Texas Lawyer’s Death Row Record a Concern. You don’t have to be legally well-versed to recognize the incompetence of the Texas attorney portrayed here. He believes he’s had more clients sentenced to death than any attorney in the US and the jurisdiction in which he practices has the third-highest number of executions in the country; he boasts that he failed criminal law in law school; he’s been reprimanded multiple times for professional misconduct; it appears he conducts professional business with the smell of alcohol detectable on his breath; and listen to how he handled the defense of Gary Graham, scheduled for execution in Texas on June 22. It is contended that he assumed throughout his defense that his client was guilty. “There’s nothing I could have done that would have changed the result,” he said. Sounds true enough; as his new attorneys handling his appeal point out, this is a textbook case of how poor representation sends poor people to death row throughout the nation.

The Nation‘s Deathrow Rollcall site keeps a running tally of the year’s executions by state, and has a calendar of upcoming executions. You can click on an inmate’s name to send an email to the governor of her/his state requesting a stay of execution for the inmate and a moratorium on executions on the whole. The source of The Nation‘s information is Rick Halperin’s Death Penalty News & Updates.

Mysterious deadly disease surfaces among drug users. Almost sixty cases, in Glasgow, Dublin and English sites, involving local inflammation at the IV injection sites, dropping blood pressure, elevated white blood cell counts, and frequently progressing to heart failure. More than half of affected patients have died, usually within about two days and despite aggressive treatment with antibiotics. Reports last week suggested it might be anthrax, but this has not been borne out. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, called in by British health officials to help with the investigation, says “the emergence of a new disease is possible…Right now, though, the greatest likelihood is that it is an organism previously known and described and showing itself in a new way.” Multiple organisms are cultured out of blood and tissues of victims, but none so far is a likely culprit. Surveillance in the UK and the US (where no cases have yet been seen) is being tightened. Global dissemination of overwhelming infection is just a plane ride away, as AIDS taught us, but AIDS also taught us that the urgency about a disease depends on the constituency it affects. Press releases from health officials so far are attempting to reassure the public that this disease, whatever it may be, appears intrinsically associated with IV drug use.

CIA, FBI Say Iran Defector Is Impostor –Washington Post. Below, I took note of this man’s claim that Iran had been behind the Lockerbie bombing. CIA says no. This might signal U.S. wishes for a warming of relations with Iran, it would seem, otherwise wouldn’t we let the suggestions stand even if they were misinformation?

Testing the claims for Gingko. The NIH’s fledgling National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine initiates its largest project yet — a prospective study of whether ginkgo biloba extract halts cognitive decline in the aged.

Last year’s massive mosquito extermination didn’t work.

Fort Collins man gets approval to adopt sister.

Half fish, half robot. An “artificial animal” using part of the brain of the sea lamprey to control an off-the-shelf mechanical body exhibits complex behavior in response to external stimuli.

Pat Metheny on Kenny G’s musical necrophilia.

since that record came out – in protest, as

insigificant as it may be, i encourage

everyone to boycott kenny g recordings,

concerts and anything he is associated

with. if asked about kenny g, i will diss

him and his music with the same passion

that is in evidence in this little essay.

normally, i feel that musicians all have a

hard enough time, regardless of their

level, just trying to play good and don’t

really benefit from public criticism,

particularly from their fellow players. but,

this is different.

Thanks for Nothing A master’s degree candidate is denied his degree for adding a postscript (after his thesis committee signed off on it) telling his institution and advisors what he really thinks of them. He says it’s a free speech issue; they say it’s…well, it’s not.

V.S. Ramachandran: “The discovery of mirror neurons in the frontal lobes of

monkeys, and their potential relevance to human brain

evolution — which I speculate on in this essay — is the

single most important “unreported” (or at least,

unpublicized) story of the decade. I predict that mirror

neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for

biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help

explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto

remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments.” To my read, an intriguing but overreaching theory. Good to see they intend to empirically test some elements. [Edge]

Scientists boost power of morphine. The opioid receptor, site of action of morphine and like analgesics,desensitizes with continuing exposure to opiate drugs. It appears now that scientists have isolated the mechanism of that down-regulation, provoking hopes that they can figure out how to defeat desensitization and produce more sustained opiate effects. In other pain control news, researchers have found a way to make kappa-opioids, a class of painkilling substances thought effective only in women, work in men too, and more effective in both.

Nader Picks Up Speed In New Bid For Election. This time around he’ll be campaigning in all fifty states rather than just “standing still for President” as he did in 1996. The reason he’s fired up, even though he knows he can’t win? If the Green Party gets 5% of the popular vote, it’ll qualify for federal election matching funds for 2004. Sounds like a reason voting Green would not be a waste if you can’t bring yourself to vote Republicratic.

An op-ed piece in the St Louis Post-Dispatch says nothing changes until some forbidden topics get discussed.

We should have such problems: Who’s Spoiled? Forbes columnist’s advice for dealing with the angst of raising children of affluence.

NATO’s shame: our morals are right, everybody else’s are wrong, and international law be damned.

War Hero Sent To Prison For Protesting US Army’s ‘School of Assassins’. Former medal of honor winner given one-year sentence for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, which trains Latin American military officers. “I consider it an honor to be going to prison as a result of an act of conscience in response

to a moral imperative that impelled and obligated me to speak for voices silenced by

graduates of the School of the Americas, a military institution that has brought shame to

our country and the U.S. Army.”

Man says he doesn’t remember leaving waitress $10,000 tip

“A British man who left a Chicago waitress a $10,000 tip later rejected by his credit card company claims he was drunk and doesn’t remember

leaving the huge amount on a $9 bar tab…But Leg Room owner Fred Hoffmann said (the man) seemed to be thinking clearly at the time, noting that the bar’s manager photocopied his

passport and had him sign a statement agreeing to the tip….The bar’s owners have pledged to give (the waitress) the money themselves because of the publicity generated by the incident.”

BBC: Cannabis found in Palace kitchen “…Furious

Queen has demanded a full search for the

culprit. ” But what were police doing raiding Buckingham Palace??

Foreskin Cells May Assist HIV Transmission. Compelling evidence accumulates that circumcised males are far less likely to contract HIV with HIV-positive sexual contacts.