Is it still cheating if everyone is doing it? This Friday “Bigger Stronger Faster” hits selected theaters, covering the dirt behind the steroid controversy here in America. From the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, this one should be interesting.

Official website and trailer

It’s all fun and amusement until they’re walking us around on leashes.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican’s chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday. The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.”How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said. “Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ’sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”

(full story via AP)

Meanwhile, England’s Ministry of Defence just released their notorious “X-Files” — documents detailing claims of UFO sightings around the UK — after decade of secrecy. Most of it reads pretty thin, but coming right after the Vatican’s announcement, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that we’re being prepped for a pretty BIG reveal here….

If we learned anything from The Wire, it’s that the Drug War is totally insane. Which we already sort of knew.

But then we hear stories like this, and we realize that the rest of the country still hasn’t figured it out.

The United States is home to less than five percent of the world’s population – but almost a quarter of the world’s prison population. We have more prisoners than anyplace else in the world, both in terms of percentage and sheer numbers.

We’re talking about 2.3 million Americans behind US bars; China, with four times our population, is a distant second, with 1.6 million prisoners.

Worse, in the 1980s we had about 40,000 people in jail for drug crimes; today, it’s over half a million.

The NY Times‘ national legal correspondant, Adam Liptak, spoke with NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday. Author of the Times’ recent series of legal criticism, “The American Exception,” Liptak tries to make sense of the ridiculously unbalanced political system we’ve got going on – and figure out why we’ve got more people in prison than any other country in the world.

Surprise, surprise — the problem’s our law enforcement, legal and judicial systems… not our people.

(more…)

Following the Organic Consumers Association’s revelations that so-called “organic” or “natural” product brands were actually made with toxic chemicals such as 1,4-dioxane, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps has sued numerous companies in the industry that it accuses of using misleading labeling to deceive consumers. The lawsuit is meant to encourage the named companies (see list below) to either reformulate their products to eliminate the petrochemical materials, or to change their labeling and stop using the words “organic” or “natural” on their products.Companies sued by Dr. Bronner’s include Estee Lauder, Ecocert, OASIS, Stella McCartney’s CARE, Jasön, Avalon Organics, Nature’s Gate, Kiss My Face, Ikove and others. Each of the companies being sued, says Dr. Bronner’s, are using potentially dangerous chemicals that certainly don’t qualify as natural or organic. The product categories include shampoo, body wash, liquid soap, skin cleansers and other personal care products.

(via Natural News)

Despite spending billions of pounds on security cameras to make London the most heavily-monitored city in the world (1 camera for every 14 people), officials from Scotland Yard reported today that their massive new CCTV network has failed to make a noticeable change in crime rates.

Hard to believe, right? Seemed like such a good idea at the time! George Orwell would be shocked.

The news left both London officials and citizens in shock, less than a year after heated debates raged across the LDN over right-to-privacy implications of the city’s CCTV initiative. With only 3% of street crimes actually solved using the police’s closed circuit network, the public’s been left to wonder what purpose the cameras really do serve.

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Hey guys, if this is you, it’s funny and all, but some of us would like to avoid a draft over here…

Somebody in the sky’s on a sightseeing tour across the country.

Mysterious lights have been documented in the night sky over both Florida and Arizona this week.

Callers from all over Phoenix phoned radio and TV stations to report huge red objects, hanging in the sky “like four red tower lights” …  Most people dismissed the lights, assuming they’re flares from Luke Air Force Base or Sky Harbor International Airport nearby; but air traffic controllers and military spokesmen all claim there were no planes travelling in the area at the time. 

In other extraterrestrial news, Stephen Hawking told an audience today at George Washington University that alien life almost certainly exists in space … but chances are slimmer that it’s intelligent. “Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare,” he explained. “Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.” All except you, buddy. 

Check more of the pics from Arizona here.

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
 - Benjamin Franklin

Louisiana attorney Tom Cryer doesn’t pay his income tax.  He hasn’t paid it for years. He doesn’t think you should have to, either.

Back in 2000, while studying US income tax laws, Cryer was surprised to discover what appears to be a loophole in the internal revenue code.  Apparently, every tax law must include 3 things: subject of the tax, amount of the tax, and who’s liable for the tax.  Cryer claims that US income tax laws don’t cover that last part — leaving no one technically liable for payment. 

Therefore, Cryer says, when the IRS taxes your income, they’re essentially coercing you into giving up your cash without legal grounds to do so.

So he just stopped paying.

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This experiment uses ultra-sound frequencies to generate patterns in loose rice poured on a membrane sitting on top of a speaker. Some speculate that the effect generated in this video may hold the key to understanding how crop circles are formed.