Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, director of operations for reserve forces at the National Security Space Institute (search) in Colorado Springs, is believed responsible for defacing at least 10 parked vehicles between December and June, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Tuesday.

…Jackson said Fecteau is suspected of blacking out the Bush bumper stickers and then spray painting an expletive and the president’s name on the vehicles.” (Unbiased Fox News )

Methamphetamine can be made with a mix of substances, including over-the-counter cold medicine, fertilizer, battery acid and hydrogen peroxide.

Together, the chemicals reduce a user’s saliva, which neutralizes acids and physically clears food from the teeth, said Dr. Eric Curtis, an Arizona-based spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry.

‘When the saliva isn’t flowing, the bacteria build up a lot faster,’ said Dr. Darrell Morton, an Atlanta dentist.

Meth users also may neglect their teeth, or moisten their dry mouths with high-sugar drinks, and anxiety caused by the drug prompts them to grind their teeth, which speeds decay.

The problem is particularly noticeable among inmates, whose oral problems have some prison systems struggling to provide dental care.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Officials in the United States say they’ll be closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.

…Proponents argue that making such RFID tags mandatory and ubiquitous is a logical move to counter the threat of terrorists using the roadways, and that it will scoop up insurance and registration scofflaws in the process.

…Privacy advocates are less enthusiastic about the technology. ” (Wired)

The fact is that the West, especially the United States, has left the Saudis little choice. Leading U.S. corporations hire and rehire known Saudi crooks and known financiers of terrorism to represent their interests, so that they can land the deals that will pay the commissions back in Saudi Arabia—commissions that will further erode the budget and thus further divide the ruling class from everyone else. Former CIA directors serve on boards whose members have to hold their noses to cut deals with Saudi companies—because that’s business, that’s the price of entry, that’s the way it’s done. Ex-Presidents, former prime ministers, onetime senators and congressmen, and Cabinet members walk around with their hands out, acting as if they’re doing something else but rarely slowing down, because most of them know it’s an endgame too. But sometime soon, one way or another, the House of Saud is coming down.”

After about 15 hours of deliberation, the jury of six men and six women decided Friday that Atkins’ defense attorneys failed to show that he is retarded.

…During seven days of testimony, defense attorneys spoke of Atkins’ problems performing simple tasks, his inability to distinguish left from right or odd from even and his repeated academic failure. The defense argued that IQ test scores showed he had less intelligence than 96 percent of Americans.

Prosecutors contended that Atkins’ IQ scores showed he was a slow learner but not retarded and argued that he failed in school because he chose to abuse drugs, skip school and commit crimes.”

The Vatican’s chief astronomer, George Coyne, has rebuffed controversial comments made by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn in The New York Times on 7 July that evolution is incompatible with a belief in God.” (New Scientist)

Levels of a cocaine residue excreted in human urine were measured in the River Po, Italy’s largest river. The river has a catchment basin for about five-million people, with major cities like Turin and Milan situated in the valley.

The equivalent of about 4 kilograms of cocaine flowed in the river each day, say the researchers from Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, and the University of Insubria in Varese.

The analysis indicates that at least 40,000 packets of the drug are snorted each day – 80 times more than the official estimate of just 15,000 doses taken per month by people living in the area. If the study’s estimates are true, a staggering $150 million in street value of cocaine is dealt each year in the valley, say the researchers.” (New Scientist)

But the ideal of sincerity has long ago been devalued, rendered commercial or quaint. Today, for example, it is associated with Coldplay, mewling God-and-country Republicans and weepie cable-television dramas like Six Feet Under that appeal mostly to women and gay men.

Authenticity, on the other hand, is regarded as rougher stuff, a man’s job. Authenticity is gin to sincerity’s chardonnay. (Look for it on The Sopranos and Deadwood.) It suggests, as Trilling puts it, ‘a more strenuous moral experience’ than does sincerity, as well as ‘a less acceptant and genial view of the social circumstances of life.’ Authenticity, in other words, is a confrontation not with the self, which its practitioners regard as elusive and false, but with death, horror, being, nothingness.” — Virginia Heffernan (New York Times )

If substantial amounts of mercury show up in the blood and feathers he has collected, it could spell trouble for the watershed and, potentially, for the nine million people who rely on the New York drinking water that comes from here because it would mean that the toxin is present in ways that were previously unknown.” (New York Times )

Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.

‘He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species,’ says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. ‘It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity.'” (New Scientist)

This denial, Dr. Berti said, was long thought to be purely a psychological problem. ‘It was a reaction to a stroke: I am paralyzed, it is so horrible, I will deny it,’ she said.

But in a new study, Dr. Berti and her colleagues have shown that denial is not a problem of the mind. Rather, it is a neurological condition that occurs when specific brain regions are knocked out by a stroke.

Patients deny the paralysis because a closely related region of the brain that is still intact appears to tell them that their bodies are responding normally.” (New York Times )

This denial, Dr. Berti said, was long thought to be purely a psychological problem. ‘It was a reaction to a stroke: I am paralyzed, it is so horrible, I will deny it,’ she said.

But in a new study, Dr. Berti and her colleagues have shown that denial is not a problem of the mind. Rather, it is a neurological condition that occurs when specific brain regions are knocked out by a stroke.

Patients deny the paralysis because a closely related region of the brain that is still intact appears to tell them that their bodies are responding normally.” (New York Times )

But with World Bank studies showing a quarter of urban college graduates are unemployed, crime offers tempting career opportunities – in drug dealing, immigrant-trafficking, oil-smuggling, and Internet fraud.

The scammers thrived during oil-rich Nigeria’s 15 years of brutal and corrupt military rule, and democracy was restored only six years ago.

‘We reached a point when law enforcement and regulatory agencies seemed nonexistent. But the stance of the present administration has started changing that,’ said Ribadu, the scam-busting chief.” (Associated Press)

No, she’s not intoxicated. The young lady’s vestibular system, which controls her sense of movement and balance, has been thrown off-kilter by two weak electrical currents delivered just behind her ears.

This sort of electrical stimulation is known as galvanic vestibular stimulation, or GVS. When a weak DC current is delivered to the mastoid behind your ear, your body responds by shifting your balance toward the anode. The stronger the current, the more powerful its pull. If it is strong enough, it not only throws you off balance but alters the course of your movement.

…At the 2005 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles this week, NTT researchers debuted a device designed to exploit the effects of GVS. Known as “Shaking the World,” the project is the result of research carried out by NTT researcher Taro Maeda. Maeda and his colleagues constructed a headphone-like apparatus to deliver the electrical current and a small radio control to direct the strength and direction of the signal. Whoever wears such headphones can be steered by remote control. ” (Forbes)

On Mars, plants would have to tolerate conditions that usually cause them a great deal of stress — severe cold, drought, low air pressure, soils that they didn’t evolve for. But plant physiologist Wendy Boss and microbiologist Amy Grunden of North Carolina State University believe they can develop plants that can live in these conditions. Their work is supported by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.

Stress management is key: Oddly, there are already Earth creatures that thrive in Mars-like conditions. They’re not plants, though. They’re some of Earth’s earliest life forms–ancient microbes that live at the bottom of the ocean, or deep within Arctic ice. Boss and Grunden hope to produce Mars-friendly plants by borrowing genes from these extreme-loving microbes. And the first genes they’re taking are those that will strengthen the plants’ ability to deal with stress.” (NASA)

The group’s First Amendment committee had narrowly voted to give Miller the prize for her dedication to protecting sources, but the full board has now voted to not accept that decision, based on its opinion that her entire career, and even her current actions in the Plame/CIA leak case, cast doubt on her credentials for this award. ” (Editor and Publisher)

The August getaway is Bush’s 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford — nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president’s travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents’ compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush’s time away from Washington even further.

Bush’s long vacations are more than a curiosity: They play into diametrically opposite arguments about this leadership style. To critics and late-night comics, they symbolize a lackadaisical approach to the world’s most important day job, an impression bolstered by Bush’s two-hour midday exercise sessions and his disinclination to work nights or weekends. The more vociferous among Bush’s foes have noted that he spent a month at the ranch shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when critics assert he should have been more attentive to warning signs.” (Washington Post)

The church had already suspended the clerics after finding the child-abuse allegations against them to be credible. Now, as it defrocks them, expelling them from the priesthood, the men are quietly reentering civilian life with only the barest notice to the public, and no ongoing oversight by the church.

Nor is law enforcement certain to be watching them.

In most instances, the statute of limitations in their cases expired years ago. This means they face no prospect of prosecution for past sex offenses.” (beliefnet via walker)

As with most launches of drugs, Sepracor and one of the academic medical centers involved in testing the drug (in this case, Duke University) offered journalists sources they could call, including those with financial links to Sepracor. And the company got results. For example, some of the nation’s most respected newspapers peppered their stories with quotes from Dr. Andrew Krystal, who conducted the Duke clinical trial of Lunesta and was the lead author of the study that reported the results. Krystal had designed and conducted other studies for Sepracor, and had also served on a company advisory board. Most of the news stories did not disclose his financial ties to the drugmaker.”

…As the DNA ‘alphabet’ contains four letters – called bases – there are as many as 64 three-letter words available in the DNA dictionary. This is because it is mathematically possible to produce 64 three-letter words from any combination of four letters.

But why there should be 64 words in the DNA dictionary which translate into just 20 amino acids, and why a process that is more complex than it needs to be should have evolved in the first place, has puzzled scientists for the last 40 years.” (University of Bath.UK)

It cannot be the taste, since most people cannot tell the difference in a blind tasting. Much bottled water is, in any case, derived from municipal water supplies, though it is sometimes filtered, or has additional minerals added to it.

Nor is there any health or nutritional benefit to drinking bottled water over tap water. In one study, published in The Archives of Family Medicine, researchers compared bottled water with tap water from Cleveland, and found that nearly a quarter of the samples of bottled water had significantly higher levels of bacteria. The scientists concluded that ‘use of bottled water on the assumption of purity can be misguided.’ Another study carried out at the University of Geneva found that bottled water was no better from a nutritional point of view than ordinary tap water.

…Bottled water is undeniably more fashionable and portable than tap water. The practice of carrying a small bottle, pioneered by supermodels, has become commonplace. But despite its association with purity and cleanliness, bottled water is bad for the environment. It is shipped at vast expense from one part of the world to another, is then kept refrigerated before sale, and causes huge numbers of plastic bottles to go into landfills.

…Clean water could be provided to everyone on earth for an outlay of $1.7 billion a year beyond current spending on water projects, according to the International Water Management Institute. Improving sanitation, which is just as important, would cost a further $9.3 billion per year. This is less than a quarter of global annual spending on bottled water.

I have no objections to people drinking bottled water in the developing world; it is often the only safe supply. But it would surely be better if they had access to safe tap water instead. The logical response, for those of us in the developed world, is to stop spending money on bottled water and to give the money to water charities.

If you don’t believe me about the taste, then set up a tasting, and see if you really can tell the difference. A water tasting is fun, and you may be surprised by the results. There is no danger of a hangover. But you may well conclude, as I have, that bottled water has an unacceptably bitter taste.” — Tom Standage, author of A History of the World in Six Glasses and technology editor of The Economist (New York Times op-ed)

The number of Americans, cardiologists included, who gulped daily capsules of vitamin E suddenly surged, from relatively few in 1990 to an estimated 23 million by 2000, according to an analysis published last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But in a flurry of strong follow-up studies published in the last few years, vitamin E has emerged as a sort of middle-aged, B-list actor not fulfilling its early promise. Increasingly, even many scientists and health advisory groups who say they still have high hopes for the vitamin as it occurs naturally in vegetable oils, nuts and leafy greens have begun to pan the pills, except for use by subgroups of patients with particular medical conditions.” (New York Times )

These ‘multi-symptom illnesses’ — which include chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and potentially others such as Gulf War syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and the condition known as multiple chemical sensitivity — have provoked intense controversy. Because they have no obvious biological cause, some doctors and researchers dismissed them in the past as hysteria or the ‘yuppie flu.'” (Psychology Today)

But if anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive. It is a disease to which both human individuals and entire human societies are prone.” — Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times, A History of Christianity, and A History of the Jews (Commentary)

Middle Americans have increasingly tolerated the experiments in living of people like myself not out of stupidity, but out of the trustful magnanimity that is one of the great gifts of the Protestant ethos to our country and to the world. It is time for us all to begin tolerating back…” — Lee Harris, author of Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History (Policy Review)

Intelligence about a cell with access to explosives and plans to unleash a “third wave” of attacks was the trigger for last Thursday’s unprecedented security exercise. The operation saw 6,000 police, many armed, patrolling across London.

Senior police officers say that there was “specific” intelligence from several sources that an attack was planned for that day. The disclosure contradicts official statements by Scotland Yard that Thursday’s security exercise — the biggest since the second world war — was simply a precaution aimed at reassuring the public.” (Sunday Times of London [thanks to dev.null] )

Our goals are to:

• Open the doors to the world’s library of scientific knowledge by giving any scientist, physician, patient, or student – anywhere in the world – unlimited access to the latest scientific research.
• Facilitate research, informed medical practice, and education by making it possible to freely search the full text of every published article to locate specific ideas, methods, experimental results, and observations.
• Enable scientists, librarians, publishers, and entrepreneurs to develop innovative ways to explore and use the world’s treasury of scientific ideas and discoveries.

We have launched a nonprofit scientific publishing venture that will provide scientists with high-quality, high-profile journals in which to publish their most important work, while making the full contents freely available for anyone to read, distribute, or use for their own research.” [thanks, Seth]

…Working Assets convened the Leave My Child Alone! campaign in partnership with The Mainstreet Moms (The MMOB), and ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).”

The first data made public about the object suggested the object could be up to twice the size of Pluto, but newly revealed observations indicate the object is about 70% Pluto’s diameter.

The find suggests more such objects are waiting to be discovered and is likely to reignite the fierce debate about what constitutes a planet.” (New Scientist)

In the suburbs, though, the armed forces are welcomed for more than just visits. They’re teaching some of the classes.” (Seattle Times)

Jablonski and Chaplin have brought order to this confused field, starting with quantitative measurements of skin color and sunlight. By convincingly identifying the strongest correlate of skin color, they open the door for anthropologists to explore other correlates and exceptions.” (Science Week)

For you see, when you cry out on the Black Man from Boston, you wake Nicholas Scratch, and he will surely come to call on you.

I am tempted to ask the good Republican Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Are you entirely sure you want to get the estimable Mr. Scratch’s attention? ” (Lizbeth Marcs)

“It took months of concentrated effort to begin to winkle out the thousands of words in the thunders; now, several of them have yielded thirty or more pages of words, each word denoting or alluding to a theme in the episode or an associated technology. Prior to our discovery of the thunders and their significance, Marshall McLuhan looked up to Joyce as a writer and artist of encyclopedic wisdom and eloquence unparalleled in our time…. After, he recognized in Joyce the prescient explorer, one who used patterns of linguistic energy to discern the patterns of culture and society and technology.” — Eric McLuhan [via jorn barger]

While Flex Your Rights takes no position on the usefulness of these searches for preventing future attacks, we have serious concerns that this unprecedented territorial expansion of police search powers is doing grave damage to people’s understanding of their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In addition, as innocent citizens become increasingly accustomed to being searched by the police, politicians and police agencies are empowered to further expand the number of places where all are considered guilty until proven innocent.

Fortunately, this trend is neither inevitable nor irreversible. In fact, the high-profile public nature of these random subway searches provides freedom-loving citizens with easy and low-risk opportunities to ‘flex’ their Fourth Amendment rights by refusing to be searched.

If you’re carrying a bag or package into the subway, here’s what you need to know and do in order to safely and intelligently ‘flex’ your rights” [via boing boing]

House and Senate negotiators on an energy bill agreed to begin daylight-saving time three weeks earlier, on the second Sunday in March, and extend it by one week to the first Sunday in November. The House bill would have added a month in the spring and another in the fall.” (CNN)

The exchange occurred during one of Roberts’ informal discussions with senators last week. According to two people who attended the meeting, Roberts was asked by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) what he would do if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral. Roberts is a devout Catholic and is married to an ardent pro-life activist. The Catholic Church considers abortion to be a sin, and various church leaders have stated that government officials supporting abortion should be denied religious rites such as communion. (Pope Benedict XVI is often cited as holding this strict view of the merging of a person’s faith and public duties).

Renowned for his unflappable style in oral argument, Roberts appeared nonplused and, according to sources in the meeting, answered after a long pause that he would probably have to recuse himself.

It was the first unscripted answer in the most carefully scripted nomination in history. It was also the wrong answer. In taking office, a justice takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. A judge’s personal religious views should have no role in the interpretation of the laws. (To his credit, Roberts did not say that his faith would control in such a case).” (LA Times)

Having served only two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after a long career as a government and private-sector lawyer, Roberts has not amassed much of a public paper record that would show his judicial philosophy. Working with the Federalist Society would provide some clue of his sympathies. The organization keeps its membership rolls secret, but many key policymakers in the Bush administration are acknowledged current or former members.” (Washington Post)

A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of “rape and murder.” No wonder Rumsfeld commented then, “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse.”

Yesterday, news emerged that lawyers for the Pentagon had refused to cooperate with a federal judge’s order to release dozens of unseen photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by Saturday. The photos were among thousands turned over by the key “whistleblower” in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby. Just a few that were released to the press sparked the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal last year, and the video images are said to be even more shocking.’ (Editor and Publisher)

The symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome have been compared to those of a really bad hangover: extreme weakness, inability to think straight, disrupted sleep and headache. But unlike a hangover, the symptoms linger for years, devastating people’s lives.

While nobody doubts CFS exists, just about every aspect of it is controversial. Some say it is the same as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME; others disagree. Many specialists are convinced it does have a biological basis, but pinning down physical abnormalities common to all patients has proved tough. People with CFS have often received little sympathy from doctors who dismiss it as ‘all in the mind’.” (New Scientist)

…Police expressed regret for the tragedy and named the innocent victim as Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician who had been living in London for three years.

…Anti-terrorism expert Robert Ayers of the Royal Institute of International Affairs said police have “demonstrated that they are operating on the premise right now that if they suspect that someone is a bomber, and that the public is going to be endangered by him, they have shoot-to-kill orders.”” (Boston Globe)

Emergency medicine begins at home, say disaster preparedness experts. Every household should have some basic first-aid supplies on hand to cope with minor emergencies.” (MedPageToday)

But on Wednesday, an investigation by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board concluded that Take Two was, in fact, responsible for the sex content, which was found in all three versions of San Andreas: the PC, Xbox and PlayStation2 discs. Wildenborg’s Hot Coffee download merely made the scenes accessible.

The industry group revoked the game’s M rating, which labeled it appropriate for players 17 or older, and re-filed it under AO for ‘adults only’ — raising the minimum age to 18, the year at which a delicate teen becomes less susceptible to the harmful influence of computer-generated cartoon sex.” (Wired News )

So all we know about him for sure is that he can’t dance and he probably doesn’t know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah … We also know he’s argued cases before the Supreme Court. Big deal; so has Larry Flynt’s attorney.

But unfortunately, other than that that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever. “

For sure you don’t say, ”Oh honey, it’s only a book.’” (Boston Globe)

Hallucinations, disorientation, dizziness and anxiety, feelings of vertigo: on a trip to Florence in 1817 the writer Stendhal suffered what later became known as Stendhal’s syndrome, a kind of overwhelming panic in the face of too much great art. Whether it was the masterpieces of the Uffizi that triggered it, or lack of sleep, the rigours of 19th-century travel, too many grappas or some instability that lurked within the author, we shall never know. Perhaps Stendhal didn’t know either…” (Guardian.UK)

The discomfort is designed to prompt people caught in the microwave beam to move away from it, thereby allowing riot-control personnel to break up and manage a crowd.

But New Scientist magazine reported Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes. In another test they were also told to remove metal objects such as coins from their clothing to prevent local hot spots from developing on their skin.

‘What happens if someone in a crowd is unable for whatever reason to move away from the beam?’ asked Neil Davison, coordinator of the nonlethal weapons research project at Britain’s Bradford University. ‘How do you ensure that the dose doesn’t cross the threshold for permanent damage? Does the weapon cut out to prevent overexposure?’

The magazine said a vehicle-mounted version of the weapon named Sheriff was scheduled for service in Iraq in 2006 and that U.S. Marines and police were both working on portable versions.” (c/net thanks to walker)