Look, I know there are incredibly varying studies out there about the links to the effects of gaming and a propensity for violence.  For example, you couldn’t get more contradictory that this one with the headline “Violent Video Games Alter Men’s Brains” and “Violent games don’t compel gamers to commit violent acts, researchers say.”

But regardless of those studies this really reeks of grooming our kids and young adults for service. Ask former Army paratrooper and author D.B. Grady, who took aim at the peripherals move, telling AdFreak: “There is something vulgar about the Army dropping all pretense and stamping its logo on [gaming accessories]. I can’t think of a single redeeming aspect to these products, and have to believe them to be some kind of elaborate practical joke. Otherwise even the most cynical of military critics will in some way be proven right.”

On top of this, there’s also the “Army Experience Center” with it’s hip and modern, with giant plasma screen televisions, brushed stainless steel fixtures, interactive displays, helicopter and Humvee simulators, a gaming area and cafe, nestled in a philadelphia mall across from Dave & Busters.

The Shielding™ wave is often filled with things that could be deemed as over reactions to perceived threats, but in this case I think the Human Truth rings true: “It’s not paranoia if somethings really out to get you.” It seems the US Army makes no bones about the fact they are “out to get” our teens.  One could totally argue that the point of marketing and branding is to increase attention and retention at all costs.   I just can’t help but feel the same way that “hard selling” junk food to kids and the commercialization of childhood makes me feel… It’s too strong.

Yes, I want to quit soon… blah blah blah. I have also lived in Australia where we are inflicted with the most graphic, horrendous images every time we purchase a packet. That’s why I was quite interested to see that an American judge blocked a federal requirement that would have begun forcing tobacco companies to put graphic images on their cigarette packages recently.

“U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that it’s likely the cigarette makers will succeed in a lawsuit to block the requirement. He stopped the requirement until the lawsuit is resolved, which could take years. Leon found the nine graphic images approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June go beyond conveying the facts about the health risks of smoking or go beyond that into advocacy — a critical distinction in a case over free speech.”

It’s become a fun little quiz that I do lately. I ask people in the US how much they think a packet of cigarettes costs in Australia. I pass around the room and listen to their guesses. No-one gets close. When I tell them between $16 and $19… I watch the jaws drop. I say: “When you have a public health care system- you make the unhealthy citizens pay for it!” And the graphic “warning” images are part and parcel of the push to stop you buying that packet.

It made me think that it’s almost un-American to have a product that is trying to dissuade you to buy it. It goes against every advertising principle! So I “get” why this is an issue here. Couple that, with the resistance to universal healthcare and it becomes clear to me that it’s less about “free speech” or protecting us from gory images and more about capitalism.

The Shielding™ wave is about reacting to fear. As an (albeit light) smoker I can’t deny that I worry about the effect cigs have on my health. The hideous images I get on Australian packets are gross. I remember requesting a different packet when I got one with a bleeding brain because my friend had just passed from an aneurysm.

So does it work? No.

Nicotine addiction is stronger than graphic images. But in the long run those images probably do have a subconscious affect, because I always feel the need to explain that I’m planning on quitting soon.

The Human Truth™ of this wave is: “It’s not paranoia if something’s really out to get you.”™ There’s no denying cigarettes are “out to get” the smoker. I just wonder what could be the next extension of that?   A photo of a disgustingly obese person on the packaging of my Big Mac? A beer with a car crash on the label?

All I know is, the guilt is usually inherent regardless of scary packaging. Yet, in the moment… the moment of really wanting it… you’re going to buy it anyway.

Range Anxiety is the fear of being on the road in your efficient electric car between two points and running out of juice, and having nowhere to charge. People are afraid of being stranded, it’s nothing new, and when you add in the questionable factor of where people are going to start charging their electric cars it does seemingly make sense. Then again, several places are excited about putting in charging stations just to attract more business.

The thing is…I did an informal poll of friends and family and they all agree that it seems like a relatively recent thing.  Sure enough, I found an article on this subject that confirms it:

“A large number of girls are reaching puberty before the age of 10, much earlier than their previous generations, reveals a recent study conducted by Danish scientists.”

So what is it about “modern life” that is leading our girls to womanhood before their time?  Well, this University of Bristol study, published in the latest issue of Public Health Nutrition, says the culprit is meat: “girls who ate more meat and protein at the ages of 3 and 7 were more likely to have started menstruating by the age of 12 1/2 years. The early onset of puberty puts women at greater risk of developing diseases including breast cancer, ovarian cancer and heart disease.”

So you can see that this is more serious than having to purchase a bra a few years too early.  Now even though this article chooses not draw any conclusions as to what’s behind this meat connection. I’m going to go ahead and put it out there….ummm, can you say HORMONES?

You don’t have to have seen FOOD INC to have inkling that there are more hormones in our meat than 30 years ago. Every industry is trying to get more ROI, more bang for their buck.  Well, for the meat industry, that means getting animals to mature faster and bigger than can occur naturally. And, unfortunately, it looks like that’s exactly what is happening to our kids.

I’m not trying to use this blog as a soapbox…there’s plenty of that going on without my input.  I’m pointing out that this just adds to the mountain of evidence we have of people looking at their food more critically than ever before.

“You are what you eat” is not just a cutesy phrase these days.  Are you prepared for your labels, ingredients and products to really be scrutinized?

From the Daily Mail:

A new online “game” called Internet Eyes is about to launch, offering players a chance to earn money by spying on people through closed-circuit television cameras and reporting them to the police – for real.

With the risk of sounding a bit paranoid, it should be noted,  that whether we realize it or not, we are surrounded by CCTV cameras nearly every hour of the day. CCTV cameras are everywhere, at the convenience store, the traffic light, at our job and possibly in our own home.  However, most of these cameras go unmonitored. If and when any crime actually takes  place,  the footage is most often viewed after the fact, too late for any intervention. This is exactly what “Internet Eyes” seeks to remedy.

Like a neighborhood watch on steroids, “Internet Eyes” would give players access to millions of private and possibly even public cameras. Cash awards will await vigilant souls who are able to spot crimes through their perpetual virtual stakeout.

“This could turn out to be the best crime prevention weapon there’s ever been,”Inventor Morgan said. “I wanted to combine the serious business of stopping crime with the incentive of winning money.”

Of course this sounds good in concept, but, just how comfortable are we with the idea of thousands of strangers being able to monitor us, our children, our families without any guarantee of their good intentions. Beyond the obvious threat from potential stalkers there is also the very real possibility that criminals could indeed use this very same technology to find blind spots in stores and neighborhoods and give them the ability to track an individual’s daily movements.

Engineers and architects have long known that the walls that protect us are the same walls that confine us. For every measure of security we add we lose a measure of freedom or privacy. In this age of information the notion of public and private is indeed blurred, but we should give long thought to how much privacy we are willing to sacrifice to fill innate need for security. I am not at all certain that Internet Eyes is a wise or even responsible use of said technology. But it does make for an Interesting debate, and a good question to ponder is… at what point does security give way to insecurity? Or,  at what point do we begin to fear the very devices which were constructed to ensure our safety?

It is a scary prospect to think that maybe this Heart Monitor would be used down the road for insurance reasons or a review for qualifications of a high stress job. What if things were like that now? I had a possible heart murmur in Eighth Grade, I can’t possibly be covered for insurance; it’s a pre-existing condition after all.

On the other hand, what if it is simply there for health class? It would definitely make the data gathering simpler for the students. Either way it’s still creepy. I will not be signing my kid up for the Brave-New-Heart-Monitoring-World. Now if they were to introduce a micro-robotics-and-cybernetics-class-for-future-cyberpunks, I would be first in line.

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers.  *closes wiki page*

I recently saw first hand the hassles a DDoS attack can cause when the Melbourne International Film Festival’s site was attacked by Chinese groups who were angry over the screening of a certain film.

A documentary called “Web Warriors” I just watched “offers an unprecedented glimpse into the world’s newest and most vulnerable frontier: cyberspace. The film takes us into the world of hackers like Mafia Boy – a 15-year-old high school student who rose to infamy by causing millions of dollars in damage after single-handedly shutting down internet giants – including Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Dell, eTrade, and CNN.” The film also delves into the underground world of “hired gun” hackers who hunt down the source of a computer virus with the hopes of collecting the $250,000 reward being offered by Microsoft.

SOOOOOO, these targets are usually huge corporations -why should you care?  Well, while hacking and cyber terrorism seems like it’s another league to our daily internet use or relatively humble company websites- if you watch the doco or read this thought about Govt. censoring the web (put into Neemee™ by Byron) you might just think again.  Heck, if you’re a Christian, you’ve become a target -according to the latest 4-chan prank.

However, it’s what we don’t know about that is the really spooky stuff…
“Computer viruses now have the ability to control millions of computers unbeknownst to their owners, creating massive illegal computer networks known as ‘Botnets’. These ‘Botnets’ are being put to illicit uses including identity theft and cyber extortion. A massive cyber attack against Estonia in 2007 virtually shut down the country. Web Warriors offers rare interviews with cyber sleuths from the FBI, the Pentagon, NATO, and the American Department of Homeland Security who explain how cyberspace has become the latest battle ground between nation states, and how terrorist groups are already plotting their next move.”

Remember the Shielding™ wave warns us: “It’s not paranoia if something is really out to get you.”™

Blackwater has reportedly created a CIA like intelligence division called, Total Intelligence Solutions, that will sell it’s information to the highest bidder.

Jeremy Schahill, author of the book, “ Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” expresses serious concern in light of this new development

“They’re marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations,” says Schahill.

It is hard to tell whether this is a scare tactic to drum up publicity for the re-release of his book, or the stuff of an Orwellian nightmare.

After a little investigation we found that this is indeed a new wing of Blackwater worldwide.

Their website boasts of their wealth of CIA and private intelligence expertise:

“Ambassador Black leads an experienced and diverse team of former U.S. Government and private sector professionals that includes prior service in the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as widely-known private-sector leaders in the fields of information security, cyber investigations, and risk management”

Corporate espionage is nothing new, but the marketing of such services could cause major shifts in how business and war is conducted in the 21^st century. There certainly is reason to fear that this type of agency could seriously undermine the security interests of corporate and governmental institutions.

Will Ex CIA operatives and special forces operators be put to work gathering dirt on CEO’s , leaking proprietary information, sabotaging projects, recruiting insiders? It’s possible. Is this just conspiracy theory and paranoia? Maybe, but, as the human truth for the Shielding wave expresses, ”It is not paranoia if it is out to get you,” and soon, it may be.

In the 2004 flick The Day After Tomorrow, Hollywood gave us the worst case scenario of the possible effects of global warming and climate change, showering us with natural disasters to the tune of worldwide hurricanes, tornadoes, below freezing temperatures and floods. Now most of us aren’t worried about that kind of catastrophic scenario occurring, but there’s little doubt that the question of “if” has been overtaken with “how much” and “how soon” (not to mention the myriad of questions regarding the extent of man’s personal impact on the environment and role controlling it).

Artists in Bristol, England are now exploring those questions. Calling it the Watermarks Project,

Flood level marks are projected on to the sides of buildings, showing how high water levels could potentially rise as the sea inundates the central, low lying areas of Bristol. By displaying these levels in real space, the project aims to help us to imagine the depth and extent of this potential future flooding – allowing us to measure them against ourselves in familiar environments. -via

The human truth for Shielding say’s it’s not paranoia if something is really out to get you, highlighting those life evidence pieces that give us a sense of protection from unlikely fears. Exploring how Bristol’s landscape could be transformed by climate change is an unlikely fear for many, but seeking to address those questions is a call for preparation. As humans we prepare for disaster out of mere preservation, the need to survive. Whether it is through art or a physical product that pushes us into that mode, shielding takes us to a place or a call that filters our anxiety for things that may or may not really affect us.

“When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn’t just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.”

One of the biggest fears that scientists are expressing is that these pharma-polluted waters could give birth to super-strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Not to mention upsetting the delicate balance of local ecosystems.

Although levels of active pharmaceutical drugs are far lower in the US, where regulations are much tighter, this does not mean we are immune from exposure.

said Dr. A. Kishan Rao, a medical doctor and environmental activist;

“People might say, ‘Oh sure, that’s just a dirty river in India,’ but we live on a small planet, everything is connected. The water in a river in India could be the rain coming down in your town in a few weeks,”