Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

The web is a terrorist’s command-and-control network of choice

ISIS and younger Islamic radicals can use the internet even more than their predecessors, claims a Financial Times article. Robert Hannigan goes beyond the old "e-Qaeda" meme, mixing in the digital native concept to argue for even greater surveillance.

Human sacrifice debated by the Supreme Court, as dogs

During a recent US Supreme Court discussion the judges discussed... human sacrifice.  Debate included consideration of a hypothetical Human Sacrifice Channel (TM).

Let's listen and watch as John Oliver's stunt of having dogs stand in for the Court's lack of visuals takes up the case.

(thanks to Jason Kielbasa)

Bears invade London

Paddington bear statues appearing in London sounds sweet, but it may also be creepy.  One Twitter observer notes: 

Way more horrifying than intended. "Paddington Bear statues" (Photo: Mike Marsland/WireImage)

French police on alert about “Evil Clown Phenomenon”

French police are on the alert for scary clowns, following this week's clown attack wave.  The British Telegraph reports that

Police have issued a statement on their national website entitled “Evil Clown Phenomenon”

Not only have les flics just given away a terrific band name, but they also demonstrate just how far this pitre meme has gone.  Even other civil authorities have taken a hand:

On Thursday, the village of Vendargues, population 6,000, near Montpellier issued a decree warning that “individuals or groups of people aged 13 or more” are banned from dressing up as clowns on streets and in public spaces on October 31st and November 1st.

Some of the cops even have a taste for cinema:

This followed a warning last week from Pas-de-Calais police in northern France that “clowns inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre are not welcome outside schools.”

While others are minding anti-evil-clown vigilantes on social media (yes):

Police have warned would-be anti-clown vigilantes, who have also created Facebook pages, not to take the law into their own hands.

When will French nationalists denounce the Evil Clown Phenomenon as another vile American import?

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Zombie capitalism

One Der Spiegel article ramps up the classic zombie banking concept to see the entire global capitalist order as zombified. Call it the zombie system. 

The condition of the industry is now so dismal that experts are using metaphors from the world of horror films to describe it. "Zombie banks" are those that are being kept alive artificially with government bailouts and, like the zombies in Hollywood films, are wreaking havoc throughout Europe. They are too sick to lend money to the real economy but healthy enough to speculate with financial investments.

The article doesn't develop the zombie theme much beyond that passage and the title, although it does have some nicely dark passages, like this hint of architectural fright: 

Harvard economist Larry Katz rails that US society has come to resemble a deformed and unstable apartment building: The penthouse at the top is getting bigger and bigger, the lower levels are overcrowded, the middle levels are full of empty apartments and the elevator has stopped working.

And poison:

Greenspan's policy of cheap money became a sweet poison for Wall Street, the chief ingredient of the dangerous debt cocktails brewed up by the wizards at London and New York investment banks...

The zombie-nomics meme just keeps shambling on, feasting merrily on our brains.

(via Naked Capitalism)

Creepy historical phone calls

Cracked offers a set of disturbing phone calls from the 20th century.  They focus on true crime, and offer a useful glimpse into fearsome media history.

The animation of Randolph Carter

Doug Simon offers a nicely done animated version of HP Lovecraft's classic short story "The Statement of Randolph Carter."

It's very short, and you can watch the whole thing below:

Simon et al account for the story's main arc, but they also add two other layers.  We see flashbacks to the two characters working together, including a fun lobster-eating scene.  There's also a parallel structure concerning the survivor's fate.  Very nicely balanced.

(thanks to David Aelfric)