] The scientific consensus is quite firm that abortion does
] not cause breast cancer. If reporters want to take
] science and its conclusions seriously, their reporting
] should reflect this reality - no matter what
] anti-abortionists say.
]
] But what happened next illustrates one reason journalists
] have such a hard time calling it like they see it on
] science issues. In an internal memo exposed by the Web
] site LAobserved.com, the Times's editor, John
] Carroll, singled out Gold's story for harsh
] criticism, claiming it vindicated critics who accuse the
] paper of liberal bias.

Reality has a "liberal bias."

In the words of Monty Burns, "Excellent!"

CJR November/December 2004: Blinded by Science

] On Sunday, a US military commander said order was being
] restored in the city, after several days of clashes with
] groups of insurgents.
]
]
] The American military commander in Mosul, Brigadier
] General Carter Ham, said calm was being restored and
] denied the city was out of control.

Yep, we're kicking those rebels out of Fallujah. Except it seems they decided to leave Fallujah first and may have been setting up shop in Mosul...

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | New attacks on Mosul police posts

] In an interview with ESPN The Magazine released this
] week, Clarett accused coach Jim Tressel, his staff and
] school boosters of arranging for him to get passing
] grades, cars and thousands of dollars, including for
] bogus summer jobs.
]
]
] Geiger said many of them were found to be baseless in
] investigations by the NCAA and the university.
]
]
] ``The allegations are so sweeping, so over the top that
] we are going to be forced to spend huge resources, so
] much time and energy and effort, to try and get this
] right,'' Geiger said. ``This isn't going to be solved by
] the Michigan game or by (the time of) a bowl game. It
] will take months, I imagine.'

Gee, wouldn't it be funny if those sweeping and "so over the top" allegations were true? Horrors! Having read some of the things Ohio State does to maintain athletic eligibility (Officiating Softball is a class!) it wouldn't surprise me if it were all true.

Yahoo! Sports - NCAA Football - Geiger glad NCAA is coming to campus to investigate Clarett's allegations

] Capping a season of suspicion and success, the San
] Francisco Giants left fielder became the oldest player to
] win the award. The 40-year-old received 24 first-place
] votes and 407 points Monday in balloting by the Baseball
] Writers' Association of America to earn the award for the
] fourth straight season.

While Barry tends to be much disliked and often maligned, he is also playing baseball like no one ever. Better than Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Williams, or anyone else you want to name.

Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Bonds wins record seventh MVP Award

] Although completely unreported by the U.S. media and
] government, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet
] shocking -- it is in large part an oil currency war.

This was recommended by doddster98 as something to read coming off my concern about the continuing fall of the dollar. After reading through it is something that deserves it's own thread.

I was both impressed by the piece and curious to find out who this guy actually is. I mean I say this and it makes sense, but I could be just another conspiracy wacko. The answer to who the writer is came from Amazon of all places. "William Clark is Manager of Performance Improvement at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research on oil depletion, oil currency issues and U.S. geostrategy received a 2003 Project Censored award, published in Censored 2004. He lives in Columbia, Maryland."

This piece is VERY dense, but more than worthwhile reading. There are reasons for maintaining good relations with your allies.

Revisited - The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War in Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth, by William Clark, updated: Jan 2004

] Roger Clemens easily won his record seventh Cy Young
] Award after putting off retirement and being about as
] dominant as ever -- even at age 42.
]
]
] The Rocket received 23 of 32 first-place votes and 140
] points in balloting released Tuesday by the Baseball
] Writers' Association of America to win the NL Cy Young
] for the first time after capturing six Cy Youngs in the
] American League.

Funny, he doesn't seem that old, but then, he won two of those when I was in high school which was a long time ago. Good for you Roger!

Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Clemens wins record seventh Cy Young Award

] The dollar index, a measure of the dollar against a
] basket of currencies, extended a slide to a nine-year
] low.

This is going to require a little explanation as to why this is important. A large portion of the US economy is dependant on imports. We'll start with cars. Currently the #1 domestic car manufacturer is GM followed by Ford and Toyota (yes, that's right, Toyota). The trick here is, no one makes a car anymore with all domestic parts. Toyota obviously makes a good number of their parts in Japan where they are brought over and installed in US cars, GM does similar things, primarily in Mexico, and Ford and Chrysler both do a good amount of their construction in Canada, which means the dollar sliding across the board will increase prices for DOMESTIC products. The sliding dollar will also cause increased pressure on import prices, so things actually made in other places will be more expensive as well.

Because we're an "import" economy, this means that costs are going up, but there is no concurrent increase in revenue, so wages (the demand side of that supply-demand equation remain stagnant. This also applies in other areas as well. The computers we're reading this on are most likely made out of all, or nearly all, imported parts and just assembled here, and those two products are not unique, far from it in fact.

The results on the international markets has already started this morning, with the Nikkei (the Japanese version of the Dow) down a bit under a percent, with expected slides in US companies on the German and British exchanges later today. We'll see how that goes.

One thing that will prove interesting will be oil. With the dollar sliding, one would expect that the price of oil will increase further. This may not actually be the case, but there's a pretty big BUT at the end of this. Oil prices are universally done in terms of US dollars. If you're in Germany, you take your Euros, buy dollars and then use those dollars to buy oil. This is something that was done by of all people OPEC. Thirty odd years ago, their #1 trading partner was us, and so to make oil transactions simple globally, they benchmark the price of oil in dollars. It worked for them and so now, all oil exporting companies/nations handle this pretty much the same way. They sell oil for dollars.

So, what happens to the price of oil? Good question. Other countries, notably European ones are in theoretically good shape. Their money is worth more, so oil costs less. Some other countries, notably Japan are going to get squeezed. They export heavily to us, so the sliding dollar hurts them, pretty badly in fact. But, the sliding dollar also means that oil is less expensive. The bottom line I think is that the sliding dollar hurts them more than it helps them. Oil is cheaper, but because we're not buying as much stuff, they don't need the oil and so they aren't helped by the decreased costs as much as they're... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Yahoo! News - Dollar Hits New Low, Gold at 16-Yr High

] The 21-year-old man, who had chained himself to the
] railway near the city of Nancy, lost a leg after he was
] crushed by the train and died despite receiving emergency
] treatment at the scene.

It takes a long time for a train to stop. Chaining yourself to the tracks is a BAD idea.

Yahoo! News - Anti-nuclear protester killed by waste train

] Israel will permit Yasser Arafat to be
] laid to rest in the Gaza Strip when he
] dies, but will keep the Palestinian leader out of
] Jerusalem, a city "where Jewish kings are buried and not
] Arab terrorists," an Israeli Cabinet minister said
] Friday.

Well this is sure to make the Palestinians happy.

Yahoo! News - Gaza, Ramallah May Entomb Arafat

] Ashcroft is expected to resign before Bush's Jan. 20
] inauguration

And all this time I didn't think that God cared...

Yahoo! News - Aides: Ashcroft Likely to Leave AG Post