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Keep God in school pledge, says Bush
Sunday, June 30, 2002

Is Michael Newdow getting death threats?

Do religious zealots murder in the name of their deities?

Within minutes of the ruling, Mr Newdow, 49, a single father, appeared to have become the most reviled man in America.

"You atheist bastard," one woman said on his answerphone. "If you don't like the way this country is, take yourself and your family and get the hell out." She signed off: "This is from America."

Another woman recited the whole Pledge of Allegiance on the machine while a man said: "I hope you and your daughter go to hell. People are going to get even. I hope you suffer."

Um, hatred is a sin!

Now that the federal government has moved to protect us from the dreaded atheist menace, you can all go back to worshiping the one true deity.

Shoggoth.net
Friday, June 28, 2002

Over the jagged peaks of Thok they sweep,
Heedless of all the cries I try to make,
And down the nether pits to that foul lake
Where the puffed shoggoths splash in doubtful sleep.
But oh! If only they would make some sound,
Or wear a face where faces should be found!

H. P. Lovecraft - Fungi from Yuggoth

Ah ah ah! Nobody says the name who is not to be named!

A Very PhilDickian Existence
Friday, June 28, 2002

The Philip K. Dick - Orange County, California connection:

The visions started in Dick’s apartment on Cameo Lane in Fullerton during that Watergate spring of 1974, a few months after he had written A Scanner Darkly, the masterful coda to his doper years set in a futuristic Orange County ("Life in Anaheim, California, was a commercial for itself," he’d lament).

Once again, I link to The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick.

Let see how many weblogs it pops up on this time.

Court Expands School Drug Tests
Friday, June 28, 2002

Once again, we have another despicable 5-4 Constitution shredding ruling by the conservative jackasses on the Supreme Court bench.

In a major exception to Fourth Amendment prohibitions against suspicionless searches, the US Supreme Court has given a green light to public schools across the nation to use random drug-testing procedures on a wide variety of children. The high court said in a 5-to-4 decision announced Thursday that the deterrent effect of such drug testing was enough to overcome Fourth Amendment privacy protections.

When The Drug War Invades The Chess Club

At one point, Justice Antonin Scalia taunted Graham Boyd, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case on behalf of defendant Lindsay Earls: "So long as you have a bunch of druggies who are orderly in class, the school can take no action. That's what you want us to rule?" At another juncture, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Boyd a hypothetical question about whether a district could have two schools, one a "druggie school" and one with drug testing. As for the first, Justice Kennedy said, "no parent would send a child to that school, except maybe your client." (Earls, a former honor student at Tecumseh High School in Oklahoma, had objected to drug testing as an intrusion on her right to privacy.)

Kids, you better start fighting for your civil liberties right now because no one is going to do it for you!

Pledge Ruling Spurs Bipartisan Ire
Friday, June 28, 2002

Congress, the White House and even liberal groups show how terrified they are of being labeled "unchristian":

From President Bush on down, GOP leaders tried to turn the ruling into a political weapon, but Democrats and liberal interest groups refused to play along. No elected official in Washington from either party and no prominent figure in state or local government could be found publicly defending the decision.

Instead, senators and representatives -- including a fair number wearing American flag-patterned ties -- loudly recited the pledge to open the day's business, and by afternoon the Senate unanimously passed a bill to reaffirm the language of the pledge.

In the Senate Chamber, It's Suddenly Pledge Week

A few of the senators appeared to be out of practice. They forgot that the right hand is supposed to be placed over the heart (per act of Congress in 1942) and belatedly slapped their palms on their breasts. The controversial phrase came out with particular oomph -- "one nation under God." When they said it, many senators had slight smirks.

Take that, atheists and agnostics, by God!

Isn't it funny how politicians believe in God but not Hell?

It's only 127 days until the Godless Americans March!

I'm an agnostic. Atheism requires far too much faith for my taste.

I agree with George Carlin.

Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes.
If it makes you feel better, fine.
Just don't ask me to wear your shoes.

UC Berkeley team creating 'microfly' to infiltrate enemies
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

Here's some more information on the pending era of tiny robotic spybots, which I pointed you to a few days ago.

Microfly will rely upon the sun for power, and its three solar panels will double as landing gear. It will be fitted with electronic gear such as a tiny camera and transmitter, and a microprocessor with an operating system dubbed TinyOS will control it all.

Everything will be mounted on a stainless steel thorax, or body. Because microfly is so small -- it can sit atop a quarter with room to spare -- it cannot be assembled with nuts and bolts or heavy glues. Instead, everything is folded and linked like origami.

These robots will prove to be very effective assasination devices as well when equipped with lethal biological agents like ricin or tetrodotoxin. How often do you look at that mosquito that you just slapped into oblivion?

Write your name on an asteroid
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

Since I'm not having any children, maybe extraterrestrials will remember my name a couple of billion years from now.

I hope this isn't some horribly elaborate spam scheme!

U.S. Pledge of Allegiance Declared Unconstitutional
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

For the first time ever, a federal appeals court Wednesday declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words "under God" added by Congress in 1954.

Consider me delighted, but a Conservative Supreme Court will kill this in very short order, despite the pledge as worded now being a violation of the separation of church and state and the Bill of Rights.

After all, we're a loving and forgiving Christian country!

N.C. spends settlement on tobacco, not health
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

When North Carolina won a .6 billion settlement from tobacco companies, officials said they'd use the money to break tobacco's grip on the state. They would help smokers quit and stop kids from starting. They would wean farmers off the golden leaf.

But since the money began flowing in 1999, not a dime has been spent on new health services, and only a fraction has gone toward moving tobacco farmers into other crops. Instead, about 73 percent of the million spent so far -- about million -- has gone toward production and marketing of N.C. tobacco, an Observer investigation has found.

I know, I know. You're shocked, aren't you?

Nuclear Waste Route Maps
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

What, you didn't now that radioactive waste would soon be rolling through a town near you?

Geekcereal
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

Way way back in the twentieth century, when the web was young and hadn't become yet another tool of corporate jerkoffs trying to sell us a bunch of crap that nobody needs, there was Geekcereal.

This was the first online journal / weblog that I discovered. It's even more amazing that it's still online after a ugly death in October, 1997.

Note: the "previous serving" and "last serving" buttons don't work!

Use the calendar instead. It does.

View this with Netscape 3.0 to see nifty colors.

Nikki S. Lee
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

In a world where appearance is an absolute first contact yardstick, is it possible to become something you aren't merely by changing your style?

I'm not a social chameleon, but I've always wanted to be.

Who Am I This Time?

Nikki S. Lee: Projects

Decoy and Daydreamer

Rutgers report - why men are slow to commit to marriage
Tuesday, June 25, 2002

Here are the top ten reasons:

1. They can get sex without marriage more easily than in times past. 2. They can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabiting rather than marrying. 3. They want to avoid divorce and its financial risks. 4. They want to wait until they are older to have children 5. They fear that marriage will require too many changes and compromises. 6. They are waiting for the perfect soul mate, and she hasn't yet appeared. 7. They face few social pressures to marry. 8. They are reluctant to marry a woman who already has children. 9. They want to own a house before they get a wife. 10. They want to enjoy single life as long as they can.

I could have told them that without doing no damn survey!

FBI checking out Americans' reading habits
Monday, June 24, 2002

USA Patriot Act Fascism runs amok:

Nearly everything about the procedure is secret. The court that authorizes the searches meets in secret; the search warrants carried by the agents cannot mention the underlying investigation; and librarians and booksellers are prohibited, under threat of prosecution, from revealing an FBI visit to anyone, including the patron whose records were seized.

Is book burning next?

I hope you Congessional creeps who approved of this unconstitutional travesty, as well as you Mr. Bush, who signed it into law, are haunted by the ghosts of all Americans who have sacrificed their lives for the rights of their fellow citizens that you callously discarded in the name of fear and political expediency.

The Rolls-Royce Hearse Gallery
Monday, June 24, 2002

Hey, it's the only way I might get to ride in a Rolls someday!

I've been trying to find some good hearse related stuff.

Unfortunately, most hearse related webpages suck, being clichéd "Ooh, we're spoooooky kids!" crap complete with spinning skull GIFs and annoying MIDI funeral dirges. Weak!

Can't we take the business of death seriously?

One of these sites does have a very comprehensive advert page though. Who knew that Airstream made funeral coaches?

Richard Feynman's Van
Monday, June 24, 2002

In 1975 Richard Feynman bought a new Dodge Tradesman Maxivan and had it outfitted in Long Beach according to the cultural mores of the times -- with a mustard-yellow, avocado-green interior, and a customized mural exterior.

Thanks, Travelers Diagram :)

He also played the bongos.

New York Surveillance Camera Players
Sunday, June 23, 2002

Some of us don't like to be watched.

I've been disappointed to see the techies cave on privacy issues post 9/11. They should know better.

I don't want to live in The Transparent Society either. It's fantasy anyway since government doesn't want the populace to know what they're doing and will take steps to prevent it. An uninformed populace is an easily led populace. A few concerned citizens with camcorders aren't ever going to be a match for the surveillance power of government.

U.S. CENTCOM - Afghanistan leaflets
Saturday, June 22, 2002

Some of these are absolutely comical.

Some advice for the U.S. military; hungry bombed out Afghani civilians can't eat leaflets, but at least they make good toilet paper.

Also see leaflets from Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and Kosovo, as well as Psywarrior.com.

Boeing bets on Scan Eagle UAV
Saturday, June 22, 2002

A tiny UAV with a five thousand mile range that can be launched from any backyard? We could all have some fun with that!

The bad news is that this techonology will be used by military intelligence and homeland security types to spy on us rather than the other way around.

Bush Wants to Ban Spy Plane Tech

Coming soon! FBI investigation of RC aircraft hobbyists!

Still, most of the spy tech boys are looking in the wrong direction as usual. The future of surveillance is fly sized spybots.

Alan Rudolph, program manager at DARPA's Defense Science Office, hopes that the robofly will incorporate principles and practices from nature that will lead to "unmatched capabilities for National Security and Defense."

In the future, there will be a hot war in every living room.

Mosquito sized spy drones will fight an endless battle with hunter-killer dragonfly and spider drones designed to stop them. It's coming!

The New Supertanker Plague
Saturday, June 22, 2002

Oil spills are coming to a beach near you:

Super-rust was initially explained as an unprecedented phenomenon, a highly evolved form of corrosion neither foreseeable nor preventable. The truth is less mysterious: Hyper-accelerated corrosion is the inevitable result when unforgiving chemistry meets the harsh economics and tangled industry politics of transporting fossil fuels.

The Greenwashers
Saturday, June 22, 2002

We know that pollution spewing multinational corporations (the usual suspects) love "greenwashing" because they can spend a few extra bucks on advertising to soothe the conscience of clueless Western consumers. Don't be fooled!

Thanks, UK Environment :)

Bush joins new war: battle of bulge
Thursday, June 20, 2002

. . . restaurants are serving bigger portions, and fast-food places are "supersizing" everything from Cinnebon cinnamon rolls, to popcorn, to sodas. It hardly helps that the US is increasingly a TV-watching, car-driving nation with fewer sidewalks and fewer PE classes at school. (Only one state, Illinois, requires daily PE classes for grades K-12.)

I predict the obesity epidemic to be the greatest health care disaster in the West over the next several decades (at least until widespread in-vitro genetic engineering fixes the problem). Is it not hypocritical for the government to mount a politically correct war on tobacco from a sin tax and government propaganda perspective but ignore the myriad of other man made health problems like junk food, alcohol and pollution?

Fuel Cell Hold-up
Thursday, June 20, 2002

Our voracious need for oil forces the United States into military alliances with countries that don't share our values, where free speech and freedom of religion are prohibited, where public beheadings for the slightest offenses are common and where women and girls are treated like possessions.

In the current environment, the administration's decision to take a go-slow approach to fuel-cell development while it pretends to be doing more is not just another dispute about policy.

It's really a crime.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Hal Plotkin's a pretty sharp guy.

You can read some of his archived articles here.

Spotted: After 70 years
Thursday, June 20, 2002

Lowe's servaline genet, a rare member of the mongoose family, is captured on film after no evidence for over seventy years. Cool!

Here's some depressing mongoose news:

Indian mongoose slaughtered for paintbrush production

Bunnies in Jeopardy
Thursday, June 20, 2002

Watership Down: Disney wouldn't make a film like this today.

The film’s most shocking element was the large amount of animal violence, the sort of which would never pass censors today. Rabbits are caught in snares, tortured in slow-motion and fight each other to the death, their furious spittle mixing with their gushing blood. If Bambi showed kids the sadness of death, Watership Down showed them the blunt brutality of it.

1982: Machine of the Year - Time Magazine
Thursday, June 20, 2002

Read this page carefully and consider how the personal computer has changed things and how it hasn't. In fact, the same questions raised in this article are still being asked, twenty years later.

Perhaps the revolution will fulfill itself only when people no longer see anything unusual in the brave New World, when they see their computer not as a fearsome challenger to their intelligence but as a useful linkup of some everyday gadgets: the calculator, the TV and the typewriter. Or as Osborne's Adam Osborne puts it: "The future lies in designing and selling computers that people don't realize are computers at all."

U.S. Drought Monitor
Thursday, June 20, 2002

NOAA's Drought Information Center

USGS Real-Time Water Data

USGS Water Watch

I have never in my life seen the ground as burnt to a crisp as it is now. I live on the western edge of the North Carolina D4 zone.

Local conditions are:

Since Jan. 1, -11.78 in. - 50% of normal rainfall
Since July 1998, -64.37 in. - 67% of normal rainfall

Cloud seeding, rain dances, prayer or spells?

I'd try anything at this point!

Spitting Image
Wednesday, June 19, 2002

An image related weblog spun off of consumptive.org. Links to ruins, H.R. Giger and the Patterson film? I like! Keep it up. I don't want this to be another fun weblog that lasts for a month and then disappears off the face of the 'net.

Battlewagons - Starship Modeler Scale Modeling Contest
Wednesday, June 19, 2002

I think you'll be impressed by the professional level of quality of the sci-fi models here. A lot of these folks should be working in the special effects industry as far as I'm concerned. I wish I had the physical dexterity and patience to do what they do.

Take a look at the Wonderfest 2002 page for more, as well as the reader gallery, where you can find the previous Starship Modeler contests in the drop down menu.

greenmuseum.org
Wednesday, June 19, 2002

greenmuseum.org, a new online museum of environmental art, advances creative efforts to improve our relationship with the natural world. Our goal is to inform, inspire and connect people through environmental art and encourage the creation of new work that serves our communities and ecosystems.

This is the type of work that I'd like to be a part of in the future.

Mobile phones 'fuel gorillas' plight'
Wednesday, June 19, 2002

It is not my intent here to merely pick on mobile phone users, only to point out the human and environmental costs of our cushy and insulated Western lifestyles. Imperialism is alive and well, it has only been changed from a tool of nations to a tool of corporations.

Growing Microchips Using Proteins From Living Cells
Wednesday, June 19, 2002

The new biological interconnects would bypass these processes with long strings of proteins called microtubules (MT). They'll connect transistors and other devices in microchips by growing between the device junctions. They're solder-free, don't involve lithography or etching, and are highly uniform. Once the proteins connect devices, they will be coated with metal and turned into microscopic wires.

Amazing, yes? Here's some even more exciting stuff.

Cornell scientists create single-atom transistor

The challenge faced by the Cornell researchers was to place a molecule less than two nanometers long (about the length of five silicon atoms) between two gold electrodes. To do this they used a technique called electromigration, by which an increasingly large current is run through a gold wire, forcing the atoms to migrate until the wire breaks. The molecule is then "sucked" into the gap by the high electric field present, and the sulfur "sticky fingers" bond the molecule to the gold. "Using this technique you can very reliably get wires with a gap on the order of one nanometer," or about three silicon atoms, says McEuen.

Widespread nanotech may be a few decades away, but it does impress me that so many iterative advances are being made.

Thanks, Nanodot :)

Music "Highlights" Mitsubishi TV Ads
Thursday, June 13, 2002

Finally! All of the songs that Mitsubishi ads have forever ruined for me are all in one place! I'm not a violent man, but that "Start the Commotion" ad they've played on TV every five minutes for the last year makes me want to go down to my local dealership and start busting some heads!

Thanks, TVtattle :)

Tuning in to a deep sea monster
Thursday, June 13, 2002

In 1997, Bloop was detected by U.S. Navy "spy" sensors 3,000 miles apart that had been put there to detect the movement of Soviet submarines, the magazine reports.

The frequency of the sound meant it had to be much louder than any recognised animal noise, including that produced by the largest whales.

I suspect that this sound was generated by some classified military test, like the U.S. Navy's whale killing low frequency sonar.

Livermore lab plan: billion dollar misprint
Bush budget would take the money, but leave the staff
Thursday, June 13, 2002

More idiocy from the White House:

In an arrangement that still has top officials at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scratching their heads, President Bush plans to send 80 percent of the lab's budget to his new Department of Homeland Security and as few as 4 percent of its employees.

I'd also like to point out that governments run in secret by a few paranoid crazoids tend to end up like the late Nazi Germany, the late Soviet Union and the presidency of the late Richard Nixon.

Astronomers hail planetary discovery
Thursday, June 13, 2002

Extraterrestrial Jupiter

The smallest exoplanet yet (40 Earth masses) has been discovered as well as a planetary system that is similar in scale to our own.

Check out these cool star maps!

Things are looking more like Star Trek all the time, but where the hell are the freakin' aliens?

Cyber Cinema, 1981-2001
Thursday, June 13, 2002

These pages are aimed at role playing gamers, but there's some good analysis of the genre. It includes the usual suspects, but also the only mainstream flick to get hacking right and a classic if you happen to be into raw body counts and huge explosions that take place for no apparent reason.

Shut The Hell Up!
Thursday, June 13, 2002

Through the wonders of supposed technological progress (cell phones, leaf blowers, car alarms and thousand watt stereos for example), the disintegration of social civility and the triumph of spoiled "I'm special" narcissism, man's capacity to annoy his fellow humans seems to be increasing exponentially.

Give me a cabin surrounded by a thousand acres of nothing or a bunker one hundred feet beneath the earth and I might just become a happy person like the rest of you.

African droughts may be triggered by Western pollution
Thursday, June 13, 2002

Emissions spewed out by power stations and factories in North America and Europe may have sparked the severe droughts that have afflicted the Sahel region of Africa. The droughts have been among the worst the world has ever seen, and led to the infamous famines that crippled countries such as Ethiopia in the 1980s.

Smog crop damage costs billions

Ozone smogs are costing Europe's farmers more than six billion Euros a year, according to the most detailed assessment to date.

Here are two more excellent reasons to start cutting emissions right now and start developing alternative energy sources.

Robots on the Pitch
Thursday, June 13, 2002

I can't seem to generate much enthusiasm for the World Cup, but watching robots play football looks like my kind of fun.

Now showing on satellite TV: secret American spy photos
Thursday, June 13, 2002

For more than six months live pictures from manned spy aircraft and drones have been broadcast through a satellite over Brazil. The satellite, Telstar 11, is a commercial TV relay. The US spyplane broadcasts are not encrypted, meaning that anyone in the region with a normal satellite TV receiver can watch surveillance operations as they happen. The satellite feeds have also been connected to the internet, potentially allowing the missions to be watched from around the globe.

Don't put too much faith in the high tech military.

Which Deadly Sin Are You?
Tuesday, June 11, 2002



No shit, Sherlock.

Thanks, Quiddity :)

World Hunger Talks Start with Lobster and Foie Gras
Tuesday, June 11, 2002

This is just a tad grotesque, don't you think? The money spent on wining and dining these bureaucrats could no doubt feed a small African country for a month at least.

Bush just briefed on global warming report, spokesman says
Tuesday, June 11, 2002

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer fessed up: President Bush didn't actually read that 268-page Environmental Protection Agency report on climate change, even if he said he did.

Duh. Who really thought he had the brains to read something that was 268 pages long? I have decided that the best way to deal with fools who refuse to admit that global warming is a serious problem despite overwhelming scientific evidence, is to browbeat you repeatedly with facts. I know these same people would rather plug their collective ears and repeat the "this is not happening" mantra.

Sorry folks, you don't get off that easy.

Study shows warming climate causing flowers to bloom earlier

Global Warming Impact on Mountain Areas Confirmed

Greenland's warming ice flows faster

Global warming to hit California water supply, says study

From the desert the cities rose. To the desert the cities fell.

Where the tens of millions of people who live in the Southwest are supposed to go if fresh water supplies run out has yet to be established.

I'd also like to point you to Quark Soup, who's doing a fine job refuting the global warming naysayers.

Birmingham News can't print word that rhymes with 'angina'
Tuesday, June 11, 2002

"The Vagina Monologues" has appeared in other conservative cities, McCann said, such as Raleigh, N.C.; Baton Rouge, La.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Iowa City, Iowa, with no problems from the print press.

Alys Stephens Center production and facilities director Dan Gainey finds it ironic that the newspaper had no problem running ads and features on the recent show "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," with its unveiled references to sex and prostitution.

Naked Birmingham

"Our first responsibility is to our paid readers. We do not want to take the chance of offending anyone."

That's funny, I thought a newspaper's first responsibility was to report the news. Come on, shout it out right now!

VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!

That wasn't so difficult, now was it?

Thanks, MediaNews :)

Roden Crater
Tuesday, June 11, 2002

Someone left to poke around the project on his own, knowing nothing of the actual history, might guess that it was a temple built thousands of years ago by a sect of Native American sky-worshipers and long since abandoned. As much as possible, only local minerals are being used: desert sand, volcanic obsidian for the resonating bathtub, and shale from the bottom of a nearby Jurassic lagoon for the outside walkways, which will give the construction the look of having been built by a people without trucks. (One chamber escapes from the present era in the other direction: a shaft pointed to the North Star is intended to monitor the precession of the earth’s pole from Polaris to Vega, which will become the new North Star in 12,000 years.)

Much like Stonehenge or Chichén Itzá, it's a large scale monument and astronomical observatory.

The Outer Limits
"It's More Than Interesting, It's Important."
Tuesday, June 11, 2002

Though this is by no means a comprehensive guide, it does have some insightful commentary on one of the most thought provoking science fiction shows in television history. Good stories trump mediocre special effects. That's something that today's writers and directors should consider.

As a bonus, any webpage that gives Harlan Ellison's gargantuan ego a well deserved gets my respect.

Conservatives to Nickelodeon: Not in Front of the Children!
Saturday, June 8, 2002

The Traditional Values Coalition, a Washington-based lobbying group, is outraged over a "Nick News" special about intolerance toward kids with same-sex parents. The show is scheduled to run on cable channel Nickelodeon on June 18.

But no one's as affronted as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and he's on the show. He agreed to appear on the program even while blasting it, saying its purpose is to "invade the minds and hearts of children who enjoy Nickelodeon" and teach them that gay is okay.

Dear Mr. Fallwell,

History will eventually condemn you for being the cretinous hate filled bigot that you are. When that day comes, no one will be cheering more loudly than I.

Until that time, I'll be keeping an eye on you.

For someone who claims to speak for God, I think you're in for one hell of a shock in the afterlife. If I were you, I'd pray that God doesn't have a sense of humor.

Sea Change
Friday, June 7, 2002

The New Mobile Infantry

Long Bets

Here are three interesting articles from last month's Wired, respectively covering European offshore wind farms, the new generation of combat robots and betting on the future.

On that last one, I thought I'd throw out my own somewhat uneducated guesses on the predictions in the article.

Commercial airline passengers will routinely fly in pilotless planes by 2030.

NO. The FAA would never allow it.

By 2010, more than 50 percent of books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form of library-quality paperbacks.

NO. This is a tricky question, but my reasoning is that the traditional bookstore will be around for a while. People still like to browse.

A computer will pass the Turing test by 2029.

NO. A wild guess.

The universe will eventually stop expanding.

NO. A wild guess.

By 2012, Russia will be referred to as the world leader in software development in both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

NO. Russia will have to solve her crippling internal problems first and there's no way she can do that by 2012.

Weblogs will outrank the New York Times Web site by 2007 (based on a Google search of five keywords or phrases reflecting the top five news stories).

NO. Get real Dave! You're basing your prediction on current weblog growth and the current media attention. We may have all been replaced by something totally different by 2007. Remember what happened to all of those guys who said the new economy could grow forever?

The US men's soccer team will win the World Cup before the Red Sox win the World Series.

NO. I think it's unlikely since soccer has never really caught on as a professional sport in the U.S.

Neither superstring theory, membrane theory, nor any other unified theory describing all the forces of nature will have won a Nobel Prize by 2020.

NO. A wild guess.

Bioterror, or bioerror, will lead to 1 million casualties in a single event by 2020.

YES. A million casualties isn't as many as you might think in an urban area or if the weapon is a highly infectious agent. I'm surprised that it hasn't already happened.

At least one human born in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150.

YES. The caveat is that advanced technological civilizations still exist in 2150. I think they will, even if they are just the twisted descendants of Dr. Strangelove living in underground bunkers under a crispy radioactive wasteland.

Fun isn't it?

The Long Bets website

Internet site beams U.S. movies from Iran
Friday, June 7, 2002

Iran sticks it to Hollywood.

Wait, I'm seeing a future headline!

82nd Airborne Division Lands in Iran to Stop Terrorist Movie Piracy. Axis of Evil Web Servers Captured In Fierce Fighting.

Thanks, Arts Journal :)

Natural Born Killers 'free speech victory'
Friday, June 7, 2002

An appeals court has upheld a ruling that the makers of controversial movie Natural Born Killers cannot be prosecuted for a young couple's violent crime spree, according to its film studio.

That's a good thing.

Hollywood Gets a Charge Out of Hybrid Cars
Thursday, June 6, 2002

Gas-electric hybrid cars become popular among the Hollywood set (no doubt some webloggers will call this a vast liberal conspiracy designed to undermine conservative values).

That's cool, but I hope that manufacturers will put more hybrids into mass production. The price penalty is a drawback for us normal folk and cars like the nifty Honda Insight are too small for a lot of consumers (the Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Prius are more practical).

So manufacturers, how about mass producing more typical sized hybrid vehicles that get far better mileage than their gas burning cousins?

They might even catch on with SUV driving soccer moms.

For now, we have to overcome public ignorance (hybrids aren't the same thing as GM's titanic flop - the EV-1; they never need to be recharged), our addiction to artificially cheap gasoline, smear job pieces from some automotive pundits, who seem to think that gas guzzlers should be protected by the U.S. Constitution and Detroit's constant droning refrain of "it can't be done" and "building efficient high technology vehicles will bankrupt us".

When did the U.S. motto become "sorry, we can't compete"?

We have the greatest collection of engineers and scientists in the free world. I know we can compete.

Extreme mercury levels revealed in whalemeat
Thursday, June 6, 2002

I hope this gives people more reasons for not eating cetaceans, as well as showing how our oceans are being turned into toxic waste dumps.

Air Control System Draws Questions
Thursday, June 6, 2002

"Logic be damned!" says the FAA, ramming through a half finished air traffic control system:

STARS has been plagued by cost overruns and delays; DOT Inspector General Kenneth Mead told a House subcommittee in March that the system is four years behind schedule and 0 million over its original billion price tag. Mead said there were 71 specific software problems that could prevent the system from operating as designed, or could threaten safety or security.

That makes me feel much safer about flying!

In related news:

New lawsuits aim to curb racism aboard airplanes

A.K.A. "ejected for flying while dark skinned".

The Role Of Environmental Change On Global Security
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Hijackings, bioterrorist attacks and suicide bombings aren't the only human-induced threats to global security. Climate change, dwindling resources and the unintentional spread of microbial pests also have the potential to cause political destabilization, according to former university president Donald Kennedy, now editor-in-chief of the journal Science.

The potential climate change and environmental disasters of the next hundred years (if nothing is done and technology doesn't solve our problems) make the current threats supposedly facing us pale by comparison.

Meanwhile, Bush tries to torpedo a report put out by his own administration blaming global warming on human activities!

Dear Mr. Bush, to put things in a rancher's perspective so you can understand it, you're a horse with a broken leg.

You will be remembered by future generations for your inaction.

You will not be remembered for anything else other than being another in a long like of corporate stooge politicians.

Coal-rich Australia rejects Kyoto Protocol

Australia's rejection follows intense lobbying from the country's mining industry and, reportedly, also from the US. Until now, the US has been alone among industrialised nations in its opposition to the protocol.

Dems in panic over harbinger Minnesota race
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Supposedly liberal Democrats are in a tizzy over a Minnesota Green Party candidate. Democrat apologists in the press are freaking out as well, using the exact same smear tactics that they normally accuse conservatives of using.

Here's another such article.

You should also see what's going on Massachusetts.

Earth to Democrats: if you continue to blame third party voters for the fact that your presidential candidate couldn't get the job done in 2000 vs. one of the most unqualified presidential candidates ever, you will lose even more votes to those of us who vote on principle. We did make a difference in a close election and we can do it again. Maybe you should adjust your platform a bit to include progressive concerns, instead of being known as the party of invertebrates.

Exactly what is wrong with having principles and sticking to them? What's wrong with voting for the candidate that you think is best for the office, regardless of party affiliation? Isn't that the whole point of democracy?

One thing I pledge here and now: I will not automatically vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, just because he or she has the "best chance" of beating George Bush.

The duopoly is a slave to the mediocre middle and everyone knows it. We also know that the parties will nominate whatever political hacks that have the best chance of winning. The Democratic and Republican conventions mean nothing.

I would love to have seen a Bradley vs. McCain contest in 2000 because I have a tremendous amount of respect for both of them, regardless of their opposing political philosophies. I think that either of them would have made a fine president (but that doesn't mean that I would have voted for either of them).

Instead, the two party system hands us Gore vs. Bush. How sad.

DLI official removed for criticizing Bush
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Word to the wise, don't speak an objectionable opinion about if you're in the U.S. military and expect to keep your job. Isn't a slavering bunch of yes men and women why the U.S. military is such a poorly run political bureaucracy in the first place?

Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice says that "any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the president, the vice president, Congress, the secretary of defense, the secretary of a military department, the secretary of transportation or the governor or legislature of any state, territory, commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."

Thanks, Cursor.org :)

Waking Life and Liquid Caricature
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Rob Coleman, Animation Director - Star Wars: Episode II

Two interesting articles from Animation World Network.

Now that Star Wars: Episode II is flopping around like the proverbial headless chicken at the box office, replaced by the equally inane Tom Clancy "pretty boy saves the world" dumbfest The Sum of All Fears (read the link, it's funny), I'll cut it some slack.

Remember kids, only Action Figure Ben Affleck [TM] is invulnerable to nuclear blast effects! You aren't. Apparently, Jack Ryan and his soon to be bride have a nice little picnic in Washington at the end of the movie. Since this is a mere forty miles from the smoking radioactive crater that used to be the city of Baltimore, I guess they aren't too worried about fallout damaging the chromosomes of their uberspawn. This is a Clancy film after all. If you want to see a good movie in this genre, try the well casted and far more believable By Dawn's Early Light from 1990.

I never really had anything against the Star Wars series, just the legions of fanboys and reporters trying to define a generation by a rather thin eye candy movie aimed at kids.

That's fine, but let's not turn it into something it's not. OK, no more rants about bad summer blockbusters if I can restrain myself.

I probably can't!

China bans toxic American computer junk
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Raising fears that China was becoming a "dumping ground" for electronic junk, the country's environment agency said this week that police would crack down on "the smuggling of dangerous wastes". However, it appeared to leave a loophole by saying that if "proper methods" were used, the environment need not be harmed.

You didn't think that when you threw out all of those obsolete computers that they just disappeared, did you?

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