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The Archive
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White House Told to Save Energy Task Force Documents
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
All of those who think that these records haven't already been shredded and burned, raise your hands!
Charlotte Council OKs Arena Funding
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
City Council scumbags ignore referendum in desperate plan to keep Hornets and screw over local taxpayers at the same time.
I don't even live in Charlotte. I just think that this is a perfect example of the corruption of city government by professional sports money, not to mention the fact that corporations shouldn't be underwriting sports venues.
Modern Ruins: Photographic Essays
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Despite our best efforts, all things fall apart.
I take comfort in that.
Hudson Valley Ruins
Lost America Night Photography
Even Our Fancy Toys Shall Rust
Nature Hides a Multitude of Sins
FBI claims environmental group doubles as terror group
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
The FBI's top domestic terrorism officer said Tuesday that a radical environmental group that has carried out 600 attacks since 1996 has become the largest and most active U.S.-based terrorist group.
Here comes the anti-left crackdown. Though I do not in any way endorse violent protest, I don't see anything here about anti-abortionist groups that endorse murder being prosecuted.
Don't they count as terrorists?
Could it be because Ashcroft is a radical anti-abortionist?
The Ashcroft Record
The Bush Administration shows its true colors:
Ohio abortion foes get federal backing
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati earlier this week supporting the state's effort to ban a controversial but rarely performed abortion procedure, technically known as intact dilation and extraction, or intact D and E.
In related news:
Antiabortion Bills Make Gains in Va.
Virginia, where legislators also tried to pass a bill forcing kids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or face suspension, continues to pull away from Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana and Utah in the Conservative Nut State title race.
Historic Asylums of America
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
This web site is an attempt to catalog and present America's historic state hospitals (insane asylums) founded in the latter half of the 19th century. The site focuses on the facilities built on the "Kirkbride plan", but it is not necessarily limited to the Kirkbride hospitals.
Broughton Hospital is approximately twenty miles west of where I'm sitting at this moment.
Red Sea shark slaughter
Monday, February 11, 2002
I'm not someone who tells people what to think or what to do, but I wholeheartedly beg you not to eat shark fin products. Please help spead the word about the barbaric and shortsighted practice of shark finning.
Conservation doesn't just apply to cute and cuddly mammals!
Drugs and Terror and Teens and Death and Booze
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Nice essay on the ONDCP's Super Bowl lies, err, I mean "ads".
An Oily Quagmire
The real terrorism funding comes from oil, not drugs.
Ariana sets us straight:
In addition to setting new standards for illogic, the ads are also exercises in highly selective finger-pointing. We know, for instance, that bin Laden and al-Qaida used tens of millions of dollars in profits from the diamond industry to fund their operations. So how come we didn't see a commercial with a woman, say, a senator's wife, fingering the diamonds on her sparkling tennis bracelet and admitting: "I helped kids learn how to kill?" And, given the fact that 15 out of the 19 hijackers, and most of the detainees in Cuba, came from Saudi Arabia -- where the ruling family, glutted with oil profits, has coddled extremists for decades -- why no taxpayer-funded ad showing a soccer mom filling up her SUV and saying: "I helped blow up buildings?"
Simple. Linking diamonds or oil to terror doesn't fit the Bush agenda. Conflating the war on drugs with the war on terrorism does. These ads are nothing more than a lame-brained attempt to give the drug war a desperately needed makeover -- turning it from a dismal, multibillion dollar failure into a vital front in America's war against the Evil Ones. "Just Say No" repackaged as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." After all, any suggested front in the War on Terrorism can't be questioned without the questioner being labeled unpatriotic.
You can almost hear the wheels turning inside the heads of the White House spinmeisters: "The War on Drugs is a loser, but the War on Terror's got big-time legs. So all we've got to do is blend the two of them together and, bingo, no more pesky people asking if the $20 billion a year we keep throwing at the drug war is worth it."
I have faith in kids. They're a lot smarter than adults think. I believe that they will laugh just as hard at this ad campaign as my generation did at Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" nonsense.
I've asked before and I'll ask now.
Instead of spreading disinformation, fear and out and out lies, why can't we give people the facts about drugs and let them decide for themselves?
How come you don't see any government ads targeting the most deadly drugs in this country, alcohol and prescription drugs? I guess it's because marijuana users don't have corrupt lobbyists on Capitol Hill passing out millions of dollars like it was candy.
Follow the money trail!
Prescription for Power
Under The Influence: Congress Backs Down To Big Booze
Anxieties over toxins rise at Ground Zero
Sunday, February 10, 2002
More on the WTC fallout. I wonder if we'll see some weird new ailments result from this, like Gulf War Syndrome.
Is the EPA covering up? Do they know what they're doing?
I don't have much faith in government anymore.
A Plutonic Commitment To Space
Sunday, February 10, 2002
The saga of the Space Mission That Just Won't Die shambles on like the proverbial zombie. Grr! Arg!
Meanwhile, time is running out -- and the seemingly endless "Perils of Pauline" saga of a Pluto probe fast enough to reach the planet before its scientific interest seriously decreases for 250 years is finally coming to a conclusion one way or the other.
I want my Europa Orbiter too!
Wouldn't it be nice if they took a tiny fraction of the Defense Department budget (war is the domain of the pencil dick) and put into peaceful space exploration?
Men redundant? Now we don't need women either
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Proteus will have to put up with Julie Christie no longer.
DEA Extends Its Deadline for Banning Hemp in Food
Sunday, February 10, 2002
The DEA.
Protecting you from deadly addictive hemp seed (except that hemp isn't deadly, addictive or even psychoactive).
Hemp, a close relative of the marijuana plant, does not contain enough of the substance to have a mind- altering effect or to show up on most drug tests. Nevertheless, the rule still applied to the dozens of pretzels, snack bars and other food products that are made with hemp seed oil, and stores and manufacturers were given until early this month to dispose of them all.
In explaining the rule, the D.E.A. said it was merely interpreting existing drug laws, not expanding them to cover previously acceptable products.
Following the DEA's logic, shouldn't poppy seeds be banned too?
After all, they come from a psychoactive plant don't they?
Of course, that would be ridiculous! [sarcasm]
Hemp Stays in Stores: DEA Hands Over Victory
These is merely a temporary reprieve.
The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Dick's famous revelatory experience in comic form. Neat!
There's a good cover gallery on this site too. I'd love it if someone would start a grand unified webpage that just displayed science fiction paperback cover art.
Toxic Haste
Sunday, February 10, 2002
WTC toxic waste nightmare: where's the news media?
. . . 180,000 gallons of fuel burned or spilled as the towers collapsed, including 30,000 gallons of electrical-transformer fluids that contain PCBs. And then there are the hundreds of thousands of atomized fluorescent bulbs, each containing a few dozen milligrams of mercury--possibly enough to help explain the high levels of heavy metals that have kept the headquarters of the Legal Aid Society, across the street from ground zero, sealed since September 11. A veteran hazardous-waste chemist for the Environmental Protection Agency now reports that independent testing of dust inside nearby apartments shows a density of asbestos fibers nine times greater than had been officially reported--more, even, than at the infamous W.R. Grace mine-turned-Superfund-site in Libby, Montana.
Another where's the news media question:
Foreign news falls by network wayside
Sometime on Sunday, Jan. 27, a huge explosion ripped through the Ikeja Military Cantonment in Lagos, Nigeria, sending flames and debris over a vast area, killing between 600 people (the official count) and 2,000 (the unofficial one). Many of the dead were children.
This was the worst human disaster since Sept. 11. But viewers who rely solely on the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS and NBC may be learning about it right now for the first time. The catastrophe barely rated a mention on the "CBS Evening News" and ABC's "World News Tonight." NBC's "Nightly News" gave the story exactly ... nothing.
This is why I don't bother with any of the U.S. TV news outlets anymore. Local news is even worse. Aren't these people getting paid to tell us what's happening in the world?
Thanks, Media News :)
Ginger's rough ride
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
This well reasoned article on the impending demise of Segway's Ginger includes this interesting tidbit:
Perhaps the strangest legal wrinkle occurred when the company realized that it needed to secure the right to use the name of Ginger Rogers, the dancing movie goddess for whom the project was nicknamed, from the Church of Christ, Scientist, which owns her "right of publicity" as a part of her estate. The two sides came to an agreement, which they declined to detail.
Like most people, I thought Ginger was a cool concept. Segway wouldn't be able to build them fast enough if they could have rolled it out during the dotcom boom. Now, the price point makes it too expensive for a toy and the weight makes it too impractical as a serious means of transportation.
A s s e m b l y L a n g u a g e
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Tokyo avant-garde culture and Japanese contemporary art
I must admit that I frequently find art "scenes" more interesting than the art itself. It's a weird love/hate thing.
Does that make me shallow?
I found a good Basquiat page today too.
FCC chief Powell takes hands-off approach
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Recently, however, Powell has signaled that he is poised to launch his offensive, what many expect to be the most sweeping rollback of phone and TV rules since the 1980s. His initiatives are expected to free regional Bells from some requirements to lease networks to rivals, let media giants get bigger and give wireless companies more control over the sale of airwaves.
He says he simply is trying to bring to fruition the intent of the 1996 law deregulating phone and TV markets. "We want to see competition create new and innovative services rather than five regulators in Washington."
That's right folks, he's going to increase competition by allowing huge mergers and massive media consolidation.
This guy's doublespeak logic eludes me!
Thanks, BEEF :)
Men Paying On Dates: Women Love It, Men Less Sure
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
File under the bleedin' obvious!
President's Budget Cancels Current Outer Planets Plan
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
New NASA bean counter Sean O'Keefe kills Europa Orbiter and Pluto-Kuiper flyby probes for good. How visionary.
For more info, see NASA Watch.
'Green eye' prepares for launch
Bush no doubt would have cancelled this too since it's an environmental mission, but fortunately it's not a U.S. program.
Greenest Games Ever? Not!
Monday, February 4, 2002
Another in a long list of reasons that I won't be watching a nanosecond of this or any other Olympic games:
But educational initiatives and public relations cannot mitigate the negative impact of major construction projects like the ski jumps at Utah Winter Sports Park, which have left a large, ugly gash on the mountainside. Even Mitt Romney, president and CEO of the SLOC, concedes that was a mistake. "It happened before I came on board," he said. Nor could it prevent billionaire oilman Earl Holding, at the time a member of the SLOC, from pulling off what many activists see as the biggest environmental scandal of the Games.
Using his considerable political connections, Holding arranged a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service to acquire 1,377 acres at the base of his Snowbasin ski resort, with carte blanche approval from Congress to develop the land. Congress also pitched in a $15-million subsidy for an access road to Holding's resort.
Pristine mountain wilderness soon morphed into condos, restaurants and ski runs. Parking lots encroached on riverbed areas, degrading trout habitat and discharging waste runoff into the watershed. As approved by Congress, these developments were exempt from the usual public review required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The waiver was justified, according to Republican Utah Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, to facilitate the staging of the Winter Olympics. But critics contend that the public was hoodwinked. "No land swap or other similar venture was necessary to stage the Games," says Howard Peterson, a member of the U.S. Olympic Organizing Committee's site-selection team that evaluated Snowbasin as a venue for ski-race competitions.
Federal judge dismisses Olympic corruption case
Salt Lake Organizing President Mitt Romney said he didn't expect a trial before the games.
"My conclusion is that there was unethical conduct which occurred in the bid process but apparently not illegal conduct," Romney said. "I don't think this will have a significant effect on our games. The games have never been about men in suits."
Oh really? I wonder if he said it with a straight face.
Salt Lake Games to cost $1.9 billion
The Salt Lake City Olympics will be the most expensive Winter Games ever, costing nearly $2 billion — or $791,667 per athlete — to stage 17 days of skiing and skating. Nearly $1 of every $5 will be picked up by U.S. taxpayers.
Feeling nauseous yet?
The Olympics have been reduced to a pathetic shadow of their former selves. The IOC has been proven to be totally corrupt and more than willing to sell out to the highest bidder. The Olympics have everything to do with product placement and celebrity athletes, but little to do with sport. Worst of all, the taxpayers have to foot the bill.
Yesterday we had the annual Jingoistic Corporate Whorefest known as the Super Bowl. I don't expect the 2002 Winter Olympics to be any different.
Finland #1 In Environmental Sustainability; U.S. #51
Monday, February 4, 2002
Most Powerful Nation on Earth (TM) fails to make the top third.
3D Artists
Monday, February 4, 2002
A high quality collection of computer rendered art. Sweet!
Media goofed on Antarctic data
Monday, February 4, 2002
Scientifically ignorant pundits tells public what they want to hear. I'm absolutely shocked!
A headline over an editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune minced no words about it: "Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming." The editorial sarcastically asked: "Oh dear. What will the doomsayers say now? How will they explain away yet two more scientific studies that clearly contradict the global warming orthodoxy?"
Some media mistakenly equated the phenomenon studied by Joughin and Tulaczyk -- a change in ice flow rates -- with ice melting rates. The mistake contributed to the erroneous belief that the studies constituted, as it were, scientific "tests" of the global warming theory.
Detroit falls asleep at the wheel
Monday, February 4, 2002
Corporate bean counters in Detroit, obsessed with short term profits as they simutaneously lay off tens of thousands of auto workers, apparently want you to burn as much gasoline as is humanly possible:
President Bush is pushing for a new breed of cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells, even though the technology for such vehicles does not yet exist and, until it does, the nation will remain captive to Mideast oil interests.
But here's the real kicker: Researchers at the University of California at Davis have already devised a new and improved hybrid vehicle that runs on both gas and electricity -- and nearly doubles average mileage.
However, Detroit so far has rejected the concept, largely for reasons of economic self-interest, so the UC Davis team has been forced to pitch its design overseas. The Japanese and South Koreans are already expressing interest.
It's yet more proof that U.S. corporate monoliths just can't compete in a free market economy.
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