Leave Some Meth Out For Santa

✪ Mississippi mayor’s gay sex shop purchase billed to city

Receipts show Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008 on a family-values platform, charged the city $67 for a purchase at a gay sex shop in Canada.

✪ Mysterious “white web” found growing on nuclear waste

This is as fascinating as it is unsettling. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site — a nuclear reservation in South Carolina — have identified a strange, cob-web like “growth” (their word, not ours) on the racks of the facility’s spent nuclear fuel assemblies. According to a report filed by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, “the growth, which resembles a spider web, has yet to be characterized, but may be biological in nature.” The Augusta Chronicle reported today that the “white, string-like” material was discovered amidst thousands of the spent fuel assemblies, which are submerged in deep nuclear storage pools within SRS’s L Area Complex.

✪ Poor-quality pot keeps grower out of prison

Despite being caught with enough home-grown cannabis to warrant a prison sentence, a man in western Sweden escaped with probation and a 500 kronor ($75) fine because the drugs were of such poor quality.

✪ Sniffer dogs get it wrong four out of five times

A RECORD 80 per cent of sniffer dog searches for drugs resulted in ”false positives” this year, figures show. The figures obtained from the state government in response to parliamentary questions on notice show 14,102 searches were conducted after a dog sat next to a person, indicating they might be carrying drugs. But, in 11,248 cases, no drugs were found. Only 2854 searches – 20 per cent – in the first nine months of this year, resulted in drugs being found, the figures show. Advertisement: Story continues below Last year, of the 15,779 searches conducted after police-dog identification, no drugs were found in 11,694 cases. Drugs were found in 4085 cases, resulting in a ”false positive” rate of 74 per cent, said the Greens MP David Shoebridge, who obtained the figures.

✪ Heroin found in UK National Archives file

A sealed package containing heroin was found in an 80-year-old Foreign Office file at the National Archives, its managers have said. The Class A drug was filed with a document from the British Consulate in Cairo about a 1928 court case. The off-white powder, discovered by a member of the public who asked to see the file, was sent for analysis. And having been confirmed as heroin, the substance was handed over to the Metropolitan Police. The pouch – which contained less than a gram of heroin in 19 sachets – has been replaced with a photo and the file is now back on public display.

✪ Tons Of Punk Videos Were Yanked Off YouTube: Here’s What Happened

On Wednesday morning, several punk bands awoke to find their videos had been removed from YouTube. They were understandably irritated; that’s almost worse than running out of beer. In their places were notes that they’d been yanked due to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints lodged by SST Records — the legendary label founded by Black Flag’s Greg Ginn, formerly based in Los Angeles but now in Austin. The allegation? That these videos were using unauthorized SST music. But that was not so. In fact, in the case of bands like L.A.’s The Adolescents and Austin’s The Lower Class Brats — two groups whose videos were pulled — their music has nothing to do with SST at all. They’ve never been on the label, and they certainly weren’t pilfering the imprint’s music. Immediately, then, animosity raged against Ginn. Various Internet forums teemed with allegations that he was on some sort of rampage, or had sold out and wasn’t punk.

✪ New strain of lab mice mimics human alcohol consumption patterns

A line of laboratory mice developed by a researcher from the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) drinks more alcohol than other animal models and consumes it in a fashion similar to humans: choosing alcohol over other options and binge drinking. Animal models previously available to alcohol abuse and alcoholism researchers do not get as drunk as the new strain, unless alcohol is the only choice of fluids, or alcohol is administered by the experimenter. When given the option, previously bred mouse lines continue to drink water even when they can select alcohol.

✪ Marijuana For Sale, With Free Samples

On Saturday, Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. a Humboldt County Sheriff’s Deputy on patrol in the Fernbridge area saw a vehicle parked near the Renner Gas Station with signs posted on it advertising “Marijuana for sale, with free samples.” The deputy drove up in his patrol car and asked the female associated with the vehicle, identified as Tami Lorraine Madison, 40 years from Butte, Montana if this was true. She told the deputy it was a joke. The deputy looked in her vehicle and saw dried marijuana bud in plain sight on the vehicles front passenger seat.

✪ Cocaine is losing its dubious status as drug of choice

Once the glitterati’s drug of choice, cocaine appears to have become a has-been drug, forcing drug cartels enriched from trafficking the white powder to find new markets and diversify their illicit products. Between 2006 and 2010, domestic cocaine use declined 37 percent, according to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That’s no blip on the screen.

✪ World’s Douchiest DJs: The Top Five

Finding a douchey DJ is about as easy as finding an Ed Hardy t-shirt in Vegas on a Saturday night. Still, we strive for accuracy at LA Weekly, and we’ve gone through the list of top global spinners with a fine-tooth comb to bring you this revelatory Top 5 of supremely douchey spinners.

✪ Anti-fascists brick up Neo-Nazi politician’s front door

The front door was neatly walled in overnight, and sealed with a poster reading, “House arrest for Nazis.” An antifascist spokeswoman said the action was a symbolic attempt to stop him leaving the house.

✪ Hip-Hop Record Cover Tributes

✪ Drone-Ethics Briefing: What a Leading Robot Expert Told the CIA

Robots are replacing humans on the battlefield–but could they also be used to interrogate and torture suspects? This would avoid a serious ethical conflict between physicians’ duty to do no harm, or nonmaleficence, and their questionable role in monitoring vital signs and health of the interrogated. A robot, on the other hand, wouldn’t be bound by the Hippocratic oath, though its very existence creates new dilemmas of its own.

✪ Social Media Reduce Allure of High School Reunions

“Social networking has robbed us of our nostalgia,” said Michael Fox, who attended his 20-year high school reunion in November at a bar in Larchmont, N.Y. Mr. Fox, a New Rochelle High School graduate who lives in Midtown, said he attended his reunion to see the adult version of his classmates. But he was disappointed to find there was little he didn’t already know because of Facebook. “Even as a borderline user of social networking, I have a pretty good grasp of where people are, what they do, their family life, etc.,” he said. “So a lot of the mystery of the traditional reunion was missing.” Add high school reunions to the list of cultural familiarities forever altered by our hyperconnected lifestyle. Like camping out for concert tickets and plots that hinge on missed phone calls, the classic notion of the reunion, solidified by movies like “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” is becoming as old-fashioned as oversize Benetton sweaters.

✪ Could Domestic Surveillance Drones Spur Tougher Privacy Laws?

Have you ever been spied on by a surveillance drone? No? Are you sure? Maybe it looked like a hummingbird. Or an insect. Or maybe it was just really high up. Maybe there’s one looking in your window right now, and if so, there’s no law that says it shouldn’t. In a recent article in the Stanford Law Review, Ryan Calo discusses how domestic surveillance drones would fit into the current legal definitions of privacy (and violations thereof), and how these issues could inform the future of privacy policy. The nutshell? Surveillance robots have the potential to fundamentally degrade privacy to such an extent that they could serve as a catalyst for reform.

✪ Facebook is suing Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook is suing Mark Zuckerberg. No, I’m not talking about Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I’m talking about Rotem Guez, an Israeli entrepreneur who reportedly changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook hit him with a lawsuit. “If you want to sue me, you’re going to have to sue Mark Zuckerberg,” Guez reportedly told Facebook. Talk about a publicity stunt.

✪ Russia Ramps Up New ‘Satan’ Nuke After U.S. Talks Breakdown

This new intercontinental ballistic missile, nicknamed “Satan” by Western analysts, will sport a 100-ton warhead and replace the Voevoda-class missile in the Russian nuclear arsenal, according to recent news reports. This massive ICBM will take its place alongside the Yars, Topol-M and Bulava-class ballistic missiles sometime in 2015, according to Sergei Karakaev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces. Development of the new ICBM will coincide with plans to revamp the country’s missile silo complexes over the next decade, Karakaev told Russian media. Moscow’s decision to accelerate work on the new “Satan”-class ICBM was directly tied to recently failed missile defense negotiations between Russia and the United States.

✪ 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count. An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.

✪ Future Riot Shields Will Suffocate Protestors with Low Frequency Speakers

It’s not the first crowd control tool to use sound waves, but Raytheon’s patent for a new type of riot shield that produces low frequency sound waves to disrupt the respiratory tract and hinder breathing, sounds a little scary. Crowd control tools like the LRAD Sound Cannon emit bursts of loud and annoying sounds that can induce headaches and nausea. But Raytheon’s non-lethal pressure shield creates a pulsed pressure wave that resonates the upper respiratory tract of a human, hindering breathing and eventually incapacitating the target. The patent points out that the sound waves being generated are actually not that powerful, so while protestors might collapse from a lack of oxygen reaching their brains, their eardrums won’t be damaged in the process. Phew!

✪ TSA screenings aren’t just for airports anymore

Roving security teams increasingly visit train stations, subways and other mass transit sites to deter terrorism. Critics say it’s largely political theater.

✪ ‘Mind Control’ Possible in 5 Years: IBM

As part of IBM’s “5 in 5″ forecasts of predictions, the company says that “minding reading” (more like mind control) will no longer be a science fiction dream and that within five years, we’ll all be controlling our computers and smartphones by just wiggling our brains. While Apple focuses on speech technology with Siri, IBM believes the next revolution will involve our brains. To tackle and make mind control a reality, we’d all need to wear something like Emotiv’s EPOC neuroheadset that’s equipped with sensors that read electrical brain signals. According to IBM Research News “the idea is to use these electrical synapses to also do everyday activities such as placing a phone call, turning on the lights or even in the healthcare space for rehabilitation.”

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