]Bush has in fact changed the rules of the game considerably

How do you think Bush has changed the rules of the game?

]the neocons are an odd group of conservative
] intellectuals. They have certainly influenced the Bush
] administration but he stops short of being a neocon.

The perspective on this side of the Atlantic is that Bush has very much aligned himself, and virtually got into bed, with the neocons. However I agree the USA has neither the resources, the military might or the will to pursue a broad based strategy of reforming world governments. The cost in lives alone would be astonishing. There will be no invasion of China.

]The administration is acting in what it feels its
] interests are in Iraq specifically, and specifically with
] respect to a broader fight against Al'Q.

but before the invasion there wasn't a clear connection between Sadaam and Al'Q. But Bush has given the impression to the Muslim world that that the West is at war with Islam. Peculiar when Iraq was a secular state, which is why Bin Laden hated it.

]Americans do not beleive that the UN should have the power to
] veto their military actions.

But are those Americans right? The UN was formed after one group of nation states had tried to impose their beliefs and way of life on others by force. The international community should have the right to maintain the stability whereby one member state is not forcing its will upon others without due regard to international opinion and ultimately international law.

]There is a lot of frustration around about UN processes that put
] western nations on equal footing with terror states.

Only certain members of the Security Council have the veto and since when could France be classed as a terror state.

] gutting these institutions without replacing
] them with something more effective the US is returning
] international law to a state of nature, which will ultimately
] result in serious problems.

I completely agree

]Well, ostensibly the US is acting in self defense against a
] bunch of crazy fundamentalists bent on murder and destruction.

Again there was no connection between Sadaam and Al'Q.

]Sometimes you can't win the arguement by rational means
] because the person you are arguing with isn't rational.

Yes Al'Q isn't like the Imperial era British Government they are more like the Nazis and force must be restisted resolutely. The audience for the argument is global Muslim opinion which is very much accessable to rational argument. Al'Q is only a tiny group maybe not much bigger than the Baader-Meinhof gang. By stoking the fire the US acts as a recuiting sergeant for Al'Q just as the British government did for the IRA with its policy of internment.

]They did not do this because they did not care.

that is unfair

RE: Iraqis crowd the polls | csmonitor.com

Someone snapped a picture of this truck in an Applebee's parking lot in Kentucky. I hope this turns out to be a fake. This is sad.

[ It almost seems like too much, but who can say anymore. It's sad enough to know that even if this is a fake, there are people who think that way. -k]

Enlightened Motorist

] What do you call a group of black holes ... a flock, a
] brace, a swarm? Monitoring a region around the center of
] our Galaxy, astronomers have indeed found evidence for a
] surprisingly large number of variable x-ray sources -
] likely black holes or neutron stars in binary star
] systems - swarming around the Milky Way's own central
] supermassive black hole.

APOD: 2005 January 28 - The Swarm

] The US military is planning to deploy robots armed with
] machine-guns to wage war against insurgents in Iraq.
]
] Eighteen of the 1m-high robots, equipped with cameras and
] operated by remote control, are going to Iraq this
] spring, the Associated Press reports.

] Mr Quinn says there are plans to replace the computer
] screen, joysticks and keypad in the remote-control unit
] with a Gameboy-style controller and virtual-reality
] goggles.

BBC NEWS | US plans to deploy 'robot troops' in Iraq

For today's NYT, the editors were compelled to dwell at great length on the insidious behavior of school boards and administrators in Cobb County and in Dover, Pennsylvania.

Whereas earlier coverage simply tended toward comic uncordiality, the tone now has shifted from a mocking of harmless idiocy to a biting castigation of the curricular debasements in Cobb and Dover.

May the strongest survive? One can never be certain. But in this round of Alien versus Predator, it's clear enough that America's children are the defenseless prey.

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography.

The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically.

A leading expositor of intelligent design told a Christian magazine last year that the field had no theory of biological design to guide research, just "a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions." If evolution is derided as "only a theory," intelligent design needs to be recognized as "not even a theory" or "not yet a theory." It should not be taught or even described as a scientific alternative to one of the crowning theories of modern science.

The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

] SPOKANE, Wash. - David Atkinson spent 18 years designing
] an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn.
] Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot
] to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the
] winds on Saturn's largest moon.
]
] "The story is actually fairly gruesome," the University
] of Idaho scientist said in an e-mail from Germany, the
] headquarters of the European Space Agency. "It was human
] error %u2014 the command to turn the instrument on was
] forgotten."

Wow. That's depressing.

Yahoo! News - Professor's Saturn Experiment Forgotten

] WASHINGTON %u2013 The White House has eliminated funding
] for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from
] its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely
] on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its
] life, according to government and industry sources.
]
]

White House Cuts Hubble Servicing Mission from 2006 Budget Request

] The Bentley Snow Crystal Collection of the Buffalo Museum
] of Science is a digital library providing a high-quality
] collection of stunning, un-retouched images of Wilson A.
] Bentley%u2019s original glass slide photographs of snow
] crystals, and includes dynamic resources to further an
] appreciation and understanding of Bentley and his work.

[ Gorgeous, really... -k]

The Bentley Snow Crystal Collection

] Sales of legally downloaded songs have shot up more than
] tenfold in 2004, with 200 million tracks bought online in
] the US and Europe in 12 months.
]
]
] The global music industry has hailed the increase as a
] sign the digital music market has "taken off".
]
]
] A million songs are now available to buy on legal sites,
] according to an International Federation of the
] Phonographic Industry (IFPI) report.
]
]
] IFPI boss John Kennedy said: "At last the threat has
] become the opportunity."

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Legal music downloads 'take off'

Scientists have confirmed that the Opportunity Mars rover has run across a meteorite, sitting within the robot’s exploration zone at Meridiani Planum.

“We have definitive word now... it's a meteorite,” Steve Squyres, principal science investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover program told SPACE.com. Squyres is based at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Mars Opportunity rover finds a meteor