[BBC]: beer ‘may be good for you’; “However, one should not drink alcohol to

become healthy.”

special feature : Wake up and smell the chocolate. Good news for chocoholics: it’s not only good but may be good for you. (And we’ll ignore the opposite possibilities.) [Nature]

Top Internet Art Prize Goes to Science-Fiction Writer

Neal Stephenson, the only science fiction author to riffle my imagination seriously in the last few years, will receive the top

prize in the Internet category of the Prix Ars Electronica, the prestigious computer arts award. This is the second consecutive year that the award

has gone to something other than an online art work.

As I said, I’m a psychiatrist who liked Wonderland. Now it’s been cancelled after just two episodes. Acclaim Couldn’t Assure a Home for Dark `Wonderland’

“ABC executives said that as proud as they

were of the unsettling series, “Wonderland” was simply rejected

by audiences, who probably found it too dark and harrowing.

Those executives said that viewers were turned off by the show

and that neither protests from mental health professionals nor

the skittishness of some advertisers had any bearing on their

decision. ABC had ordered eight episodes, which leaves six

unseen on television.” [New York Times]

U.S. Says Russians May Want a Deal on Missile Defense

‘But they acknowledged that Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov and

the chief Russian arms control negotiator, Georgi Memedev, had

revealed no significant shift in their opposition to the missile

defense plan. “The Russians have shown a willingness to intensify

the process,” a senior administration official said. “But we’re not

seeing a huge shift.”‘

Sure, we’re not seeing a shift. That’s because the US wants to abrogate the ABM treaty to develop the Star Wars missile defense system. We say we’re trying to defend ourselves against rogue states’ or terrorists’ ballistic missile attacks. But because Russia can’t afford to build all the extra warheads that would be necessary to overcome our new defensive umbrella, the deterrence parity between our two nuclear arsenals would be lost. So, quite naturally, they don’t want to let us bow out of the ABM Treaty. I still say that the solution would be to develop anti-missile defenses jointly with the Russians.

Peace, Love and Murder: Punk Rocker Stalks Killer Hippie for A&E: “I’m a short film maker. On the strength of one of my Super 8 films I was hired as a cameraman for a documentary

entitled Peace, Love & Murder–The Search For Ira Einhorn, that would be airing on A&E’s Investigative Reports. I

was sent by myself to France for a month, armed with my wits and a digital video camera, to shoot footage of Ira

Einhorn, a 60’s hippie leader from Philadelphia, who killed his girlfriend Holly Maddux in 1977 and has been

hiding in the south of France ever since.” [broken pencil]

What is going on here??