the/diseased/republik

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- Bomb disposal experts are at a foreclosed home in Riverside on Wednesday that was apparently booby-trapped. Several suspicious devices were also located on the property.

The recent spree of pranks in which electronic road signs are hacked to warn motorists about Nazi zombies and raptors has spread. Officials aren't amused.-- Metro.co.uk -- One of the road signs in question The latest breach came on Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Illinois, where hackers changed a sign along southbound Interstate 255 to read, "DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES." A day earlier in Indiana's Hamilton County, the electronic message on a board in Carmel's construction zone warned drivers of "RAPTORS AHEAD - CAUTION."  And signs in Austin, Texas, recently flashed: "NAZI ZOMBIES! RUN!!!" and "ZOMBIES IN AREA! RUN." Officials in Illinois are concerned the rewritten signs distract motorists from heeding legitimate hazards down the road. The hacked sign on Tuesday originally warned drivers of crews replacing guardrails. 'We understood it was a hoax, but at the same time those boards are there f...

Gun battles between suspected drug gang members and troops have left 21 dead in northern Mexico, police say. Heavily armed soldiers near the Texan border were seen to remove bodies. The violence started when gunmen drove into Villa Ahumada, a farming town in Chihuahua state. They dragged several people - including police officers - out of their homes and killed at least six. Troops then arrived as the scene and 15 people, including one soldier, died in shootouts. Drug-related violence kills thousands every year in Mexico. In a separate incident on Monday, armed men forced their way into a prison in the northern city of Torreon, and killed three inmates. The dead men were being held for kidnapping and murder, and were transferred to the prison less than two hours before the incident. The gunmen also released nine other inmates from the prison before they escaped. Some 40,000 soldiers and police have been deployed since December 2006 against Mexico's drug cartels. -- VIDEO-BBC ...

"Over at Linux Magazine Online, Jon maddog Hall writes that on Friday the 13th, 2009 at 11:31:30pm UTC UNIX time will reach 1,234,567,890 . This will be Friday, February 13th at 1831 and 30 seconds EST. Matias Palomec has a perl script you an use to see what time that will be for you: perl -e 'print scalar localtime(1234567890),"\n";' Now, while this is not the UNIX epoch, Alan Cox does assure us that Linux is now working on 64-bit time, and the UNIX epoch 'roll-over' would happen about the time that the sun burnt out."

"NASA astrophysicists have discovered what they claim is something outside the observable universe exerting an effect on the observable. The material is pulling clusters of galaxies towards a region of space known not to contain sufficient matter to create the effect. They can only speculate on what the material is and how space might differ there: 'In these regions, space-time might be very different, and likely doesn't contain stars and galaxies (which only formed because of the particular density pattern of mass in our bubble). It could include giant, massive structures much larger than anything in our own observable universe. These structures are what researchers suspect are tugging on the galaxy clusters, causing the dark flow.'"

Goats Had Agricultural Tags, But Unknown Where They Came From First it was coyotes . Then there was a cougar . Now it's goats. Two goats were found wandering near Montrose Harbor Sunday night, police said. The goats, which both had agricultural tags on them, were found wandering near Lake Shore Drive at Montrose Harbor, according to a Town Hall District police lieutenant. Responding Town Hall District police officers placed the goats into the care of Animal Care & Control and it was not immediately known where the goats came, though the lieutenant said it was possible they had come from the Lincoln Park Zoo or from a farm.

Alien Robs Convenience Stores With Klingon "Batleth" @10:06AM from the build-a-more-awesome-criminal dept. "Colorado Springs police are looking for a man who hit two 7-Eleven convenience stores , armed with a Klingon 'Batleth' sword inspired by the Star Trek science fiction series. They did appear more human in the original series." pics for mental image only.

A US man divorcing his wife is demanding that she return the kidney he donated to her or pay him $1.5m (£1m) in compensation. Dr Richard Batista told reporters that he decided to go public because he was frustrated at the slow pace of divorce negotiations with his estranged wife. He said he had not only given his heart to his wife, Dawnell, but donated his kidney to save her life. But divorce lawyers say a donated organ is not a marital asset to be divided.

SEOUL ( Reuters ) - A South Korean man won his appeal against a one-year jail term for assisting in a suicide by throwing a lighter to his gasoline-soaked rival in love. The Seoul appeal court reversed a lower court ruling, saying that the 30-year-old man had not believed the ex-lover of his girlfriend would actually set light to himself. The calling of ones' bluff should not be a crime. This is a great way to cull the herd.

Set in the year 2022, Soylent Green depicts a dystopia , a Malthusian catastrophe that occurs because humanity has failed to pursue sustainable development and has not halted uncontrolled population growth ; New York City 's population is 40,000,000, with more than half of it unemployed. Global warming , air and water pollution have produced a year-round heatwave and a thin, yellow, daytime smog . Food and fuel are scarce resources, because of animal and plant decimation, housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and widespread government-sponsored euthanasia is encouraged to control and reduce overpopulation. Meat, bread, cheese, fruit, vegetables, and even alcoholic beverages are scarce and extremely expensive; for example, a six- ounce jar of strawberry jam is 150 "Ds" ( US Dollars ). Like the soylent food factories, the farms producing foodstuffs are heavily guarded and off-limits to civilians. For most of the populace, natural foods are a rarely, if ever, enjoy...

An image of what could be one of China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarines is available on the Google Maps and Google Earth satellite-image site, a defense blogger claimed Tuesday. The satellite picture was discovered by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, and announced Tuesday on his blog. Kristensen believes the picture, taken by the Quickbird satellite late last year, reveals China's new Jin-class, or Type 094, nuclear ballistic missile sub. The new sub class is approximately 35 feet longer than its predecessor, the Xia-class, also known as Type 092, according to two images Kristensen compares on the blog. The Jin-class sub has an extended midsection that houses 12 missile tubes and part of the reactor compartment, Kristensen explains. -- source: Slashdot --

chinmay7 writes "There is an excellent selection of articles (and quite a few related scientific papers) in [1]a special edition of Nature magazine on interpretations of the multiverse theory. 'Fifty years ago this month Hugh Everett III published his paper proposing a "relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics" — the idea subsequently described as the 'many worlds' or 'multiverse' interpretation. Its impact on science and culture continues. In celebration, a science fiction special edition of Nature on 5 July 2007 explores the symbiosis of science and sf, as exemplified by Everett's hypothesis, its birth, evolution, champions and opponents, in biology, physics, literature and beyond.' Discuss this story at: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/07/06/2323214 Links: 0. http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~chinmay.soman/ 1. http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/arts/sciencefiction/index.html

"A unique creature that's been dubbed an ' octosquid ' with eight arms and a squid-like mantle, was discovered off Hawaii. The creature, of a previously unknown species, was trapped in the net covering a 3,000 foot-deep intake tube for the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority. From the article: 'The octosquid was pulled to the surface, along with three rattail fish and half a dozen satellite jellyfish, and stayed alive for three days. According to War, the lab usually checks its filters once a month, but this time, it put a plankton net in one of the filters and checked it two weeks later. The pitch-black conditions at 3,000 feet below sea level are unfamiliar to most but riveting to scientists who have had the opportunity to submerge. The sea floor is full of loose sediment, big boulders and rocks, and a lot of mucuslike things floating in the water, which are usually specimens that died at the surface and drifted to the bottom.'"

according to a recent study, Biologists have found that plants are able to recognize their own relatives. "Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they're accommodating when potted with their siblings. [...] Though they lack cognition and memory, the study shows plants are capable of complex social behaviours such as altruism towards relatives, says Dudley. Like humans, the most interesting behaviours occur beneath the surface."

via Technology News -- Taking into consideration a decision reached last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have issued new guidelines for the protection of wetlands and bodies of water under the Clean Water Act. Critics charge that the new rules impede the organizations' ability to look at the big picture when considering how to protect wetlands. "We're really disappointed with the new guidelines," Julie Sibbing, senior program manager for wetlands and agriculture policy for the National Wildlife Federation, told TechNewsWorld. "The court decision itself left some opening for interpretation, but it seems like the [Bush] administration took every opportunity to retreat from protection in any possible way they could, and we think they retreated unacceptably, even according to what the Rapanos decision said." Furthermore, the new guidance leads to new procedures where individual streams or ponds would be isolated in the de...

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - -- Two years ago, a quadriplegic man started playing video games using his brain as a controller. That may just sound like fun and games for the unfortunate, but really, it spells the beginning of a radical change in how we interact with computers - and business will never be the same. Someday, keyboards and computer mice will be remembered only as medieval-style torture devices for the wrists. All work - emails, spreadsheets, and Google searches - will be performed by mind control. Decoding the brain Nagle was able to accomplish all this because the brain has been greatly demystified in laboratories over the last decade or so. Researchers unlocked the brain patterns for thoughts that represent letters of the alphabet as early as 1999. Now, Cyberkinetics and a host of other companies are working on turning those discoveries into real products. Neurodevices - medical devices that compensate for damage to the brain, nerves, and spinal column - are ...

Brain uses both neural 'teacher' and 'tinkerer' networks in learning. While most people need peace and quiet to cram for a test, the brain itself may need noise to learn, a recent MIT study suggests. In experiments with monkeys, the researchers found that neural activities in the brain gradually change, even when nothing new is being learned. "In the same way, learning in the brain has two components--error-correction and noise--so that even though the neural representation keeps changing, the behavior remains fixed. We think the tinkerer, that is the noise, is not merely a nuisance to the teacher but is actually helping the teacher explore new possibilities it wouldn't have considered otherwise."

“I am proud to announce that I am a homosexual,” said John Carolina, the Grand Wizard. “And I want everybody to know that this development will not interfere with my goal towards the construction of a white nation.” Mr. Carolina was seen at the meeting with his significant other, William Maddox. Though Maddox is not a member of the KKK, he voiced his support, saying “I am behind John in everything he does. I’m just glad that he found the courage to live freely and without fear. He can finally be himself.” Johnathon Carolina has been an active member of the KKK since he was 14 years old. And though he admits to having protested homosexuality in the past, it wasn’t until 16 that he realized he was gay. At first, John says, he vigorously denied it and tried to suppress his homosexual feelings, but when he met another Klansman that was gay, he became more open to his sexuality. John went through roughly 6 homosexual relationships with various klansmen before he found William Maddox, who e...

A few years ago, I heard someone call into a right-wing radio show to rail against the feminists, the homosexuals, the atheists, and other usual suspects. The host enthusiastically agreed. The caller then voiced the hope that the host would join him in supporting the establishment of Islamic law in America, a twist that left the host sputtering incoherently. 'These days, the idea of conservative Christians aligning themselves with radical Muslims is not a prank caller's gag but the subject of heated debate on the right. Dinesh D'Souza sparked the argument with his controversial book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 (Random House).' (Reason article ).

WASHINGTON, DC—In the latest in a long series of ominous public pronouncements, the Department of Evil released a statement Monday demanding that all residents of the United States must die. "There shall soon come an accounting in which all will fall before the Grim Reaper as wheat in winter, as lambs under the knife..." said a spokesman... read more | digg story