The Pentagon is turning to unmanned aerial vehicles as bomb-delivery platforms. These would contravene the 1988 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty but, no problem, it wouldn’t be the first pillar of arms control the current administration is trying to topple.

Beyond the Grave. “Mummification, it

seems, is making a comeback, and for a stiff fee, an

American company will take your beloved pet or family

member and preserve them for posterity…These 21st century interments are a little more hi-tech

than the old ‘hook-up-the-nose’ Egyptian rituals, but the

end result is still a work of art. However, for those involved in the preservation, there’s

no lack of spirituality to their work. The mummification services are provided by

Summum, a Salt Lake City religious group led by the delightfully-named Corky Ra.

Somewhat akin to the ancients, Ra and his adherents feel that preserving a body helps

the soul of its owner to find reference in the afterlife.”

Tibetans in U.S. Rally Against World Bank China Loan. This is not just any loan to China. Its purpose is to fund resettlement of 60,000 non-Tibetans to Tibet to facilitate its assimilation by breaking the back of its ethnic identity and culture. Genocide without murder? This has been going on since the Chinese occupation of Tibet began with the 1951 invasion, but the loan will fund an amplification of the scale of the process. The World Bank’s own independent review department was critical of the Bank’s granting the loan, in violation of the organization’s own social/environmental impact rules.

Chip That Would Restore Sight Implanted in People. Silicon microchip replacement retinas implanted in three patients who have lost their vision from retinitis pigmentosa. Too soon to tell if vision will be restored, but can you imagine how impressive an advance it would be if so?

New HIV Infections Soar in San Francisco. Public health officials said new infections in SF doubled last year. They attribute the disturbing reversal to the fact that the success of the past decade’s prevention and treatment efforts has inspired complacency about risk and a resurgence of high-risk activity. Trends in the SF gay community are considered harbingers of nationwide direction in AIDS infection.

Tibetans in U.S. Rally Against World Bank China Loan. This is not just any loan to China. Its purpose is to fund resettlement of 60,000 non-Tibetans to Tibet to facilitate its assimilation by breaking the back of its ethnic identity and culture. Genocide without murder? This has been going on since the Chinese occupation of Tibet began with the 1951 invasion, but the loan will fund an amplification of the scale of the process. The World Bank’s own independent review department was critical of the Bank’s granting the loan, in violation of the organization’s own social/environmental impact rules.

The Village Voice: Piss, Puke, and Prizes. “If you thought the TV networks were getting brash with so-called reality-based programming like Survivor, get set for a

wave of shock sites on the Internet, produced by young entrepreneurs looking to profit off America’s thirst for sordid

spectacle.”

Miranda‘s not the real problem: This National Review commentator essentially says that upholding Miranda was no sweat off conservative Supreme Court Justices’ backs, because “… the police have learned to work with — and

to work around — Miranda. Delivering the Miranda warnings

is, these days, little practical impediment to procuring

confessions….As anyone who watches television police shows knows, people

who have been arrested have a right to remain silent and a right

to counsel; the Miranda warnings are meant to make sure that

they know about those rights. Since almost everybody watches

television — and since everyone who is arrested gets the

Miranda warnings — why do so many people confess

anyway?

Here’s why: Miranda warnings are often delivered

ritualistically, and in a perfunctory tone of voice — thus making

them appear bureaucratic and trivial. After hearing the Miranda

warning delivered in a perfunctory voice, many suspects opt to

talk to the police, in the foolish belief that they can convince the

police of their innocence.”

BBC: Robo-man wows Japanese. Honda unveils what it describes as the

highest-performing bipedal robot in the world. “With the ability to judge the ground conditions

in human environments, the robot is capable of

walking on two legs and can also perform

simple tasks with its two hands.”

Discovery.com: Mayan Stone

Tablet Depicts

Horror. A previously-unnoticed limestone panel just discovered shows that the late Maya began to experiment with depicting emotion in their stone carvings. Two horrified captives brought before the king are shown clutching themselves in terror, probably contemplating their imminent sacrifice.

Drink more wine! Study seems to show why French suffer less heart disease, cancer.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have discovered why a compound found in grapes and grape

products such as red wine shows natural cancer-fighting properties that might be important in preventing or treating the illness.

The work appears to explain the so-called “French paradox” — the fact that French people experience lower rates of heart disease

death and certain cancers despite drinking more wine on average than U.S. residents do.

Scientists found that the substance, trans-Resveratrol, or Res, modulates the activity of NF-kappa B, a protein that attaches to DNA

inside cell nuclei and turns genes on and off like a switch, the scientists found. Res apparently helps turn off a natural protective

mechanism in the body involving the protein that prevents cancer cells from being killed, as they should be.

R.I.P., Walter Matthau. Take a look at his filmography. When everyone mentions The Odd Couple, Grumpy Old Men and The Sunshine Boys, don’t forget his work in the early ’60’s in such films as Lonely Are the Brave, Charade, Mirage and Failsafe.

MSNBC: Will snazzy new jet fly high?

It weighs less than a German shepherd,

could fit in a baby’s crib, is quieter from a

distance than a blender and can propel six

passengers through high-altitude air at a 423-mph

clip: The new FJX-2 jet engine is so unlike

anything flying today that airplane executive Vern

Rayburn calls it “disruptive technology,” akin to

the culture-changing impact of the personal

computer he helped bring to market.

100 Countries Approve War Tribunal. The U.S. is struggling with over a hundred other countries over wording that would make Americans subject to arrest in foreign countries for war crimes even if the U.S. has not ratified the treaty. The U.S. government claims that would make our citizens and troops subject to “politically motivated” prosecution. It seems to me that full participation in the treaty process, rather than whining and seeking special treatment from an indefensible position of moral superiority, would be the only way to ensure a morally and legally robust tribunal system.

French Rally Around Unlikely National Hero. Charismatic anti-globalist sheep farmer on trial for trashing a MacDonald’s.

Mr. Bové was a little-known farmer and union official until

last August, when he and the nine other men took a tractor,

pick axes and power saws to the local McDonald’s. Mr. Bové

said at the time that he was incensed by what he saw as the

unfairness of the United States to tax French delicacies like

Roquefort cheese and paté de foie gras in retaliation for

Europe’s decision not to import hormone-treated American

beef.

[New York Times] (Mr Bove was reportedly at the recent WTO protests carrying around a wheel of Roquefort to feed demonstrators.)

Flight Tests by Iraq Show Progress of Missile Program. “Eighteen months after

American and British warplanes

badly damaged its missile factories,

Iraq has restarted its missile program

and flight-tested a short-range

ballistic missile, Clinton

administration and American military

officials said this week.” [New York Times]

Failed Dot-Coms May Be Selling Your Private Information. “Some failed

dot-coms are releasing information

their customers may have thought would

remain under lock and key as they scramble

to sell assets to appease creditors.” [New York Times]

“You can’t spoil a system that’s spoiled to the core,” says Ralph Nader, on the suggestion that he might be a spoiler in the presidential race.

Storm Debut Sobering For Town. Gloucester, MA girds itself to relive the traumatizing loss of the Andrea Gail as the film opens.

US Gays Tie Historic Knot in Midnight ‘Marriage’, as the Vermont civil union law takes effect. “Twenty-seven and a half years, that’s a long engagement.

It’s nice after all this time to say Holly’s my spouse”, said Lois Farnham. Meanwhile, the Presbyterians have voted to prohibit their ministers from celebrating same-sex marital vows even in jurisdictions where legal.

Fashion Craze Deprives Planes of Seatbelts.

A new fashion craze is threatening air safety in Norway — teenagers are stealing seatbelts to keep up their baggy

trousers.

Barbie Gets Rival in Presidential Doll Race

Perot Won’t Run for President

Japan Suicide Rate Clings Near Record High. The tortured Japanese society has twice the per capita suicide rate of the U.S. and illustrates the close relationship suicide has with social and economic turmoil, first systematically characterized by French sociologist Durkheim a century ago.

New Scientist: Major havoc ahead. Road traffic will regularly grind to a halt and train services will increasingly be disrupted as a result of global

warming, a scientist at Britain’s Meteorological Office said last week.

Stephen Hawking’s Universe: Strange Stuff Explained. Concise elegant refrresher course on the concepts with which Hawking challenged us in A Brief History of Time. Partial contents:

Antimatter,

The Big Bang,

Black Holes,

Cosmic Background Radiation,

Dark Matter,

Imaginary Time,

Quarks,

Quasars,

Singularity,

Superstrings,

The Uncertainty Principle, Wormholes, etc. And, for more, the current issue of Discover has a primer on the efforts to study anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, currently considered our best approach to unravelling ultimate cosmological mysteries.