The TUC urged the government to research the effects of stress, long hours and bullying.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 09:34 PM | TrackBack 0

Ernst called me today from Canada at noon, very briefly, and told me that he was in Canada and had asked for political asylum. He asked me to call some friends to bring him some money since he was not allowed to have anything with him when he was arrested, and I was not allowed to see him while he was in detension here, except once, as you all know.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 07:21 PM | TrackBack 0

Based on the idea that the trailer is usually better than the movie, TRAILERVISION.COM, features trailers for fictional movies that don’t exist. The show has been called "blindingly fun", "the movie event of the minute" and "the next step in cinematic evolution."

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 03:49 PM | TrackBack 0

Most of my friends on The March could not place Iraq on a map, let alone describe the contents of Resolution 1441, which finds that "Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations" and imposes a deadline "not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution" for Iraq to supply "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration" -- a date which fell on December 9. Tell them this, and they say that it's critical to stick by the UN, without being able to grasp the contradiction.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 02:53 PM | TrackBack 0

Threats by Republicans to cut the General Accounting Office (GAO) budget influenced its decision to abandon a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, The Hill has learned.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 02:49 PM | TrackBack 0

the ultimate in self-expression, it is a design experiment that puts you on paper in as little structure as possible. it is all about how you can use the line as representation of yourself. the limits that only using 5 lines imposes on your portrait causes you to do one of two things: either think long and hard and plan out your portrait, or not think at all and just let the portrait happen. the latter method usually produces the best portraits.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 02:46 PM | TrackBack 0

The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy and terrible at diplomacy. I covered the first gulf war, in 1990-91. What I remember most are the seven trips I took with Secretary of State James A. Baker III around the world to watch him build -- face-to-face -- the coalition and public support for that war, before a shot was fired. Going to someone else's country is a sign you respect his opinion. This Bush team has done no such hands-on spade work. Its members think diplomacy is a phone call.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 02:43 PM | TrackBack 0

In this study, early tobacco and alcohol use were also significant predictors of drug problems. Undoubtedly, most people use these legal substances before cannabis because they're more available. But the possibility that these legal drugs are the gateway never appears in the study.
Worse, anyone who used a hard drug before using cannabis was dropped from the analysis. That's right: People who took downers or snorted cocaine before trying cannabis, or did anything else counter to the gateway theory, were omitted from the study, stacking the deck.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 02:16 PM | TrackBack 0

In a simple historical test of the technique, Kleinberg analysed all the annual State of the Union addresses given by US Presidents since 1790. He found that particular word "bursts" could indeed be linked to important events at the time the speeches were delivered.
In the years that immediately followed the American Revolution, for example, sudden bursts in the use of words such as "militia", "British" and "savages" are found.
From 1930 to 1937 a spike in the use of the word "depression" is seen. And from 1949 to 1959 "atomic" is the word with the greatest "burstiness". Later in the 20th century, words such as "Vietnam", "Soviet", "communist" and "Afghanistan" increase sharply in usage.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 01:32 PM | TrackBack 0

"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity."

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 01:15 PM | TrackBack 0

"If they (the Americans) want to go there all alone, they can go there all alone but we say they must go with the authorization of the United Nations. If they don't, the international system of peace and security will probably be more destabilized than it need be," [Chretien] said on Tuesday.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 01:12 PM | TrackBack 0

The forces, numbering up to 5,000 troops, with some heavy equipment, are nominally under the command of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, a prominent Iraqi Shia Muslim opposition leader who has been based in Iran since 1980 and lives in Tehran.

Posted by GeeTee at February 19, 2003 01:09 PM | TrackBack 0