Democrats protest E-voting supplier

30May06

Business Week reports that Democrats are protesting the use of a particular company for supplying voting machines for U.S elections. Before you get all excited that the Dems have grown a spine… no, they are not talking about Diebold and their CEOs promise to deliver Ohio to Bush, but about a Venezuelan company, no doubt [...]

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Bush Tracker Update

30May06

Forbes: Rep. Lewis (R) Subject of Federal Probe
The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has opened an investigation into House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis and his dealings with a lobbyist with connections to disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Corruption

NYT: C.I.A. Aide's House and Office Searched
Federal agents conducted searches on Friday at the office and [...]

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Mandelian evolution

30May06

Over at Business Week, wunderkind gets all radical and suggests we throw open the border. Funny thing with liberal ideas that sit around long enough… they get picked up by conservatives and neo-liberals . We have been calling for action against Saddam for a few decades. Bush thinks of the same thing, for the [...]

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Geek fight clubs

30May06

CNN reports that geeks are now joining fight clubs to liberate their inner macho child:
CNN.com – Computer techs turn to fisticuffs for fun
MENLO PARK, California (AP) — They may sport love handles and Ivy League degrees, but every two weeks, some Silicon Valley techies turn into vicious street brawlers in a real-life, underground fight club.
[...]
I [...]

Filed under: News, Silliness   |  3 Comments

Values confusion!

26May06

Below is a snippet of a Gallup poll on values, via PollingReport. Read the whole thing. There's plenty of bad news: if you are an animal rights proponent, like me, then there is the disappointing bit that 60+% approve of animal testing and even wearing fur. Then we have the righteous disapproval of homosexuality. And [...]

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Net neutrality moves forward in Congress

26May06

CW: House panel approves Net neutrality bill
May 25, 2006 (IDG News Service) — A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved a bill that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing their customers' access to Web content offered by competitors.
[...]

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Opera 9 Beta

24May06

You can now download a Beta of the Opera browser 9. If you have never used Opera, give it a whirl. Its wicked fast, provides easy keyboard navigation, did tab-like stuff before Mozilla, and now, again beating Mozilla to it, does the latest fad: widgets! Sweet!
Download Opera Web Browser

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Genetic inheritence through RNA

24May06

Next time you meet a reductionist, you can wave this bit of news at him! 
BBC | Spotty mice flout genetics laws

[...] 
The scientists, based at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, used mice which carry one normal version of Kit and one mutant version, giving them [...]

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Apropos to the Kaavya Affair

24May06

[A question to English usage types: is "Apropos of" or "Apropos to" the right usage in this title? My initial urge was "of" but on further thought I felt "to" is more apropos!]
I have already posted on the Kaavya Viswanathan affair (plagiarization by the young Indian-American author), though I did not quite articulate what it [...]

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AlterNet reviews Singer’s latest

23May06

AlterNet: It's Not Enough to Be a Vegetarian

There wasn't much wiggle room left for the casual carnivore when über-ethicist Peter Singer got finished with us in 1973. That's when his uncompromising assault on trans-species suffering, Animal Liberation, had millions of readers trading in their T-bones for tofu.
But now even the moral high ground of [...]

Filed under: Animal Rights   |  4 Comments