] XV THE DEVIL
]
] THE CARD: Grace Jones is a firey Devil. If she were not
] so desirable, could she be so frightening?

I personally like The Hermit and The Emperor.

the eighties tarot

] All those hours spent playing video games may not be
] wasted time after all: A new study suggests action-packed
] video games like "Grand Theft Auto III" and
] "Counter-Strike" may sharpen your mind.
]
] Researchers at the University of Rochester found that
] young adults who regularly played video games full of
] high-speed car chases and blazing gun battles showed
] better visual skills than those who did not. For example,
] they kept better track of objects appearing
] simultaneously and processed fast-changing visual
] information more efficiently.
]
] To rule out the possibility that visually adept people
] are simply drawn to video games, the researchers
] conducted a second experiment. They found that people who
] do not normally play video games but were trained to play
] them developed enhanced visual perception.

See mom? Video games are GOOD for you!

Laughing Boy

Study: Playing video games not so mindless

] At least 100 dead fish were seen yesterday floating in
] the Oyster Creek by the nuclear power plant here, a
] veteran fisherman reported.
]
] Plant investigators saw four dead fish by the Route 9
] bridge that crosses the creek and another near the
] plant's property line, but officials here said the plant
] did not cause them to die.
]
] "We've checked all of our systems and we've done
] nothing," said Ernest J. Harkness, site vice president at
] the Oyster Creek plant.

] The plant was shut down since Tuesday following an
] electrical malfunction. Power generation should resume
] within the next two days, Harkness said.
]
] In December, the largest fine ever assessed on a New
] Jersey nuclear power plant for causing a fish kill --
] $372,912 -- was levied by the state Department of
] Environmental Protection against Oyster Creek.

Oh yeah.. The plant is _never_ killing the fish. Not this time, not earlier this year, not every six months this happens.

This time it was only a few hundred (or the offical number of "four"), last time it was thousands. Does this mean they are getting better?

The workers are still striking too..

Asbury Park Press | Official: Plant did not kill any fish

] Clothing shops and factories have been given a written
] order to stop producing clothes that stray from the
] strict female dress codes, the head of a clothing trade
] union in Tehran told a local newspaper.
]
] Long, shapeless black coats and head coverings have been
] mandatory women's wear - regardless of religion - since
] the country's Islamic revolution 24 years ago.
]
] However, in recent times some Iranian women have been
] sporting shorter, paler coats that end at the knee and
] hug the body.
]
] Some don colourful headscarves that allow their hair to
] spill out from underneath.
]
] But now dress shops have been told they have a month to
] clear their shelves of items that do not conform to the
] code.
]
] Some traders in various shopping districts in Tehran told
] news agency AFP they had already been raided by police.

I know - I just don't understand the culture. Still, I consider this moronic. So your women _want_ to look beautiful, and you won't let them? Idiots caging birds and not only never letting them fly, but covering them so no one can appreciate their beauty.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iran tells women to button up

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DNS Stuff: DNS tools, WHOIS, tracert, ping, and other network tools.

] Mercado, who brushed back strands of brown hair from her
] reddened eyes as she spoke, has a story that has not
] changed from the start. She told the Richardson police
] officer who responded to the store's call that she had
] always taken pictures of her children nude, and that it
] wasn't uncommon in her native Peru to do so. They were
] innocent baby pictures, taken for the family's benefit,
] she said.
]
] Five days later, when a state child welfare investigator
] and two detectives arrived at her house, Mercado again
] insisted that she saw nothing wrong with the photos. She
] allowed the group to search the couple's cramped room,
] and the detectives went through everything, including
] their photo albums, apparently looking for more evidence
] of child porn. They found nothing.
]
] "We fought so hard to come to this country," says
] Mercado, a 33-year-old who was a nurse in Peru and
] aspires to become licensed in the United States one day.
] "For this to happen is unbelievable."

This is crazy. People are so afraid that they're going to miss a child abuse case that they go after everything and anything.

Printable page

] America has 47,000 power plants, airports and other
] "critical infrastructure facilities."
]
] Walker believes a terrorist can get within 100 feet of
] most of them, unchallenged and undetected, and kill or
] injure thousands.
]
] But if onsite cameras beamed photos to the World Wide
] Web, Americans could monitor these sites from home. If
] they spied a potential attacker a masked man
] trying to scale a power plant fence, or a van parked next
] to a reservoir they could alert security agents
] with a click of the mouse. Agents would call local
] authorities and help avert disaster.
]
] Walker envisions spotters getting up to $10 per hour,
] paid by the government agencies and companies that need
] protecting. He wants to sell USHomeGuard to the federal
] government for $1, then charge fees to run the system.

This is so freaking Orwellian, its scary. Keep an eye on this one folks...

Laughing Boy

Webcam homeland

] Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich signed a law Thursday that
] will greatly reduce penalties for disease sufferers who
] use marijuana to relieve pain.
]
] The new law sets a maximum fine of $100 for "medical
] marijuana" users who have less than an ounce of the leaf.
] It makes Maryland the 10th state since 1996 to ease or
] eliminate sanctions for medical use of the herb, which
] gained wide use during the 1960s because of its euphoric
] effects.
]
] Maryland's move is a setback for the Bush administration,
] which had called on Ehrlich, a fellow Republican, to
] reject the measure.
]
] The White House has made marijuana a particular target of
] its anti-drug efforts, arguing that users often move on
] to more dangerous drugs. It has campaigned against
] medical marijuana proposals in several states, prosecuted
] distributors and growers of medical pot in California,
] and urged Canadian officials to reject a plan to
] eliminate criminal penalties for most marijuana users in
] that country.
]
] Despite those efforts, lawmakers in states across the
] nation have shown a willingness to separate marijuana
] from other banned drugs. That's largely because of claims
] by scientists and patients that the drug's most active
] ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), can ease pain and
] nausea and improve the appetites of those suffering from
] AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other ailments.

It’s a step in the right direction, but as long as it remains a "controlled substance" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) with fines for possession, the illegal drug trade will continue to profit. C'mon folks - quit being so damn wishy-washy on decriminalization. It's gotta be all or nothing.

Attitudes ease toward medical marijuana

] It was once the stuff of science fiction movies: soldiers
] equipped with high-tech gear that made them stronger,
] swifter and smarter %u2014 invulnerable to bullets and
] able to survive the harshest conditions.
]
] On Thursday, the U.S. Army and the Massachusetts
] Institute of Technology unveiled a joint project that
] generals and scientists said could make fiction a reality
] within this decade.
]
] The new Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT
] will use a five-year, $50 million grant from the Army to
] develop tiny machines that are the size of molecules to
] give U.S. military personnel an edge on the battlefield.
]
] Some of the ideas being explored include battle suits
] that are embedded with tiny devices that can seal against
] chemical attack, administer immediate medical care and
] even %u2014 no joke, scientists say %u2014 give soldiers
] the power to leap small buildings.

Can't they just make a damn pair of pants to make me look thinner?

High-tech project aims to make super-soldiers

] Sharman Networks said its Kazaa file-sharing software was
] on track to set a record Friday as it becomes the
] most-popular free program on the Web with over 230
] million downloads.
]
] By hitting that total, Shaman said Kazaa would surpass
] the popular ICQ instant messaging program, owned by CNN's
] parent company AOL Time Warner.

Fuck Kazaa and its spyware. http://www.winmx.com for your P2P file sharing needs - spyware free! Spread the good word!

Most downloaded program on the Web?