‘X-Men’ Top ‘Warped Toys’ List. ‘The Rev. Christopher Rose takes Christmas very seriously —
especially when it comes to kids.

For 14 years now, the minister in Hartford has released his
“warped toys” list — just as parents are heading out to stores for
Christmas shopping. ‘

This year, toys modeled on the movie “X-Men” and on the World
Wrestling Federation head his list.

Study: Teenage Ecstasy Use Up. The interesting thing about this study report is that teens report marijuana use is down; more are “turned off” than “turned on” by cannabis, fearing its use will make them behave foolishly. General Barry McCaffrey is taking the credit for this turnaround. Boston Channel

“Orpheus Emerged”, Jack Kerouac’s first book, has just been released, only as an e-book. A link here takes you to an MP3 audio clip of an excerpt.

Good Riddance Dept.: Chernobyl Reactor Shut Down, Possibly Forever. “Power
line failures forced the shutdown of the
Chernobyl nuclear power station on
Monday, raising doubts over whether
engineers would restart it less than three weeks before its final
closure. Reuters

Gulf War Syndrome Symptoms Linked to Brain Damage. New research shows cell loss (of an extent comparable to that seen in degenerative neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis, ALS [Lou Gehrig’s Disease] and dementia) in three regions of the brain of Gulf War Syndrome sufferers. The extent of damage at each site correlates with the degree of specific symptom complaints or impaired functions. Involved areas include the basal ganglia in each hemisphere and various brain stem regions. I’ve discussed several pieces of evidence that there really is a Gulf War Syndrome (actually, syndromes in plural, in all likelihood) and that symptoms relate to brain dysfunction due to various toxic exposures during the war. Here’s a page of Atomz search results to my earlier references.

Court To Hear Death Penalty Appeal in the case I discussed below of the Texas man with mental incapacities placing him in the range of a seven-year-old. The Court has also agreed to decide if medical necessity for marijuana use justifies violating federal laws making its distribution illegal. The Clinton Administration has challenged a California law which has allowed a group to provide the drug to seriously ill patients for pain relief.

Bumper sticker idea: He’s Not My President!