The collaboration between IFF and WCSAR will continue on STS-107, a shuttle mission slated for launch in January 2003. This time the plan is to send up two different plants--a rose and an Asian rice flower--again placed in the ASTROCULTURE^TM facility. Like Romeo and Juliet, the flowers will touch each other. This as well as the low gravity, said Mookherjee, will alter the molecules they emit.

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 05:20 PM | TrackBack 0

Puffed up by air, starch becomes a spongy foam. Polystyrene-alternatives for packing and insulation are made the same way. Corn, potatoes or even seaweed can be raw materials.

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 05:16 PM | TrackBack 0

StreamingMedia is an interactive data sculpture that employs a new Internet protocol (H20/IP) I developed that uses water to transmit information between computers. H20/IP functions in a similar way as TCP/IP but focuses on the inherent viscous properties of water that are not present in traditional packet networks. The StreamingMedia demonstration of H20/IP exists as an installation of two computers at different heights where one captures an image and transmits it to the second computer in the form of modulated water drops. The project attempts to show how digital information can be encoded and decoded into organic forms to create a physical network between digital devices.

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 04:51 PM | TrackBack 0

I found a web page that listed out a number of fountain pens for beginners and I picked up my first Cross Solo pen, a plastic deal, but with a gold nib made by Namiki. It was heaven, and I used that pen often. Most of my notes in the last two years I was at Tech were probably written with it. In all, my collection looks like:

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 03:41 PM | TrackBack 0

"It's not the Nazi symbol. It is a Buddhist sign. The Nazi symbol goes in the opposite direction and it's at a different angle," said Walpert.

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 03:38 PM | TrackBack 0

The American officials say they have located and spoken with many of the victims, whose mistreatment was initially detailed by the Shan Human Rights Foundation.

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 03:33 PM | TrackBack 0

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Arriba's use of thumbnail images of Kelly's photos was fair use. The use was transformative because the search engine "functions as a tool to help index and improve access to images on the Internet," and the market value was not affected because the thumbnails are too crude to substitute for the full-scale images. Arriba's display of full-size images, however, was not fair use, because it was not transformative and was likely to harm the market for Kelly's work by reducing visits to his Web site and allowing free downloads.

Posted by GeeTee at December 30, 2002 05:01 AM | TrackBack 0

With the holidays upon us, no doubt many of you out there are contemplating suicide. Public-spirited and civic-minded as I tend to be, I thought I might give you a few tips from my broad range of lethal knowledge on how best to go about it.

Posted by GeeTee at December 29, 2002 06:42 PM | TrackBack 0

The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, lose themselves in daily activities and, most important, forgive easily.

Posted by GeeTee at December 29, 2002 06:40 PM | TrackBack 0

A Web page of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to say studies showed that education about condom use did not lead to earlier or increased sexual activity. That statement, which contradicts the view of "abstinence only" advocates, is omitted from a revised version of the page.

Posted by GeeTee at December 29, 2002 11:10 AM | TrackBack 0

Wednesday's showing, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., boasted 284,012 viewing households, a 26 percent boost in viewership compared with last year, WPIX Channel 11 said. It smoked the 1 p.m. airing of the 1951 classic film version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," starring Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, by 29,000 households.

Posted by GeeTee at December 28, 2002 05:05 PM | TrackBack 0

The Durabooks technology allows for another way to tire your hand while taking a bath with an erotica book. "If you masturbate in the bathtub, that's part of the idea -- even though it doesn't say it in the promotional material," Mohanraj said. "If you get distracted, it's not so bad to drop the book in the bathtub."

Posted by GeeTee at December 28, 2002 08:19 AM | TrackBack 0

"I hope that you remember them when you talk about this baby, not like a monster, not like some results of something that is disgusting. She is a very healthy baby."

Posted by GeeTee at December 27, 2002 07:13 AM | TrackBack 0

As for New Year, yes, there are many things to be worried about, many causes to fight. But if we didn't have any hope for a better future why did we have children in the first place? My New Year's resolution is to try to feel a little less of a victim in my relationship with the world, to stop feeling inadequate as a parent, and to remind myself that affluence and technology will offer my children opportunities I didn't have. It really is up to me whether I enjoy 2003 or not, and whether my children have a reasonably contented father to look up to. It's time to heed Umberto Eco's advice and accept Christmas for the cliché that it is: to recognise its awful traditionalism and revel in it. Somehow that feels like an act of defiance.

Posted by GeeTee at December 24, 2002 01:31 PM | TrackBack 0

"I think it's extremely important research, and I think it's pathetic how skittish the government is about funding research about sex," Mr. Bailey said.

Posted by GeeTee at December 24, 2002 09:47 AM | TrackBack 0

"In balancing the rights of the public domain against commercial interests, I say that public officials need to favor the public domain," wrote Eric Eldred, publisher of the Eldritch Press, a literature site that is the subject of a pending Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of copyright extensions.

Posted by GeeTee at December 24, 2002 09:34 AM | TrackBack 0

...with the advent of 321 Studios latest offering, DVD X Copy, the stakes are a little higher. The software allows the user to burn an exact copy of the original DVD to a blank DVD, without any diminished quality or compression.

Posted by GeeTee at December 24, 2002 09:31 AM | TrackBack 0

There's nothing that sums up Christmas quite like the eyes of an excited child... unless those eyes are strange black holes with pin-point lights shining from them and set way too far apart. If this were my daughter, I'd be asking the wife if she remembers any strange lights taking her into the sky about nine months before the little one's birth.

Posted by GeeTee at December 24, 2002 06:12 AM | TrackBack 0

The litany of stories I'm hearing now involving young children are even more disturbing: "freak" dancing or "grinding" at fifth-grade graduation parties in public school buildings, with adults as passive onlookers; 8-year-olds being taken to see R-rated movies such as "American Pie II"; elementary school children posting sexual jokes and messages online, even on school networks; mothers finding pornographic passages in their fifth-grade daughters' diaries; fourth-grade boys turning to fourth-grade girls in the cafeteria line and asking, "Do you spit or swallow?"

Posted by GeeTee at December 24, 2002 05:50 AM | TrackBack 0

Well, it's never been easy, but it can be a lot easier than it is now. I do think it is likely that a common set of practices, rules, and rituals will evolve to make finding a mate less of a do-it-yourself project than it is today. As for the Internet, it obviously won't provide the whole answer, but I think it will play an important role. In the past, technological innovations have had a huge impact on dating and mating. No one would dismiss the influence on dating of the automobile or the birth-control pill. What's more, the Internet is a technology that helps us to save time and manage information, and both of these things are important to the way the new single woman conducts her mating search.

Posted by GeeTee at December 23, 2002 08:20 PM | TrackBack 0

As portrayed by Noah Taylor in "Max," Hitler is sullen, moody and arrogant. He is not quite a thug, and he has not quite reached the oratory and charismatic heights with which he would sway millions. But "Max" does capture a side to Hitler that few think about -- Hitler the intellectual and artist (awful on both counts). When Hitler discusses modernism, he is very exact in his criticism -- and bottomless in his contempt.

Posted by GeeTee at December 23, 2002 05:14 PM | TrackBack 0

Small RNAs can switch genes on and off, and even remove unwanted sections of DNA. One of the most significant findings in 2002 was that small RNAs take charge during cell division, shepherding the material in chromosomes into the right configuration.

Posted by GeeTee at December 22, 2002 08:51 PM | TrackBack 0

In a year marked by Wall Street's "endless revelationsof fraudulent accounting." and the continuing international war on terrorism,Canada's "defining drama of the year" centred around Martin's abrupt"departure from Cabinet" (where he had most recently served as Federal FinanceMinister), the division this move created within the Liberal Party, and howthe newly "liberated" Paul Martin and "backbench Martin loyalists," pushedJean Chretien to announce his retirement, writes TIME columnist StephenHandelman. "By year's end, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that throughsome mysterious alchemy, Martin had become the new center of gravity ofCanada's future before he had achieved the formal trappings of power. For thatreason, Paul Martin is TIME's Canadian Newsmaker of the Year."

Posted by GeeTee at December 22, 2002 06:29 AM | TrackBack 0

It portrays her as a poor and downtrodden girl, who might have conceived Jesus as a result of being raped.

Posted by GeeTee at December 22, 2002 06:27 AM | TrackBack 0

When the results were in, the researchers found that the men did about the same on the math test whether they were wearing a swimsuit or a sweater. In fact, the guys did slightly better in swim trunks. The women, however, had significantly lower math scores if they were wearing the swimsuits.

Posted by GeeTee at December 21, 2002 09:20 PM | TrackBack 0

Canada allows the use of therapeutic cannabis, but has yet to make it available which complicates matters for those in need, even with a Health-Canada exemption. We are here to answer that need and to provide service to those communities and individuals unable to access Canada's established compassion clubs.

Posted by GeeTee at December 21, 2002 08:56 PM | TrackBack 0

On October 22 the Alachua County, Florida (Gainesville) County Commission unanimously (5-0) passed a resolution in "Support of Civil Rights and Liberties for All Residents of Alachua County." The two month campaign by the Community Coalition Against War & Terrorism began with weekly leafleting and picketing at local bookstores and libraries and culminated with a town hall meeting in civil liberties on Oct 19. From there, with the help of the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, the coalition took the resolution to the county for its approval.

Posted by GeeTee at December 21, 2002 08:54 AM | TrackBack 0

At times like these, when our government is telling us (and the rest of the world) to get on board for a war halfway around the world, it can be instructive to take a moment to consider who the real enemies are right here at home. No doubt you have your own pet people to despise from among the nation's political, cultural, and media establishment, but without further ado, here's our list: THE BEAST 50 MOST LOATHSOME PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

Posted by GeeTee at December 19, 2002 12:45 PM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at December 19, 2002 09:40 AM | TrackBack 0

How many times have we heard it said, "Oh, Lord, give me a sign!" Alas, too often the reply is vague and ambiguous: the phone rings at an opportune time, a feather falls from out of the blue, a water stain appears that resembles a religious image. We all want to know if God exists; maybe He just needs a reliable method to let us know He's here.

Posted by GeeTee at December 19, 2002 06:57 AM | TrackBack 0

Meanwhile, the AOL guys were refining their story. A great American brand could not appear to be in the sex business. So what AOL focused on was getting the dirty-talk audience to buy things. From sex to commerce was the conversion it was attempting (this is the conversion that cable television managed with infomercials in the mid-eighties). Certainly, Time Warner believed in conversion (the people at AOL used the word community as a euphemism, but the people at Time Warner used the word for real -- as though imagining little shops and churches and schools).

Posted by GeeTee at December 18, 2002 04:50 AM | TrackBack 0

"This is not a divisive thing," insisted McCartney spokesman Geoff Baker in London. "It's not Lennon or McCartney. Even if Paul did 95 percent or more on these songs, he's not asking that John's name be taken off. "He just doesn't think it should be first."

Posted by GeeTee at December 18, 2002 04:34 AM | TrackBack 0

"The jury has the flexibility to think about (ElcomSoft's motives) and essentially nullify the law if they think it is overreaching," said Jefferson Scher, a partner at Carr & Ferrell. "I think there's a little O.J. factor if they decided that the law shouldn't be read as strictly as it seems to read."

Posted by GeeTee at December 17, 2002 08:52 PM | TrackBack 0

Privacy touches upon so many of the things that go on in this business that I'm sure there are some developments I've missed, but here's a look at milestones, good and bad, that could change the way we frame this debate in 2003:

Posted by GeeTee at December 17, 2002 08:18 PM | TrackBack 0

"Even though it was cheaper to manufacture CDs than vinyl and the cost of making music was dropping due to digital production systems, consumers paid more. Rip-off. And consumers know it."

Posted by GeeTee at December 17, 2002 12:40 PM | TrackBack 0

"I cannot describe the feelings of regret that I have for making those comments," Mr. Ahenakew read from a prepared statement. "Certainly apology alone, no matter how sincere, is insufficient."

Posted by GeeTee at December 17, 2002 12:27 PM | TrackBack 0

Trustees and staff of SUNY's Charter School Institute praised the school's manager, K12 Inc. run by former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett. They said it could provide an education considered among the top 10 percent in the nation for any child in New York. They agreed it could be a preferred option for students living in isolated or dangerous neighborhoods, bullied students or even students with unconventional schedules because they are Olympic hopefuls.

Posted by GeeTee at December 17, 2002 06:11 AM | TrackBack 0

Agnostica is the only truely secular winter celebration. It is a celebration for the scientist in all of us, celebrating not some contrived story written thousands of years ago and translated seventeen times over until the Hebrew word for "rope" gets turned into "camel," and then inexplicably the whole deal is replaced by consumer-frenzy dictated to us by a fat child-labor mogul in a fur-lined red suit, but rather of ourselves, the perfect self-defining nature of the universe, and of being proud of the human intellect.

Posted by GeeTee at December 17, 2002 05:21 AM | TrackBack 0

The BJP's stunning triumph was clearly down to one man - Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi. Nine months ago Mr Modi presided over the worst religious riots in India's recent history. Hindu mobs enraged by the Muslim burning of 59 Hindu pilgrims on a train in the town of Godhra, went on the rampage - burning, killing and raping more than 2,000 of their Muslim neighbours.

Posted by GeeTee at December 16, 2002 05:12 PM | TrackBack 0

The changes wrought by computers in biology resemble those in the aircraft and car industries a decade or so ago, after the arrival of powerful software for CAD (computer-aided design) and CFD (computational fluid dynamics). In both industries, engineers embraced the new computational modelling tools as a way of designing products faster, more cheaply and more accurately. In a similar way, biotech firms are now looking to computer modelling, data mining and high-throughput screening to help them discover drugs more efficiently.

Posted by GeeTee at December 15, 2002 11:35 AM | TrackBack 0

It was by visiting prison that I first learnt that not all men desire freedom. Until then, I had rather airily supposed that all men wanted to be free. Not a bit of it. It gradually dawned on me that many of the recidivists whom I was seeing had shown considerable determination to get back into prison: after all, our police force shows an equal and opposite determination not to arrest and charge wrongdoers, mainly because of the subsequent paperwork involved. To be imprisoned for burglary, therefore, you have almost to want to be imprisoned for burglary, and what I discovered was that many burglars did want to be so imprisoned.

Posted by GeeTee at December 15, 2002 11:32 AM | TrackBack 0

Ahenakew said the Canadian Army was trying to liberate the world when it fought in Europe during the Second World War, not liberate Jews. When reminded the Nazis committed genocide against a variety of ethnic and social groups, he said "exactly, they were trying to clean up the world."

Posted by GeeTee at December 15, 2002 10:51 AM | TrackBack 0

"Optimistically, I dialed John and Linda Poindexter's number -- (301) 424-6613 -- at their home at 10 Barrington Fare in Rockville, Md., hoping the good admiral and excused criminal might be able to offer some insight," Smith wrote.

Posted by GeeTee at December 14, 2002 05:34 PM | TrackBack 0

After the exhibition, Annlee will be "terminated" and "buried" in a special coffin in the SFMOMA galleries. The artists have agreed to transfer Annlee's copyright to the Annlee Association, a legal entity that belongs solely to the character. A contract stipulates that artists will no longer be able to create works with Annlee as a digital model.

Posted by GeeTee at December 14, 2002 05:32 PM | TrackBack 0

And everybody's under surveillance. That has a deep cost, which Idetail in my short essay at www.templetons.com/brad/watched.html. When we become afraid our every activity is watched, we are less free.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 04:31 PM | TrackBack 0

Gads, Tolkein does make a lot more sense if most of the characters in it are gay (or at least Greekly bisexual).

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 01:22 PM | TrackBack 0

As our official system of justice became larded with more and more protections for the accused, actually going through the process of catching, prosecuting, and convicting a criminal the official way became impossibly burdensome. So, the government offered the accused a deal: You get a lighter sentence if you save us the trouble of a trial. Or, to put it in a more sinister way: You get a heavier sentence if you insist on asserting your constitutional rights to a trial, to confront your accusers, to privacy from searches without probable cause, to avoid incriminating yourself, etc.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 09:44 AM | TrackBack 0

"Gleb's finding that this gene was active not only in the lateral nucleus but also in a number of regions that projected into the lateral nucleus was interesting because it suggested that a whole circuit was involved," said Kandel. Shumyatsky next showed that GRP is expressed by excitatory principal neurons and that its receptor, GRPR, is expressed by inhibitory interneurons. The researchers then undertook collaborative studies with co-author Vadim Bolshakov at Harvard Medical School to characterize cells in the amygdala that expressed receptors for GRP. Those studies in mouse brain slices revealed that GRP acts in the amygdala by exciting a population of inhibitory interneurons in the lateral nucleus that provide feedback and inhibit the principal neurons.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 09:37 AM | TrackBack 0

Li's work may not be verified. Like much of the research I saw in China, it's unpublished and might be wrong - in science, it's easy to fool yourself. But the odds of all the stem-cell research in China not producing anything of value are miniscule. And even if only a small percentage works out, so much is happening that China will still shape our medical future. "We also have some interesting stem-cell results with Parkinson's disease," Li says, the light from the video flickering on his face. "I believe many things will happen, and they will happen here." All the while, the miraculous rats climb obliviously around their cage.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 09:07 AM | TrackBack 0

When was the last time a mob of Jews or Christians or Buddhists tore children from cars and burned them to death? A while back, I saw Terrence McNally's ghastly Broadway jerk-off, Corpus Christi, in which a gay Jesus rhapsodizes about the joys of anal intercourse with Judas. The play was an abomination, and deserves all the abuse discriminating theatre-goers can heap upon it. But oddly enough, I didn't feel an urge to slaughter perfect strangers, to ram a schoolbus, drag the little moppets from it, douse them in gasoline, and get my matchbook out.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:23 AM | TrackBack 0

University of New Hampshire sociologist Murray Straus has published multiple studies concluding that children who are spanked are less successful as adults. If the link is causal -- that is, if being spanked actually lowers your earnings potential -- and if spanking runs in families, then we have an alternative explanation for Weinberg's numbers: Low-income parents are more likely to spank their children because low-income parents are more likely to have been spanked themselves. Or maybe it's as simple as this: Poverty breeds frustration, and frustrated parents lash out at their kids. Does any reader have a better story?

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:19 AM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:10 AM | TrackBack 0

While the patent application is aimed mainly at shoppers who do not provide all the relevant delivery information, the patent could also apply to the "wish list" concept, in which consumers complete shopping lists in the hope that other people will buy the products as gifts.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:01 AM | TrackBack 0

"To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes, I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness."

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:55 AM | TrackBack 0

A half-century old computer, called CSIRAC, is still operating in Australia. The computer, which was Australia's first, ran at a blistering 300 kilohertz, had 2 KB RAM, and 2.5 KB storage. It operated from 1951 until 1964, and currently resides in the Melbourne museum.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:53 AM | TrackBack 0

Well folks, this is it. A more official goodbye will appear in tomorrow morning's issue of the newsletter, but I want to thank you lot -- our most active and engaged readers -- first. We enjoyed doing this; we'll keep you posted if we ever put the band back together ... again.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:46 AM | TrackBack 0

The framers of our Constitution didn't know about the Internet. They had no clue about the opportunity for creativity it would present. But they committed our tradition to a rule that requires that copyright terms be limited. That requirement may not have mattered much for 200 years, since for most of that time, only commercial publishers could produce and distribute creative work. But now that technology has given that power to anyone with a T1, the wisdom in the framers' plan is again becoming obvious. Government-granted monopolies, as the framers called them, make sense when they create incentives. But even the United States Congress can't create incentives in the past. No matter what Congress says, George Gershwin will not create anything more. We should thank and honor him and others for their extraordinary work. But we should also honor our framers' plan -- that terms be limited.

Larry's preaching to the choir here -- he needs to come up with sound business reasons why copyright extensions are bad. Going on about used bookstores and cultural development won't do jack or shit.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:43 AM | TrackBack 0

...the blog gives me an opportunity to record my own views on the events of a given day or week. The media tend to chronicle my travels pretty closely but there's lots that gets missed. For example, a couple of weeks ago, while campaigning in Windsor I had the opportunity to drop by the gravesite of my Mom and Dad and visit their old house. It wasn't newsworthy but it was an immense pleasure for me.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 07:39 PM | TrackBack 0

The government came under fire when the overall cost of the gun registry ballooned from a projected $2 million to almost $1 billion.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 07:37 PM | TrackBack 0

Your bid is for a single web page/chapter 3 of the project.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 10:12 AM | TrackBack 0

Okay, I'm more like that slack-assed buddy who doesn't return your phone calls, has owed you twenty bucks for the last 6 years, and flirts with your wife when it comes to updating the site lately. For that I feel shame. Shame, I feel. But hey, it's almost 2003 now, and I'm a changed man! Besides, don't I get some slack since I've had this site up since 1995? Mr. Showbiz left you high and dry, but your friend Drew, he sticks with you while simultaneously referring to himself in the 3rd person!

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 09:05 AM | TrackBack 0

By Remedy an activist who has been sitting 150 feet up an ancient Redwood in Freshwater, California. She has been in her tree Jerry for over 8 months as part of a community's protest to save their forests and watershed. She uses Debian GNU/Linux on her laptop and a 5 mile 802.11b wireless link to get online.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 08:08 AM | TrackBack 0

Imagine having a chat room conversation with the entire Internet. Gogolchat offers just such an experience. Gogol is a software that parses your chat room dialogue through a search engine, spitting back the random results as part of the chat.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 07:14 AM | TrackBack 0

Consumers will get a 10-day cooling-off period to let them reconsider their decisions in deals involving high-pressure tactics by fitness and health clubs, modelling agencies and other personal-development goods or services, time-shares, door-to-door sales, and loan brokers or credit repair firms.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 06:28 AM | TrackBack 0

According to the Assistant Principal, the student had worn it before and the shirt didn't cause any problems until cross hairs appeared on the President's forehead.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 05:13 AM | TrackBack 0

...we're supposed to be the good guys.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 05:11 AM | TrackBack 0

Bonus Explainer: The word "sodomy" itself is something of a misnomer, since the Bible contains no mention of homosexual conduct among the residents of Sodom. That corrupt city was not destroyed because of acts of buggery but rather because its citizens were inhospitable to God's angelic messengers. Sodom was not linguistically linked with anal sex until the Middle Ages.

Posted by GeeTee at December 12, 2002 05:08 AM | TrackBack 0

Public space is more like a verb than a noun, meaning it must be continually created and recreated. Without public space there can be no democracy. Currently, public space is in crisis!

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 08:00 PM | TrackBack 0

News outlets risk being charged with contempt of court if they reveal any details of Pickton's preliminary hearing. Pickton's defence says revealing the facts would make it difficult to find an impartial jury.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 07:35 PM | TrackBack 0

Technonerds go to movies strictly for entertainment, and of course, the most entertaining part comes after the movie when they can dissect, criticize, and argue the merits of every detail. However, when supposedly serious scenes totally disregard the laws of physics in blatantly obvious ways it's enough to make us retch. The motion picture industry has failed to police itself against the evils of bad physics. This page is provided as a public service in hopes of improving this deplorable matter. The minds of our children and their ability to master vectors are (shudder) at stake.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 07:30 PM | TrackBack 0

Titled "Ottawa 20-20: Building A Creative City", the discussion paper has been well received by local artists. It calls for more money, space, promotion and educational programs for the arts. The paper also recommends more local governments and businesses partner up to sponsor the arts.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:25 PM | TrackBack 0

Over the last year, the department has quietly expunged information on how using condoms protects against AIDS, how abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer and how to run programs proven to reduce teenage sexual activity. The posting that found no link between abortion and breast cancer was removed from the department's Web site last June, after Representative Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, wrote a letter of protest to Secretary Tommy Thompson calling the research cited by the National Cancer Institute "scientifically inaccurate and misleading to the public."

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:14 PM | TrackBack 0

Scraba also concluded that teachers in New Brunswick don't demand enough of students, embracing the philosophy that it's better not to push them too hard or to raise standards too high.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:12 PM | TrackBack 0

So it's notable that the all-news networks have begun to recite their leads to a new participial rhythm: "In North Dakota, high winds making life difficult; the gusts reaching 60 m.p.h." . . . "A Big Apple accident, two taxicabs plowing into crowds of shoppers" -- call the new style ing-lish. Fox News Channel and CNN have adopted it wholesale, and it's increasingly audible on network news programs as well.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:10 PM | TrackBack 0

The museum will instead use the religiously-neutral "CE" (common era) or "BCE" (before the common era). It's a system common in the academic community.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 05:44 PM | TrackBack 0

There are a couple of theories for why Sony Betamax, the superior video technology, lost the battle against the VHS format developed by JVC. For one thing, Sony was slow to license its technology, but perhaps just as important. pornographers preferred the cheaper, more convenient VHS format which drove the market for tapes and players.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 05:41 PM | TrackBack 0

MRIs have proved to be more accurate in detecting the subconscious of the consumer -- whether he really prefers Pepsi-Cola to Coca-Cola, or Chevrolets to Fords.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 05:38 PM | TrackBack 0

"I believe our inmates that I know of are all heterosexual people and I haven't heard of any same-sex relations to date, so if we did see any, I think condoms could be readily available," said Okalik, who also serves as the territory's justice minister.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 05:32 PM | TrackBack 0

Ouimette said the reports show that the inspection program is a success and said Canada's sperm supply is the safest in the world.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 04:23 PM | TrackBack 0

Taxes, shelter, transportation, food. In that order, that's where your household budget went last year, says Statistics Canada.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 04:22 PM | TrackBack 0

MOOREWATCH is dedicated to unearthing the truth behind the doublespeak and falsehood that spews from the mouth (and keyboard) of Michael Moore on a regular basis. Moore is a disingenuous danger to this country, and his assumptions and assertions should not go unchallenged. The collective expertise and research abilities of the entire Internet are more than enough to debunk most of the nonsense Moore regularly puts forth as fact, and we at MOOREWATCH hope to be the clearinghouse for this information.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:38 AM | TrackBack 0

As long as researchers are not using human eggs to create and destroy human embryos, "there is no new pro-life issue here," said Richard Doerflinger, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "It looks like you're just modifying an existing stem cell line."

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:35 AM | TrackBack 0

Events are unfolding exactly as Canadians feared they would. Romanow has delivered a report that reflects their values and priorities and now the nation's political leaders are balking, haggling and ignoring the people's message.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:33 AM | TrackBack 0

Taking the stand for several hours, Sklyarov explained that he got the idea for writing the program while working on a doctoral degree in information security at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. Sklyarov said he wanted to demonstrate flaws in currently available security schemes to fulfill a dissertation requirement and to enable people to use legally obtained e-books any way they wanted.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:32 AM | TrackBack 0

The filtering programs tend to block references to sex and sex-related terms, like "safe sex," "condoms," "abortion," "jock itch," "gay" and "lesbian." Although the software can be adjusted to allow most health-related Web sites to get through, many schools and libraries ratchet up the software's barriers to the highest settings, the report said.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:29 AM | TrackBack 0

Meanwhile, the recording industry has shut down the Internet's most comprehensive source of CD covers, which enabled consumers and bootleggers to obtain free, digital copies of CD artwork and liner notes.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:28 AM | TrackBack 0

The CCFDA is working with Industry and Heritage Canada to stop the newly purposed levy that would see the cost of a pack of 100 blank CD soar 181 per cent. Currently, a pack of 100 blank CDs includes a levy of $21 on a retail price that averages $50. If the Canadian Private Copying Collective's (CPCC) proposal is approved, this levy could average $59 per pack at an average retail price of $88 plus tax, said Diane Brisebois, president and CEO of the Retail Council of Canada.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:26 AM | TrackBack 0

An artist who embarked on a 100-mile walk across one of the remotest areas of Scotland to experience "what it is like to be alone" has died after being found cold and starving.

Posted by GeeTee at December 11, 2002 06:08 AM | TrackBack 0

Most Canadians, nine out of 10, said they speak either English or French at home, but more than five million people, a sixth of the population, said they learned another language first.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 03:45 PM | TrackBack 0

The Commons vote was not legally required for ratification, but is seen as an important signal to citizens, businesses and the world.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 03:44 PM | TrackBack 0

How do you stop a moving sand dune? In some places people simply drench the sand with oil--it's effective, but not very good for the environment. Sand fences, like snow fences, can also help, although in many cases their design is little more than guesswork. Engineers are disadvantaged because there's no complete physical theory for the behaviour of these dunes.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 07:46 AM | TrackBack 0

NOW that Britain's public-school elite is in retreat, is the way it talks disappearing too? For years social levellers have been celebrating the decline of Received Pronunciation (RP), the clipped, cut-glass way of talking often known as Oxford, or BBC, English. Once the confident accent of the ruling class, it is now, supposedly, the dying dialect of an enfeebled tribe, attracting suspicion and contempt rather than deference and respect.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 07:22 AM | TrackBack 0

Sklyarov, who declined to use an interpreter while on the stand, testified that he developed the Advanced eBook Processor while working for ElcomSoft. During questioning from Burton, he said that although the software could be used for nefarious purposes such as widely distributing electronic documents, he actually intended it to be used so people could make backup copies of an eBook they'd bought, print pages, or transfer it to a reading device for the blind.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 06:55 AM | TrackBack 0

Mr Egan is expected to reveal that the legislation, described by critics as "draconian" and an "affront to democracy", will neither be enacted nor repealed.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 06:54 AM | TrackBack 0

"In years past, no one would even waste time on such legal battles," he said. "Factories would rather start production of counterfeited or imitated medicines immediately. But now they will get harsh penalties for doing so."

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 06:49 AM | TrackBack 0

The physicist, Dr. Joshua Silver, calls them adaptive glasses. Their lenses are filled with silicone oil and form a chamber bounded by polyester film. Turning a knob on a small frame-mounted pump changes the amount of oil in the lens, altering the curvature of the lenses and, therefore, the power of the glasses. Users adjust the oil levels on each side until they can see clearly, a process that takes about 30 seconds.
[...]
Dr. Silver, 56, has formed a company, Adaptive Eyecare, and says it will sell the glasses to Ghana at $10 a pair. The Ghanaian Health Ministry says it is interested in buying 400,000 pairs but does not have money in its budget to pay for them, so it is seeking funds from the World Bank.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 06:16 AM | TrackBack 0

"A decision to have closure is not what we would prefer," [Environment Minister David] Anderson told the Commons.
"However, after eight days of debate spread over three weeks and 33 hours ... what else can we do when we have filibusters by one member?"

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 05:47 AM | TrackBack 0

The decision opens the way for any international news organisation to be sued in the Australian courts, even by plaintiffs who are not resident in Australia.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 05:26 AM | TrackBack 0

Although [Chrétien] is generally unpopular among francophone Quebecers, particularly in BQ ridings, now that he has announced he plans to step down, many more voters may have returned to the Liberals.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 05:13 AM | TrackBack 0

The Liberal government is making it a confidence vote, meaning all Liberal MPs will be expected to vote in favour of implementing the accord, or to be absent.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 05:09 AM | TrackBack 0

"If you're going to decriminalize marijuana where is a person supposed to get it?" said one well-placed source, who confirmed that the committee is in favour of letting Canadians grow their own pot.

Posted by GeeTee at December 10, 2002 04:38 AM | TrackBack 0

The new accord says that soldiers from either country could cross the border, but would then be under the command of the host country.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 05:07 PM | TrackBack 0

The reason - as shown in a complex mathematical formula - is that both techniques maximise the horizontal tension you get when you pull on the two ends of your laces.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 12:47 PM | TrackBack 0

The Apostolic Penitentiary has written to bishops warning that it will not accept email or fax communications, saying that the "epistolary method" - an exchange of letters - is the only way such matters can be handled privately and securely.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 09:55 AM | TrackBack 0

The face pack, known as Mud from Multan, has been used by Indian men and women for years to help their skin.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 06:04 AM | TrackBack 0

"(The) events of recent months and, in particular, of these last few days, make it clear to us that your position as our bishop is so compromised that it is no longer possible for you to exercise the spiritual leadership required for the church of Boston," the petition reads.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 06:01 AM | TrackBack 0

Each of the opposing political parties carries a negative brand of its own. The Liberals may be the party that wastes money controlling guns, but the Canadian Alliance is the party that loves guns. The Tories are the party that ran out of big guns a decade ago. The NDP is the silly party, while the Bloc Quebecois is a bunch of tired old sovereigntists who don't realize their song fell off the charts years ago.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 05:57 AM | TrackBack 0

But of course it is not a real Parliament run by real people: Ottawa is a surreal place, in which a billion dollars hardly matters, accountability by elected officials is a joke and cynical spin doctors make their living by counselling the government and the media about the stupidity of the voters. Having proven its complete incapacity to make a registry of a few million firearms, the Liberal government now proposes to replan the whole Canadian economy to serve the Kyoto protocols and to reorganize the whole Canadian health care system to serve the Romanow report. Does anyone in their right mind, from the PM down to the newest page on Parliament Hill, really believe Ottawa has the capacity to handle these files intelligently and prudently?

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 05:54 AM | TrackBack 0

Laura Sandler, who lives near Fort Bragg .... was married to a major who abused and no one in the chain of command would listen to her cries for help. A few years after she finally got rid of him, she started dating an enlisted man on the base.
"He was sweet at first but the beatings soon started. Once he beat me up in his barracks with four other soldiers watching. Nobody did anything. I went to his commanders. They said it was terrible but they did nothing," she said.
Eventually, the couple was referred to a chaplain and her boyfriend ordered to take an anger management course. He made only half the sessions and beatings and death threats went on.
Realizing the military authorities would take no action against him, the boyfriend became bolder and more violent, often abusing Sandler in public. The nightmare only ended when he was honorably discharged and moved away.

Posted by GeeTee at December 09, 2002 05:46 AM | TrackBack 0

"I said God might speak to the world through a burning Bush," Humphreys testified during his trial. "I had said that before and I thought it was funny."

Posted by GeeTee at December 08, 2002 08:25 AM | TrackBack 0

"There was only two beers left, so I took one, and I told Willie not to take my last beer," Brasher said in a taped statement that was played during the trial.

Posted by GeeTee at December 07, 2002 07:18 PM | TrackBack 0

Why? It's not easy to say. I'm not obsessive about anything else. Cars, clothes, power tools -- they leave me cold. But with Macintosh I can't get enough. Part of it is design: Apple's products look great. You want to touch them, feel them, caress them. It's not sexual, but it is sensual.

Posted by GeeTee at December 07, 2002 03:21 PM | TrackBack 0

Although frozen water long has been known to be the primary component of the planet's northern ice cap, the southern cap is thought to be mainly frozen carbon dioxide, or "dry ice." Titus' team inferred the presence of water ice using data from Mars Odyssey Thermal Imaging System. They concluded water ice might lie close to the surface in a ring surrounding the permanent dry-ice cap. The ring may be between 1 and 10 kilometers wide, Titus told United Press International.

Posted by GeeTee at December 06, 2002 01:14 PM | TrackBack 0

October's distributed, denial-of-service attack against the domain name system--the most serious yet, in which seven of the thirteen DNS roots were cut off from the Internet--put a spotlight on ICANN, the nongovernmental corporation responsible for Internet addressing and DNS. The security of DNS is on ICANN's watch. Why is it so susceptible to attack, when the Internet as a whole is touted as being able to withstand nuclear Armageddon?

Posted by GeeTee at December 06, 2002 10:00 AM | TrackBack 0

The new legislation, part of an omnibus bill introduced on Thursday by Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, responds to public out cry that swept Canada after a Vancouver man was found not guilty of possessing child pornography on the grounds that his sadomasochistic writings had "artistic merit."

Posted by GeeTee at December 06, 2002 09:38 AM | TrackBack 0

Still, Tatar is surely right to sense in the cruelty and violence of fairy tales some key to their spell. What, after all, is the difference between a fairy tale and a legend, a parable, or a moral story? We sense it at once: it is the presence of magic, meaning not just cool weird stuff but an unpredictable suspension of the regularities of natural and human order, an arbitrary and therefore sometimes terrifying lifting of the rules, including the rules of justice and mercy. Magic%uFFD1completely unearned and undeserved good fortune or misfortune%uFFD1is at the heart of the fairy tale, what gives it its special flavor. The giant is evil, the giant's wife friendly; the boy is a fool, the boy gets the beans. Rumpelstiltskin outwits the girl and has his hands on the baby; a sudden bit of luck in the forest dooms him. Bottigheimer tells us that when the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, got hold of Straparola's book it deleted the words fortuna and fato wherever they were found. This was a sharp bit of literary criticism; the magic of fairy tales is the pagan magic of fortune, rather than of virtue, and of fate, rather than of faith, or even grace. The moral of every fairy tale is not "Virtue rewarded" but "You never know" (which bean will sprout, which son will triumph).

I've recently written a fairy tale, available as part of the 1/2 OK Holiday cards.

Posted by GeeTee at December 06, 2002 07:22 AM | TrackBack 0

...from $99 billion to more than $1.9 trillion over a decade. The lower figure assumes a successful military, diplomatic and nation-building campaign; the higher figure assumes a prolonged war with a disruption of oil markets and a U.S. recession, the authors say in a study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Posted by GeeTee at December 06, 2002 06:40 AM | TrackBack 0

Breaching protocol, which dictates that UN officials should remain non-political, he also challenged the Bush Administration to share its intelligence if it wanted the inspectors to uncover banned weapons. Referring to the intelligence on Iraq amassed by the US, he said: "What we're getting and what President Bush may be getting is very different, to put it mildly."

Posted by GeeTee at December 06, 2002 06:05 AM | TrackBack 0

The court ruled that the mouse does not fit the definition of invention written into the federal Patent Act in the 19th century.

Posted by GeeTee at December 05, 2002 02:05 PM | TrackBack 0

What seems to be going on - especially given that Fox, which Gore calls right-leaning, is gaining viewers while the more liberal CNN and MSNBC are losing them - is that the introduction of competition into the news business is doing what competition usually does: giving people what they want, instead of what sellers want to sell. And Gore's right: that's a big, big change, and one with important political implications, though he seems not to have fully grasped those.

Posted by GeeTee at December 05, 2002 01:56 PM | TrackBack 0

"I am asleep. Golden dots, sparks and tiny stars appear and disappear before my eyes. These sparks and stars gradually merge into a golden net with diagonal meshes which moves slowly and regularly in rhythm with the beating of my heart... The next moment the golden net is transformed into rows of brass helmets belonging to Roman soldiers marching along the street below. I... watch them from the window of a high house in... Constantinople... I see the sun shining on their helmets. Then suddenly I detach myself from the window-sill and... fly slowly over the houses, and then over the Golden Horn in the direction of Stamboul. I smell the sea, feel the wind, the warm sun..."

Posted by GeeTee at December 05, 2002 01:14 PM | TrackBack 0

Tracks of the singers' latest songs play in the background, and if you're put on hold during the call, the artist returns to urge callers to buy the album of the music "you've been enjoying during this call."

Posted by GeeTee at December 05, 2002 08:53 AM | TrackBack 0

When he received an electronic greeting card recently from one of his trusted clients, he opened it immediately and clicked on the end-user agreement without reading the fine print.

My 1/2 OK Holiday cards are unlikely to infect your computer, yourself or your loved ones. Plus they're very pretty. If you like my photography, you'll like my Holiday cards -- trek on over and get yourself a set before it's too late.

Posted by GeeTee at December 05, 2002 06:52 AM | TrackBack 0

The rest of what you shell out for, say, the new Donna Tartt novel pays for the publisher's overhead (the cost of maintaining a staff of editors, proofreaders, book designers, publicists, sales representatives and so on), and for the cuts taken by distributors (who run warehouses that supply books to retailers) and booksellers. Promoting the book is another expense: printing up catalogs presenting each season's titles to booksellers and the media, purchasing ads, mailing out hundreds of review copies to critics and sending the author (if he or she is lucky) on a book tour. So are shipping fees and the storage costs on unsold copies.

Posted by GeeTee at December 05, 2002 06:39 AM | TrackBack 0

The auditor general reported Tuesday that officials in the gun registry program say costs will hit the $1-billion mark by 2004-2005 - an "astronomical cost overrun" from its original $119-million price tag.

Posted by GeeTee at December 04, 2002 11:49 AM | TrackBack 0

"Yes!' she whispered back. Dorsal subluxation ... flexion deformity of the first metatarsal ...'.

Posted by GeeTee at December 04, 2002 11:47 AM | TrackBack 0

...all EMI releases next year will be copy-protected, which means the music cannot be digitally copied to blank CDs or other digital formats.

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 02:42 PM | TrackBack 0

The Federal Communications Commission is weighing a plan to forcibly implant copy-protection technology in digital television receivers. Comments on the proposal are due Friday.

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 02:19 PM | TrackBack 0

Many tall tales of supernatural intelligence have attached themselves to Einstein. (The best one: His first words were an eloquent complaint that his milk was too hot. His stunned parents asked why he hadn't spoken earlier. "Because," the little genius supposedly replied, "previously everything was in order.")

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 02:15 PM | TrackBack 0

Musk's pitch? Roughly speaking, 470 kilograms to low Earth orbit for less than $10 million -- a price point about half of what NASA says it typically pays for a Pegasus.

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 02:12 PM | TrackBack 0

"I consider the ministry's involvement with Accenture to have been a very expensive lesson in how not to implement a new (information technology)-based service-delivery system," the report says. "Making the system work properly may well take much more time and will certainly take many more taxpayers' dollars."

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 01:55 PM | TrackBack 0

"I guess he wanted to spread some Christmas cheer," one police officer said. "He said he was going to give them away."

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 01:53 PM | TrackBack 0

"Then I realized that she wasn't selling it to me because I was aboriginal, and she was judging me, thinking I was going to drink it."

Posted by GeeTee at December 03, 2002 01:51 PM | TrackBack 0

She adds there were no differences between single parent and two-parent families, further lending credence that it was indeed the lack of supervision, not the family structure, that was associated with the sexual activity.

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 05:40 PM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 05:06 PM | TrackBack 0

To many, locking up a skinny, pale-faced student for writing a computer program was as ridiculous as incarcerating people who tear the "Do not remove" tags off mattresses. But to protesters who surrounded the San Jose jail, Sklyarov's incarceration was no laughing matter. His supporters believed -- and still do -- that Sklyarov's program represents free speech protected by the First Amendment.

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 03:43 PM | TrackBack 0

Due to Sue's busy schedule - 56 live shows and 35 lectures each year! - she regrets that she does not have time to answer individual emails. Instead, Sue has provided information for many of the questions she is most commonly asked. If your concern is not addressed here, please check back again in the future when topics are updated. Also, check your local library for books published by Sue Johanson. Our Resources section also contains a list of recommended reading.

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 03:27 PM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 10:32 AM | TrackBack 0

"The government of Canada promotes Canadian unity. We'll promote a national cause that is clearer because Canadian unity is a falsehood to start with."

That there's no real Canadian unity doesn't imply that separation follows, Bernie.

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 10:16 AM | TrackBack 0

School officials were concerned by content that included a passage labeled "Satan's mission for you this week." It read: "Stab someone for no reason then set them on fire throw them off of a cliff, watch them suffer and with their last breath, just before everything goes black, spit on their face."

Posted by GeeTee at December 02, 2002 09:51 AM | TrackBack 0

I am concerned that we are seeing a change in public perception of HIV/AIDS in Canada. Many Canadians no longer view the epidemic as a personal threat or as a serious health issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. AIDS kills. There is no cure, but it can be prevented.

Posted by GeeTee at December 01, 2002 07:22 PM | TrackBack 0

World AIDS Day was marked across the country and around the globe on Sunday, even by the Chinese government, which has reluctantly begun to admit the disease is a problem within its borders.

Posted by GeeTee at December 01, 2002 07:20 PM | TrackBack 0

Contributions to the new Council for Sovereignty will be treated like charitable donations, allowing the Quebec government to indirectly fund pro-sovereigntist ad campaigns and counter what Landry termed federalist "propaganda."

Posted by GeeTee at December 01, 2002 10:23 AM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at December 01, 2002 07:14 AM | TrackBack 0