US issues health warning over mercury fillings
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/us-issues-health-warning-over-mercury-fillings-856582.html
They're in millions of mouths worldwide, but have been linked to heart disease and Alzheimer's. Now a report concedes they may have a toxic effect on the body... However, a study that followed 507 Portuguese and American children for seven years after they received amalgam or mercury-free fillings found no differences in the rates of neurological symptoms between the two groups...

CNN/MSNBC reporter: Corporate executives forced pro-Bush, pro-war narrative
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/29/yellin/index.html
"..the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings..."

Bush's top general quashed torture dissent
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/30/richard_myers/
New evidence shows that despite warnings from across the military, former Gen. Richard Myers shut down legal scrutiny of brutal interrogation tactics.

A Kinder, Gentler Torture
http://www.truthout.org/article/a-kinder-gentler-torture
His American jailers spared Al-Ghizzawi the very worst of the worst in the long list of torture techniques now in use. He was not murdered or waterboarded. He did not have a razor blade taken to his penis, nor was he hung from the ceiling by his arms. One might describe Al-Ghizzawi's torture as a kinder, gentler torture. In American custody, Al-Ghizzawi was only beaten with chains; bound to chairs in excruciating positions for endless hours; threatened with death and with rape; stripped and subjected to body-cavity searches by non-medical personnel while men - and women - laughed and took pictures. Among many other brutalities and indignities, Al-Ghizzawi was also posed naked with other prisoners; terrorized with dogs; forced to kneel on stones in the searing heat; left to stand or crouch for extended periods; deprived of sleep; subjected to extreme cold without clothes or covering; denied medical attention; and kept in isolation for years...

Google disables anti-Obama blogs
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Google_disables_antiObama_blogs.html
Several anti-Obama, or pro-Clinton, blogs that run on Blogger -- Google's free blogging platform -- have been disabled after somebody complained -- falsely -- that they're spam...

Tutu's Trip to Gaza Censored by the US Media
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20025.htm
When Nobel Laureate and world renowned peacemaker Desmond Tutu goes to Gaza to visit the site of an Israeli massacre; that's news, right? So why is it impossible to find any account of his trip in America's leading newspapers? Is it because any information that is incompatible with the territorial ambitions of the Israeli leadership is simply "disappeared" into the media-ether?

Nuclear physicist loses U.S. clearance, job and right to fight back
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08153/886567-85.stm
Dr. Moniem El-Ganayni, a nuclear physicist and Muslim prison chaplain, has lost his battle with the Department of Energy to get back his security clearance and his job at the Bettis Laboratory in West Mifflin. He never even got a chance to tell his side of the story. The reason: unspecified grounds of national security.

Islamic-era skeletons 'disappeared' from Elad-sponsored dig
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/988803.html
Dozens of skeletons from the early Islamic period were discovered during excavations near the Temple Mount, on a site slated for construction by a right-wing Jewish organization. Contrary to regulations, the skeletons were removed, and were not reported to the Ministry of Religious Services. The Israel Antiquities Authority termed the incident "a serious mishap."

New video game's objective: Stop the spread of Christianity and Islam
http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/local/article/object_of_new_video_game_is_to_stop_the_spread_of_christianity_and_islam/11957/
The object of the game is to stop the spread of Christianity and Islam by murdering Abraham and the authors of the Bible, before beheading Muhammad...

'Foreign' Paddington and the new UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7431396.stm
The creator of Paddington Bear, Michael Bond, has told the BBC how modern life has brought a new dimension to his much-loved character as he returns for the first time for nearly 30 years. Paddington Here And Now, published on Monday, brings the marmalade-loving creature up to date as he tries to deal with tabloid newspapers, stringent measures dictating where a wheeled suitcase can be parked - and his status as an immigrant from Darkest Peru.

Taboo Trial Words: 'Drunk,' 'Victim,' 'Rape'
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5277015
"Rape." "Drunk." "Victim." "Crime scene." "Homicide." These are the words one would expect to hear in trials for such crimes as drunken driving, robbery, murder, sexual assault. But these are just a few of the words that have recently been banned from criminal trials around the country in what some prosecutors warn is a growing and disturbing trend...

One in five Aussie women indulge in cyber-sex
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14705836
Sex is not just limited to bedroom anymore, for women have found their sex haven in the virtual world as well, what with one in five Aussie women admitting to having a sexual encounter in an internet chatroom, reveals a new survey.

(The next time I'm at a table with 5 women, I'm going to ask them which one it was...--ED)

What the F***?
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=246c0071-a9cd-46e2-a665-c6e61a45377e
When it comes to political speech, we are living in a free-speech utopia. Late-night comedians can say rude things about their nation's leaders that, in previous centuries, would have led to their tongues being cut out or worse. Yet, when it comes to certain words for copulation and excretion, we still allow the might of the government to bear down on what people can say in public. Swearing raises many other puzzles--linguistic, neurobiological, literary, political.

Pagan 'blessing' sought for new building
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65800
A former employee of a Tennessee insurance company is objecting to a "ceremony" held at the construction site of a new building because it called on "the gods on the structure" for "good fortune and fertility."

My Illegal Home Birth
http://babble.com/content/articles/features/personalessays/holler/My-Illegal-Home-Birth-Giving-Birth-At-Home-Was-Weird-Magical-And-A-Felony/index.aspx
Giving birth at home was weird, magical and a felony.

Forget Viagra, Eat Watermelon - Same results, no side-effects
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Forget-Viagra-Eat-Watermelon-88937.shtml
According to a new study carried out at the College Station's Texas A&M Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center, the watermelon could soon take Viagra producing companies out of business since it contains chemicals that have effects similar to those of the blue pill, thus increases libido.

Porn star set for Tarantino's 'Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill!' remake
http://www.topnews.in/light/porn-star-set-tarantino%2526%2523039%3Bs-%E2%80%98faster,-pussycat,-kill!-kill!%E2%80%99-remake-212819
Porn star Tera Patrick is being considered for Quentin Tarantino's remake of 'Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill!'

Americans are world's top drug users: study
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hovUpnhllEsX9vClXt86VxCmwo1A
Americans are the world's top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine.

(They mean USAnian Americans, as opposed to the other kinds..--ED)

'Raped' girl, 11, can have abortion
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ja-lUSvC1G_zSHTeWGpofeQBDcNw
An 11-year-old girl who was reportedly raped by her uncle can have an abortion in Romania on exceptional grounds, the country's government ruled.

(Love the Scare Quotes...*sigh*...--ED)

Alisha Dean Doesn't Look - Or Act - 13
http://www.dreamindemon.com/2008/05/21/alisha-dean-doesnt-look-or-act-13/
That's what Morris Williams said. Williams, 22, went to see Alisha Dean's father, Jerry Dean, after several dates with Alisha. Alisha had told Morris Williams she was 18. Her Myspace (now edited and private) said she was 19 and divorced. But after having sex with Alisha, Williams got worried. Things she said and did tipped him off, and he went to see Jerry Dean, who told Williams that yeah, his daughter was only 13. Then Jerry Dean called the police to press charges.

Now, the backlash
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/01/gender.women
The sex industry is booming, the rape conviction rate is plummeting, women's bodies are picked over in the media, abortion rights are under serious threat and top business leaders say they don't want to employ women. It all adds up to one thing ... an all-out assault on feminism. But why?

Computer autocorrects surname "gay" to... no, you guess
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/06/30/computer_autocorrects_surname_gay_to_no_you_guess.html
The American Family Association doesn't like the word "gay". Its auto-correct software obeys. With disastrous results...

Ancient crashed UFO claimed to be from dinosaur age, 150 million years ago
http://jointreconstudygroup.blogspot.com/2008/06/ancient-crashed-ufo-claimed-to-be-from.html
News released today about a secret U.S. Government project to analyze an allegedly extraterrestrial craft has a unique twist. This craft did not crash in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico. According to the anonymous sources, it crashed approximately 150 million years ago during the age of the dinosaurs...

Study finds long benefit in illegal mushroom drug
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/S/SCI_PSYCHEDELIC_STUDY
In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research project... Scientists reported Tuesday that when they surveyed volunteers 14 months after they took the drug, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience...

When It Comes to Saving, Who Would You Listen to: My Wife or Milton Friedman?
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/when-it-comes-to-saving-who-would-you-listen-to-my-wife-or-milton-friedman/
"When I was a first-year assistant professor at the University of Chicago, my friend and department chair, Jose Scheinkman, relayed the advice Milton Friedman had given him 20 years earlier, 'Don't save too much'..."

Security Alert: Microsoft Advises Users To Restrict Safari Use
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Security_Alert_Microsoft_Advises_Users_To_Restrict_Safari_Use_18364.html
Microsoft's security team issued a warning to all Windows users to stop using Apple's Safari browser pending a security vulnerability investigation... Microsoft warned that anyone who uses Safari at this point is vulnerable to such an attack...

(Yup. And they're always telling Windows users to stop using Internet Explorer when there's a vunerability with it...--ED)

Scientist Launch Worldwide Bid To Make Wikipedia More Accountable And Accurate
http://www.itproportal.com/articles/2008/06/30/scientist-launch-worldwide-bid-make-wikipedia-more-accountable-and-accurate/
The recent work carried out by Dr Marley, a psychiatrist from Rotherham, England has shown a way forward that is likely to prove especially significant for the knowledge based website Wikipedia.

Cancer cells revert to normal at specific signal threshold, researchers find
http://www.physorg.com/news134108296.html
Cancer starts when key cellular signals run amok, driving uncontrolled cell growth. But scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that lowering levels of one cancer signal under a specific threshold reverses this process in mice, returning tumor cells to their normal, healthy state. The finding could help target cancer chemotherapy to tumors while minimizing side effects for the body's healthy cells.

Study provides cold sore cure hopes
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/health/tennis/study-provides-cold-sore-cure-hopes-$1230132.htm
Scientists believe they are a step closer to finding a cure for cold sores after discovering how the virus behind them manages to hide away.

Casual sex left me feeling worthless: How a one-night stand left one woman emotionally destroyed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1031259/Casual-sex-left-feeling-worthless-night-stand-left-woman-emotionally-destroyed.html
New research says women bitterly regret one-night stands. But the emotional damage can go deeper than you think...

Islamic hard-liners in Indonesian capital break up rally promoting religious tolerance
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/01/news/Indonesia-Religious-Violence.php
Islamic hard-liners broke up a religious tolerance rally Sunday in Indonesia, beating demonstrators with bamboo sticks and calling for the deaths of members of a Muslim sect they consider heretical, witnesses said...

The Pit of Life and Death
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=961
Just outside Butte, Montana lies a pit of greenish poison a mile and a half wide and over a third of a mile deep... In 1995, an analytic chemist named William Chatham saw something unusual in the allegedly lifeless lake: a small clump of green slime floating on the water's surface.

20+ Weirdest and Ugliest-Looking Animals on Earth
http://www.scienceray.com/Biology/Zoology/20-Weirdest-and-Ugliest-Looking-Animals-on-Earth.154635
Most people will not even give those extremely weird and ugly animals a second look. In the worst cases, these innocent animals are being killed, slaughtered or tortured because their weird look made people could not bear to look at them. As for the animal protection and rights organization, they feel a concern in the sharp decline of these weird animals as people pay no attention and care for them.

(Featuring linkfrenzy's mascot and totem, the Star-Nosed Mole! Hooray!--ED)

Conservative Anglicans form breakaway church in revolution led from the south
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/30/anglicanism.religion
Conservative evangelicals representing half of the world's Anglicans launched a new global church yesterday, challenging the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and vowing to rescue people from the forces of "militant secularism and pluralism" created by a "spiritual decline" in developing economies.

Exclusive: First Look at Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible"
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Roush-Dispatch/Joss-Whedon-Dr/800042425
Two of my favorite things in all of show business-- musical comedy and Joss Whedon -- combine in the funniest, freshest TV special of the summer, which happens to be available only on your computer starting in mid-July...

Captain Hammer: Be Like Me! (Nemesis of Dr. Horrible!)
http://myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=12&storynum=2
Written by Zack Whedon, art by Eric Canete

'Pregnant Man' Gives Birth to Girl
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5302756&page=1
Thomas Beatie, the transgender man who made headlines as the so-called "pregnant man," gave birth Sunday to a healthy baby girl, ABC News has learned...

I Speak With Sylvia Browne
http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/articles/ispeakwithbrowne.shtml
From time to time, I receive emails from Browne supporters who ask whether or not I have ever seen her in person. Some of them say that if I ever saw her in person, it would change my opinion of her and her abilities. Others have gone so far as to say that until I see her in person, I have no right to express an opinion of her or of her abilities. Whether or not that last statement is true, I decided that I would go to see one of Browne's shows/lectures the next time circumstances permitted.

Pringles Can Inventor Buried in a--wait for it--Pringles Can
http://icantseeyou.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/pringles-can-inventor-buried-in-await-for-itpringles-can.html
Dr. Fredric J. Baur was so proud of having designed the container for Pringles potato crisps that he asked his family to bury him in one. His children honored his request. Part of his remains was buried in a Pringles can - along with a regular urn containing the rest - in his grave at Arlington Memorial Gardens in Springfield Township.

Dark Morris: Dancing the Sun Down
http://oldtownschool.org/connect/hottimes/2007/10/29/dark-morris-dancing-the-sun-down/
A good introduction to Morris dance was watching their celebration of Halloween. This year, as in the past, Chicago's Ravenswood Morris joined Morris dancing teams all around the world to dance the sun down -- an old tradition known as "dark Morris"...

(Or at least, "old" in the sense of 1991, when Pterry invented it in his book Reaper Man...--ED)

Recently Traditional Fictional Morris (RTFM)
http://rtfm.arberth.com/
RTFM is a group of morris dancers who perform the other dance (as described by Terry Pratchett in Reaper Man) at sunset each October 31st...

Schoolboy first to 'name' iceberg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7429046.stm
An enormous Antarctic iceberg will be known as "Melting Bob" after being named by a Hampshire schoolboy. Melting Bob is three times the size of Greater London...

My Strangest UFO Abduction Case, by Brad Steiger
http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0608/strangest-case.html
If the following report were not attested to by a very matter-of-fact physician associated with one of the largest, most prestigious hospitals in the Midwest, I would be extremely hesitant about sharing it with the public...

List of fictional elements, materials, isotopes and atomic particles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_elements%2C_materials%2C_isotopes_and_atomic_particles
Some of the materials listed as elements below may indeed be minerals, alloys, or other such combinations, but fictional works are often vague on such distinctions...

Pregnant women get morning sickness to protect fetus
http://www.physorg.com/news134143992.html
Two evolutionary biologists report that morning sickness protects both the pregnant woman and the developing embryo just when the fetus is most vulnerable.

Wood density holds key to Stradivarius sweet sound
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080702/sc_nm/stradivarius_dc
Researchers using a medical scanner have worked out why a Stradivarius violin sounds so good -- it is because of the remarkably even density of the wood...

The really early days of computing: How I shot down VisiCalc
http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/207801301
After college, I went to work for the space agency, NASA. I was going to help put men on the moon (which I did). My first day, I received the two tools of my trade: an 18-inch government-issue slide rule and a book of five-place trig tables...

Regenerate! Fans revive 60s Doctor Who
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/26/bbc.doctorwho
An army of enthusiasts is recreating lost instalments of the Doctor's adventures with hand-drawn and computer animations

Graffiti And Stencil Art Will! Be! Ex! Terminated!
http://io9.com/397147/graffiti-and-stencil-art-will-be-ex-terminated
It's no wonder the Daleks rule the street art and graffiti world -- they have sleek awesome lines, and one of the most famous street artists in the world is called Dalek...

UNT checks authenticity of UFO claim
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080701_wz_auroraufo.11907b7a.html
University of North Texas researchers are analyzing pieces of unsual metallic objects to see if they could have come from a UFO. Some people believe the metal came from a spacecraft that crashed in Aurora back in 1897. The History Channel program "UFO Hunters" recently made the discovery while searching in a cemetery...

(No, Not UNIT! The Aurora crash, which was quite famous in UFO circles for the reported burial in the local cemetery of a dead UFOnaut, was previously claimed to have been the invention of a local newspaper...--ED)

50 Amazingly Helpful Time-Tested Tips for the Kitchen
http://lifehackery.com/2008/05/17/50-amazingly-helpful-time-tested-tips-for-the-kitchen/
You know all of those helpful kitchen-related suggestions that old-timers are so willing to share with the younger generations? These little tips and tricks might be called "kitchen hacks" these days, but they're still the same good old nuggets of wisdom that they always were. As with any old wives' tale, hack, or tip, your mileage may vary. Some of these gems have been around for several lifetimes - and according to most grandmas, they really work.

Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-no-ice-at-the-north-pole-855406.html
Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change... for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. ...If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

(Oh goody...*sigh* stoopid eejits--ED)

Barack Obama
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp

(There sure are a lot of lies being told about him...--ED)

McCain fundraiser "oversaw payment of roughly $1.7 million" to terror group in Colombia
http://www.americablog.com/2008/07/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw-payment-of.html
If you or I knowingly funneled $1.7 million to one of the worst, and best known, terrorist organizations in the world, we'd be sent to Guantanamo permanently. But when it's the senior management of Chiquita Banana, the Bush administration gives them a fine...

It's a delicate dance, and John McCain is 'liable to break a hip'
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15924.html
Long-time readers know that I've been emphasizing John McCain's dozens of major policy flip-flops for months now, hoping that this would a) catch on as a campaign issue; and b) undermine McCain's unearned reputation for principled stands on the issues. I'm beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, the criticism is taking root.

Richard Hayes Phillips,Author of "Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Exclusive-with-Richard-Hay-by-Joan-Brunwasser-080612-229.html
This landmark investigation is a testament to what private citizens can accomplish when government officials fail to protect our right to vote and to count those votes as cast. Every American ? Republican and Democrat ? should read this book, and join the fight for democracy's most fundamental right.

China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?ei=5124&en=727ea9eaf9d71aa3&ex=1372737600&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1215007206-LSjgDGaSswqfvu1ZH7ACIQ
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure." What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners. The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency...

William Gibson Completely Deleted from BoingBoing Archives
http://www.tomorrowmuseum.com/2008/06/28/william-gibson-completely-deleted-from-boingboing-archives/
Boing Boing deleted every mention of William Gibson on the site. A list he wrote of "Top 10 Science Fiction Memes of 2006" is now offline. They no longer link to his books. A few days later the podcast interview they did with Gibson was offline too. Only a "via" link to a site that's not his own remains...

That William Gibson thing
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/01/that-violet-blue-thi.html
Boing Boing has been caught in the middle of a real internet shitstorm and pile-on over the last few days. ...Bottom line is that those posts (not "more than 100 posts," as erroneously claimed elsewhere) were removed from public view a year ago. Willian behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her. It's our blog and so we made an editorial decision, like we do every single day...

LaVena Johnson: Murdered By Her Colleagues, Ignored By The Army
http://jezebel.com/5020732/lavena-johnson-murdered-by-her-colleagues-ignored-by-the-army
Private LaVena Johnson's nose was broken, teeth were loose, one eye was concave and there were abrasions over her body. The supposed M-16 hole to the head was far too small for the revolver-sized exit wound, and was on the wrong side of her skull for a right-handed woman to have pulled the trigger. Her genital area showed evidence of acid, perhaps used to destroy DNA evidence. She had white military gloves glued to her burned hands... Oh, and there was a trail of blood leading away from the tent where her body was found.

Top 10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/06/27/top-10-strangest-anti-terrorism-patents/
Technology has always played a big role in fighting terrorism. Some inventions are truly useful and will undoubtedly save lives, whereas others are so bizarre that one wonders how in the world they got patented. This list is about the latter: Behold the Top 10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents!

Gun Camera Adds Graffiti to Other People's Photos
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/06/gun-camera-adds.html
How? It's simple. The device has a slave unit on top which is triggered when it sees a flash fire. This triggers his own flash, which fires through the back of the camera, through a film slide containing his slogan and then on and out through the lens at the front...

Recording Industry Decries AM-FM Broadcasting as 'A Form of Piracy'
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/recording-indus.html

(And this after the recent linkfrenzied MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits...--ED)

Magic Mushrooms' Transcendent Effect Lingers
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=long-trip-magic-mushrooms&sc=rss
Survey shows that profound mental changes induced by psilocybin have lasted for more than a year... People who took magic mushrooms were still feeling the love more than a year later, and one might say they were on cloud nine about it, scientists report

Cancer Cured? Granulocytes Treatment Worked 100 Percent In Mice Work But Will It Work In Humans?
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/cancer_cured_granulocytes_treatment_worked_100_percent_in_mice_work_but_will_it_work_in_humans
"In mice, we've been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors. Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans."

Mother told baby's bare bottom is pornographic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2194306/Mother-told-baby%27s-bare-bottom-is-pornographic.html
When Gail Jordan found an old photograph of her son as a bouncing baby, she thought it would make the perfect adornment for the top of his 21st birthday cake. But staff at Asda, whom she asked to transfer the print, refused to help unless Miss Jordan agree to censor the picture, because it showed the child's bare bottom. They claimed that the photograph - which featured her son David as a five-month-old baby, and lying on his front - could be pornographic...

UN silence on child abuse
http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/UN-silence-on-child-abuse,3223
The feeble response by the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, and the blanket of silence from the international humanitarian community at large to serious allegations of sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers and others- has raised concerns in human rights circles.

20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet
http://www.purpleslinky.com/Trivia/Science/Deadliest-Plants-in-the-Planet.145297
Although many plants are beneficial to human beings there are also certain varieties that have been proven to be harmful and fatal to humans. Here's a list of the deadliest plants in the world. (Photos courtesy of Wikipedia)

(Of course, many--if not most--of these are also medicinal...--ED)

How to wrap your friend's apartment in tin foil: A Love Story
http://www.blacktable.com/elder040114.htm
The prank took five days to complete and foil was used to cover everything in the apartment -- down to the quarters in the coin jar, the casings of each CD -- and suddenly, an innocuous joke is magnified into speed freak Warhol Factory-like proportions.

My Beautiful Cervix
http://mybeautifulcervix.googlepages.com/
One full cycle of Cervie Love... I am a 25 year old woman who has never given birth. My intention with this project was to better understand my cycle and the changes in my cervix throughout the month... Each photo was taken at approx 10:00 pm every day starting the first day of my menstrual cycle...

My findings on Tara were altered, says archaeologist
http://www.tarawatch.org/?p=720
A LEADING archaeologist employed to survey the M3 Tara Valley route has claimed her findings were changed to support the motorway when in fact there was evidence against it. In a devastating attack, Jo Ronayne - who was working for the National Roads Authority - says her findings were altered before being presented to ministers...

MoD 'Facebook generation' warning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7473818.stm
Armed forces recruits from the "Facebook generation" do not take data security seriously enough, a Ministry of Defence security probe has found.

Sensational discovery in Buenos Aires: Lost scenes from "Metropolis" rediscovered
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/en/04-00-00-news.html
Staff members of the Museo del Cine Pablo C. Ducros Hicken in Buenos Aires, found the missing scenes which had been considered lost up to now, in a 16mm Negative. ...thanks to the Argentinean material, the dream of the completion of "Metropolis" will finally come true.

Key scenes from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" have been rediscovered
http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/27/metropolis-vorab-englisch
Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years

AVG disguises fake traffic as IE6
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/avg_disguises_fake_traffic_as_ie6/
Exclusive AVG has rejiggered the fake traffic it's spewing across the internet, causing new headaches for the world's webmasters.

Devo In The Midst Of Suing McDonald's For Copyright Infringement
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7011399185
New Wave music group Devo is planning to sue fast food giant McDonald's over their Happy Meal figure that sports their trademark hat...

Telstra heavies Wikipedia to protect CEO's image
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18746/1095/
Reports have emerged revealing that, back in March this year, Telstra lawyers wrote to Wikipedia alleging that some parts of the entry on Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo were defamatory and demanding their immediate removal: Which may explain why his entry today is bereft of any reference to the many critical articles about him published in the early days of his Telstra leadership...

Biblical Text-Writing May Have Poisoned Monks
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/27/poison-monks-mercury.html
Medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries reveal that monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials may have been exposed to toxic mercury,

Foreign Policy Survey Ranking The World's Intellectuals Finds The Top Ten Are Muslims
http://israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=2476

5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed
http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html
Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects. Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. No, we're talking about you. The experiments speak for themselves...

Zombie Child
http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/zombie/violette/
A Zombie Tale of Old New Orleans - Violette: With Eyes To Die For!

Canoeist is arrested
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1029813/Canoeist-arrested-held-hours-DNA-taken--crime-paddling-river.html
...held for two hours and has his DNA taken - all for the 'crime' of paddling down a river

Agwa, a new liqueur made from coca leaves, is giving Valley barflies a boost
http://phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-06-26/news/agwa-a-new-liqueur-made-from-coca-leaves-is-giving-valley-barflies-a-boost/

June 19, 240 B.C.: The Earth Is Round, and It's This Big
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0619
Greek astronomer, geographer, mathematician and librarian Eratosthenes calculates the Earth's circumference. His data was rough, but he wasn't far off.

Audio Slideshow: Storm on Saturn
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7468832.stm
In the remote Australian Outback, a retired miner has found himself the toast of the astronomical world by capturing rare pictures of an electrical storm on Saturn. Trevor Barry's images have attracted interest from Nasa's Cassini mission to the planet.

Canada Free Press Columnist, Yomin Postelnik, Attacked by Atheist Group
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3488
A South Florida columnist who recently wrote a column in Canada Free Press titled, "Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound," has received over 200 emails from militant atheists and has found himself the target of numerous forum posts and harassing phone calls...

Yomin Postelnik, poster-boy for arrogant theistic fractal wrongness
http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2008/06/yomin-postelnik-poster-boy-for-arrogant.html
It's been a while since I bloodied my knuckles and let some smug ignoramus have it right in the teeth. So I figured it's time. This is a l-o-n-g one, but a fun one. I hope. Via Dawkins' site, I learn of a lengthy essay over at Canada Free Press by a nincompoop with the improbable name of Yomin Postelnik, with the grandiose title of "Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound". If you thought Ray Comfort was a cocky assclown, you'll love this guy...

(And people wonder why I'm Agnostic... it's because I have a brain, but don't particularly fancy punching people in the mouth...--ED)

The End of Theory
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"... The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete...

Tongue-Tied: The Legal Implications of Animal Sacrifice
http://blog.masslive.com/localbuzz/2008/06/tonguetied.html

Pirate Tax Funds Pirate Album
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-tax-funds-pirate-album-080613/
For every blank CDr bought, a few cents "pirate tax" are added to compensate artists for loss of revenue when people share their albums. However, not every artist agrees that sharing is wrong so as a statement, the Swedish artist Mr.Suitcase has used his "pirate tax" income to make a pirate album.

Censor Bar Art
http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/06/11
For the first time ever, a video of good-looking, naked young people was made more interesting with censor bars.

The Paper Version of the Web
http://deeplinking.net/paper-web/
People have been sketching user interfaces since the birth of the web... We don't usually get to see this handmade stage of the web, but some folks have been thoughtful/narcissistic enough to upload photos of their UI sketches, and I find them fascinating.

How Russian Scientists Kept a Dog's Severed Head Alive!
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/how-russian-scientists-kept-a-dogs-severed-head-alive/1315
...it was widely reported in the media that a Soviet scientist in the late 1920s by the name of Sergei Brukhonenko actually managed to keep the severed head of a dog alive. The dog's head was reportedly connected to a primitive heart-lung machine called an "autojector"... The device supposedly gives the head everything it needs to maintain life...

Adolf Hitler told bad jokes about Nazi friends
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/2185507/Adolf-Hitler-told-bad-jokes-about-Nazi-friends.html
Adolf Hitler took time out from running Nazi Germany to make jokes at the expense of his henchmen, a new book claims.

Stuff White People Like: #4 Comparing People to Hitler
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/06/25/winner-4/
In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.

Warning over dangers posed by creation of 'artificial life'
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scitech/Warning-over-dangers-posed-by.4167265.jp
An emerging field of science which is being used to create artificial life is at risk of damaging the ecosystem and being abused by terrorists, according to a new report.

and Thousands gather to celebrate lesbians
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/28/BA2N11H3N0.DTL&tsp=1
Rainbow flags fluttered and motorcycles squealed as thousands of lesbians thronged to Dolores Park today to hug, march, celebrate, holler and pump each other up at the annual Dyke Festival and March. There were dykes on bikes, dykes with tykes and, on stage, there were dykes with mics.

Taleban's '$100m opium takings'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7469194.stm
The Taleban made an estimated $100m (£50m) in 2007 from Afghan farmers growing poppy for the opium trade, the United Nations says.

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange
James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7461707.stm
Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007. But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss. ...A few years ago, scientists were predicting that Arctic waters would be ice-free in summers by about 2080. Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050. Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980. By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013...

The Unclear Origins of Oil
http://kk.org/ct2/2008/06/the-unclear-origins-of-oil.php
By now you'd think we would know where it comes from. No one really knows. The conventional wisdom is that oil descends from algae from eons ago... the Russians have an alternative theory that oil comes from non-biological carbon compounds deep in this planet, like the methane oceans we find on other planets. In this scenario oil is a planetary phenomenon. Indeed this abiogenic oil could still be forming in the earth. Thousands of Russian papers supporting this view have still not been translated. The American astrophysicist Thomas Gold also advocated a similar idea...

Neck and Neck!
http://gmskarka.livejournal.com/414896.html?style=mine
As we move through the general election, remember that the corporate media has a vested interest in a tight race: It's dramatic, it's sexy, and it puts asses in seats -- more eyes on the screen, to watch the commercials that the "news" channels show for their sponsors. The problem is....this isn't a tight race... Here is a look at current projected electoral totals -- the first batch are sites which aggregate state polls ...and then the current projected electoral totals as presented by MSNBC and CNN.

Judge's ban on the use of the word 'rape' at trial reflects trend
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/654147.html
It's the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her. She was raped. But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word "rape" in front of a jury. The term "sexual assault" also was taboo, and Bowen could not refer to herself as a victim or use the word "assailant" to describe the man who allegedly raped her. The defendant's presumption of innocence and right to a fair trial trumps Bowen's right of free speech, said the Lincoln, Neb., judge who issued the order.

(Actually, isn't this "tampering with evidence" by the judge?--ED)

Democratic Convention May Debut Use Of Poop Gun
http://io9.com/5020074/democratic-convention-may-debut-use-of-poop-gun
Should you choose to protest at the Democratic National Convention this year, you may be hit with a case of a muddy bottom. The cops are reputed to be considering the use of a poop gun, otherwise known as the "Brown Note," which blasts an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily...

Target Store Scans Driver's License / ID Card Data
http://papersplease.org/wp/2008/06/27/target-store-scans-driver%E2%80%99s-license-id-card-data/
Has your license or ID card data been swiped and retained by a store, bank, bar, club or other business?

Blogger arrests hit record high
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7456357.stm
More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.

Here's Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They're Banned
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/16/heres-our-new-policy-on-ap-stories-theyre-banned/
The A.P. doesn't get to make it's own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even thought they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it's clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don't exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content...

Italian soldiers floored by 77-year-old Japanese woman
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2180451/Italian-soldiers-floored-by-77-year-old-Japanese-woman.html
Italian soldiers are facing the embarrassment of being beaten up daily by a 77-year-old Japanese grandmother.

Scots Say Wikipedia Stunts Educational Progress
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/technology/May-June-08/Scots-Say-Wikipedia-Stunts-Educational-Progress.html
The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) blames Wikipedia for the rising rate of failure among students taking the country's Standard Grade exams.

State+Capitalist Slavery, in the USA, in living memory.
http://catsidhe.livejournal.com/88786.html?style=mine
You know how the USA is not really a racist country, and that any problems which black people have there is their own fault, and talk of reparations is just divisive and offensive nonsense because it has been so long since the end of slavery that any further inequality must be their own fault? Yeah, the technical term for that would be a lie. Douglas A. Blackmon has documented how there was still slavery in the United States until at least the second World War. Not just Forced Labour, or Indentured Servitude, but full-blown chattel slavery, complete with impunity over deaths.

Scientists yet to crack gecko in egg mystery
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/27/2287538.htm
Scientists remain stumped over last month's discovery in Darwin of a gecko inside an egg shell...

BitTorrent Users Refuse To Pay Copyright Fines
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-users-refuse-to-pay-copyright-fines-080615/
During the last couple of years, hundreds of people have received letters from lawyers demanding compensation for the alleged uploading of copyright works. Their demands state that if you don't pay up, you will be taken to court and dealt with severely. However, when people refuse to pay - nothing happens.

Shapelle Corby Tours
http://www.schapellecorbytours.com/
My name is Eddie Hutauruk and I have been running tours in Bali for over 8 years. Schapelle Corby Tours is a convicted Australian drug runner, and my tours allow people to see Schapelle in her cage at Kerobokan Prison in Bali...

The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator
http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html
This translator will take what you write in it and turn it into the manner a 12-year-old AOLer would write it. Type in what you want translated and then click the button.

The Great Human Migration
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/human-migration.html
Thirty-six thousand years ago, before the world's human population differentiated into the mishmash of races and ethnicities that exist today, "We were all Africans."

How Bronze Age man enjoyed his pint
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6941951.stm
Two archaeologists have put forward a theory that one of the most common ancient monuments seen around Ireland may have been used for brewing ale.

Unexplained ground heat burns boy's feet
http://www.koaa.com/aaaa_top_stories/x1331638508
There was no fire, but the ground was hot enough in a Colorado Springs park to burn through an eight year old boy's shoes and cause at least second degree burns on his feet. The boy went the hospital. His Crocs style shoes that were left behind have big holes with burned edges.

(Can you say "SuperVolcano"?--ED)

Author Sues Booksellers for Selling His Books
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6570810.html
A few weeks ago John Mitzel, proprietor of Calamus Books in Boston, was surprised to open his mail and discover he'd been named in a lawsuit filed by an author The suit, filed by Larry Townsend's attorney for copyright infringement, stems from a dispute over unpaid fees allegedly owed the author by his distributor ...Nonetheless, the suit charges that Mitzel, along with over 40 other booksellers, infringed on Townsend's copyright by selling the author's books in his store...

Man dressed as penis arrested after interrupting graduation
http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/06/26/news/latest/doc4863cb99a9128369160576.txt
The Saratoga Springs High School graduation ceremony was suddenly interrupted Thursday morning when a 19-year-old man dressed as a set of male genitals streaked across the stage of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center...

All time classic creationist pwnage
http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-time-classic-creationist-pwnage/
Richard Lenski is a biologist who recently found evidence for the emergence of new traits among E.coli bacteria... His results look a bit like evolution. Andrew Schlafly is a startlingly predictable right wing christian activist who runs Conservapedia. Schlafly read Lenski. He got angry. He demanded the original data. It was pointed out to him that the original data was in the paper. He demanded the original data again. With menaces. The following exchange... represents pwnage on a scale most of us can only dream of.

Social Media Websites Banned Worldwide
http://socialmediatrader.com/social-media-websites-banned-worldwide/
According to the recent World Information Access report, since 2003, "64 citizens unaffiliated with news organizations have been arrested for their blogging activities". But it's not just individual bloggers who are under threat. There have been numerous attempts by governments to censor social media sites. Using IBM's ManyEyes tool, we've created a map of the most censored websites around the world.

The Banned Teeth Poster
http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=22738
If you haven't yet heard of Teeth then you have not been listening hard enough. The story of a girl with chompers in a very strange place is a funny, occasionally disgusting and surprisingly sweet movie, with an adorable performance by Jess Weixler, and is definitely worthy of your time. Momentum Pictures has provided us with an alternative poster for the movie that was apparently banned...

Scarecrows work on people too
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/scarecrows-work-on-people-too/
As a child, I first realized how dumb birds must be when I saw my first scarecrow. How could the birds' behavior be so radically affected by something that is obviously fake? Now a new study suggests that humans (at least psychology professors) don't behave much differently.

L. Ron Hubbard's 5 Most Impressive Lies (Besides Scientology)
http://www.cracked.com/article_16337_l-ron-hubbards-5-most-impressive-lies-besides-scientology.html
Some things are self-evident: Murder is wrong, kindness is good and 75 million years ago, a ruler of a Galactic Confederacy rounded up billions of his own citizens and shipped them to Earth (then called Teegeeack), tied them to volcanoes and used hydrogen bombs to blow up their bodies. Adultery is bad. Lying is wrong. Yet somehow, some statements made by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, even those having nothing to do with the religion, have actually come into question by critics who often refer to them as "exaggerated" and "laugh out loud retarded."

Plastics unite to make unexpected 'metal'
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14140-plastics-unite-to-make-unexpected-metal.html
Jamming the right two pieces of plastic together creates a thin but strongly conducting channel along the junction that acts like a metal... The discovery could lead to a whole new way of making electronics from non-metallic materials, and even new superconductors.

More than a "little hill"
http://feministing.com/archives/009403.html
Fun facts about your clitoris...

1. The clitoris rivals the penis in size....
   
2. "The vaginal wall is, in fact, the clitoris. (more...)

A Nuclear President?
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/a-nuclear-president/
Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030...

arctic, and coastal drilling
http://jlassen.livejournal.com/573754.html?style=mine
The next time someone says the key to cheap oil is drilling in the artic national wildlife refuge, and opening up drilling on the coasts of California, and Florida, be sure to remind them that if unrestricted drilling began tomorrow, the price at the pump would be reduced by less than 6 cents, by 2025.

Kucinich presents Bush impeachment articles
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Kucinich_presents_Bush_impeachment_articles_0609.html
An Ohio Democratic lawmaker and former presidential candidate has presented articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress. Thirty-five articles were presented by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to the House of Representatives late Monday evening...

Lawyer: Gitmo interrogators told to trash notes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080609/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_interrogations;_ylt=ArIWuGVKRz6YW3eOvPJtpVqs0NUE
The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military defense lawyer said Sunday.

Roadmap to Torture
http://washingtonindependent.com/view/sere-sucker
Testimony Reveals How Torture Resistance Training, 'SERE,' Became Pentagon's 'Enhanced' Interrogations

Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/41394.html
The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross...

(Once again the FAILpress uses the euphemism "harsh treatment" when they should be using the word Torture...--ED)

Guantanamo court day for alleged 9/11 mastermind
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD913PJ9G0
The military expects a confrontational hearing when the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and four alleged confederates are brought before a Marine colonel presiding over their war-crimes tribunal.

Can you imagine if the wife of the democratic nominee had had an addiction to pain killers...
http://jlassen.livejournal.com/573329.html?nc=5&style=mine
Addicted, and to keep up with her addiction, stole them from a medical charity that she founded? ...it looks like Cindy McCain has managed to overcome this problem. ...The Media double standard continues to be alive and well. Don't even get me started on the class double standard here. She steals Narcotics for 4 years, and her punishment is that she has to work in a soup kitchen -- You know... because she's white and rich. Try being poor and brown and stealing and using narcotics. No community service for you.

Iraq: The Real Mission Accomplished.
http://gmskarka.livejournal.com/415712.html?nc=4&style=mine
...the original partners of the Iraq Petroleum Company -- Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP -- along with a number of smaller companies... are now about to be awarded no-bid contracts to operate Iraq's oil fields, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationlization under Saddam Hussein...

Banned words in the courtroom
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=259
...a number of courts in the US are now forbidding lawyers and witnesses to use certain words during trials. Words like "rape," "victim," "crime scene," "killer," "murder," "drunk," "homicide," "embezzle," "fraud," and "robbery" are now not allowed in some courtrooms...

Swedish Left Party Wants to Legalize Piracy
http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-left-party-wants-to-legalize-piracy-080609/
This Sunday, the Swedish Left Party voted in favor of a motion calling for the legalization of sharing copyrighted files for personal use. The party, which currently holds 22 seats in the Swedish parliament, sees piracy as something positive, much like public libraries.

US Nuclear Weapons Parts Missing, Pentagon Says
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-nuclear-weapons-parts-missing-pentagon-says
The US military cannot locate hundreds of sensitive nuclear missile components, according to several government officials familiar with a Pentagon report on nuclear safeguards...

How Cops Really Want to Police
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/how-cops-really-want-to-police/
Bill is a retired police officer who worked in many Chicago neighborhoods. He made a list of, in his words, "the things that cops do to keep the peace that no one wants to know about."... I was struck at the extent to which the drive for autonomy -- the ability to act outside the formal system -- was invoked by the police. The running theme in my conversations was their lack of trust in the courts.

Encyclopaedia Britannica takes on Wikipedia
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/encyclopaedia-britannica-takes-on-wikipedia-388635
In an unexpected move, given its makers much-publicised dislike of Wikipedia, the online version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has gone all wiki on us and installed an online editor on its site...

Greenpeace activists arrested for exposing Japan's whale meat scandal
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/archives/2008/06/greenpeace_activists_arrested.html
...two Japanese Greenpeace activists, Junichi and Toru, have been arrested for exposing the stolen whale meat scandal which led to the ongoing investigation by the Tokyo Public Prosecutor of the government's Southern Ocean whale hunt. They're being investigated for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat - yet they delivered the meat to the public prosecutor a month ago, as evidence of a systematic whale meat smuggling operation...

Pagan symbols on fence must go, city insists
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/NEWS/806100380/-1/LIFE04
A Des Moines couple say city officials have attacked their pagan religion and their civil rights after a complaint from a neighbor led to a notice to remove symbols that had been painted on the fence. Officials said the symbols are graffiti and must be removed. "Those are religious symbols; they're not mean or obnoxious in any way," said Ryle MacPebbles who lives in the 2000 block of Southeast Sixth Street. "I just don't like them telling me my religion isn't anything." ...The MacPebbleses said a city inspector approved the fence earlier this year....

14 Year Old Student Arrested by Police for Citing Free Speech Provisions of Bill of Rights (video)
http://www.naturalnews.com/023379.html
This video demonstrates how the U.S. Police State begins in the public schools. This 14 year old kid understands freedom more than U.S. Senators!

Scientology Founded On Principles Of Dark Magic, Dark Psychology
http://glosslip.com/2008/06/19/scientology-founded-on-principles-of-dark-magic-dark-psychology/
This is a great overview of how L. Ron Hubbard manufactured his money-making religious scheme...

Language specific madness
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/06/language_specific_ma.html
I've just found this fascinating study on language and psychosis that found that multilingual psychotic patients can present with either different or less psychotic symptoms depending on the language they use...

A war on the Summer Solstice
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/trejbal/wb/165854
"...We need to put the S?l back in solstice. It's 'Have a stellar solstice,' not 'a great summer.' I'm boycotting any store that insults my faith like that. There's a war on the solstice. People who preach tolerance never show any for traditional faiths..."

Conspiracy Against Falun Gong Exposed, Says Chairman of Democracy Party
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-6-15/71886.html
Since May 17, the Chinese communist regime (CCP)'s has hired secret agents and goons to scorn and beat Falun Gong practitioners openly in broad daylight in Flushing, New York...

Shopper connects to Jesus via Denon link cable
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/denon_cable/
There's plenty of merriment on offer down at Amazon this week, where net wags have been having a bit of a field day with the Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable - modestly priced at $499.99...

Virtuous circles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/19/socialcare?gusrc=rss&feed=fromtheguardian
It may not make the revulsion go away, but a new community scheme for sex offenders works... Circles of Support and Accountability ...a rather exceptional group of volunteers ...have been quietly changing the way this country relates to child sex offenders...

Science proves that bikinis turn men into boobs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25197962
You may have known this all along, but now it has been demonstrated scientifically: bikinis make men stupid... Sexy images rob male brain of ability to make wise decisions

Penn & Teller Tackle 'The War On Porn'
http://www.avn.com/video/articles/30870.html
The fourth season of the Showtime series "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" kicked off last night with a topic vital to free expression: America's war on porn... Penn and Teller ...point out that in areas which have the most access to the Internet, and hence to online porn, rapes are down, while in areas with the least access, rapes are up - possibly a coincidence, Penn admits, but a lot more likely than the idea that porn causes rape (and child abuse), for which no scientific studies exist."

Two-light years and then... enjoy the silence
http://forgetomori.com/2008/science/two-light-years-and-then-enjoy-the-silence/
...our radio transmissions have a very limited range, and our first radio transmissions are not in some place tens of light-years away. In fact the range of our transmissions is just... well, if you read the title you already know it. Two light-years for almost all of our transmissions. After that, even ginormous antennas turned exactly to our planet and listening to the right frequencies applying the necessary corrections would not be able to capture an intelligible signal. Even a 3.000 km antenna wouldn't be enough to capture our TV transmissions from a distance greater than only 0,01 light-years away!

Cancer patient recovers after injection of immune cells
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/18/scicanc118.xml
A cancer patient has made a full recovery after being injected with billions of his own immune cells in the first case of its kind, doctors have disclosed.

Cloned immune cells cleared patient's cancer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/19/cancer.science
Tests revealed that the 52-year-old man's tumours, which spread from his skin to his lung and groin, vanished within two months of having the treatment, and had not returned two years later. Doctors attempted the experimental therapy as part of a clinical trial after the man's cancer failed to respond to conventional treatments. The man is the first to benefit from the new technique, which uses cloning to produce billions of copies of a patient's immune cells. When they are injected into the body they attack the cancer and force it into remission...

A Guide on Douchebags (since we all need to be warned.)
http://www.guidespot.com/guides/3mj
I've been known to date a few D-BAGS in my day. I found myself jumping from one to the next and thinking that just because their "costume" changed, their personality would too. Turn out, D-bags come in all sorts of forms. Sometimes we all need to be warned and given precautionary signs, as to avoid a possibly fatal dating situation

Underground Ozarks
http://www.undergroundozarks.com/
...a site all about urban exploration in the Ozarks area. You'll find information and pictures of abandoned places, sewers and drains, ghost towns, and more. If it's in the Ozarks area, or just close enough to drive to, and you're not supposed to go there...

12 Extremely Weird Diseases and Conditions You've (Probably) Never Heard Of
http://remedicated.com/2008/06/08/12-extremely-weird-diseases-and-conditions-youve-probably-never-heard-of/
The marvelous human machine can harbor almost an infinite number of maladies. While the diseases below are certainly nothing to take lightly, they are interesting conditions that you may not have ever heard of.

How To Shave Like Your Grandpa
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/01/04/how-to-shave-like-your-grandpa/
Proper shaving has become a lost art. Today's average male has no clue about the fine art of the traditional wet shave that their grandfathers and some of their fathers used to take part in. Instead, they're only accustomed to the cheap and disposable shaving products that companies market. I'm not sure when or why it happened, but the tradition of passing down the secrets of a clean shave abruptly stopped. Thankfully, this glorious male ritual is making a comeback.

(I shave--when I shave--with my grandfather's single edge safety Rolls Razor. It's a beautiful machine--ED)

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange
James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer...

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
...a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies

Hidden area beneath Antarctic ice revealed
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/06/22/eaantarctic122.xml
With jagged mountain ranges, plunging valleys and majestic lakes, Antarctica has scenery to rival any beauty spot in the world -- except that no-one has ever seen the continent's hidden landscape.

Heavyweight physics prof weighs into climate/energy scrap
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/
A topflight science brainbox at Cambridge University has weighed into the ever-louder and more unruly climate/energy debate with several things that so far have been mostly lacking: hard numbers, willingness to upset all sides, and an attempt to see whether the various agendas put forward would actually stack up.

The World's Largest & Deepest Lake, 25-million-Years Old, is in Trouble: A Galaxy Exclusive
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/the-worlds-larg.html
...ancient Lake Baikal is known as the "grand dame" of all lakes. UNESCO declared it a World Heritage due to its stunning bio-diversity. ...The 25 million year old lake predates the emergence of humans, but its splendor may not outlive us...

Human Ovulation -- Caught on Tape!
http://io9.com/5017384/human-ovulation-++-caught-on-tape
...until last week, nobody had seen any good images of what it looks like when the egg emerges from the uterus. Now there are not only some amazing images of the egg emerging (who knew human eggs were gold? they look like caviar!) but there's also some footage of the ovulation too. You can watch this film of the ovulation process, from New Scientist, or check out the photos below. Yes, there are some guts but it also looks incredibly cool.

Scientists reveal why glass is glass
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25335806/
Despite solid appearance, glass is actually in a "jammed" state of matter

The blood of Dresden
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4038905.ece
The author Kurt Vonnegut was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the allied bombing raids and was later forced to dig out bodies from the ruined city. In papers discovered by his son after his death last year, he provides a searing eyewitness account of the ?obscene brutality? that inspired his novel Slaughterhouse-Five

Bad guys really do get the most girls
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826614.100-bad-guys-really-do-get-the-most-girls.html
Nice guys knew it, now two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the "dark triad" persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs.

"The "Secret Reason" Why Women Are Attracted To Jerks, Players and Just Plain Dangerously Wrong Guys."
http://www.takebackyourheart.com/
An open letter to single women frustrated with dating the wrong guys...

The Odyssey astronomically accurate?
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080623_odyssey
...scientists say some of the celestial events mentioned in the tale might be accurate, raising the possibility that the story has more truth than suspected. Their findings include an specific date for when King Odysseus would have returned home and--the story goes--slaughtered a group of suitors who had courted his wife in his absence...

5 Superpowers Science Will Give Us in Our Lifetime
http://www.cracked.com/article_16400_5-superpowers-science-will-give-us-in-our-lifetime.html
Recent scientific breakthroughs are changing that. Within our lifetimes we just might be able to see mankind do the things it only wrote about in cheap picture books and their multi-billion dollar film adaptations. Some day, you or your children may very well get to be ...

The Original Macintosh
http://www.folklore.org/index.py
Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it.

Open Computer: The Smart Alternative to an Apple
http://www.psystar.com/open_computer_the_smart_alternative_to_an_apple.html
Why spend $1999 to get the least expensive Apple computer with a decent video card when you can pay less than a fourth of that for an equivalent sleek and small form-factor desktop with the same hardware...

Parasitic cancer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_cancer
...a cancer cell or cluster of cancer cells that can be transmitted from animal to animal. Cancer is not normally a contagious disease, but there are two known exceptions...

HeLa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
A HeLa cell (also Hela or hela cell) is an immortal cell line used in medical research. The cell line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, who died from her cancer on October 4, 1951...

Privacy: What It's Like To Fly With No ID Under The TSA's New Regulations
http://consumerist.com/tag/tsa-id-policy/?i=5018844&t=privacy-whats-its-like-to-fly-with-no-id-under-the-tsas-new-regulations
David becomes our first reader to fly under the TSA's new ID policy... fliers who willingly refuse to show ID are now barred from flying. The new rule went into effect over the weekend, and David says that in order to board the plane after forgetting his driver's license he had to answer questions about his political party affiliation and previous addresses...

An Appraisal of the Utility of a Chocolate Teapot
http://www.plokta.com/plokta/issue23/teapot.htm
The Chocolate Teapot remains popular as a general comparative standard for the failure of an object to perform in accordance with its intended function, rivalled only by its close relative (in terms of composition, if not morphology), the chocolate fireguard. However, whilst numerous items are colloquially labelled as being ?as useful as a chocolate teapot', there does not appear to be any objective standard for the usefulness, or indeed uselessness, of a chocolate teapot itself. In the absence of any British, European or ANSI Standard, Def Stan or MIL-STD for this important but poorly-specified reference item, it was decided to conduct an independent assessment of exactly how much use one of them was...

Question Answers
http://distorte.com/article/259/question-answers
"Which would you rather eat: a slightly overripe or slightly under ripe banana?" He pulls a pencil from his pocked and marks a tick on his napkin. "Why the questions?" "It?s part of my thesis"...

MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mpaa-says-no-pr.html
The Motion Picture Association of America said Friday intellectual-property holders should have the right to collect damages, perhaps as much as $150,000 per copyright violation, without having to prove infringement.

Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1111624
Happy Birthday to You" is the best-known and most frequently sung song in the world. Many - including Justice Breyer in his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft - have portrayed it as an unoriginal work that is hardly worthy of copyright protection, but nonetheless remains under copyright. Yet close historical scrutiny reveals both of those assumptions to be false...

How Normal Childbirth Got Trapped on the Wrong Side of History
http://normal-birth.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-normal-childbirth-got-trapped-on.html
At 64 years of age, I have now dedicated the last stage of my professional life to telling what I describe as "the last and most important untold story of the 20th century". The best-kept secret in modern times is how and why normal childbirth in a healthy population became the property of a surgical specialty and what the current costs and consequences of that are...

Ten things you never knew about John Everett Millais's Ophelia
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/09/22/baophelia122.xml
Benjamin Secher reveals the roles of a tin bath, a straw hut and a deformed vole in the birth of Britain?s favourite painting

Phonofone II - Limited Edition Black
http://charlesandmarie.com/lifestyle-gems/details/product/phonofone-ii-limited-edition-black-1/
...it's like a speaker for your iPod, only it uses no power. Through passive amplification alone, these unique pieces instantly transform any personal music player + earbuds into a sculptural audio console.

how to safely board a train that won't stop
http://deputy-dog.com/2008/06/17/how-to-safely-board-a-train-that-wont-stop/
this has to be one of the smartest ideas i've seen in a long time.

In Vestimentis Ursum. There's a robot beneath the fluff.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.mattkirkland.com/ursum.html
I've always been curious about stuffed animals that sing, dance, light up, or talk back. There must be a fascinating robot underneath the fur and fluff, right? Surely the robot hiding in the bear's clothing, vestimentis ursum, is impressive. So: armed with my childish curiousity and the spurious excuse of 'product design research,' I set out to discover what, exactly, these creatures are hiding.

If You Undo Your Belly Button Your Ass Falls Off
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/06/weekend-if-you-undo-your-belly-button.html
Summer Rayne Oakes is that most mundane of species, a stunningly beautiful environmental scientist who helps injured kittens against the the decepticons, or something equally unlikely. ...Because of global warming she frequently has to take off her clothes, as shown here in Austria's Weekend magazine. Her belly button is currently in Sweden accepting the Nobel prize for narcissism.

Pictures of the REAL Firefox in nature!
http://faroutworld.blogspot.com/2007/06/pictures-of-real-firefox-in-nature.html

Meet the dog that thinks there's nothing sweetah than a cheetah
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1027978/Meet-dog-thinks-theres-sweetah-cheetah.html
Sahara and Alexa are the best of mates, but they have a very unconventional friendship. That is because Sahara is cheetah and Alexa is a giant Anatolian Shepherd guard dog...

The Most Adorable Cat in Russia
http://www.eyje.com/pictures/animals/The_Most_Adorable_Cat_in_Russia

Anchovy links cats to marine mammals
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2055/mystery-marine-mammal-deaths
The mystery of why marine mammals worldwide have been dying from a parasite spread in cat faeces may have been solved. The culprit? The humble anchovy, new research suggests... Toxoplasmosis, the sometimes fatal disease caused by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, is found only in cats in its infectious form, and only the fertilised eggs of the parasite ? called oocysts ? cause an infection. But over the past decade the disease has also killed a vast number of marine mammals, leaving scientists puzzled over how the parasite found its way from felines to the sea...

How Smart Is the Octopus?
http://www.slate.com/id/2192211/pagenum/all/
It depends on how you define intelligence. And if you've got a good definition, there are quite a few scientists who would love to hear it. Octopuses can learn, they can process complex information in their heads, and they can behave in equally complex ways. But it would be a mistake to try to give octopuses an IQ score. They are not intelligent in the way we are?not because they're dumb but because their behavior is the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution under radically different conditions than the ones under which our own brains evolved...

I Am Fundamentalist, And So Can You.
http://rifters.com/real/2008/06/i-am-fundamentalist-and-so-can-you.html
I use the word "fundamentalist" in the sense promoted by Jonathan Rauch: anyone who cannot seriously entertain the possibility that they are wrong about their basic beliefs. It applies pretty obviously to Biblical literalists and their ilk, but the term is not limited to them. It extends to me. I suspect it even extends to the likes of Richard Dawkins, even though he has stated publicly that he would be willing to change his mind on the subject of God. All it would take, he says, is "evidence"...

(This is an officially Awesome Blogpost...--ED)

A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/06/the_reality_tests_1.php
...With eerie precision, the results of Gröblacher's weekend experiments had followed the curve predicted by quantum mechanics. The data defied the predictions of Leggett's model by three orders of magnitude. Though they could never observe it, the polarizations truly did not exist before being measured

Expelling Sheldrake
http://dailygrail.com/news/expelling-sheldrake
Biologist P.Z. Myers has become somewhat of an Internet phenomenon on account of his ascerbic blog Pharyngula... In a posting this week on Pharyngula, Myers turned his attention to psi research, with a diatribe aimed at Rupert Sheldrake... I spoke to Rupert Sheldrake about the Pharyngula post yesterday, and here's what he had to say in response...

(Pharyngula has seemed like a fundy dick to me since the days when he flamed Scott Adams over his own inability to see the point Adams was making...--ED)

Nurse writes book on near-death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7463606.stm
An intensive care nurse from Swansea has published an academic book about near death experiences following 10 years of research... "All the current sceptical arguments against near-death experiences were not supported by the research"...

Custom Receipt Maker
http://www.customreceipt.com/index.php
This tool lets you make your own custom receipts. Customize your receipt below and press the "Make the receipt!" button. Your custom receipt will be shown (containing the text that you entered) in the space above...

Rotor Script
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/rotor.htm
...an experimental script created by Simon Whitechapel to realize the concept of letters that literally move on the "page".

The Ultimate Argument Settler: The 10 Best Lightsaber Mash Ups
http://videogum.com/archives/the-ultimate-argument-settler/lightsaber_010339.html
I found a bunch of clips on YouTube where people took fight sequences from other movies and overlaid lightsabers on top of them using magic, and they are hilarious, and you're gonna love it.

Special Containment Procedure Series
http://editthis.info/scp_wiki/SCP_Series

Dalek Security Camera
http://www.channelflip.com/2008/06/23/dalek-security-camera/
This might look like your average remote controlled Dalek toy, but nothing could be further from the truth...

U-G-L-Y Your Bike
http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol11/?pg=76&u1&u1&u1=texterity&u1=texterity&u1=texterity&cookies=1
To deter thieves, camouflage your bucycle as a piece of crap while keeping it a first-class ride...

Yip Yip Costume
http://www.instructables.com/id/Yip-Yip-Costume/
Whether you loved them as a kid or hated them for giving you nightmares, there's no denying it's fun to go around freely and anonymously shouting "yipyipyipyip" to those around you. Here's how to make a costume based off the Martian Yip Yip aliens from Sesame Street.

Supreme Court restores habeas corpus, strikes down key part of Military Commissions Act
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/12/boumediene/
In a major rebuke to the Bush administration's theories of presidential power -- and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies -- the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision, declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional. The Court struck down that section of the MCA because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus...

(They couldn't do better than 5-4?--ED)

US Supreme Court tosses "detainee treatment act", declares that prisoners *do*, in fact, have rights in the USA.
http://theweaselking.livejournal.com/2924958.html?nc=10&style=mine
Of course, this only applies to the few prisoners we know about, who are held in the few "official" prisons, and not the ones who are completely denied all access to legal counsel while they're raped, tortured, and murdered after having been disappeared, but it's a start.

US quits Human Rights Council
http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/US-quits-Human-Rights-Council,3184
There was widespread consternation on Friday at the Palais des Nations in Geneva when the US mission gave up his observer status - a step backwards for human rights around the world, says Human Rights Watch.

Did Iranian intelligence infiltrate highest levels of Bush administration?
http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/did-irani-intelligence-infiltrate.html
We'll never know because the Bush administration shut down the investigation as to whether Iranian spies were in Vice President Dick Cheneys's office and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office. The year was 2003. That's when we invaded Iraq. This is scary as shit... "...Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence ...to... the Bush administration..."

US Rep. distorts facts about Iran
http://tinyurl.com/3lm2nd
Congressman Mark Kirk misrepresents Iranian threat; vows to extend Ballistic Missile System to Israel

Pound = "Terrorist Fist Jab"????
http://gmskarka.livejournal.com/412135.html?nc=9&style=mine
Right before his victory speech on Tuesday night, Barack and Michelle Obama shared what is commonly referred to as a Pound -- a fist-bump... Clueless white commentators have crawled up their own asses trying to figure this one out. The top of the list: Fox News, who actually referred to it as a possible Terrorist Fist Jab...

(That's not just clueless, it's bone fide Bad Faith--ED)

Are They Voting on Barack Obama, or "Barry Johnson"?
http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/396327.html?nc=1&style=mine
There are a lot of anti-Barack-Obama slurs that rattle around the net... "is it smart to vote for a Muslim while we're in a War on Terror?"... the real truth about Barack Obama's religious background would be just as toxic, or maybe even more so. Barack Obama wasn't raised Muslim... it hit me exactly why they think Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim or ex-Muslim. ...I remembered a brief interview, many months ago, with some black rapper in which he was asked about Barack Obama, only for the interviewer to find out that this rapper had never heard of him. The rapper asked for the name again, and then asked, "No, really, what's his real name?" The interviewer said that no, really, the Senator's real name is Barack Hussein Obama. ...the rapper looked at him scornfully, as if he were some kind of a fool, and said derisively, "Nobody's real name is Barack Hussein Obama." Why would he think that? Then it hit me.

2012: The Year The Internet Ends
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality
Every significant Internet provider around the globe is currently in talks with access and content providers to transform the internet into a television-like medium: no more freedom, you pay for a small commercial package of sites you can visit and you'll have to pay for seperate subscriptions for every site that's not in the package...

Where Is Raed Now?
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2008/05/mr-jarrar-goes-to-washington.html
Meet the Iraqi exile (and former Salam Pax blogger) who could foil Bush's plans for permanent bases near Baghdad.

The Great Wired Drug Non-Controversy
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2008/06/10/the-great-wired-drug-non-controversy/
Another pointless brouhaha about drugs has erupted, this time between Wired Magazine, the New York Times, and a reporter's blog. And what fueled all the noise was less than 300 words in a tiny chart -- and an unexpected admission of past drug use....

Stem cells apparently cure boy's fatal disease
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-stem7-2008jun07,0,6795131.story
The treatment uses umbilical and marrow cells to help develop normal skin. Doctors say it may move his genetic disorder, recessive epidermolysis bullosa, 'off the incurable list' for other patients.

I just got a "cease and desist" hand delivery
http://forums.enturbulation.org/122-fair-game/i-just-got-cease-desist-hand-delivery-17337/
A lawyer just came to my door to deliver a "cease and desist" letter from scientology! How did they get my name?! The only way me and my husband can think of is a crooked cop who pulled us over after the protest must have given our info over. (as seen in this video). We were masked the ENTIRE time.

(Scientology have, of course, focused on embedding and recruiting in Police Forces.--ED)

V Masks / Scientology in Forbidden Planet
http://www.wirah.com/en/event/24/forum/thread/305
Forbidden Planet are sold out of V masks. We suspect Scientologists have purchased them...

UK Government May Extend Copyright, Despite Saying It Wouldn't
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080605/1943301325.shtml

Egypt bans female genital mutilation
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080608/FOREIGN/952936268/1011/ART&Profile=1011
Mohammed al Omda, a conservative parliamentarian, protested outside Egypt's parliament last week with his three daughters against amendments to the child law, which among other things would ban female circumcision. He and other conservatives said the amendments are a violation of Islamic law and Egyptian traditions...

AI Robotics - The Perfect Woman
http://www.perfect-woman.com/en/
Pre-order today! Male version available soon.

(Your choice of wig!--ED)

Hints of 'time before Big Bang'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7440217.stm
A team of physicists has claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang ...Their model may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow.

Wal-Mart Virus
http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/ufcw/2008/06/walmart_virus.html
Apparently Walmart.com has been infected with a computer virus, and many who shopped at the website recently could have infected computers now...

Egyptian Pharoah's 'Missing' Pyramid Found
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/05/pyramid-egypt.html
Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls ...the pyramid -- of which only the base remains -- is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago...

Crocs + Escalator = Yet Another Mangled Foot
http://consumerist.com/tag/danger/?i=5014022&t=crocs-%252B-escalator--yet-another-mangled-foot
Another small child's foot has been mangled by the combination of the especially-grippy Crocs clogs and a moving escalator...

Union Station Photo Flap