Why didn't anyone tell me?

According to Iranian news agency, US controlled by aliens. [Link]

Iran's semi-official news outlets have something of a reputation for taking conspiracy theorism to the next level. They've written on Israel's secret plans to annex Iraq, theconspiracy by Western media to fabricate quotes by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemning the Holocaust and the secret Jewishness of the British royal family. You may notice a certain theme here.

On Sunday, the hard-line semi-official Fars News dropped one of its biggest bombshells yet: The United States government has been secretly run by a "shadow government" of space aliens since 1945. Yes, space aliens. The alien government is based out of Nevada and had previously run Nazi Germany. It adds, for timeliness, that the controversial NSA programs are actually a tool for the aliens to hide their presence on Earth and their secret agenda for global domination. This is all asserted as incontrovertible fact with no caveats.

There are so many wonderful details here. As proof that aliens were secretly behind the Nazis, the report explains that Germany built hundreds of submarines toward the end of the war, far more than would have been possible with mere human technology. It does not explain why aliens with access to interstellar travel built subs that were so grossly incapable against the British navy, or why all-powerful extraterrestrials were unable to help the Nazis resist an invasion by Allied forces that are mere cavemen relative to their own technology. So far, these are pretty unimpressive aliens.

In any case, after losing the war, the aliens apparently installed themselves as the secret force behind the United States government. President Obama is said to be a tool of the aliens, though anti-alien factions within the U.S. government are fighting to topple him. Their present aim is to install a global surveillance system that will, somehow, allow them to finally impose a one-world government and enslave humanity.

The best part to all this, to me, is the sourcing. Fars News takes us through a veritable hall-of-mirrors of sources "confirming" their scoop. The progenitor of it all, of course, is ostensibly NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who has waited until now to reveal that the real reason for all those NSA programs is aliens. As best I can tell, Fars claims that Snowden gave this information to Russia's Federal Security Service  (FSB). They also say it was independently confirmed by former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer. (Hellyer, who is 90, does indeed argue that aliens have visited Earth many times, though I haven't seen him comment on this particular story.) The FSB, they say, put all this information down in a secret report, which was inexplicably obtained by the ultra-fringe conspiracy theory Web site, Whatdoesitmean.com.

Our problems are too much legislative oversight, that pesky first amendment and that the President doesn't have enough power.

When I hear stuff like this, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

First up, the Wall street Journal. [Link]

It's no surprise that the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal would be apologists for the surveillance state, but even they have reached new depths in discussing the recommendations to President Obama from his NSA review panel/task force. As we had already pointed out, the actual recommended changes appear to be entirely cosmetic, and yet the WSJ seems to think that the NSA should have free rein to spy on anyone and everything. It's as if the WSJ editorial board has never heard of the 4th Amendment, and has simply no clue how much damage the NSA has done to the US economy. You would think, given the WSJ's reputation as being pro-big business, that it would concern them that businesses appear to be losing a ton of money overseas as people don't want to do business with American companies any more over the NSA revelations. 

Next, NSA officials annoyed by that pesky First Amendment. [Link]

But, perhaps the most tone deaf of all, was the statement from one NSA official suggesting that it's time to reform the First Amendment, because he's not at all happy about how reporters have covered the NSA recently. As Drezner notes, he's not sure if it's a joke or not, but it really doesn't matter. That seems like something you should not joke about if you're an NSA person, given everything that's going on.

The NSA's attitude toward the press is, well, disturbing. There were repeated complaints about the ways in which recent reportage of the NSA was warped or lacking context. To be fair, this kind of griping is a staple of officials across the entire federal government. Some of the NSA folks went further, however. One official accused some media outlets of "intentionally misleading the American people," which is a pretty serious accusation. This official also hoped that the Obama administration would crack down on these reporters, saying, "I have some reforms for the First Amendment."

It seems that the public might have some reforms for the intelligence community as well. And those would actually be constitutional, unlike what that particular NSA officials had in mind for free speech and the press. There's even more in the Drezner piece that is well worth reading, including the how the NSA was unable to properly manage his own personal information which he had to send them in order to get his pass to come for a visit...

And finally, the worst Op-ed of the year explaining why the President should get more power. [Link]

It might strike you as counterintuitive to imagine that a president with a drone fleet, a “kill list,” dragnet databases of Americans' personal information and increasingly arbitrary authority over health care's one-sixth of the U.S. economy has too little power—but that's how you know you're in the presence of an original thinker.

Luckily, there's “a way out”: “Make the executive branch more powerful.” What that would mean for entitlements and tax reform isn't at all clear, but Brooks follows that prescription with this spit-take-inducing sentence: “This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we've just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout.” We suffer from “reform stagnation,” Brooks laments. It's too hard to push through “immigration reform, tax reform, entitlement reform and gun legislation” via the archaic "Schoolhouse Rock!" method outlined in Article I of the Constitution.

That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

The launch code for U.S. nukes was 00000000 for twenty years. [Link]

Remember all those cold war movies where nuclear missile crews are frantically dialing in the secret codes sent by the White House to launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles? Well, for two decades, all the Minuteman nuclear missiles in the US used the same eight-digit numeric passcode to enable their warheads: 00000000.

That fact, originally revealed in a column in 2004 by then-president of the Center for Defense Information Dr. Bruce G. Blair, a former US Air Force officer who manned Minuteman silos, was alsomentioned in a paper by Steven M. Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University who teaches security architecture. Both of these sources were cited this week in an article on the site Today I Found Out written by  Karl Smallwood, as well as in an article in the UK's Daily Mail.

The codes, known as Permissive Action Links (PALs), were supposed to prevent the use of nuclear weapons—and the nuclear weapons under joint control with NATO countries in particular—without the authorization of the president of the United States. The need for such controls became clear during the 1963-1964 Cyprus crisis, when NATO members Turkey and Greece were reportedly seeking control of NATO nuclear weapons—to use on each other.

At least that's the way it was supposed to work, following an executive order from President John F. Kennedy. But at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, more than half of the missiles in Europe, including those in Turkey, lacked PAL controls. And while Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara directly oversaw the installation of PALs on the US-based ICBM arsenal, US Strategic Command generals almost immediately had the PAL codes all reset to 00000000 to ensure that the missiles were ready for use regardless of whether the president was available to give authorization.

Dr. Blair stated that that the not-so-secret code was hardly a secret from the crews manning the silos. "Our launch checklist in fact instructed us, the firing crew, to double-check the locking panel in our underground launch bunker to ensure that no digits other than zero had been inadvertently dialed into the panel," Blair noted.

Healthcare.gov Payment System Not Even Built Yet

I knew it wasn't working, but I thought they had at least finished the main parts. If this is true, then there have actually been NO enrollments by the criteria of the insurance industry which counts enrollment as when payment has occurred. [Link]

This . . . can’t be right. Can it?

Another day, another big, bad black eye for HealthCare.gov.
A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday.
The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed.
“We still need to build the payments system to make the payments [to insurance companies] in January,” testified Chao, deputy chief information officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that operates HealthCare.gov.

Roaming city

Seems cool, if incredibly impractical. [Link]

Architizer showcases this awesome engineering and architectural project: a roaming city that would will actually work if someone builds it. In the past, some people have imagined roaming cities but nobody got to turn these pipe dreams into functional projects. This is the first one that actually makes sense.

British architect Ron Herron first proposed such an idea in the 1960s, but it has taken five decades for someone to actually make a full project that takes into consideration every aspect needed to make it work—from the structural and power requirements to the social aspects of a life in a city on the move.

Bending over backwards

Wait, what?



I think you have a different meaning of bending over backwards than other people.

Camping indoors

This is right up my alley. All the fun of camping while indoors in vintage trailers. [Link]

Images of Base Camp Bonn Young Hostel, the world’s first camping trailer and Pullman coach hostel, in Bonn. The hostel which was opened in August of this year in a former storage facility, consists of 15 various vintage camping caravans, two former railway Pullman coaches and four used U.S. Airstream trailers all with shared washrooms. The prices of the 120 beds in the 1600 square meter indoor complex range from 22 to 69 euros per night. Each trailer was individually designed by film and TV outfitter Marion Seul.

Auto-Brewery Syndrome

Making beer in your gut. [Link]

Other medical professionals chalked up the man's problem to "closet drinking." But Cordell and Dr. Justin McCarthy, a gastroenterologist in Lubbock, wanted to figure out what was really going on.

So the team searched the man's belongings for liquor and then isolated him in a hospital room for 24 hours. Throughout the day, he ate carbohydrate-rich foods, and the doctors periodically checked his blood for alcohol. At one point, it rose 0.12 percent.

Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer's yeast in his gut.

That's right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man's intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery.

The patient had an infection with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Cordell says. So when he ate or drank a bunch of starch — a bagel, pasta or even a soda — the yeast fermented the sugars into ethanol, and he would get drunk. Essentially, he was brewing beer in his own gut. Cordell and McCarthy reported the case of "auto-brewery syndrome" a few months ago in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine.

When we first read the case study, we were more than a little skeptical. It sounded crazy, a phenomenon akin to spontaneous combustion. I mean, come on: Could a person's gut really generate that much ethanol?

Brewer's yeast is in a whole host of foods, including breads, wine and, of course, beer (hence, the name). The critters usually don't do any harm. They just flow right through us. Some people even takeSaccharomyces as a probiotic supplement.

But it turns out that in rare cases, the yeasty beasts can indeed take up long-term residency in the gut and possibly cause problems, says Dr. Joseph Heitman, a microbiologist at Duke University.

"Researchers have shown unequivocally that Saccharomyces can grow in the intestinal tract," Heitman tells The Salt. "But it's still unclear whether it's associated with any disease" — or whether it could make someone drunk from the gut up.

I think this person may be in the wrong line of work

Librarian Chastises 9 Year-Old Kid For Reading Too Much. [Link]

Marie Gandron, a library director in Hudson Falls, NY, has advised 9 year-old Tyler Weaver to remove himself from participating in the annual public library reading contest, Dig Into Reading!, PostStar reports. Why? Tyler has read the most books five years in a row, and Gandron thinks someone else should have a chance to win.

Yeah.

After the boy's fifth win (he consumed 63 books over the summer), Gandron phoned Tyler's mother Katie Weaver and complained.

During a phone call Tuesday to Gandron, the library director said Tyler 'hogs' the contest every year and he should 'step aside.'

'Other kids quit because they can’t keep up,' Gandron said.

Gandron further told the reporter she planned to change the rules of the contest so that instead of giving prizes to the children who read the most books, she would draw names out of a hat and declare winners that way.

Of course, now that the cat is out of the bag, Gandron can't do a thing about it, which suits library aide Lita Casey just fine.

'We’re not going to see some of these kids until next year, and you’re worried about them (being treated equally), and then, you’ve got two kids who come in every week taking books out?' she said.

Casey said she called library board member Michael Herman to complain.

'My feeling is you work, you get it. That’s just the way it is in anything. My granddaughter started working on track in grade school and ended up being a national champ. Should she have backed off and said, ‘No, somebody else should win?'

Well put. Moreover, little Tyler Weaver will eventually grow up, and thus won't be able to participate anyway. So let the kid have his moment. Amirite?

Are Humans Hybrids?

Interesting idea. [Link]

For example, one widespread, but erroneous, belief is that all hybrids are sterile. This idea keeps a lot of people from even considering the possibility that humans might be of hybrid origin. This assertion is absolutely false — though I have in fact heard lots of people make it. For instance, in reviewing the reports I collected for my book on hybridization in birds (Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press, 2006), which documents some 5,000 different kinds of hybrid crosses among birds, I found that those crosses producing partially fertile hybrids are about eight times as common as crosses known to produce sterile ones. The usual result is a reduction in fertility, not absolute sterility. My current work documenting hybridization among mammals shows that partially fertile natural hybrids are common, too, in Class Mammalia. And yet, it seems most people base their ideas of hybrids on the common mule (horse x ass), which is an exceptionally sterile hybrid, and not at all representative of hybrids as a whole.

I should, perhaps, also mention that differences in parental chromosome counts, even rather large ones, do not preclude the production of fertile hybrids. While differences of this sort do bode ill for the fertility of the resulting progeny, it is only a rule of thumb. For example, female geeps, the products of hybridization between sheep (2n=54) and goats (2n=60), can produce offspring in backcrosses. Likewise, female zeedonks (Burchell's Zebra, 2n=44 x Ass, 2n=62) have also been fertile in backcrosses. There are many other examples of this sort among mammalian hybrids. Therefore, such differences between the parents in a cross do not in any way guarantee an absolute sterility in the hybrid offspring. (For those readers who do not know, backcross hybrids are produced when hybrids from a first cross mate with either of the two types of parents that produced them. When the resulting progeny mate again with the same parental type, the result is the second backcross generation, and so forth.)

A second so-called fact, which might make it seem impossible for humans to have had a hybrid origin, is the equally erroneous notion that hybrids, especially successful hybrids, do not occur in a state of nature. A third is the mistaken idea that only plants hybridize, and never animals. In fact, however, natural, viable, fertile animal hybrids are abundant. A wide variety of such hybrids occur on an ongoing basis (read a detailed discussion documenting these facts). For example, of the 5,000 different types of hybrid crosses listed in my book on hybridization in birds, approximately half are known to occur in a natural setting (download a PowerPoint presentation summarizing data on hybridization in birds). My current research indicates a comparable rate for mammals.

Sequence data. And I must now emphasize a fact that I, as a geneticist, find somewhat disappointing: With nucleotide sequence data, it can be very difficult to identify later-generation backcross hybrids derived from several repeated generations of backcrossing (for a full explanation of this fact, see the green sidebar at far right). Instead, as is the case with other later-generation backcross hybrids, the most revealing data is of an anatomical and/or physiological nature. And this is exactly the kind of hybrid that it looks like we are -- that is, it appears that humans are the result of multiple generations of backcrossing to the chimpanzee.

Human infertility. Another observation that appears significant in connection with the hypothesis under consideration is that it has been well known for decades that human sperm is abnormal in comparison with that of the typical mammal. Human spermatozoa are not of one uniform type as in the vast majority of all other types of animals. Moreover, human sperm is not merely abnormal in appearance — a high percentage of human spermatozoa are actually dysfunctional. These and other facts demonstrate that human fertility is low in comparison with that of other mammals (for detailed documentation of this fact see the article Evidence of Human Infertility). Infertility and sperm abnormalities are characteristic of hybrids. So this finding suggests that it's reasonable to suppose, at least for the sake of argument, that humans might be of hybrid origin. It is also consistent with the idea that the hybridization in question was between two rather distinct and genetically incompatible types of animals, that is, it was a distant cross.

As the reader might imagine, if the assumption is correct that one of our parents is the chimpanzee, then it should be possible actually to identify the other parent as well. A hybrid combines traits otherwise seen only separately in the two parental forms from which it is derived, and it is typically intermediate to those parents with respect to a wide range of characters. Naturalists routinely use these facts to identify the parents of hybrids of unknown origin, even backcross hybrids.Methodology. The chimpanzee is plausible in the role of one of the parents that crossed to produce the human race because they are generally recognized as being closest to humans in terms of their genetics (here, I use the term chimpanzeeloosely to refer to either the common chimpanzee or to the bonobo, also known as the pygmy chimpanzee; the specific roles of these two rather similar apes within the context of the present hypothesis will be explained in a subsequent section). But then the question arises: If an ancient cross between the chimpanzee and some parental form "X" produced the first humans, then what was that parent? Does it still exist? What was it like?

First they posit a particular type of organism as similar to the putative hybrid (in the present case, this organism is the chimpanzee). They then list traits distinguishing the hybrid from the hypothesized parent, and this list of distinguishing traits will describe the second parent. A detailed analysis of such a triad will often establish the parentage of the hybrid. The traits in question in such studies are generally anatomical, not genetic. DNA evidence is used in only a very small percentage of such identifications (and even then, rarely in efforts to identify backcross hybrids), and yet firm conclusions can generally be reached.

So in the specific case of humans, if the two assumptions made thus far are correct (i.e., (1) that humans actually are hybrids, and (2) that the chimpanzee actually is one of our two parents), then a list of traits distinguishing human beings from chimpanzees should describe the other parent involved in the cross. And by applying this sort of methodology, I have in fact succeeded in narrowing things down to a particular candidate. That is, I looked up every human distinction that I could find and, so long as it was cited by an expert (physical anthropologist, anatomist, etc), I put it on a list. And that list, which includes many, many traits (see the lengthy table on the right-hand side of the next page), consistently describes a particular animal. Keep reading and I'll explain.

(Short answer: pigs)

Misplaced Trust

The Government wants us to trust them about security. [Link]

The United States government lies.

The people who represent the United States government lie.

In fact, the entire framework of secrecy and privilege is founded in lies by the United States. The state secret privilege — the half-century-old doctrine that holds that the government may ignore the rule of law by invocation of claims of secrecy — was premised on a lie by the United States. This shouldn't surprise us. The United States government, through its employees, lies about a great many things. The United States government lies to us — perhaps giving us the "least untruthful" story — when we question its use of power, and then lies to us about having lied to us. The United States government lies to us about war, its purpose, and its progress. The United States government lies to us about its treatment of detainees and its justifications for that treatment. Nor are the lies all about "security." The United States government is the sort of entity — made up of the sort of people — that will tells impoverished black men that it is treating them for "bad blood" when it is actually experimentally observing their untreated syphilis.

Yet America's modern surveillance state — and the secrecy that cloaks it — is premised at every level upon the United States government saying "trust us." But how is it even minimally rational to do so? Would the United States government or its advocates repose trust in anyone who lies as frequently and unabashedly as they do? How can you trust an organization with a proven record of lying — an organization so devoted to lying that itseeks to enact rules explicitly permitting it to lie to us?

Holy Smoke

Have your ashes put into ammunition. Really. [Link]

We offer a way to honor your deceased loved one by giving or sharing with him or her one more round of clay targets, one last bird hunt, or one last stalk hunt.

The Concept
Several years ago I was talking with my friend and co-worker at work one evening. We were discussing the passing of one of our relatives and the topic of conversation turned to our own demise and whether we preferred burial or cremation.  I told my friend that I had some cost, waste of space and ecological issues with burials and that I thought I wanted to be cremated and in some fashion, have my ashes tossed into a river or spread through the woods.

My friend  smiled and said "You know I've thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second."

I realized that my friend was describing almost exactly how I wanted my ashes to be spread.  How perfect to have my family and friends honor me by using shotgun shells with a little bit of my ash in each one.  Whether my shells get shot at sporting clays or live birds or put on the shelf, even in death I could be ecologically sound and useful.


From that statement, we started a company that can take your or your loved ones ashes and produce an eco-friendly way  to spread or use those ashes while conducting a favored activity.
With care and reverence, we can place the ashes of your loved ones into almost any caliber or gauge of ammunition.  

She Writes Like an Eighth Grader, But Better Than a CEO

Wait, what? [Link]

Well, golly gee:

She may have attended four universities, but Sarah Palin still writes like an eighth-grader.

AOL Weird News gave two writing analytic companies samples of the former Alaska governor's recently released emails and both agree that the Tea Party favorite writes as if she's in middle school.

The 24,000 emails during Palin's time as Alaska governor are still being sifted through. But the documents are filled with her famous folksy phrases like "holy moly," "shindig" and "holy flippin' crap."

Then comes the media reality check:

It turns out Palin's writing skills are still better than most educated Americans. Global Language Monitor gave Palin's emails a score of 8.2, which actually exceeds that of most chief executives.

To boldly go...into the water

Star Trek wetsuits. [Link]

"I'm a doctor, not a gnarly surfer, Jim!" That doesn't mean McCoy can't boldly go into the coldest water with a Star Trek wetsuit, pattered after those worn in the original series and custom-fitted for the dear price of between $435 and $470.

But can it shoot beams from it's eyes?

Mutant apple. [Link]

Ken Morrish of England pulled this gem off his apple tree thinking someone had painted it. Turns out that this half-green, half-red Golden Delicious is a genetic mutant. The red side is slightly sweeter than the green half.

The Obama Doctrine

I guess this treatment of our allies is intentional instead of incompetence. Even an incompetent will get something right by accident. [Link]

Yesterday marked the 8th month of the Obama administration, and a unifying theme behind their management of our relations with other nations -- an "Obama Doctrine," if you will -- is starting to emerge. And it ain't a pretty one.
It seems best summed up thus: "piss off your friends and appease your foes."
It doesn't sound like a formula for success, or even well thought out, but it is the best summation that fits the known facts. Witness how things have gone with select nations:
Great Britain: a steady stream of slights and insults, including cheap gifts to the Prime Minister (including DVDs that won't work in England), the return of a prized Churchill bust that had held an honored place in the Oval Office for decades, and meddling with Bermuda (a British colony) to the point where we inadvertently toppled their government. How the release of the Lockerbie bomber fits in is unclear; it could be considered a bit of a "tit for tat" slap from the British, or the Obama's protestations of being unaware of it beforehand could be more attempts to blame the British for things.
Israel: A major shift has occurred in our stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For decades, we'd said that the major obstacle to peace was the two sides' tendency to destroy things (people, buildings, vehicles, and the like). Under Obama, the biggest problem is now Israel's building housing for people. No wonder only about 4% of Israelis think that Obama is on their side.
Poland: The former keystone to the Soviet empire (that might be a stretch, but they did call their alliance "the Warsaw Pact") has been a great friend of the United States ever since President Reagan supported the Solidarity movement that began the collapse of that empire. There are few people who more value freedom than those who have just emerged from decades of enslavement. Then, on the 60th 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, Obama announces that he's withdrawing the missile shield President Bush had promised the Poles to protect them from Soviet threats.
Canada and Mexico: Our two closest neighbors, with whom we share huge, unfortified borders, are also our key trading partners. During the election, Obama denounced the NAFTA pact that has benefited all three nations (to various degrees) and has been pushing a form of American protectionism that threatens their continued prosperity.

The Cluckassic: When Chickens Walked the Earth!

Genetically modifying chickens to make them like dinosaurs. [Link]

Macleans, canadian newsmagazine, has coverage on "the quest to build a dinosaur"

Larsson is experimenting with chicken embryos to create the creature Horner describes: a “chickenosaurus,” they call it. If he succeeds, Larsson will have made an animal with clawed hands, teeth, a long, dinosaurian tail and ancestral plumage, one that shares characteristics with “the dinosaur we know that’s closest to birds, little raptors like the velociraptor,” Horner says.

The chickenosaurus will be a conversation piece, he says, sparking a public debate about evolution by winding its tape backwards for all to see. “Let’s put it this way,” Horner says. “You can’t make a dinosaur out of a chicken, if evolution doesn’t work.”

Misplaced Moral Outrage

I know I'm supposed to think 'evil government', but the girl is 13. Solo round the world trips are not a good idea. Why do we have to explain this? Isn't it obvious? [Link]

Laura Dekker, age 13, wants to sail around the world by herself in a 25-foot boat, and her parents support her. Social workers in the Netherlands have stepped in to try to make Laura a ward of the court, which would prevent the parents from allowing her to do it.

Hillary visits exotic foreign country: Texas

I guess they don't need to secede now. [Link]

Last weekend, the blog Stormin’s Morning Java noticed an odd claim on the State Department website. In a list that intended to brag about how much Hillary Clinton had traveled as the new Secretary of State to foreign countries, Foggy Bottom included a trip to Texas:

And it's not a typo as Texas is mentioned again referring to Hillary's foreign travels.

THIS is what snaps the suspenders of disbelief?

Not faster-than-light travel, not teleportation, not time travel, but the size of buildings.

The zoning laws for San Francisco in the 23rd century in the new Star Trek Movie. [Link]

Most people saw the massive cityscape in the new Star Trek trailer, and drooled. But not San Francisco activists, who've battled to keep mega-buildings out. Did Starfleet scrap our zoning laws? They ask.