The Future Has Caught Up With Us - "John Derbyshire is the sole remaining adult writing for National Review. In a recent issue he noted that Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, first published in 1932, now reads like contemporary news. Huxley’s fearsome predictions of a 26th century world have all come true six centuries early – in vitro fertilization, genetically modified crops, stem-cell research, promiscuous recreational sex, the demise of marriage and families, and the epidemic use of prescription and illegal drugs to escape from anxiety, frustration and disappointment. Alas, Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial, published in 1925 and George Orwell’s novel, 1984, published in 1949, also have been turned into period pieces by the practices of the Bush Regime. In Kafka’s novel, Josef K. is arrested for reasons never given, tried for an unspecified crime, and executed. The Trial is the model for the Bush Regime’s Military Tribunals, which permit execution on the basis of hearsay, secret evidence unknown to the defendant, or confession extracted by torture. For the past five years, the Bush Regime has held people in secret prisons without warrants, charges, or access to an attorney. Most detainees have been tortured and abused. Bush’s real world victims suffer from more disorientation and hopelessness than Kafka’s character, Josef K. In Orwell’s 1984, people are subjected to relentless spying. A state or alleged state of war is used to maintain total control over everyone. Lies have replaced truth, and the media serves as propagandist for the Ministry of Truth. The meaning of words, such as "freedom" has been perverted. The attitude of 1984’s all-powerful government is "you are with us or against us.""
Iraqi Women--Four years after the Invasion - "It is not only lack of electricity, clean water and petrol that affects the very-day lives of Iraqi civilians. According to recent reports published by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the British-based charity organization Medact, the 2003 invasion and ongoing occupation has led to the deterioration of health conditions, including malnutrition, rise in vaccine-preventable diseases and mortality rates for children under five. ... Female relatives have been literally taken hostage by U.S forces and used as bargaining chips. Aside from the violence related to the arrests, those women who were detained by the troops often suffer as well from the sense of shame associated with such a detention. There has been mounting evidence not just of physical assaults and torture but also of rape. Women who have been detained may even become victims of so-called honor crimes."
Rattling the Cage: Living with Olmert, dying with Bush - "The nation's leader is deeply unpopular and getting more so. The public is unhappy with the way the country is going and wants to get rid of the leader and elect a new one. The problem, though, is that because of the country's electoral system, the leader can't be budged from office, at least not for a while. The public can scream its head off, but the leader just carries on. Not for the first time are Israelis and Americans in the same boat, or rather in two separate boats that are very much the same."
Congress loads up $20 billion in pork - "Congress has loaded up President Bush's request for "emergency" spending on the Iraq war with more than $20 billion in "pork" for members' districts."
Matt Drudge rules their world...and spreads a Big Lie on Iraq - "He rules their world, and yet on the very day that the U.S. Senate is starting a major debate on the future of American troops in Iraq, Matt Drudge is spreading a Big Lie."
Chertoff warns of Web of terrorism - "Radical Islamists are using the Internet to recruit homegrown terrorists in the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate panel yesterday."
Web censorship spreading globally - "Internet censorship is spreading rapidly, being practised by about two dozen countries and applied to a far wider range of online information and applications, according to research by a transatlantic group of academics."
Google to bolster privacy of online searchers - "Google said on Wednesday it would begin routinely purging its data banks of information that identifies search engine users in order to better shield their anonymity."
The modern global slave trade and those who fight it. - "Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today. Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa. ... Widespread poverty and social inequality ensure a pool of recruits as deep as the ocean. Parents in desperate straits may sell their children or at least be susceptible to scams that will allow the slave trader to take control over the lives of their sons and daughters. Young women in vulnerable communities are more likely to take a risk on a job offer in a faraway location. The poor are apt to accept a loan that the slave trader can later manipulate to steal their freedom. All of these paths carry unsuspecting recruits into the supply chains of slavery. There are times to read history, and there are times to make history. We live right now at one of those epic moments in the fight for human freedom. We no longer have to wonder how we might respond to our moment of truth. Future generations will look back and judge our choices, and be inspired or disappointed."
Mexico City Debates Abortion Measure - "Mexico City legislators are debating a bill that would legalize abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, a measure that would be the first of its kind in this heavily Roman Catholic nation."
Bush v. the Polar Bears - "Forget public pressure and Congressional action, the one thing that might force the Bush administration to change its tune on global warming is the endangered status of polar bears."
World may get greener, then wilt, due warming - "Global warming is expected to turn the planet a bit greener by spurring plant growth but crops and forests may wilt beyond mid-century if temperatures keep rising, according to a draft U.N. report."
Will a New Study Force Changes in Drug Law? - "Indeed, it would be a fine start if Americans could simply begin the sort of rational, thoughtful debate on drug policy that the British seem to be having. If we could manage such a thing, we might start changing illogical and unscientific laws that now lead to more U.S. arrests for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined."
Court: Dying can be charged for using marijuana - "The Supreme Court ruled against Raich two years ago, saying that medical marijuana users and their suppliers could be prosecuted for breaching federal drug laws even if they lived in a state such as California where medical pot is legal."
Smoking 2.0 Give Lungs a Break - "The NicStic is a cigarette-size plastic tube with a rechargeable heating coil that vaporizes tobacco instead of burning it. Pop a filter on the end of the tube, and in seconds it is warmed up enough for a nicotine fix without the smoke. Because it has no smoke, it also has none of the tar, arsenic, cadmium and formaldehyde of regular cigarettes; it also passes muster with local anti-smoking laws here."
Bill would require parental notification of sex ed classes - "The bill will help parents decide whether they want to object to what is being taught, remove their children from the classes or take other action, Geller said."
Yellowstone Supervolcano Making Strange Rumblings - "Yet significant activity continues beneath the surface. And the activity has been increasing lately, scientists have discovered."
Where did the music industry go so wrong? - "Wasn't it all so gloriously simple back when people listened to top 40 radio and obediently paid $20 for discs at record store chains?"
Study links sense of humor, survival - "Adults who have a sense of humor outlive those who don't find life funny, and the survival edge is particularly large for people with cancer, says Sven Svebak of the medical school at Norwegian University of Science and Technology."
New leopard species found in Borneo - "The clouded leopard of Borneo — discovered to be an entirely new species — is the latest in a growing list of animals and plants unique to the Southeast Asian country's rainforest and underscores the need to preserve the area, conservationists said Thursday."
Odd rock may have spawned asteroid family - "In a solar system of heavenly bodies, scientists have discovered an ugly duckling -- an oblong-shaped rock in the vicinity of Pluto that may one day light up Earth's sky as a giant comet. The rock, known as 2003 EL61, is one of the strangest objects in the solar system. It is shaped like an American football and completely rotates every four hours. "Out in space there is this crazy thing spinning end to end that is as big as Pluto," said Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology who discovered the object two years ago."
Quote of the Day
"Read all about their schemes and adventuring. It's well worth a fee."
~ Supertramp
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