] Engineers brought the two central ends of the Millau road
] viaduct in southwest France together, completing the span
] of the highest bridge in the world.
]
] The road surface is 270 metres above ground, a world
] record, and the total structure, with suspension cables
] added will be 343 metres (1,132 feet) above ground at its
] highest point or 23 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower.

[ Holy crap bridges are cool. Awesome. -k]

Yahoo! News - Span of French Millau bridge, world highest, is completed

] An infant planet just a million years old is puzzling
] astrophysicists - it is simply too young to exist,
] according to the standard model of planet formation.
]
]
] Evidence for this precocious planet comes in the form of
] infrared radiation from the Taurus Molecular Cloud, about
] 400 light years away, detected by NASA's Spitzer space
] telescope.

[ Well, iirc from my physics classes, all the planetary guys were quick to note that they're pretty clueless, all in all. Interesting development... -k]

New Scientist - 'Youngest planet' flouts theory of formation

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

] Early molecular comparisons between humans and
] chimpanzees suggested that the species are very similar
] to each other at the nucleotide sequence level%u2014a
] difference of between 1.23% and 5%, Sakaki said. The
] results reported this week showed that "83% of the genes
] have changed between the human and the
] chimpanzee%u2014only 17% are identical%u2014so that means
] that the impression that comes from the 1.2% [sequence]
] difference is [misleading]. In the case of protein
] structures, it has a big effect," Sakaki said.

[ Wow... genetics is hard. -k]

The Scientist :: Chimps are not like humans

] Cingular today announced that it has selected Lucent to
] deploy a WCDMA/UMTS and HSDPA trial network in Atlanta.
] The 3G network will use 1900 MHz PCS spectrum to test
] WCDMA/UMTS technology, supporting data rates up to 384
] Kbps. Cingular will also test the network with Lucent's
] High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSPDA)software
] upgrade. HSDPA boosts WCDMA data rates to as high as 14.4
] Mbps.

[ cooool! -k]

Cingular Taps Lucent for WCDMA/HSDPA Trial Network (Phone Scoop) 14.4 MBPS WIRELESS IN ATLANTA

] "The government ought to make a greater effort to give a
] fair and balanced representation of political viewpoints
] on its airwaves to soldiers, sailors and airmen around
] the world listening," says Tom Athans, executive director
] of Democracy Radio, a nonprofit group in Washington that
] promotes political diversity on the airwaves. "It's
] important for the U.S. military, when using tax dollars,
] to not provide just one political perspective without
] giving consideration to opposing points of view."
]
] After the Florida recount in 2000, when overseas military
] ballots were an important element in Bush's narrow
] victory, the influence of what amounts to propaganda
] beamed daily to U.S. troops must be considered a domestic
] political factor of no small consequence. "There's no
] question when one-side programming like American Forces
] Network is presented to troops, it's going to impact
] their voting behavior," says Athans.

I thought it was bad enough letting Fox and Clear Channel buy up as many stations as they could afford. From this article it clearly sounds like those heading up the Armed Forces Networks are taking sides and forcing their views on the troops and their families.

Gee, wasn't there a movie made about this?

Rush Limbaugh's forced conscripts

"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?

] For almost a quarter-century, Powell and his volunteer
] team have been working away at what he calls "the other
] space program." Over the next few years, he hopes to test
] a three-part system that could put people and payloads in
] orbit without rockets.

[ Very cool. Smart tech. -k]

MSNBC - Airship groomed for flight to edge of space

] Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN column was scrubbed of
] controversy late Monday afternoon when online editors
] worried the famed gonzo journalist had gone too far.

HST has a way with words. Specifically, "Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these [Abu Ghraib] photographs did."

[ Yeah, that's one way. One that causes me to stop paying attention. I'm as critical as the next guy of Bush, and of toturing fucks, but come on, really. Does Thompson really expect me to believe that Auschwitz shocks him less than Abu Graib? Sure. -k]

ESPN SCRUBS HUNTER S. THOMPSON BUSH BASH

] Pushed by their government, Chinese firms are shunning
] technological protocols invented abroad and developing
] their own.
]
] They want Chinese-made video discs to run on
] Chinese-invented players. They want Chinese consumers
] linking up with China-developed mobile gadgets.

[ Big problem or will the market sort this out with minimal pain? -k]

CNEWS - Tech News: China seeks to develop its own technology standards