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Curious Times No. 202
July 24, 2003FOUR MORE YEARS? SHOOT ME NOW
Put down this newspaper and go directly to InfernalPress.com, to read a frightening article titled "How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election." According to this article, the 2004 U.S. elections will be the first ever to use electronic voting machines on a national level. Unfortunately, voting machines are notoriously unreliable, allowing no verification whatsoever of which person actually voted for which candidate. And the problems run far deeper than simple unreliability. Thanks to the excellent work of investigative reporter Greg Palast, it was found that Florida engaged in what he calls "ethnic cleansing of voter lists" by removing thousands of "felons" from eligible voter lists before the 2000 elections in order to provide "clean" voter lists to the companies programming the voting machines. Unfortunately, the only crime these "felons" were guilty of was being black or voting Democrat. 'Even more disturbing, the main companies who build and maintain these machines all have strong ties to the Republican party and other far-right organizations. Read the full article for all the freaky implications at http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html.IT'S OFFICIAL: OLD MARRIED PEOPLE ARE BORING
If you're a married man over 30 you'll find this story supremely depressing. A psychologist in New Zealand has finished studying the lives of 280 great scientists and found that over two-thirds of them made their greatest contributions to science before the age of 30. Even more surprisingly, he discovered that regardless of age, the great scientists who married saw an immediate and substantial decline in their creativity. "Scientists rather quickly desist (from their careers) after their marriage, while unmarried scientists continue to make great scientific contributions later in their lives," said Dr Satoshi Kanazawa. His research found similar effects on the creative output of married musicians, painters and writers. Most interestingly, the mind-numbing effects of marriage also hinders criminals, who tend to stop committing crimes after tying the knot, whereas criminals of a similar age who remain single continue in their lives of crime. The doctor theorizes that there is a "single psychological mechanism" which is responsible for both the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and to gain the attention of women. (ABC News)GOOD NEWS FOR SELF-LOVING PERVS
And while you're young and brilliant, you might want to consider masturbating as often as possible. A new study from researchers in Australia found that men who masturbated most often between the ages of 20 and 50 where less likely to develop prostate cancer. The protective effect of excessive masturbation seems to have the greatest effect when men are in their twenties, as the researchers found that men who had ejaculated more than five times per week in their twenties were one-third less likely to develop the cancer later in life. Although they have discovered no reason why these results were found, they speculate that ejaculation prevents carcinogens from building up in the prostate gland. (New Scientist)"FEED ME OR I'LL CRAP ON YOUR BED"
Japanese gadget manufacturer Takara is planning the release of a device which will translate cat sounds into human words. Last year, Takara released it's dog translation device, and managed to sell over 300,000 of the "Bowlingual." Due to popular demand from cat lovers, the new device - dubbed the "Meowlingual" - will be released in November, and promises to translate meows and purrs into Japanese phrases. The Meowlingual will also include other strange features, such as a horoscope reading for your cat, for the times when your pet has nothing to say. (Associated Press)MARK OF THE BEAST UPDATE
If you're a regular reader of Curious Times, you'll know that I've been tracking the progress of a company called Applied Digital Solutions, makers of the VeriChip, a grain of rice-sized computer chip which is being implanted into people for the supposedly benign reasons of health and security. After successfully testing their chip in cats and dogs, they have spent the last year driving through the American southeast in the "Chipmobile," implanting thousands of seniors citizens. Now, the company has crossed the border into Mexico, and are targeting people with safety concerns surrounding kidnappings, robberies and fraud. The company hopes to implant over 10,000 Mexicans in its first year of operations, and has plans for the next generation of chips which will include technology which will be able to track your location with satellites. (www.adsx.com)
(www.azcentral.com)LE DUMB AND LE DUMBERER
Just when you thought the French couldn't possibly get any more irritating, comes a memo from the French Culture Ministry which has banned the use of the term "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications and web sites, to be replaced by the the French word "courriel" a hybrid of the words "courrier electronique." Thankfully, industry experts say that the new phrase will be largely ignored. "Protecting the language is normal, but e-mail's so assimilated now that no one thinks of it as American," said the president of a French ISP. "Courriel would just be a new word to launch." (Yahoo News)ALL THOSE ANNOYING TOURISTS WILL BE THE FIRST TO GO
Native Hawaiians took their first small step towards claiming their homeland as an independent and sovereign nation last week by declaring a proclamation of independence from the United States. The ultimate goal of the declaration includes the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which was overthrown 101 years ago, as well as "all the land, natural wealth, resources, minerals and waters" of the entire Hawaiian archipelago. The proclamation also called for the immediate withdrawal of all American military bases from their land. (hawaii-nation.org)
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