Friday, July 30, 2010

In the news: LOFAR to go far

LOFAR, LOw Frequency ARray for radio astronomy, is a new, digitized telescope composed of thousands of cheap poles. Its aim is to survey the Universe, all the way down to the far edge of the radio band, at radio frequencies from ~10–240 MHz with greater resolution and greater sensitivity than ever before. It should be able to precisely pick up electromagnetic waves as long as 65 feet, and help scientists map out events of the cosmos, such as stellar mergers and black hole accretion. But, like most things of strength, power, and genius,
I just love it because it's beautiful.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Ride the polyethylene wave

In the news: Spiritual guru jailed for rape, claims he was raised in India

A cult leader who promised to improve fertility with his organic manhood has been charged with the rape and sexual assault of two of his disciples. Michael Lyons, who had introduced himself as Mohan Singh in order to seem Indian, was guru to about 30 people, most of whom were young blondes with freckles; the blondes were required to recruit more women-in-their-twenties to join the cult and give excessive donations to Singh.

Singh, who was born in Jamaica before moving to London, drove a red Bentley and wore red robes trimmed with gold. Most of the women in his cult, including the 11 that testified against him at his trial, were aspiring film actresses. Singh seduced them with claims that he knew Steven Seagal, the Dalai Lama, and Queen Elizabeth II.

Singh was known to give new girls vegetarian dinners, massages, acupuncture, spiritual encouragement, and drinks that caused drowsiness and lethargy and in some cases, temporary amnesia.

His jail sentence is seven years for rape and three years for sexual assault to run consecutively.

This past February, spiritual guru Anand Krishna was charged with sexual harassment of a 19-year-old female follower. She was able to regain memory of the supposed molestation through hypnotherapy. Anand Krishna's trial is set to begin in Jakarta next month.

In the news: Love stampede

Immense tragedy struck in Duisburg, Germany as an unforeseen part of the Love Parade music festival. The festival, which was only expected to have 700 or 800,000 partygoers, had an attendance of 1.4 million. In an attempt to accommodate this tremendous overload, the concert promoters herded 250,000 people through a tunnel toward another additional field; when this too was filled to capacity, people in the tunnel were crushed. Over 500 people were hospitalized and as of yesterday, 21 people were killed.

Protests are being held for the resignation of the mayor of Duisburg, blaming security for this incredible blunder.

Love Parade festival was first organized in West Berlin in 1989, in reaction to the not-yet-fallen Berlin Wall. It has since run, with two handfuls of kinks and cancellations, for the past 21 years under the motto, "Peace, Joy, Pancakes." Although Love Parade has featured an array of performances, the only genres that ever effectively stuck were trance, house, techno, and schranz music.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

If this isn't the vibe then I don't want to feel anymore

In the news: Lindsay Lohan does yoga in minimum-security jail




Lindsay Lohan will not be in jail long enough to detox or rehabilitate; she is also permitted to take Ambien and Ritalin with her so Oh Well, but in the meantime, while under the care of a pediatric specialist, she will be subjected to regular yoga (because everyone knows that yoga is a help-all, alleviate-all, the apple cider vinegar of physical activity).