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05

2004-05 posts.

  1. 2004-05-01t07:58:10Z. RE: Bush. Comic Art. Computers. Cyber Life. Design. Elections. Engineering. Faith. File. Food. Fun. Green. Health. Images. Interesting. Iraq. Israel. Martial Arts. Math. Media. Money. Politics. Science. Sex. Terrorism. US. Words. World.
  2. 2004-05-13t18:21:51Z. RE: 9/11. Bush. Comic Art. Computers. Cyber Life. Elections. Engineering. Faith. Food. Fun. Green. Images. Interesting. Iraq. Martial Arts. Media. Medicine. Money. Music. Parenting. Politics. Prisoner Abuse. Programming. Science. Sex. Show Biz. Space. USA. World.
  3. On Vacation. RE: Travel.

2004-05-01t07:58:10Z | RE: Bush. Comic Art. Computers. Cyber Life. Design. Elections. Engineering. Faith. File. Food. Fun. Green. Health. Images. Interesting. Iraq. Israel. Martial Arts. Math. Media. Money. Politics. Science. Sex. Terrorism. US. Words. World.
2004-05-01t07:58:10Z

Bush

  • HouseOfBush.com.
    • 'House of Bush, House of Saud begins with a single question: How is it that two days after September 11, 2001, even as American air traffic was tightly restricted, a Saudi billionaire socialized in the White House with President George W. Bush as 140 Saudi citizens, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to return to their country? A potential treasure trove of intelligence was allowed to flee the country-- including an alleged al-Qaeda intermediary who was said to have foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Why did the FBI facilitate this evacuation, and why didn't the agency question the people on the planes? Why did Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of most of the hijackers, receive exclusive and preferential treatment from the White House even as the World Trade Center continued to burn?'
    • book cover of House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger Available at Amazon
  • Bush reaping the benefits of journalistic professionalism: Covering an inarticulate president
    • ' Why is the Democrat-loving, Republican-hating, pond scum-swilling, lower-than-the-rug-on-the-floor, biased, liberal [curl upper lip when pronouncing] press protecting George W. Bush? ... If the press were not protecting Bush, you'd have read in your Chicago Tribune--or Washington Post or New York Times or Wall Street Journal or USA Today--that he delivered one of the most confusing, inarticulate public addresses since ... well, some people would say since his press conference a week earlier. As it was, those hopelessly biased reporters who cover Bush overlooked the mangled syntax, penetrated the rhetorical fog and extracted some usable lines from the dross and manufactured stories that had the president sounding, if not quite statesmanlike, then at least intelligible.'
    • ' Bush has benefited from this journalistic professionalism throughout his presidency. In a column almost two years ago, in July 2002, I quoted the complaint of a reader who claimed we had misquoted the president's statement in a press conference denying any " 'malfeasance' in his business dealings prior to becoming president."

      "The word that he actually used ... sounded to me something like 'misfeance'--something which is not a word in any dictionary I've ever seen," the reader, Sean Barnawell of Chicago, wrote. "I feel the Tribune should not be in the business of 'cleansing' what the president says in order to make him sound more articulate than he is."

      I replied thus: "Ideally, we would have a president so articulate that we would never be in doubt as to what he said. In reality, we have one who regularly mispronounces. ... This confronts us with the question whether our purpose is to transmit to readers what the president means when he speaks out or to simply relate what he says. I have always felt that transmitting meaning is paramount. .."

  • Bush 'Seizure' Answer to his Awful Press Conference Performance?
    • ' "At some time in the past, according to both [redacted] and [redacted] the President suffered what one of his aides called "a very minor seizure" and as a result of this, the President has a very difficult time following any unscripted conversations. For this reason, his staff carefully and aggressively protect the President from "unexpected" questions that he is not capable of answering."  '
    • I assume that this is supposed to be some sort of humor piece. I'm assuming it because although it explains a lot of things, it's a pretty big claim.
    • Related links:
  • The MisInformation Clearinghouse.
    • ' ALERT! Over the past few years, vital data has been deleted, buried, distorted, or has otherwise gone missing from government websites and publications. The National Council for Research on Women has begun to document how these changes and exclusions affect women's lives in a new report, entitled MISSING: Information About Women's Lives. '
    • More 1984 stuff.
  • The Bush-Cheney interview with the 9/11 Commission is a total non-event. It was closed to the public. It was unrecorded. It was  in the White House. It was done with the 2 together instead of separately.
  • In Front of Your Nose
    • ' We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." That's from George Orwell's 1946 essay "In Front of Your Nose." It seems especially relevant right now, as we survey the wreckage of America's Iraq adventure. '
    • ' All the information I've been able to get my hands on indicates that the security situation in Iraq is really, really bad. It's not a good sign when, a year into an occupation, the occupying army sends for more tanks. Western civilians have retreated to armed enclaves. U.S. forces are strong enough to defend those enclaves, and probably strong enough to keep essential supplies flowing. But we don't have remotely enough troops to turn the vicious circle around. The Iraqi forces that were supposed to fill the security gap collapsed -- or turned against us -- at the first sign of trouble. '
  • http://www.bushflash.com/unb.html [see the video].
    • ' During a commercial break on the David Letterman show, producer Maria Pope was on stage and discussing something with Letterman, and while she was standing there in front of Bush, George leaned forward, grabbed the back of her sweater and used it to clean his glasses. '

Comic Art

  • 24HourComics.com.
    • 'Comics leading theoretician Scott McCloud came up with the 24 hour comics challenge about a decade back. Simply put, a cartoonist tries to write and draw an entire 24 page comics story in 24 consecutive hours. Since then, hundreds have tried, ranging from a 9 year old girl to some of the biggest names in comics. '
    • Hey if it's by McCloud, it's got to be good.
  • My Marvel Years
    • Wonderful piece on adolescence, the 1970s, and Marvel comics, esp. Kirby. Excellent writing, each paragraph is a powerful panel.
    • ' In Marvel's greatest comics, Lee and Kirby were full collaborators who, like Lennon and McCartney, really were more than the sum of their parts, and who derived their greatness from the push and pull of incompatible visions. Kirby always wanted to drag the Four into the Negative Zone - deeper into psychedelic science fiction and existential alienation - while Lee resolutely pulled them back into the morass of human lives, hormonal alienation, teenage dating problems, pregnancy, and unfulfilled longings to be human and normal and loved and not to have the Baxter Building repossessed by the City of New York. Kirby threw at the Four an endless series of ponderous fallen gods or whole tribes and races of alienated antiheroes with problems no mortal could credibly contemplate. Lee made certain the Four were always answerable to the female priorities of Sue Storm - the Invisible Girl, Reed Richards's wife and famously 'the weakest member of the Fantastic Four'. She wanted a home for their boy Franklin, she wanted Reed to stay out of the Negative Zone, and she was willing to quit the Four and quit the marriage to stand up for what she believed. '

Computers

  • Internet speed record set
    • ' The record, announced Tuesday at the Spring 2004 Internet2 member meeting in Arlington, Va., was for transmitting data over nearly 11,000 kilometers at an average speed of 6.25 gigabits per second. This is nearly 10,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection. The network link used to set the record reaches from Los Angeles to Geneva, Switzerland. '
  • A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts. 'So you think you are an interaction designer? Not if you cannot answer all the following questions quickly and with authority. ... These questions and answers assume that you have total control over all screen real estate, the OS, etc. Just pretend you are chief designer for Microsoft and Apple (after the big takeover).'
  • LIpsum.com.
    • 'Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.'
    • This site can generate Lorem Ipsum for you.
    • Related link: The Straight Dope on Lorem Ipsum.
  • Bush: Broadband for the people by 2007
    • ' To make that happen, Bush on Monday ordered federal agencies to streamline the process of granting broadband providers access to federal land. The White House stressed in a fact sheet that Bush was backing the Federal Communications Commission's efforts to deregulate fiber-optic connections, as well as the U.S. Department of Commerce's development of specifications for broadband over power lines and a Senate proposal to curb taxes on Internet access. '
      • I've mentioned BPL (Broadband Power Lines) before and it will have a huge effect on the entire US.
    • ' Adam Thierer, a telecommunications analyst at the free-market Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., said he wasn't sure why it took Bush nearly four years to gather his thoughts on broadband. "I guess better late than never is the theme here, although one wonders why it took him this long to get more specific." '
      • Hey! Bush does so few things that I appreciate, so I'm thankful for those few good scraps.
    • Related links:
  • How many Google machines. Estimates on Googles hidden supercomputer.
  • American Business Computers Catalog, about 1981
    •

Cyber Life

  • Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials
    • 'As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable. '
    • 'At least one nation, China, is actively tracking blogs. It's also reportedly trying to block blogs. Several press reports earlier this year said the government shut two blogging services and banned access to all Web logs by Chinese citizens.'
  • "www.terror.net- How Modern Terrorism uses the Internet" [PDF]
    • It is impossible to stop or decipher international messages. A terrorist group, or any group, can make a web site that may appear to have no relation to their true aim.
    • Related link:
  • Computer Student on Trial for Aid to Muslim Web Sites [NYT ]
    • ' As a Web master to several Islamic organizations, Mr. Hussayen helped to maintain Internet sites with links to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel. But he himself does not hold those views, his lawyers said. His role was like that of a technical editor, they said, arguing that he could not be held criminally liable for what others wrote. '
    • ' Civil libertarians say the case poses a landmark test of what people can do or whom they can associate with in the age of terror alerts. It is one of the few times anyone has been prosecuted under language in the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, which makes it a crime to provide "expert guidance or assistance" to groups deemed terrorist. '
    • ' Idaho, one of the most Republican states, has become an unlikely home of opposition to the act. The state's senior senator, the Republican Larry E. Craig, and Representative C. L. Otter, also a Republican, have sponsored bills to amend the act, which they have called a threat to civil liberties. '
    • ' "It's an illustration of how much power the government can bring against somebody," said John Dickinson, a retired professor of computer sciences who was Mr. Hussayen's doctoral adviser at the University of Idaho. "It should scare anybody." Mr. Dickinson said he was interviewed by the F.B.I. for several hours after Mr. Hussayen's arrest in February 2003. "They kept saying his Ph.D. program was a front and that the person I knew was only the tip of this monstrous iceberg," he said. "But I've yet to hear one thing the government has said since then that has made me question his innocence." '
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Blogged

Design

Elections

Engineering

  • 'Laser vision' offers new insights
    • ' US firm Microvision [MVis.com] has developed a system that projects lasers onto the retina, allowing users to view images on top of their normal field of vision.'
    • ' The first generation product, called the Nomad Expert Technician System, consists of a wireless computer and a hi-tech monocle, costing around $4,000. The monocle is worn in front of the eye and reflects scanned laser light to the eye allowing mechanics to view car diagnostics and instructions superimposed on their field of vision. '
    • ' Honda has found that technicians are saving about 40% in terms of the time spent working on engines, saving the company an estimated $2,000 per month per technician. Surgeons have also tested a version of the system which gives them vital patient data, such as heart rate and blood pressure, as they operate. Already 100 of the see-through laser-based displays have been shipped to Iraq for use by the US Army's Stryker Brigade. '
    • Borgify me baby! Or maybe do some long term studies first.
    • Laser vision in use
  • Robotic traffic cones swarm onto highways
    • ' The self-propelled markers take the form of robotic three-wheeled bases for the brightly coloured barrels that are set out to demarcate road repair zones. Farritor says they can open and close traffic lanes faster and more safely than humans. The markers are delivered to the roadside by a specially equipped truck, from which an operator controls their deployment using a laptop computer. Each fleet of robots is made up of a lead robot or "shepherd", which is equipped with a Global Positioning System satellite navigation receiver, plus a number of less expensive "dumb" units. '
    • Hey! They stole this idea from Toy Story 2.

Faith

File

Food

  • Coca-Cola C2 coming this summer. At first I thought "how stupid". But then I thought about it. If it has half the sugar and none of the artificial sweetners, but tastes good, then I might be interested. Come to think of it I'd like half the caffeine too. Or... never mind! I'm just going to drink water.
    Coke C2
  • FoodMuseum.com. Well, why not? We all eat don't we?
  • Raising the Humble Chicken. I wonder if we can raise chickens in Chicago?

Fun

  • http://ferryhalim.com/orisinal/. A bunch of gentle, pastel-flavored Flash games.
  • The biggest moving mountain ever surfed and the Qucktime Video of it. ' "HOLY crap, Pete ... that was a bomb!" Those were the exact words used by surfer Pete Cabrinha's jet ski tow-in driver, Rush Randle, after the revered Hawaiian waterman rode a 70 foot (21.5m) giant. Randle was right, almost. It was more than a bomb. It was big enough to get Cabrinha into the Guinness Book of Records for the largest wave ever ridden.'
    photo of surfing record
  • 50 Worst Songs Ever. Here's all 50 via Worst song ever. Of course this list only covers pop music of recent times. I'm listing them here in case the links become defective.
    • 1. We Built This City Starship ... 1985
      2. Achy Breaky Heart Billy Ray Cyrus ... 1992
      3. Everybody Have Fun Tonight Wang Chung ... 1986
      4. Rollin' Limp Bizkit ... 2000
      5. Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice ... 1990
      6. The Heart of Rock & Roll Huey Lewis and the News ... 1984
      7. Don't Worry, Be Happy Bobby McFerrin ... 1988
      8. Party All the Time Eddie Murphy ... 1985
      9. American Life Madonna ... 2003
      10. Ebony and Ivory Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder ... 1982
      11. Invisible Clay Aiken ... 2003
      12. Kokomo The Beach Boys ... 1988
      13. Illegal Alien Genesis ... 1983
      14. From a Distance Bette Midler ... 1990
      15. I'll Be There for You The Rembrandts ... 1995
      16. What's Up? 4 Non Blondes ... 1993
      17. Pumps and a Bump Hammer ... 1994
      18. You're The Inspiration Chicago ... 1984
      19. Broken Wings Mr. Mister ... 1985
      20. Dancing on the Ceiling Lionel Richie ... 1986
      21. Two Princes Spin Doctors ... 1992
      22. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) Toby Keith ... 2002
      23. Sunglasses at Night Corey Hart ... 1984
      24. Five for Fighting Superman ... 2000
      25. I'll Be Missing You Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112 ... 1997
      26. The End The Doors ... 1967
      27. The Final Countdown Europe ... 1987
      28. Your Body Is a Wonderland John Mayer ... 2001
      29. Breakfast at Tiffany's Deep Blue Something ... 1995
      30. Greatest Love of All Whitney Houston ... 1986
      31. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Crash Test Dummies ... 1994
      32. Will 2K Will Smith ... 1999
      33. Barbie Girl Aqua ... 1997
      34. Longer Dan Fogelberg ... 1979
      35. Shiny Happy People R.E.M. ... 1991
      36. Make Em Say Uhh! Master P featuring Silkk, Fiend, Mia-X and Mystikal ... 1998
      37. Rico Suave Gerardo ... 1991
      38. Cotton Eyed Joe Rednex ... 1995
      39. She Bangs Ricky Martin ... 2000
      40. I Wanna Sex You Up Color Me Badd ... 1991
      41. We Didn't Start the Fire Billy Joel ... 1989
      42. The Sounds of Silence Simon & Garfunkel ... 1965
      43. Follow Me Uncle Kracker ... 2000
      44. I'll Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) Meat Loaf ... 1993
      45. Mesmerize Ja Rule featuring Ashanti ... 2002
      46. Hangin' Tough New Kids on the Block ... 1989
      47. The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You Bryan Adams ... 1996
      48. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da The Beatles ... 1968
      49. I'm Too Sexy Right Said Fred ... 1992
      50. My Heart Will Go On Celine Dion ... 1998
  • American Muscle Cars of the 60's and 70's.
  • Ha ha! It's 2004-04-29t02:51:00Z or 9:51 pm here in Chicago and we just came in the door after getting our FREE SCOOPS OF ICE CREAM compliments of the new Shrek2 movie coming out on May 21. Thanks Shrek and Baskin-Robbins! The place was packed and there was such a good feeling in the air. People loved getting free stuff and the workers seemed like they loved giving away free stuff.
  • The classic "The Good Wife's Guide" from the 1955-05-13 issue of Housekeeping Monthly is worthy of archiving. My wife may have problems with "Be happy to be seen with him". It starts out reasonably then turns into a horror flick! Related links: Snopes  and StepfordWivesMovie.com.
    'The good wife' made to look like an actual scan
  • Mario Brothers, a tragedy, part 4 [see video]. Still very good but it's not done yet! Related links: 1, 2, and 3.
  • TRON Lightcycle [game]. I've never been good at this but someone else might.
  • Yetisports 4 [game]. Simple but surprisingly fun and fresh. Basically a click has a yeti toss a penguin at seagulls. Then subsequent clicks make the seagull who caught the penguin flap its wings. The goal is to take the penguin as far as you can. You get 3 tosses.

Green

  • Groups Criticize Bush Earth Day Visit
    • ' "This administration has undertaken a concerted, systematic, very vigorous effort to undermine or repeal every important environmental law protecting the people and the environment of the United States," said Brownie Carson, executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. '
    • ' "I don't think since Sen. (Edmund) Muskie wrote the Clean Air Act that there has been a worse record by a president on air," said Conrad Schneider of the Clean Air Task Force in Brunswick. '
  • The idea of "oil from garbage" has been around for a while now. Here are a bunch of links related to it from MetaFilter.com:
  • 2004 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, 9th Edition by Steven F. Hayward [PDF]
    • This report presents data but I'll have to view it with a grain of salt because it's brought to us by PacificResearch.org (PRI, Pacific Research Institute) and AEI.org (American Enterprise Institute), both of which are corporate sponsored Right-wing think-tanks. It's authored by Steven F. Hayward, an anti-environmentalist heavy of the 2 think tanks mentioned.
    • The earth has shown some improvement but this is due to the efforts of environmentalists watch-dogging corporations. If US corporations didn't have the environmentalists looking over their shoulders, the US environment would look more like the brown parts of China. Hayward in his green-colored lenses, implies the absurd: As if relaxing environmental controls would actually improve the environment; As if scientists with no financial ulterior motives don't know how to do studies better than corporate paid heavies.
    • I can see through this man and his arguments. What scares me is that this man and this report are the sort of blinders that the corporations uses to soothe and calm voters and politicians. Or possibly to massage the consciences of its CEO and employees. What a despicable anti-Earth Week report to contort good news for evil purposes.
  • Satellites act as thermometers in space, show Earth has a fever
  • End of the Wild: The extinction crisis is over. We lost.
  • Rate of Ocean Circulation Directly Linked to Abrupt Climate Change. ' The study, reported April 22 in the journal Nature, suggests that when the rate of the Atlantic Ocean's north-south overturning circulation slowed dramatically following an iceberg outburst during the last deglaciation, the climate in the North Atlantic region became colder. When the rate of the ocean's overturning circulation subsequently accelerated, the climate warmed abruptly. '
  • NASA battles buzz from disaster movie
    • Here's stuff from the stupid memo handed out by the Bush administration to dozens of scientists and officials at NASA:
      • ' Urgent: HQ Direction ... No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with [the film] ... Any news media wanting to discuss science fiction vs. science fact about climate change will need to seek comment from individuals or organizations not associated with NASA. '
    • 'A copy of the message was provided to The New York Times by a senior NASA scientist who said he resented attempts to muzzle researchers. '
    • ' "It's just another attempt to play down anything that might lead to the conclusion that something must be done" about global warming, one federal climate scientist said. He, like half a dozen government employees interviewed on this subject, said he could speak only on condition of anonymity, because of standing orders not to talk to the news media. '
    • That fucking evil, anti-environment administration. I'm definitely going to see that movie now.
    • Related link: The Day After Tomorrow. Release date: May 28. Movie about what if we had a modern climate collapse. Trailer.

Health

  • Michigan House Bill No. 5276
    • 'Sec. 2. (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a health facility may withdraw or withhold from providing a health care service, or may refuse to provide or participate in a health care service, on ethical, moral, or religious grounds as reflected in its organizational documents, charter, bylaws, or an adopted mission statement.'
    • The bill goes on to make exceptions for emergencies, but still the attitude is astonishing.
    • Related links:
      • Michigan Preparing To Let Doctors Refuse To Treat Gays
        • 'Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients under legislation passed Wednesday by the Michigan House. '
      • Hippocratic Oath -- Modern Version
        • 'I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.'
  • British socialized medicine seems to be struggling with Caesarean v vaginal births
    • 'After years of keeping us legs akimbo in the lithotomy position, our rulers now want us to jump down and push'. ' The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) has finally noticed that British women are having too many caesareans. They are having way too many hysterectomies, too, but so far Nice hasn't objected. '
    • Cut it out. ' Behind the latest controversy lies a bigger issue. The rising rate of caesarean births is an international phenomenon. America and Britain have a high rate of more than 20% of all births, but there are other countries which are much higher, such as Brazil (35%) and Puerto Rico (31.4%). At the same time, some northern European countries such as Norway and Sweden have brought their caesarean rates down to below 10%, apparently without any damaging consequences for child or mother. It is absurd to suggest that the driving force behind these patches of medicalised childbirth all over the globe is the boardroom mum.'
  • Answer, but No Cure, for a Social Disorder That Isolates Many [NYT]
    • ' As Mr. Miller learned from the article, autism is now believed to encompass a wide spectrum of impairment and intelligence, from the classically unreachable child to people with Asperger's and a similar condition called high-functioning autism, who have normal intelligence and often superior skills in a given area. But they all share a defining trait: They are what autism researchers call "mind blind." Lacking the ability to read cues like body language to intuit what other people are thinking, they have profound difficulty navigating basic social interactions. The diagnosis is reordering their lives. Some have become newly determined to learn how to compensate. '
    • ' Some Aspies interviewed asked to remain anonymous for fear of being stigmatized. But with the knowledge that their dysfunction is rooted in biology, many say remaining silent to pass as normal has become an even greater strain. "I would like nothing better than to shout it out to everyone," a pastor in California whose Asperger's was just diagnosed wrote in an e-mail message. "But there is so much explanation and education that needs to happen that I risk being judged incompetent." '
    • ' Often the new diagnoses involve people who for years have been deemed rude, clueless or just plain weird because of their blunt comments or all-too-personal disclosures. They typically have a penchant for accuracy and a hard-wired dislike for the disruption of routine. Unusually sensitive to light, touch and noise, some shrink from handshakes and hugs. Humor, which so often depends on tone of voice and familiarity with social customs, can be hard for them to comprehend. Although many have talents like memory for detail and an ability to focus intently for long periods, Aspies often end up underemployed and lonely. Unlike more severely impaired autistics, they often crave social intimacy, and they are acutely aware of their inability to get it. '
    • ' Researchers say autism spectrum disorders are a result of a combination of perhaps 10 to 20 genes, plus environmental factors, that seem to cause the brain to exhibit less activity in its social and emotional centers. Unlike people with classic autism, which is often accompanied by mental retardation, those with Asperger's have normal language development and intelligence. First identified in 1946 by the Viennese physician Hans Asperger, the condition was little-known until it was added to the American psychiatric diagnostic manual in 1994. Only in the last few years have mental health professionals become widely aware of it. The degree to which someone is affected may correlate with how many of the autism genes he or she has, some researchers say. About one in 165 people are thought to be on the autistic spectrum, although estimates vary. '
    • ' "She'll say something about how terrible her clothes look," Mr. Jorgensen explains. "I'll say, 'Yes, honey, those are terrible-looking clothes,' when really she's wanting some affirmation that her clothes don't look terrible." At those moments, Ms. Jorgensen now tells her husband that he is acting like an "ass burger," a running joke that defuses anger on both sides. But such exchanges have mostly disappeared because Ms. Jorgensen knows that she is unlikely to get what she wants that way. '

Images

Interesting

Iraq

  • Honduras Follows Spain, Pulls Out of Iraq. Spain had 1300 and Honduras 370.
  • Why would any Iraqi, even Iraqis that are not insurgents or rebels, ever want to give up their arms? It's a freaking dangerous country. They should have the right to their arms. The Iraqis are outside of the US but shouldn't the NRA be sympathetic for the Iraqi right to bear arms? Isn't their motto "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed"?
  • Getting us out of Bush's adventure: War through the eyes of a child
  • Iraq expenses are more than expected, Pentagon warns
    • ' Another senior committee member, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), said he smelled election-year politics. "The administration would be well-served here to come forward now, be honest about this, because the continuity and the confidence in this policy is going to be required to sustain it," Hagel said. "And that means be honest with the Congress, be honest with the American people.

      "Every ground squirrel in this country knows that it's going to be $50 billion to $75 billion in additional money required to sustain us in Iraq for this year."

      The White House budget director, Joshua Bolten, said earlier this year that the administration will eventually need more money beyond the $87 billion Congress authorized for this budget year, which ends Sept. 30. But Bolten said the administration would not request it this year, meaning such a multibillion-dollar appeal would come after the November election. '

    • All tip of the iceberg. This Iraq occupation will go on for years. At some point the price price tag will be fractions of a trillion dollars but it's not real money is it?
  • Two U.S. Soldiers Killed in Baghdad Blast [2004-04-26]. I'm putting this post here primarily because of the picture. The picture is of an Iraqi celebrating on top of a burning US Army humvee. The US is the richest, the mightiest nation on the Earth, but the people fighting the US believe they can win. They are the underdogs: they are poor, tired, and hungry. Their weapons are shoddy and often merely improvised. Their innocents, their women and children are killed on a daily basis and they know it hardly gets any press in the US. They believe they are fighting a fundamentalist Christian US President but they believe they have Allah on their side. The US is well supplied but they are intimate with the heat, the sand, the language, the culture, the people. The US is well trained but they have lived with violence and death for generations. They are surrounded and besieged but they are on their land, their waters -- this is where their ancestors have lived for thousands of years.
    photo of Iraqi celebrating over a burning US tank
    Did it have to be this way? Before Iraq we were perceived as the good guys.
  • Freed From Captivity in Iraq, Japanese Return to More Pain (lots of quotes cuz articles disappear in the NYT)
    • Fascinating insight into Japanese culture: the harsh hierarchy, the demands of conformity, the insistence on not inconveniencing others. BTW, I am personally painfully aware of this culture.
    • ' "You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air fare. '
    • ' Beneath the surface of Japan's ultra-sophisticated cities lie the hierarchical ties that have governed this island nation for centuries and that, at moments of crises, invariably reassert themselves. The former hostages' transgression was to ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a vertical society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy what people call here "okami," or, literally, "what is higher." '
    • ' Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three former hostages twice since their return, said the stress they were enduring now was "much heavier" than what they experienced during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name their three most stressful moments, the former hostages told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show the morning after their return here and realized Japan's anger with them. '
    • ' To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages -- Nahoko Takato, 34, who started a nonprofit organization to help Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a freelance writer interested in the issue of depleted uranium munitions -- had acted selfishly. Two others kidnapped and released in a separate incident -- Junpei Yasuda, 30, a freelance journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of an anti-war group -- were equally guilty.'
    • ' The Foreign Ministry, held both in awe and resentment by many Japanese, was the okami defied in this case. While Foreign Ministry officials are Japan's super elite, the average Japanese tends to regard them as arrogant and unhelpful, recalling how they failed to deliver in time the declaration of war against the United States in 1941 so that Japan became forever known as a sneak-attack nation. '
      • O come on! The translations just took too long.
    • ' Defying the okami are young Japanese people like the freed hostages, freelancers and members of nonprofit organizations, who are traditionally held in low esteem in a country where the bigger one's company, the bigger one's social rank. They also belong to a generation in which many have rejected traditional Japanese life. Many have gravitated instead to places like the East Village in Manhattan, looking for something undefined. '
    • photo of relatives of kidnapped Japanese bowing deeply
    • Related links:
  • http://www.ryano.net/iraq/. Add any message you want to this Iraqi photo that was known for being doctored.
  • Pictures from Iraq. I am quietly unbelievably pissed that my kid brothers in the Army will have to personally live through crap like this because of Bush is an ass hat. It's one thing to hunt down criminals and terrorists, but it's another thing to invade Iraq on unqualified pretenses.
    photo of Iraqi mother with injured child
  • "Tankers Rule!" [1.3 min video].
    • They gave some army dudes some guns, a tank, and loose orders to police the area. The video is a pretty obvious result. (Stupid locals don't understand what we're saying.) I don't blame the soldiers: I blame the leadership.
    • The tape's funny 'cuz while the taxi cab driver's livelihood was destroyed, no one actually got killed. It would have been funnier if we got to see the pissed off look on Joe Muhammad's face. Saturday Night Live couldn't have done it better.
  • I wonder how our E:I ratio (enemy-kills to innocent-kills ratio) compares to that of the terrorists. I'm sure we don't intend to kill innocents but we do.
  • How to Get Out of Iraq
    • Nice piece with details and specifics backing his claims.
    • ' Much of what went wrong was avoidable. Focused on winning the political battle to start a war, the Bush administration failed to anticipate the postwar chaos in Iraq. Administration strategy seems to have been based on a hope that Iraq's bureaucrats and police would simply transfer their loyalty to the new authorities, and the country's administration would continue to function. All experience in Iraq suggested that the collapse of civil authority was the most likely outcome, but there was no credible planning for this contingency. In fact, the US effort to remake Iraq never recovered from its confused start when it failed to prevent the looting of Baghdad in the early days of the occupation. '
    • ' During the war in Kosovo, the Clinton White House was criticized for insisting on presidential review of proposed targets. President Bush, notorious for his lack of curiosity, seems never to have asked even the most basic question: "What happens when we actually get to Baghdad?" The failure to answer this question at the start set back US efforts in Iraq in such a way that the US has not recovered and may never do so. '
    • 'The Bush administration's strategies in Iraq are failing for many reasons. First, they are being made up as the administration goes along, without benefit of planning, adequate knowledge of the country, or the experience of comparable situations. Second, the administration has been unwilling to sustain a commitment to a particular strategy. But third, the strategies are all based on an idea of an Iraq that does not exist.'
    • ' In my view, Iraq is not salvageable as a unitary state. From my experience in the Balkans, I feel strongly that it is impossible to preserve the unity of a democratic state where people in a geographically defined region almost unanimously do not want to be part of that state. I have never met an Iraqi Kurd who preferred membership in Iraq if independence were a realistic possibility.'
    • ' In my view, Iraq demonstrates all too clearly the folly of the preventive war doctrine and of unilateralism. Of course the United States must reserve the right to act alone when the country is under attack or in imminent danger of attack. But these are also precisely the circumstances when the United States does not need to act alone. After September 11 both NATO and the United Nations Security Council gave unqualified support for US action, including military action, to deal with the threat of international terrorists based in Afghanistan. After the Taliban was defeated, other countries contributed troops--and accepted casualties--in order to help stabilize the country; and they have also contributed billions to Afghanistan's reconstruction. Because the US so quickly diverted its attention to Iraq, many acute problems remain in Afghanistan, including warlordism and the deprivation of basic rights. International support for helping Afghanistan remains strong, however, and the effort can be revitalized with a new administration. '
  • Iraqis Say Council-Approved National Flag Won't Fly
    • ' "When I saw it in the newspaper, I felt very sad," said Muthana Khalil, 50, a supermarket owner in Saadoun, a commercial area in central Baghdad. "The flags of other Arab countries are red and green and black. Why did they put in these colors that are the same as Israel? Why was the public opinion not consulted?"  '
      • The Bush administration is clueless.
  • Broadcaster pulls plug on 'Nightline'
    • ' The Sinclair Broadcast Group will yank "Nightline" from its seven ABC affiliates Friday because the show is to be devoted to reading names of the hundreds of U.S. service members killed in Iraq. Sinclair officials say that is intended to damage support for U.S. actions. '
    • BULL SHIT. There  is nothing wrong with memorial services for soldiers killed in the line of duty. There is no way to spin it to make it wrong. This is a sheer political movement by the pro-Bush Sinclair Broadcast Group. "Contrary to public interest" my ass.
    • This show will air locally in Chicago on 2004-04-30 Friday at 10:35 p.m. on WLS-Ch.7.
    • Related link:
  • US Army Abuses POWs
    • More shit done by our soldiers. Come on! Where's the fucking leadership! At least the leadership's been quick to answer (EG: Bush Expresses 'Deep Disgust' at Abuse of Iraqis) but it's amazing that it got this far. It makes you wonder about the stuff doesn't become public.
    • There is no good reason to treat POW this way. We know it isn't right when US POW get treated wrongly so why the fuck do we allow ourselves to do the same sin? I'm for killing the enemy as absolutely needed but never for dehumanizing the enemy.
    • Abuse Of Iraqi POWs By GIs Probed
      • ' It was American soldiers serving as military police at Abu Ghraib who took these pictures. The investigation started when one soldier got them from a friend, and gave them to his commanders. 60 Minutes II has a dozen of these pictures, and there are many more -- pictures that show Americans, men and women in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners. There are shots of the prisoners stacked in a pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In some, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other. And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up.'
        • There's a lot of people involve here. This didn't just happen overnight.
      • ' Frederick also says there were far too few soldiers there for the number of prisoners: "There was, when I left, there was over 900. And there was only five soldiers, plus two non-commissioned officers, in charge for those 900 -- over 900 inmates." '
      • ' But the Army investigation found serious problems behind the scenes. The Army has photographs that show a detainee with wires attached to his genitals. Another shows a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. Frederick said that dogs were "used for intimidation factors." Part of the Army's own investigation is a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges a translator - hired to work at the prison - with raping a male juvenile prisoner: "They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming. ...and the female soldier was taking pictures." There is also a picture of an Iraqi man who appears to be dead -- and badly beaten. '
      • ' "The elixir of power, the elixir of believing that you're helping the CIA, for God's sake, when you're from a small town in Virginia, that's intoxicating," says Myers. "And so, good guys sometimes do things believing that they are being of assistance and helping a just cause. ... And helping people they view as important." '
        • That's no fucking excuse.
      • ' Frederick says he didn't see a copy of the Geneva Convention rules for handling prisoners of war until after he was charged. '
        • That's no fucking excuse.
      • ' Frederick told us he will plead not guilty, claiming the way the Army was running the prison led to the abuse of prisoners. "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things...like rules and regulations," says Frederick. "And it just wasn't happening." '
        • That's no fucking excuse.
      • ' Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinsky ran Abu Ghraib for the Army. She was also in charge of three other Army prison facilities that housed thousands of Iraqi inmates. The Army investigation determined that her lack of leadership and clear standards led to problems system wide. Karpinski talked with 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft last October at Abu Ghraib, before any of this came out. "This is international standards," said Karpinski. "It's the best care available in a prison facility." '
      • photo of Iraqi prisoner wired up
      • "If we don't tell this story, these kinds of things will continue. And we'll end up getting paid back 100 or 1,000 times over," says Cowan. "Americans want to be proud of each and everything that our servicemen and women do in Iraq. We wanna be proud. We know they're working hard. None of us, now, later, before or during this conflict, should wanna let incidents like this just pass."
        • Damn straight this story needs to be told. Enough of this Bush secrecy.
    • Related link:
  • Poll: Growing Doubts On Iraq
  • A City That Lives for Revenge
    • ' It didn't have to be this way. Had the United States taken more time to understand the city -- a place where even Saddam Hussein ventured cautiously -- it might have been able to avoid the current showdown. Part of the misunderstanding can be seen in the way the Pentagon talks about the situation in Falluja, describing those holed up there as either die-hards of Saddam Hussein's regime or foreigners promoting the ideology of Al Qaeda. What the Pentagon is neglecting is a third group, one that could prove more deadly to the occupation: the tribes of central Iraq. They are a tough lot with a long history of resistance to any outside authority. '
    • ' Falluja is tribal territory, one that functions by tribal rules. There are expectations of hospitality, practices for settling disputes and obligations of revenge against anyone committing an offense against a member of the tribe. The last -- revenge -- poses a big problem for the United States if negotiations with the insurgents fail and the military steps up its assault on the city. The holdouts of the old regime may be killed or captured. The foreign fighters may be dispersed. But for every tribesman who is killed, the kinship group remains, obligated to avenge his death. '
  • Poll: Iraqis out of patience and Key findings: Nationwide survey of 3,500 Iraqis
  • Rumsfeld's War, Powell's Occupation: Rumsfeld wanted Iraqis in on the action -- right from the beginning
    • The Conservatives are sticking it to Powell again but even more disturbing is that this is another Right-wing piece where not only do they blatantly change the story but they Bizarro reverse things. Geez point the finger anywhere but at Bush.
    • ' None of this happened, however, because State and CIA fought against Rumsfeld's plans every step of the way. '
    • ' Putting a U.N. stamp on an Iraqi government will delegitimize it in the eyes of most Iraqis and do great damage to those who are actively striving to create a freer, more progressive Middle East. '
    • ' It is not yet too late for us to recognize these facts and act on them by dismissing Brahimi, putting Secretary Rumsfeld and our Iraqi friends fully in charge at last, and unleashing our Marines to make an example of Fallujah. And when al Jazeera screams "massacre," instead of cringing and apologizing, we need to stand tall and proud and tell the world: Lynch mobs like the one that slaughtered four Americans will not be tolerated. Order will restored, and Iraqis who side with us will be protected and rewarded. '
  • Iraq congress members under investigation
    • ' Members of the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi were airlifted into southern Iraq the day Saddam's government fell. Chalabi was President Bush's guest at the State of the Union address. Even today, the INC gets $340,000 a month from the Pentagon to feed the United States intelligence information. But NBC News has learned that members of the group are now under investigation by Iraqi police in Baghdad -- allegations of: abduction, robbery, stealing 11 Iraqi government vehicles, assaulting police by firing on them during a search. '

Israel

  • 'Arafat could be target' - Sharon
    • 'Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he no longer feels bound by a promise to the US not to harm veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.'
    • Of course. Sharon is pushing his current favor with Bush to the max. Well perhaps Israel and Palestine will finally start open war. And of course we and other countries would get dragged into it. Does that sound familiar? Does WWI  or WWII ring a bell?
  • The Day That Bush Took Gaza: Israel's Exit Plan Will Mean a U.S. Entrance
    • ' Sharon's radical initiative would evacuate all Israeli settlements and military positions, unilaterally, within the next 18 months. His purpose is to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza and thereby absolve Israel of responsibility for the Palestinians there. Indeed, one of the articles of Sharon's disengagement plan declares that it will "obviate the claims about Israel with regard to its responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

      But who's going to take over that responsibility? Not the tattered Palestinian Authority. Not cautious Egypt, which once ruled Gaza. Instead, de facto responsibility for what happens in Gaza once Israel withdraws will fall to the United States. That's the hidden meaning in the president's letter of assurance to Sharon saying that the United States will lead an international effort to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism and prevent the areas from which Israel withdraws from posing a threat. '

    • ' Since Bush has already opened the final status issues by assuring the Israelis about borders and refugees, backers of the Palestinians can now demand elaboration of the U.S. positions on other final status issues. They will ask questions such as: If the United States is ready to recognize border adjustments for Israeli "population centers" in the West Bank, will it also endorse "territorial compensation" for the Palestinians?

      Then Bush will confront his ultimate political dilemma: In an election year, can he afford to water down his support for Israel for the sake of ensuring the international involvement that he needs in order to prevent a failed terrorist state from emerging?

      Welcome to Gaza, Mr. President. '

  • Border Police used Palestinian kid as human shield: Three other human rights monitors arrested at protest also used as human shields to prevent jeep from being stoned

Martial Arts

  • Army Scientists, Engineers develop Liquid Body Armor
    • ' "During normal handling, the STF is very deformable and flows like a liquid. However, once a bullet or frag hits the vest, it transitions to a rigid material, which prevents the projectile from penetrating the Soldier's body," said Dr. Eric Wetzel, a mechanical engineer from the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate who heads the project team. To make liquid armor, STF is soaked into all layers of the Kevlar vest. The Kevlar fabric holds the STF in place, and also helps to stop the bullet. The saturated fabric can be soaked, draped, and sewn just like any other fabric. '
    • ' "The sky's the limit," said Wetzel. "We would first like to put this material in a soldier's sleeves and pants, areas that aren't protected by ballistic vests but need to remain flexible. We could also use this material for bomb blankets, to cover suspicious packages or unexploded ordnance. Liquid armor could even be applied to jump boots, so that they would stiffen during impact to support Soldiers' ankles." '
    • ' "Prison guards and police officers could also benefit from this technology," said Wetzel. "Liquid armor is much more stab resistant than conventional body armor. This capability is especially important for prison guards, who are most often attacked with handmade sharp weapons." '
    • Freaking good stuff! It's like a super-hero costume!
  • Recit du Combat de Camerone. It's April 30th and thus time for the annual Recitation of the Battle of Camerone in the French Foreign Legion.
  • AlexanderJason.com. 'Certified Senior Crime Scene Analyst'
  • The Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in the US Civil War in words and animated military maps. 23,000 deaths.

Math

Media

  • A tribute to Bob Edwards. 'As he leaves Morning Edition, where he has been host since the show's debut in 1979, NPR recognizes Bob Edwards' 30 years on the public airwaves. After nearly 25 years of waking up at 1 a.m., Edwards assumes new duties as senior correspondent for NPR News.'
Money
  • The Wal-Mart Myth
    • ' In other words, hundreds of citizens who had initially signed a petition to qualify the measure for a vote ultimately voted no. The simple reason was the coordinated opposition campaign waged by a coalition of labor, elected officials, clergy and small business owners. Each had a stake, whether it was the threat of Wal-Mart's horrendous labor practices or Wal-Mart's attempt to undermine the authority of elected officials. In other words, despite Wal-Mart's almost unimaginable economic power, it is possible to defeat the corporate giant with a broad and somewhat non-traditional coalition. '
    • 'Costco, surprise, has a lower turnover rate and a far higher rate of productivity: it almost equaled Sam's Club's annual sales last year with one-third fewer employees. Only six percent of Costco's employees leave each year, compared to 21 percent at Sam's. And, by every financial measurement, the company does better. Its operating income was higher than Sam's Club, as was operating profit per hourly employees, sales per square foot and even its labor and overhead costs. Here's a quote to emblazon for corporate America: "Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business," says Costco CEO James D. Sinegal. '
  • Losing Our Edge?
    • 'I was just out in Silicon Valley, checking in with high-tech entrepreneurs about the state of their business. I wouldn't say they were universally gloomy, but I did detect something I hadn't detected before: a real undertow of concern that America is losing its competitive edge vis-à-vis China, India, Japan and other Asian tigers, and that the Bush team is deaf, dumb and blind to this situation. Several executives explained to me that they were opening new plants in Asia -- not because of cheaper labor. '
    • 'The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time.'
    • 'And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello? Right now we should have a Manhattan Project to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy -- it's within reach and would serve our economy, our environment and our foreign policy by diminishing our dependence on foreign oil. Instead, the Bush team says let's go to Mars. Where is Congress? Out to lunch -- or, worse, obsessed with trying to keep Susie Smith's job at the local pillow factory that is moving to the Caribbean -- without thinking about a national competitiveness strategy. And where is Wall Street? So many of the plutocrats there know that the Bush fiscal policy is a long-term disaster. They know it -- but they won't say a word because they are too greedy or too gutless.'
  • http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504073639/ds1.htm.

Politics

  • You Decide. An interesting part of a California NPR station that let's you vote on an issue multiple times, but depending on your vote it presents you with specific arguments to make sure you see other sides of the issue. A very creative and interesting way to educate people about the issues. The question then is whether you trust that the radio station is sufficiently neutral, honest, informed, and insightful about the issues.
  • Is It Another Country? Or a Place to Stow National Problems? A Yankee Journalist Gets Lost and Found in the South
    • ' To try to understand the southern identity in historical terms is to quickly realize that over time there have been many Souths: the sunny South, the savage South, the agrarian South, the Jim Crow South, the violent South, the cracker South, the frontier South, the antebellum South; H.L. Mencken's Old South, populated by "men of delicate fancy, urbane instinct and aristocratic manners -- in brief, superior men -- in brief, gentry," the suffering South, the moral South, and the list goes on. Even now, when interviewing astute observers of the region, it becomes rapidly clear that to talk about the South is to speak with southern mythologizers, southern debunkers, southern redeemers, and southern reinventors. Running clear through most of these narratives, however, is the theme that in some fundamental sense the South sits apart from the rest of the country. '
    • ' "It's good that the South makes concrete so many of the issues in this country that are veiled," she told me near the end of our conversation. "The downside is that because they are so concrete, the press turns it into the grotesque. So instead of seeing the South as representative, we see it as freakish." '
  • America in Red and Blue. A very insightful series of 3 articles on the deep political segregation and polarization in the country. Read this stuff regardless of your party.
    • Political Split Is Pervasive: A Nation Divided.
      • 'Clash of Cultures Is Driven by Targeted Appeals and Reinforced by Geography'
      • ' As it becomes more difficult to reach across the party line, campaigns are devoting more energy to firing up their hard-core supporters. For voters in the middle, this election may aggravate their feeling that politics no longer speaks to them, that it has become a dialogue of the deaf, a rant of uncompromising extremes. '
      • ' Some political scientists add another factor: simple political self-interest. According to the influential economic analysis known as "game theory," logic may compel the parties to aim for the narrowest possible victory margin. "In a democracy, to win you need a majority," UCLA's Noel said. "But you don't want a lot more than 50-percent-plus-one, because if your majority gets bigger, you have to share the spoils with more supporters. That's no good. So the natural process is to produce division." '
    • For a Conservative, Life Is Sweet in Sugar Land, Tex.: Living In A Red World
    • A Liberal Life in the City by the Bay: Living In A Blue World
    • Related links:
  • Claims vs. Facts Database
    • ' The Center for American Progress has launched this new database project to chart conservatives' dishonesty -- and compare it with the truth. In this database, each conservative quote will be matched against well-documented facts, so that users can get a more accurate picture of the issues.  '
    • This can grow to be a really huge database. According to recent trends though, the Conservatives will make a comparable database. What we really need is a neutral database that covers lies from any party.
    • Related link: Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq
  • Cheney Praises Fox News Channel: Vice President Calls Network 'More Accurate' Than Others. This is so funny!
  • The Truth Is.... The truth is I'm wary of guys who claim to know The Truth.

Science

  • J. Robert Oppenheimer Centennial at Berkeley
  • TOLWeb.org.
    • ' The Tree of Life is a collaborative web project, produced by biologists from around the world. On more than 2600 World Wide Web pages, the Tree of Life provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their history, and characteristics. '
    • Very nice exploration into taxonomy, phylogenetic trees and relationships.
  • Study: Neanderthals Grew Up Much Faster
    • ' If you think your kids grow up fast, consider this: A new study suggests that Neanderthal children blazed through adolescence and on average reached adulthood at age 15. The finding bolsters the view that Neanderthals were a unique species separate from modern humans, since the time for humans to mature to adulthood grew longer over the course of their evolution, said paleontologist Fernando V. Ramirez Rozzi, who led the study. '
    • ' For his study, Rozzi spent about 18 months examining growth patterns on the crowns of incisors and canines from 55 individual Neanderthals, comparing them with corresponding patterns from early modern humans and ancestors to both groups. Like rings on a tree, the time it takes for a tooth to grow can be measured by counting visible lines that form about every nine days on the enamel. On average, Rozzi found Neanderthals developed teeth 15 percent faster than modern humans. Therefore, a Neanderthal's physical development, which mirrors tooth growth, must have been faster as well, he said. '
  • Finding the Speed of Light with Marshmallows-A Take-Home Lab. ' This works in my physics class, often with less than 5% error. Then the students can eat the marshmallows. '

Sex [Assume NSFW]

Terrorism

  • Fears rise anew over homegrown terrorists: With focus abroad, militias may thrive
    • ' "If you look at the cycle of rebirth of these movements over the last century, each cycle is more and more extreme," Levitas said. "Now we have William Krar in Texas building a fully functional chemical weapon. You've had paramilitary activists produce ricin. It's only a matter of time before one of the more hard-core remnants of the militias decides to one-up Timothy McVeigh. '
  • Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam
    • 'On working-class streets of old industrial towns like Crawley, Luton, Birmingham and Manchester, and in the Arab enclaves of Germany, France, Switzerland and other parts of Europe, intelligence officials say a fervor for militancy is intensifying and becoming more open.'
      • All thanks to Bush's stupid leadership.
    • ' "Iraq dramatically strengthened their recruitment efforts," one counterterrorism official said. He added that some mosques now display photos of American soldiers fighting in Iraq alongside bloody scenes of bombed out Iraqi neighborhoods. '
    • ' Mainstream Muslims are outraged by the situation, saying the actions of a few are causing their communities to be singled out for surveillance and making the larger population distrustful of them. ... "I think these kids are being brainwashed by a few radical clerics," said Akhbar Dad Khan, another elder of the Central Mosque. He wants them prosecuted or deported. "We should be able to control this negativity," he said. '
  • Russia: WMDs Abound In Russia, But International Interest Fades. Oh so that's where some WMDs are! Unfortunately Bush is too busy destabalizing Iraq which had no WMDs and no real al Queda connection.
  • Doomed to failure in the Middle East: A letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair
    • ' We the undersigned former British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, including some who have long experience of the Middle East and others whose experience is elsewhere, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close cooperation with the United States. Following the press conference in Washington at which you and President Bush restated these policies, we feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment. '
  • Think Again- Al Qaeda
    • This article is explores a lot of misconceptions about al Qaeda. It is very important to understand the enemy and the problems, which, obviously, Bush does not.
    • ' The mere mention of al Qaeda conjures images of an efficient terrorist network guided by a powerful criminal mastermind. Yet al Qaeda is more lethal as an ideology than as an organization. "Al Qaedaism" will continue to attract supporters in the years to come--whether Osama bin Laden is around to lead them or not. '
    • ' However, if countries are to win the war on terror, they must eradicate enemies without creating new ones. They also need to deny those militants with whom negotiation is impossible the support of local populations. Such support assists and, in the minds of the militants, morally legitimizes their actions. If Western countries are to succeed, they must marry the hard component of military force to the soft component of cultural appeal. There is nothing weak about this approach. As any senior military officer with experience in counterinsurgency warfare will tell you, it makes good sense. The invasion of Iraq, though entirely justifiable from a humanitarian perspective, has made this task more pressing. '
  • Robbers Die Trying to Hold-Up Suicide Bomber. Ha ha!

US

  • MarchForWomen.org.
    • 1,115,000 people marched for women's civil rights. Sad that such an event got so little attention.
    • Related links:
  • Waist Case: Staking out the high moral ground, a bill would punish those wearing low-riding jeans
    • ' Even plumbers could get canned under the draft law that state Rep. Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero, said he filed because he was tired of catching glimpses of boxer shorts and G-strings over the low-slung belt lines of young adults. House Bill 1626 would punish anyone caught wearing low-riding pants with a fine of as much as $500 or as many as six months in jail, or both. '
    • 'Joe Cook, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Louisiana chapter, said the bill is unlikely to pass because it probably does not meet a long-standing U.S. Supreme Court standard for the prohibition of obscene behavior under the First Amendment. ... "What about a woman who is wearing a bathing suit under her garment or she has something like a sarong wrapped around her and it's below her waist," he said. "I can think of a lot of workers, plumbers, who are working and expose their buttocks and the beginning of the crack of their anus." '
    • How do idiots like this and Bush get elected?
  • Days of Infamy Live On Through Conspiracy Theories
    • ' Thomas Kean, chairman of the federal commission examining 9/11, said he hoped the probe would dampen some of the wilder conspiracy theories, rather than encourage them. ... But some of his efforts to debunk conspiracies and correct the record appear to be making little headway. '
    • ' Contrary to popular opinion and many news reports immediately following the attacks, the commission said box cutters were actually on the list of items the Federal Aviation Administration forbade to be taken on aircraft, and nine of the 19 hijackers received extra screening at the departure gates. But knives with blades less than 4 inches long were not on the list, and a review of purchases some of the hijackers made in the days before 9/11 suggests Leatherman-like knives with blades that can be locked into place were likely the weapons. The staff report said the hijackers carefully selected their seats in advance so they could be in first class or business sections near the cockpits, and that the hijackers probably used Mace or pepper spray to keep passengers in rear sections after the planes were hijacked. Cans of pepper spray were found in luggage that a hijacker inadvertently left behind. '
  • Patriot Act Suppresses News Of Challenge to Patriot Act. Amazing.

Words

  • The Zompist Phrasebook. Phrases "ugly Americans" would use in French, Spanish, and German. EG:
    • ' It's better in the States.
      • C'est mieux aux Etats-Unis.
      • Es mejor en los Estados Unidos.
      • In den Staaten ist es besser. '
    • 'What a stench.
      • Ça pue.
      • ¡Qué olor, por Dios!
      • Mein Gott, stinkt das hier. '
  • OPDS.org. The Online Dictionary of Playground Slang.
  • Foetry.com. ' One of the most common ways American poets publish a book is through open competition at some of the best-known presses. Many publishers require an entry fee, usually $20 to $25 per manuscript. With hundreds or even thousands of entries, a lot of money is involved. And then it's a fair competition, right? Wrong. Over and over again, judges often select their own students and friends, even when manuscripts are read "blind." '
  • ASL Browser
    • 'Welcome to Michigan State University's ASL Browser web site, an online American Sign Language (ASL) browser where you can look up video of thousands of ASL signs and learn interesting things about them.'
    • Excellent, wonderful, useful site! Bravo! (I personally know a thing or 2 about deafness)

World

2004-05-13t18:21:51Z | RE: 9/11. Bush. Comic Art. Computers. Cyber Life. Elections. Engineering. Faith. Food. Fun. Green. Images. Interesting. Iraq. Martial Arts. Media. Medicine. Money. Music. Parenting. Politics. Prisoner Abuse. Programming. Science. Sex. Show Biz. Space. USA. World.
2004-05-13t18:21:51Z

9/11

  • F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements
    • WTF?!?! This stinks of deliberate deception.
    • ' At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that same day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said in a report today. '
    • And while we're at it, why haven't we heard more about the contents of the 9/11 black boxes? We've heard more about various aerial accidents.

Bush

  • Without apology, Bush leaves regrets to others: President omits personal mea culpa
    • ' Just as he declined the easy chance to apologize to families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks during a prime-time news conference, so too did he stop short when addressing the issue of Iraqi prisoner abuse in two interviews on Arab satellite television. '
      • What an asshat. Yet more evidence that he isn't what he claimed to be: a "compassion conservative".
    • ' Presidents who accept direct responsibility--John F. Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs and Ronald Reagan after the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, for instance--have reaped clear benefits. '
  • President Bush's Secret Meeting [Flash video].
  • http://www.andyfoulds.co.uk/amusement/bushv2.htm [interactive Flash]. This is fun! See Bush's or Blair's nose stretch to follow your cursor.
  • Protecting the System. ' THE BUSH administration still seeks to mislead Congress and the public about the policies that contributed to the criminal abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Yesterday's smoke screen was provided by Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Mr. Cambone assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that the administration's policy had always been to strictly observe the Geneva Conventions in Iraq; that all procedures for interrogations in Iraq were sanctioned under the conventions; and that the abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were consequently the isolated acts of individuals. These assertions are contradicted by International Red Cross and Army investigators, by U.S. generals overseeing the prisoners, and by Mr. Cambone himself. '

Comic Art

  • Hirschfeld Archieve.
    • ' For almost 75 years in The New York Times, Al Hirschfeld's line drawings captured the vividness of American theater. A self-described "characterist," Hirschfeld (1903 - 2003) said his contribution was to take the character, created by the playwright and portrayed by the actor, and to reinvent it for the reader. His drawings, which often appeared before a show opened, gave many readers their first look at Broadway's newest offerings. This archive is a selection of works published in The Times. '
    • Hirschfeld renders My Fair Lady
    • Related: Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon

Computers

  • BASIC hits 40
    • 'Forty years ago, at 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, two Dartmouth College professors -- with the help of two of their undergraduate students -- made computing history. '
    • Whee! My brother Alan used to program BASIC on our old Atari computer and save code onto an audio cassette tape.
    • Related:
  • Google Influence on VB v VB .NET
  • Why Steve Jobs is still important
    • ' In the 1990s the Macintosh suffered from a dearth of software. Apple had to cajole, push and plead with software makers to support the Mac. Few did, and the Mac withered. When Jobs arrived back at Apple, he said, "Screw the software business--let's build our own great applications!" This old computer business stratagem, dating back to the minicomputer industry, yielded the ease and elegance of one computer, one architecture, one software set--openness and interoperability be damned. Without standards and third parties to worry about, you can tune your software for maximum integration and seamlessness--no bulky APIs (application program interfaces) or open drivers to file, rub and sand the cool edges off your systems. And if the software is good enough, consumers have to buy your computers to run it. It's not open, and it's not industry standard or industry certified. It's just better. '
      • As much as we love open source, there's nothing wrong with really good proprietary stuff: whether its hardware (EG: Apple) or software (EG: Apple).
    • ' Jobs is digitizing the consumer world. This isn't about helping large companies clear checks, run supply chains, or manage inventory. Jobs has never understood the use of computing in large companies. '
  • Common OS Myths Debunked. Very arguable, but here they are according to the article:
    • Linux is the operating system that "just works"
    • Windows is insecure
    • Windows has better hardware support
    • Linux does a few things and does them well
    • Windows is bad for the server
    • Mac is the best since it is as easy to use as windows, and has the stability of UNIX
    • Linux is ready for the desktop
  • Large Scale Data Repository: Petabox.
  • The new desktop contender
    • ' The Sun Java Desktop System, Release 2, the latest version of Sun's low-cost desktop client, delivers extraordinary functionality and unbeatable value. '
    • Get