] Yet two years of dismal job prospects, during a recession
] that cut about 2.7 million jobs from peak to trough, have
] imbued the current crop of seniors with an awareness of
] the economy's inherent instability and prompted them to
] be much more deliberate about their careers. A survey of
] college students conducted by the association earlier
] this year found that only slightly more than 10 percent
] of respondents ticked "don't know what I want to do" as
] their biggest obstacle to finding a job, compared with 22
] percent in 2000.

A generational shift in new graduates.

'04 Graduates Learned Lesson in Practicality

As it happens, several significant new books ... could settle the debate right now -- if people take the trouble to read them.

Most public debates in the US seem to fall into this category.

Those looking for some facts to go along with their "rich people will destroy our future" hypothesis could do worse then to look at this information (and they typically do). The reality that we've accepted a several degree temperature increase over the next 100 years regardless of who is counting, coupled with recent revelations about bifurcations in the equilibrium states of oceanic systems. The worst case realistic scenario is in fact rather troubling. Not "we're all going to die" troubling, but certainly "England is no longer really a hospitable place to live" troubling.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

] After 219 years, the University of Georgia could become
] the school with no name.
]
] UGA's already messy divorce from its fund-raising
] organization took a nasty, unexpected twist Thursday: It
] turns out that the university doesn't hold the trademark
] to its own name. Instead, in papers filed last year, the
] University of Georgia Foundation has declared itself the
] owner of all things labeled "University of Georgia."

Man, present Tech students must be loving this...

UGA to loose rights to bulldog.

] R. F. Arenstorf from Vanderbilt University has presented
] a 38-page possible proof of the twin-prime conjecture
] using methods from classical analytic number theory.

If correct, this of course implies that there are infinitely many primes, which has been heretofore unproven.

Slashdot | There Are Infinitely Many Prime Twins

] Several ways, the first of which -- and I'm probably
] shooting myself in the foot by saying this publicly, but
] to heck with it, it's the truth -- the first of which is
] VH1 and MTV, who unwittingly and without any mal intent
] -- you know, they didn't mean to do anything bad -- have
] turned it from being a musical experience to being a
] theatrical experience. Again, what you look like, not
] what you can do.

This is a great interview. MTV did for music what ABC did for the presidency.

frontline: the way the music died: interviews: david crosby | PBS

"The (NY) Times and Iraq

Published: May 26, 2004

Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past
time we turned the same light on ourselves.

[ Props to intellectual honesty. -k]

Duped or just Bushwhacked?

] Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a major foreign
] policy address in New York City Wednesday, sponsored by
] MoveOn PAC, linking the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to deep
] flaws in President Bush's Iraq policy and calling
] for the resignation of 6 members of the Bush
] Administration team responsible for the failed policy and
] abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

The speech is long. My quotation is just the beginning. The transcript doesn't do it justice like these video clippings. How dare they 2 is my favorite.

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.

Gore ][

In this speech Gore explains that the administration's disdain for checks and balances lead directly to systemic horrors in U.S. prison facilities. The checks and balances concern is something that we've discussed here repeatedly for years. It was my fear that these things were dangerous precedents that would inevitably be abused in the future. Gore is right. Those abuses came much faster then I had predicted. This essay is worth the time it takes to read it.

Gore Speech

The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.

...

For what it's worth in the debate over the shells.

Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War

] After tens of thousands of generations of human
] evolution, flab has become widespread only in the past 50
] years, and waistlines have ballooned exponentially in the
] last two decades. In 1980, 46 percent of U.S. adults were
] overweight; by 2000, the figure was 64.5 percent: nearly
] a 1 percent annual increase in the ranks of the fat. At
] this rate, by 2040, 100 percent of American adults will
] be overweight and "it may happen more quickly," says John
] Foreyt of Baylor College of Medicine, who spoke at a
] conference organized by Gifford's Oldways group in 2003.
] Foreyt noted that, 20 years ago, he rarely saw 300-pound
] patients; now they are common.

A long article on obesity.

The Way We Eat Now