Posts tagged as newsday
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- Tuesday, May 11, 2010:
Newsday Tuesday Boy Scouts Offer New Merit Pin -- for Video Gaming The Boy Scouts of America -- a group founded on the principles of building character and improving physical fitness -- have introduced a brand new award for academic achievement in video gaming, a move that has child health experts atwitter. Taking their cue from the popular online game, World of Warcraft , some cash-strapped local counc... - Tuesday, April 27, 2010:
Newsday Tuesday Plans to allow women and gays, ban smoking shake world of Navy submarines Imagine 150 fraternity brothers packed into a container the size of a three-bedroom house. Announce you are breaking hallowed traditions by taking away their cigarettes and admitting women. Then lock the doors and push the container deep into the sea, for months at a time. That's what the Navy, after decades of contemplation and controversy, has decided to do ... - Tuesday, September 22, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Flu Trackers Encourage Patients to Blog About It Think you have the flu? In some places, you can now go directly to the Internet and report your symptoms to officials eager to spot outbreaks. Say you feel sick, but before you see a doctor you search the Web for information, or blog or Twitter about the flu. Your worries will be detected by companies prowling the Internet for disease trends. Researc... - Tuesday, September 08, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Your Brain Is Organized Like a City A big city might seem chaotic, but somehow everything gets where it needs to go and the whole thing manages to function on most days, even if it all seems a little worse for the wear at the end of the day. Sound a bit like your brain? Neurobiologist Mark Changizi sees strikingly real similarities between the two. This article was written by the LiveScience staff, whose n... - Tuesday, August 18, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Squeaking by on $300,000 Birch Hill is a majestic property of tender grasses and low stone walls and a whimsical sculpture next to the swimming pool. To the untrained eye, the long economic downturn as viewed from here and beyond [...] has been hard to see or feel. [...] Laura Steins doesn't mind saying that she is barely squeaking by on $300,000 a year. She lives in a place where the boom years of Wall Street pushed the stand... - Tuesday, July 28, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Infectious Diseases Head for Tornado Alley The Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate a $700 million research facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas, according to a government report. The aspect that initially brought this to the GAO's attention was DHS's plan to harness tornadoes as a natural centrif... - Tuesday, July 21, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday To Be or Not to Be Fairfax County? Fairfax County has long been viewed as the ultimate burb, where Washington goes to walk the dog and water the lawn. But the more residents look around, the more they see what many have tried to avoid: high-rise offices, blight, crime and housing that's more likely to have a balcony than a back yard. That changing reality came into focus last week when County Executive Anthony H. Griffin rai... - Tuesday, June 23, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Game Developers Gunning For Girl Power Known for making adrenaline-pumping action games for young men, video game companies now are getting in touch with their feminine side. Why? Because it's a lucrative and relatively untapped market. What game publishers still fail to realize is that a good game is always a good game -- making girl games with themes presumed to be girly will probably do more to ... - Tuesday, May 26, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Here, Here! 13 Years Of Perfect Attendance Cal Ripken, Iron Man of the Baltimore Orioles, played in 2,632 consecutive baseball games. Stefanie Zaner, Iron Kid of Darnestown, is closing in on her 2,340th straight day of public school. Thirteen years of perfect attendance is quite the accomplishment, although it's ultimately useless. I never got near this lofty attendance record, although I did go to schoo... - Tuesday, April 21, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Rainy Weather Forecasts Misunderstood by Many To bring an umbrella or not to bring an umbrella? That's the perennial question on those days where the chance of rain is less than 100 percent. But only half the population understands what a precipitation forecast means well enough to make a fully informed answer, a new study finds. If, for example, a forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain... - Tuesday, April 14, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Obama looking at cooling air to fight warming Tinkering with Earth's climate to chill runaway global warming — a radical idea once dismissed out of hand — is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president's new science adviser said Wednesday. That's because global warming is happening so rapidly, John Holdren told The Associated Press. In fact, global warming is o... - Tuesday, February 17, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday HOV Cheaters Run the Numbers HOV cheaters have a special, and dark, place in the hearts of area commuters. As motorists sit in stop-and-go traffic or pick up strangers to meet the minimum number of riders to use the free-flowing HOV lanes, cheaters blithely fly by in the restricted lanes. Alone. "Sometimes when you commute, you do some crazy, crazy things when you see all those red lights in front ... - Tuesday, January 27, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Many Americans Much Happier Now Key groups of people in the United States have grown happier over the past few decades, while other have become less so. The result: Happiness inequality has decreased since the 1970s, a new study finds. In other important research, some people have been taking longer showers in the morning, while others have taken shorter showers. The result: the net amount of water used in the s... - Tuesday, January 13, 2009:
Newsday Tuesday Top Army recruiter weighs fat camp for recruits The Army has been dismissing so many overweight applicants that its top recruiter, trying to keep troop numbers up in wartime, is considering starting a fat farm to transform chubby trainees into svelte soldiers. The Army tried a similar approach with a series of "Don't Be Gay" camps in the mid '90s, although the success rate from those camps was 0% -- by at... - Tuesday, November 11, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday T-Pain Cranks Out Hits Thanks to Auto-Tune Software T -Pain is tired of hearing the sound of his own, heavily processed voice. Actually, the Tallahassee hip-hop star is tired of hearing everybody else simulating the sound of his synthesized voice -- the one that's run through a software program called Auto-Tune for a giddy effect that makes him (and them) sound like a singing cyborg. I have always been of the opinion... - Tuesday, October 21, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday Scouts to get advice on safe sex The Scouts, the youth movement best known for its focus on bracing outdoor activities such as camping, hiking and fishing, is to arm its teenage members with practical advice about sex. Advocates of the decision see this as a logical extension of existing Scout activities, noting that if you don't brace yourself while boinking out of doors, someone's going to have a very unfortun... - Tuesday, September 30, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday Mama's milk ice cream cone, anyone? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asking [Ben & Jerry's] to begin using breast milk in its products instead of cow's milk, saying it would reduce the suffering of cows and calves and give ice cream lovers a healthier product. Old readers might also remember the time PETA tried to convince the Boy Scouts to ban the Fishing merit badge because it results... - Tuesday, September 09, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday Spies get social network as CIA, FBI promote their version of Facebook At long last, US intelligence agencies have created a new system of sharing their information with one another to prevent another terrorist attack. And it's a lot like Facebook. Developers were quick to point out that their network would be based on the useful "classic" Facebook, and not the usability-inhibited patchwork of coloured squares and ad... - Tuesday, September 02, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday A new Range Rover. Christian Dior sandals. A shopping trip to L.A. But the birthday bash is what really takes the cake. Like a penny-pinching pensioner clipping coupons, I'm always on the lookout for the next big story to mock on Newsday Tuesday. I clipped this out over the weekend from the Washington Post, planning to do my usual routine of multiple rereads mixed with highlighter overuse, scribbled one-liners, and quicky quirky sketches on... - Tuesday, July 22, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday A dash of lime -- a new twist that may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere... Shell is so impressed with the new approach that it is funding an investigation into its economic feasibility. &n... - Tuesday, June 17, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday When a wimpy bird turns into a stud Rebecca Safran has fooled Mother Nature. The evolutionary biologist from the University of Colorado figured out a way to give male barn swallows a makeover that makes less popular males much more desirable to females. Ms. Safran has already sold the results of her research to ABC, who will market it in the Fall 2008 television line-up starring Ty Pennington. The FOX Network is rumoure... - Tuesday, May 20, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday Robot digger set to land Sunday at Martian pole Like a miner prospecting for gold, NASA hopes its latest robot to Mars hits pay dirt when it lands Sunday near the red planet's north pole to conduct a 90-day digging mission. The three-legged Phoenix Mars lander . . . is zeroing in on the unexplored arctic region where a reservoir of ice is believed to lie beneath the Martian surface. To be clear, the article is not saying Phoenix is... - Tuesday, May 06, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday The Silver Line, which provides Northern Virginia with its own brand of Ross-and-Rachel drama, is back on the table again after yet another reversal of federal funding . The goal of this project is to connect the region's only major International airport 1 with its inadequate Metro system so travelers don't have to use the inappropriately-named Washington Flyer taxi monopoly, which never travels at more than 45 miles per hour when the meter is running. &nb... - Tuesday, March 11, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook 'Friend' More and more moms and dads are signing onto Facebook to keep up with their offspring. Not only are they friending (or attempting to friend) their sons and daughters, they're friending their sons' and daughters' friends. Apparently "friending" is a legitimate dictionary gerund now, and for Facebook neophytes who are unaware of its meaning, this paragraph might be seen in a ... - Tuesday, February 26, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday Plan for Telescopes on Moon's Far Side Is Revived With NASA planning to send astronauts back to the moon sometime after 2019, those dreams of a radio telescope looking out through the galaxies from the protected side of the moon have been revived. The agency recently awarded two planning grants for research on the necessary technologies and on how to put them in place. Long time readers of the URI! Zone will recal... - Tuesday, January 29, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday The Dulles Rail Death Knell Travelers, shoppers and office workers -- interviewed at the airport, in parking lots and in Tysons area strip malls -- said they were stunned by the Federal Transit Administration's announcement Thursday that the $5 billion rail line would not qualify for federal dollars without drastic changes in price and management. Dulles rail was counting on $900 million from the FTA, and state offici... - Tuesday, January 15, 2008:
Newsday Tuesday The most recent local news to spread like falling dominoes in a burning building is an article in the Washington Post about a Fairfax County Spanish teacher / track coach who was arrested for using his computer to send dirty pictures to a minor (who turned out to be an undercover cop). If you're curious, you can easily find the article yourself, but I will not be mentioning names on this site. Why not? Because this is a guy I graduated from high school with. For people kee... - Tuesday, October 02, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday A storm seems to be brewing in the IT job market. Pay raises have continued to outpace inflation, and bonuses are downright impressive - 11.6% on average. Yet, as the 2007 Network World Salary Survey finds, dissatisfaction over the salary package is rampant. Based on the results of this survey, I'm guessing that I'm not a typical IT worker in the United States. Sure there are some minor annoyances in my job, and... - Tuesday, August 14, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday Facebook pages concern parents of college freshmen As housing officials at colleges around the country send out roommate assignments to freshmen this summer, a growing number of schools say they're getting more requests for changes -- from parents who don't like the roommates' Facebook profiles. It looks like the "helicopter parents" have gained one more weapon in their quest to completely envelope their offspring in a protect... - Tuesday, July 10, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday An Underwater Fence to Stop Invasive Species Engineers are attempting to block the spread of invasive exotic fish by establishing an electrical barrier on the canal linking Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. Four species of Asian carp are spreading north up the river; a non-indigenous goby is attempting a move south down the canal. It seems like every contemporary environmental fix-it program is just a weak band-aid for some... - Tuesday, June 26, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday Dust Settled, Drivers Still Get Dizzy in Mixing Bowl An article in yesterday's Post reported that major construction work on the $676 million Mixing Bowl project in northern Virginia has been completed. The treacherous throbbing ulcer where Interstates 95, 395, and 495, and numerous local roads converge now flows much more freely than before. However, there are early indications that all is not well in the land of poorly chosen cooking analogi... - Tuesday, June 12, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday Va. Tech Relatives Lambaste Response Relatives of the Virginia Tech massacre victims said yesterday that they had not been granted representation on the panel investigating the killings and described themselves as "both angry and disappointed." At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I'd say that the relatives of victims in the shooting have about as much of a right to be on the investigation committee as I have to call m... - Tuesday, May 08, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday Delaware Energy Debate Could Turn on the Wind " Two hundred towering windmills, each so tall that its blades would loom over the U.S. Capitol Dome, could be built in the Atlantic Ocean near one of Washingtonians' favorite beach retreats, under a plan being considered in Delaware. " This article in yesterday's Post discusses the possibility of erecting turbines six miles offshore of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. With New Jersey... - Tuesday, April 17, 2007:
For Virginia Tech1 Today's Newsday Tuesday entry was originally about the supposed Internet buzz surrounding Shia LaBeouf's starring role in Indiana Jones 4 and why anyone would care about an unknown soul who sounds more like a tasty French cuisine than an actor. In the aftermath of yesterday's shooting at my alma mater, that post seems eminently discardable. Thankfully, the people I know directly like my sister, her husband, Zone-reader Jaood, and Anna's sister have all reported in and are ... - Tuesday, April 10, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday Scout Soars Far Beyond Eagle It's not easy making Eagle, the highest honor in Boy Scouts. You need at least 21 merit badges . . . [James Calderwood] has every badge available, from American business to woodwork. He even has one they don't give out anymore, so make it 122. This is a very remarkable feat, though tragically it will not translate directly into a marketable skill or reward (see also, a perfect score on ... - Tuesday, April 03, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday McLean Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service Two McLean High School students have launched a court challenge against a California company hired by their school to catch cheaters, claiming the anti-plagiarism service violates copyright laws. The lawsuit . . . seeks $900,000 in damages from the for-profit service known as Turnitin. The service seeks to root out cheaters by comparing student term papers and essays against a database of more th... - Tuesday, March 27, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday School prohibits use of Myspace site ...students were informed recently that under a new school policy, Think First, Stay Safe, the use of MySpace.com will be prohibited at school and at home. The policy states that students enrolled in the school can't have a MySpace.com account or any similar type of personal site... I support this ruling wholeheartedly, but not for the reasons you might expect. It's not because of the... - Tuesday, March 06, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday How long is too long for a movie? "I do agree you can't just make movies three hours long for no apparent reason. For a romantic comedy to be three hours long, that's longer than most marriages," Fincher said. This story on CNN.com notes the recent trend of movies to stretch towards the dreadful three-hour mark, a trend popularized by the unfortunate "made-for-BBC-miniseries" trilogy, Lord of the Rings . It's a little kno... - Tuesday, February 27, 2007:
Newsday Tuesday "I can't say I know exactly how a victim of a sexual assault feels, but I think it's something like this -- they invaded my home," Washington said. I'm sure there are worse ways to defend yourself when you have a history of short-tempered outbursts and shoot the guys delivering your furniture, but it'd be hard to top this one. After remaining silent for thirty days following the shooting, the best that homeland security officer, Colonel Keith... - Tuesday, December 12, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday For Some, Laptops Don't Compute Administrators in the Alexandria City Public School system are starting to question whether their two-year-old program to give a laptop to every single student (and the accompanying effort to turn their high school into a wirelass * hotspot) is really worth the cost. One board member said, "I think the decision was made to bring computers into the school system before they really knew what they were going ... - Tuesday, November 14, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday New Zealand students may use text-speech on exams New Zealand's high school students will be able to use "text-speak" -- the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers -- in national exams this year, officials said. New Zealand's Qualifications Authority said Friday that it still strongly discourages students from using anything other than full English, but that credit will be given if the answer "clearly shows the required understanding," even if... - Tuesday, October 24, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday BBC admits to bias Senior figures admitted that the BBC is guilty of promoting Left-wing views and an anti-Christian sentiment. They also said that as an organisation it was disproportionately over-represented by gays and ethnic minorities. It was also suggested that the Beeb is guilty of political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism and of being anti-American and against the countryside. However, the summit o... - Tuesday, October 17, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday The Handwriting Is On The Wall Carnivorous plant eats mouse Dog saves owner, dies trying to save cat MySpace predator caught by code - Tuesday, September 26, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday E. Coli Spinach Cases Rise to 173 Details : Over 170 innocent civilians have gotten ill from consuming fresh spinach in the past weeks, and FDA officials have traced the tainted goods back to one of several farms in California. People are cautioned against consuming any fresh spinach until the outbreak has passed. What it means to me : Smart people who realize that vegetables are merely a vile placeholder in the Ponz... - Thursday, September 21, 2006:
Premature Matriculation An article in the Post yesterday discussed a local 18-year-old student who managed to graduate from UVA in one year with a double major . He was able to accomplish this by taking 72 hours worth of AP credits in high school, and plans to finish graduate school in a single year as well. Not surprisingly, this guy came from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology -- I can think of maybe two students from T.C. Williams who might have atte... - Tuesday, September 05, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday U.S. Intercepter Missile Hits Target After eight other tests and over one hundred billion dollars in funding (which would buy 22,935,779,816 two-piece meals from Popeyes), one of the United States' Intercepter missiles completed another successful test this past week, raising its success rate from 50% to 55% and effectively removing the program from the No Missile Left Behind blacklist. Although the naysayers may disagree, the Intercepter pro... - Tuesday, August 29, 2006:
Newsday Tuesday Man Proud of Cheating at Video Games div.quote { background: #f0f0f0; } Graves is a self-described "professional cheater." Today's games are anything but easy, the 24-year-old will tell you. This fellow is a typical instant-gratification child of the multitasking era who dismisses today's games as difficult because he did not grow up trying to type TURN AROUND THEN SHOW MIRROR TO MEDUSA in King's Quest III&nb... - Tuesday, August 22, 2006:
Two for Newsday Tuesday Fugitive Closes Down Virginia Tech Campus A dangerous escaped convict holed up near the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday, forcing campus officials to cancel all classes on the first day of school, disappointing thousands of bright-eyed freshmen who actually expected to get something out of the first day of class other than a mimeographed syllabus and a disinterested professor. According to reports by the locals, the man was completely naked, ... - Wednesday, May 24, 2006:
The Post had an article on Sunday about the giant hoops that today's high school seniors have to jump through to ask the girl of their choice to prom . From the guy who added a slide to the senior slideshow to the guy who wrote PROM? in chocolate chips on some pancakes, kids today supposedly have to make their request like a marriage proposal lest the girl deem their question too unromantic and turn them down. Says one girl, " The romance is gone from everythi... - Thursday, March 30, 2006:
Randy Scouse Git There's an article on CNN about the prevalence of profanity in society and the percentage of males and females who disapprove of it . To me, the context-appropriate use of a swear word is a wonderful thing -- it crystalizes your immediate feelings on stubbing your toe or falling down a well in a universally understood way that crosses all social boundaries. A comedian who delicately inserts appropriate profanity at key points in his shtick is guaranteed to be funnier than someon... - Thursday, January 05, 2006:
Audience Participation Day Are these news stories real or fake? Decide which one(s) are pure invention, and then reveal the hidden text at the bottom to see if you are right. Regular readers of the Washington Post are disqualified from this contest because that's like insider trading, and we're all honest 'round these parts. Martin Luther King Jr. to be remembered on April Fools Day A committee appointed by D.C. Council member Marion Barry has moved the District's annual Martin Luth... - Tuesday, December 13, 2005:
Newsday Tuesday Judge Invalidates Admission by Va. Slaying Suspect Officer: "Do you know why we're here?" Suspect: "Yeah, because I stabbed my mom in the neck." A Virginia judge invalidated a killer's confession because he blurted it out before the officers were able to read him his Miranda rights. Apparently the judge expected the officers to treat their opening statement as a legitimate part of the interrogation, when anyone with a bit of c... - Wednesday, November 02, 2005:
In an effort to muddle up the more salient issues by introducing several new ones, President Bush has requested $7.1 billion in emergency funding to combat the possible bird flu pandemic which has been rumoured to be lurking in the shadows for several years now. After ten minutes of giving shout-outs to his dogs (but no nominations this time around), Bush gave a doomsday speech at the NIH which sounded vaguely familiar . Some conspiracy theorists note that the speec... - Tuesday, September 13, 2005:
Today's update was originally going to be about swear words because I feel like I've devoted too many updates to the Hurricane aftermath, but after reading this juicy morsel of an article, I feel compelled to come back one more time (too bad it's fake, but it's eerily not far off base from reality). If you believed my Bob Vanhorn conspiracy theory (and you should because it's 100% true and will be proven in our lifetime), you'll get a kick out of Pat Robertson's th... - Thursday, August 18, 2005:
The fear of Internet boobies has been taken to the next level, with the Bush administration " objecting to the creation of a .xxx domain, saying it has concerns about a virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography. " . Isn't that the whole point of creating the domain? Coupling this domain with a simple rule forcing adult site owners to use the suffix could be very effective. What's wrong with an Internet that keeps boobies fro... - Tuesday, July 19, 2005:
Life hasn't been good to NASA since I last reported on their craterization of a comet (see my entry from July 6, 2005). Apparently their P.R. department has decided that instead of performing a successful mission and having a grand news conference upon completion, it's better to Harry-Pottercize the next shuttle mission into hype oblivion (In other news, NASA obtained a temporary injunction against Scaled Composites LLC , who wanted to fly up a day early and spoil the en... - Thursday, July 14, 2005:
I read a story in the Washington Post a couple days ago that mentioned Herndon's continued efforts to regulate or do away with the sites where day laborers meet for jobs . Herndon and the proposed sites are literally right down the street from me. While I can see where the opponents are coming from, I think I see a few flaws in their logic: "At the 7-Eleven, it's an eyesore [...] Not too many people go to that 7-Eleven anymore . . . and now they want to ... - Friday, July 08, 2005:
Warning: Today's news update links to stories about animals with bad endings. This does not refer to pooping elephants. If you don't like sad animal stories, do not click on the links. This is not the way you should be putting injured deer out of their misery, even if you are one of Arlington's finest . Unless the deer is possessed by the spirit of Rasputin (in which case you should call a Scientologist for an audit), your best bet is ... - Wednesday, July 06, 2005:
Facets of Space: Insight Into Today's Headlines Space Invaders Being fat is now a matter of National Security. Military officials worry because too many recruits are now too fat to join the services (although they note that "'Large and in charge' makes soldiers look more formidable to the enemy" . Farther down in the article is a chart of weight-loss methods, with 21% of soldiers trying laxatives (apparently forgetting that they're grown adults and not high school rowers in the Lightweight 8 at S... - Thursday, June 09, 2005:
There was an article in the Washington Post yesterday about students who truncate their high school years to get into college faster . In my day, the purpose of high school was to ogle at girls and refine my razor-scarred wit at the expense of poor teachers (notably a BSCS Biology teacher who was so lazy that she divided up the last 12 chapters off the book amongst the students and made them teach each other). Learning was minimal to nonexistant and there was nothing ever... - Monday, May 09, 2005:
Nine members of the East Waynesville Baptist Church were voted off the church last week, after failing to pass the Immunity Challenge. The Challenge was simple: Don't vote Kerry . It's okay to make fun of Baptists, though, according to Montgomery County's new sex education program which defends homosexuality against the intolerance of religious groups like the Baptists. The judge who wisely put a temporary block on the curriculum noted that "The Revised Curriculum ... pai... - Friday, May 06, 2005:
Much to the chagrin of heavy metal bands everywhere, a recent retranslation of the New Testament has identified the Devil's number as 616, and not 666 . Apparently the Devil has been hanging out in Grand Rapids with Elvis all this time, lazing on the back porch and drinking "pop". Specific theological debates aside, this is one of the issues I have with treating ancient texts as dogmatic fact or basing a belief system around them. No matter how true the middle man t... - Monday, May 02, 2005:
Last week, President Bush signed a bill which protects DVD-filtering companies from being accused of copyright infringement in their quest to purify movies for home viewing . (Side note: I originally misread the title of the article and thought Bush was allowing amateur family porn). People often seem to forget the fact that personal responsibility and avoidance are a much more effective deterrent than censorship. If parents would spend more time wiping the snot off... - Saturday, June 26, 2004:
Look, a Saturday update! They still haven't found the missing crew coach, who I didn't know personally. The article in the Washington Post this morning has some new information as well as several misconceptions. Catilo's motorboat carried a cushion that served as a flotation device, but no life vests were available for him or the eighth-, ninth- and 10th-grade students he was overseeing, Durham said. Catilo was not required to wear a life v... - Thursday, June 03, 2004:
With the new WWII memorial a popular success, Bush has now decided to compare the war on terrorism with WWII . An excerpt from the article: Just as events in Europe determined the outcome of the Cold War, events in the Middle East will determine the fate of the terrorism fight, Bush said in a 45-minute foreign policy speech. Wasn't the Cold War caused, in part, by the interactions in WWII? I guess that causing something is one way to determine its... - Tuesday, March 16, 2004:
Mocking the Busy administration and reelection campaign provides me with easy fodder for news updates. Since I'm full of strong opinions but too apathetic to do much more than go out and vote on Election Day, this can be my contribution to the world of politics. Following last week's admission that hiring actors to portray the 9/11 firefighters in the controversial Ground Zero reelection ads was "cheaper and quicker", the latest buzz surrounds the faux news releases touti... - Thursday, March 04, 2004:
Something about this situation rubs me the wrong way: . If you're living in a link-free environment, the news story is about an underage drunk driving death in which another student was charged with buying beer bong parts which the driver used. Ignoring the death, which I'm not trying to argue was deserved, these charges seem to be a weak attempt to place the blame somehow to appease the living. Yes, the 18-year-old bong buyer plays a small part in responsibility for the ... - Friday, February 06, 2004:
The debacle that is politics continues this week, as Joe Lieberman drops out of the presidential race. His platform of "banning all video games I have never actually played, but heard were bad" probably wouldn't have gotten him far anyhow . Clark's son leeches onto his dad's press machine for a few minutes with the epiphany that politics is all about media coverage and says he doesn't want his dad embarassing him anymore if he's not a sure thing. ... - Wednesday, February 04, 2004:
As most people probably know by now, Bush is interested in establishing a moon colony to facilitate the exploration of deep space . Over the next five years, he'd like to redirect $12 billion dollars towards ensuring that the next round of moon landing photos are less fake than the previous ones . Insider sources suggest that half of that amount is earmarked for licensing stock planetary footage from recent space documentaries, such as Ind... - Friday, December 12, 2003:
People sometimes ask how I choose the linked stories that I post here every day. There's really no science to it -- I just make frequent visits to my three news bookmarks, www.cnn.com, www.poe-news.com, and www.slashdot.org, and bookmark anything interesting going on that day. The following day, I go through the news assortment and pare it down. I cut out the stories of gratuitous sex and violence, the stories that are just disturbing, and most of the stories about government and President... - Thursday, September 25, 2003:
This has got to be the stupidest thing I've heard this week: Junior Achievement is projecting that the lesson, which will be taught both in school and after school, will be used in 36,000 classrooms nationwide and has the potential of reaching 900,000 students in grades five through nine, or about 10 percent of all students in those grade levels. In the role-playing activity Starving Artist, for example, groups of students are encouraged to come up with a... - Wednesday, January 29, 2003:
From last night's State of the Union address, I learned that the representatives of our country are excellent clappers, although there was no occasion for them to demonstrate their "two and four" clap. There was one guy about three rows back who cheated -- he stood up with the crowd at every standing ovation, but kept his hands in his coat pockets. The clapping even came in a variety of styles, ranging from a broad low rumble to a more raucous pub-style, punctuated by jolly 'attaboy... - Friday, August 23, 2002:
There was a story in the Washington Post last week about the shortage of boat storage space along the Potomac River for high school crew teams . I was lucky to go to the one high school in northern Virginia that had its own boathouse and amazingly large collection of shells as well. If I recall correctly, we didn't even do much fundraising throughout the year. It's interesting that a public school could have so much money invested in a sport that many people consider to be eli... - Saturday, April 06, 2002:
Death of a game addict Shawn Woolley loved an online computer game so much that he played it just minutes before his suicide. The 21-year-old Hudson man was addicted to EverQuest, says his mother, Elizabeth Woolley of Osceola. He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-endi... - Wednesday, March 20, 2002:
FGM on Winning Team for Defense IT Contract Worth $2 Billion DULLES, VIRGINIA - March 19, 2002: FGM, Inc. announced today that they are on a winning team for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) "Encore" procurement worth $2 billion over seven years. The nine contracts awarded are for information technology services, hardware, software, and enabling products to support areas including command and control, intelligence, mission support, and the DISA's Global ... - Thursday, October 04, 2001:
This may be old news to some of you, but I just heard about it yesterday. The lengths people will go to these days... . Here's a brief excerpt from the article: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is now targeting the Boy Scouts of America because of a merit badge given to members who exhibit a mastery of fishing, an activity PETA claims "[teaches] young people that hooking, maiming, suffocating, and killing [fish] is acceptable." ... - Wednesday, September 12, 2001:
Both Virginia Tech and Florida State cancelled classes yesterday, along with many other schools and organizations. The state capitol here (which is only a couple blocks from my apartment) was closed as well, since it's a tempting target, being the only tall building in the city. The entire city felt like it was holding its breath - practice rooms were silent, no sorority girls were walking, and meter upon meter stood empty on the street. Even before the dust had settled,...
