Stupid
crackers. If you couldn't reach this Weblog yesterday, it was
because of a
denial
of service attack on the people who provide DNS and redirect
services for redbird.org.
ISSN 1534-0236
Technology and ideology alike are exercises in applied imagination.
Stupid
crackers. If you couldn't reach this Weblog yesterday, it was
because of a
denial
of service attack on the people who provide DNS and redirect
services for redbird.org.
A
3.5-kilometer-deep goldmine in South Africa contains
bacteria
living on the radiation given off by uranium. Researchers
are speculating that Mars could harbor life using this form of
metabolism, though it has both less water and less uranium than
Earth.
The new bacteria may be related to the deep-sea-vent species that live off hydrogen sulfide, but some of their genetic sequence is thoroughly unfamiliar. If they can be grown in the lab--early attempts have failed--they could provide new insights into early life on Earth.
The
mass and diameter
of Proxima Centauri have been measured. It's about 1/7 the mass of our sun, or
only twice as much as the minimum needed to burn hydrogen.
I can just about believe that a
court in Bulgaria is
trying
a bull for murder. What I can't believe is the public prosecutor's alleged theory that
"Obviously its not usual to put a bull on trial, but we need to know if we are looking for anyone else.The defense is arguing extenuating circumstances."If the bull is found guilty, then we will know that the case is closed as far as the hunt for the killer is concerned."
Part of why I
haven't updated much this month:
Here's one for the
conspiracy theorists: George W. Bush has picked
Henry Kissinger
to chair the "independent" inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The BBC--which I'm linking to because their stories don't vanish into
Tumbolia in a matter of days--has a nice quote from the widow of someone
killed in the attacks:
[He] was certainly not on the short list we were hoping for. Is there anyone who is not tainted?The commission's job is some combination of investigating intelligence failures, looking at border controls, and--according to Bush--trying to predict what "America's enemies" (presumably not including himself) will do.
Meteorologists have
confirmed and
measured the "eclipse wind", a weather shift in the path of totality of
solar eclipses.
Overdue good news: the US
government is
scrutinizing
meat packing plants a little more closely. Specifically, the packers will be
required to show government inspectors the results of their environmental tests.
A newly identified
fast-moving
black hole is probably a supernova remnant. It was detected because
it's dragging a companion star with it, devouring it, and giving off radiation
in the process.
Harbor seals can
distinguish between
fish-eating and seal-eating killer whales. The two populations of orca are
genetically distinct, and use different sets of clicks and whistles to communicate.
The article also mentions in passing that the seals can remember a face after
a ten-year separation.
The Pentagon is reportedly considering using
airships
to patrol the US coast for missiles, hostile aircraft, and
"potential terrorist activities on the ground."
Well, we have the helium reserve.
A last-minute
reminder:
why voting matters.
(It's election day here in the US.)
The Canadian government
can't get a straight answer
on whether the U.S. will treat Canadian citizens born in certain Middle Eastern
countries like all other Canadians.
After the Canadian Foreign Affairs ministry issued a travel warning advising Canadians born in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria against visiting the US, the US ambassador to Canada, Paul Celucci, assured the foreign affairs minister that "in the future Canadians carrying Canadian passports will not be treated any differently depending on where they were born or for any reason whatsoever," and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham took that to the House of Commons.
Mr. Graham said the ambassador told him he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.That was Thursday."They have given firm assurances that this matter will be dealt with by the American administrative authorities in a way that will ensure that the place of birth in a Canadian passport will not in any way affect when that person crosses the border and that all Canadians will be treated as Canadians when travelling on Canadian passports," he told MPs.
Today, the US Embassy in Ottawa has clarified that promise ("The more chaotic the clarification, the better", as a Thurber villain once put it): what they meant is that "Place of birth by itself will not automatically trigger registration."
With a system for profiling people born in certain countries now part of US law, the question is what they did tell Graham, and what--if anything--they actually thought they could deliver.
Jon Carroll
considers
the Bush doctrine and the recent hostage standoff in Russia:
The Bush Doctrine had gained an enthusiastic new adherent. The world was presented with a new concept: multilateral unilateralism.So if Russia found Chechens operating in, say, Cincinnati, Putin could invoke the Bush Doctrine to send in a crack team to roust the terrorists. And then Bush could discover an Al Qaeda cell operating in St. Petersburg, perhaps right inside the Hermitage, and we could seize control of that fine museum in order to protect it. And then Putin could deal with the Chechens in Houston, and we'd have the Cold War all over again, only with shooting. Probably every side would be forced to kill civilians. They are the omelet makers, and we are the eggs....
(The Palestinians accepted the Bush Doctrine years ago, but alas, they are not a nation, so they can't participate in the fun of the multilateral unilateralism. Their unwillingness to wait for nationhood before killing at random has been widely condemned.)
Weird gene imprinting: a small study suggests that
men who were
well-fed as boys are more likely to have diabetic grandchildren.
Hady Hassan Omar was
imprisoned
for months, with no charges ever stated, on suspicion that he had something
to do with Al-Qaeda. He's now suing the U.S. government for violating his
rights. This story is mostly about the detention, since the case hasn't come
to court yet and the government refuses to comment on anything except in
useless generalities: in response to his complaints about being strip-searched
in front of female guards, they say only that strip-searches are "rare".
Omar's treatment, including lie-detector tests, assumed that he was guilty
until proven innocent--and no amount of negative evidence, no series of
passed lie detector tests, was adequate proof. (He was eventually released
only after deciding to kill himself: apparently his despair convinced them that he
wasn't hiding anything.)
In memoriam
Senator Paul Wellstone.
Tiny particles of calcium
hydroxide can be used to
de-acidify paper
and preserve old documents.
The nanoparticles of what is commonly called slaked lime penetrate between paper's fibres. They combat the ravages of acids introduced when paper is made, without altering documents' appearance. The technique is cheap and green and could also be used on canvas.
Asteroid
2002 AA29 is
being called the "first true co-orbital object of Earth." It's another
horseshoe orbit, like Cruithne, but comes a lot closer to Earth, and
occasionally slips into actual Earth orbit for a while.
The bald eagles that
were being raised in my local park have
flown away,
perhaps as far as Ohio. Three of the four made it through the summer, a much
better rate than expected in the wild.
Copyright 2002 Vicki Rosenzweig. Comments welcome at vr@redbird.org.
If you like this, you might also like my home page or my online journal.