''Pitchers are saying, 'Enough is enough,' '' San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean says. ''Pitchers have been giving away the inside part of the plate for too long. Now they want it back.''

Posted by GeeTee at May 31, 2003 11:22 AM | TrackBack 0

Mitlin holds up a large piece of metal with corrugated curves. "I can only do this with the formulas that Haresh gives me," he says. "There's a whole new body of shapes and forms that have come out of his work that allows us to do things that have never been seen before. It's opened up the design palette enormously."

Posted by GeeTee at May 31, 2003 10:53 AM | TrackBack 0

THE US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber. Prisoners would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported yesterday.

Posted by GeeTee at May 27, 2003 05:30 AM | TrackBack 0

Armresty International announce a day of autoerotic arrest in respect for the blind. It's very simple. Just divert finances away from masturb-aids (e.g porn, warm fillet steaks) to the RNIB's donations page for one day.

Posted by GeeTee at May 27, 2003 05:27 AM | TrackBack 0

DrLudicrous writes "The NYTimes is reporting that the platinum-iridium standard mass for the kilogram is shedding at an appreciable rate -- at least compared to other reference masses. The Pt-Ir cylinder is kept in France, and measured annually, and the slight discrepancy is important because the kg is an SI base unit- thus other quantities such as the Volt are based on it. A new standard is being sought- the two frontrunners are counting the number of atoms in a perfectly spherical single crystal of silicon, and another technique uses a device known as the Watt balance."

Posted by GeeTee at May 27, 2003 04:56 AM | TrackBack 0

The emerging beauty industry played on the fear of looking ugly as much as on the pleasure of looking beautiful, drawing on the new science of psychology to convince women that an inferiority complex could be cured by a dab of lipstick. Even then, ruthlessness and outright quackery lurked behind the façade. On launching her famous eight-hour cream, developed for her horses, Arden quipped: “I judge a woman and a horse by the same criteria: legs, head and rear end.”

Posted by GeeTee at May 26, 2003 06:32 AM | TrackBack 0

Bowling for Columbine violated the Academy's own rules. These limit the documentary competition to nonfiction films. Bowling isn't nonfiction. Whenever it was necessary to his theme, Moore invented facts, fabricated events, staged scenes, or doctored the depiction of what actually happened. When Heston, for example, gave a mild and concilliatory speech, Moore simply edited the footage (and inserted footage from a different speech a year later) to make it sound arrogant.

Posted by GeeTee at May 26, 2003 06:28 AM | TrackBack 0

Even though either option could have been too risky to carry out, their existence contradicts earlier claims by NASA officials that there was nothing they could have done to save the crew. Gehman said those rescue options make decision by NASA not to seek spy satellite images of the shuttle "even more ominous."

Posted by GeeTee at May 26, 2003 04:46 AM | TrackBack 0

Since I started with Evelyn Waugh, I should acknowledge that there is one brilliant moment in Kimmelman's piece that, though inadvertent, is worthy of Waugh at his most comic. It comes in the course of his interview with Leonard Riggio. "I went to Marfa and Roden Crater and visited Heizer in Nevada," Riggio recalls, "and I thought these artists recognized the genius of the average American. Judd built his museum in a little Texas town. [James] Turrell was hiring Native Americans from the area. Heizer was working with local people." In other words, we are supposed to regard Judd's aluminum boxes or Heizer's giant slabs in the middle of nowhere as art for the people, just as Barnes & Noble bookstores are "for average citizens, for the whole of society." It would be an art work worthy of Dia to try out, say, the room full of dirt on a randomly selected group of average citizens. I hope I am invited to witness the result.

Posted by GeeTee at May 26, 2003 03:33 AM | TrackBack 0

Yes, the woman writer deserves a lover, someone to answer the letters and arrange the cookies on the platter, to remember names and encourage when the day has not gone well; someone to lean on when the reviewers attack, when the publisher grows gruff or the work stale or the bills need paying. But we have questions, even if we don't ask them aloud, about those males who nurse successful female artists: are they angry at the role that has befallen them, do they take vengeance in subtle or not so subtle ways? Are they tempted to burn letters like Andre Gide's bitter cousin, or to misfile a poem or two? Yet we have them, these husbands of woman writers, these saints of support and inspiration. In fact we have had them in ages far less kind to woman's ambitions than the one we live in now.

Posted by GeeTee at May 26, 2003 03:25 AM | TrackBack 0

The prize for best pet photo blog went to www.textism.com/oliver, a site featuring the photographer's adorable pet Weimaraner in various poses and landscapes. Puppy porn. One pose carried this caption: "Quit looking at my penis."

Posted by GeeTee at May 25, 2003 06:47 PM | TrackBack 0

The aptly named "Piip Show" allows internet audiences to watch everything the birds get up to in their one-room flat, 24 hours a day.

Posted by GeeTee at May 23, 2003 01:21 PM | TrackBack 0

The Colossal Colon is an oversized model of a human colon that is forty feet long and four feet tall. It was built by Adirondack Scenic, Inc. a company that builds Broadway sets and Universal Studio sets, among other things. Visitors who crawl through the Colossal Colon will see examples of many colon diseases, including Chrohn's disease, diverticulosis, ulcerative colitis, hemorrhoids, cancerous and non-cancerous polyps, and various stages of colon cancer. Actual colonoscopy footage was used to ensure that the Colossal Colon was as realistic as possible. Special thanks to Maggie Tierney with the Screen for Life program at the Glens Falls Hospital and Hannah Vogler, whose cousin Amanda the Colossal Colon is dedicated to.

Posted by GeeTee at May 23, 2003 11:47 AM | TrackBack 0

The Ibogaine Dossier is an extensive library dedicated to providing information on ibogaine, an experimental antiaddictive medication.

Posted by GeeTee at May 19, 2003 07:43 PM | TrackBack 0

Judge Preben Bagger ruled Monday that Meyer did not have to pay the fine because the fish were killed "instantly" and "humanely."

Posted by GeeTee at May 19, 2003 02:36 PM | TrackBack 0

The idea is a simple one: Fifty years after a work has been published, the copyright owner must pay a $1 maintanence fee. If the copyright owner pays the fee, then the copyright continues. If the owner fails to pay the fee, the work passes into the public domain. Based on historical precedent, we expect 98% of copyrighted works would pass into the public domain after just 50 years. They could keep Mickey for as long as Congress lets them. But we would get a public domain.

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

It was the second time that a Windsor teenager who was caught smoking pot while playing hooky in a park has been found not to have broken any law because, the courts ruled, there are effectively no longer any marijuana laws to break.

Posted by GeeTee at May 17, 2003 06:41 AM | TrackBack 0

The streets of Casablanca are reported to be largely empty as frightened residents raced home to take shelter.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 05:58 PM | TrackBack 0

This isn't about not liking blogs. It's about not liking unaccountable concentrations of influence, about believing it is still true that 'the first duty of the press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of events of the time and instantly, by disclosing them, to make them the common property of the nation' (9) - and about noting that 'most correct' does not mean 'what the blog says'.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 09:15 AM | TrackBack 0

The current mission profile calls for an 850-kilometre (528 miles) flight over the rugged southern uplands of the Red Planet at an altitude of 1.5 km (0.9 miles), making measurements of geological formations spanning four and a half billion years of Martian history.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 09:07 AM | TrackBack 0

On Tuesday, at a speech promoting his economic plan in Indianapolis, White House aides went so far as to ask people in the crowd behind Mr. Bush to take off their ties, WISH-TV in Indianapolis reported, so they would look more like the ordinary folk the president said would benefit from his tax cut.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 09:02 AM | TrackBack 0

Whoops. Bad news. As The Washington Post reports, the 75th Exploitation Task Force, the very serious-minded group heading up all U.S. inspections in Iraq, the group absolutely certain it would immediately find steaming neon-lit stockpiles of WMDs piled right next to Saddam's personal stash of gay porn and Britney Spears posters and opium pipes, is coming home with its tail between its legs. Found nothing. Nada.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 08:02 AM | TrackBack 0

Just how did the nation make such an about-face -- from being on the verge of decriminalizing marijuana in the 1970s, with everyone from the American Medical Assn., the National Council of Churches, and then-President Jimmy Carter supporting the move? Schlosser pins the blame on paranoid parents' groups, Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs, and boomer politicians intent on distancing themselves from the weed-loving 1960s. He also reveals how the feds have become so dependent on forfeiture lucre to meet their budgets that they have even gone after the owners of garden-supply stores, who sometimes unwittingly count pot-growers among their customers.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 07:21 AM | TrackBack 0

Skip Coghill, who runs a trucking company, does a lot more than send e-mails in the middle of the night. When he recently took a cruise off the coast of Acapulco, many of his clients never knew he had left the office. Between casino visits and midnight-buffet runs, Mr. Coghill used the GoToMyPC.com software to operate his office computer by remote control. He could even spy on his employees from the deck of the ship: He brought up Global Positioning System maps that showed him the precise location of each of his trucks, down to the intersection. If an employee was off-track, he could fire off a text message to the truck. "I was drinking a pina colada, sitting in my swimsuit, having a total ball," says Mr. Coghill.

Posted by GeeTee at May 16, 2003 06:38 AM | TrackBack 0

And it is almost always a mistake to mention Abraham Lincoln in a speech about something or somebody else. He always steals the show. I am about to quote him.

Posted by GeeTee at May 15, 2003 12:47 PM | TrackBack 0

Now, Salam would never have known any "ordinary" Iraqis, unless he was interrogating one privately. He does know that Ahmed Chalabi and Kanan Makiya, the politicians coming down from free Kurdish territory, and the other exiles returning to Iraq, are the class that are trying to replace his class. They were the people who were fighting the good fight against Mr. Saddam abroad, and committed their lives irretrievably to a democratic future for the country -- when people such as Salam were making their profitable accommodations with the regime.

Posted by GeeTee at May 15, 2003 12:20 PM | TrackBack 0

THE Chinese government has made an extraordinary threat to execute or jail for life anyone who intentionally breaks quarantine orders and spreads Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The virus has killed more than 270 people in mainland China -- the biggest death toll of any country, and almost half the total worldwide -- and officials are desperately worried about the ability of the country's health service to cope. Despite the draconian nature of the government's latest measure, which has drawn criticism from human-rights groups, the World Health Organisation has given it tacit support. One senior WHO official said: "I think it sounds very tough, but I do believe people have a certain responsibility."

Posted by GeeTee at May 15, 2003 12:02 PM | TrackBack 0

China has threatened to execute or jail for life anyone who breaks Sars quarantine orders and spreads the virus intentionally.

Posted by GeeTee at May 15, 2003 10:04 AM | TrackBack 0

The rise of misogynistic rap culture dramatizes the inadequacy of that approach. The notion that a self-confident elite exercises cultural hegemony over the masses and that big media corporations and advertising geniuses create ideas and products and then manipulate society into accepting them was always badly oversimplified and often completely misleading. Outsiders, from James Dean to Allen Iverson, have an innate appeal. The cultural elites may have money and position, but the definition of cool, and therefore the influence over what will enter the culture, generally comes from the fringes. Rap and hip-hop came from the urban lower class. N.W.A., 2 Live Crew, Tupac Shakur, and Eminem may have been co-opted by record companies, but they emerged authentically from the streets. As it happens, the parts of society that, according to the class-conflict model, should have been the most reactionary -- the affluent classes -- have been the quickest to adopt progressive mores. It is the least privileged parts of society that are often the most sexist, reactionary, and even materialistic. We have a dynamic urban culture that treats women like whores and that regards owning a Mercedes as the highest possible human aspiration, and the leading articulators of progressive opinion have almost nothing to say about it. They can't seem to bring themselves to admit out loud that their most effective ideological enemies have turned out to be the same underprivileged people they wanted to rescue from exploitation.

Posted by GeeTee at May 14, 2003 08:25 AM | TrackBack 0

The Moon will pass entirely out of the Earth's umbra at 5:17 GMT, or 1:17 a.m. EDT, and the last evidence of the penumbra should vanish at or, around 5:34 GMT, or 1:34 a.m. EDT.

Posted by GeeTee at May 13, 2003 08:00 PM | TrackBack 0

...the infinite is attainable at Zombo.com...

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

Michel Chrétien, the man accused of attacking the teenager, sat impassively in court as she choked back tears and searched her clouded memory for details of the July night last year, when the Crown says he sexually assaulted her after a night of heavy drinking in Yellowknife.

Posted by GeeTee at May 13, 2003 04:36 AM | TrackBack 0

The waiver to enter Gaza requires foreigners, including United Nations relief workers, to acknowledge that they are entering a danger zone and will not hold the Israeli Army responsible if they are shot or injured.

Posted by GeeTee at May 12, 2003 06:54 AM | TrackBack 0

On May 14, put on a screening of "Dr. Strangelove" -- in your living room, at the local theater, on campus, on your laptop, anywhere you can -- and say no to unilateral invasions, to endangering our troops for the sake of oil, to flouting international law and the world community in the name of empire. Follow the film with discussions, forums, debates. Keep talking. Keep acting. Let's give new meaning to the old Strategic Air Command motto, "Peace Is Our Profession."

Posted by GeeTee at May 12, 2003 05:17 AM | TrackBack 0

Despite the contradictory reports, no one in the mainstream media has yet demanded clarification of the many obvious inconsistencies and problems of the official version. Anyone even asking questions has been quickly insulted as anti-American, accused of bashing the president in a time of war, or branded a conspiracy nut. Only a few relatives of the 9/11 attacks have been able to raise these issues publicly. For instance, Kristen Breitweister told Phil Donahue: "It was clear that we were under attack. Why didn't the Secret Service whisk [Bush] out of that school? ... [H]e is the commander-in-chief of the United States of America, our country was clearly under attack, it was after the second building was hit. I want to know why he sat there for 25 minutes." [Donahue, 8/13/02] But so far, few have listened to their concerns.

Posted by GeeTee at May 10, 2003 02:59 PM | TrackBack 0

Hirst learnt his lesson, and made sure that that never happened to him. He decided he would be famous whatever he did. Julian Stallabrass quotes Hirst as saying as early as 1990, before he had made his big breakthrough: "I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."

Posted by GeeTee at May 10, 2003 06:57 AM | TrackBack 0

Cyril Isaacs committed suicide in 1987 after suffering from depression. The brain was deemed not to be useful for research, and was kept on a shelf until it was incinerated in 1993.

Posted by GeeTee at May 09, 2003 07:12 PM | TrackBack 0

Jazz... I'm serious, I love you.

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

When I started at Microsoft, I was embarrassed to document bad ideas. I kept a notebook with me at all times to write down ideas when I was in meetings, or traveling on the bus to work, but I never let anyone see it. Many of these ideas were awful, just plain unworkable. But with each idea I came up with, no matter how bad, it revealed some other way of thinking about the problem. Each new idea I sketched out was more informed than the last. Each bad idea illustrated some important aspect of the problem that I hadn't thought about before. Out of every five or six ideas, I'd have one or two that might be feasible. The sketching helped me, but it was something I didn't want others to know I did. I thought folks would think I wasn't a good designer if they saw how many sketches I made.

Posted by GeeTee at May 09, 2003 01:14 PM | TrackBack 0

...a new site bringing you a collection of categorised blogs from around the world. Whatever your taste, interest and culture - there's bound to be a blog out there written by a person just like you. If not, then why not start one yourself!

Posted by GeeTee at May 09, 2003 12:39 PM | TrackBack 0

Simonsen said the war had 'made it possible to create democracy and respect for human rights in a country which for so many years has been ruled by one of the worst dictators in modern times.'

Posted by GeeTee at May 09, 2003 12:13 PM | TrackBack 0

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it. Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.
Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in.

Posted by GeeTee at May 09, 2003 11:39 AM | TrackBack 0

Mr Diamandis is reluctant to discuss the potential for his new enterprise to attract those who find the mile-high club too tame -- and don't worry that all those sudden dives might bring on a nasty headache. But he would be happy for couples to hire the aircraft. The cost? A private ride on a parabolic Boeing 727 would cost $85,000. Alas, he has no plans to accept air miles.

Posted by GeeTee at May 08, 2003 04:17 PM | TrackBack 0

The display can be refreshed in 250 milliseconds, too slow to display video, but fast enough to support something like a constantly updating electronic paper.

Posted by GeeTee at May 08, 2003 04:51 AM | TrackBack 0

Intelligence officials insist the information must be kept secret for national security reasons. But some of the information is already broadly available on the Internet or has been revealed in interim reports on the investigation, leading to charges that the administration is simply trying to avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report.

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

"We're not going to be facilitating federal officials trying to prosecute decent, law-abiding, respectful Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are so aggrieved and so offended by this decision that they might even break the law," said Grimes.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 11:03 AM | TrackBack 0

Having clean underwear, however, was indeed recommended, to 1 per cent of Canadians surveyed.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 10:25 AM | TrackBack 0

"It would still suggest that there is some offence, which would mean there's something offensive about what we're doing," said Randy Caine.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 08:00 AM | TrackBack 0

The researchers found different odours provide ants with information about their jobs. Specifically, the forager ants would only go out to collect seeds after patrollers returned.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 07:51 AM | TrackBack 0

"We would have to respond. We would be forced to respond,"

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 07:49 AM | TrackBack 0

Here are the raw numbers: 1,491 wiretap applications were authorized, each intercepting an average of 1,565 conversations. No judge anywhere in the United States denied a police wiretap request. State courts authorized 67 percent of wiretaps. The average length was about two months, and 68 percent of taps were on "portable" devices, such as pagers and cell phones.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 07:46 AM | TrackBack 0

Unwrapped from bandages at a press conference, the ungodly Bride twitched grotesquely several times before turning to face her would-be mate. Reporters in attendance said the Bride recoiled upon setting her eyes on Ashcroft's horribly misshapen visage, letting out a blood-curdling scream.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 07:40 AM | TrackBack 0

Taking account of how Americans waste a chunk of their income on heating, air conditioning, prisons and the like, while also attaching value to Europe's superior public transport, Mr Gordon suggests that perhaps half of the current gap in living standards between America and Europe, as measured by GDP per head, is illusory. Add in the value of their extra leisure time and Europe's living standards are now perhaps only 8% behind America's, he suggests, not the 23% suggested by official data. Indeed, on Mr Gordon's broader measure, Europeans' productivity may have overtaken that of their poor American cousins.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 07:31 AM | TrackBack 0

The game, Escape from Woomera, will be modelled on four of the country's most contentious detention centres. It received the money from the Australia Council, the federal arts funding body, last month.

Posted by GeeTee at May 06, 2003 07:17 AM | TrackBack 0

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the National Park Service in March 2001, saying the cross violates the First Amendment because it is a "religious fixture" on federal land.

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

Whittingham agreed that people might take longer in the toilet because of the Internet access. "If they take too long--say, hours--we'll probably bang on the door or something," he said.

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

This money is being spent despite the gallery's claims it is so poor it must reduce its hours this summer -- in Ottawa -- and has already postponed its major exhibition planned for next winter, a look at 1960s art in Canada.

Posted by GeeTee at May 02, 2003 02:41 PM | TrackBack 0

The same report took issue with Canada's move to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a ticketing offence rather than a criminal one. "This will not only harm Canadian society, but have consequences for the United States as well," the report said.

Posted by GeeTee at May 02, 2003 02:37 PM | TrackBack 0