Chile Mulls Plan to Curb Global Warming. The patented plan would fertilize the ocean to enhance plankton growth, which in turn would consume more CO2 dissolved in the ocean water. Atmospheric CO2 would go into solution to compensate. Chile would “clean up” on carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change [New Scientist]
Do you suppose supermarketeers will go for this?
More opiates used to treat severe pain. A new study shows that a recent trend toward increased use of narcotic analgesics to treat severe chronic pain has not been accompanied by wider abuse of these drugs, despite the fears of “pharmacological Calvinist” detractors of adequate pain relief in medical practice.
The screenwriter of The Usual Suspects and the producer of The Sixth Sense team up with director Simon West to do a film based on the ’60’s cult classic TV series The Prisoner. Patrick McGoohan will be the executive producer.
Mickey And Minnie Skate Around Controversy in Northern Ireland by refusing to be photographed shaking hands with mayor of Londonderry.
McDonald’s humble pie? Apologizes for poking fun at Malta.
Consul of Imaginary Principality Arrested
“A man acting as consul of an imaginary principality off Britain was arrested in Madrid on suspicion of selling
fake passports to international criminals, the Civil Guard said.” The Principality of Sealand, based on a surplus military platform in the Thames estuary, follows international law and issues its own passports, according to its website.
Plan Helps Elderly With Prescriptions: proponents claim, this plan, if implemented, will make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to offer affordable prescription drug coverage to virtually all elders.
ZDNet: News: Breaking News In Brief
“The leaders of a Congressional panel Tuesday
said an automated system sought by the
Securities and Exchange Commission to
monitor fraud on the Internet could violate the
privacy of Americans.”
Life as a fate worse than death
“I am praying that the judge will be merciful,
that he will see the reasons to grant the DNR
and that he will spot and judge harshly the
self-interest that led the parents to fight it.” [Salon]
Sun’s Got the Beat “Like blood pulsing in an artery, newly discovered currents of gas
beat deep inside the Sun, speeding and slackening every 16 months.
The solar “heartbeat” throbs in the same region of the Sun suspected of driving
the 11-year cycle of solar eruptions, during which the Sun goes from stormy to
quiet and back again. Scientists are hopeful that this pulse can help them unravel
the origin and operation of the solar cycle.” [NASA Science News]
Salon review of Alice Kaplan’s new book The Collaborator about French pro-fascist novelist and critic Robert Brasillach, who was executed by firing squad on direct order of de Gaulle in the waning days of WWII. Simone de Beauvoir called his condemnation symbolically rather than judicially sound, and disturbing questions remain unanswered about what was essentially an execution for “hate speech”, a finding that intellectual crimes were as noxious as political or military. Moral ambiguity and irony swirl around the case. The judge and prosecutor had themselves been Vichy collaborators. Alice Kaplan is the daughter of a Nuremberg prosecutor. De Gaulle explained his excepting Brassilach when he pardoned all who had not actively colluded with German authorities with the assertion that “talent is a responsibility.” “And there is the more obscure question, too, of
his actual involvement in denouncing Jews in hiding in the
pages of Je Suis Partout. It was never proved beyond doubt,
but clearly the intent to harm existed. It’s an open question
whether such ambiguities merit death. In a society at peace, it
is difficult to judge the mood of a place like wartime France,
where words could literally kill.” Brasillach himself, Kaplan says, represents the contradiction of someone who came to fascism through a devotion to the mythic and symbolic, with a disdain for the political and economic. She also raises fascinating speculation that his attraction to fascism may have been at base homoerotic. In any case, refining our modern conception of “hate speech” and “crimes against humanity” depend on grappling with the Brasillach case. “Kaplan, like de Beauvoir,
is right when she points out that executing people because of
their words is a dubious path to tread. If words are actions,
after all, why not have a thought police and arm them to the
teeth? Brasillach would have approved.”
British bowel cancer fatality rate related to embarrassment?
Sometimes the bear gets you… and sometimes you get the bear.
Journal Re-Kindles Controversy Over AIDS Research: A study in which investigators are accused of standing by while their subjects acquired the HIV virus, published in the embattled New England Journal of Medicine, is blasted by a number of prominent medical critics including Jerome Groopman and NEJM executive editor Marcia Angell.
Building your body in more than one way.
Rest in peace, Terence McKenna.
NLRB: Students Can Vote on Union! ‘New York University graduate teaching assistants have the right to organize a union, a
federal labor official ruled in the first such decision involving a private college.
Daniel Silverman, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, wrote Monday that he could find
no reason to deny collective bargaining rights to the TAs “merely because they are employed by an
educational institution while enrolled as a student.”‘
Investors Race to Buy ‘Fried Air’
Dutch investors scrambled to buy shares in fictitious firm F/Rite Air (pronounced “Fried Air”), sending more
than $6.5 million in orders to an investment Web site before discovering it was an April Fools prank.
California-based F/Rite Air had been billed as having developed an “air ioniser” that might take the place of anti-depressant drug Prozac and
that was being tested by the U.S. Air Force.
Australian Team Reports Stem Cell Breakthrough
The Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development said its research team was the first to achieve the
controlled, laboratory development of nerve cells from embryonic stem cells.
John Le Carre would love this one: A thief out-foxed a former British spy center by walking off with a rare Enigma machine used by the Nazis to send
coded messages during World War Two, police said.
Yes, but is it art? After the second or third time apologizing for the infrequent updates of a weblog within a week or two, shouldn’t the author consider dropping the project?
Mobile surveying unit, to map the Marietta, Ga. municipal utility system has two wheels, pedals, GPS, laser range finders and pen-based computer, costs more than a Toyota Camry.
CIA discloses futility of Korean War spying. ‘The CIA lost so many Korean agents in futile attempts to operate behind enemy lines
in the Korean War that the agency later privately assessed its use of American-trained loyalists as “morally reprehensible,” declassified records show.’
North American Buddhists await Karmapa’s visit, after this 14-year-old who is third most important leader in Tibetan Buddhism makes his daring escape from Chinese domination in Tibet.
Intuit software may be leading the trend for software companies to routinely use Internet connections to monitor and control how customers use their software. You might have to begin taking seriously that agreement you made (when you opened the shrinkwrap) that the software company owns the software and just licenses it to you. But it’s pretty likely end users won’t roll over on this without a contest.
THE REGISTER: Hacking credit cards is preposterously easy
Surveillance in the supermarket will have you pegged, thanks to IBM. Me, I don’t even let them track my buying habits by scanning in the “discount card” at the register.
Japanese using GPS/Cellular to track wandering, confused elders who lose their way.
I’ve always wondered what ex-CIA renegade Phillip Agee has been up to. Apparently continuing to provoke the US government by encouraging tourism to Cuba.
Clinical trials of brain-protecting drugs prove unsuccessful: very disappointing news for aging baby-boomers, hopeful neurologists, and pharmaceutical companies seeking new cash cow, reported at the annual winter meeting of the American Stroke Association.
Pahrump saga continues: Radio host Art Bell says he’s retiring…again.
Calculate and celebrate your Decimal Birthday.
12 March 2000: latest of periodic journal entries from Sir Ian McKellan, describing his experiences on the set of the upcoming Lord of the Rings film, in which he plays Gandalf.
NASA’s Report of the Mars Program Independent Assessment Team. As you’ve heard by now, they acknowledge how faulty the planning process and quality assurance on the missions was.
Review of John Colapinto’s As Nature Made Him. One of two twin infants in Winnipeg loses his penis as a result of a surgical mishap during their circumcision. His parents follow the advice of a controversial sex researcher and, with the aid of surgical castration and “a rigid programme of social, mental and hormonal conditioning,” raise him as a girl, in what is called “the first infant sex reassignment to be reported on a developmentally normal child.” The case “made medical history and was lauded as completely successful.” It was anything but.
John Perry Barlow declares himself a rake. [Nerve]
The Decline and Fall: Baby Born With Bullet Wound
Second Big Iceberg Breaks Off From Antarctica “…new iceberg lies to the north and east of Roosevelt Island and is 80 miles by 12 miles. The larger
iceberg is 183 miles by 23 miles, roughly the size of Jamaica.
…The researchers said it was not yet clear if the icebergs would pose a threat to shipping.
Researchers say large chunks are breaking off of Antarctica for several reasons,
some due to global warming.”
Lottery Win Kidney Patient Bombarded by Donors
“A kidney dialysis patient who won $6.54 million in Britain’s national lottery has been bombarded with offers of
kidneys for transplant in return for some of his winnings.”
Why charismatic cults have such a foothold in East Africa by BBC East African analyst David Bamford.
More about the Ugandan cult murders. Police report briefly detaining cult leaders in 1998 for “promoting poverty.” It appears that the murders followed the anger of cult members (who had been persuaded to give their property to the cult) when they were refused refunds they demanded because the world had not ended on December 31 as cult leaders had prophesized.
The Madness of ‘King George’: “The most
damaging charge against Bush is that he seems to want a
coronation, not a campaign. It provides a single explanation
for so many of Bush’s perceived shortcomings: his
unpreparedness on issues, hence the need for scripting; his
lament in January—January!—about being tired and wanting
to sleep in his own bed; his preference for formal speeches
over town meetings; his inaccessibility to the media. The
coronation metaphor can even be expanded to his earlier life,
lending credibility to the criticism that everything he has
achieved has been the result of his name and connections:
getting into Yale, getting into the National Guard, the
sweetheart sale of his oil company, his participation in the
purchase of the Texas Rangers ball club, the governorship of
Texas, and, finally, the Republican nomination. Character
ought to be Bush’s strength. His personal qualities are beyond
reproach and so is his record of running the government
without a whiff of scandal or favoritism. He is the son of
parents we admire as people. And yet, just as his other
strengths—money, endorsements, family—have been turned
against him, so has character.”
Judith Shulevitz of Slate disses Barbara Ehrenreich for “lack of solidarity with workers”. After working cleaning houses for three weeks to research a piece for Harper’s, Ehrenreich had called for people not to hire maids.
Other buildings Worth “Kingdome”-ing [Slate] And video of the dome’s implosion [MSNBC]
The Periodic Table of Poetry [via Calamondin]
Great use for the web. Create and publish a reading list, sharing books that matter to you. “Find others who share your tastes or…expand your horizons…Make new friends and start great conversations.” Trouble is, I’m not sure I want to be part of a virtual community based on people who have read the same books I have. (Did Groucho Marx say that?)
More for you Malcolm Gladwell watchers — an interview by Toby Lester from the Atlantic.
Recent research had turned the paleontological world on its head by indicating intermingling and perhaps even interbreeding of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon human ancestors. Now a new study using DNA derived from Neanderthal tissue samples concludes that we do not have Neanderthal in our bloodlines. [BBC]
Thanks to Jorn Barger for pointing us to this: Gillian Anderson’s first journalistic assignment is interviewing David Duchovny! ‘But maybe we should have therapy for long-running
series actors. It’d be good for the cast of “Friends” to
have group therapy. We’d have couples therapy,
because we’re not an ensemble…(W)e do spend so
much time together, and it’s a hard relationship to
navigate. As soon as I say, “No, we don’t see each
other after work,” then it’s “You hate each other.”‘
The saga of BlowTheDotOutYourAss.com:
“The Sams aren’t trying to
stop the Internet from ruining San Francisco; they just want to
remind people how absurd it is to work like a dog, in a city
that is quickly forgetting leisure and humor, for a company
that’s revolutionizing something as inconsequential as how
you purchase toothpaste.” [Salon]
A Heartwarming Tale of Staggering Generosity
“This could perhaps be
the first time in domain-name history that a URL mix-up has
inspired such generosity, especially between an otherwise
unlikely pair. Truly staggering and, hopefully, inspiring.” McSweeneys.com to host mcsweeneys.net.
Planets for Dessert
On April 6, 2000, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the
Moon will put on a delightful after-dinner sky show.
The quartet will
converge inside a circle just 9 degrees across. To admire the display, simply go outside after dinner on April 6 and look toward
the southwest sky. Around 8 p.m. local daylight savings time the slender crescent
moon will be easy to spot about 30 degrees above the horizon. The brightest
nearby “star” will be Jupiter. At magnitude -2.1, the giant planet is 8 times
brighter than Saturn, which glows pale yellow less than 3 degrees west of the
Moon. Mars will lie a scant 1.1 degrees north of Jupiter. The red planet
(magnitude 0.3) will be about 3 times fainter than Saturn (magnitude 1.4).
The article on this conjunction also includes a discussion on the May 5, 2000 grand conjunction of the moon and five planets. Will it be apocalyptic, as some predict?
Proposed flag desecration amendment again stopped in the Senate:
“…two Senators switched their positions
to join 35 of their colleagues in resoundingly
defeating a proposed constitutional amendment to
ban desecration of the flag. The amendment, which
fell four votes shy of the two-thirds majority was
stopped by a flood of constituent letters and calls to
Congress.” [ACLU]
`Wonderland’: Wrung Out, Strung Out in Bedlam: my profession, with its chaos uncensored, debuts on television tonight. “Because the patients in “Wonderland” are psychiatric cases,
the series has a surreal aura, sparing and effectively used.
Here a patient behind barred windows looks down at his
slippers and sees a tiny rhino step around them. Because
these shots from the patient’s perspective are rare,
watching the show is not like existing in some mad state of
mind. The effect is more jolting, as if the sanity of the
doctors and the illness of the patients were present in the
air, at times colliding with a physical force.
What saves the series from total bleakness is the shaky order
the doctors impose. They are played by a spectacular cast.” [New York Times] Update: I’m hooked.
[Slate]:Disrobed:
The Supreme Court upheld a ban on nude dancing. The
court ruled 6-3 that an Erie, Pa., law banning public nudity,
including that of nightclub dancers, does not violate the
First Amendment. Requiring pasties and G-strings “leaves
ample capacity to convey the dancer’s erotic message.”
Justice O’Connor’s majority spin: “Being ‘in a state of
nudity’ is not an inherently expressive condition.” Justice
Scalia and Justice Thomas’ concurrent spin: What’s more, a
community should be able to declare public nudity
immoral.
”Potter” planted: Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Bicentennial Man) selected by Warner Bros. to direct screen adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first installment of an anticipated long-running and lucrative “Potter” franchise.
Harry Potter’s Wizardry Banned From School
Harry Potter, the fictional young wizard who captured children’s imagination all over the world, has been banished
from one English school because his magical powers go against the teachings of the Bible.
A rogue wave smashed into a Navy destroyer seven miles west of the Golden Gate, leaving crewman with two broken legs.
Ben may freeze Jerry out of impending deal
Study Links Agent Orange, Diabetes
“A U.S. Air Force study released on Wednesday showed a
significant link between Agent Orange and diabetes in veterans who took part in
spraying the dioxin-laced jungle defoliant in the Vietnam War.”
Mayor Giuliani has given up his ill-advised assault on the First Amendment at the Brooklyn Museum [New York Times editorial]
Planet hunters find new worlds smaller than Saturn
“Planet-hunting
astronomers have crossed an
important threshold in planet
detection with the discovery of two
planets that may be smaller in mass
than Saturn.”
WebRing: unusual museums of the Internet. {from Boing Boing}
Hilary Swank’s Academy Award acceptance speech infuriated JoAnn Brandon, whose daughter Swank portrayed in Boys Don’t Cry. (See this film!)
SSRI antidepressants may be effective against hot flashes
TopoZone: for people who don’t like maps where all there is between the highways is white space. This one has my block on it.
‘Harry Potter’ to encounter love and death [Nando Times]
As if it weren’t bad enough dept.: Chemotherapy may dull mental ability, research finds
“Ordinary doses of chemotherapy can sometimes appear to dull survivors’ intellectual
powers, leaving them with poor memories, muddy thinking and inability to do math in their heads, new research suggests.
Cancer patients often complain of “chemobrain,” or woolly-headedness during treatment. While they are typically reassured this will go away, little
attempt has been made until now to see if these subtle problems linger years later.
The new study, conducted at Dartmouth Medical School, found that people who get standard chemotherapy appear to be about twice as likely as other
cancer patients to score poorly on various intelligence tests an average of 10 years after their treatment.”
Ban the ‘Tubbies: “A coalition of child advocates today asked Public Broadcasting
System (PBS) President Pat Mitchell to stop broadcasting the Teletubbies, a television
program marketed to children as young as twelve months, because young children should
play instead of watching television, and fast food companies use the Teletubbies to market
junk food.”
ZEN— an experiential introduction.
The Military & CNN: My favorite muckraker Alexander Cockburn discovered that a Dutch journalist had discovered that, until recently, a handful of military personnel from the 4th Psychological Operations Group (i.e. PSYOPs)
based at Fort Bragg have been working in CNN’s
headquarters in Atlanta assisting in the production of news stories. A U.S. Army spokesperson confirmed their assignment and commented that, “conceivably, they would have worked on stories during the Kosovo war.” The liaison program reportedly ended only when the Dutch report on it broke. I’m as flabbergasted as Cockburn that no U.S. media have picked up this story!
Jobless white builder rules as African king
“HENK OTTE, a 43-year-old unemployed ex-builder from
Amsterdam, has been crowned King Togbe Korsi Ferdinand
Gakpector II following the discovery that he is the reincarnation
of the last great warrior king of the 250,000-strong Ewe tribe in
Ghana.” Here is his homepage.
Doctors Advise Against Vitamin C With Cancer Therapy
“Taking high doses of vitamin C while undergoing traditional cancer therapy may interfere with radiation or
chemotherapy treatments and, in a perverse way, possibly protect the very cancer cells the treatments are designed to destroy,
doctors said on Monday.”
Special issue of Feed on The New Brain: “At the end of our century, the science of the
brain has opened up a new frontier of understanding about how
our minds shape the self and the cultures we’ve built to house
it. Neuroscience research into human behavior and experience
is diverse and prone to unproven speculation, but even at this
early stage, a handful of broad conclusions seem unavoidable.”
Now I know why Bush and Gore really won.
[Salon]:The inner Doughboy. ‘Some onlookers are muttering that
the guardians of the brand icons have become so enraptured
by these happy little beings that they’ve lost their grip on
reality. “There are whole documents on what these characters
will and won’t do,” complains Court Crandall, creative
director at Ground Zero, a Santa Monica, Calif., advertising
agency. “The documents go into the thousands of pages …
Meanwhile, no one ever stops to consider whether the
character even feels worth a damn in the first place. There’s a
fine line between being a good brand custodian and being
certifiably insane.”‘
Prospect of Patriots’ Stadium Name Controversial: Foxboro, MA officials are aghast about the possibility that Monster.com will buy the rights to name the new stadium slated for the New England Patriots.
Law & Order star sues eBay: “The actor
who plays Det. Lennie Briscoe on
NBC’s “Law & Order” is suing
eBay, claiming it leaked his Social
Security number with disastrous
consequences to his credit rating.”
A taxonomy of the ways in which good intentions go bad. [Nando Times]
BBC News: Racists ‘stalked top athlete’
“British Olympic gold medal hope Ashia Hansen
was stalked by the racist gang which attacked
her white boyfriend, the couple believe.
Ms Hansen’s boyfriend Chris Cotter is
recovering at a secret address after being
stabbed in the back and slashed across the
face by a gang of up to five men.”
Embargo killed almost 10,000 in February, Iraq claims [Nando Times]
Name at issue in Northern Ireland dispute: Protestants link a return to a power-sharing government with the retention of the name of the area’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Is classroom decorum in higher education deteriorating?
Yay! Britain’s Sellafield nuclear plant, “nuclear dustbin of the world”, which reprocesses spent nuclear fuel, fights for its life. [BBC]
Some doctors are now saying that every 40-year-old should get a full-body CAT scan [MSNBC]
Website welcomes wagers on your child’s future [Nando Times]
Terabit lasers promise huge fiber-optic transmission rates. Net Speed Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet [Wired]
Would you let your smart card figure out his/her potential compatibility with you?
I probably won’t get any argument from most of you that these are more meaningful than the Academy Awards.
