White House Offers Interview With Rove - "The White House offered Tuesday to make political strategist Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers available for congressional interviews but not testimony under oath in the investigation of the firing of eight federal prosecutors."
Iran says to sell oil in 'every currency' - "Iran's Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh has said that the Islamic Republic will sell its oil in all currencies."
Blair believes he does what 'God' wants him to do, says diplomat's wife - "Now Sir Christopher's wife, Lady Catherine Meyer, said that Blair and US President Bush "are both very religious and I believe that they both feel that what they are doing - especially Blair - is what God wants them to do and that God has chosen their way. This is why they bonded immediately.""
Saving believers - "Dillahunty's pursuit for biblical truth took him on an unexpected journey. Instead of trying to win souls for God, the 37-year-old preaches the gospel of science and provable reality in the hope of keeping someone else from spending years on religion."
English schools win right to ban Muslim veils - "Schools have the right to ban students from wearing Muslim veils if teachers believe the garments affect safety or pupils’ learning, the British government said Tuesday."
Erasing the Pain of the Past - "Scientists Are Developing Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events From Our Memories" -- Which really means other memories could be 'eliminated' as well. Voluntary? Involuntary?
Pentagon Preps Mind Fields - "The U.S. military is working on computers than can scan your mind and adapt to what you're thinking."
House Democrats seek to boost spending - "House Democrats are seeking to boost spending for domestic programs while assuming that a variety of popular tax cuts expire at the end of the decade."
Lawmakers Propose Ultrasounds Before Abortions - "Getting an ultrasound is a normal part of most pregnant women's journey into motherhood. Now, some state representatives want women considering abortions to view images of their fetuses before a decision is made."
Think the Nation's Debt Doesn't Affect You? Think Again - "In addition to borrowing from the world's poorest countries, Bush & Co. are secretly confiscating your hard-earned dollars to support their out-of-control spending habits."
US fudging of climate science - details revealed - "However, the committee also heard a former White House aide defending his editing of government reports on climate change, to put them in line with the views of the Bush administration."
Will global warming trigger a new ice age? - "A growing body of evidence suggests that, at least for the UK and western Europe, there is a serious risk of this happening - and soon."
WWF Says World's Mightiest Rivers Are at Risk - "They were once mighty freshwater bodies on whose banks human civilizations were born. But now, many of the world's great rivers are threatened by over-extraction of water, climate change, construction of large dams, and pollution."
'We want this baby polar bear dead' say animal rights lobby - ""The zoo must kill the bear," said spokesman Frank Albrecht. "Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws.""
Berlin gripped by fate of polar bear cub Knut - "Berlin Zoo rallied to the defense of Knut, a three-month-old polar bear cub, Tuesday, rejecting demands that the animal be allowed to die after being abandoned by its mother."
Artery walls take a decade to heal - "Ten years after quitting, former smokers' arteries returned to a level of stiffness seen in non-smokers, according to an article published on Monday by the American Heart Association."
Smoking lowers Parkinson's disease risk - "A new study adds to the previously reported evidence that cigarette smoking protects against Parkinson's disease. Specifically, the new research shows a temporal relationship between smoking and reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. That is, the protective effect wanes after smokers quit."
Why we look the other way - "It's a subtle paradox: People choose to ignore the relationship between performance enhancers and the NFL because it's unquestionably the league where performance enhancers would have the biggest upside. But what will happen when such deliberate naïveté becomes impossible? Revelatory drug scandals tend to escalate exponentially (look at Major League Baseball and U.S. track and field). Merriman, Sauerbrun and the other 33 players suspended by the NFL since 2002 could be exceptions; it seems far more plausible they are not. We are likely on the precipice of a bubble that is going to burst. But if it does, how are we supposed to feel about it? Does this invalidate the entire sport, or does it barely matter at all? This is where things become complicated. ... Unlike everybody else in America, they cannot do whatever it takes to succeed; they have to fulfill the unrealistic expectations of 10-year-old kids who read magazines. And this is because football players have a job that doesn't matter at all, except in those moments when it matters more than absolutely everything else. It may be time to rethink some of this stuff."
'Born-Again Virginity' in the Age of Girls Gone Wild - "Born-again virginity has been debunked by research, but serious proponents of it -- from mature single women to evangelicals -- continue embrace the chastity pledge, for strikingly different reasons." -- Just get naked and have sex.
Who is and isn't marrying, and why - "While the culture wars rage on — conservatives doing their darndest to ban same-sex marriage, domestic partners gay and straight clamoring for the same legal rights as their married neighbors, and singles shouting, "Hey, where's our piece of the government pie?" — a funny thing happened: Marriage slipped off its pedestal."
Values Begin at Home, but Who's Home? - "The Democrats' 2004 presidential platform vacuously talked about "valuing parenting," but nowhere did it say that parents have the right to time off when their children are ill, a right guaranteed by every nearly every other democracy.
The New Rules of Food - "How differently would we eat if we got to know our food better? Basic knowledge of where food comes from and how it is produced is lost on many Americans today and with it a trust in the food supply that sustains us."
Tool turns unsuspecting surfers into hacking help - "A security researcher has found a way hackers can make PCs of unsuspecting Web surfers do their dirty work, without having to actually commandeer the systems."
Community Suggests Gun Possession Is Illegal For Residents - "Two weeks ago, residents received a letter from their homeowners' association indicating that guns are not allowed on the property."
Being a millionaire just isn't the same these days - "Not that long ago, the word "millionaire" conjured up visions of chauffeured limousines and extravagant shopping trips and elegant yachts. These days, a millionaire is more likely to be the guy or gal next door who saved carefully -- and perhaps benefited from the sharp run-up in housing prices -- but still worries about covering the exploding costs of children's educations, caring for aging parents and funding their own retirements."
First steps on Grand Canyon Skywalk - "Tour packages with deck access will range in price from $49.95 to $199. The deck, which juts 70 feet beyond the canyon's edge, will accommodate up to 120 guests at a time and offer a bone-chilling vantage point more than twice as high as the world's tallest buildings."
California-based team cracks century-old math problem - "The problem's proof, announced Monday, consists of more than 205 billion entries, with about 60 times the data of the Human Genome Project. When stored in highly compressed form on a computer hard drive, the solution takes up as much space as 45 days of continuous music in MP3 format."
Quote of the Day
"There’s three things to remember: claim everything, explain nothing, deny everything."
~ Senator Prescott Bush (Skull and Bones 1917)
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