Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainWayne Madsen is an "investigative journalist", who breathlessly reveals the latest US government plot based on the flimsiest evidence on his website - and then gets very annoyed when most people don't take his predictions seriously. That he turns out to be wrong all the time doesn't seem to faze him, or a small band of devoted followers.
Now he's come up with something so stupid that you'd think it's satire. He claims the name of the element used to poison Alexander Litvinenko is a clue to who really did it. However, there's an undercurrent mixed in with the idiocy which shows (a) it's probably not satire; (b) Madsen is a nasty turd.read more »
Of course, he doesn't say directly it was an internet legend - he just accepted it. He might be lying about the whole thing, but that then brings up questions like: "Does he think we're dumb enough to accept the story too?" or "How insulted will the police and security services be by a claim that they never thought of an attack, but a fifth-hand rumour easily found on the internet alerted them?"
Anyway, on to the story: David Blunkett, who was British Home Secretary in 2001, in charge of the police, MI5, immigration and more, has brought out a book of his diary entries from when he was in office (he got sacked for misbehaving. Twice. Too long a story to go into now). From the serialisation on BBC Radio 4 this morning:read more »
What makes someone take a disliking to an everyday bit of science? I posted a story on Democratic Underground about surgery in zero gravity conditions, and got a reply from someone who said they 'don't believe in gravity'. With a bit of prodding, it turned out this came from a book, which says that the paths objects follow are due to everything expanding all the time, and not really connected to the masses of objects at all. I tried to get a conversation with them going about mass, and the orbits of planets, Einstein's theory of space curved by mass, and so on, but they just really boiled it down to this:read more »
Aarr, shipmates, if I may make so bold as to board yer clean-lined galleon, and mull over a few thoughts from this addled brain o' mine. If it were a navy ship, I'd be salutin' the poop deck, and doffin' me cap, but I'm sure you're all a bunch of easy-livin' rogues who don't hold with such stiffness.
I've seen and admired this stately vessel of yours a few times on the high sea, and I've served on other boats with one or two of you, but I never got round to signin' my name in blood to make a pact with this crew o' outlaws. Makin' lists ain't somethin' a true pirate does anyway.read more »
