News -- January 9, 2006

Fear and Loathing of Freedom in White House - "So yeah, another president and you might almost buy it. But this is the same president who has, over the past five years, repeatedly demonstrated utter disregard for the rights, freedoms and basic intelligence of the people he serves. Moreover, he's the one who last year promised an audience in Buffalo that "nothing has changed" with regard to government surveillance of citizens. "When we're talking about chasing down terrorists," he said, "we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." We know now what he knew then: This was a lie. ... Still, it's not hard to understand the urge to look the other way. Because with all due respect to the threat terrorists pose, Franklin Roosevelt was right. Fear itself is still the first enemy. When people are scared, they don't think, they don't reason and they want nothing so desperately as to just stop being scared. So often, they'll go along with anything that holds out that promise. Even if it means allowing the rights our forebears won from Britain's King George III to be denuded by America's King George I. Still, we should be ashamed. Freedom deserves a better epitaph than fear."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0108-29.htm

Controversial lobbyist had close contact with Bush team - "In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-06-abramoff-bush_x.htm

GOP Scrambling To Avoid Label "Party Of Corruption" - "It may be convenient for Hill staffers to think of Abramoff as insidious, subtly corrupting idealistic but naive public servants. Actually, Abramoff was about as subtle as a madam in a whorehouse. He milked (and bilked) clients exuberantly. "Guess what I just scored?" he e-mailed his old friend, former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, celebrating the Gulfstream jet that he had arranged to fly their party (including Congressman Robert Ney) to Scotland for a weeklong golf junket. "Fire-up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso!!" he wrote his partner—and former DeLay press aide—Michael Scanlon, announcing the acquisition of a Texas Indian tribe, the Tiguas, as a lobbying client. "I want all their MONEY!!!" replied Scanlon. "Yawzah!" chimed in Abramoff."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/01/08/gop-scrambling-to-avoid-l_n_13446.html

Will lightning strike the Republicans? - "Most analysts expect the Republicans to lose ground at the mid-term elections in November, but there are several reasons for doubting that the party's pain will translate into power for the Democrats on Capitol Hill, let alone a chance to impeach the president."
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5360980&no_na_tran=1

Saddam trial is bad for us, says top Iraqi - "AN Iraqi who is one of the favourites to become the country’s next prime minister has said that Saddam Hussein should have been summarily executed and warned that his continuing trial is having a negative effect on the country." -- Nice "Democracy", huh?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1974913,00.html

Military Sensor Hears Through Walls - "A new handheld radar scope from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) can provide troops with an ability that was formerly the province of science fictional superheroes alone—the ability to sense through up to 12 inches of concrete whether someone is in the next room."
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060109_military_hears.html

Al-Qaeda's plot to infect troops with AIDS - "AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror. Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe."
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16559740&method=full&siteid=62484&headline=hiv-bombers--name_page.html

US draws up space tourism rules - "Space tourists must be screened to ensure they are not terrorists, according to proposed regulations from the US Federal Aviation Administration."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4589072.stm

Creationists say fossil discoveries back their theories - "The DeRosas are part of a small but growing band of creationists using dinosaurs - the icons of an ancient Earth - to argue that the world is only 6,000 years old."
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/living/13567483.htm

Dawkins: Religion equals 'child abuse' - ""The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist," he says. Dawkins then criticizes Abraham, compares Moses to Hitler and Saddam Hussein, and calls the New Testament "St Paul's nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for original sin.""
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48252

Movie Patrons Question Pulling Of Gay-Themed Film - " The theater manager refused to tell KOMO why the movie was suddenly pulled after days of advertising and ticket presales. Customers pointed out Poulsbo's conservative stance." -- Washington State joins Utah.
http://www.komotv.com/news/story.asp?id=41154

Stone Age Footwork: Ancient human prints turn up down under - "Researchers working near the shore of a dried-up lake basin in southeastern Australia have taken a giant leap backward in time. They've uncovered the largest known collection of Stone Age human footprints. The 124-or-more human-foot impressions, as well as a few prints left by kangaroos and other animals, originated between 23,000 and 19,000 years ago in a then-muddy layer of silt and clay, say archaeologist Steve Webb of Australia's Bond University in Robina and his colleagues. Their report appears in the January Journal of Human Evolution."
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060107/fob1.asp

Air Force Ready For Space War - "The US Air Force has just put out a request for proposal for a "Gaming and Training Environment for Counter Space Operations." In other words, they're ready for Ender's Game. Or maybe Space Wars."
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=519

GM: New study shows unborn babies could be harmed - " Women who eat GM foods while pregnant risk endangering their unborn babies, startling new research suggests."
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article337253.ece

Ice cores show warming 'natural' - " HUNDREDS of thousands of years worth of climate records in ice cores show there is nothing unusual in a global warming trend over the past 25 years."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17752119^601,00.html

Researchers Ask - Can Humans Hibernate? - "In a new take on hibernation, biologists now believe that mammals are not the only ones who use the winter months to store up energy. Birds, and even humans, may have the capacity to switch to standby mode."
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,393746,00.html

Play Together, Stay Together - "Every once in a while, a sex-tech innovation comes along that is so up my alley, it's hard to write a column about it because I'm too excited. ... I've been playing with Bliss, a computer game for lovers that puts a tech twist on an old concept. ... That's where it gets interesting."
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69959-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_2




Quote of the Day
"Don't wanna be an American idiot."
~ Green Day