Freakiest Homes Ever

! They all are worth a look.

clipped from www.2spare.com

 

How To Brainwash A Nation –

Visit clip source for a great short video about Edward Bernays, Assassin of Democracy. Videos tend to get buried. I thought this to be worth wider attention.

clipped from video.google.com The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays started his … all » business life as a publicist. While still in his twenties, he was part of the propaganda effort that drove the United States into in World War I (WW I.) He personally advised several US presidents starting with Woodrow Wilson and counseled numerous corporations and business associations. Hitler’s propaganda chief and Nazi henchman Joseph Goebbels was a reader and fan of Bernay’s writing in particular Bernay’s book “Crystalizing Public Opinion.” Bernays was one of the engineers of the Cold War. He perfected the technique of manufacturing a distant but ever-threatening enemy and then creating a constant state of fear by generating false news reports that endlessly re-stated and exagerated the threat. The stated purpose of Bernay’s methods was to give those in power greater control over what he called “the mass mind.” It worked well in the 1950s and sadly, it appears to be working quite well today.

 

Man Secretly Builds Huge Castle Behind Bales

That’s a lot of hay.

I can’t believe I worried about a permit for a 13×15 cabin in heavy forest.

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk Over the course of two years, he managed to secretly – and unlawfully – build the imposing mock Tudor structure in one of his fields, shielded behind a 40ft stack of hay bales covered by a huge tarpaulins. Once it was finished, he and his family moved in and lived there for four years before finally revealing the development – complete with battlements and cannons – in August 2006.

 

Wonderful Author

Publishers fantasy: author dies, work gains cult recognition, $$$$$$$$$$$. The Valis trilogy is my personal favorite.

clipped from movies.popcrunch.com 11 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Movies and Counting

 

Disturbing Old Ads

Check out the rest!!

clipped from www.2spare.com

 

Shame

Utterly despicable self absorption.

clipped from www.alternet.org The house Heather and Joseph Sarachek were building in Scarsdale, N.Y., was to be a model of green efficiency, complete with geothermal heating and cooling. A local Board of Architectural Review refused to issue the Saracheks a permit for the solar apparatus, having received a letter from at least 15 neighbors — among them doctors, lawyers and other presumably well-educated people — arguing that the panels “would clearly be an eyesore in our lovely Quaker Ridge neighborhood.” This March — four months, $20,000 in extra construction and legal costs, and 107 petition signatures later, and after agreeing to plant a screen of trees to hide their “eyesore” — the Saracheks finally got the board’s decision reversed.

 

Marine algae get the green light from Shell

Cheaper and smarter than extraction from tar sands and shale.

clipped from environment.newscientist.com Shell is to become the first major oil company to produce diesel fuel from marine algae. Algae are a climate-friendly way to make fuel from carbon dioxide. They produce an oil that can readily be converted to diesel, and can be fed CO2 directly from smokestacks. Unlike biofuels such as corn, they don’t use up soil or water that could otherwise be used to grow food, which can pump up food prices. Shell plans to begin construction on a pilot plant in Hawaii immediately, which it expects will produce 15 times as much oil for a given area as other biofuel crops, thanks to the efficiency of algal photosynthesis.

 

Danish Foresight: Energy Independence/Sustainability

This may be the only instance of timely recognition the impending shortage/s. Bully for the Danes.

clipped from www.neatorama.com Remember that in 1973 Denmark was 99% dependent on foreign oil? Today they produce enough energy to cover all their own needs and sell the extra to other countries, the only European nation to do so. And their energy conservation programs have been so successful that over the last 30 years, even with extensive modernization and a 7% increase in population, their annual energy use has remained basically the same.

 

Limbo Skating: Indian Boy Goes Flat Out

The beginning of the end for bike messengers.

clipped from news.sky.com

 

Rainforests to be Cleared for Biofuel

I clipped this piece at about the same time I clipped the cute piece about the skate boy above.

In the same period of time, the rainforest piece was read 16 times, while the cute piece got 59 views.

There seems to be a drop in interest about environmental issues lately. This seems counterintuitive considering the added gravity from more conventional media outlets regarding environmental issues.

Don’t know, don’t know…

clipped from www.climateark.org The PNG government continues to approve rainforest destruction and diminishment even as they vocally seek to be paid with carbon market funds for their “protection”. Expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of primary rainforests runs contrary to PNG’s government public support for preserving rainforests for climate and other benefits.