Overselling Terror - "But the recent developments in Iraq and Canada have obscured other new evidence that points toward a very different reality: that the Islamic terror threat was never as severe as Bush made it out to be after the 9/11 attacks and that it has been fading ever since. While Bush has sought to frighten the American people with apocalyptic visions of Islamic terrorists establishing an empire that “spans from Spain to Indonesia,” the new intelligence data actually reveals al-Qaeda as a largely dissipated force that now exists more as an inspiration to violence than as an organized movement."
Iran confirms stepping up nuclear activities - "An Iranian official has confirmed that the country has stepped up its nuclear activities, following a report from the UN atomic agency that said Iran has accelerated uranium enrichment."
Poll: U.S. disapproves of war in Iraq - "The death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq came as more Americans than ever thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, according to AP-Ipsos polling."
Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites - "New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals."
House rejects Net neutrality rules - "By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others."
U.S. taxpayers financed human trafficking, report says - "For the first time since Congress mandated its annual publication, a State Department report cataloging human trafficking across the globe includes allegations that American taxpayers financed such abuses."
God Has Got to Go - "Imagining just isn't good enough. God definitely has got to go, our pious mutual friend and millions like him notwithstanding. Why? Because this ridiculous God business is getting really out of control. The United States is becoming a nation guided by religious fanatics, just like the nations of the Middle East—a state of affairs that could lead, as my friend pointed out, to a worldwide religious war. One can only imagine the devastation such a conflict would effect. Obviously, God cannot be on everyone's side at the same time, no matter how omnipotent anyone claims Him to be. This is just one of many logical arguments against the existence of a personal God who is supposedly looking after us."
Cervical cancer vaccine approved - "The Food and Drug Administration today approved use of the vaccine, Gardasil, for use in girls and women ages 9 to 26. It works by preventing infection by four strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease."
Global warming has forced animals to evolve already - "Smaller animals in particular that can breed quickly, such as squirrels, some birds and insects, are showing signs of evolving new patterns of behaviour to increase their chances of survival. Scientists say that many of the genetic adaptations are to cope with changes in the length of the seasons rather than the absolute increases in summer temperatures. Larger animals and species that are slow to reproduce may on the other hand find it difficult to cope with climate change because they cannot adapt genetically as quickly as smaller, more fertile creatures that have rapid life cycles."
Robot device mimics human touch - "US scientists have created a sensor that can "feel" the texture of objects to the same degree of sensitivity as a human fingertip."
Quote of the Day
"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion."
~ Lazarus Long
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