kband: bluprnt 4 rvolution

George Soros is the Man

This is a great article from the Christian Science Monitor on the man, the myth, the legend, George Soros. Once a failing traveling sailsman, Soros soon became one of the richest guys alive by estimating currency fluctuations. Now he's a big time philanthropist and runs the Open Society Institute and the Central European University, which I was almost part of till..well...it's a long story. Anyways, he published a journal in and speaks fluent Esperanto! That rocks!

RNC Convention Schedule

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

New York, NY

CONVENTION SCHEDULE

6:00 PM Opening Prayer led by the Reverend Jerry Fallwell

6:30 PM Pledge of Allegiance (twice)

6:35 PM Burning of Bill of Rights (excluding 2nd amendment)

6:45 PM Salute to the Coalition of the Willing

6:46 PM Seminar #1: "Getting your kid a military deferment"

7:40 PM EPA Address #1: Mercury, it's what's for dinner

8:00 PM Vote on which country to invade next

8:10 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh

8:15 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: "The Homos are after your children"

8:30 PM Round table discussion on reproductive rights (MEN only)

8:50 PM Seminar #2: Corporations: The government of the future

9:00 PM Condi Rice sings "Can't Help Lovin' That Man"

9:10 PM EPA Address #2: "Trees: The real cause of forest fires"

9:30 PM Break for secret meetings

10:00 PM Second prayer led by Cal Thomas

10:15 PM Lecture by Karl Rove: "Doublespeak made easy"

10:30 PM Rumsfeld demonstration of how to squint and talk macho

10:35 PM Bush demonstration of trademark "deer in headlights" stare

10:40 PM John Ashcroft demonstrates new mandatory Kevlar chastity belt

10:45 PM Clarence Thomas reads list of Black Republicans

10:46 PM Seminar #3: "Education: a drain on our nation's economy."

11:10 PM Hillary Clinton Piñata

11:20 PM Second Lecture by John Ashcroft: "Evolutionists: The
dangerous new cult"

11:30 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh again.

11:35 PM Blame Clinton

11:40 PM Laura serves milk and cookies

11:50 PM Closing Prayer led by Jesus Himself

12:00 AM Nomination of George W. Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary
Overlord

Nonoxynol 9 sucks!

I have recently come across some interesting information and thought was important to share, even though I'm sure most of you know it already. Basically, nonoxynol 9 is horrible stuff and no one should use it. Please don't think I'm a horrid skank, I just think the fact that you can even buy condoms with this in it is absurd. Plus I find the level of ignorance in Canada regarding the delicate vaginal ecosystem terrifying and am doing my best to combat it. All I have to say is, yay for private health care.

This is a World Health Organization article on N-9. It says that N-9 might encourage the contraction of HIV and herpes, doesn't prevent cervical gonorrhoea, and chlamydia, and causes yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis in women.

WHO officials heard of an increasing number of complaints by women using spermicides and contraceptive sponges with nonoxynol-9 who experienced vaginal and cervical ulcers, burning sensations, and recurring yeast infections.

They are not exactly sure why but they think that nonoxynol-9 can disrupt the epithelium, or wall, of the vagina, thereby potentially facilitating invasion by an infective organism.

http://www.ehn.clara.net/chemicals.html
Women who use diaphragms with Nonoxynol-9 (N9) spermicides have twice to three and a half times the risk of contracting a urinary tract infection (UTI). The spermicide inhibits the growth of normal, beneficial vaginal bacteria that naturally protect against infections such as lactobacilli and gardnerella vaginalis, thus encouraging the overgrowing of the harmful bacterium escherichia coli (E-coli). Condoms are another major source of exposure to N9. Spermicide-coated condoms were responsible for 42% of E coli UTIs among women who were exposed to these products.

from a healthy sex site:
How does Nonoxynol-9 work against HIV?
HIV is a virus that has a fatty membrane around it, just like our own cells have. Nonoxynol-9 is essentially a detergent. Detergents cut through grease, and that's exactly how N-9 kills HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. But it only does the job in a test tube. What we found in this study was that once you put N-9 in a woman's vagina, it will also cut through the fat of her cells, which makes it easier for HIV to get into those cells. Women who are highly exposed to N-9 actually show ulceration on the tissues of the vagina, and those ulcers can enhance the ability of HIV to get in. The same holds true for men. The rectum is even more vulnerable than the vagina to the effects of N-9.

Problematic case study from Canada:
Of 64 women commercial sex workers in Canada who used condoms lubricated with nonoxynol-9, 28 reported vaginal discharge, five reported increased thrush infection and four reported a burning sensation or numbness. Another study found 43 percent of women suffer irritation.

Here is a great article from Wired, which claims N-9 doesn't do much for contraception either.

And here is an article from the WHO stating (on page 7 of the PDF) that there is no conclusive evidence that condoms with N-9 prevent pregnancy better than other lubricants in vitro.

Make believe world

This is a really long yet fascinating look at how psychoanalysts can fabricate memories in the minds of their patients. Apparently there is a growing trend for adults with superficially healthy relationships with their families to go into therapy and suddenly remember parental sexual abuse.

"Therapists used hypnosis, sodium amenthol, guided imagery, dream interpretation, relaxation exercises. These are very dangerous techniques to use if undertaken in the expectation you can excavate historically accurate memories.”

"In an extra-credit homework assignment, for example, Loftus’ students went home and said to younger siblings things as simple as “Hey, do you remember the time you got lost in the mall when you were 5 years old?” and then recorded the ways in which the “memory” would take on a life of its own in the succeeding days, becoming more vivid, more detailed, with each conversation. At a more advanced level, using research subjects in a lab, students successfully created memories of mildly traumatic childhood experiences — such as being temporarily separated from one’s parents — that never actually occurred... In another experiment, to make sure they were dealing with false recollections rather than real ones, research assistants created memories about meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, who, in reality, couldn’t possibly have been in the theme park. The purpose of these mind games is to show that even the most vivid memory is not necessarily an accurate representation of past reality."

I went to a presentation on snail memory formation last year and was blown away. Apparently memory formation is slowed by coldness. They tested this by polking the snail with a stick when it came up for air a few times then freezxing some snails and seeing which ones remembered not to come up for air. Apparently the ethics committee doesnt think highly of gastropods but it was really fascinating regardless.

Venezuelan Propaganda

As you well know, president Hugo Chaves won the recall vote in Venezuela on the 15th. I find it fascinating to read the coverage of the event from different media sources. Please keep in mind that this is the same president we tried to pretend was legitimately ousted in a US backed military coup just a few years ago.

One article is from the Economist: Even the title (Chávez wins, his opponents cry foul) is pure propaganda given that they say foul play was not an option in the article. Look at the language they use, they iteration of his military past, the focus on the negative.

"Furthermore, the president has remained popular among Venezuela’s poorest, despite the way his policies have impoverished the country. Since he was first elected six years ago, Venezuelans’ average income has fallen by around a quarter. The recent surge in oil prices has showered the government in oil revenues, allowing Mr Chávez to introduce some populist social programmes that may have swung him the vote. But these handouts are unlikely to compensate fully for years of steep economic decline, nor for roaring inflation (around 30% last year)."

Now compare that with the Counterpunch article:
"what Chavez is attempting is nothing more or less than the creation of a radical, social-democracy in Venezuela that seeks to empower the lowest strata of society....Just under a million children from the shanty-towns and the poorest villages now obtain a free education; 1.2 million illiterate adults have been taught to read and write; secondary education has been made available to 250,000 children whose social status excluded them from this privilege during the ancien regime; three new university campuses were functioning by 2003 and six more are due to be completed by 2006."

Me and Elvis (The King and I)

Elvis died on this day in 1977. I was born exactly 12 days ago that same year. That means, there were 12 days, 12 glorious days, in which both Elvis and I were alive (and living independently of the womb). Some day I will chronicle these days: The first 12 days of my life and the last 12 days of Elvis's. I'm going to interview my parents, maybe my older brother...It will be interesting, you will see.

The Bitch in the house.

An interesting article on an interesting book about modern marriage and parenting problems. I heard this woman speak on the radio a while ago and she really fascinated me. I think she went too far in her anger but many of the things she said seemed like they needed to be recognized. She claimed that women don't want to have sex after having a baby for at least a year. Minimum. Which means men with children have to deal with A) no sex for a YEAR, or B) sex with a woman without desire and this can lead to so many complex emotional problems. She also said that the element of sexuality in breast feeding needs to be addrssed because women feel like perves all the time. I don't have a lot of experience breast feeding, but it seems to make sense...

Sexy Names

This is the sort of thing I should be doing:

Aug 12, 9:40 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) - As Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Right?
Wrong.

Scientists say the right name can make you sexier.

Linguist Amy Perfors, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, posted photos of men and women on the U.S. Web site "Hot or Not," which lets viewers rate pictures according to how attractive they find them.

When she posted the same pictures with different names, she found that the attractiveness scores went up and down depending on the vowels, the London-based magazine New Scientist reported.

Men with "front vowels" in their names -- sounds formed at the front of the mouth like the "a" in Matt -- were considered sexier than men with "back vowel" sounds like the "au" in Paul, she concluded.

The opposite held for women, who were sexier with back vowels than front ones.

Perfors said front vowels are often perceived as "smaller" than back vowels, so the difference could be a sign that women are seeking men that are sensitive or gentle, traits usually perceived as feminine.

But men who might be thinking of taking more feminine names to become sexier should be careful not to go too far: men with women's names were rated least sexy of all.

The Earth Hates Your Lawn

This is a blurb and article set from Grist about the environmental destruction of lawns. So many of them are so dumb. They're not big enough to really do anything on and just serve as decorative. I used to do landscaping and the women I worked for told me that lawns were originally seen as a status symbol because you were showing that you had land you didn't have to farm to survive. Also, it gets into that whole "taming of nature" thing. Dumb.

SO LAWN, FAREWELL
The Earth Hates Your Lawn

We're sorry to keep harping on this, but: the lawns, people, the lawns. Quit with the lawns! There are 30 million acres of green lawn in the U.S. Some 54 million people mow their lawns each week in the summer, using 800 million gallons of gas a year. More than 5 percent of urban air pollution comes from gas-powered lawn widgets. Seventy million pounds of pesticide get spewed on home lawns, trees, and shrubs a year, polluting groundwater and sending phosphates and nitrates into lakes and streams, where they generate algae blooms that choke other plant life. Precious urban freshwater is being used by the millions of gallons -- in some cities two-thirds of available freshwater goes on lawns. Native plant species are being displaced. Birds are being poisoned. Angels are losing their wings. So quit it with the lawns, would you? Or at least go organic.

straight to the source: The Knoxville News Sentinel, Joan Lowy, 10 Aug 2004

Greener pastures -- the grass can be greener on your side of the fence

Cleavage is nothing

This is a funny short snippet about how women of the courth often went bare breasted in 17th Century, England. There's also a great picture.

Leeches and Leaves

"The Motherly Love of Leeches "
Leeches are actually loving parents, according to evolutionary biologist Fred Govedich of Monash University in Australia. His discovery places the Australian leech (Helobdella papillornata) among the few invertebrates to actively care for young into maturity.

Despite their reputation as opportunistic bloodsuckers, these slimy critters show surprising consideration for their offspring, carrying them around and feeding them for up to six weeks after hatching. These pillars of parenthood even go so far as to transport their broods to suitable habitat before saying good-bye for good.

This sophisticated behavior complicates the question of how parental care evolved. Usually found in mammals and birds of a particular sex, this type of attention is unheard of in the invertebrate world, let alone in hermaphrodites like leeches.

"Climate Change Shaped Modern Plant Leaves"
Anyone who's enjoyed the shade of a maple or elm should be thankful for an ancient climate shift. According to new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, climate change triggered the development of broad plant leaves.

Instead of wide solar-collecting blades, plants 400 million years ago sported stick-like projections known as microphylls. Microphylls persisted for 20 million years before more photosynthetically efficient broad leaves appeared. Now researchers in the United Kingdom say they can explain the delay. In the high temperatures and carbon dioxide levels of the Devonian, plants could easily collect enough carbon dioxide for respiration using the few pores on their narrow leaves. The scientists' computer model shows that a larger leaf surface area would have overheated the leaf cells.

Then carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures fell 370 million years ago. Larger leaves with more pores were necessary to gather sufficient carbon dioxide. The model shows the plants would also have to have increased the density of their stomata to promote cooling — a trend supported by the fossil record.

Ashcroft, that bastard!

HOW FUCKING BLANTANT DO THEY HAVE TO BE??? Can you believe this isn't in the news?

This is the American Library Association's response. I think librarians rock and feel confidant that they will fight the fight.

"Ashcroft orders public libraries to destroy law books"

The Justice Department is ordering public libraries to destroy certain books it has deemed not "appropriate for external use."

The Department of Justice has called for these five public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.

The topics addressed in the named documents include information on how citizens can retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation. The documents to be removed and destroyed include: Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms; Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes; Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory; and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).

ocean curents

cool.

Where the boys aren't

This is terrifying. It's an article on how chemical pollutants are altering hormones so that embryos become females. This is actually a huge problem. My friend at school here is studying how estrogens in waste make insects and fish all female as well. The body only typically absorbs 10% of medications, and the rest gets flushed into the sewer system and out into the environment. People really need to start thinking about what they put in their toilets. These estrogens are also produced when you microwave plastic, and then they seep into your food. So only microwave glass, ok? The full article is in "more."

Where the boys aren't

Living with constant pollutants emanating from a dense concentration of chemical plants, a native band struggles to understand why women are giving birth to a disproportionate number of girls

By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
Saturday, July 31, 2004 - Page A3

SARNIA -- Over the past five years, the Aamjiwnaang First Nation on the outskirts of Sarnia has had nearly two girls born for every boy, an unusual run of female births.

Last year, it was nine boys to 19 girls. The year before it was 10 boys to 21 girls. And the year before that, only six boys to 15 girls. In the band's registry, baby girls began dominating around 1993, but the trend to female births has become most pronounced in recent years.

After a decade of a girl-baby boom, boys often complain of not having friends nearby to play with, and it's never a problem to fill a girls sports team.

But the long string of female births is starting to cause deep unease. Many women have also reported multiple miscarriages, and in local elementary schools, a large number of children have been identified as having developmental delays.

"We're in almost a period of denial right now. This can't be. There are too many things wrong, it can't be true," Darren Henry, a band member, says.

His wife, Kim Henry, who works as a native counsellor at one of the schools, fears that living so close to many chemical plants is affecting the reserve's children. "Are our kids going through all of this because of all the chemicals here and the leaks that are happening?" she asked.

At the reserve, there usually isn't much doubt about what sex a child will be these days. Lisa Joseph has had four girls and one boy, all under 10.

"I have the one and only boy in my part of the family," she says.

Two of her sisters have had six girls between them and a third sister is now pregnant. "She is probably going to have a girl," Ms. Joseph says.

In Canada, and in most industrialized countries where sex ratios have been studied, the percentage of boys born has been in a slight, long-term decline for reasons that are not entirely clear. This trend began in Canada around the start of the 1970s.

Some researchers suspect that environmental pollutants, many of which act like female hormones, could be a factor. Several chemicals, including dioxin, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and hexachlorobenzene, a chemical used in rubber manufacturing, have been associated with excess female births.

Samples taken from around a creek that winds through the reserve have been found to be contaminated with both PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, among other chemicals.

"There is certainly growing evidence that environmental chemicals, even at fairly low levels, can alter sex ratios," says Shanna Swan, a professor in the department of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who has conducted research linking poor sperm quality to pesticide exposure.

Fertility drugs, such as clomiphene citrate, also lead to more girls being born.

The normal state of affairs in the human sex ratio has been for a slight surfeit of males, with about 106 born for every 100 females. At the time of conception, the ratio is even more dramatic, with about 120 males for every 100 females.

That more boys generally are conceived and born is thought to be the way humans evolved to compensate for the higher fragility of male fetuses and the higher mortality rates among males once they are born.

"It's a feedback mechanism that protects against excess male attrition," says John Jarrell, a gynecologist at the University of Calgary, who helped compile the study showing the decline in the ratio of male births in Canada.

At Aamjiwnaang, the expected situation -- slightly more male births than female -- prevailed among the band's approximately 1,500 members from 1984 to 1993.

It is not clear why the ratio suddenly tipped the other way.

Ada Lockridge, one of the band's councillors, suspects chemical exposure and says one major incident occurred around the time of the change. She shows visitors an article from the local paper about an evacuation that took place at the reserve in December of 1993, after a fire and chemical release at the nearby Suncor plant.

Sarnia's chemical valley has been built literally to the edge of the reserve, with a who's who of major companies often just across the road or around the corner. Besides Suncor Energy Inc., the neighbours include Imperial Oil Ltd., Shell Canada Ltd., Dupont Canada Inc., and Dow Chemical Canada Inc. Residents say they have watched workers protected by space suits go about their jobs, while they stand watching from the reserve.

The native community was granted its land at the southern edge of Sarnia in 1827. Much of the 14-square-kilometre reserve remains forested and is dotted with suburban-style homes, an incongruous sight in the middle of a sprawling industrial complex that has 20 per cent of Canada's refineries and produces about 40 per cent of its petrochemicals.

The reserve is also located just downriver from where the so-called Sarnia blob of dangerous chemicals was found on the bottom of the St. Clair River in the 1980s.

Residents complain there is almost always some sort of stink in the air. Sometimes it's like rotten turnips. Other times it's like rotting eggs. Each corner of the reserve has a slightly different stench.

Being hemmed in by big chemical complexes means any exposure to harmful compounds is likely to be far greater than in Sarnia itself, where most residents live kilometres away from the plants.

There are about 20 chemical plants or refineries in the area whose emissions are large enough that they must be reported to Environment Canada's national registry of pollution releases.

Earlier this year, Ontario sent its environmental SWAT team to Sarnia because of the high number of chemical spills. The St. Clair River near Sarnia is also one of the sites where federal environmental scientists have found male wildlife species with blurred sexual characteristics.

Finding explanations to the puzzling birth trend will require a major study comparing the reserve to other similar native communities that don't have such high chemical exposure, according to Dr. Jarrell.

On the ground in the reserve, Mr. Henry, who helped coach teams, says girl squads were easier to assemble. "I know it was a lot, lot easier to raise a team of girls to play sports than it was for boys. It just seemed like there was a whole lot of girls here."

Edna Cottrelle, who lives about 10 houses down from the Suncor plant, says her son Nodin, 11, finds the shortage of boys acute. "There are no boys his age along the river," she says. "He's always complaining."

Make your own porn

This is crazy! I found it by mistake. When I was looking for some tribal clothing company on google. It's pretty much for people to create thir own realistic pornography digitally. There's a whole program for various stockings. Lip colors. Shoes. The native guy is hilarious. The little girls are troublesome. Does that count as child pornography if you draw it yourself? I wonder. I think it's odd too how much the women look like they've had plastic surgery. I mean, plastic surgery used to be in the name of making women look like cartoon versions of themselves, now the cartoons look like what real fake women actually look like.
The fantasy became the reality, then that reality was idealized back to fantasy. How convienente...

BC bud

I am personally suprised that most of the pot smoked in the US is home grown. Although I have heard stories about Mexicans in California's public parks taking hostages when they hike too close to their outdoor growing operations... Here in BC, a friend just told me that export of marijuana has just surpassed logging to become the province's biggest export. But a lot of the pot smokers here are actually anti-legalization. They think the government will drive up the price. Plus the Hell's Angles, who manage a lot of the growing, will just go ballistic and take over. From what I've heard at least....

Canada Says Pot Use Surges as Martin Weighs Decriminalization
2004-07-21 10:08 (New York)

By Greg Quinn
July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian marijuana and hashish use almost doubled from 1989 to 2002, and nearly a third of the population admits to trying cannabis at least once, the government said in its first major study of the drug's popularity since proposing to decriminalize possession.
Statistics Canada said 12 percent of the Canadians aged 15 and older it surveyed in 2002 said they had used cannabis at least once in the past year.

That's an increase from 6.5 percent in 1989 and 7.4 percent in 1994 and more than triple the United Nations estimate of worldwide pot usage.
Prime Minister Paul Martin, who has said he may have eaten brownies laced with hashish when he was younger, told reporters in June that he plans to revive a bill making possession of small amounts of pot no more serious that a parking infraction. In doing so, he risks the ire of the U.S. government and may jeopardize some of the $1.5 billion a day in commerce between the two countries, the world's largest trading partners.
``If we become known as a haven for the production of marijuana, I think it's only reasonable to assume that there will be controls put in place to prevent that type of activity from crossing the border,'' Chris McNeil, deputy chief of police in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and chairman of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police drug-abuse committee, said in a telephone interview Friday.
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci has said decriminalizing pot possession may lead to delays at the border as officials frisk travelers and search vehicles for drugs. In the U.S., possession charges may lead to a minimum fine of $1,000 and a year in prison.

Border Delays

Canada and U.S. share the world's longest undefended border at 5,527 miles (8,893 kilometers), including the Alaska frontier. Already, ``clogged and inefficient border crossings'' cost Ontario, the engine for more than 40 percent of Canada's economy, C$5.25 billion ($4 billion) a year, the province's chamber of commerce found in a June study.
So far, Canada remains a minor source of marijuana available in the U.S., according to U.S. Customs figures: U.S. agents seized 406,200 kilograms (895,500 pounds) of pot inbound from Mexico last year, about 26 times more than from Canada. The U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that most of the cannabis available in the U.S. is domestically grown.
Still, exporting marijuana ``has become a thriving industry across Canada,'' a Royal Canadian Mounted Police report on the 2003 drug trade concluded. Traffickers use ``black market currency exchange'' and unscrupulous dealers to convert U.S. dollar receipts into Canadian dollars, the report said.
Earlier this year, Ontario police busted a marijuana operation north of Toronto where more than 30,000 plants were being grown in a defunct brewery.

European Tolerance

In much of Europe, where the UN estimates 4.9 percent of the population aged 15 and older uses pot, marijuana is widely tolerated. Amsterdam is known for its hash bars and Canada's government has cited lax possession laws in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Jean Chretien, who retired as Canada's prime minister in December, first proposed decriminalization after a provincial court struck down possession penalties. The bill he introduced in Parliament, and which stalled last year, also proposed doubling the maximum penalty for growing more than 50 marijuana plants to 14 years in prison.
Chretien, 70, said at the time he might try marijuana if the law were changed.

Parliamentary Obstacles

Passing the bill may prove harder now that Martin's Liberal Party lost its governing majority in Canada's June 28 federal election. With only 135 of 308 seats in the House of Commons, the Liberals need the support of opposition legislators to pass laws, and the Conservative Party, with 99 seats, wants marijuana to remain illegal.
Martin, 65, would have to rely on backing from members of the Bloc Quebecois, which advocates the separation of French-speaking Quebec from Canada, or the socialist New Democratic Party. Pot usage in Quebec is higher than the national average, at 14 percent, according to StatsCan.
Parliament is due to reconvene Oct. 4.
The Fraser Institute, a research organization that advocates free markets, has studied the argument that marijuana should be sold and taxed, like alcohol. Simon Fraser University economics professor Stephen Easton wrote in a June report for the institute that pot taxation would raise C$2 billion a year for the
government.
``We are reliving the experience of alcohol prohibition of the early years of the last century,'' Easton wrote.
He estimated that a joint, or marijuana cigarette, costs C$1.50 to produce and sells for C$8.60.

--Editors: Schatzker.

Story illustration: to view the report on Statistics Canada's Web
site see {STCA }. For a list of stories and news releases on
Canadian health and drugs, see {CNP 09483480103 }. For
functions related to the Canadian government, type
{CNP 08971340103 }. To pause on a screen, press the space bar.
To resume tour, press GO.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Quinn in Ottawa at (1) (613) 231-1069 or
gquinn1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Erik Schatzker at (1) (416) 203-5726 or eschatzker@bloomberg.net.

Plan B, Columbia

This is an AMAZING article on the Columbian situation. Everyone should read it.

Physics history

From the Disinfo email today, it's a paper on the 100 most influential physica papers. But what is cool is that they find a positive coorelation between the number of citations a paper gets and the age of those ciatations. I never knew anything about citations till quite recently, but to get cited in the science world is like academic currency. That's how papers are judged. Are you refered to...

Will Ferrel is a genius

A message from our president.

So is Noam

"Five Questions with Noam Chomsky" interview from Counterpunch.

The man does not make sound bites easy but here is an attmept:
"I have to admit that I have an irrational dislike of the word "trope," and other postmodern affectations. "

"business was well aware that high-tech industry could not survive in a competitive free enterprise economy, and "government must be the savior," as the business press explained. Such considerations converged on the decision to focus on military rather than social spending. "

Regarding Bush's National Security Strategy:
"Typical was the reaction of Madeleine Albright, also in Foreign Affairs. Like others, she criticized the Bush planners. She added, correctly, that every president has a similar strategy, but doesn't smash people in the face with it, antagonizing even allies. Rather, he keeps it in his back pocket to use when needed. She knew of course that the "Clinton doctrine" was even more extreme than the NSS, declaring that the US would resort to force unilaterally if necessary to ensure access to markets and resources, without even the pretexts of "self-defense" conjured up by Bush propagandists and their acolytes. But Clinton presented the doctrine quietly, and was careful to carry out his crimes, which were many, in ways that would be acceptable to allies and could be justified or concealed by elite opinion, including the media."