Your move, NSA

How the Universe was made:

 

When on the Internet:

 

Objective science right here

Hat tip to Relaxed Focus for a lot of these!

RAW - Religion for the Hell of it & the Disinfo talk

This is the talk from Disinfo Con 2000, watch it while it's still up. All the Disinfo Con talks keep getting removed from Youtube, I really wish they'd stop doing that.

More RAW goodies tomorrow, don't wanna overload you all at once! BTW if anyone knows a site that actually succeeds at downloading a youtube video please share. I tried eight that didn't work so far... update: Thanks to David for letting me know about the Firefox extension downloadhelper for anyone who wants to save vids too.

Blink

Blink while watching this

A few of these via Astral Double

via RAW Fans, #2323 - much of his stuff was sold on eBay to pay for his medical bill, even this card...

 hax0rz :p

Matt Taibbi & Sam Seder on Alex Pareene Popping CNBC's Bubble

Matt Taibbi gives his play by play commentary of CNBC's demented interview with Alex Pareene and why anybody could do Jamie Dimon's job...

Via The Secret Soapbox

F*ck Yeah! It's more from Grant Morrison!

 
I knew I didn't remember the cartoon to be as mindblowing as the comic's writing!

 Seriously

 What happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?

 They surrender.

 Jimmy is a reality tunnel explorer in All-Star Superman

Bruce Wayne has a point here. (from Batman 656)

Aaron Alexis and the Dark Side of Meditation (LET'S IGNORE HE WAS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS) by Maia Szalavitz, sensationalist excuse for a journalist

Aaron Alexis and the Dark Side of Meditation

It's not a horrible article but it is a really stupid fucking retarded title, which should be obvious enough but will be illustrated by this post. Excerpt of the article:

How does someone who engages in meditation, which is supposed to focus the mind, and is often associated with efforts to diffuse violence, rather than instigate it, perform the acts that Alexis is accused of executing? Alexis had a record of violent crime and, his father told the Wall Street Journal that his son had anger issues related to post-traumatic stress from participating in rescue efforts during the 9/11 attacks. A former boss, who met Alexis at a Buddhist temple in the Fort Worth, Tex. area, said Alexis was also a heavy drinker who came to chanting and meditation sessions regularly.

At worst, most people see meditation as flaky, boring, self-involved or harmless.  But as research starts to document how it can help to fight stress, high blood pressure, addictions and many other mental and physical disorders, it’s also becoming clear that meditating isn’t always so benign — particularly if it’s used against a background of existing mental illness.

As TIME reported recently:

People with depression or past experiences of trauma, for example, may find themselves feeling increasingly anxious during  meditation, no matter how much they try to focus on the moment. Or they may be plagued by intrusive thoughts, feelings and images of the past during their mindfulness exercises.
That’s why [University of Washington researcher Sarah] Bowen suggests that people with depression or trauma issues who want to benefit from meditation should try it with expert guidance.  “If you get stuck in ruts like rumination, there are ways to work with that,” she says, “It’s important to have teachers who are very familiar with meditation to guide you as you are learning.”  Experts can let people know what to expect and offer emotional support to help them through rough patches.

Good points from  reddit comments:

"Honestly, this journalist is using this as a chance to get more page clicks on a story she wrote earlier in August. I work with some people who have done clinical work and clinical trials of mindfulness to treat mental illness, and what this journalist is saying is generally accurate.
From my understanding, some people can get really stuck in their own ruminative or distorted thoughts, and it takes really expert teachers to help them through that. If they have really serious mental illness/trauma or addiction, it could be a really bad idea to try meditation without guidance of an experienced teacher.
But what's irresponsible (beyond this article being mostly click-bait) is that the journalist is merely speculating more about "we don't know what this guy's practice was" or what his mental condition was or really anything else.
So, in fact, he could have been part of an MBSR group with an expert teacher, or been trying to do TM so he could levitate. Who knows. And that speculation is really inflammatory."

and

"It doesn't shock me to find He meditated. People who suffer are attracted to Buddhism (and meditation, and any spiritual path for that matter). Its never a surprise to me to find out someone with spiritual practices has suffered greatly.. In fact, its the opposite, I'm surprised to find people with a practice who haven't suffered. I feel bad for him that he wasn't able to get from his practice what he needed."

and

"Check out the title of the article man, i dont care if they specify some things deeper in the article. They dont even mention the use of antidepressive drugs he was taking."

and 

"Mentally ill people are more likely to be on psychiatric drugs --> Mentally ill people are more likely to commit mass murder --> Mass murderers are more likely to be on psychiatric drugs."

Ok, but I haven't heard of much mass shootings were the killer was mentally ill but was NOT on antidepressive drugs. How come whenever something like this happens the killer is on antidepressants, how come this is either being kept silent or mentioned as a side note in the media (Money), how come this journalist has the nerve to use meditation in the title instead of antidepressants or mental illness (Sensationalism). Journalism is dead, sensationalism and the pharmaceutical companies are alive and well.

In its image

Slow your roll there tumblr

Ok we're scrapping the treehouse idea

Boom!

Where can I witness this beauty?!

Christian hospitality

Hollywood: "if you're a geek, you have to be a loser at the same time"

They are playing a wider market, not just the geek market. So you can't let the people without an imagination think they're inferior to these geeks!

"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence."
Bill Hicks

Nascar Politicians

Russell Brand and the GQ awards: 'It's amazing how absurd it seems'

The comedian on his evening at the GQ awards, from which he was ejected after cracking a joke about sponsor Hugo Boss. Here, he gives his side of the story.

I really wasn't too fond of Russell Brand much at the start, mostly from his movie personas. But the more I see/read/hear him talk in videos, interviews and now articles the more he grows on me. Always a great sign. I regard him as a fascinating discordian energy in the otherwise ridiculously boring and bleak showbizz world. I saw him on Alan Carr's show recently and this article again, is awesome. Hail Eris!

A little excerpt for those who are thinking "wtf are you even posting man":

Noel's award is for being an "icon" and mine for being an "oracle". My knowledge of the classics is limited, but includes awareness that an oracle is a spiritual medium through whom prophecies from the gods were sought in ancient Greece. Thankfully, I have a sense of humour that prevents me from taking accolades of that nature on face value, or I'd've been in the tricky position of receiving the GQ award for being "best portal to a mystical dimension", which is a lot of pressure. Me, Matt and Noel conclude it's probably best to treat the whole event as a bit of a laugh and, as if to confirm this as the correct attitude, Boris Johnson – a man perpetually in pajamas regardless of what he's wearing – bounds to the stage to accept the award for "best politician". Yes, we agree: this is definitely a joke.
Boris, it seems, is taking it in this spirit, joshing beneath his ever-redeeming barnet that Labour's opposition to military action in Syria is a fey stance that he, as GQ politician of the year, would never be guilty of.
Matt is momentarily focused. "He's making light of gassed Syrian children," he says. We watch, slightly aghast, then return to goading Noel.
Before long, John Bishop is on stage giving me a lovely introduction, so I get up as Noel hurls down a few gauntlets, daring me to "do my worst".
I thanked John, said the "oracle award" sounds like a made-up prize you'd give a fat kid on sports day – I should know, I used to get them – then that it's barmy that Hugo Boss can trade under the same name they flogged uniforms to the Nazis under and the ludicrous necessity for an event such as this one to banish such a lurid piece of information from our collective consciousness.
I could see the room dividing as I spoke. I could hear the laughter of some and louder still silence of others. I realised that for some people this was regarded as an event with import. The magazine, the sponsors and some of those in attendance saw it as a kind of ceremony that warranted respect. In effect, it is a corporate ritual, an alliance between a media organisation, GQ, and a commercial entity, Hugo Boss. What dawned on me as the night went on is that even in apparently frivolous conditions the establishment asserts control, and won't tolerate having that assertion challenged, even flippantly, by that most beautifully adept tool: comedy.

and

Noel once expressed his disgust at seeing a politician at Glastonbury. "What are you doing here? This ain't for you," he'd said. He explained to me: "You used to know where you were with politicians in the 70s and 80s cos they all looked like nutters: Thatcher, Heseltine, Cyril Smith. Now they look normal, they're more dangerous." Then, with dreadful foreboding: "They move among us." I agree with Noel. What are politicians doing at Glastonbury and the GQ awards? I feel guilty going, and I'm a comedian. Why are public officials, paid by us, turning up at events for fashion magazines? Well, the reason I was there was because I have a tour on and I was advised it would be good publicity. What are the politicians selling? How are they managing our perception of them with their attendance of these sequin-encrusted corporate balls?
We witness that there is a relationship between government, media and industry that is evident even at this most spurious and superficial level. These three institutions support one another. We know that however cool a media outlet may purport to be, their primary loyalty is to their corporate backers. We know also that you cannot criticise the corporate backers openly without censorship and subsequent manipulation of this information.
Now I'm aware that this was really no big deal; I'm not saying I'm an estuary Che Guevara. It was a daft joke by a daft comic at a daft event. It makes me wonder, though, how the relationships and power dynamics I witnessed on this relatively inconsequential context are replicated on a more significant scale.
For example, if you can't criticise Hugo Boss at the GQ awards because they own the event, do you think it is significant that energy companies donate to the Tory party? Will that affect government policy? Will the relationships that "politician of the year" Boris Johnson has with City bankers – he took many more meetings with them than public servants in his first term as mayor – influence the way he runs our capital?
Is it any wonder that Amazon, Vodafone and Starbucks avoid paying tax when they enjoy such cosy relationships with members of our government?
Ought we be concerned that our rights to protest are being continually eroded under the guise of enhancing our safety? Is there a relationship between proposed fracking in the UK, new laws that prohibit protest and the relationships between energy companies and our government?
I don't know. I do have some good principles picked up that night that are generally applicable: the glamour and the glitz isn't real, the party isn't real, you have a much better time mucking around trying to make your mates laugh. I suppose that's obvious. We all know it, we already know all the important stuff, like: don't trust politicians, don't trust big business and don't trust the media. Trust your own heart and each another. When you take a breath and look away from the spectacle it's amazing how absurd it seems when you look back.

He-he

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living." Buckminster Fuller

*Buckminster lol

Why do we have wars?

Protests around the World

 
Turkey - Protests because they don't want a mall instead of a park and against the police brutality

How Turkish Protestors deal with Tear Gas



Turkey Police Brutality

Tayyip Erdogan, Monster of a Turkish Prime Minister, hopefully not for long anymore

Turkey Protests imgur album

Turkish police drag protester through Istanbul streets, while residents in the flats above throw objects at security forces

Corrosive chemicals in Turkish Police water cannons - causes blisters

Police brutality caused a pregnant victim to miscarry on Saturday night; six rounds of teargas was fired into an impromptu medical clinic housed in a tent in Istanbul. PM Erdogan threatens news reporters: "Turkey is not a country that international media can play games on."

Turkey: Police use tear gas inside hospital, with army possible next step

They are now threatening to deploy the army.

Brasil protests against higher public transportation prices and that so much money is going to World Cup infrastructure when so many people are suffering

http://manifestabrasilia.tumblr.com/

Syrian Civil War - still ongoing due to a lax international community and Russia's ridiculous stance, Syria is now completely cut off from the Internet.

http://ir-ingr.livejournal.com/1185799.html

In Syria things are getting way out of hand, Belgian immigrant youths are going to the country to fight, they have been overheard in a video speaking dutch saying it doesn't matter wether they use kalashnikovs or knives and targetting specific ethnic and religious groups of the population.

Both sides of the conflict have committed unspeakable atrocities.

Meanwhile in Belfast, empty shop windows are being camouflaged with huge Stickers showing merchandise so it seems they are open while the G8 meeting is in town.

Check this video, it's in dutch but the interviews are in English

JPMorgan calls for authoritarian regimes in Europe: The authors of the JPMorgan report are arguing for governments to adopt dictatorial-type powers to complete the process of social counterrevolution that is already well underway across Europe

Didn't you corrupt and inept motherfuckers get a bailout from the people's money?

NSA Scandal in the US

unbelievably no protests on the streets in the US, although lots of people are voicing their disapproval on the internet...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden live Q&A 11am ET/4pm BST

3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so

And meanwhile in Iraq...

A series of bombings and one shooting killed 51 and left dozens wounded across Iraq, the latest in a wave of violence that has brought death tolls to a similar level as in 2008.

What a world, how many centuries to go before governments are not run by insane powermongers?