] "It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United
] States is a country that promotes freedom around the
] world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report
] that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

You are emprisoning people without trial, without charging them, denying them access to lawyers or representatives from their countries. Your own supreme court has ruled what you are doing to the Americans there is unconstitutional, depriving them of their fundamental rights. So, please, Mr President, how the fuck is that absurd?

Bush: Amnesty report 'absurd'

] A number of EU states say they plan to hold public votes
] if, as planned, a new constitution is signed and sealed
] at a heads of government summit in June. Here is an
] overview of the issues at stake:

I must have been missing the boat for a while here, because I didn't even know this was going on. I nice overview of the new constitution for the EU, and some of the sticking points.

EU constitution: What's at stake? - Apr 21, 2004

] In the United States, 19 percent of adult women and 24
] percent of adult men smoke, according to the U.S. Centers
] for Disease Control. Smoking is the single biggest cause
] of heart disease and cancer.

Little fact at the end of an otherwise unsurprising article. I really had no gauge of how many people in the US smoke. Some of my friends do, but its below 24%. I'd be interested in figures on smoking by education level, race, and economic status. Quick google shows some limited info about California...

19% of US Females and 24% of US males smoke.

I foudn this today. Its a nifty game where you try to click a moving object. At first glance it looks like a fun game some teenager made to learn Flash. It is actually javascript!

ClickRed - Insane Javascript

] US probes Viagra 'blindness risk'
]
] US health officials are examining reports
] of varying degrees of blindness among a small number of
] men using the anti-impotence drug Viagra.
]
] The FDA says it has as yet found no evidence that Viagra
] is to blame for the condition.

"Some say quit or I'll go blind, but it's just a myth"
-Greenday, Longview

BBC NEWS | Health | US probes Viagra 'blindness risk'

Great animation about how DI rounds from M1A1's and A10's can breech tank armor, and how the rounds get converted to radioactive dust.

BBC - How Depleted Uranium rounds breech armor plating

(Well, thats not true. I learned most of this in the mid 90s from the Internet, but only because I went looking for it).

The BBC has a series of diagrams and explainations describing:

-The Mining of Uranium
-Converting and Enriching Uranium
-Design of gun-type Nuclear bombs
-Nuclear power plants
-Reprocessing nuclear waste in "breeder" reacters
-Design of implosion-type Thermonuclear bombs

I quick look on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) turns up much more detailed descriptions of enrichment (no chemical formulas, though any graduate chemistry book should have the need reactions). Also includes many more designs to cause a mass to go critical.

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

Here is something odd:

SADM - Backpack sized nuclear weapon to be parachuted in with special forces to take out a hardor or dam. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition)

BBC: From the mine to the bomb, or everything I ever wanted to know about building nuclear weapons but no one in the US would print

] Cecilia Barnes, 48, in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in
] Multnomah County, claims an ex-boyfriend began posting
] unauthorized personal profiles of her containing the
] photos in December. The profiles included her e-mail
] address and work phone number.
]
] The former boyfriend also engaged in online discussions
] in Yahoo chat rooms while posing as Barnes and directing
] men to the profiles, the lawsuit claims.
]
] "Due to these profiles and online chats, unknown men
] would arrive without warning at plaintiff's work
] expecting to engage in sexual relations with her," the
] lawsuit claims.

Wow! That sucks!

I am more interested in how the profile was posted. If you can simply create an online personality and populate it with whatever you want, this isn't Yahoo's fault. Yahoo had a user who posted a profile about themselves. Next, some other random person starts emailing Yahoo asking them to remove that user's profile/pictures. Oh course Yahoo will ignore her. Otherwise anyone would DoS their user's info.

Her real beef should be a defamation of character suit against her ex, not Yahoo. This is a misplaced lawsuit.

Woman sues Yahoo over nude photos

] The Illinois Senate approved a version of Gov. Rod
] Blagojevich's proposed restrictions on the sales of
] violent and sexually explicit video games to children,
] even though some senators said the idea is
] unconstitutional.
]
] The measure approved Thursday would require store owners
] to determine which games are too violent or sexually
] explicit for anyone under 18. Anyone selling them to a
] minor could be fined.

OK, Problem 1. Putting the burden on the shop owner to classify "obscene" games, and then fining the owner when their definition of "obscene" differs from yours. What do they expect these owners do to? Play every game that comes out every week to test it? Shouldn't they rather be, I don't know, running their damn business?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. "Parents: its not the gov't job to raise your kids for you. Stop lobbying for shitty laws because you are 'too busy' with your career to *actually* spend time teaching your kids right and wrong"

This is just golden:

] The sponsor, Sen. Deanna Demuzio, denied the measure
] would interfere with free speech rights.
]
] "Video games are not art or media," she said. "They are
] simulations, not all that different from the simulations
] used by the U.S. military in preparation for war."

But the saddest thing in this entire article is:

] "I'm going to vote for this bill, but I'm voting for it
] for one reason: because this is a political bill,"
] said Sen. Mike Jacobs. "If I vote against it, it will
] show up in a campaign mail piece

Senate OKs Video Game Restrictions

Data points from 15 different polling agencies (Pew, Gallup, etc), with a best fit curve line. I wish it included 2005 info, but still very informative.

Bush's approval rating graph 2001-2004