‘Igniting Fear With Flying Metal’: “…(W)hat

has consistently gotten Pauline in trouble over his 23-year career is his penchant for creating large, potentially lethal

robots under the guise of modern performance art.” Wired

Bush Approves Limited Stem Cell Test Funding. Federal funding will only support experiments with the sixty or so existing cell lines derived from already-destroyed embryos; no new ones would be allowed to be grown and destroyed for the purpose of extracting further stem cell lines. New York Times [What does Jeremy Rifkin have to say, I wonder?]

Some scientists consider the crow to be as intelligent, in some ways, as a primate. Ambrose Bierce, in his Devil’s Dictionary, referred to the magpie (a close relative) as “a bird whose thievish disposition suggested to some one that he might be taught to talk.” The intelligence of crows [thanks, Heron] has led to an uneasy relationship with humans. The crow is a shape-shifter, a trickster-god, and an omen of untimely and violent death. Consider: a flock of crows is known as a murder. Ian Frazier’s been working for them recently, and finds them to be the coming thing.