CNN.com - Sandra Day O'Connor leaving Supreme Court - Jul 1, 2005

CNN.com - Sandra Day O'Connor leaving Supreme Court - Jul 1, 2005: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court and a key swing vote on issues such as abortion and the death penalty, said Friday she is retiring.

O'Connor, 75, said she expects to leave before the start of the court's next term in October, or whenever the Senate confirms her successor."

Supporters, detractors deny U.S. hostage link / Some ex-detainees say they remember Iran's new leader

Supporters, detractors deny U.S. hostage link / Some ex-detainees say they remember Iran's new leader: "Supporters, detractors deny U.S. hostage link
Some ex-detainees say they remember Iran's new leader"

CNN.com - Live Aid 1985: A day of magic� - Jul 1, 2005

CNN.com - Live Aid 1985: A day of magic - Jul 1, 2005: "LONDON, England (CNN) -- 'The sun was shining ... so were the people, and so were the bands,' U2's Bono said after coming off stage, one of the undoubted major stars of 'The Global Jukebox,' Live Aid 1985."

dallasobserver.com | News | Balls Out | 2005-06-16 | Printable

dallasobserver.com | News | Balls Out | 2005-06-16 | Printable: "Thirty-five years ago, on June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate and future Texas Rangers pitcher Dock Ellis found himself in the Los Angeles home of a childhood friend named Al Rambo. Two days earlier, he'd flown with the Pirates to San Diego for a four-game series with the Padres. He immediately rented a car and drove to L.A. to see Rambo and his girlfriend Mitzi. The next 12 hours were a fog of conversation, screwdrivers, marijuana, and, for Ellis, amphetamines. He went to sleep in the early morning, woke up sometime after noon and immediately took a dose of Purple Haze acid. Ellis would frequently drop acid on off days and weekends; he had a room in his basement christened 'The Dungeon,' in which he'd lock himself and listen to Jimi Hendrix or Iron Butterfly 'for days.'

A bit later, how long exactly he can't recall, he came across Mitzi flipping through a newspaper. She scanned for a moment, then noticed something.

'Dock,' she said. 'You're supposed to pitch today.'

Ellis focused his mind. No. Friday. He wasn't pitching until Friday. He was sure.

'Baby,' she replied. 'It is Friday. You slept through Thursday.'

Ellis remained calm. The game would start late. Ample time for the acid to wear off. Then it struck him: doubleheader. The Pirates had a doubleheader. And he was pitching the first game. He had four hours to get to San Diego, warm up and pitch. If something didn't happen in the interim, Dock Philip Ellis, age 25, was about to enter a 50,000-seat stadium and throw a very small ball, very hard, for a very long time, without the benefit of being able to, you know, feel the thing.

Which, it turns out, was one of the least crazy things that happened to him on that particular day."

CBC Arts: Voices behind Tigger, Piglet die

CBC Arts: Voices behind Tigger, Piglet die: "The two actors who provided the voices of Tigger and Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh films have died within a day of each other.

Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger, died Friday morning in his sleep at his home in California. John Fiedler, the voice of Piglet, passed away on Saturday."

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005)

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005): "SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.
US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock."

Robot guards to patrol shops and offices - Yahoo! News

Robot guards to patrol shops and offices - Yahoo! News: "In an idea straight out of science fiction, robots could soon begin patrolling Japanese offices, shopping malls and banks to keep them safe from intruders. Equipped with a camera and sensors, the 'Guardrobo D1,' developed by Japanese security firm Sohgo Security Services Co., is designed to patrol along pre-programed paths and keep an eye out for signs of trouble."

Pentagon Creating Student Database

Pentagon Creating Student Database: "The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying."

Boing Boing: Orgasms "turn off" part of female brains

Boing Boing: Orgasms "turn off" part of female brains: "Orgasms 'turn off' part of female brains
Scientists report that parts of a woman's brain switch off when she has an orgasm, including regions involved with emotion. Neuroanatomists from the University of Gronigen ran PET scans on women as they were resting, getting diddled by their partner's fingers, experiencing the 'big O,' or faking it"

Saddam guards describe his Doritos habit - Iraq's New Chapter - MSNBC.com

Saddam guards describe his Doritos habit - Iraq's New Chapter - MSNBC.com: "NEW YORK - Thrust unexpectedly into the role of prison guards for Saddam Hussein, several young American soldiers found the deposed Iraqi leader to be a friendly, talkative “clean freak” who loved Raisin Bran for breakfast, could down a large bag of Doritos in 10 minutes and insisted he was still president of Iraq."

House Votes To Curb Patriot Act

House Votes To Curb Patriot Act: "The House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI's ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.

Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy."

Cano�Techno-M�gagiciel Cyberactualit�s - �Libert�, un mot tabou pour l’Internet chinois

CanoéTechno-Mégagiciel Cyberactualités - Liberté, un mot tabou pour l’Internet chinois: "Les utilisateurs de la section MSN Spaces du nouveau portail chinois de Microsoft reçoivent un message de réprimande à toutes les fois qu’ils emploient des mots jugés tabous par les autorités communistes — tels que démocratie, liberté et droits de la personne.

Langage prohibé dans le texte soumis, veuillez supprimer, dit le message."

NPR : Unknown Bach Aria Discovered in Germany

NPR : Unknown Bach Aria Discovered in Germany: "An unknown composition by Johann Sebastian Bach has been discovered by a classical music scholar in Germany. Michael Maul, a researcher at Leipzig's Bach Archive, found the score two weeks ago among documents from the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.

There was no previous record of the music, a two-page handwritten aria dated October 1713, when Bach was 28. But the archive has now verified the piece, which had been stashed in a box of birthday cards, as the work of Bach."

Ananova - Frogs rain down on Serbia

Ananova - Frogs rain down on Serbia: "Frogs rain down on Serbia

Traffic came to a halt and locals fled inside after thousands of frogs fell from the sky onto a Serbian village.

Residents in Odzaci told local daily Blic they thought the world was coming to an end."

Citigroup division tells 3.9M customers personal info lost - Jun. 6, 2005

Citigroup division tells 3.9M customers personal info lost - Jun. 6, 2005: "NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Citigroup said Monday that personal information on 3.9 million consumer lending customers of its CitiFinancial subsidiary was lost by UPS while in transit to a credit bureau -- the biggest breach of customer or employee data reported so far."

SiliconValleyWatcher.com: Scoop! Smile for the Google 3D mapping truck

SiliconValleyWatcher.com: Scoop! Smile for the Google 3D mapping truck: "Google plans to use trucks equipped with lasers and digital photographic equipment to create a realistic 3D online version of San Francisco, and eventually other major US cities."

Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming - New York Times

Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming - New York Times: "A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase 'significant and fundamental' before the word 'uncertainties,' tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust."

Invention Allows Humans to Breathe Like Fish

Invention Allows Humans to Breathe Like Fish: "
Alan Izhar-Bodner, an Israeli inventor, has developed a way for divers to breathe underwater without cumbersome oxygen tanks. His apparatus makes use of the air that is dissolved in water, just like fish do."

HealthNewsDigest.com

HealthNewsDigest.com: "DALLAS – June 2, 2005 – The need for reading glasses or bifocals as we age may begin fading from sight with the latest generation of intraocular lenses.

Doctors at UT Southwestern Medical Center are among the first to receive the ReSTOR lens, a new surgically implanted lens that can allow patients who have trouble seeing at arms length to see near, intermediate and far distances without glasses or contacts.

“It’s a huge evolutionary step,” said Dr. James McCulley, professor and chairman of ophthalmology. “We all want a glasses-free and contact lens-free society and we are very rapidly moving toward that.” "

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries: "HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing."