abroad. The act passed the Democratic-controlled body by an overwhelming margin of 93 to 7, underscoring once again that there exists no serious constituency for the defense of democratic rights within any section of the American ruling elite or its two big business parties.
Thrown out by…

2011-12-04T12:32:00.003-05:00

The Honest Alan Moore Interview – Part 2: The Occupy Movement, Frank Miller, and Politics

Here’s the second part of our interview with comic book legend Alan Moore, in which the creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta speaks about the Occupy protests, Frank Miller (and Miller’s trenchant anti-Occupy stance), and what needs to change in politics. You can read the first part of our interview here, and our thanks once again to Alan Moore for his time.

—————————————

With the Occupy movement, it seems you and Frank Miller have conflicting views. Would you say that he’s against it and you’re for it?

Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. Since I don’t have anything to do with the comics industry, I don’t have anything to do with the people in it. I heard about the latest outpourings regarding the Occupy movement. It’s about what I’d expect from him. It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

“[The Occupy movement] is a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it.”

As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. I can’t think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it; they’ve certainly not been punished in any way because they’re too big to fail. I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.

What do you think needs to change in our political system?

Everything. I believe that what’s needed is a radical solution, by which I mean from the roots upwards. Our entire political thinking seems to me to be based upon medieval precepts. These things, they didn’t work particularly well five or six hundred years ago. Their slightly modified forms are not adequate at all for the rapidly changing territory of the 21st Century.

We need to overhaul the way that we think about money, we need to overhaul the way that we think about who’s running the show. As an anarchist, I believe that power should be given to the people, to the people whose lives this is actually affecting. It’s no longer good enough to have a group of people who are controlling our destinies. The only reason they have the power is because they control the currency. They have no moral authority and, indeed, they show the opposite of moral authority.

In the sixth issue of Dodgem Logic, I remember doing an article and I was trying to think of possible ways in which our society might be altered for the better. I’m not saying that any of these ways would necessarily be practical but it’s important that we try to think these things through. It’s probably more important now than it ever has been. There is a sense that we don’t have an infinite amount of time to get these things right.

“I think that since our leaders are not going to address any of these problems then we really have no choice than to attempt to wrest the steering wheel from them.”

With politics at the moment seemingly determined to keep ploughing on their same destructive course because they can’t think of anything other to do, when we’re facing the possibility of an economic apocalypse, of potentially an environmental apocalypse, we don’t necessarily have an infinite amount of time. I think that since our leaders are not going to address any of these problems then we really have no choice than to attempt to wrest the steering wheel from them. If they’re aiming at the precipice with the accelerator pedal flat to the floor, then we don’t have any other choices left. Do it now, in this generation, because we don’t how many more there’s going to be.

The economic problem is a strange one…

Economics is always strange. You’re not talking about anything that’s actually real. Researching a chapter for Jerusalem, I read a couple of books on economics to see if I could get my head around the facts of the situation. I was astonished when I found out the value of derivative bonds, in 2008. These are bonds that have a value in themselves that were once connected to a real thing, there might have been a bond made for the sale of a herd of sheep, but that can be sold on and they gain in value. The notional value of the world’s derivative bonds was in the region of sixty trillion. Exactly ten times the economic output of the entire planet, which is around six trillion. That means that the gap between what economists and what the world’s economic forces and the banks thought they had to play with and what actually existed was fifty-four trillion. That would seem to me the depth of the hole we are in.

So something has to be done about that. I would suggest beheading the bankers, but while it would be very satisfying and would cheer us up, it probably wouldn’t do anything practical to alter the situation. Behead the currency. Change the currency, why not? It would disempower all the people who had bought into that currency but it would pretty much empower the rest of us, the other ninety-nine percent.

Monday: Alan Moore on Comics and How To Break into Comics

Tags: alan moore, alan moore interview, alan moore jerusalem, alan moore on frank miller, alan moore on occupy wall street, alan moore steve moore, economics, frank miller, from hell, occupy,Occupy Wall Street, v for vendetta, watchmen

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 10:47 am and is filed under Articles, Articles, Honest Publishing Blog, News, Writings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

29 Responses to “The Honest Alan Moore Interview – Part 2: The Occupy Movement, Frank Miller, and Politics”

Alan Moore Responds to Frank Miller's Occupy Wall Street Comments | GeekRestsays:
December 3, 2011 at 2:16 am
[...] be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of Honest Publishing’s interview with Alan [...]

2011-11-28T17:04:00.001-05:00

Russian Woman Stores Alien Corpse in Fridge for Two Years?

Posted by SpaceNeedle on November 26, 2011

Molly Fergus reports via Yahoo News:

Has a genuine alien corpse been discovered? One woman in Russia certainly thinks so. Marta Yegorovnam claims she salvaged an extraterrestrial body from the site of a UFO crash in 2009 and stored it in her fridge for two years before authorities took it away from her for examination, according to the Daily Mail.
The being is about 2 feet tall and looks suspiciously like stereotypical extraterrestrial beings: It’s skinny, sort of slimy looking, with a large, bobbly head, bulging eyes, and twiggy arms. The two men who confiscated the supposed body said they were from the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Of course, the odds are high that this could all be a hoax.
In April, an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old student set off an Internet frenzy by planting what looked like an otherworldly being’s remains in the snow in Irkutsk, Siberia, according…

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Posted in: Aliens, Bizarre, Russia, Society

2011-11-19T13:22:00.002-05:00

The Celtic Song gets new version from Pogues legend Shane MacGowan

Nov 19 2011 Exclusive by Mickey McMonagle

POGUES legend Shane MacGowan has recorded his own version of The Celtic Song.

The lifelong Hoops fan told the Record he was thrilled to be paying tribute to the club he loves.

Shane said: “I’ve had a long, long association with Glasgow and the city has been very good to me. I’ve always loved the vibe of the place.

“I’ve been a Celtic supporter all my life so I’m very proud and honoured to have had the chance to record a new version of The Celtic Song.

“For me it is the greatest ever Celtic song, that’s why I was so happy to be part of it.”

Scots pop guru John McLaughlin produced Shane’s take on the song, also known as It’s A Grand Old Team.

It will be ready to download at iTunes and other sites on Monday, and a limited edition CD will be available from all Celtic shops and the club website.

The release marks the 50th anniversary of the original hit version of the song, performed by Glen Daly.

John said: “Making this song was an incredible thing for me.

“It’s been amazing, and working with one of my heroes, Shane, was an experience I’ll never forget – a bit like going to the pub with him!”

2011-11-17T08:38:00.002-05:00

The world's first cocaine bar

Route 36 has turned La Paz, Bolivia into a hotspot for drug tourism, tempting backpackers from all over the world

Route 36 is an illegal pop-up cocaine lounge in Bolivia.

"Tonight we have two types of cocaine; normal for 100 Bolivianos a gram, and strong cocaine for 150 [Bolivianos] a gram." The waiter has just finished taking our drink order of two rum-and-Cokes here in La Paz,Bolivia, and as everybody in this bar knows, he is now offering the main course. The bottled water is on the house.

The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. And he has seen it all. "We had some Australians; they stayed here for four days. They would take turns sleeping and the only time they left was to go to the ATM," says Roberto, who has worked at Route 36 (in its various locations) for the last six months. Behind the bar, he goes back to casually slicing straws into neat 8cm lengths.

La Paz, Bolivia, at 3,900m above sea level – an altitude where even two flights of stairs makes your heart race like a hummingbird – is home to the most celebrated bar in all of South America: Route 36, the world's first cocaine lounge. I sit back to take in the scene – table after table of chatty young backpackers, many of whom are taking a gap year, awaiting a new job or simply escaping the northern hemisphere for the delights of South America, which, for many it seems, include cocaine.

"Since they are an after-hours club and serve cocaine the neighbours tend to complain pretty fast. So they move all the time. Maybe if they are lucky they last three months in the same place, but often it is just two weeks. Route 36 is a movable feast," says a Bolivian newspaper editor who asked not to be named. "One day it is in one zone and then it pops up in another area. Certainly it is the most famous among the backpacker crowd but there are several other places that are offering cocaine as well. Because Route 36 changes addresses so much there is a lot of confusion about how many cocaine bars are out there."

This new trend of 'cocaine tourism' can be put down to a combination of Bolivia's notoriously corrupt public officials, the chaotic "anything goes" attitude of La Paz, and the national example of President Evo Morales, himself a coca grower. (Coca is the leaf, and cocaine is the highly manufactured and refined powder.) Morales has diligently fought for the rights of coca growers and tossed the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) out of Bolivia. While he has said he will crack down on cocaine production, he appears to be swimming against the current. In early July, the largest ever cocaine factory was discovered in eastern Bolivia. Capable of producing 100kg a day, the lab was run by Colombians and provided the latest evidence that Bolivia is now home to sophisticated cocaine laboratories. The lab was the fourth large facility to be found in Bolivia this year.

Nowhere in South America is cocaine production growing faster than Bolivia. Reports by the UN show that in Colombia, production dropped 28% last year [2008], while in Bolivia it rose nearly 10%. "There is more interest and and investment in purifying coca paste here and exporting it, rather than sending it to Colombia for purification," Oscar Nina, Bolivia's top anti-drug official, said recently.

As the US and Colombian military put pressure on drug traffickers, operations are migrating into nearby countries, especially Bolivia, where the turf for illegal operations is as fertile as the valleys where the locals have grown coca for the last five centuries. Stopping cocaine tourism in La Paz could be as difficult as keeping Americans from drinking during prohibition.

Down in Route 36's main room, the scene is chilled. A half-hearted disco ball sporadically bathes the room in red and green light. Each table has candles and a stash of bottled water, plus whatever mixers one cares to add to your drink. In the corner, a pile of board games includes chess, backgammon, and Jenga, the game in which a steady hand pulls out bricks from a tower of blocks until the whole pile collapses. If it weren't for the heads bobbing down like birds scouring the seashore for food, you would never know that huge amounts of cocaine were being casually ingested. There's a lot of mingling from table to table. Everyone here has stories – the latest adventures from Ecuador, the best bus to Peru – and even the most wired "why-won't-he-shut-up?" traveller is given a generous welcome before being sent back to his table, where he can repeat those stories another 10 times.

"Everyone knows about this place," says Jonas, a backpacker who arrived two days earlier. "My mate came to Bolivia last year and he said, 'Route 36 is the best lounge in all of South America.'" It is certainly the most bizarre and brazen. Though cocaine is illegal in Bolivia, Route 36 is fast becoming an essential stop for thousands of tourists who come here every year and happily sample the country's cocaine, which is famous for both its availability, price (around €15 a gram) and purity.

The scene here is peaceful; there seems no fear that anyone will be caught. ("The owner has paid off all the right people," one waiter says with a smile.) A female backpacker from Newcastle slips on to one of the four couches arranged around the table. "We've brought some [cocaine] virgins here. This will be their first time, so we are just rubbing it on their lips. But they are lucky – you could never get such pure coke back home. In London you pay 50 quid for a gram that's been cut so much, all it does it make your lips numb and sends you to the bathroom."

Travellers' blogs also give the place a good writeup. "I travelled the world for nine months, and for sure La Paz was the craziest city and Route 36 the best bar of my entire trip," writes one, while another says, "Like to burn the candle at both ends? Well, here you can bloody well torch the whole candle."

And torch your brain as well. Cocaine, as everybody knows, is highly addictive, destructive and easy to abuse. The rationale for outlawing cocaine was to protect public health – but instead the now 40-year experiment in prohibition has done little to protect the lives of millions of users worldwide who will snort whatever white substance is placed before them. The billions in annual profits have corrupted governments worldwide, and La Paz, without intending it, seems to have mutated into the front line of this failed drug war.

2011-11-13T09:46:00.002-05:00

The Grafton Peace Pagoda

posted Aug 10, 2009 | map this

The Grafton Peace Pagoda

By Jessica Pasko

A peace pagoda sounds like something you'd have to trek to Nepal to find, right? Uh-uh. There's a gorgeous one right in Rensselaer County, in the quiet little town of Grafton.

The Grafton Peace Pagoda is a lovely spot that's home to a famed Buddhist nun .

Here's the scoop.

The Grafton Peace Pagoda is one of 80 peace pagodas worldwide, but only two in the U.S. (the other one is actually pretty nearby in Massachusetts).

There are two buildings on the Grafton site --- the peace pagoda itself and a temple that is the home of Jun Yasuda, a Buddhist nun. Prayer services are conducted twice each day, around sunrise and sunset, and those who partake must remove their shoes and sit on a small rug. I was once lucky enough to accidentally stumble upon a prayer service and it was unlike anything I've ever participated in. I was even given a small drum to play. I'm not the most spiritual person, but it really did leave me with a feeling of calm.

Jun Yasuda is a pretty interesting person. She belongs to the Nipponzan Myohoji order. Back in 1978, she walked from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. with Native Americans as part of the "longest walk," a coordinated peace movement. And since then, she's walked cross-country several time in the name of peace.

Yasuda, was born in Japan. She discovered Buddhism in her mid-20s, while traveling through India after a divorce. Eventually she met Nichidatsu Fujii, the founder of Nipponzan Myohoji, in Sri Lanka. That meeting led to her involvement with what was called "the Longest Walk," which was aimed at promoting and garnering rights for America's indigenous people.

In 1983, she was offered a parcel of land in Grafton, N.Y. and two years later, work got underway on a monument for peace. The Grafton Peace Pagoda was dedicated in 1993 and it's been attracting visitors from around the world ever since. Yasuda is still participating in demonstrations and walks for peace, including a commemoration of the 64th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombings held just last week. There's also an annual celebration of Ghandi's birthday held there each October and annual Sept. 11 walk.

Visitors are welcome to check out the pagoda, partake in the services or wander the peaceful gardens.

Photo: Sebastien Barre

Map

Satellite

Hybrid

Find It

The Grafton Peace Pagoda
87 Crandall Rd.
Petersburgh, NY 12138

518-658-9301

2011-11-08T11:23:00.001-05:00

When Pollution Grows Terrible, The Elite Breathe Purified Air

Posted by JacobSloan on November 7, 2011

It has recently been noted that in the Chinese capital of Beijing, the air quality has grown so bad as to be off the charts of measurability. But theNew York Times reports that the elite breathe special air thanks to purification systems — is this the global future, in which a breath of fresh air is a luxury item?

Ordinary Beijingers could take some comfort in the knowledge that the soupy air they breathe on especially polluted days also finds its way into the lungs of the privileged and pampered. Such assumptions, it seems, are not entirely accurate.
As it turns out, the homes and offices of many top leaders are filtered by high-end devices, at least according to a Chinese company, the Broad Group, which has been promoting its air-purifying machines in advertisements that highlight their ubiquity in places where many officials work and live.
The company’s vice president, Zhang Zhong, said there were more than 200 purifiers scattered throughout Great Hall of the People, the office of China’s president, Hu Jintao, and Zhongnanhai, the walled compound for senior leaders and their families. “Creating clean, healthy air for our national leaders is a blessing to the people,” boasts the company’s promotional material.
News that Chinese leaders are largely insulated from Beijing’s famously foul air comes at a time of unusually heavy pollution in the capital. In recent weeks, the capital has been continuously shrouded by a beige pall and readings from the United States Embassy’s rooftop air monitoring device have repeatedly registered unsafe levels of particulate matter.

2011-11-06T11:00:00.000-05:00

Fairytale over as Shane nixes Pogues tour

558 139 708

Former Pogues singer Shane MacGowan is in the running to land a Classic Brit Award

Also in Music

By RICHIE TAYLOR EXCLUSIVE

Sunday October 30 2011

AFTER recently pulling out of doing a long UK tour with Jools Holland and his big band, wildman Shane MacGowan has now cancelled a scheduled Pogues tour of Australia and Japan for early next year.

The group, who did a 10-date tour of America earlier this year, fought endlessly during the dates in the US, and MacGowan has now declared that he doesn't want to work with any of them again. A music insider said: "Basically, Shane still resents the fact that they threw him out of the band all those years ago. He's never gotten over it. With the exception of Jem Finer, who co-wrote Fairytale of New York with him, he doesn't like any of them anymore."

Shane was ejected during a tour of Japan in the Nineties, and replaced by Joe Strummer of The Clash, and later by Spider Stacey. The source added: "The Pogues have been reforming annually for the past decade, usually for Christmas dates. But that's all over now. He says he's finished with them for good. He doesn't even care about the money." He now has his own band called The Shane Gang, which features Jack Dublin (ex-In Tua Nua and Rocky DeValera and The Gravediggers) and Paul Byrne (ex-In Tua Nua).

He is planning to record an album of new songs with them, and his superstar pal Johnny Depp also wants to contribute to it. Depp has long been a fan of Shane and his songs, and last year played guitar on a charity version of I Put A Spell On You that Shane recorded for Haiti.

Hard-drinking MacGowan recently recovered from a bad bout of the flu, but, according to the source, the singer wasn't really interested in touring with Holland and his band.

"He would have only been doing a few songs per show, but would have pocketed a couple of thousand a night for his work, but he still felt it wasn't worth it. Shane still earns an awful lot of money from his song publishing, especially from Fairytale of New York."

Meanwhile, a new film starring Kiefer Sutherland and Kate Bosworth is to be loosely based on the story of Fairytale of New York.

So similar is the pitch for the film to MacGowan's big Christmas hit that movie insiders are already referring to it as Fairytale of New York.

But one of the producers has insisted that it is not directly based on the hit single, as they are now concerned about potential disputes over money and licensing rights.

Lisa Katselas said: "The feel and emotion of the song, along with the fact that it's a love story that takes place over Christmas and the lead character is Irish, makes it a natural fit. But we don't want to upset the writers -- Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer. We hope it will be a film they would be proud of and want to be associated with. We are now in the process of licensing the song."

But Shane's manager, Joey Cashman, stated: "If they had just taken the title of the song, we would have had no objection with it. If they use the music in the movie, Shane will make more money out of it."

- RICHIE TAYLOR EXCLUSIVE