Mexican wrath over Wal-Mart store

Mexican writers and artists have joined a campaign to stop the US retailer, Wal-Mart, from opening a store near the famous ruins of Teotihuacan.
In an open letter to President Vicente Fox, the group says the store should be built further away from the ruins.

Lego The Type Designer's Friend

Renowned typographer Mark Simonson, in a quiet post to his lovely website, displays genius in a solution to a problem created by a need to capture thirty-five year-old fonts stored on spools of negative film so they can be revived in digitized form. [from MetaFilter]

The Best Crop Circles of The Year

Amazing what pranksters can do with a rope and a board. --ed.

What Derrida Really Meant

Along with Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, who died last week in Paris at the age of 74, will be remembered as one of the three most important philosophers of the 20th century. No thinker in the last 100 years had a greater impact than he did on people in more fields and different disciplines. Philosophers, theologians, literary and art critics, psychologists, historians, writers, artists, legal scholars and even architects have found in his writings resources for insights that have led to an extraordinary revival of the arts and humanities during the past four decades. And no thinker has been more deeply misunderstood. [NY Times]

RNC funds voter supression efforts

Found the following links which all seem to point to the same company that is suspected of tearing up Democratic voter registration forms in Las Vegas. It has set up registration drives in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Nevada and is accused of the same things in most if not all of these states. Sproul & Associates is a Republican consulting firm run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican party and Arizona Christian Coalition.
Nevada:Voters Outreach of America AKA America Votes tears up Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada.
Oregon:Company claiming affiliation with non-partisan 'America Votes' to register voters in Oregon is actually GOP consulting firm Sproul & Associates, Inc.
West Virginia and Pennsylvania:Sproul & Associates AKA America Votes workers in WV and PA refuse to register Kerry voters.
OregonDemocrats in Oregon have complained that canvassers for Arizona based Sproul & Associates have been pressuring residents to register as Republicans so that they can get paid.
ArizonaArizona Nader campaign was assisted in its petition drive by an unlikely figure: the ultra-conservative former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, Nathan Sproul.
About Sproul:Good background story on Sproul and his political track record, cached on Google.
The link:Here is the direct link between Sproul and Voters Outreach of America.
According to several sources, two of the contractors Sproul hired to oversee petition gathering for No Taxpayer Money For Politicians -- Aaron "A.J." James, who directs Voters' Outreach of America, and Diane Burns -- were also paid by Sproul to get as many signatures as possible for Nader.
...KLAS-TV, Las Vegas:"The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee."
CareerBuild.com listing:Help wanted ad for Voters Outreach of America says "Paid for by the Republican National Committee". [from DailyKos.com]

Paralysed man sends e-mail by thought

A pill-sized brain chip has allowed a quadriplegic man to check e-mail and play computer games using his thoughts. The device can tap into a hundred neurons at a time, and is the most sophisticated such implant tested in humans so far.Many paralysed people control computers with their eyes or tongue. But muscle function limits these techniques, and they require a lot of training. For over a decade researchers have been trying to find a way to tap directly into thoughts. [from Nature]

Game Theory: New Strategy Wins for Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

Before Southampton came along, a strategy called Tit for Tat had a consistent record of winning the game. Under that strategy, a player's first move is always to cooperate with other players. Afterward, the player echoes whatever the other players do. The strategy is similar to the one nuclear powers adopted during the Cold War, each promising not to use its weaponry so long as the other side refrained from doing so as well.
...The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma is a version of the game in which the choice is repeated over and over again and in which the players can remember their previous moves, allowing them to evolve a cooperative strategy. The 2004 competition had 223 entries, with each player playing all the other players in a round robin setup. Because Axelrod's original competition was run twice, Kendall will run a second competition in April 2005, for which he hopes to attract even more entries.
[The winning entry used a strategy similar to the biological concept of Reciprocal Altruism --ed.]

American Bar against outsourcing torture

The American Bar Association objects strongly to the inclusion of provisions authorizing "extraordinary rendition" in the House leadership's bill that purports to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. These provisions would permit secretly transferring terrorist suspects to foreign countries known to use torture in interrogating prisoners. Extraordinary rendition not only violates all basic humanitarian and human rights standards, but violates U.S. treaty obligations which make clear that the U.S. government cannot avoid its obligations under international law by having other nations conduct unlawful interrogations in its stead. This practice not only violates our own cherished principles as a nation but also works to undermine our moral leadership in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Pirates and Emperors

The surest ways to get me to watch a musical animation is either to address US foreign policy or to do it in the style of "Schoolhouse Rock." This does both. -- Ed.

Sy Hersh on the Bush Administration

While Hersh blamed the White House and the Pentagon for the Iraq quagmire and America's besmirched world image, he was stymied by how it all happened. "How could eight or nine neoconservatives come and take charge of this government?" he asked. "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military! So you say to yourself, How fragile is this democracy?"
..."It doesn't matter that Bush scares the hell out of me," Hersh answered. "What matters is that he scares the hell out of a lot of very important people in Washington who can't speak out, in the military, in the intelligence community. They know in ways that none of us know, the incredible gap between what is and what [Bush] thinks."

"Major screw-up": Boot-camp virus runs rampant

The respiratory virus now infects up to 2,500 service members monthly — a staggering 1 in 10 recruits — in the nation's eight basic-training centers, an analysis of military health-care records shows.
Since the oral vaccinations stopped, the flulike germ, adenovirus, has been associated with the deaths of at least six recruits, four within the past year, according to military records and internal reports obtained by The Seattle Times.

U.S.Businesses File Four Times More Lawsuits Than Private Citizens And Are Sanctioned Much More Often for Frivolous Suits

The survey of case filings in two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) and two local jurisdictions (Cook County, Ill., and Philadelphia, Pa.) in 2001 found that businesses were 3.3 to 5.8 times more likely to file lawsuits than were individuals. This comes as businesses and politicians are campaigning to limit citizens’ rights to sue over everything from medical malpractice damages to defective products. By way of comparison, the number of American consumers (281 million) outnumbers the number of businesses in America (7 million) by 40 times.

Shells from Syria fired at troops in Iraq

"Who exactly is firing these mortars, we do not know. But what we do know is that the point of origin of these rounds is on the Syrian side of the border," said [Col.] Woodbridge, 39, of Brooklyn.
There has been no evidence linking the Syrian military to the attacks, he said. However, the Syrian military has the capability to determine who is launching the mortars and act against them, Woodbridge said.

Amphibian species imperiled worldwide Global survey shows one-third threatened

Disease, climate change and habitat loss are threatening one-third of the world's fragile species of frogs, toads, newts and salamanders, according to the first global assessment of amphibians.
The results of the survey, published today in the journal Science, show that 1,856 of the known 5,743 species are "globally threatened'' in their forest, stream or underground homes.
The delicate creatures, which have thin, porous skins and need fresh water to stay moist, are faring much worse around the world than either birds or mammals, the scientists say. Around a tenth of bird species and a quarter of mammal species are threatened.

Fox TV Faces $2.1M FCC Fines

Federal regulators proposed a record indecency fine of nearly US$1.2 million (S$2.1 million) on Tuesday against Fox Broadcasting for an episode of its reality series Married By America that included graphic scenes from bachelor and bachelorette parties.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said the material, which featured male and female Las Vegas strippers in a variety of sexual situations, was indecent and patently offensive, intended to 'pander to and titillate the audience'.

President or Prophet?

The religious outlook of George W. Bush has been the focus of recent stories by several major news media. In these pieces White House officials and allies consistently have made the case that Bush’s faith and language are no different from past presidents. In the words of the Rev. Richard Neuhaus in The Washington Post, “This is so conventionally Christian piety and Christian faith” that Bush’s faith is “as American as apple pie.” That simply is not so. Bush’s fusion of faith and politics is anything but conventional for the presidency. The key difference is this: Presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have spoken as petitioners of God, seeking blessing and guidance; this president positions himself as a prophet, issuing declarations of divine desires for the nation and world. Most fundamentally, Bush’s language suggests that he speaks not only of God and to God, but also for God. Among modern presidents, only Ronald Reagan has spoken in a similar manner -- and he did so far less frequently than has Bush.

Ex-DAFB commander says troops used as guinea pigs

A former Dover Air Force Base commander says military officials used his troops as guinea pigs in illegal medical experiments under the government's controversial anthrax vaccination program.
After some of his troops in their 20s and 30s began developing arthritis, neurological problems, memory loss and incapacitating migraine headaches, Col. Felix Grieder took a drastic step. In 1999, he halted the vaccination program in Dover, a move he said ended his military career. The decorated Air Force colonel has spent the past five years trying to discover the truth about the vaccine program in Dover, where he commanded 4,000 troops.

The Romance of the NYC Subway

Stories in this Series
High-Tech and Low Powers New York's Subway
October 14, 2004 · Designed more than 100 years ago, New York's subway has been upgraded over the years. But it continues to rely on a complicated blend of old and new technology to move thousands of riders each day. Beth Fertig of member station WNYC reports.
Celebrating New York's Subway in Film and Song
October 13, 2004 · The New York subway transformed the nation's largest city -- and how the world viewed it. Over the decades, pop culture depictions of the subway have reflected the ever-changing image of the Big Apple itself. NPR's Robert Smith reports. [from NPR]

Spitzer Takes on Insurance Industry

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued insurance giant Marsh & McLennan and implicated American International Group and several others Thursday, alleging brokers have been taking payoffs from insurance companies to steer corporate clients their way rather than get the best prices for policies, as they are required. Two AIG executives pleaded guilty to participating in the illegal conduct and are expected to testify in future cases, Spitzer said in announcing the broader investigation into whether brokers and companies violated fraud and antitrust laws and regulations.

FDA Says Docs Can Chip Patients

Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved an implantable computer chip that can pass a patient's medical details to doctors, speeding care.
VeriChips, radio frequency microchips the size of a grain of rice, have already been used to identify wayward pets and livestock. And nearly 200 people working in Mexico's attorney general's office have been implanted with chips to access secure areas containing sensitive documents.

Postponement and Rescheduling of Elections to Federal Office

Another new CRS report considers the legality of postponing elections for federal office.
"Because of the fear of possible terrorist attacks which could bedirected at election facilities or voters in the States just priorto or during the elections in a presidential election year,attention has been directed at the possibility/authority topostpone, cancel or reschedule an election for federal office."
"The United States Constitution does not provide in express languageany current authority for a federal official or institution to'postpone' an election for federal office," the CRS notes. But that is the beginning of the discussion, not the end. [from Scerecy News]

US COVERT ACTION IN BOLIVIA, 1964-1966

The following statement on U.S. covert action in Bolivia during the Johnson Administration was coordinated by the High Level Panel and approved for publication by its member agencies-- the CIA, the State Department and the National Security Council. It was published in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XXXI, in September 2004. [from Secrecy News]

Text of the Iraq Survey Group Final Report

This report relays Iraq Survey Group’s findings from its creation in June 2003 until September 2004 and provides context and analysis to ISG’s physical findings. It also attempts to place the events in their Political-Military context. For the purposes of this report, the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) refers to the definition established by the United Nations Security Council in the context of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991).

"Ten Years, Ten Trends"

1: "In America, the Digital Divide is closing, but is not yet closed as new divides emerge."
2: "The media habits of the nation have changed and continue to change."
3: "The credibility of the Internet is dropping."
4: "We have just begun to see the changes to come in buying online."
5: "The 'geek-nerd' perception of the Internet is dead."
6: "Privacy and security: Concerns remain, but the high levels are changing."
7: "The Internet has become the number one source for information for Internet users."
8: "The benefits -- and drawbacks -- of the Internet for children are still coming into focus."
9: "E-mail: E-Nuff already?" ...users are "tired of e-mail defining their lives."
10: "Broadband will change everything -- again."
The Digital Future Project compares findings from all four years of the study, looking at five major areas: who is online and who is not, media use and trust, consumer behavior, communication patterns, and social and psychological effects.
(For the complete report on Year Four of the Digital Future Project, visit www.digitalcenter.org)
[thanks to Leo]

Map redrawing angers US Democrats (with before and after maps)

The increasingly widespread - and perfectly legal - practice of gerrymandering is having a serious and lasting effect on American democracy, as the BBC's James Silver reports from Texas. [thanks to Sharon]

New And Recycled Distortions At Final Presidential Debate

The debates are over and the results are clear: both candidates are incorrigible fact-twisters.
Bush said most of his tax cuts went to "low- and middle-income Americans" when independent calculations show most went to the richest 10 percent. Kerry claims Bush "cut the Pell Grants" when they've actually increased. Both men repeated misstatements made in earlier debates, and added a few new ones. [from Factcheck.org]

Google Desktop Search Beta Released

A tiny download and the interface we all recognise. As soon as it's finished indexing my email and hard disk I can finally search my desktop hard disk as easily as the internet. [from MetaFilter]

Will We Need a New 'All the President's Men'?

"The fundamental right of Americans, through our freepress, to penetrate and criticize the workings of ourgovernment is under attack as never before," wrote WilliamSafire last month. When an alumnus of the Nixon White Housesays our free press is being attacked as "never before,"you listen. What alarms him now are the efforts of PatrickFitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the ValeriePlame-Robert Novak affair, to threaten reporters at TheTimes and Time magazine with jail if they don't revealtheir sources. Given that the Times reporter in question(Judith Miller again) didn't even write an article on thesubject under investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald overreaches sofar that he's created a sci-fi plot twist out of StevenSpielberg's "Minority Report." [thanks to Sharon]

"We will make a Ferrari Formula One car especially for the pope,"

Ferrari later made it clear that the car would be a scaled down model of the F2004 and not a full size replica of their championship-winning Formula One car. However, Montezemolo drew the line at changing the colour of the car from its customary red to a different shade that the pontiff might prefer. "The Pope would not be best pleased to see a Ferrari that wasn't a Ferrari," he remarked.

Nordic Countries Come Out Near the Top in Two Business Surveys

Forget the stereotypes about Nordic socialism and how its high taxes and expensive public health care systems are destroying private enterprise.
In two reports, the Nordic countries bested some of the world's hottest economies. The countries dominate the top ranks of a list of most competitive economies in the world, and a new report of the best places to do business. [from NYTimes]

Seymour Hersh: Iraqi soldier witnessed civilian executions

Via Air America's Majority Report Radio blog comes Tiny Revolution's excerpt of an October 8, 2004 speech by New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh. Hersh details a phone call he received from a soldier in Iraq. The soldier's platoon had hired over 30 Iraqi civilians to guard an agricultural area. After two weeks of working together, the civilian guards were well known and trusted by the US troops. Another platoon came in and executed all of the Iraqi guards for no reason, outraging the soldiers who had worked with them. When the platoon leader questioned the company captain, he was told: "No, you don't understand. That's a kill. We got thirty-six insurgents." [from Katieweb.com]

Audio Books for Free

Bush on Osama

During the Wednesday night debate, Senator Kerry questioned why the President said that he "was not concerned" with Osama Bin Laden. In response, Bush said, “Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama Bin Laden. That’s kinda one of those exaggerations." The video proof is here showing that he indeed say exactly that. [from MetaFilter]

Happy 938th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings

1066 - Battle of Hastings: The Norman invasion forces of William the Conqueror defeated the English army and killed King Harold II of England.
We can celebrate The Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings by speaking in English!

In File-Sharing Witchhunts, RIAA Is Foiled Again

Today, the Supreme Court denied a request by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to hear its appeal of a lower court decision that Internet service providers (ISPs) do not have to hand over the names of people suspected of copyright infringement. The case grows out of an incident in which the RIAA used a controversial subpoena provision under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to demand that Verizon Internet Services reveal the identity of a Verizon subscriber who allegedly used KaZaA peer-to-peer software to share copyrighted music online. Verizon refused to divulge the subscriber's identity, claiming that the provision didn't cover alleged copyright-infringing material that resides on an individual's computer, only material that resides on an ISP's server... [from EFF.org]

Indymedia Servers Mysteriously Reappear, But Questions Remain

Rackspace Managed Hosting, the San Antonio-based company that manages two Indymedia servers seized by the US government last Thursday, said yesterday that the servers have been returned and are now available to go back online. Immediate access to the servers, which host Indymedia's Internet radio station and more than 20 Indymedia websites, will be delayed so that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) can ensure that the servers are secure and take steps to preserve evidence for future legal action. Now that the servers have been returned, the question still remains: who took them, and under what authority? Citing a gag order, Rackspace would not comment on what had happened both in the original seizure of the servers or their return. All that is known at this point is that the subpoena that resulted in the seizure was issued at the request of a foreign government, most likely with the assistance of the United States Attorney's Office in San Antonio. Although initial reports suggested that the FBI had taken the servers, the FBI has now denied any involvement...

EFF Challenges Secret Government Order to Shut Down Media Websites

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing a coalition of independent Internet journalists whose websites were shut down on Thursday, October 7, when their servers were seized by the FBI. The two servers, which were located in the United Kingdom and managed by San Antonio-based Rackspace Managed Hosting, hosted Indymedia's Internet radio station and more than 20 Indymedia websites, as well as several email lists. The seizure was in response to a "Commissioner's Subpoena" issued at the request of a foreign government. Citing a gag order, Rackspace has provided no further details. An FBI spokesperson has confirmed that the subpoena was issued at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities. Earlier this month, the FBI made informal requests to both Rackspace and Indymedia to remove an Indymedia news story that included photos of undercover Swiss investigators posing as anti-globalization activists. At the time, the FBI admitted that the posting did not violate US law...

Computer Glitch Delays Routine Voter Machine Test

The "logic and accuracy" test was rescheduled for 10 a.m. Friday.
"This is very troublesome, that less than three weeks away from a presidential election we have problems with these machines," said Lale Mamaux, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, a critic of electronic voting who masterminded a campaign to oust LePore. "Let's hope that on Friday, she's able to run the test."

Caffeine Withdrawal May Become an Official Disorder

As a result of this study, caffeine withdrawal will be included in the in the new version of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), considered by many to be the definitive resource for diagnosis of mental disorders.
In addition, the diagnosis of this syndrome will be revised in the World Health Organization's ICD, or The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. [from Johns Hopkins News-Letter]

Leave It To Bush

Surreal Flash animation starring George W Bush and Gary Busey.

Three R's: Reading, Writing, RFID

Stillman has gone whole-hog for radio-frequency technology, which his year-old Enterprise Charter School started using last month to record the time of day students arrive in the morning. In the next months, he plans to use RFID to track library loans, disciplinary records, cafeteria purchases and visits to the nurse's office. Eventually he'd like to expand the system to track students' punctuality (or lack thereof) for every class and to verify the time they get on and off school buses.
"That way, we could confirm that Johnny Jones got off at Oak and Hurtle at 3:22," Stillman said. "All this relates to safety and keeping track of kids.... Eventually it will become a monitoring tool for us."

Depleted Uranium Munitions

In the mechanics of DU (depleted uranium) tipped weapons when the device explodes, the force of the blast breaks the DU tip into a cloud of dust that coats everything within the target, and as with all explosions, there is the dust and debris that is jettisoned outward - this includes the dust from the DU. As the dust settles, the contaminated material also settles to earth or becomes airborne and drifts to other parts of that country. Now we have radioactive material spreading over a large area.
For an essay on DU, see Axis Of Logic's Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium

Modern Telescopes Illuminate 400-Year-Old Astronomical Mystery

Four hundred years ago this past weekend, skywatchers witnessed the appearance of a new object in the western sky. Later identified as a supernova, the entity was dubbed Kepler's remnant after the legendary astronomer Johannes Kepler, who studied it during its early years. Now astronomers are using space telescopes to better understand our galaxy's most recent supernova.

Blix: War in Iraq has made terrorism worse

"You wouldn't expect any government to admit that they were wrong," Blix told BBC radio. "I think, like everybody else, that it is good that Saddam (Hussein) is gone. The world is better off without Saddam.
"But the world is not any safer. If this was meant to be a signal to terrorists to stop their activities, it has failed miserably, it has stimulated terrorism.

House Ethics Chairman Threatened After DeLay Admonishment

Asked what response he has received from House Republicans since two ethics committee admonishments were issued in a span of seven days, Hefley said, “I’ve been attacked; I’ve been threatened.”However, Hefley would not reveal who or how many of his colleagues had threatened him, or what retaliation had been threatened.

"Journalists of Faith"

The World Journalism Institute, a self-described "boot camp for Christian journalists," trains evangelical Christians to balance their faith and the demands of working in the mainstream media. At one time or another they've counted a number of high profile reporters amongst their ranks. But lately, falling membership numbers have the Institute studying the example of gay and minority reporters for an example of where to go next. Bob plumbs the providence of the press with WJI director Bob Case. [from On The Media]

Chinese man cannot name son '@'

According to the Beijing Morning Post, the nomenclative dissident from Zhengzhou argued that the symbol is in common use on keyboards and therefore fair game. Mercifully for the infant in question, his dad does not live in the kind of fully-fledged democracy where parents can name their children after pretty well anything they want - including software upgrades.
Indeed, regular readers may recall the story of Jon Blake Cusack Version 2.0 - progeny of Jon Blake Cusack and wife Jamie, of Holland, Michigan. As we noted at the time: "Jon and his wife will certainly be spending many a sleepless night debugging little Jon Blake Cusack Version 2.0 and - in about 16 years' time - having a very hard time explaining to their unfortunate offspring whose bright idea this was in the first place."

Strategic Communications Policy Coordinating Committee

The intensifying wave of violence in Iraq doesn't seem to be daunting government officials in charge of spreading the good news and stemming the flow of bad news. A Pentagon-sponsored group of Iraqi-Americans is touring U.S. military bases to speak about coalition successes in Iraq. Meanwhile, USAID is scaling back the distribution - here in the U.S. - of casualty reports from its risk assessment contractor in Iraq. NBC military analyst Bill Arkin joins Brooke to discuss the government's "influence operations," and whether they're having any effect. [from On The Media]

Analyze What?

First-hand accounts from the war zone are the raw material of journalism, but context and analysis are just as important for those of us at home trying to make sense of the situation. And with correspondents on the ground in Iraq increasingly hampered by the risk to their own skins, there's less and less for experts here to work with. Brooke speaks with one of the Internet's most widely-read Iraq analysts, University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole. [from On The Media]

Bush special envoy embroiled in controversy over Iraq debt

Jerome Levinson, an expert on political and corporate ethics at American University in Washington, told the Guardian: "The consortium is saying to the Kuwaiti government, 'Through us you have the only chance to realize a substantial part of the debt. Why? Because of who we are and who we know'."
When George Bush appointed Mr Baker, a former secretary of state, as his unpaid envoy on December 5 2003, he called Mr Baker's job "a noble mission". But Mr Baker is also a senior counsellor and an equity partner with a reported $180m stake in the merchant bank and defence contractor the Carlyle Group.

Dazed and Sued

Three Huntsville residents who say they went to high school with Austin film director Richard Linklater accused him of using them as the basis for the girl-chasing, drug-taking characters in his film "Dazed and Confused" in a lawsuit filed last week, 11 years after the movie was released. [from MetaFilter]

CNN's "Undecided" Voter Turns Out To Be A GOP Operative

Yesterday, CNN's Bill Hemmer interviewed "undecided" voter, Edward Martos. Martos is actually a GOP operative who is involved heavily with the University of Miami College Republicans' and who has served as the Assistant Editor in Chief of the College Republicans' newsletter. He is such an undecided voter that he actually helped draft the constitution of the University Of Miami College Republicans. Martos, of course, by all measure, is not an undecided voter, but CNN refuses to report that they were duped.

Vegas Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Berlin Wall Memorialized with New Wall

Only about 200 yards of concrete is going up — and there are no plans to lay minefields — but the plan has provoked a fierce debate among Berliners about the limits of remembrance.

FDLE Investigating Suspicious Florida County Voter Applications

County elections supervisor Ion Sancho said it was suspicious enough that the registration forms were all photocopies, but the new voters were also between the ages of 18-24, a group that often registers with no party affiliation.
"When we saw that all of these individuals were registered as Republicans, a buzzer went off," Sancho said.
Most were students at Florida A&M University, Florida State University or Tallahassee Community College. The office began calling the applicants, contacting a couple of dozen before deciding to turn the voter forms over to the FDLE.
"Once it became clear that their information did not jibe with the information on the application forms, that's when we decided to act," Sancho said. "The overwhelming majority of them had not selected the Republican Party as the party they wanted to be registered in."

Islamic Jihad leader killed

An Israeli missile strike killed a leader of Islamic Jihad and another member of the violent group yesterday, the sixth day of an Israeli military offensive aimed at ending Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns.
A second strike last night killed two people in the Jebaliya refugee camp and wounded eight others, including six civilians.

Congress Endorses Media Blackout on Military Coffins

SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that the Department of Defense policy regarding no media coverage of the transfer of the remains of deceased members of the Armed Forces— (1) appropriately protects the privacy of the families and friends of the deceased; and (2) is consistent with United States constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation

((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))

THERE'S grim news for people who worry that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. A new mathematical formula has proved Murphy's Law really does strike at the worst possible time.
...In the calculation, five factors have to be assessed: urgency (U), complexity (C), importance (I), skill (S) and frequency (F), and each given a score between one and nine. A sixth, aggravation (A), was set at 0.7 by the experts after their poll.
Top of the most likely - and most annoying - events was spilling something down yourself before a date and the hot water heater breaking down in cold weather, followed by rush hour being worse when you're already late.

Why Bush Opposes Dred Scott

Apparently, it was an invisible high-five to the Christian right. "Google Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade," various readers instructed me, and damned if they weren't on to something. To the Christian right, "Dred Scott" turns out to be a code word for "Roe v. Wade." Even while stating as plain as day that he would apply "no litmus test," Bush was semaphoring to hard-core abortion opponents that he would indeed apply one crucial litmus test: He would never, ever, appoint a Supreme Court justice who condoned Roe.

'New' giant ape found in DR Congo

They stand up to two metres tall, the size of gorillas, and like gorillas, they nest on the ground, not in trees.
But they live hundreds of km away from any other known gorilla populations, and their diet is closer to that of chimpanzees.

Bush Funds US Spying on Internet Chat Rooms

Instead of rummaging through megabytes of messages, RPI professor Bulent Yener will use mathematical models in search of patterns in the chatter. Downloading data from selected chat rooms, Yener will track the times that messages were sent, creating a statistical profile of the traffic.
If, for instance, RatBoi and bowler1 consistently send messages within seconds of each other in a crowded chat room, you could infer that they were speaking to one another amid the "noise" of the chat room.

Congress Approves Doubling U.S. Troops in Colombia to 800

The 2005 United States Defense Department authorization act, approved Saturday by Congress, also permits the Bush administration to increase the number of American citizens working for private contractors in Colombia to 600 from 400.
The soldiers and many of the contractors will, among other things, develop and analyze intelligence on rebel movements, do surveillance and train Colombian troops in counterguerrilla operations.

US Congress Approves $420 billion For Defense

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have agreed to add $19.3 billion to the 2005 defense budget over last year's budget, but put new requirements on programs dealing with the Iraq war.
The Pentagon will get $420.6 billion in 2005.
The budget authorizes an increase in the size of the Army by 20,000 soldiers and 3,000 additional Marines, a boost in numbers that is necessary to fight concurrent wars that are exacting a heavy toll on ground forces.
The committees also authorized the administration's request for another $25 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scientist finds huge jump in gas that causes global warming: report

Climate experts cautioned Monday that a reported consecutive annual jump in the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might be an anomaly, without ruling out it was a sign of rapid global warming.
For the first time carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rose by more than two parts per million for two years running, from 2000 to 2001, according to figures recorded by a US scientist and published in the British press.
...Between 2001 and 2002 the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide rose from 371.02 to 373.10, an increase of 2.08 over the year, according to figures published in the Guardian and the Independent. Then it rose again in 2003 to 375.64, an annual increase of 2.54.
...Keeling said one explanation for the rise "could be a weakening of the earth's carbon 'sinks' (oceans and forests), associated with the world warming, as part of a climate change feedback mechanism."

Relics of Iraq's Nuclear Program Disappearing

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitored Saddam Hussein's nuclear sites before last year's Iraq war, said on Monday equipment and materials that could be used to make atomic weapons have been disappearing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington had noticed.
...Satellite imagery shows entire buildings in Iraq that once housed high-precision equipment have been dismantled, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he believed most of the removal of materials and equipment took place in the chaos that reigned shortly after the invasion last spring.

Booklet That Upset Mrs. Cheney Is History

The Education Department this summer destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history after the office of Vice President Dick Cheney's wife complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History, which she has long opposed.
In June, during a routine update, the Education Department began distributing a new edition of a 10-year-old how-to guide called "Helping Your Child Learn History." Aimed at parents of children from preschool through fifth grade, the 73-page booklet presented an assortment of advice, including taking children to museums and visiting historical sites.

Distortions Galore at Second Presidential Debate

Both candidates played loose with the facts at the second Presidential Debate in St. Louis Oct. 8. Bush claimed Kerry's health-care plan would lead to rationing and "ruin the quality of health care in America," a claim unsupported by neutral experts. Kerry claimed the Bush administration had forced the Army Chief of Staff to retire for pushing to send more troops to Iraq, but in fact he retired on schedule.
We offer a sampler of the dubious and sometimes false statements made by each of the candidates. [from FactCheck.org]

Human Rights Watch: 11 disappeared in U.S. custody

The report said the prisoners include the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; Abu Zubaydah, who is believed to be a close aide to Osama bin Laden; Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who might have been a Sept. 11 hijacker if he had not failed to get a U.S. visa; and Riduan Isamuddin, who is more commonly known as Hambali and thought to be the main link between al-Qaida and a radical Islamic organization based in Indonesia.
In refusing to disclose the prisoners' whereabouts or acknowledge the detentions, Human Rights Watch said, the U.S. government has violated international law, international treaties and the Geneva Convention. The group called on the government to bring all prisoners "under the protection of the law."

Tomato vaccine?

Scientists from the Institute of Biochemistry of Plants (Irkutsk), Institute of Chemical Biology and Scientific Centre of Virusology and Biotechnology ("Vector") (Novosibirsk) devised eatable transgenic tomatoes that can serve as vaccines against Hepatitis and AIDS.
...Schelkunov also mentioned that such vaccines have been tested for decades but yielded no positive results. This is the first time, the vaccine has proved to be effective. The institutes are planning to produce transgenic carrots and salad that will contain vaccines against hepatitis A and encephalitis.

The CIA 'old guard' goes to war with Bush

A powerful "old guard" faction in the Central Intelligence Agency has launched an unprecedented campaign to undermine the Bush administration with a battery of damaging leaks and briefings about Iraq.
The White House is incensed by the increasingly public sniping from some senior intelligence officers who, it believes, are conducting a partisan operation to swing the election on November 2 in favour of John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, and against George W Bush.

Compare Truths Worth Telling by Daniel Ellsberg:
"Surely there are officials in the present administration who recognize that the United States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far kept their silence - as I long did about the war in Vietnam. To them I have a personal message: don't repeat my mistakes. Don't wait until more troops are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that could end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964: go to the press, to Congress, and document your claims.
"Technology may make it easier to tell your story, but the decision to do so will be no less difficult. The personal risks of making disclosures embarrassing to your superiors are real. If you are identified as the source, your career will be over; friendships will be lost; you may even be prosecuted. But some 140,000 Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq. Our nation is in urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials."

Presidential candidates arrested in St. Louis

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik and Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb were arrested Friday night in St. Louis after pushing through a line of police officers preventing entry to the televised presidential debate between George Bush and John Kerry.

Report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: Redefining Rights in America The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2004

This report finds that President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words. The report reaches this conclusion after analyzing and summarizing numerous documents, including historical literature, reports, scholarly articles, presidential and administration statements, executive orders, policy briefs, documents of Cabinet-level agencies, federal budgets and other data.

Unprecedented Release of Government Documents Reveal Confusion and Absence of Policy in Implementing No-Fly Lists, ACLU Says

In response to a federal court order, the Department of Justice today released to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California some 300 pages of documents that indicate that the government's controversial "No Fly" watch lists were implemented and enforced long before there was a coordinated policy in place. The documents reflect, among other things, confusion, inter-agency squabbling and subjective criteria in placing names on the lists, as well as -- for the first time -- figures on how many people were added to the list in the months after the 9/11 attacks.

Major Assaults on Hold Until After U.S. Vote

The Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.

The Department of Education destroys 300,000 parent guides to remove references to national standards.

The Education Department this summer destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history after the office of Vice President Dick Cheney's wife complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History, which she has long opposed.
In June, during a routine update, the Education Department began distributing a new edition of a 10-year-old how-to guide called "Helping Your Child Learn History." Aimed at parents of children from preschool through fifth grade, the 73-page booklet presented an assortment of advice, including taking children to museums and visiting historical sites.

Anti-Kerry film to air in prime-time

Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of the largest chain of television stations in the nation, plans to air a documentary that accuses Sen. John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War, a newspaper reported Monday.
The network has ordered all 62 of its stations to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" without commercials in prime-time next week, the Washington Post said, just two weeks before the Nov. 2 election.

The Abu Ghraib Supplementary Documents

The Center for Public Integrity posts classified documents that form the basis of the Taguba report.
The military's mission at Abu Ghraib was inadequately planned almost from conception. It was subordinated to political and intelligence goals and bogged down at every level by inadequate resources and hostile conditions, according to classified documents reviewed and now posted by the Center for Public Integrity.
...The Taguba report, though publicly available, is still classified. The CIA, conducting its own investigation, has not released any information, and the U.S. government has stalled Freedom of Information Act requests for the background materials for the Taguba and other investigations. The documents being posted by the Center offer the most complete, first-hand account ever made available.

Breaking Ranks

Dissent on Iraq within the military is not entirely new. Even before the invasion, senior officers were questioning the optimistic projections of the Pentagon’s civilian leaders, and several retired generals have strongly criticized the war. But now, nearly two years after the first troops rolled across the desert, rank-and-file soldiers and their families are increasingly speaking up. Hoffman’s group was founded in July with 8 members and had grown to 40 by September. Another organization, Military Families Speak Out, began with 2 families two years ago and now represents more than 1,700 families. And soldier-advocacy groups are reporting a rising number of calls from military personnel who are upset about the war and are thinking about refusing to fight; a few soldiers have even fled to Canada rather than go to Iraq.
...54 percent of households with a member in the military said the war was the “wrong thing to do”; in the population as a whole, only 48 percent felt that way. (from Mother Jones)

The Return of Karen Ryan

The Education Department promoted the No Child Left Behind law with a video news release featuring "reporter" Karen Ryan. The VNR, which "comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money," is similar to the Health and Human Services Department's Medicare VNRs, which were found to be "propaganda in violation of federal law" by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The VNR and rankings for newspaper and reporter coverage of No Child Left Behind were part of a $700,000 contract with the Ketchum PR firm. The Education Department said it stopped using "narration-styled" VNRs after the Medicare ruling. [from PRWatch.org]

Pentagon meddling crippled post-war humanitarian aid for Iraq: US experts

Interference by the Pentagon delivered a massive blow to efforts to provide humanitarian relief for Iraq after last year's war, according to two US aid experts who struggled with the conflict's chaotic aftermath.
In trenchant criticism, the pair say the Department of Defense alienated aid workers, misjudged the scale of looting that wrecked Iraq's health service and sent out bureaucrats who only served to complicate matters.

"Skin" a mortal work of art

Writer Shelley Jackson invites participants in a new work entitled "Skin." Each participant must agree to have one word of the story tattooed upon his or her body. The text will be published nowhere else, and the author will not permit it to be summarized, quoted, described, set to music, or adapted for film, theater, television or any other medium. The full text will be known only to participants, who may, but need not choose to establish communication with one another.

R. Crumb's World Music Collection

"From listening to this old music, lower class music from the old days, all modern popular music has pretensions in it of contrived false emotions. Which to me, I'm so spoiled by this old stuff, I cannot tolerate it. You know if i'm in a supermarket and there's some really obnoxious popular music playing, to me it becomes almost unbearable. I start feeling so misanthropic and so negative, I have to get out of there. And my wife Aline she'll say 'Just tune it out.' But I can't, I can't. It's just unbearable to me." page1 page2