Been on the phone last hour cargo planes with bombs, mentioned yesterday I have gut feeling, FYI a lot of activity behind the curtains.Fri Oct 29 16:13:11 via web

Jack Daniels
navyseal6

Things you don’t like to see on a Twitter from a “World Wide Security Company contractual work, Weapons Expert.” Similarly: stuff like “15 DEVICES WERE PLANNED TO BE SHIPPED TO THE US THRU COMMERCIAL AIR.” Also: “CNN’s original tweet said bomb found in London. Turns out it’s not explosives & not London.” Who knows? UPS says: “UPS is working closely with authorities.” Well that’s good.

UPDATE: Our not so long national nightmare may be over before it began? Say police scanner-listeners: “back to regular program…. all BS. The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket.”

Understanding Thomas Bernhard as music: “A lot of Bernhard must be logistical, how to pace, how to rank, how to hide. When to deepen the attack, when and how to move on.”

Here’s the sexy new video from the excellent and beloved Robyn. I like the song okay (it would be hard for any artist to maintain the ridiculous heights she achieved this summer with “Dancing On My Own.”) And the chorus not as much as the verse, which cribs the melody from Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” (which does make a certain kind of sense when you think about it.) Sadly, Supertramp seems not to have made a video for “The Logical Song” when it came out in 1979. But here’s singer Roger Hodgson performing it last year with a full orchestra.

If they had made a video for it, you know Roger’s crazy-straw tubes suit would have been filled with orange juice.

@NBCNewYork: UPDATE: Suspected explosive device found on UPS truck in Queens

@BreakingNews Bomb found on Yemen-Chicago UPS cargo flight during London stop — CNN

@kfinews: Airports in Philly and Newark reporting alleged suspicious packages on cargo planes. NYPD says similar situation on UPS truck.

@NYC911: Brooklyn has now a suspicious package at a UPS loading dock.

@NBCNewYork: UPDATE: Suspected explosive device found on UPS truck in Queens

All your suspicious packages are everywhere.

Homophobia is the new racism. It depresses me to see men like 50 Cent and The Game, who are minorities, supporting bigotry. So, so sad.less than a minute ago via Echofon

Sophia Bush
SophiaBush

In case you missed some outrage yesterday, since you were occupied with several other outrages and/or the very important national election in a few days, maybe, everyone is also super-mad at some actress for suggesting that the current racism isn’t fresh and new anymore.

“The Obama administration cut taxes for middle-class Americans, expects to make a profit on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to rescue Wall Street banks and has overseen an economy that has grown for the past four quarters.

Most voters don’t believe it.”
 — You know what? I get this. The economy still sucks and a lot of people are hurting. And yet… America is now the “PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN” nation. Even when you show it the pics, it’s all, “THOSE ARE SO PHOTOSHOPPED!” There is also probably a goatse analogy in here, but I don’t want to overdo it.

So here is a terrifying new scientific advance: using electrodes surgically implanted in the brains of medical patients, a UCLA neuroscientist named Dr. Moran Cerf says he has successfully monitored people’s thoughts.

As the BBC reports,

“Dr. Cerf makes his bold claim based on an initial study that he says suggests that the activity of individual brain cells, or neurons, are associated with specific objects or concepts. He found, for example, that when a volunteer was thinking of Marilyn Monroe, a particular neuron lit up. By showing volunteers a series of images, Dr. Cerf and his colleagues were able to identify neurons for a wide range of objects and concepts — which they used to build up a database for each patient. These included Bill and Hilary Clinton, the Eiffel Tower and celebrities. So by observing which brain cell lit up and when, Dr. Cerf says he was effectively able to ‘read the subjects’ minds’.”

“We can sail with our imaginations and think about all the things we could do if we had access to a person’s brain and basically visualise their thoughts,” says Dr. Cerf, who hopes to first use the technology to build a machine that could read people’s dreams.

Yes, just imagine it! And what could possibly go wrong? I don’t suspect for a second that the government would get a hold of this technology (as if it hasn’t already) and use it to suppress the citizenry. I mean, they’ve certainly always respected the privacy of our phone conversations.

And it certainly wouldn’t be like Until the End of the World, when Max Von Sydow invents the same kind of machine Dr. Cerf is talking about, but then all everybody wants to do once they get hold of it is sit around with strap-on view-finder glasses over their eyes and play their own dreams back to themselves. And everyone gets addicted to it like heroin. (I always thought that was right. That would be exactly what would happen.) It definitely won’t be like Strange Days, where people use it to make first person recordings of rapes and murders and then force the people they’re raping and murdering to watch it happen while it’s happening.

Even the writers of “Gilligan’s Island” new the dangers inherent to reading the internal thoughts of others. Some things, we just don’t want to know.

Most disturbing of all, perhaps, the ad department at Honda seems to already have obtained Cerf’s “dream-catcher” machine, and used it on me to make commercials for their Odyssey minivan.

They’ve made versions for middle-aged people who want to have sex in the backseat of their vehicles, too. And for people who like bunny rabbits and baby deer.

But mostly, for me.

• “The continuing commercial real-estate slowdown in New York can open up opportunities for local artists and arts organizations to snag space they otherwise couldn’t afford.”

• “Two of the world’s largest commercial real estate services companies reported sharply improved earnings on Tuesday, fueled chiefly by a pickup in building sales and leasing.”

• “Google on Verge of $2B NYC Property Deal.”

Is Mike Myers “definitely due for a comeback?” One man says yes.

“Mass fever screening already exists.” Uh oh. Soon The Machines may be telling you if you’re well enough to travel: “Feverish subjects are instructed to ‘please wait here for an attendant.’”