Cockta Cola

Fifteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall, people in the former Eastern Bloc countries are still embracing products and goods first created in the communist era. Ever heard of the Junak, Poland's own Harley Davidson? Or how about Cockta Cola?
http://service.spiegel.de

Macs in business to stay
http://story.news.yahoo.com/

Although Apple's marketshare hasn't moved significantly yet, Oppenheimer said there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that things are moving in that direction, including a steady stream (in the range of low to mid 40 percent) of first-time Mac buyers at the Apple retail stores and increased uptake of iBook and PowerBook systems by high school and college students who have already bought iPods -- an assertion supported by college student market research
http://story.news.yahoo.com

elections

Growing up with Condi
http://news.bbc.co.uk

The US has insisted abortion should not be recognised as a human right, at a review of progress 10 years after a major conference on women's rights.
The issue has dominated the opening proceedings of the UN session...
http://news.bbc.co.uk

No one wants to drill in Alaska. Yet unlike the sloppy Russian rigs in Siberia that nevertheless send their fuel to environmentally conscious Europeans, Americans can tap some of their own oil in a safe fashion. So it makes no sense to import petroleum under dubious conditions abroad, but not to drill safely at home
http://www.victorhanson.com/

In basic training in the United States military, new recruits who are broken down to break the human inhibition to killing take part in training chants like, “What makes the grass grow? Blood, blood, bright red blood.”
http://www.worldpress.org/

What would LOST do? A new transnational tribunal, the International Seabed Authority, would take jurisdiction over 70 percent of the planet – all of the oceans' resources, living and non-living – as "the common heritage of all mankind."
http://www.wnd.com/

Under growing pressure over its occupation of Lebanon and its alleged involvement in a suicide-bombing in Israel, Syria has handed over a half-brother of Saddam Hussein, suspected of fomenting Iraq’s insurgency from Syria.
http://www.economist.com/
Egypt’s all-powerful leader, Hosni Mubarak, has announced, to general surprise, that he wants the constitution changed to allow for contested presidential elections.
http://www.economist.com/
Saudi Arabia took a small step towards democracy today as men in and around the capital voted in the kingdom's first municipal election.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Images from Afghanistan's first democratic presidential election on Saturday, which observers have pronounced fair despite claims of fraud by opposition parties.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Millions of Iraqis cast ballots Sunday in the nation's first free election in half a century
http://www.cnn.com
Bush's "warmongering" has made no difference.

back by popular demand

Steve Jobs is so enigmatic. A couple weeks ago at MacWorld, he introduced the 2.9 lb. Mac Mini and the reaction was so great it was like he had re-invented the PC. Readers are all excited by the little box and have been asking me for my take on it. Like everyone else, I had to scratch my head a bit and ponder what this thing is really for. I know, I know, it is for all those PC drivers who bought an iPod and are now supposed to trash their Windows PC for a Mac Mini. Yeah, but what's it REALLY for?
http://www.pbs.org/

Condi

Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Downtown Dallas needs a lifeline, and it comes in the form a park atop a highway.
http://www.dallasnews.com

José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, is facing a rebellion in Brussels after Italian and Spanish were quietly downgraded as working languages of the European Union.
http://www.iht.com/

Ward Churchill is the professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado who compared the 9/11 World Trade Center victims to Nazis. Churchill got his job in part because he falsely claimed to be a Native American. Whether someone is white, black, Hispanic or Native American can't be objectively determined so why not let every American pick his or her own race?
http://www.techcentralstation.com

Apple buying TiVo?

http://www.marketwatch.com/

This is about the 3rd scary, whacked-out link ive gotten from aaron
http://www.deathpilot.com/
this is aaron's favorite song
http://www.deathpilot.com/tapejareatsyourface

German criticisms

The arrival of President Bush in Europe this week may well bring the demonstrators out on the streets again, to protest about American action in Iraq and inaction over the Kyoto climate treaty. But not all Europeans find fault with the United States. The US is the world's foremost economic and military power. In these times of anti-Americanism this is by way of a love letter to the country where I have lived for a quarter of my life.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

During a debate Tuesday punctuated with evidence from both antiquity and current events, classicist Victor Davis Hanson mounted a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq, while Dartmouth History Professor Ronald Edsforth countered that all preemptive wars, especially in the case of Iraq, fall outside the “just war tradition.”
http://www.dartreview.com/

But my man in the grey suit is backed up by the greatest power ever seen on the face of the Earth: his identity card carries a menace which every security guard in every godforsaken corner of the globe understands and appreciates. If you are going to be an ally of America, you must let the secret service through roadblocks with whomsoever they choose to travel. And they did. Freedom is on the march.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Germany loves to criticize US President George W. Bush's Middle East policies -- just like Germany loved to criticize former President Ronald Reagan. But Reagan, when he demanded that Gorbachev remove the Berlin Wall, turned out to be right. Could history repeat itself?
http://service.spiegel.de/

The alleged head of a notorious gang in Honduras blamed for a massacre of bus passengers before Christmas has been arrested in the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

more PowerPC-based "Cell" processor

http://www.eweek.com/

This is all about the breakdown of the personal relationship between Eisner and Steve Jobs. What I discovered is that the single incident that pushed Steve Jobs over the edge was when he believed, and I think he is right, that Eisner lied to him about blasting Apple Computer in congressional testimony.
http://www.fool.com/

Gmail has been a particular pain for Microsoft, according to a new study. When signing up for Gmail, more people switch from Hotmail than from any other competing service, according to Return Path, a company that makes tools to ease the transition from one e-mail program to another. About twice as many people abandoned Hotmail accounts than Yahoo ones in favor of Gmail in the last half of 2004, the study said.
http://news.com.com/

Helicopter experts say LAPD's unit is one of the best law enforcement fleets in the country. With 17 aircraft, Los Angeles has a helicopter in the air almost round the clock and flies about 10 times as much as Dallas does – 17,500 hours a year.
http://www.dallasnews.com/

Model in Utah May Be Future for Medicaid
http://nytimes.com/

The green and yellow flier from the Kmart in Aspen Hill proclaimed, "Celebrate Black History" and then advertised "3 for $1 Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix" and "3 for $10 Tone 6-Bar Soap." The makers of Metamucil and Pepto-Bismol ran a full-page ad in this month's Ebony magazine declaring, "Black History Month is a legacy of pride and achievement leading to a healthier tomorrow." The ad continues, "It's the same ideals you turn to when it comes to your GI Health -- a history of digestive solutions."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The actors who provide the voices for cartoon family The Simpsons in Mexico went on strike on Wednesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Is Microsoft Paint still a viable program??

face-time

The proposal is opposed by many within Mr Martin's governing Liberal Party. Opinion polls indicate that nearly two-thirds of Canadians are against it.
On Tuesday Ottawa's new ambassador to the US caused an uproar by saying a defence pact the two neighbours signed last year meant Canada was effectively already part of the defence system. Canada agreed in August to allow the joint Canadian-US air defence command to share information with the missile defence programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...stm

The victims of integration...End of segregation, end of many black-owned businesses
http://www.dallasnews.com/...91.html



A Russian digital-music site offering high-quality song downloads for just pennies apiece is the target of a criminal copyright investigation by the local police, recording industry groups said Tuesday.
http://news.com.com/MP3s....top

U.S. officials are pressuring Nicaragua's government to destroy aging Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles they fear could be sold to terrorists on the black market.
http://www.cnn.com/...ex.html

A candid first lady opens up about her East Wing plans and discusses recently released tapes of her husband’s conversations
http://www.msnbc.msn.com.../

Why pick on the tiny iPod when landfills around the country are filling up with 16-inch monitors and ancient CPUs? Because of the sheer numbers of the devices being sold, and Apple's reputation as a forward-thinking company.
http://abcnews.go.com/...8

Senior European Union officials, for all their disdain toward the United States in recent years, have been squabbling this week over who gets more "face time" with President Bush.
http://washingtontimes.com/...r.htm

The much-touted American-style "town hall" meeting the White House has been planning with "normal Germans" of everyday walks of life will be missing during his visit to the Rhine River hamlet of Mainz this afternoon
http://service.spiegel.de/...0.html

Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly yesterday approved a measure that would deny illegal aliens access to state and local public benefits, including Medicaid.
http://washingtontimes.com/...r.htm

Lone Star Krauts

Three years ago, Alexander Bardorff, the former manager of a popular Frankfurt restaurant, joined forces with two other Germans to purchase an abandoned town in Texas...In Lobo, no one is bothered by what she does. "I can build and make what I want," Gloser told DW-WORLD. "In Frankfurt, I can't even change something in my garden without getting permission."In fact, her Texan neighbors have been surprisingly easy-going, said Gloser.
http://www.dw-world.de/...0.html
http://www.lobo-texas.com/...php

After reunification, allied soldiers were no longer needed. Upon their departure from the eventual German capital, Chancellor helmut Kohl told the troops that Germany had learned by their example. "You can rely on us. Germany will never stand aside when peace and freedom are at stake in the world," Kohl said.
http://www.dw-world.de...0.html

Some South Korean homeless are dressing in style after the government gave away thousands of fake designer garments confiscated by customs agents... One homeless man, who asked not to be identified, said he appreciated the fancy threads. "I don't care about the quality of the clothes, but these designs are quite trendy," the recipient said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/...ess_dc

California Dreams

What is the problem? California's soft utopian dreams outdistanced hard reality. In a metaphorical sense, we were homeowners who haggled over the sheen on our beautiful wood floors, but had no inkling of the rotting foundation out of sight beneath the house. Sophisticates bickered over the artistic design of a new span of the Bay Bridge but were bored by their underlings' warnings of how to pay or build it. Upscale environmentalists in water-hungry San Francisco envision tearing down Hetch Hetchy Dam to re-create another Yosemite Valley—without a serious plan of how to replace its life-giving water supply.
http://www.victorhanson.com/...5.html

As we expected, the left has not taken the news presented on our site well. A pro-Islamic jihad writer for Alex Cockburn’s CounterPunch regards it naturally as “David Horowitz’s Smear Portal” and objects to our linking noble champions of social justice like himself with the “resisters” in the Sunni triangle he supports.
http://www.frontpagemag.com...7100

European Allies?

Germany's Schroeder said he ``sees no need to deviate'' from proposals he made at a security conference in Munich on Feb. 12, where he said the ``dialogue between the EU and the U.S., in its current form, neither reflects Europe's growing weight nor corresponds with new requirements of trans-Atlantic cooperation.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/...r=us

US President George W Bush has voiced "deep concern" about European plans to lift an arms embargo on China - putting him at odds with the French president. Jacques Chirac insisted the ban was "no longer justified"...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...7.stm

France's national library has raised a "war cry" over plans by Google to put books from some of the world's great libraries on the Internet and wants to ensure the project does not lead to a domination of American ideas.
http://news.com.com/...fd.top

Germans may disagree with Bush's pledges to promote democracy, but there's another American imperialist whose ideas they seem to agree with more and more: Ronald McDonald. When Germans say they are more likely to purchase German goods than American ones, they clearly don't mean fast food
http://service.spiegel.de/...00.html

Apple Powerbook

The Apple Powerbook 100 has been chosen as the greatest gadget of all time, by US magazine Mobile PC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...1.stm

The net is abuzz with expectation as the world's first "wireless iPod" seems to be a step closer after a radio interview given to Radio France by Motorola's manager for automobile products.
http://sys-con.com/...de=1

Next Wave: Motorola-MeshNetworks, in-car iServices & iTunes
http://www.macsimumnews.com/...itunes/

halo effect

http://australianit.news.com.au/...00.html

Microsoft in Quandary Over Virus Security
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap...html

That's the official story. But visits with conservatives around the city -- from Republican Party stalwarts to think-tank intellectuals to techno- libertarians to old-fashioned values-based social conservatives -- tells a more complicated tale. Conservative San Franciscans can't be called triumphant (many hesitate to admit how they vote), but they have been energized by state and national election results, and even point to developments in the city itself as evidence that San Francisco may be more Right than it thinks.
http://www.sfgate.com...41.DTL
from michaelsavage.com

Mexican Warfare in Dallas

Just since the beginning of the year, the White House official said, there have been 23 class-action suits filed in Madison County -- 19 of them within the past week as lawyers recognized the imminent passage of the bill. The new legislation is not retroactive.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/

All of a sudden everyone seemed to agree. The social democrats had to distance themselves from the rest of the crowd - how else could they paint their opponents as heartless libertarians? And what a left turn they took! Prime Minister Göran Persson's new rhetoric echoes a time long past; in a debate in Parliament last week he stated, "How many flat TV screens should there be in our houses, apartments and condominiums, how much more of cars and private consumption and how much should be spent on the common good? That's the issue." So private consumption is out; welfare is being redefined as strictly government funded services.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/..A.html

But now Mr Havill believes that Deep Throat is in fact George HW Bush, the father of the current president.
http://news.bbc.co.uk...617.stm

The young woman's death brought to mind an event I witnessed my first year here. It was a sunny afternoon in the sleepy Eastern Province town of Al-Khobar. A friend and I had stopped at an intersection for a red light. A white Buick was in the left lane ahead of us. A woman in an abbaya—the black robe women are forced to wear—sat in the backseat. Suddenly, the door flung open and the covered woman got out.
http://www.victorhanson.com...5.html

A team of rogue Mexican commandos blamed for dozens of killings along the U.S.-Mexico border has carried out at least three drug-related slayings in Dallas, a sign that the group is extending its deadly operations into U.S. cities, two American law enforcement officials say. The men are known as the Zetas, former members of the Mexican army who defected to Mexico's so-called Gulf drug cartel in the late 1990s, other officials say.
http://www.dallasnews.com/...f0.html

Sick Sad World

Murder number one cause of death in pregnant women
http://www.bluebus.org/...o.php

Cat Fight!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/...true
username: privacy1st@mailinator.com
password: tribune

Cinema

What type of feeling do you get when you listen to this guy?
http://www.ajpme.org...1.mov

http://www.ajpme.org/documentary.htm

Mini

People I meet are fascinated by it. They're always asking if they can sit in it, so of course I let them. A couple of times I've been at the supermarket, and burly men have stopped, rolled down their windows and asked if I was going to put my car in the "trolley return" section.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...stm

Archaeologists have begun underwater excavations of what is believed to be an ancient city and parts of a temple uncovered by the tsunami off the coast of a centuries-old pilgrimage town.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/...temple

Look out, Microsoft. That's the message this week from the Mozilla Foundation, whose Web browser Firefox has surpassed 25 million downloads in 100 days.
http://news.com.com/....top

Missile Dolls

According to a tape recording of the conversation released by The Standard, when the reporter, Oliver Finegold, asked Livingstone how the party went, the mayor replied: "Were you a German war criminal?" When the reporter said he was Jewish, Livingstone said: "Well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?"
http://www.iht.com/...brits.html



Symposium: Noam Chomsky: Academic Insider or Outsider?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/...2

Parlez-vous bureaucratique?
France's mighty bureaucracy has acknowledged the havoc wreaked by the near-total impenetrability of the language it uses by publishing a dictionary of the 3,000 most commonly used administrative terms which the average French person does not understand.
http://www.guardian.co....html

Russia defied stern American warnings yesterday to announce that it had agreed to start shipping nuclear fuel to Iran in three months. Within hours President Bush vowed to stand by Israel if its security was threatened by Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk...html

It was business as usual on NPR the other afternoon. A lady expert was complaining that, in his State of the Union address, George W. Bush had made no mention of ''climate change.'' This is true in the narrow sense that, if you were hoping for some meaningless bit of Clintonesque hot-air micropolitics, the president didn't boldly pledge to join our European allies in pretending to abide by the Kyoto Treaty.
http://www.suntimes.com...6.html

Don't Squeeze the Juice

Star Trek fans have taken out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times in an attempt to persuade TV executives not to scrap Star Trek: Enterprise.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/.stm

The trouble is that parents who are quick to limit a child's soft drink consumption often overlook or even encourage juice indulgence thanks to the beverage's good-for-you image. But that image can be overstated. Though healthy in moderation, juice essentially is water and sugar. In fact, a 12-ounce bottle of grape soda has 159 calories. The same amount of unsweetened grape juice packs 228 calories.
http://story.news.yahoo...abuse

The Vatican university is launching a new course for exorcists - Roman Catholic priests who cast out evil spirits from the possessed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...9.stm

Ecstasy

It might surprise you to know that two of the cherished objectives of leftist types are actually in conflict with each other. They are, at extremes, mutually exclusive. And the long tail is the reason. In this brief interregnum before this meme is used to explain why the sky is blue and the sun rises in the east, let me explain it for you.
http://www.techcentralstation....html

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday provided something for everyone in the Social Security debate, endorsing the private accounts Republicans want while buttressing Democratic arguments about deficit-busting dangers.
http://www.bloomberg.com/...us

While acknowledging the importance of the constitutional guarantee of free speech, Gonzales said selling or distributing obscene materials does not fall within First Amendment protections.
http://news.yahoo.com/new...eal_3

"Our government has become anti-religion, and this is an attempt to rebuild institutional and constitutional respect by government for religion. Not for a particular religion, but religion in general," said Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax), who sits on the courts committee.
Opponents fear that the amendment could be used to return school-sanctioned prayer to classroom life. They say an individual's right to pray on public property is already protected, and the language of the founders should be considered sacred.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...6.html

The number of laid-off workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell for a third straight week, dropping to the lowest level in more than four years, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
http://www.usatoday.com/...s_x.htm

The United States government has found a new way of recruiting soldiers for the Iraq war: It's offering them ecstasy. The trick is, the soldiers only get the free drugs after they have seen enough fighting to be experiencing flashbacks, recurring nightmares and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
http://service.spiegel.de/...0.html

Robots

Uncle Sam promotes abortion?
Mr. Paul's bills would prohibit federal funds from being used for population control or "family planning" through exercising Congress' constitutional power to restrict federal court's jurisdiction by restoring each state's authority to protect unborn life.
http://insider.washingtontimes.com

In their search for middle ground on the subject of abortion, Democrats are encountering a mixture of resistance and retreat from abortion rights advocates in their own party.
http://nytimes.com/

The clock counts down to May for California's audacious $3 billion experiment in funding stem cell research...Not that the institute actually has decided to fund any grants or even has an application process. That's all still in the works.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/

Greenspan, if his past statements are any guide, is likely to support the concept of private accounts, though he may not be enthusiastic about their effect on the federal budget deficit, which set a record of $412 billion in the last fiscal year and is projected to rise to $427 billion this year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Traffic/

Despite the obstacles, Congress ordered in 2000 that a third of the ground vehicles and a third of deep-strike aircraft in the military must become robotic within a decade. If that mandate is to be met, the United States will spend many billions of dollars on military robots by 2010.
http://nytimes.com/2005/02

U.S. Declares War on Iran!

Iran and Syria say they are to form a common front to face challenges and threats from overseas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk...stm

A report of a blast in Iran also weighed on sentiment in the early-going. March crude futures were last up 94 cents at $48.20, vs. its pre-blast report price of about $47.40. Reuters, citing Iranian state TV, reported that the blast, which was believed to have come from an unknown craft, was near Dailam, Iran.
http://www.marketwatch.com/
Nothing like trusting Iranian State TV for your news...

Initial reports from Iranian state television said an unknown aircraft has fired a missile in the area. But later, the network said it was possible a fuel tank falling from a plane could have caused the explosion. Iran's revolutionary guards later confirmed there was no attack but denied the report of a falling fuel tank.
http://www.ctv.ca/...TopStories

"There's a big difference between the south and here," Abbas said, stepping over metal rods and a pile of rocks on an apartment building construction site. "The Kurds are rich and educated. We're tired of poverty in the south. I look around at all this construction and see many, many Arabs just like me."
http://www.latimes.com/...headlines

Cubans are very used to having government involvement in almost every aspect of their lives. The state dictates who can move house, buy a car or travel. Can you imagine living in the best land in the world for cigars and being told you cannot smoke? It's insane Pedro, former aircraft technician. But by threatening to delve into what many regard as the sacrosanct pleasure of smoking, the government has pushed the patience of some.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1..stm

Toll Monitoring

Any yammering propeller-headed nitwit can tell the world to make love, not war, and no one can impeach his sincerity in making that plaintive demand. By contrast, anyone who supports the war had better be a card-carrying military veteran, or else be condemned as a "chickenhawk" -- no matter how wise, eloquent, or inspiring their pro-war position might be. The problem isn't chickenhawks -- people who support the war but never served in the military, and probably never will. The problem is stateside armchair philosophers who oppose military action and military policy, even though they never served in the military. The problem is anti-war punditry from intellectuals who think that an IED is a contraceptive and couldn't tell the difference between bounding overwatch and watching Baywatch.
http://www.techcentralstation....A.html

US aircraft firm Boeing will unveil its new long-distance 777 plane on Tuesday as it tries to regain its position as the industry's leading manufacturer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk...95.stm

Americans seem to believe that they and their politics have got more conservative; but perhaps they haven't
http://www.economist.com/...303

"What if they have a computer glitch and they debit too much?" he asked. "If I stop using the toll road, how easy would it be to cancel the auto-debits? And since a computer records each time I pass through the toll booth, I also don't like the idea of someone knowing each and every time I drive on a particular road. That's kind of intrusive, I think. That means the toll authority would have a pretty good idea of which part of the city I'm in at just about all times. Scary!"
http://abcnews.go.com/...=1

Kudos from the Freepers
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/
ick... "kudos"

A growing number of public universities are requiring that students have health insurance before they step into the classroom
http://story.news.yahoo.com..._insurance

DC Truency
The Baltimore city school system posted the highest truancy rate in Maryland last year at 10.7 percent, or 9,266 of its 86,248 students truant.
http://washingtontimes.com/...3r.htm

Upgrading their vows to that of a covenant marriage, a legally binding contract available only in Arkansas, Arizona and Louisiana, the Huckabees hope to jump-start a conservative movement that has shown little sign of moving in recent years. A covenant marriage commits a couple to counseling before any separation and limits divorce to a handful of grounds, like adultery or abuse.
http://nytimes.com/2005...epage

DVD burning

Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/....stm

Two thirds of British teenagers know how much an Apple iPod mini costs, but more than three quarters have no idea of the price of a pint of milk, according to new research.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/...Standard

Macrovision is expected to release a new DVD copy-protection technology Tuesday in hopes of substantially broadening its role in Hollywood's antipiracy effort.
http://news.com.com/New...nefd.top

R.I.P. Microsoft

Is Microsoft dying?
http://abcnews.go.com/...=1

Apple Hype
http://www.marketwatch.com/...yhoo

Tiger Progress
http://www.betanews.com...315

celebpod

Melanie Griffith threw a tantrum when she was unable to buy a pink iPod mini early last year, according to the sales associate who tried to serve her...Burton "began shouting at me to ask anyone in the store who he was, all the while telling me that he left his ID in the car and he didn't want to have to go get it," the associate said. "I finally caved in, only because I could see a vein pulsating in his forehead and I didn't want to be the one responsible for causing the blind dude from Star Trek to have a stroke."
http://www.wired.com...0.html

Paul warned that the legislation, called the Real ID Act, gives unfettered authority to the Department of Homeland Security to design state ID cards and driver's licenses. Among the possibilities: biometric information such as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data and RFID tracking technology.
http://news.com.com/....lede

In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather; he subsequently announced that on March 9 he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Friday, after nearly two weeks of intensifying pressure on the Internet, Eason Jordan, the chief news executive at CNN, abruptly resigned after being besieged by the online community. Morever, last week liberal bloggers forced a sketchily credentialed White House reporter to quit his post.
http://news.com.com/...nefd.top

Apple and Teleca make Euro mobile multimedia move
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news...5

Terrible Arithmetic of War

The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said in an interview that the war with the Israelis was effectively over and that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was speaking "a different language" to the Palestinians.
http://www.iht.com/...pals.html

The Caribs have long denied their ancestors practised cannibalism. Disney was unavailable for comment..."Our ancestors stood up against early European conquerors and because they stood up...we were labelled savages and cannibals up to today," said Mr Williams.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...7.stm

The word "hegemony" has become an essential part of the jargon of the anti-American left. Followers of Noam Chomsky, for example, use the word as often as possible. For most of them, hegemony has become a synonym for empire, and its frequent use a badge of intellectual sophistication. Hence the many references to American hegemony in the political discourse of the noveau enlightened: it is a bit like a password or a secret handshake, indicating that its user is a member of a special fraternity. Just say it, and you are instantly recognized as one who is in the know. But what exactly does hegemony mean?
http://www.techcentralstation....html

The loss so far of more than 1,100 combat dead is tragic, but, by historical standards of comparable operations, the U.S. achievement has been nothing short of miraculous. Our aggregate combat fatalities after 22 months in Iraq were often exceeded in single months during the Vietnam war or a single day at Normandy, in the Bulge--or on September 11. Such reckoning may seem callous, but it is the terrible arithmetic of war--and the United States should not delude itself: This is a real war.
http://www.victorhanson.com...5.html

evil fences

So the Club for Growth was onto something when it ran TV spots in January 2004, on the eve of the Democratic caucus, In that attack ad, a farmer riffed, "Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading" -- and before the man could finish his sentence, his wife jumped in and finished the sentence for him -- "Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs."
http://www.techcentralstation.com/021105F.html

Homeless veterans buried with honor
http://www.dallasnews.com/sws...7427.html

Democracy was not our first, but rather out last choice in the Middle East. For decades we have promoted Cold War realpolitik and supported thugs whose merit was simply that they were not as bad as a murderous Saddam or Assad (true enough), while the Arab world has gone from kings and dictators to Soviet puppets, Pan-Arabists, Islamists, and theocrats. Democracy in some sense is the last chance.
http://www.victorhanson.com/...5.html

A research team from Johns Hopkins University has discovered that a broken heart could lead to serious medical problems, including heart attacks.
http://www.newsbug.net/.../h.php

South Koreans expressed indignation and confusion Friday over the announcement by North Korea the day before that it possessed nuclear weapons and was boycotting six-party talks on the nuclear issue "indefinitely."
http://www.iht.com/articles/...korea.html

Mexico said it objected to a clause that would allow a border fence to be completed in the Californian city of San Diego. "We're against building any wall between our two countries because they are walls that increase our differences," Mexican Interior Minister Santiago Creel said. "The walls don't stop the migration flow," he added...
...The gap in the fence in San Diego is used by thousands of illegal immigrants a year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/...1.stm

el pobrecito microsoft

Experts agree that with a rapidly expanding landscape of network-ready consumer products, there will be an explosion in opportunities for virus writers. While that hasn't happened yet, it's easy to see how and why it could, said experts.
http://news.com.com/Is+your+TV...tag=nefd.lede

"This appears to be the first attempt yet by any piece of malware to disable Microsoft AntiSpyware, but it may be the first of many such future attacks,"
http://www.scmagazine.com/...Latest%20News

Apple has to fight off three of the biggest PC companies, sick of the security bugs that plague Windows, wanting to license the Mac operating system.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/...10827

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL...=msft
:)

secularism and values

But as the newest face in the party's constellation of leaders, Dean symbolizes two of the major challenges Democrats have in regrouping after Bush's victory. He represents the antiwar wing of a party debating where it should stand on national security issues, and he offers a secular vision of the world at a time when Democrats worry that they have ceded the values of faith and spirituality to Republicans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com...0.html

Democrats should become more moderate and reach out to swing voters but should not compromise with President Bush (news - web sites), members of the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) say in a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll...The seeming contradictions are embodied in Howard Dean
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news..flexible

Former President Jimmy Carter, who predicted that elections in Iraq would fail and in the past year described the Bush administration's policy there as a quagmire, this week ended 10 days of silence to declare the historic Iraqi vote "a very successful effort."
http://washingtontimes.com/nationa...5r.htm

2 for 1

http://www.apple.com/pr....html

Jobs Jabs at Eisner, Disney Again
http://www.latimes.com/business/...1&cset=true

the lounge

http://www.wired.com...html

Actor Corey Feldman, who says in an interview airing this week that Michael Jackson showed him nude pictures when Feldman was in his early teens
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news.../michael_jackson

Free speech activists and Yahoo Inc. declared a small victory Thursday in a dispute over whether the e-commerce giant can host auctions for Nazi memorabilia on its U.S. sites.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news..._nazi_auctions
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals actually made a good ruling.

The Bush administration has lodged a formal protest with Russia for agreeing to provide the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez more than 100,000 AK-47 rifles that U.S. officials believe could be used to aid left-wing uprisings in Latin America...But Mr. Chavez appeared on Al Jazeera in December and called the station "a symbol of courage, principles and dignity." He added, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.: "It always tells the truth." He expressed support for the Iraqi insurgents attacking American forces.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/...r.htm

Virginia lawmakers dropped their droopy-pants bill Thursday after the whole thing became just too embarrassing.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS...index.html

Shameful

However, this will only last if the Palestinians refrain from violence. If attacks on Israelis resume, so will the old American position...By training she is a Soviet specialist and one thing she and the president share is a belief that totalitarianism can be overthrown by the "power of the people". The Bush team is now applying that philosophy to the Middle East. Those who play ball will be favoured. The Palestinians are finding that out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/.stm

Second, the elections in Iraq have had a profound effect. Le Monde, the left-leaning newspaper of France's intelligentsia, headlined Tuesday: "Franco-American Rapprochement After Iraq Elections." My dictionary says a rapprochement is "an agreement between two opposing groups."
http://www.techcentralstation.com/021005D.html

Voting is underway for Saudi men only in the first phase of the country's first-ever municipal election.
http://www.voanews.com/...voa7.cfm

"It's kind of a shame," he told the Associated Press news agency. "The reason we're having to do this is that we never reached out to those who have the ability and capacity to do this to begin with," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/...1.stm

Bush, by refusing to seek even a temporary solution to the minimum tax's impact in 2006, will pressure Congress to either make fundamental changes to the tax code or act to protect those 14 million people, about 11 percent of the tax-filing public, from a higher tax bill, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group.
http://www.bloomberg.com/...=us

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...=us

Emailing Steve Jobs

Glaser on iTunes among "dumbest moments in business"
http://www.macnn.com/articles....in.biz./

Hope came from love and patience. Recovery came from passion.
http://cl4rk3.blogspot.com/

Yahoo said late Wednesday that it has released a test version of its toolbar for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser.
http://news.com.com/Yahoo...tag=nefd.top

correo electronico

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4167633.stm

Dreaming of a G6

Though several people have classified cell as an entirely new chip architecture, that statement can be misleading as it doesn't illustrate the fact that the new design is totally compatible with PowerPC. Yes, it is totally redesigned, but IBM recently confirmed that its Power architecture (the company’s umbrella term for PowerPC) is part of Cell. This means that PowerPC-based operating systems will be fully native for this new chip.
http://osviews.com/modules.ph...article&sid=3449
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...5_newsml

"I got into this race five weeks ago to talk about the devastating loss we experienced in November," Roemer said in an interview. "It was not about 60,000 votes in Ohio. It was about losing 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties in the country. If that's a trend in business or politics you're in trouble."
http://www.cnn.com/2005...dex.html
thanks jonathan

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Europe on Tuesday to lay aside differences over the Iraq (news - web sites) war and join the United States in a campaign to spread democracy worldwide.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...nm/rice_dc

Less surprising is the president’s plan to cut $3.7 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Mr Bush said in last week’s state-of-the-union address that duplicated or ineffective programmes would be cut. Some of HUD’s programmes were deemed to be among them. These will be transferred in a modified and reduced form to the Commerce Department, which sees a $3.1 billion, or 49%, spike in its budget.
http://www.economist.com/...id=3642139

Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday proposed a clamping down on immigration and asylum, in what human rights groups said was a crude effort to win votes in an expected May election.
http://www.iht.com/articles/...news/brits.html

The companies, ranging from IT services start-up Rural Sourcing to computer giant Dell, can save on wages in these communities, thanks partly to inexpensive housing there. And in some cases, the companies are pitching operations in midsize America as an alternative to shipping work abroad.
http://news.com.com/Made...2.html?tag=nefd.lede

http://maps.google.com/

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) urged the community to "demand justice and become even more creative in ways to shame the establishment for tolerating this kind of abuse in our city."
http://www.latimes.com/news/...coll=la-home-headlines

The standards helped produced victory for the United States in Afghanistan. Green Beret A Teams infiltrated the country, teamed with local Northern Alliance and other guerrillas and defeated the Taliban with the help of pinpoint air strikes.
http://washingtontimes.com...6645r.htm

So if Apple wants to abandon floppy disks or sell computers in funny colors or shapes, it can. In contrast, PC makers have been trying since 1999 to get away from the beige tower and legacy features. So far, they haven't even managed to get rid of parallel printer ports.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/40330.html

La France rejette l'idée selon laquelle le modèle américain de démocratie aurait vocation à être imposé partout dans le monde, fut-ce par des moyens non militaires. Mais, fait-on remarquer à l'Elysée, c'est un vieux débat entre Paris et Washington.
http://www.lemonde.fr/...,0.html

The Pan Show

The Spanish government is starting a process of granting legal amnesty to up to 800,000 undocumented immigrants.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/...242411.stm

Democratic idealism that once alone gave the nation its needed social safety net, civil rights legislation, and environmental protection is becoming ossified and in danger of ensuring a permanent party of strident second-guessing and deductive furor at the loss of almost all political power. A majority of the state legislatures and governorships is lost. The Senate is lost. The House is lost. The Presidency is lost—the Supreme Court almost. Whether Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, or Alberto Gonzales, ‘minorities’ no longer have any need of liberal gate-keepers—or of a particular patron like Barbara Boxer.
http://www.victorhanson.com...05.html

Oil is indeed finite. The Society of Petroleum Engineers estimates remaining official reserves represent 44.6 more years of oil.
http://ask.yahoo.com/as...7.html

With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/..._3_2005feb6

That Pan's show is on the air at all underscores how reforms in the past decade, including new investment rules announced late last year, have guardedly opened China's state-controlled television production to private domestic and international investors who have the money, patience, and stamina to deal with mazes of bureaucracy.
http://www.iht.com/articles...himedia07.html

For him, the re-election of George W. Bush was the last straw..."I love the United States," he said as he stood on the Vancouver waterfront, staring toward the Coastal Range, which was lost in a gray shroud. "I fought for it in Vietnam. It's a wrenching decision to think about leaving. But America is turning into a country very different from the one I grew up believing in."
http://www.iht.com/articles/.../refuge.html

As an aside, have you ever wondered why conservatives hate the United States so much? In their view, their government always fails -- except in fighting wars -- and private enterprise always succeeds. Yeah, sure, like how many airlines have faded away in the past 20 years, and how many are operating in bankruptcy now? Just for example.
http://www.sfgate.com/...2005/02/07/hsorensen.DTL

Bush's budget axe to fall on poor...President Bush is proposing to reduce spending on public health and social welfare in the US to help pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq, according to early reports of today's White House budget.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...,1407400,00.html
President Bush sent Congress a $2.57 trillion budget plan Monday that seeks deep spending cuts across a wide swath of government from reducing subsidies paid to the nation's farmers, cutting health care payments for poor people and veterans and trimming spending on the environment and education....Aside from defense and homeland security, favored Bush programs included a new $1.5 billion high school performance program, expanded Pell Grants for low-income college students and more support for community health clinics.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/..._x.htm

Equine Essentials is a liquid nutritional supplement for horses that provides all of the natural benefits of Morinda citrifolia (noni) in a highly palatable form.
http://www.tahitiannoni.com/...NYPD.html
To: Jonathan From: Gene, with love...

1000s vs. 200

This was something that Europe learned the hard way: two world wars, the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union, and the anti-colonial struggle have taught our continent the limitations of its own power. That is why Europe today, with the partial exception of Britain and France, and exemplified by Germany, is so reluctant to use military force. The United States, of course, is the opposite...

The contrast between China and the United States could hardly be more striking. The former dates back thousands of years, the latter not much more than 200; the former is a product of an ancient civilisation, the latter an invented nation whose citizens bear allegiance to a political document, the constitution. It is little wonder that Americans constantly need to reinvent themselves: the Chinese, unsurprisingly, have no such problem, they know exactly who they are.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/sto...06484,00.html

El Che

The film is thus the cinematic equivalent of the Che Guevara T-shirt; it is morally monstrous and emotionally trivial.
http://www.newcriterion.com/...oct04/che.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

Curiously Strong Mints

What about President Bush himself, who was seen iPoding late last year as he went for a bike ride? Did that spur iPod's monster holiday sales?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/...mz026.htm

For decades, Altoids--the "curiously strong" mints--have come in a simple tin box, just like dozens of other mints. Yet Altoids tins have a singular place in modern culture, a place that lends itself to infinite utility.
http://news.com.com/High-tech...08.html?tag=nefd.top


Thanks to Weldon's intervention, Geier has now been able to use the CDC database to compare autism rates among more than 85,000 children who received a TCV for diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis (DTaP) with rates among nearly 70,000 children who got the thimerosal-free version. In the TCV group, the risk of autism was 27 times higher...That means that regularly mandated TCVS were still available until November 2002. And injections of Rho D containing 10.5 micrograms of mercury per dose were on the shelves until April 2003.
http://www.motherjones.com/n.../02_354.html
thanks natalie

President Bush's budget will include $140 billion to expand health coverage for the uninsured and seek $45 billion in savings from the Medicaid program for the poor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services said on Thursday.
http://www.reuters.com/...politicsNestoryID=7533376
Bush is not that right wing

Buoyed by a higher turnout and less violence than expected in Sunday's Iraqi elections, Pentagon authorities have decided to start reducing the level of U.S. forces in Iraq next month by about 15,000 troops, down to about 135,000, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said yesterday.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/ne../washpost/a61910_2005feb3
Every month the Dems lose things to complain about...

How many people do you have to kill to be considered a serial killer?
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20050204.html

Manalapan just made its first arrest with the new system. But is it a good thing to photograph everyone, including law-abiding citizens? Do we need to videotape the Sunday driver who is just minding his own business?
http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo...=469731&page=1

http://interestingtimes.typepad.cteresting_times/...s.html
http://washingtontimes.com/natio-123544-7508r.htm

The data show that UT and ID are the reddest states, with roughly 65% of residents in both states identifying themselves as GOPers.
http://www.mydd.com/story/200...0006#readmore

NeXT

http://www.openstep.se/jobs/
thanks gene

It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4231571.stm

Historically, Microsoft has trod carefully when it comes to crackdowns, particularly in emerging markets. Though clearly eyeing growth, the company has not wanted to push too hard in countries where piracy is rampant, and thereby force customers toward Linux. Also, some say that by threatening to withhold security updates, Microsoft is making the entire Internet less secure, harming legitimate customers as well.
http://news.com.com/...+Wi+battles...tag=nefd.lede

Superheroes are a uniquely American phenomenon.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020305B.html

U.S. deaths from chickenpox dropped to the lowest level ever after a vaccine to prevent the childhood disease was introduced in 1995, a study shows.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../-1/NEWS
this one is for natalie

"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies." And spreading of democracy to Iraq was?
Paul B, NS, Canada
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4229461.stm
Bad, Bad! U.S....

The president has not declared war against Iran. But he has declared hostility...Syria was pointedly put on notice, as if a junior member of the "axis of evil" club.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4232241.stm

Still, when John Kerry said Sunday morning that we must not "overhype this election" he was talking to the wrong people. He should've been talking to Egyptian stock brokers, who don't seem to have gotten the message that the Iraqi election is no big deal.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020305C.html

Frances Sandoval's eyes sparkle when she speaks, even though she knows her English is less than perfect. "In New York, English is number one," she says with a smile.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/fror_...4229919.stm

Bush has been talking about restructuring Social Security for 27 years, and a top adviser, Peter Wehner, has suggested that if Bush succeeds and private investment accounts are created for younger workers, Democrats would be seen increasingly as "the party of the past" and the nation's political landscape would be transformed.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/.../yalretirementaccounts

Furthermore, it is very likely that an independent, sovereign Iraq would try to take its natural place as a leading state in the Arab world, maybe the leading state. And you know that’s something that goes back to biblical times.
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2022.cfm

"People were screaming and running. Girls lost their cell phones. Keys got lost," she said. "It's something I will never forget."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146267,00.html

Billy

So concerned is management, owning an iPod at Microsoft is beginning to become impolitic, the manager said. Employees are hiding their iPods by swapping the telltale white headphones for a less conspicuous pair.

"Some people are a bit concerned about being traitors, not supporting the company," he said. "They're a bit stealth about it."

How "stealth" varies from division to division. At the company's Macintosh Business Unit, which publishes a wide range of software for the Mac, owning an iPod is almost de rigueur.
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/..._story_page_prev2
thanks gene

Let's Trim Our Hair According to Socialist Lifestyle
http://channels.netscape.com/ns...4824457.htm&sc=1120
thanks aaron

Applescripts

http://www.malcolm...s.com/itunes/index.php

Skype’s Mac and Linux versions graduate from beta to official
http://blogs.zdne...lephony/index.php?p=226

There are rarely supporters of the hard road of promoting democracies abroad until they are well established. We learned that well enough both before and after the Afghanistan war. Many swore that the Taliban could not be removed. After their demise, new critics warned that the fascists could not be replaced with democrats—and now suddenly they are mostly silent or indeed supportive of the new Afghanistan.
http://www.victorhanson...ticles/hans05.html

Jobs is also known for his "reality distortion field", best seen during his keynote speeches at Apple expos...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

Companies with family-friendly policies have in recent years lengthened the amount of time offered for maternity or paternity leave. But a supermarket chain here has taken the idea to the next level, offering "fertility leave" to employees who have trouble conceiving.
http://www.iht.com/article...ness/workcol2.html