Egypt torture centre, report says - "Human rights group Amnesty International has released a highly critical report on Egypt's record on torture and illegal detention. The issue was recently highlighted by the emergence of mobile phone film of policemen raping a man with a stick. The report says Egypt has become an international centre for interrogation and torture on behalf of other states as part of the "war on terror"."
A Scandal Bigger than Walter Reed – The Rape, Assault and Harassment of Women in the Military - "Women are facing widespread sexual harassment and even rape by their male comrades in the military. The threat of sexual violence against female soldiers by their male colleagues is so great that women are warned not to out to the bathroom alone at night. This has resulted in women stopping drinking fluids at 3:00 in the afternoon and has even led to deaths due to dehydration."
White House Can't Say If Lost E-Mails Include Firings - "A presidential spokesman acknowledged that some lost White House e-mails might pertain to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, as Congress stepped up demands the Bush administration preserve electronic records."
Leahy Doubts Bush Aides on Lost E-Mails - ""They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!'' Leahy shouted from the Senate floor. "You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers,'' said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary.''"
Rove E-Mail Sought by Congress May Be Missing - "A lawyer for the Republican National Committee told congressional staff members yesterday that the RNC is missing at least four years' worth of e-mail from White House senior adviser Karl Rove that is being sought as part of investigations into the Bush administration, according to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee." -- Sure it is.
Pressure grows on Wolfowitz to resign - "Paul Wolfowitz was under pressure to resign as president of the World Bank on Thursday after admitting he was personally involved in securing a large pay rise and promotion for a Bank official with whom he was romantically involved. The Bank president issued a public apology, saying: “I made a mistake for which I am sorry”." -- Mistake my ass. You knew what you were doing.
War on Terror looks like a fraud - "And new evidence is piling up around us, arguably strong enough to declare the whole War on Terror an undeniable fraud. Virtually ignored by mainstream media, the Americans showed their hand this year with the new Iraqi oil law, now making its way through Iraq's parliament. The law -- which tens of thousands of Iraqis marched peacefully against on Monday when they called for the immediate expulsion of U.S. forces -- would transfer control of one of the largest oil reserves on the planet from Baghdad to Big Oil, delivering "the prize" at last that Vice-President Dick Cheney famously talked about in 1999 when he was CEO of Halliburton."
Homeland Security Developing ‘Hostile Intent’ Technology - "The United States Department of Homeland Security announced in April that it is developing human factors technology able to screen people at borders for hostile intent. The tool will help screeners identify people who should not be allowed to enter the country. The novel program, named “Hostile Intent,” is geared towards detecting and gauging physiological and behavioral indications of deception and bad intentions. These include signs of nervousness, such as body head, perspiration and certain facial movements."
Ann Coulter Makes Fun of Darfur Genocide - "Yes, we realize we should really stop paying Ann Coulter any mind. Yes, we realize she's only looking for attention at this point, and yes, it does make us feel vaguely dirty to give it to her. But her latest column was just so over-the-top awful that we couldn't help ourselves." -- But Imus gets fired.
'It's not just Imus,' warn talk-radio headhunters - "Next in the crosshairs for alleged expressions of "bigotry and hate speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity" are, according to Media Matters for America, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, John Gibson and Michael Smerconish."
Former Bush Speechwriter Hints at 9/11 Inside Job - "Says Neo-Cons would have created a false flag to justify war had it not been for WTC attack, questions official story."
Should George Bush Go Now? - "Laura, as is reported, has demanded a four-week trial separation from her husband of 29 years. “Laura’s had it!” says a source. “It looks as if their marriage has reached the bitter end and they are headed for divorce.”"
Media Finally Discovers Army of Pat Robertson Acolytes in Bush Administration - "When Monica Goodling's name erupted into the news last week, the mainstream press discovered suddenly that Pat Robertson's Regent University exists. Not only that, the press learned that it has made a deep footprint in George W. Bush's Washington."
Pending Election Reform in Congress Doesn't Give Citizens Right to Sue - "Should citizens explicitly be allowed to sue if they can prove their votes have been stolen or miscounted by electronic voting machines? As election integrity activists focus their attention on pressuring the House Committee on Administration to ban electronic voting machines when Congress reconvenes next week, the question of whether voters can individually sue -- known as a private cause of action -- has received scant public attention. But that legal right, which was a cornerstone of the federal Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, is not in the panel's bill, H.R. 811. Instead, the bill says citizens can sue under other preexisting laws."
Mankind 'can't influence' climate - "MANKIND is naive to think it can influence climate change, according to a prize-winning Australian geologist. ... “I think we really are a little bit naive to think we can change astronomical and solar processes.”" -- Naive? More like arrogant.
More Trees, Less Global Warming, Right? -- Not Exactly - "In fact, according to this model, by the year 2100, if all the forests were cut and left to rot, the annual global mean temperature would decrease by more than 0.5 degree Fahrenheit."
Bush: Resist 'temptation to manipulate life' - ""In our day there is a temptation to manipulate life in ways that do not respect the humanity of the person," Bush said Friday. "When that happens, the most vulnerable among us can be valued for their utility to others instead of their own inherent worth."" -- Kind of like when waging war.
Pope puts his faith in the Book of Genesis, not Darwin - "Pope Benedict XVI has stepped into the debate over Darwinism with remarks that will be seen as an endorsement of “intelligent design”. The Pope did not explicitly back intelligent design or creationism. He praised scientific progress but said that the Darwinian theory of evolution was “not finally provable” because: “We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory.” ... Last November the Pope suggested that the “cosmos” was an “intelligent project” and criticised those who said that creation was without direction or order. In his latest intervention, the Pope appears to dissociate himself from remarks made in 1996 by John Paul II, who said that although creation was the work of God evolution was “more than a hypothesis”."
U.S. Navy shows off terror-fighting dolphins - "Animal rights activists are resisting Navy plans to ship the dolphins and sea lions to Washington state. They worry that waters in the region, which are about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) cooler than in San Diego Harbor, could put stress on the animals. They also are concerned diseases could be transmitted to the area's native orca population."
Sex and Nudity Aren't Good Reasons to Fire Someone - "Is it really asking too much to suggest that employers stop worrying about how we perform in adult spaces and concentrate on how we perform our jobs instead? Apparently it is, for the nonce. ... I am so sick of the priggishness. Tired of people making assumptions about a person based on their perceptions of the other's sexuality -- especially when they base those assumptions on the single dimension of online expression. Flabbergasted at the assumption that if you participate in adult activity online, you must lack judgment, integrity or reliability. Getting naked on the internet is an international pastime, not the whim of a handful of sex addicts. Flashing your booty or treating yourself to an orgasm is hardly a sign that you are incapable of doing your job well, nor does it grant permission for others to dismiss your professional competence or authority. And millions of sane, healthy, normal folks cannot resist the special lure of the internet, where you can be voyeur and exhibitionist at the same time. ... If you are following a person's digital trail and you learn that they spend Saturdays submitting to a dominatrix and Sundays blogging about the relationship and posting photos of the interplay, what assumptions can you draw about that person's professional skills? None. It's quite possible that a day of submission each week releases all the stress from the office and makes them an effective and productive employee. It's also quite possible that they are excellent cooks, loving parents, sensible drivers and terrible project managers. ... If you don't want to see someone you know naked or sexually engaged, stay out of the adult areas of the internet. If you're there, what right do you have to punish others for their participation? People have sex. Some people have kinkier sex than others, depending on how you define "kinky." Some people like to share their sex lives with others in various ways and the internet is an effective platform for doing so."
The prospect of all-female conception - "Creating sperm from women would mean they would only be able to produce daughters because the Y chromosome of male sperm would still be needed to produce sons. The latest research brings the prospect of female-only conception a step closer."
'Fat' gene found by scientists - "The findings provide the first robust link between a common gene and obesity, and could eventually lead to new ways of tackling one of the most significant causes of ill health in the developed world."
U.S. CDC alarmed at rise of drug-resistant gonorrhea - "Gonorrhea in the United States is now resistant to all but one class of antibiotic drugs, threatening doctors' ability to treat the common sexually transmitted disease, officials said on Thursday."
People Claim Nasal Spray Causes Loss Of Taste, Smell - "On Friday, Matrixx agreed to pay $12 million in settlement awards and other charges to the 300 people who were part of a class-action lawsuit. Matrixx said that will cover about 90 percent of the outstanding claims. "
Bug hunters face online-apps dilemma - "Security holes in online applications may go unfixed because well-intended hackers are afraid to report bugs. Web applications pose a dilemma for bug hunters: how to test the security without going to jail? If hackers probe traditional software such as Windows or Word, they can do so on their own PCs. That isn't true for Web applications, which run on servers operated by others. Testing the security there is likely illegal and could lead to prosecution."
Apple puts a leash on its Leopard - "In the push to get the iPhone out on time, Apple has been forced to delay the release of the next version of Mac OS X until October."
Revolutionary dog food could see poop scoops consigned to bin - "Jos van der Linden, and his partner Nanette Waldorp invented the revolutionary food and claim it reduces the amount of times a dog needs to defecate from up to three times a day to just once a week."
High-tech tools link T. rex to chickens - "The findings, being published in two articles in Science magazine today, shattered the long-held assumption that protein and other basic materials of life could not possibly survive in detectable amounts for more than a few hundred thousand years. The research also raised the possibility that scientists might eventually recover DNA from prehistoric beasts, allowing for an even more sophisticated analysis of ancient organisms and the processes of evolution."
Quote of the Day
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper."
~ Robert Frost
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