Currently set at 5 minutes to midnight, the Strangeloveian-sounding Doomsday Clock is about to see its first movement in 3 years.  No one’s sure if it’s going to be a tick up (yikes!) or a tick down (whew!), but, thanks to the streaming at TurnBackTheClock, we’ll be able to watch it live as it happens, this Thursday at 10:00 AM EST (barring, of course, entirely possible Wednesday cataclysms like meteor strikes, sudden pole shifts, etc.).

The factors influencing the latest Doomsday Clock change include international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, expansion of civilian nuclear power, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, and climate change.

In December 1945, University of Chicago scientists who had helped to develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project created “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.”  The Bulletin’s board of directors then in 1947 came up with the idea of a Doomsday Clock to symbolize these threats.  The message is that humans are “a few minutes to midnight,” where midnight represents destruction by nuclear weapons, climate change and emerging technologies in the life sciences.

 
Doomsday Clock To Change This Week

 
A report on the LA Now blog indicates that police in So Cal are dealing with a group of criminals who “think different”:

The suspects sought by Manhattan Beach police had a specific method of operation, Brown said. They stake out an Apple store and choose their target. Then they follow their prospective victims when they drive to another shop or a parking spot near their home. If computers are left unattended inside the vehicle, the thieves strike.

His department issued a warning to consumers Tuesday not to leave computers or other expensive items in their vehicles in plain view.

“It’s a highly preventable crime if people don’t leave computers in their cars,” Brown said.

But law enforcement officials said despite the arrests in Orange County, they believe these follow-away burglaries are the work of a larger ring that has taken more than 100 computers in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.

I was trying to come up with a punchline about Justin Long, but couldn’t and you just don’t want to force these things.

 
The cannabis prohibition dominoes keep falling. One by one, they’re falling. This just in from Bloomberg:

New Jersey lawmakers approved a bill that would make it the 14th U.S. state to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for patients suffering from cancer and other debilitating diseases.

The legislation passed the Assembly 48-16 with one abstention. The measure already cleared the state Senate, which voted 25-13 to approve restrictions in the Assembly version, including a list of ailments for which the drug can be prescribed and a prohibition on the growing of marijuana by patients.

“This is a wonderful beginning,” said Nancy Fedder, 62, of Hillsborough, who spoke outside the Assembly chamber and said she has been illegally smoking marijuana for more than a decade to alleviate pain from multiple sclerosis. “It’s something that needed to happen a long time ago; sometimes I have to go to bed and stay there for days, and when I smoke marijuana the pain comes right down.”

The plan was among 100 today that went before both houses of the Legislature in the final day of its session. The Senate and the Assembly, which are both controlled by Democrats, are getting ready to share power with the first Republican governor elected since 1997.

Tara and I used to live in NJ (don’t ask) and it’s a pretty state, to be sure, but it’s not exactly cool there. When we were living there, just a few years ago, it was still a zero-tolerance state! So this is big news.

 
This is disturbing. Can you imagine being responsible for responding to this on a governmental level? Talk about a mine field, you’d be getting this from all sides no matter you you did.
Clearly, though, they’ve got to do something. It just won’t be easy. Or popular. Yikes.

Police have identified children as young as seven being groomed for terrorism, with some expressing a wish to become suicide bombers.

Up to 10 primary school pupils, aged between seven and 10, have been placed on a government outreach programme for individuals considered at risk of being radicalised and turning to violence.

Some have taken inspiration from jihadi websites or after viewing extremist material in Islamic bookshops.

One child was referred to the programme by his teacher after writing on a school book: ?

 
Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of Philip K. Dick, who wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which Blade Runner is based on (although the title itself comes from William S. Burroughs), is claiming Google is using names taken from her father’s work to brand its Nexus One telephones. She is threatening to sue Google for infringement of intellectual property rights. Something tells me there is going to be a nice payday in this for her. Google IS using names from her father’s work:

She has sent a letter to Google demanding that the online giant changes the name of its new phone, which was launched as a direct rival to the iPhone.

She said: ‘Google takes first and then deals with the fallout later.

‘In my mind, there is a very obvious connection to my father’s novel. People don’t get it. It’s the principle of it.

‘It would be nice to have a dialogue. We are open to it. That’s a way to start.’

The new product is based on Google’s Android technology, launched two years ago as a way of gaining a share in the mobile phone market.

Family of sci fi author Philip K. Dick to sue Google over name of Nexus One phone (Daily Mail)

 
Did you hear about the idiot couple in Chattooga County, Ga., who gave tattoos to six of their seven children? Yup, Patty “Jo Jo” Marsh and Jacob Bartels, decided to give their kids—one just 10 years old—crude, prison-style cross-shaped tats using an old tattoo gun and a guitar string. When the biological mother of two of the children got wind of this, she reported the duo to Family and Children Services. Marsh and Bartels were arrested three days after Christmas and charged with three counts each of illegal tattooing, second-degree child cruelty and reckless conduct.

Sez Jo Jo: ?

 
Crowd-sourced surrealists Improv Everywhere are holding their second annual LA No Pants Mission starting with a “pants-less” subway ride in Los Angeles on Sunday before everyone ends up at the Hollywood and Highland complex. They’re being joined by members of the GuerilLA and other urban pranksters. Details below, but the subtext here is worth pointing out: while the rest of the country is freezing its collective ass off, we here in the great city of Los Angeles can go outside without our pants on! It was around 74 degrees here yesterday. Gorgeous.

To quote Randy Newman, “I love L.A.”

WHAT: 2nd Annual No Pants Metro Ride
WHEN: Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 2:00 PM
WHERE: Metro System
BRING: $5 for Metro Day Pass, pants you can easily take off, something in which to keep them

This mission is pretty self-explanatory: we ride the subway just as anyone would on any given normal day, just without pants. (Note that this is NO PANTS, not NO UNDERWEAR day. Wouldn?

 
Remember “The Big Guy”? Mike from Brooklyn (AKA The Kid from Brooklyn and The Big Guy) is an outspoken senior citizen with a penchant for the “F” word who makes his home-pundit videos in his bathrobe (or shirtless) and puts them up on YouTube. Not saying I’m endorsing, necessarily, everything that Mike has to say (he likes Sarah Palin and is vociferously anti-Muslim), but very often he’s bust-a-gut funny and he’s more liberal than you might think at first glance. Here are a few better examples of Mike’s zany, boisterous and LOUD home-punditry.
 

 
Thank you Jesse Merlin!

 
My Gawd! And I thought I was “gangsta” for using Visine. 
 
(via misterhonk)

 
Fascinating article from today’s Los Angeles Times about an unusual new role-playing pop psychology craze that’s sweeping South Korea: participants, seeking deeper meaning in their lives, experience their own death and funeral.

Jung runs a seminar called the Coffin Academy, where, for $25 each, South Koreans can get a glimpse into the abyss. Over four hours, groups of a dozen or more tearfully write their letters of goodbye and tombstone epitaphs. Finally, they attend their own funerals and try the coffin on for size.

In a candle-lighted chapel, each climbs into one of the austere wooden caskets laid side by side on the floor. Lying face up, their arms crossed over their chests, they close their eyes. And there they rest, for 10 excruciating minutes.

“It’s a way to let go of certain things,” says Jung, a former insurance company lecturer. “Afterward, you feel refreshed. You’re ready to start your life all over again, this time with a clean slate.”

Across South Korea, a few entrepreneurs are conducting controversial forums designed to teach clients how to better appreciate life by simulating death. Equal parts Vincent Price and Dale Carnegie, they use mortality as a personal motivator for a variety of behaviors, from a healthier attitude toward work to getting along with family members.

Many firms here see the sessions as an inventive way to stimulate productivity. The Kyobo insurance company, for example, has required all 4,000 of its employees to attend fake funerals like those offered by Jung.

Read the entire article: South Koreans experience what it’s like to die—and live again (Los Angeles Times)