Monday, March 28, 2005
Sunday, March 20, 2005
It's the return of the... "Ah, wait, no way, you're kidding, he didn't just say what I think he did, did he?"
I'm back, in a reduced form, but still bringing you what I feel are stories that you should know about. I'm going to try to keep this to a weekly format to keep down the overall workload, and do more to sort out the news that's important to know. With that, on with the show...
The CIA has come out this week saying that they do not and will not use torture to extract information from terrorist suspects, but conveniently won't comment on whether any torture occurred in the past. They did note, however, and this isn't encouraging, that there had been 'some uncertainty' in the past amongst operatives over which methods were considered torture.
On the subject of 'ongoing conflicts,' Israel has recently announced that it will halt any future offensives in Palestinian territory so long as there are no suicide bomb attacks against its civilians. Sounds fair, assuming you forget the grinding poverty that the Palestinians have to live with every day - one that is indirectly (and that's probably an understatement) propagated by Israeli policy. Northern Ireland is having some problems as well, as political advances have been prevented by ongoing violence sponsored by the IRA.
Fundamentalist Christians in the US continue to spread their propaganda in two ways this week, first by this article about how Christian women (and by extension, women in general), shouldn't be involved in sports. Gotta love the pics. Also if liked this, check out the link at the bottom of the page to Ladies Against Feminism. The picture of the Victorian woman reading used in the link is appropriate, since these people want to set women back about 200 years. If that wasn't bad enough, Christians continue to challenge Evolution as a theory both in the classroom on on the big screen. I suppose they'll want to ban Interit the Wind next, since it has such a pro-Evolution view. Might as well start the other book burning while you're at it. I read an article about a month back going over how incredibly silly Intelligent Design is (their new alternative), and I'll post it if I happen to run across it again.
The New York Times has a pretty good article on how the Bush administration continues to put together pre-packaged 'news' hawking the administrations programs. I suppose since they were successful at turning Fox News into nothing but a Republican propaganda station, why not have it on all the other stations too?
In random news, Walmart has recently settled an $11 million dollar suit over their use of illegal immigrants to clean their stores, workers who were never paid overtime (since why would you need to?). 'New Europe' is starting to shy away from its US alliance as the pay-offs for their involvement Iraq turn out to be much less than they expected.
A couple of interesting things coming out of the science world, most notably that scientists think that they may have created a black hole in a New York lab. Also, this release from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign notes how the administration's hyping of 'dirty bombs' is just that -- hyping. Apparently it's not the kind that will destroy the world though. The Economist posted an article about how the Iranian Non-Proliferation Act might ground the space station. But then again, what use does a Republican administration have for science? You don't need to worry about proposed hydrogen-burning cars or current hydrogen-burning motorcycles, melting Himalayan glaciers or drilling oil in a wildlife preserve if you think the Rapture is around the corner.
And finally, all I have to say is this: "ouch..."
The CIA has come out this week saying that they do not and will not use torture to extract information from terrorist suspects, but conveniently won't comment on whether any torture occurred in the past. They did note, however, and this isn't encouraging, that there had been 'some uncertainty' in the past amongst operatives over which methods were considered torture.
On the subject of 'ongoing conflicts,' Israel has recently announced that it will halt any future offensives in Palestinian territory so long as there are no suicide bomb attacks against its civilians. Sounds fair, assuming you forget the grinding poverty that the Palestinians have to live with every day - one that is indirectly (and that's probably an understatement) propagated by Israeli policy. Northern Ireland is having some problems as well, as political advances have been prevented by ongoing violence sponsored by the IRA.
Fundamentalist Christians in the US continue to spread their propaganda in two ways this week, first by this article about how Christian women (and by extension, women in general), shouldn't be involved in sports. Gotta love the pics. Also if liked this, check out the link at the bottom of the page to Ladies Against Feminism. The picture of the Victorian woman reading used in the link is appropriate, since these people want to set women back about 200 years. If that wasn't bad enough, Christians continue to challenge Evolution as a theory both in the classroom on on the big screen. I suppose they'll want to ban Interit the Wind next, since it has such a pro-Evolution view. Might as well start the other book burning while you're at it. I read an article about a month back going over how incredibly silly Intelligent Design is (their new alternative), and I'll post it if I happen to run across it again.
The New York Times has a pretty good article on how the Bush administration continues to put together pre-packaged 'news' hawking the administrations programs. I suppose since they were successful at turning Fox News into nothing but a Republican propaganda station, why not have it on all the other stations too?
In random news, Walmart has recently settled an $11 million dollar suit over their use of illegal immigrants to clean their stores, workers who were never paid overtime (since why would you need to?). 'New Europe' is starting to shy away from its US alliance as the pay-offs for their involvement Iraq turn out to be much less than they expected.
A couple of interesting things coming out of the science world, most notably that scientists think that they may have created a black hole in a New York lab. Also, this release from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign notes how the administration's hyping of 'dirty bombs' is just that -- hyping. Apparently it's not the kind that will destroy the world though. The Economist posted an article about how the Iranian Non-Proliferation Act might ground the space station. But then again, what use does a Republican administration have for science? You don't need to worry about proposed hydrogen-burning cars or current hydrogen-burning motorcycles, melting Himalayan glaciers or drilling oil in a wildlife preserve if you think the Rapture is around the corner.
And finally, all I have to say is this: "ouch..."
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Guess who's back... Back again...
This blog will soon be returning from the dead. Details to come...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)