State of the Union, 2003

I have not been to Jerusalem,
but Shirley talks about the bombs.
I have no god, but have seen the children praying
for it to stop. They pray to different gods.
The news is all old news again, repeated
like a bad habit, cheap tobacco, the social lie.


The children have seen so much death
that death means nothing to them now.
They wait in line for bread.
They wait in line for water.
Their eyes are black moons reflecting emptiness.
We've seen them a thousand times.


Soon, the president will speak.
He will have something to say about bombs
and freedom and our way of life.
I will turn the TV off. I always do.
Because I can't bear to look
at the monuments in his eyes.


Sam Hamill

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 10:25 AM | TrackBack 0

'100 Poets Against The War' is perhaps the fastest-assembled world anthology ever - one week from Todd Swift's call for entries till the ebook was uploaded on nthposition. All the contributors have donated their poems, so download the .pdf file, share it, host it on your own site, print it and make it into a book of poetry.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 10:21 AM | TrackBack 0

A week ago Sam Hamill sent an open letter -- printed below -- to a few friends. Word has spread like wildfire from mailbox to mailbox, and to date almost 3,000 poets have submitted poems or personal statements to register their opposition to the Bush administration's headlong plunge toward war in Iraq. In doing so, they have honored a long and rich tradition of thoughtful and moral opposition by poets and other artists to senseless and murderous policies, including those of our own government.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 10:17 AM | TrackBack 0

Deep Blue, Deep Junior and their sort are human creations. The real victors, if Mr Kasparov loses again, will not be machines, but the humans who designed and built them. Since machines are -- so far, at least -- unable to design and build improved versions of themselves, there is no need to worry about the world being taken over by chess-mad robots.

...and this is why I love the Economist.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 10:15 AM | TrackBack 0

A successful idiotarian campaign was the assault on "Big Tobacco." The lawsuits against the tobacco companies were reported as a victory for Communal Sharing and a defeat for Authoritarian Ranking. However, from a Market Pricing perspective, this is not so clear. It may be more accurate to say that smokers are people who made choices rather than victims of tobacco companies; and the winners of the lawsuits were the individual attorneys who collected huge fees, not the community as a whole.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 09:47 AM | TrackBack 0

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t, I just can’t. No more midnight builds. No more 3AM debugging and then slip down the hall and into bed. No more laptop. No more wireless Internet access. I used to go to an office and do my work and if I had to work late, I stayed late, but when I went home I was done. I didn’t sit on the couch at 11:15 PM watching Futurama and check my webmail and get the news that the latest build failed and spend a frantic hour fixing it and rereleasing at 12:15 AM. I used to have a home life; now I have a home office. I used to come home from work and bitch about it for twenty minutes and get it out of my system and have the rest of the night for myself. I used to punch a clock. I didn’t make anything, I didn’t produce anything, I didn’t write anything, I just punched a clock and when I was done I was done and I went home or out or somewhere else, anywhere else, because it was after work and that’s what you did after work. Now there is no after work, there is no before work, there is no work day, no office, no clock. There is only one long continuous 24-hour day that is always work, always office, and I never punch in and I never punch out. I know the economy sucks and the market sucks and the computer field sucks and lots of people have no jobs, and you know what? You can have mine. I can’t do this anymore.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 08:53 AM | TrackBack 0

So why are doctors forgoing this safe, legal, profitable venture? Because the same technology that has made abortion safer, easier, and quicker, has also dramatically changed the relationship between the physician and the fetus.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 08:51 AM | TrackBack 0

``While Mrs. Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum.'' Noelia Rodriguez, spokeswoman for first lady Laura Bush, said Wednesday.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 08:49 AM | TrackBack 0

The author reports more than five thousand domains that consist of minor variations on the addresses of well-known web sites, reflecting typographical errors often made by Internet users manually typing these addresses into their web browsers. Although the majority of these domain names do not suggest the presence of sexually-explicit content, and although many are variations on domain names frequently used by children, more than 89% offer extensive sexually-explicit content. In addition, these domains are presented in a way that temporarily disables a browser's Back and Exit commands, preventing users from exiting easily. Most or all of the domains are registered to an individual previously enjoined by the FTC from operating such domains, and these domains remain operational subsequent to an injunction ordering their suspension.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 08:46 AM | TrackBack 0

The game lets users tweak dozens of variables, from land use zoning, and tax codes to air and water quality, transportation, and health care spending, then calculates what Vancouver will look like in 2040 based on those choices. Using a process they call backcasting, the game lets the player go back and change their choices over and over until they reach a future they want. Once they settle on a scenario they like, QUEST records the model and passes it on to government officials.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 08:18 AM | TrackBack 0

This webpage celebrates the wonderful engrish subtitles featured in an asian bootleg DVD of Lord of The Rings - The Two Towers. What you see is exactly what appears on the TV screen. The first half of the movie has the most screengrabs, as there is more action than talking later on, and the subtitle writers eventually started getting the name of the characters right.

Posted by GeeTee at January 31, 2003 04:08 AM | TrackBack 0

Reid had pleaded guilty to eight charges - including attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 01:30 PM | TrackBack 0

The Jan. 28, 1988, ruling found the Criminal Code did not strike a fair balance between the rights of the fetus and the rights of a woman to control her own body.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 11:43 AM | TrackBack 0

A largely unrecognised danger of the obsessive hysteria surrounding genetically modified foods is crying wolf. I fear that, if the Green movement's high-amplitude warnings turn out to be empty, people will be dangerously disinclined to listen to other more serious warnings. The evolution of antibiotic resistance among bacteria is a vicious wolf of proven danger. Yet the menacing footfalls of this certain peril are all but drowned out in the caterwauling shrieks over genetically modified foods, whose dangers are speculative at most. To be more precise, genetic modification, like any other kind of modification, is good if you modify in a good direction, bad if you modify in a bad direction. Like domestic breeding, and like natural selection itself, the trick is to introduce the right new DNA software. The realisation that software is all it is, written in exactly the same language as the organism's "own" DNA, should go a long way towards correcting muddled thinking.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 07:45 AM | TrackBack 0

A political scientist testifying for the government spoke about studies in the United States where the early release of East Coast votes is common. He said studies have shown that when that happens, Westerners are less likely to vote because they feel the election results have already been decided.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 07:33 AM | TrackBack 0

''In the early days, a company could say, in effect, that if you accumulated enough of the gene, you could fill a vessel with it and use it as a paperweight - there was the utility,'' said Bruce Sunstein, a partner at Bromberg & Sunstein LLP in Boston, only partly in jest. In practice, companies might claim that the gene could be used as a probe to identify the same gene in unidentified genetic material. The patent seekers still might not know what the gene actually did in the body or how it played a role in disease.
But patent examiners became pickier. They began to insist more that applicants demonstrate specific uses for their discoveries, as required by patent guidelines. The stricter approach was codified in a January 2001 publication in the Federal Register.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 07:28 AM | TrackBack 0

Waste from resort is converted into usable water in two ways, both at a recycling plant for initial treatment, and then separately through a three-step purifying process of UV light filtration, ozonation and ultra-filtration. The final ultra-filtration step removes all suspended solids from the liquid including all biological matter, alive or dead. The resulting water is even free of viruses, bacteria and spores from cryptosporidium or giardia. The treated wastewater is then used in conjunction with meltwater and creekwater from surrounding areas to create snow.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 07:27 AM | TrackBack 0

About two years after AOL completed its $106.2 billion purchase of Time Warner, the old media veterans from Time Warner are running the show and the key architects of the deal have been forced out amid calls from angry investors that view the merger as a failure.

Posted by GeeTee at January 30, 2003 07:01 AM | TrackBack 0

They suspect, though they cannot yet prove, that this is because men with "vigour" problems who once placed their faith in penis soup have found that Viagra works rather better.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 02:36 PM | TrackBack 0

Press conference with Kembrew McLeod. McLeod, a University of Iowa professor who has trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression."

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 01:16 PM | TrackBack 0

"Comcast runs advertisements from many sources representing a wide range of viewpoints, pro and con," Comcast spokesman Mitchell Schmale said in a statement issued Tuesday evening. "However, we must decline to run any spot that fails to substantiate certain claims or charges. In our view, this spot raises such questions."
The statement did not specify what Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, objected to.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 11:26 AM | TrackBack 0

The ALAC is calling for volunteers to serve as its delegates to the Nominating Committee. Individuals interested in being considered for appointment by the ALAC to the Nominating Committee are asked to contact the ALAC via e-mail to <alac-comments@icann.org> before 7 February 2003 (please include in the e-mail your name, country, profession, and e-mail address; write "Nominating Committee" in the subject line; and attach a resume or biography). Suggestions of individuals who may be interested in serving are also strongly encouraged.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 11:19 AM | TrackBack 0

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka "Christians," and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or "PPs."
To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!
And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.
What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 10:45 AM | TrackBack 0

The walls in the 6ftx3ft cells were covered in surrealist patterns designed to make prisoners distressed and confused, the report continued, and lighting effects were used to make the artwork even more dizzying.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 10:37 AM | TrackBack 0

Since taking office, President Bush has made channeling federal funds to religious organizations a key part of his agenda. Although the allotment for the International Justice Mission, or IJM, is one of the first faith-based grants to be awarded internationally, others may soon follow. Last month, Bush moved personnel from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to the Agency for International Development.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 08:02 AM | TrackBack 0

Tsering Gyaltsen Sherpa, 32, will be opening the cafe at the Khumbu glacier at 5,300 metres to allow climbers to access the web.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:57 AM | TrackBack 0

I don't understand how "TheWashingtonPostShareholder.com" or"TheWashingtonPostNews.com" constitutes anything short of blatant, tortioustrademark violation.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:54 AM | TrackBack 0

"It's not like a normal court," says the magistrate, Motodzi Nemauhidi, who has been working as a judge for 18 years and has presided in the sexual-offense court since 2001. "You have to exercise a lot of patience, because most of the time you're dealing with children and women who are traumatized."

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:44 AM | TrackBack 0

"This is the first reported case of an association between repeated prolonged immobility sitting at a computer and life-threatening (lung embolism)," wrote the researchers led by Richard Beasley from the Wellington-based Medical Research Institute of New Zealand.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:42 AM | TrackBack 0

IN HIS journals, the Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian, who during the Nazi occupation of his country had to earn his living by teaching, notes that “neither my students nor my ‘colleagues’ have taught me anything new.” In a strict sense, I have to say the same, at least about my students. They taught me nothing. What they did do, though, was remind me of the surprise of human possibility. I have taught courses that, so low was the intellectual voltage in the room, I felt the dismaying truth of W. H. Auden’s remark that a professor is someone “who talks in other people’s sleep.” (Another, more pervasively truthful definition of a professor is “someone who never says anything once.”) But throughout my years as a teacher—and especially in my writing courses—I was taken by surprise by students who displayed qualities I would not have expected to find in them.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:32 AM | TrackBack 0

It was psychologically a crucial result for the Russian former world champion who lost against the machine's predecessor, Deep Blue, in 1997 after losing the second match.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:11 AM | TrackBack 0

O'Toole sent a handwritten open letter to the Academy stating he was "enchanted" by the gesture, but asking if they would defer the honour until he is 80 as he is still in with a chance of winning an Oscar outright.

Posted by GeeTee at January 29, 2003 07:09 AM | TrackBack 0

Despite this fresh evidence, Pakistani police working on the Pearl case notice a distinct cooling in their superiors' interest. Saeed and his co-defendants are appealing the verdict, and Karim's testimony may weaken the government's case that Saeed was both ringleader of the plot and Pearl's executioner. Until the Pakistani Supreme Court rules on Saeed's appeal, say police, it is doubtful that kidnapping charges will be brought against Karim, who is in custody. Meanwhile, the search is on for Mohammed, who investigators think is still hiding in Pakistan.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 01:34 PM | TrackBack 0

Thomas Olson, an attorney for the corporations, complained that since that order, Purdy has registered new names such as "washingtonpostspeaks.com" and "lovemcdonalds.com" that direct Internet users to Web sites that feature photos of what purport to be aborted fetuses. Purdy had previously been ordered to surrender names such as "mycoca-cola.com" and "mymcdonalds.com" that did the same thing.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 01:34 PM | TrackBack 0

Elections Canada has charged him with "premature transmission" of results because he posted results available in Eastern Canada and through international media before the polls closed in the West.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 01:30 PM | TrackBack 0

"All I know is for hours on end I said 'No, I had nothing to do with it.' Next thing you know I'm sitting here going 'Sure, why not. I did it.' More or less it's like they kill your spirit or something," he said.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 01:29 PM | TrackBack 0

Fretting that not enough peer-to-peer pirates are already in the slammer, a band of congressmen asked Attorney General John Ashcroft last July to begin some NET Act prosecutions, pronto. Their letter complained of "a staggering increase in the amount of intellectual property pirated over the Internet through peer-to-peer systems." The 19 politicos--including Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.--urged Ashcroft "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer neworks."

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 12:52 PM | TrackBack 0

However, she's fairly certain about one line that won't move. "Death," says Ms. Znak. "People don't want to watch that, because that's not what reality TV is about."

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 12:48 PM | TrackBack 0

ICommune differs from Apple's concept, however, in that it enables music downloads. Services such as Napster, Aimster, Morpheus and Kazaa have incurred the legal wrath of the music industry for enabling users to trade song files, which record companies say has resulted in mass piracy and declining CD sales.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 11:35 AM | TrackBack 0

Instead, let's automatically divide our payment among all of the writers we read, based on how often we read each one. In other words, if you read Jill more than Jack, Jill gets that much more of your payment. If you never read Sam, Sam doesn't get any of your payment.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 11:20 AM | TrackBack 0

Stripped of their identities, the girls were given numbers instead of names. They were forbidden to speak, except to pray. If they broke any rule or tried to escape, the nuns beat them over the head with heavy iron keys, put them into solitary confinement or shipped them off to a mental hospital.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 10:34 AM | TrackBack 0

"Part of our business strategy is to focus on products with real technical roots," Ricci says. He has a steady grin and a way of holding his head motionless for so long that you can't tell if he's injured or enlightened. He also possesses the serenity of someone who has gotten what he wants. He has, of course, gotten what he wants. The Dragon code, sold to ScanSoft for $40 million, a half billion less than it was presumably worth last year, is a dazzling inheritance. Not just profound but enduring.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 10:20 AM | TrackBack 0

"He's seven times been nominated as best actor, which puts him in extremely rarified air for a performer," Pierson said. "The Board of Governors felt it was time for him to hold his own Oscar in his hands."

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 07:56 AM | TrackBack 0

World number one chess player Garry Kasparov crushed the champion computer program Deep Junior in his trademark aggressive style on Sunday in the first game of their six-game ``Man vs Machine'' match in New York.

Posted by GeeTee at January 28, 2003 04:40 AM | TrackBack 0

The general rules of this game are no different from any other drinking game. A drink is either a shot or a good gulp from a beer (or cider). Different events call for different numbers of drinks and all you do is watch the speech and play along. If all goes well, you'll be unconscious by the time they show the other party's response.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 10:38 AM | TrackBack 0

Of course I will have myself cloned as soon as I can; of course everyone will get themselves cloned as soon as they can. I will go to the Bahamas, New Zealand or the Canaries; I will pay the asking price (moral and financial demands have always counted for little next to the demand for reproduction). I will probably have two or three clones, as you have two or three children; between their births, I will allow for an adequate gap (not too narrow, not too wide); as an already mature man, I will behave like a responsible father. I will make sure my clones have a good education; then I will die. I will die without pleasure, because I do not wish for death. Through my clones, I will have reached a certain form of survival-not completely satisfying, but superior to the one which ordinary children would have brought me. For the time being, it is the most that western technology can offer.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:52 AM | TrackBack 0

"In what was designed to be a "safety valve," the Copyright Office is holding its tri-annual search for exemptions to the DMCA's prohibitions on circumventing access controls. The Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted comments last December that outlined four "classes of works" that should be exempt, including copy-protected CDs, region-coded DVDs, DVDs with unskippable promotional material, and public domain works that are only available on DVD. They are asking people to write in support of the four exemptions that they have proposed. The Copyright Office is only accepting comments until February 19th, so get on it!"

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:42 AM | TrackBack 0

''People write because it seems like it'll be an easier job than carpet laying, that they might meet more girls,'' he says. ''And they write because the world strikes them as being a marvelous place, and they want to keep bringing that to everybody's attention. You know, a scary place, a menacing place, an exciting place because it's scary and menacing. But mainly, kind of glorious.''

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:38 AM | TrackBack 0

When you do math the New Democratic way. According published reports that I've seen there were 81962 party members eligible to vote in today's NDP leadership election. In addition there were 1600 eligible labour voters. That means that of a possible 83562 ballots that could have been cast today labour accounted for 1.91 percent of the total. There was a 53.38 percent voter turnout today. 44609 votes cast, of which 957 came from labour and the other 43652 came from individual members. That's a 53.23 percent turnout for the riding members and a 59.81 percent turnout for labour. Labour accounted for 2.14 percent of ballots cast today. So why did they get 25 percent of the influence?

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:30 AM | TrackBack 0

First it was a hacker who attempted to interfere with their big day. Now Bourque has learned that security surrounding voting procedures during today's NDP leadership vote was compromised. Indeed, much has been made by the Party about its reliance on the Internet to allow NDP members their right to vote. To be clear, only NDP members are allowed to vote and most were eligible to do so voted prior to today via mail. Yet, Bourque has learned that just about anyone could have voted in the election via the Internet today simply by assuming the name of a member and voting in his/her place. For instance, Bourque reader David Artemiw reports that "It's extremely easy for a non-party member to cast a vote. How do I know? I just did it." As he recounts it on his blog, "I knew the name of a party member who had no intention of voting. She joined because she wanted to go to Jack Layton's Barenaked Ladies party. So how did I do it? First, I asked this party member for permission. Then, I sent an e-mail from an e-mail account I created to both vote@fed.ndp.ca and ndphelp@elections.com. In the e-mail, posing as the party member, I claimed to have lost my log-in ID. I gave them the party member's address and phone number and they sent me back all the log-in information. Nothing was done to ensure that I was who I claimed to be." Have others also acted on this opportunity to skew the NDP leadership vote count ? How many ? Were the names of unsuspecting NDP members picked off membership lists, with wholesale substitute voting undertaken without either the individual member or even the Party itself knowing anything about it ? It remains unclear if the NDP is aware that their vote count was tainted by this shocking defect in their electoral process. Add to all of this the developing concerns about why so few votes were done over the Internet, why close to half of all eligible members failed to record a vote, and why convention organizers repeatedly delayed announcing the voting results, especially given the few actual votes cast today alone.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:29 AM | TrackBack 0

A study of water bottles at a Calgary elementary school found bacteria in kids' bottles that would prompt health officials to issue boil-water advisories, had the samples come from a tap.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:27 AM | TrackBack 0

My mail servers now reject more spam than they deliver mail. This, sadly, appears to be the trend. I am compelled to spend my time and my money attempting to stave off the abuse: I will probably need to pay additional charges for more rack space in the 1-3 months in order toinstall a proxy SMTP host/firewall and, of course, I have to purchase the machine, configure it, pay for the bandwidth it uses, etc.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:23 AM | TrackBack 0

For the sake of argument, this survey will assume that we are heading towards a networked society of ubiquitous, mobile communications capable of constant monitoring. Whether this arrives in 20, 30 or 40 years does not really matter. The point is that the destination seems not merely possible, but probable, so it is not too soon to ask: what do we want this technology to do?

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:22 AM | TrackBack 0

Earl Hurd of election.com said he believes someone used a "denial of service" program to disrupt the voting -- paralysing the central computer by bombarding it with a stream of data.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 09:17 AM | TrackBack 0

The chief justice also wants to outlaw coeducation. "I want education for women, but we want men and women not to sit together," Mr Shinwari said yesterday.

Posted by GeeTee at January 27, 2003 08:33 AM | TrackBack 0

"We have a lot of things posted around the bar saying you're being recorded," he says. "So if you don't want to come into the bar, don't come in."

Posted by GeeTee at January 26, 2003 09:50 AM | TrackBack 0

Later I found out that Betamax had owned the market, but lost it because Sony got one simple decision wrong. It chose to make smaller, neater tapes that lasted for an hour, whereas the VHS manufacturers used basically the same technology with a bulkier tape that lasted two hours. Instead of poring over the sound and picture quality, reviewers could simply have taken the systems home. Their spouses/children/grandparents and everybody else would quickly have told them the truth. "We're going out tonight and I want to record a movie. That Betamax tape is useless: it isn't long enough. Get rid of it."

Posted by GeeTee at January 26, 2003 09:40 AM | TrackBack 0

Although it may be highly unlikely that the Bush administration would authorize the use of such weapons in Iraq -- Arkin describes that as a worst-case scenario -- the mere disclosure of its planning contingencies could stiffen the opposition of France, Germany and Middle East nations to an invasion of Iraq.

Posted by GeeTee at January 26, 2003 09:37 AM | TrackBack 0

The debate is being complicated by the distinction between the collection of information by governments and by the private sector. For understandable reasons, governments remain the larger worry for most people. In the 20th century it was Big Brother governments, not marketing firms, that became nightmares. And yet in the networked society of the future it could well prove easier to tame an overly intrusive government than a private sector hungry for more and more information. An entrepreneurial private sector, driven by competition to seize on every new technological possibility, is likely to find ways round most obstacles placed in its way. And whatever information the private sector collects will be accessible to the government too, through subpoenas and search warrants. E-mails have already become a staple of court cases.

Posted by GeeTee at January 26, 2003 09:34 AM | TrackBack 0

So what are the environmental impacts of producing and using a 32-megabyte DRAM computer chip that weighs a mere 2 grams? The UNU team found that to make every one of the millions manufactured each year requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 grams of elemental gases (mainly nitrogen), and 72 grams of chemicals (hundreds are used, including lethal arsine gas and corrosive hydrogen fluoride).

Posted by GeeTee at January 26, 2003 09:31 AM | TrackBack 0

...on Wednesday U.S. District Judge John Coughenour refused Microsoft's request to shutter the Lindows site, questioning whether the company even had the right to the word "windows." Microsoft asked the judge to reconsider, but after reviewing the case further, he again refused to shut down the Lindows site.

Posted by GeeTee at January 25, 2003 05:43 AM | TrackBack 0

Arguing that a lower value-added tax on home-improvements would create employment and lessen tax evasion, France three years ago secured a "temporary" rate of 5.5% for house renovation and other home-improvements. Hence a pledge this week from a lobby-group of big restaurant-owners: if the VAT rate is lowered, they will cut their prices by 5% and raise the salaries of their waiters and washers-up by 10%, creating in the process a virtuous circle that should -- they say -- increase their clientele by 14%, employment by 40,000 and the number of restaurants by 20,000.

Posted by GeeTee at January 24, 2003 10:00 AM | TrackBack 0

"The basic issue is that the public lacks awareness of what medical abortion is and how effective and safe it is in early term pregnancies," Harvey said. "Women lack that info; therefore they can't be active consumers."

Posted by GeeTee at January 24, 2003 07:13 AM | TrackBack 0

The design's backers say a memorial could be includedGaudi's 95-year-old plans, which were originally designs for a futuristic hotel about the same size as the Empire State building, will be entered into the competition this spring by a group of art historians, architects and enthusiasts of his work.

Posted by GeeTee at January 24, 2003 07:11 AM | TrackBack 0

Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-century British and American copyright laws, renewable once, might be a good place to start.
However, to provide any incentive at all, more limited copyrights would have to be enforceable, and in the digital age this would mean giving content industries much of the legal backing which they are seeking for copy-protection technologies. Many cyber activists would loathe this idea. But if copyright is to continue to work at all, it is necessary. And in exchange for a vast expansion of the public domain, such a concession would clearly be in the interests of consumers.

Posted by GeeTee at January 24, 2003 06:56 AM | TrackBack 0

Rob Black, president of the Canadian Information Processing Society's (CIPS) Toronto chapter, said his members have been incensed about the proposed extension to the levy, which would also include recordable DVDs, flash memory and removable micro-hard drives capable of being used in MP3 players.
"The changes that they've proposed are horrendous!" he said. "We're not just talking about just read/write CDs anymore. We're talking about memory sticks, we're talking about portable hard drives. So if it's not a fixed hard drive, they want to put a levy on it.
"Can you imagine you couldn't take pen and paper into meeting unless you paid a special levy that was twice the cost of the basics?"

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 03:53 PM | TrackBack 0

This narrowing of the American mind is exacerbated by the withdrawal of the left from active politics. Virtually ignored by the media, the left has further marginalized itself by a retreat into introspective cultural criticism. It seems content to do yoga and gender studies, leaving the fundamentalist Christian right and the multinationals to do the politics. The separation of church and state seems to be breaking down too. Political discourse is now dominated by moralizing, like George W. Bush's promotion of American "family values" abroad, and dissent is unpatriotic. "You're either with us or against us" is the kind of cant you'd expect from a zealous mullah, not an American President.

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 03:47 PM | TrackBack 0

Mr Wilson, 22, who managed to slip into the hand-picked audience after borrowing a friend's Labour Party card, demanded Mr Blair answer questions about Iraq.

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 03:16 PM | TrackBack 0

The printers are adapted by washing out the ink cartridges and refilling them with suspensions of, say, cells. The software that controls the viscosity, electrical resistances and temperature of the printing fluids is reprogrammed and the feed systems altered.

!!!!

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 07:17 AM | TrackBack 0

The administration is already saying it will not budge. That is a pity, for many of Mr Bush's business allies would probably support the plan's approach. In fact, many big industrial firms, including even some coal-fired utilities, are now demanding domestic regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It is not that they have suddenly turned green. They are convinced CO2 rules will come and want them to be written by a business-friendly president.

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 07:04 AM | TrackBack 0

There are no known wild wolves left in Germany, so Baerbel the she-wolf drew attention of conservationists and animal-lovers on her travels since escaping last summer from a wildlife park in eastern Germany.

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 06:13 AM | TrackBack 0

Of course, in the real world, psychiatric diagnosis doesn't -- or at least shouldn't -- work like a checklist at a sushi counter. Many of the items that appear as diagnostic criteria in the DSM are sometimes symptoms of a disorder and sometimes signs of perfectly normal behavior. An adolescent who "often argues with adults" may have an unusual condition called "oppositional defiant disorder" or a more common condition called "being 14 years old." The DSM includes a cautionary statement saying it takes clinical training to tell the difference. But many nonspecialists use the book too: insurers open the DSM when disputes arise over the proper course of treatment for particular conditions. (If your treatment doesn't jibe with the DSM, you may not get reimbursed.) DSM diagnoses can be used by courts to lock you in a mental hospital or by schools to place your child in special-education classes. A DSM label can become a stigma.

Posted by GeeTee at January 23, 2003 04:40 AM | TrackBack 0

Operation Ore, as the British effort is known, has been dogged by a lack of resources. Though the law makes possession of child pornography, including computer images, subject to a maximum sentence of five years, proving the offence is difficult. To do a full forensic examination of a computer takes up to three months. Companies specialising in the work say that, at the present rate, it would take from five to ten years to process all the suspect computers.

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 01:26 PM | TrackBack 0

"Where a woman chooses her partner while she is on the pill, and then comes off it to have a child, she may find she is married to the wrong man."

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 01:13 PM | TrackBack 0

...the judge did not let McDonald's off the hook completely. Referring to Chicken McNuggets as a "McFrankenstein creation" of elements not used by home cooks, he said the plaintiffs could refile their case with information backing their claim that diners have no idea what is really in their food or that the products have allegedly become more harmful because of processing.

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 01:00 PM | TrackBack 0

...Chafets insisted in his column and in an interview afterward that the watch-giving is a time-honored device to win favorable press coverage for the Saudi government. "Are [journalists] influenced by Saudi hospitality?" he asked in his column. "Look at the coverage of the kingdom the last 10 years and see which reporters failed to notice they were in a fascist theocracy and decide for yourself."

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 11:06 AM | TrackBack 0

The dispute is not about whether the RIAA will be able to force Verizon to reveal the identity of a suspected copyright infringer, but about what legal mechanism copyright holders may use. The RIAA would prefer to rely on the DMCA's turbocharged procedures because they are cheaper and faster than other methods, but Verizon and civil liberties groups have said the DMCA does not apply and that it does not adequately protect privacy.

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 09:48 AM | TrackBack 0

"It may seem like political correctness gone mad but there is a strong feeling that smoking shouldn't be depicted as cool. There is a movement to remove the cigarette from the actual album sleeve if it is re-issued."

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 09:39 AM | TrackBack 0

Pending further research, it's anyone's guess whether a higher tropopause would lead to taller thunderclouds, with possible consequences such as more violent downdrafts as rain-cooled air plunges from greater heights.

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 07:33 AM | TrackBack 0

Ford Motor Company unveiled its new, environmentally intelligent concept car on January 5 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, positioning it as a "model for change." Inspired by how its Model T revolutionized personal transportation in the last century, a team of Ford researchers and designers worked collaboratively with MBDC, co-founded by McDonough and German chemist Dr. Michael Braungart, and with BP to adopt environmental design concepts into plans for the hallmark new car model commemorating Ford's centennial. The goal was to create the Model T of the 21st century -- a new type of vehicle specifically designed to be good to you and good for the world.

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 07:32 AM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 07:18 AM | TrackBack 0

"Not only does cloning not produce a physical duplicate, but it can never reproduce the behavior or personality of a cat that you want to keep around. There are millions of cats in shelters and with rescue groups that need homes, and the last thing we need is a new production strategy for cats."

Posted by GeeTee at January 22, 2003 04:01 AM | TrackBack 0

The legacy of the World Trade Center attack, Olsen and colleagues found, is recorded in New York Harbor sediments as a layer containing high concentrations of several elements, copper, zinc, calcium, strontium, and others. Results indicate that the deposition of World Trade Center ash, via fall-out from the atmosphere, urban runoff in streams or site remediation activities, could account for all of these elevated concentrations.

Posted by GeeTee at January 21, 2003 01:15 PM | TrackBack 0

The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500 years old.

Posted by GeeTee at January 21, 2003 01:07 PM | TrackBack 0

No information has been supplied to MPs as to who is deciding which words are deemed offensive. The Parliamentary Communications Directorate require MPs to apply in writing to find out which words they can or cannot use.

Posted by GeeTee at January 21, 2003 11:13 AM | TrackBack 0

The report upholds a 1999 New Media Exemption Order, which essentially states that the Internet does not fall under the purview of the CRTC. The exemption also prevents Web sites that broadcast TV signals, like JumpTV.com, from benefiting from copyright tariffs. If they could pay these tariffs, like television stations licensed by the CRTC, they wouldn't have to make individual deals with TV copyright holders.

Posted by GeeTee at January 21, 2003 07:54 AM | TrackBack 0

Here's how that works: Every month, instead of paying into a savings or investment account, pay down your principal mortgage as much as you can. At the same time, borrow money on your house equity, and invest. Capitalize your interest costs, making interest on the interest deductible. Einstein said, the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest, why not let it work for you?

Posted by GeeTee at January 21, 2003 07:51 AM | TrackBack 0

We are merely pointing out the (apparently heretical) truth that the current tax system is very skewed against upper-income Americans. According to IRS data from 2000, the top 5% of tax filers paid more than 50% of total income tax revenue, and the top half of tax filers were responsible for almost all revenue -- 96% of the total take. This burden on the upper-income holds even when the payroll tax is included in overall distribution tables. (The payroll tax includes the regressive Social Security levy and the 1.45% Medicare tax that applies to every dollar of income.)

Posted by GeeTee at January 21, 2003 02:59 AM | TrackBack 0

Things are not so simple, however, for a spinning black hole, since there is an outward "centrifugal force" acting to prevent any shrinkage of the hole. The force depends on how fast the hole is spinning. It turns out that at a critical value of the spin, a black hole flips from negative to positive specific heat - that is, from growing hotter as it loses heat to growing colder. What determines the critical value? The mass of the black hole and the golden ratio!

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 08:23 AM | TrackBack 0

Arctic research funding in Canada now stands at about 20 cents per capita, compared to about $3 in the United States and $2.50 in Australia. Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Great Britain all fund Arctic research at a per-capita rate that is several times higher than Canada's, said Paul Hebert, a professor of zoology at the University of Guelph who tracks federal sponsorship of Arctic research.

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 07:38 AM | TrackBack 0

Organizers met yesterday in the Vancouver-Point Grey constituency to plan strategy for unseating the Premier. To automatically trigger his resignation, they need to collect signatures from 40 per cent of the riding's registered voters from the last provincial election in May, 2001.

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 07:36 AM | TrackBack 0

There was only one problem. The antidepressant had not just improved her mood, but had also transformed the content of her art. While Sheryl was now making and selling more photographs, she judged the quality to be inferior....

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 07:35 AM | TrackBack 0

"They were not listening to us," Col. David Nichols told the U.S. military hearing in Louisiana Saturday. He described the pre-flight air control orders as "complex and very difficult to use."

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 06:52 AM | TrackBack 0

We're talking attitude, the same assertive attitude you see in the classroom and on the athletic field. "There's none of this 'Ooh, I'm wearing your jacket' stuff," says Julie Nemirovsky, a freshman at Emory University in Atlanta who has a boyfriend on campus. Over winter break at home, she went out for coffee with a guy she has known for years and it didn't occur to her to tell her boyfriend. Why should she? "He's not my keeper," she says.

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 04:49 AM | TrackBack 0

Sex is a conversation. Why can't a scene with two people having real sex be as dramatically interesting as a scene with them talking in a restaurant? Why can't there be a film that makes you say, "I laughed, I cried, I came!"

Posted by GeeTee at January 20, 2003 03:55 AM | TrackBack 0

Drink and drugs consumed with some responsibility are not problematic in themselves, unless you believe that altered states of consciousness somehow betray the wonder of human life. I'll go either way on that: Being "really me" is just fine, but there are times when I prefer the enhanced version. If you're still enjoying life, what's the harm?

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 11:01 AM | TrackBack 0

...A.N.S.W.E.R. has proven skill at organizing massive demonstrations. Most who attend the group's protests know nothing about their actual political leanings and merely wish to express their opposition to war in Iraq
And many people and groups who are repulsed by A.N.S.W.E.R.'s support for genocidal dictators choose to attend their anti-war protests anyway, because they feel it is so urgent to stop the Iraq war.

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:31 AM | TrackBack 0

Fifty years after a copyrighted work was published, a copyright owner would have to pay a tiny tax. That tax could be as low as $1. If the copyright owner does not pay that tax for three years in a row, then the copyright would be forfeited to the public domain. If the tax is paid, then the form would require the listing of a copyright agent--a person charged with receiving requests about that copyright. The Copyright Office would then make the listing of taxes paid, and copyright agents, available free of charge on their website.

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:26 AM | TrackBack 0

Final data from the provincial applications centre reveal about 70,000 Ontario's high school graduates should win a space at university, but the government's current plan accounts for only 61,284 freshmen spots.

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:25 AM | TrackBack 0

Last fall, a battle within the Anglican Church in Quebec over money and control of local parishes boiled over. Rev. Perry-Gore wrote a widely circulated letter saying Bishop Bruce Stavert was demanding absolute obedience, reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:21 AM | TrackBack 0

But he said if you take into account the time it takes to produce the pulse of information then the speed is lower than the speed of light. That means the work still fits Einstein's theory that nothing can exceed the famous speed limit, about 300,000 kilometres per second.

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:20 AM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:17 AM | TrackBack 0

This is a little toy I put together that generates random poems. It uses old poems I've written for source material. You can specify several parameters such as length, whitespace amount, and grammatical and thematic coherence. But since the algorithm is pretty primitive, the last two don't work very well. You can play around with it here. It works best with short poems.

Posted by GeeTee at January 19, 2003 05:03 AM | TrackBack 0

Even the simplest of information systems—directions on how to use things—are missing. Which can spur embarrassment from, rather than desire for, Prada's wares.
Take the dressing-room doors. These are clear doors formed from two sheets of glass pressing against an opaque, liquid crystal center. They seem to magically fog over when a person enters.
The fog is produced by electrical reaction, after the customer presses a foot pedal. But there are no signs directing the attention of first-time users to look down at the floor and press the pedal. The result? Customers -- assuming the glass is working -- start to disrobe in full view of other patrons, sales associates say.

Posted by GeeTee at January 18, 2003 06:34 AM | TrackBack 0

Some cite book trade in Greece in the 5th century BCE as the first example of the concept of intellectual property, viewing it as the buying and selling of information. However, copyright law as we know it today has developed bit by bit starting in the 18th century, when the precursor of modern copyright, the Statute of Anne, was passed in England in 1710. This act established author's ownership of copyright under a fixed term. The history of copyrights in the United States follows.

Posted by GeeTee at January 18, 2003 05:42 AM | TrackBack 0

In addition to labeling kids as addicts, drug programs may also surround them with the worst possible influences. Studies show that teens are more subject to peer pressure than adults -- and more influenced by the people around them. Teen treatment programs remove teens from a healthy peer group and surround them with other problem kids, virtually guaranteeing that their role models will be negative. Group therapy during such treatment invariably involves discussions of their drug experiences -- which only makes the hard-drug users seem "cooler" because their stories are so much more exciting. Worse, aside from providing a way for relatively inexperienced kids to learn about different ways of getting high and obtaining drugs, these programs frequently offer kids new connections. One 17-year-old girl from Florida told me that she hadn't used cocaine until after treatment -- her new best friend from rehab scored it for her.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 09:50 AM | TrackBack 0

There would seem to be fewer things crazier than chucking radioactive waste in a steel shack -- without making sure the place was safe first.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 09:16 AM | TrackBack 0

Hey Elftor, check out my nuclear warhead!

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 08:31 AM | TrackBack 0

When designer drugs become reality, an individual who suspects she has cancer might test herself at home and quickly determine which medication works for her type of cancer -- a far cheaper method of cancer treatment than exists today.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 08:27 AM | TrackBack 0

The bacterium makes an amino acid that no other organism uses to build proteins.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 08:25 AM | TrackBack 0

For example, the first phone, called SoMo1, gives its user a mild electric shock, depending on how loudly the person at the other end is speaking. This encourages both parties to speak more quietly, otherwise the mild tingling becomes an unpleasant jolt. Such phones, the designers suggest archly, could be given to repeat offenders who persistently disturb people with intrusive phone conversations.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 08:18 AM | TrackBack 0

Being a little bit sentimental and reluctant in scrapping an old trusty SAAB Magnus tried to come up with some kind of use for the almost-stripped-out chassis... Then suddenly Magnus thought of a (crazy?) idea; Building a sauna inside the SAAB! This idea was verified with some other sauna-loving fiends, and of course, this was a good idea. The SAUNAAB construction team was formed! Since this team has members from both Finland and Sweden, the appropriate project names for the car are of course "SAUNAAB" and "SAABASTU"...!

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 08:16 AM | TrackBack 0

The important question, then, is what fosters a trustworthy government. At least part of the answer appears to be interpersonal trust%uFFD1the supposition that most other people are trustworthy. Suspicious people are less likely to join associations, follow public events, get to know their neighbors, or make contact with their congresspersons. In fact, they are less likely than others to do just about anything except watch TV and flip off other drivers on the highway. That means they are not the kinds of citizens who are likely to hold government accountable, intelligently and regularly, and thus keep it trustworthy.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 07:29 AM | TrackBack 0

As technological advances have made food ever more varied and convenient, the authors argue, the feeble will-power of the American public has been unable to compete.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 06:52 AM | TrackBack 0

...the detectives chose an audience of reporters yesterday to hear about another troublesome aspect of their work: Among the 2,329 suspects uncovered during more than two years of investigation, fewer than 100 have been arrested.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 06:43 AM | TrackBack 0

”This threatened war is intentionally being pursued,” the 75-year- old author wrote in his statement. “My experience tells me that this intentionally pursued war will spawn further wars,” he added.

Posted by GeeTee at January 17, 2003 06:42 AM | TrackBack 0

A feasibility study by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers discourages the government from building it in the medieval city of Sighisoara, birthplace of 15th century Count Vlad Tepes, though to have inspired author Bram Stoker's Gothic novel "Dracula."

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 06:03 PM | TrackBack 0

"Robert Pickton never registered as a pig farmer with BC Pork. In fact, he had more sheep on his property than he had pigs!" the group said in a statement released on Monday, ahead of Pickton's pre-trial hearings next week.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 06:01 PM | TrackBack 0

...the new reigning champion of hamburger pricing: a $41 monster that has just appeared on the menu at the Old Homestead on Ninth Avenue, built of beer-fed Kobe beef, with lobster mushrooms and microgreens, on a Parmesan twist roll. It is genuinely lousy, a mushy, gray thing of loose consistency and little flavor.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 05:42 PM | TrackBack 0

Bush also underscored his administration's efforts to champion "compassionate alternatives" to abortion, such as promoting maternity group homes, encouraging abstinence and adoption and passing parental-notification and waiting-period laws.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 05:03 PM | TrackBack 0

The prosecutor's office in Trier, near the border with Luxembourg, said that it had been investigating alleged cases of cannibalism and rape by Satanists since the middle of last year. That is six months before another case of cannibalism -- the eating of a software designer by a former soldier -- came to light.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 04:58 PM | TrackBack 0

As part of Adweek's special 20th Anniversary issue, Adweek's editors have picked the Top 20 Ad Campaigns Of The Last 20 Years

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 12:07 PM | TrackBack 0

as I read these opinions, I realize the hardest part for me is elsewhere. I have spent more than a decade of my life teaching constitutional law -- and teaching it in a particularly unfashionable way. As any of my students will attest, my aim is always to say that we should try to understand what the court does in a consistently principled way. We should learn to read what the court does, not as the actions of politicians, but as people who are applying the law as principle, in as principled a manner as they can. There are exceptions, no doubt. And especially in times of crisis, one must expect mistakes. But as OJ's trial is not a measure of the jury system, Bush v. Gore is not a measure of the Supreme Court. It is the ordinary case one needs to explain. And explain it as a matter of principle.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 12:03 PM | TrackBack 0

The researchers say the insects seem to retain the underlying genetics needed to construct wings over tens of millions of years, even though the wing is not physically present.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 11:55 AM | TrackBack 0

Chrétien has repeatedly challenged members of Parliament who want him to leave early to vote against him in the House of Commons. He said he'd call an early election if that happened.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 11:54 AM | TrackBack 0

If you depend on a secret for your security, what do you do when the secret is discovered? If it is easy to change, like a cryptographic key, you do so. If it's hard to change, like a cryptographic system or an operating system, you're stuck. You will be vulnerable until you invest the time and money to design another system.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 10:43 AM | TrackBack 0

One of the Canadian soldiers most seriously wounded in a mistaken attack last year in Afghanistan said his men were not firing into the air when a U.S. fighter pilot dropped a bomb on them.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 07:34 AM | TrackBack 0

More than 24 playgrounds had arsenic levels above federal health guidelines. Half of them tested at more than twice the guidelines.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 07:32 AM | TrackBack 0

Lawyer Peter Ritchie, who represents accused serial killer Robert Pickton, submitted an affidavit alleging violations of the ban since the hearing began Monday. The affidavit cited the AP, along with Seattle, Wash.-area newspapers and television stations, and some Canadian media.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 07:30 AM | TrackBack 0

Eldred lost. 7-2 for the government, with Justices Breyer and Stevens dissenting. Much, much more to come. [Later: Scroll down for continual updates.]

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 07:26 AM | TrackBack 0

"It's a marvellous structure," Mr. Padolsky said yesterday, slamming Domtar's "unilateral" decision to knock down the mill. He called for an emergency meeting between the company, the NCC and the city to explore ways of preserving the "cathedral-like" building as a prime piece of urban industrial heritage with profound potential for public redevelopment.

Fuckers.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 07:24 AM | TrackBack 0

I know for sure that inner-city schools don't have to be hellholes like Emery and its District of Columbia brethren, with their poor administration and lack of parental support, their misguided focus on children's rights, their anti-white racism, and their lawsuit-crazed culture.

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 06:54 AM | TrackBack 1

"But actually getting it done would probably be a huge mistake, because it won't be as good as people imagine it could have been," continues Gilliam, clearly on a roll. "It's probably better to leave it as a documentary with little tantalizing glimpses of what might have been. It's my theory about Stanley Kubrick: He should have died before he finished Eyes Wide Shut. It would have forever been an unfinished masterpiece, beautiful ruins. When it's a ruin, you get these little fragments and you can imagine what the castle looked like." Gilliam's favorite aspect of moviemaking, he says, comes during "the early stages, when we're drawing things and planning the film in our heads -- ah, that's exhilarating. The reality is that when we're finished, it's a fraction of what we were imagining. When I'm making films sometimes I want half the film to be in blackness so there's room for people to imagine what's in the shadows."

Posted by GeeTee at January 16, 2003 06:30 AM | TrackBack 0

Since 1997, the Ultimate Bad Candy Web Site has been dedicated to the eradication of unscrupulous treats. We search the dusty bottom shelves of convenience stores and supermarkets to bring you the candy coverage that you deserve! So that you don't have to! And because you probably wouldn't want to. And because, quite frankly, you never even thought about it. And do you want to know why? Because the evil confectioners of the world want to keep you in the dark! Every year, bad candy manufacturers spend tens, perhaps even hundreds of dollars on propaganda to keep you and your loved ones from fully comprehending the incredible destructive force harvested from their infernal factories. Their nefarious machinery excretes glop after brown, grainy glop of soul-corroding candy, the ingredients for which are wrought from the corpses of Satan's undead army, while you go about your day in ignorant bliss!

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:23 PM | TrackBack 0

Over two years, Simson Garfinkel and Abhi Shelat bought 158 used hard drives at secondhand computer stores and on eBay. Of the 129 drives that functioned, 69 still had recoverable files on them and 49 contained "significant personal information" -- medical correspondence, love letters, pornography and 5,000 credit card numbers. One even had a year's worth of transactions with account numbers from a cash machine in Illinois.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:07 PM | TrackBack 0

Its filing would inject Bush into a high-profile civil rights debate complicated by fallout from recent comments seen as supporting segregation that cost Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi his job as Senate majority leader.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 11:21 AM | TrackBack 0

A contrary ruling would have cost entertainment giants like The Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc. hundreds of millions of dollars. AOL Time Warner had said that would threaten copyrights for such movies as "Casablanca," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind."

Fuck.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:58 AM | TrackBack 0

Economic theory dictates the best solution is for companies to drop prices to near what consumers are willing to pay for quality downloads. Not the price companies ideally want, but near a price consumers, who have an alternative, will pay. That would create price equilibrium and a functioning market in which recording companies could play a major, ongoing role. This is proper application of the price mechanism. Economics 101.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:48 AM | TrackBack 0

An old Senate Republican hand explained to me why the senators are upset: ''Rumsfeld's behavior toward senators is dismissive, barely civil, bordering on rude. He has no interest in us other than to get the money, no interest in our opinions.'' Rumsfeld spent more than six years in the House, but that was 44 years ago.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:45 AM | TrackBack 0

What Creative Commons lets you do as an author is label your stuff before you flush it down the toilet. If you don't want the sewage treatment plant to filter your stuff and sell the water on its usual terms, Creative Commons lets you have your way. If you think that publishers are stealing your crap, you can stop them.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:43 AM | TrackBack 0

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 07:40 AM | TrackBack 0

It represents, in other words, a kind of classic Washington compromise. Tech firms won't argue for legislation providing Americans with more "fair use" rights, an idea the music industry opposes--and the recording industry won't call for new government regulations designed to limit piracy.

Posted by GeeTee at January 15, 2003 06:42 AM | TrackBack 0

I'm asking for a declaration from the court that would overturn theunconstitutional requirement that US persons must show ID to travelthroughout the US. Not only airplanes, but trains, buses, cruiseships, and major hotel chains are now enforcing ID requirements,largely at the behest of the Federal Government. Many skyscrapersalso demanded ID for a time after 9/11; I refused, and eventually mostof them have relented. I have not flown in the US since 9/11/01, andI've recently been refused lodging as well as travel, for my refusalto present ID on demand. (Note that this is a *separate* issue from thegovernment's recent demand for more information from citizens who enterthe US border. That's a bad idea too, but raises different issues.)

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 05:13 PM | TrackBack 0

BlogFodder is a daily email for weblog authors. It's usually a single line of text that could ignite a post on your own weblog. This site is an archive of those ideas, and a place to share their (somewhat related) results. If you have questions, feedback, or fodder ideas, send them in.

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 05:10 PM | TrackBack 0

Who is eligible? For these awards, a "photoblog" is a webpage with dated entries that has a posts images to their site. Sites that post images infrequently are also eligible, but due to the nature of the awards, they will be at a disadvantage since there are many photo bloggers that post images on a regular if not daily basis. Only sites that post their own original images are eligible to be nominated.

Nominate me! The URL is http://hypercube.org/photo. An excellent choice is Afternoon with the Photographer, http://www.hypercube.org/photo/photo.cgi/2002.07.30, as accompanied by text in the essay Brilliant Corners, http://www.track0.com/cc/features/080902mrseverywhere.html.

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 04:52 PM | TrackBack 0

First, consumers should be notified--a notice on a checkout receipt would work--when RFID tags are present in what they're buying. Second, RFID tags should be disabled by default at the checkout counter. Third, RFID tags should be placed on the product's packaging instead of on the product when possible. Fourth, RFID tags should be readily visible and easily removable.

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 10:43 AM | TrackBack 0

"We need a common framework or regulatory regime because [the information society] is borderless, and we have to create this new framework," he said. "I am not intending to solve any specific problem with this conference but to [get agreement on] a shared view that we have to solve the problem of [issues such as] taxation, cybercrime or confidence in the Internet."

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 10:42 AM | TrackBack 0

Carville: Now let me ask you. What would Jesus do? Would Jesus vote to give every child health insurance and Head Start and a chance at life, or would Jesus vote to give people like me over $1 million, $100,000 a year tax break? What would he do?

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 10:41 AM | TrackBack 0

...people familiar with the new deal speculate that by coming out against such legislation, the music industry is trying to repair its battered reputation in places such as college campuses as being a bunch of conglomerates that want to prevent consumers from freely listening to, recording and trading music. The music trade group has been especially active in the courts, where it has succeeded in persuading judges to close down music file-sharing services such as Napster.

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 09:58 AM | TrackBack 0

...the Russian government said the violence was spurred by the showing of a clip from "The Big Lebowski" on the same screen after the match, which showed a man smashing a car with a baseball bat.

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 06:34 AM | TrackBack 0

In a statement on Saturday, Townshend said that on one occasion he had used a credit card to enter a site advertising child pornography. But he said he was not a pedophile and was only doing research for an autobiography dealing with his own suspected childhood sexual abuse. He said he had tremendous rage toward pedophiles and wanted to deal openly with it.

Posted by GeeTee at January 14, 2003 04:54 AM | TrackBack 0

...the toxin did not damage skin cells or hair follicles surrounding the tumour - suggesting that the toxin is highly selective, and may not lead to the severe side effects sometimes associated with alternative treatments.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 06:22 PM | TrackBack 0

That gum eases tension and helps concentration has been known for years, not least by America's military, which first gave soldiers gum during the first world war. Chewing helps ease blocked ears and lessens an urge to smoke or snack. But the opportunity generating most excitement now is the use of gum as a cheap, effective delivery mechanism for medicine. Gary Kehoe, Wrigley's director of new product innovation, says gum outdoes pills at getting certain molecules into the bloodstream because of its prolonged contact with the mouth. Gum is insoluble and is chewed for 20 minutes on average. Alkaline saliva and the lack of stomach acid also give drugs a fighting chance. Wrapping an active molecule in a resin that dissolves slowly allows controlled release.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 12:11 PM | TrackBack 0

Conducted by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), the study gave failing grades to 16 of the 28 evaluated computer equipment makers when it comes to informing consumers about corporate environmental policies. Six of the nine American companies that went under the microscope got failing grades, including Dell Computer and Gateway.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 12:10 PM | TrackBack 0

Under the barbaric laws of this custom, a girl suspected of having an extra-marital affair is labeled kari or black woman, while the suspected man is called karo or black man. Regarded as blots on the honor of the woman's family or tribe, instant murder of the accused is considered to be a social obligation.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 11:32 AM | TrackBack 0

Many left disillusioned that Vatican II had not eased the rigid episcopal hierarchy or the rules on celibacy, and many left to marry. Those left behind included a greater percentage of priests who were theologically conservative, gay or maladjusted, a trend that the bishops had apparently begun to note. In 1971, they commissioned a study by Dr. Eugene Kennedy, a psychologist at Loyola University of America and a former priest, and Dr. Victor Heckler, the principal investigator. Their report, "The American Priest: Psychological Investigations," found that 57 percent of priests were psychologically "underdeveloped."

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 11:22 AM | TrackBack 0

The latest case involved a Toronto man who was stopped by police while driving a motorcycle downtown last summer. Police found the butts of two marijuana cigarettes on him, and charged the man with possessing less than a gram of marijuana.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 09:58 AM | TrackBack 0

"The physicist Hermann von Helmholtz was the first to clearly state the fundamental problem in vision, namely that there is no way to directly specify objects and conditions in the world by means of the information conveyed to eye by light," Purves said in an interview. "Even though it doesn’t seem that way to us, the information carried by the light that falls on the retina is inevitably ambiguous. A particular stimulus can have many different physical sources. Since the goal of any visual animal is to react appropriately to the sources of visual stimuli, this fact presents a major problem."

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 08:29 AM | TrackBack 0

Computer crimes currently share sentencing guidelines with larceny, embezzlement and theft, where the most significant sentencing factor is the amount of financial loss inflicted, and additional points are awarded for using false ID or ripping off more than 10 victims. But in a congressional session that heard much talk about "cyberterrorism," lawmakers became convinced that computer outlaws had more in common with al Qaida than common thieves.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 08:23 AM | TrackBack 0

"To the extent that television provides escape from feelings of inadequacy, it follows that people should be especially likely to seek television-watching opportunities when those inadequacies are made salient," Moskalenko said. "People were more likely to watch television when they were feeling bad about themselves and were less likely to watch it when they felt good about themselves, indicating that people actively seek situations to manage their current levels of positive self-feelings."

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 07:53 AM | TrackBack 0

Governor Ryan, a Republican who entered office as a proponent of capital punishment, declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois three years ago, after 13 death-row inmates were exonerated -- in one case just 48 hours before a slated lethal injection. "We nearly killed innocent people," Ryan thundered in indignation last week. "The system is broken."

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 07:48 AM | TrackBack 0

In his private railway car, meals sometimes ran to 20 courses. Kim the gourmand is also fond of the American teenage staple, pizza. In 1999 he imported pizza ovens and two Milanese chefs to teach the North Koreans how to make pizza. One of the chefs, Ermanno Furlanis, later reported (in an article entitled "I Made Pizza for Kim Jong Il") that he endured a "brainwashing session" to learn to eliminate capers and anchovies after the Pyongyang higher-ups deemed one of the lamb dishes to be too salty.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 06:46 AM | TrackBack 0

He listened to the women's very American stories (Divorced at 21? Inhabitant of 70 -- 70?! -- foster homes?), noted the sense of humor that strippers tend to have, wondered what it's like to possess the open-sesame beauty that provokes instant marriage proposals and wildly exorbitant gifts. (As if to provide evidence, the Hooters waitress serving Ueland tells of a customer who regularly tips her $100 for his $10 meals.)
He watched countless women undress.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 06:41 AM | TrackBack 0

FreeCondoms.com is a website that allows users to get condoms, lubrication, and more at zero cost, and shipped right to their door.  

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 06:25 AM | TrackBack 0

Ask for an apple fritter in Tim Hortons and you're increasingly offered a small, over-cooked Dutchie. Injected by fast food surgeons with a squirt of applesauce, a smidge of apple pie filler goo, the kind sold at discount stores in dented cans. A false fritter -- tell-tale brown on the outside, evidence of the desperate attempt to thaw the middle.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 06:13 AM | TrackBack 0

When the idea for this report was conceived, I'd assumed there would be more performance give and take across Mac and PC. Since the Mac is currently my primary computing platform, I'd certainly hoped this would be the case. But, the overall speed superiority of the PC is impossible to ignore: If the processing of RAW photos in particular is where your workflow hangs up, a Pentium 4-equipped single processor PC offers a compelling solution. Whether it's because of Mac hardware limitations or software that's not optimized for the Mac, the net result is a variety of professional digital photography processing tasks will take a lot longer to complete on even a top-of-the-line Mac.

Posted by GeeTee at January 13, 2003 06:09 AM | TrackBack 0

[Susannah Breslin's] turning point was just a few months ago, when she watched a fairly new porn genre called "bukkake" being made. She witnessed as one woman lay still and 80 men stood around her, masturbated, and released onto her face.
"A sex-positive feminist could walk in there saying, 'she's making the money, she's calling the shots, she's running the show,' but the reality is there is a girl taking 80 shots to the face."

Posted by GeeTee at January 12, 2003 06:47 PM | TrackBack 0

"The Simpsons" is still hand-drawn, it's just inked and painted digitally rather than paint slathered on cells. But actual pencil drawings are scanned into the computer. With traditional animation there is an amazing history where you have the mark of brilliant artists, and what we try to do, at least on "Futurama" and now on "The Simpsons," is have it look as much like traditional animation as we can.

Posted by GeeTee at January 12, 2003 09:16 AM | TrackBack 0

"Some of the things I have seen on the Internet have informed my book which I hope will be published later this year, and which will make clear to the public that if I have any compulsions in this area, they are to face what is happening to young children in the world today and to try to deal openly with my anger and vengeance towards the mentally ill people who find paedophilic pornography attractive."

Posted by GeeTee at January 12, 2003 09:10 AM | TrackBack 0

A smart delivery system will conceivably expand on similar technology used in the nicotine patch; however, instead of transmitting nicotine, the TDNDS will serve as a reservoir of micronutrients and nutraceuticals. Advances in nutritional sciences, miniaturized physiological monitors and molecular delivery will be exploited. One potential means of transmitting nutrients would work like this: Sensors would first take readings on a warfighter%uFFD5s metabolism, then send information about the soldier%uFFD5s nutritional needs to a microchip processor. This processor might activate a microelectrical mechanical system that transmits the micronutrients %uFFD1 either through skin pores or pumped directly into blood capillaries.

Posted by GeeTee at January 11, 2003 10:54 AM | TrackBack 0

Caring people around the world visit the site each day to click the "Help a Child" button and help protect children from life-threatening diseases, prevent thousands of cases of childhood blindness, and enable child amputees to walk.

Posted by GeeTee at January 11, 2003 10:48 AM | TrackBack 0

In an interview with the newspaper Sada al Machric, Raymond Baaklini said Canada outlawed the terrorist group last month because of pressure from a "Zionist party" that he said "controls 90% of the Canadian media."

Posted by GeeTee at January 11, 2003 10:03 AM | TrackBack 0

The course also features a webcast component with classes broadcast on the Internet. If you are interested in watching the classes in real-time or archived versions of past classes, see the course webcast page.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 02:04 PM | TrackBack 0

"Would I have walked in if I was a terrorist?" he asks today.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 01:33 PM | TrackBack 0

The act, which was repealed in 1964, allowed authorities to jail women between the ages of 16 and 35 for behaviour such as promiscuity, pregnancy out of wedlock and public drunkenness.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 01:30 PM | TrackBack 0

In the aftermath of the overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban government, some Western donors set conditions for aid to Afghanistan. Included among them was a refusal to hand over major investment money unless women were given a greater role in Afghan society.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 01:15 PM | TrackBack 0

They're one of the largest private corporations in America. They bullied their way into Canada and convinced competitors to hit the road. Thousands have been injured working in their North American plants...some Americans have died...and the company kept on growing here in Canada.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 12:56 PM | TrackBack 0

The computer industry, following the trend declared by Gordon Moore,will soon give them that power. Give a few doublings of power andmore research into algorithms and eventually it will become possibleto do that tracking. Not just then, but backwards, _into the past_.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 11:28 AM | TrackBack 0

They sent a guy over and I said that I'd like to register a complaint. I insisted on his name and badge number. I filled it out with my name. The supervisor, I think trying to intimidate me, asked for my license, and I gave it to him happily as he wrote down information. I kept saying, "Please get the police," and they kept saying, "You're free to go, we don't need the police." I insisted and they got a higher up, female, supervisor. I was polite, cold, and a little funny. "Anyone is welcome to grab my crotch, I don't require dinner and a movie, just ask me. Is that asking too much? You wanna grab my crotch, please ask. Does that seem like a crazy person to you?" I had about 4 of them standing around. Finally Metro PD shows up. It's really interesting. First of all, the cop is a BIG P&T fan and that ain't hurting. Second, I get the vibe that he is WAY sick of these federal leather-sniffers. He has that vibe that real cops have toward renta-cops. This is working WAY to my advantage, so I play it.

The followup is here.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 11:18 AM | TrackBack 0

The move will bring gas-and-electric powered vehicles into the mainstream in North America, according to analysts. Until now, hybrids have been available from only a few companies -- such as Honda and Toyota.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 11:11 AM | TrackBack 0

The Prairie Storm Prediction Centre in Winnipeg is one of 14 weather offices across the country. Reports suggest it will be among nine that will close or be downsized, leaving Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax to take on extra duties.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 11:07 AM | TrackBack 0

"From April (2002) through to Dec. 19, they have already dealt with over 2,800 matters with respect to the possession of illegal firearms across the country," said Peel Regional Police Chief Noel Catney.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 11:05 AM | TrackBack 0

The flip side of the power and importance of a brand is its growing vulnerability. Because it is so valuable to a company, a brand must be cosseted, sustained and protected. A failed advertising campaign, a drop-off in quality or a hint of scandal can all quickly send customers fleeing. Indeed, protesters, including Ms Klein's anti-globalisation supporters, can use the power of the brand against companies by drumming up evidence of workers ill-treated or rivers polluted. Thanks, ironically enough, to globalisation, they can do this all round the world. The more companies promote the value of their brands, the more they will need to seem ethically robust and environmentally pure. Whether protesters will actually succeed in advancing the interests of those they claim to champion is another question. The fact remains that brands give them far more power over companies than they would otherwise have. Companies may grumble about that, but it is hard to see why the enemies of brand “fascism” are complaining.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 09:53 AM | TrackBack 0

24 hours after launching the site from which you can download my novel for free, the book has been downloaded over 20,000 times. It's been Slashdotted, blogged to hell and back, and I've done a number of press interviews about it. What's more, the title is currently sitting at #304 in the Amazon Sales Rank. Let's call this one a success. I could not be more stoked. Damn.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 09:11 AM | TrackBack 0

He added: "Leonardo da Vinci painted a couple having sex."

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 08:55 AM | TrackBack 0

[Justice Bruce McPhee] said he was not convinced that it was the marijuana and not Reimer's multiple sclerosis that caused him to swerve.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 08:05 AM | TrackBack 0

"This initiative will fill that void by taking on cases that might not otherwise make their way into the Canadian court system, such as advocacy assistance on privacy issues, domain name disputes, free speech protections in the online environment, and e-commerce consumer concerns," Geist said in a statement.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 08:03 AM | TrackBack 0

"She’s such a devil," Mr. Evans said of Ms. Amory. "One that you’d like to kiss. I’ve known her a long time; she married a few people I knew. Everyone who knows her, they like her—unless they’re jealous women."

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 07:36 AM | TrackBack 0

It's not fair to allow people to smoke medicinal marijuana, then force them to get the drug from the corner drug dealer, which is what the scheme effectively does, said Superior Court Justice Sidney Lederman. "Laws which put seriously ill, vulnerable people in a position where they have to deal with the criminal underworld to obtain medicine they have been authorized to take violate the constitutional right to security of the person," Lederman wrote in a 40-page ruling.

Posted by GeeTee at January 10, 2003 06:36 AM | TrackBack 0

In the democratic version of the model, Roper and Conradt allowed each virtual deer to vote, by standing up when it has finished ruminating. When half the deer have stood up, the group moves off. In the despotic version, one individual makes the decision based on its preference with the rest forced to follow suit.

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 07:30 PM | TrackBack 0

"(Apple) introduced a sense of play to computing," Goldstein said. "Microsoft is demanding, disciplined and also fucked up. It gives the experience of being under the thumb. There's this relationship with the two brands."

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 02:07 PM | TrackBack 0

"This is George," a girl's voice says of an oblivious man at a gas station. "This is the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The screen then shows a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The picture switches to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his S.U.V."

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 09:54 AM | TrackBack 0

The Papal State's police force says 608 penal offences were committed last year in the independent religious state whose population is just 455.

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 09:47 AM | TrackBack 0

The reasons for breast milk's apparent preventive effects aren't entirely clear, but Dewey suspects that babies who are breast-fed are better able to program themselves to stop eating when they are full. Parents who bottle-fed often over-feed their children, Dewey said. Over-feeding in infancy can increase the number of fat cells.

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 08:55 AM | TrackBack 0

Well - what happened is that in a family "Secret Santa" gift exchange, I got what I felt was the worst present ever. A little plastic figurine of Moses. I posted a thread on the Something Awful Forums bemoaning this fact, and after a couple of Photoshops, I got inspired to dress it up.

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 08:45 AM | TrackBack 0

"Without a change in the law, individuals will be less willing to purchase digital media if their use of the media within the home is severely circumscribed and the manufacturers of equipment and software that enables circumvention for legitimate purposes will be reluctant to introduce the products into the market," Boucher said.

Posted by GeeTee at January 09, 2003 08:24 AM | TrackBack 0

These are movies about which you could say, "That's Not Entertainment." They're not 'rides' or 'diversions.' They are galvanizing experiences that place squarely in your face all the stuff Hollywood usually presumes you go to the movies to get away from. Films that rearrange your head, that challenge your bedrock ideas about life and love and the big sleep. Consciousness-expanders, in other words, but rarely in a pleasant way. Thank God for them.

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 09:29 AM | TrackBack 0

Canada has been selling gold from foreign reserves since 1980, investing the proceeds in bonds and foreign-currency securities that yield a return which "far exceeds the return that the government gets on gold," the official said.

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 08:12 AM | TrackBack 0

In the end, Eaves renounces "all sexuality for profit." Some readers will say that she is privileged because, unlike many other women, she was able to dabble in the sex trade, then move on to her "real" career. Her renunciation of sexual commerce is reminiscent of the Magdalene houses: 19th century institutions where "fallen women" who were down on their luck could receive shelter and sustenance in exchange for their spiritual salvation. It is easy to understand why a destitute or ailing sex worker would renounce her wayward past and embrace the role of repenting sinner. It came with food, medical care and shelter. But Eaves is no victim of poverty. She has actively chosen the Victorian path of renunciation while cloaking it in the language of late 20th century feminism, and this leads us to wonder whether it is a convenient posture or a case of sexual guilt that can never be entirely washed away.

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 08:11 AM | TrackBack 0

Happiness = P (5xE) (3xH)

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 08:06 AM | TrackBack 0

The informant, identified as Michael Hamdani, who was arrested in Canada in late October 2002, created the story about 19 men who were seeking false passports in an attempt to get himself off the hook on criminal charges he was facing in the United States, sources said.

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 07:56 AM | TrackBack 0

Yet so far the entertainment industry bulldogs have stayed noticeably silent about an old model of TiVo recorder and a new flavor of Windows that now allow hackers to swap video. Why haven't TV executives mounted a similar defense against these potential tools for would-be pirates? Perhaps because their erstwhile partners, TiVo and Microsoft, all but invited the video swappers in.

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 07:25 AM | TrackBack 0

"The holy anointing oil, as described in the original Hebrew version of the recipe in Exodus, contained over six pounds of keneh-bosum - a substance identified by respected etymology, linguists anthropologists, botanists and other researchers as cannabis extracted into about six quarts of olive oil along with a variety of other fragrant herbs.
"The ancient annointed ones were literally drenched in this potent mixture."

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 07:12 AM | TrackBack 0

The court ruled there was "no evidence" that either Johansen or others had used the decryption code (called DeCSS) for illegal purposes. Johansen therefore couldn't be convicted on such grounds, nor for acting as an accessory to other alleged illegal activity, wrote judge Irene Sogn in the court's ruling. Nor, wrote Sogn, was there any evidence that Johansen intended to contribute to illegal copying. The court determined that it is not illegal to use the DeCSS code to watch DVD films obtained by legal means.

Posted by GeeTee at January 07, 2003 06:43 AM | TrackBack 0

Here goes: So (a) if a law like the one I propose is passed on a national level, and (b) it does not substantially reduce the level of spam, then (c) I will resign my job. I get to decide whether (a) is true; Declan can decide whether (b) is true. If (a) and (b) are both true, then I'll do (c) at the end of the following academic year.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 05:57 PM | TrackBack 0

The tests cost about $1,100 each but Myriad, which also holds gene patents for screening of colon and prostate cancers, wants all tests done at its own laboratory at triple the cost.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 05:50 PM | TrackBack 0

Tucked away on Museum Mile, the academy library is the sort of place that would make blood brothers of Nicholson Baker and Joel-Peter Witkin. Here are books on forensic pathology and morbid anatomy, wax models of skin diseases and the occult origins of kidney stones. Books worth perusing for their titles alone, such as the 1973 Proceedings of the International Workshop on Nude Mice or William A. Rossi's Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe (1976). Books to treasure for their homiletic wisdom, such as Robert A. Matthews's How to Recognize and Handle Abnormal People (1960), "a manual for the police officer" whose sage counsel will prove useful at family functions or office meetings. Books to savor for their droll wit, such as Sublime of Flagellation, an 18th-century bagatelle in the guise of letters from "Lady Termagant Flaybum, of Birch-Grove, to Lady Harriet Tickletail, of Bumfiddle-Hall."

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 09:41 AM | TrackBack 0

Slightly less than one in 10 nuns said she was the focus of sexual harassment at least once during her religious life. Almost half of those were at the hands of priests, nuns or other religious persons. More than half of the total harassment cases involved some type of physical contact.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 09:06 AM | TrackBack 0

Take, for example, the anecdote of Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century sage of Konigsberg whose iron reverence for absolute truth as the core value of human nature defeated many a dialectical opponent. Towards the end of his life, Kant discovered that his manservant of 40 years' standing had been systematically stealing from him. So the manservant was dismissed, only to turn up later with the brass neck to ask his former master for a reference of good character. Kant wrestled with his conscience and his kindness. Conscience lost. The manservant went away with a favourable reference, but one whose mendacity broke the rules and principles to which Kant had dedicated his life.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 09:05 AM | TrackBack 0

Dr. Comfort -- he died in 2000, having done more than most for the general pursuit of happiness -- was not a proselytizer, like those tiresome Esalen types who were always urging us to do it in the road. The phrase ''free love'' is mercifully absent. On the other hand, he didn't see anything wrong with voyeurism or group sex. In fact, he quite enjoyed both, and the evidence suggests that he did enough research for a second Ph.D. But he doesn't make you feel like a dweeb (or dweebette) if your idea of fun doesn't include croupade and flanquette with the entire neighborhood block association. On the whole, the tone is warm, learned and friendly, as if Marcus Welby, M.D., had disappeared to California for a few months and come back with a great big grin on his face and some nifty new ideas on stress reduction. The occasional refusal to admit irony -- as when he advises wearing a hard hat during motorcycle sex -- will cause guffaws, but that only shows, once again, the impotence of being earnest.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 09:03 AM | TrackBack 0

The relationship between workers and their clutter is similar. People spread stuff over their desks not because they are too lazy to file it, but because the paper serves as a physical representation of what is going on in their heads—“a temporary holding pattern for ideas and inputs which they cannot yet categorise or even decide how they might use”, as Ms Kidd puts it. The clutter cannot be filed because it has not been categorised. By the time the worker's ideas have taken form, and the clutter could be categorised, it has served its purpose and can therefore be binned. Filing it is a waste of time.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 08:49 AM | TrackBack 0

For these reasons and hundreds of others, the year following September 11 has seen probably the most staggering proliferation of "conspiracy theories" in American history. Angry speculation %uFFD0 focused mainly on government dirty dealings, ulterior motives, and potential complicity in the attacks %uFFD0 has risen to a clamor that easily rivals what followed the Kennedy assassination. Some of these suppositions are patent balderdash. But many others are coherent and well argued, and cite disconcerting reports from the U.S. corporate media and respected overseas news desks to support their claims. Providing grist for the mill are such odd episodes as last year's partisan anthrax poisonings (using U.S. army microbes) and the sniper attacks that recently plagued Washington, DC.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 08:36 AM | TrackBack 0

On Thursday, Windsor Justice Douglas Phillips dismissed criminal charges against a teenager accused of having about five grams of pot.
The judge accepted defence arguments that the law against possessing small amounts of the drug is invalid because Parliament has failed to draft clear, consistent legislation about cannabis.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 08:09 AM | TrackBack 0

The ad features a reclining full-frontal nude male model. He's quite hairy, as required by the new shift in male beauty standards. The guy is former martial arts French champion Samuel de Cubber. The ad (right pic, above) will be published from Oct. 24 in a handful of fashion magazines, including the French edition of Vogue and the Italian one.
It is the first time in the history of advertising that a major mainstream company shows a full-frontal nude as a standard ad.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 07:42 AM | TrackBack 0

While local news agencies unabashedly report suicides and stick cameras in the faces of grieving family members, authorities have begun clamping down on gratuitous suicide "news" -- albeit flaccidly. Article 275 of the Criminal Law prescribes a seven-year jail term for anyone posting suicide methods on the Internet. No official effort has been made to bring other media -- namely television -- within the bounds of tasteful reporting.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 07:39 AM | TrackBack 0

This contest is simple. E-mail a photo to me at wkenshow@yahoo.com. The photo should finish the sentence "I love _____." I will publish your photo here at wPhotoBlog, in its own post, along with a link to your site (if you have one). Isn't that easy?

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 06:59 AM | TrackBack 0

This site is a presentation of the diaries of Samuel Pepys, the renowned 17th century diarist who lived in London, England (read more about him). A new entry written by Pepys will be published each day, with the first appearing on 1st January 2003.

Posted by GeeTee at January 06, 2003 06:53 AM | TrackBack 0

The jury investigated the suicide of Kimberly Rogers. She was 40, eight months' pregnant and confined to her apartment for welfare fraud when she took a lethal overdose of an anti-depressant during a heat wave in August, 2001.

Posted by GeeTee at January 05, 2003 02:49 PM | TrackBack 0

Supreme Court says B.C. school board wrong to ban same-sex booksThe Surrey board said it ordered the ban because the books were not suitable for five- and six-year olds. The board also said many parents objected to the books because they regard homosexuality as a sin.

Posted by GeeTee at January 05, 2003 02:48 PM | TrackBack 0

The Vatican-controlled Jesuit magazine Civiltà Cattolica said in its Friday edition that Pius XII "probably did not possess the qualities of a prophet."

Posted by GeeTee at January 05, 2003 02:46 PM | TrackBack 0

In a letter ordering Somma to halt publication of her book, the hospital's lawyer, Alvin Deutsch, contends that a 1976 U.S. law extended the copyright protection for Peter Pan until the year 2023.

Posted by GeeTee at January 05, 2003 01:05 PM | TrackBack 0

Join us in challenging rogue states run by military fanatics who produce and conceal weapons of mass destruction. Rooting Out Evil is sending a weapons inspection team to the United States to inspect the chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons produced and concealed by the Bush regime. And we want you to join us - in person or in spirit.

Posted by GeeTee at January 05, 2003 10:37 AM | TrackBack 0

"At first, this intense talent of Bergman's was applied to drama between people, human emotions, and it was gripping and intense and full of surprise. Then when I saw Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal and The Magician, this enormous dramatic talent was applied not just to human emotions %uFFD0 he didn't lose that %uFFD0 but also to philosophical issues that were very meaningful to me. He was dramatising things that I had read about in Kierkegaard, in Nietzsche: big questions, existential questions. Here was a director making films that confronted those issues, that were intellectually stimulating, not in a pedantic way, but in an entertaining way, as any great murder mystery, or musical, or lighter film would entertain."

Posted by GeeTee at January 05, 2003 07:46 AM | TrackBack 0

I'm watching a New York television news show reporting on one of the recent cases where people sign away their rights. This is about requests sent out by schools that parents of students sign a pledge that alcohol, loud parties, and late night activities will not be permitted at their homes and that schools and local police will be permitted to inspect the houses without warrants for violations. The news report says that most parents have signed the pledge. So, what of parents who don't? What of parents who send back the note with a "FUCK YOU!" message? Probable cause? The kid faces hassles in the state-run school?

Posted by GeeTee at January 01, 2003 03:54 PM | TrackBack 0

When the first alcohol studies were published, some critics objected that underlying factors might be affecting the results: perhaps the people who drank modestly were simply healthier in general, or had better access to health care. Perhaps those who abstained from alcohol knew they had heart disease and quit drinking for that reason. But many studies involving many thousands of people have swamped these objections.

Posted by GeeTee at January 01, 2003 01:54 PM | TrackBack 0

Demonstrators said the fact the RCMP didn't charge Turnbull under the Firearms Act for not registering his gun was a moral victory and proved the registry is ineffective.

Posted by GeeTee at January 01, 2003 01:47 PM | TrackBack 0

'Make no mistakes about it,' Lake Superior State University issued its 28th annual 'extreme' List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness, which the world needs 'now, more than ever.'

Posted by GeeTee at January 01, 2003 01:46 PM | TrackBack 0

In early January 2003 Professor Betsy Bryan, with a team of JHU students and photographer Jay VanRensselaer, will arrive in Luxor, a southern Egyptian city. Jay VanRensselaer is making his fifth trip with Professor Bryan to photograph the finds of her excavations. Along with his standard equipment, he is carrying a digital camera. He will be sending daily photographs with commentary from Professor Bryan on the team's progress during the month of January.

Posted by GeeTee at January 01, 2003 01:24 PM | TrackBack 0

"Our argument is ultimately going to be that these are illegal changes to the Clean Air Act and the EPA has gone beyond its authority in granting loopholes to smokestack industries," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental advocacy group.

Posted by GeeTee at January 01, 2003 11:20 AM | TrackBack 0