Life, death and Everquest: “A virtual suicide in the popular online multiplayer game is making some
fans queasy about their favorite addiction.” Salon

Auto body and soul “He’ll fix your shocks, he’ll change your oil, and he’ll align your
wheels, but what Mahmood Rezaei-Kamalabad really wants to do is restore
your spirit.” Giving new meaning to full-service auto repair. Boston Phoenix

Death traps: In the aftermath of the Kitzsteinhorn ski train disaster, why are we still building tunnels with no escape routes, a New Scientist
editorial asks.

Scientist Raises New Mobile Phone Fears Children who use mobile phones risk suffering memory loss, sleeping
disorders and headaches, according to research published in the medical
journal The Lancet.

Neo-fascism watch: “Far-right demonstrators marched through central
Berlin on Saturday, openly challenging efforts by German
leaders to fight neo-Nazism and mobilizing a massive police
operation in the capital.” USA Today

How these bald, blue men make music CNN

Coney Island of the Mind. We’re still obsessed with the spectacles that defined Coney Island seventy years ago.

There
is now serious talk of redeveloping Coney — and
perhaps the possibility of its renaissance is one
reason we are currently interested in revisiting the
enormous spectacles of those bygone days.

But maybe our interest has something instead to do
with the way this kind of theme park entertainment
has developed over the past half century, with the
advent of parks like Disney World and Universal
Studios, and with new, massively themed attractions
opening in Las Vegas every year. Today, our theme
parks give us a happy world. Human beings (if you
don’t count those dressed up as Cinderella and
Mickey Mouse) are not on exhibit — the creatures on
our rides are animatronic, and the performers are
possessed of skills like juggling or tap dancing. Our
notion of spectacle has changed — not just from the
“real” sightseeing of the urban flaneur to the
“hyperreal” entertainments discussed by critics like
Umberto Eco and Ada Louise Huxtable, but also in
the kind of fake worlds our amusement parks
present. Transgressive attractions — from the freak
show to the tunnel of love (designed for stolen
kisses) — have been replaced by wholesome
“entertainment for the whole family,” at least in the
world of immersive, American attractions like theme
parks and Vegas. Feed

Top 10 best-mannered cities CNN

The Case for a Revote. “The Washington Monthly has dug up an article addressing the
invalidation of state elections, written in the New York University
Law Review in 1974. It makes the case for a revote if a close
election were violated by an ‘illegal act’ – which, the monthly
suggests, that ballot paper might be construed to be. Its author:
Judge Kenneth W. Starr.”

The Outlook for U.S. Central Europe Policy under Dubya’s Presidency is very worrisome to Central European commentators. ” Many
of his advisors are from the old Bush camp, and include
those involved in the “Chicken Kiev” fiasco in which Bush
championed the unity of the USSR; those partly responsible
for the shamefully slow reaction to the Lithuanian campaign
for freedom (which caused a well-documented near-fistfight in
the Oval Office between cabinet officials); and those who told
Bush to tell the world he ended the Cold War.

Ex-Secretary of State James Baker is still around. This is
the man who personified the shameful Baltic policies of the
Bush presidency, and he is, in fact, now the man delegated
by the new Bush camp to oversee the Florida recount.
Former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft remained
an advisor of Bush on foreign affairs and has publicly
expressed opinions against NATO enlargement.

However, most worrisome is the possible Bush foreign policy
team. First of all, a likely candidate for secretary of state is
Colin Powell, the military leader from the Gulf War era.
Powell is well respected as a soldier and is liked by both
sides of the political divide, but his credentials are far more
military than diplomatic — two things, many argue, that do not
mix. Powell has been critical of various aspects of Clinton’s
policy in Europe, questioning, for example, the recognition of
the independence of some countries as, in Powell’s view, it
is often only a prelude to conflict.

Even more harrying is the possible appointment of Bush’s
main foreign policy advisor, Condoleezza Rice, as national
security advisor (and it is worthwhile noting that the post of
national security advisor does not require Senate
confirmation, unlike the secretary of state position). Rice
was a major advisor to Bush Senior on Soviet affairs, and
that policy was a dark mark in the 1990s for Washington.
Rice has gone on to make other comments that have turned
her into one of the biggest enemies of the Baltic
communities in the US, as well as others.” And given Dubya’s limited leadership capacities, the likes of Baker, Rice and Powell will be running U.S. foreign policy in earnest. Central Europe Review</small

What’s your spiritual type? Beliefnet

How to be a Whistleblower and Keep Your Job: The RIP Act in the UK gives authorities the right to “monitor any information moving about within the UK”, and gives employers extensive rights to keep tabs on their employees’ email and telephone calls. How to blow the whistle and still remain anonymous under those circumstances? The Register

Did you buy anything on National Buy-Nothing Day yesterday? Goin’ shopping today?

Hubble Telescope: Has NASA Learned Its Lessons? We learned how to maintain, upgrade and enhance the telescope over the years, increasing its productivity and decreasing the cost of Hubble science. But, from that point of view, some find disheartening recent NASA decisions to scuttle the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer.

Emerging Disease News: Researchers report West Nile Virus Will Spread Throughout U.S.. Last year New York, this year viral activity was detected in birds all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Reuters

Album of the Year? Spin Mag’s Choice Isn’t Human ‘Fittingly for an industry currently dominated by the controversy over
downloadable music technology, Spin magazine’s album of the year is “your hard drive.” ‘

On the fifth anniversary of the discovery of a Mystery Death in the Arizona Wilderness, authorities renew pleas for help identifying the victim. ‘Five years ago, a woman’s skeleton was found on a steep, rocky mountainside in a pocket of
wilderness so remote that only a dozen hikers visit it each year. The woman had been nine
months pregnant, ready to give birth. Authorities say she was certainly in no shape to handle
the exertion of what would have been a strenuous hike for even an athletic person.

… The remains were several hundred yards from the nearest trail, which itself is only
accessible by four-wheel vehicle. The terrain is rugged, made up of red rock and juniper
trees. A rescue team had to fly in by helicopter

…. “We suspect that she went hiking with her boyfriend or husband, probably the father of the
child, and he ducked out on her and left her there,” Diffendaffer said. “She didn’t have any
idea how to get out on her own and ended up getting lost, probably dying of exposure.” ‘

‘I’m No Vampire,’ Official Says ‘Taking part in a live Internet chat Tuesday, Treasury Minister Vincenzo Visco responded to an
online participant who said he looked like the legendary blood-sucking Count Dracula.

The comparison may have been prompted by Visco’s sunken eyes and teeth-baring grimace,
but the minister rebuffed it.

“There’s not that much in common,” he wrote. “Dracula was a count, I am a modest
bourgeois. He lived in a castle, I live in an apartment.

“The only thing in common may be the eyes, but Dracula’s were a sign of the times, mine
are the result of 12 to 14 hours work a day,” he quipped.’

Study Examines Wolves, Livestock. A case study shows that fears about livestock kills when wolves are reintroduced to range are overblown. The wolves spend their time away from habitation and their main food is deer, in a 61,000-acre area of northwestern Minnesota.