] A Russian airliner crashed and a second disappeared from
] radar about the same time Tuesday night after both planes
] took off from the same Moscow airport, raising fears that
] terrorism was involved.

Yahoo! News - Report: Russian Jet Sent Hijack Signal

] Although no e-vites have been sent, several Capella
] student blogs report that the fraternity intends to throw
] one last chatroom party Friday, at which they will
] solicit donations via PayPal in an effort to save the
] fraternity.

The Onion | Online University Cracks Down On Rowdy Online Fraternity

] What is this cloud thing? Well...photos are posted here
] on this site randomly distributed over time from several
] users scattered all over the world (mostly Europe). A
] cloud here is defined to simply be a meltdown of these
] images into one single image - an image that obviously
] becomes more and more chaotic over time.

[ Kind of a neat concept... -k]

Too bad it's currently slashdotted. :-/

Peffisaur - A Multiuser MMS Weblog Community

] President Bush yesterday repeated his condemnation of
] unregulated money that he said was "pouring" into the
] political process. But he stopped short of denouncing the
] ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is being aired
] in three battleground states and is funded largely by
] Republicans.

Many media outlets, including MSNBC and the (British) Independent got this wrong. Bush did not specifically condemn that Swift Vet Ad. Once again, he *did* blast 527 group spending. Bush never had any problem with such spending back when Republicans benefited from it (think 2000 in the Florida Recount).

Kerry Team Lines Up Vietnam Witnesses (washingtonpost.com)

] The debate that a handful of Texas multi-millionnaires
] close to the Bush family have cleverly manufactured over
] John Kerry's war record is absurd in every way. The
] charges that they have put some vets up to making against
] Kerry are false and can be demonstrated by the historical
] record to be false. Most of those making the charges have
] even flip-flopped, contradicting themselves. Or they
] weren't eyewitnesses and are just lying.
]
]
] But to address the substance of this Big Lie is to risk
] falling into its logic. The true absurdity of the entire
] situation is easily appreciated when we consider that
] George W. Bush never showed any bravery at all at any
] point in his life. He has never lived in a war zone. If
] some of John Kerry's wounds were superficial, Bush
] received no wounds. (And, a piece of shrapnel in the
] forearm that caused only a minor wound would have killed
] had it hit an eye and gone into the brain; the shrapnel
] being in your body demonstrates you were in mortal danger
] and didn't absent yourself from it. That is the logic of
] the medal). Kerry saved a man's life while under fire.
] Bush did no such thing.
]
]
] What was Bush doing with his youth? He was drinking. He
] was drinking like a fish, every night, into the wee
] hours. For decades. He gave no service to anyone, risked
] nothing, and did not even slack off efficiently.

[ There's more... Juan Cole pretty well lets lose here... -k]

Informed Comment : 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004

] This is what the Earth looks like at night.

[ These pictures are increasingly easy to locate, but still always impress me. Very cool. -k]

APOD: 2004 August 22 - Earth at Night

] A software glitch that paralyzed the Mars "Spirit" rover
] earlier this year was caused by an unanticipated
] characteristic of a DOS file system, a NASA scientist
] said Monday.

That's what NASA gets for procrastinating on defragging the drive.

Yahoo! News - NASA: DOS Glitch Nearly Killed Mars Rover

Aluminium glass? Am I the only person who remembers that Star Trek IV (the one with the whales) made a bid deal about "transparent aluminium"? Beam me to the future!

] Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to
] make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first
] time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in
] Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina
] (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce
] strong glass with good optical properties. The method
] avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional
] glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to
] other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

[ Cool... -k]

PhysicsWeb - Glass breakthrough

I agree that filing with the FEC is the wrong approach. In my opinion, Kerry should bring up the Bush AWOL issue again. Where was Bush during those months in Alabama? For that matter, why didn't Bush volunteer to serve in Vietnam? It's amazing that the Republicans would voluntarily make an issue of Vietnam service, given Bush's history.

As Kerry keeps saying -- I love that it's become a trademark Kerry line, ironically criticizing Bush's initial use of it -- "Bring It On".

-----

] The John Kerry presidential campaign has filed a
] complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging
] the veterans' group behind an anti-Kerry TV ad was
] illegally coordinating its efforts with the Bush-Cheney
] campaign.

[ I don't think this is a good way to go, really. There doesn't seem to be enough hard evidence of collusion or coordination here to warrant it and it makes Kerry look like a whiner, which is a silly epithet, but people are fickle enough to vote based on things like that.

Kerry shouldn't be vulnerable on this issue, at least not against Bush, whose records are still incomplete, but running to the FEC like this will make some people think he's trying to unfairly silence his opponents free speech. I think it's gonna do more harm than good. -k]

Kerry campaign files FEC complaint against TV ads

] A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers.

I can't recommend this news summary page enough. Every morning, Slate sums up the leading newspaper articles, with humor and critical thought.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do By Sam Schechner