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Saturday, Apr 06, 2002

cloner

"ROME, Italy -- A maverick fertility specialist is reported to have claimed that a patient is pregnant with the world's first cloned baby."

[link]


(re)making it

"Mary Tyler Moore Reunion Leads TV Nostalgia Wave"

[link]


real player

"During the last year or so technological realism has claimed its greatest triumph yet, as three major game systems made their debuts. Lives there an 8 to 18-year-old — or an adult guiltily aspiring to that state of mind — who has not yet heard about the technological accomplishments of Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube? Elaborate textures and sounds make earlier games seem like playthings. The humble controller that once maneuvered a diminutive and plump plumber named Mario across a television screen, allowing him to jump, bop and run, has now been pumped up like Lara Croft's bodice; the bloated Xbox controller has eight buttons, two triggers, three toggling switches and untapped possibilities. And the promise and threat of these systems caused sales of video game systems and games to jump 42 percent last year to $9.4 billion."

[link]


Friday, Apr 05, 2002

chew toy

"A wad of Bazooka bubble gum supposedly spit out by Luis Gonzalez of the Arizona Diamondbacks during a spring training game has been up for bid on "www.nocontraction.com" for a week."

[link]


Thursday, Apr 04, 2002

genuwine concern

bush read a reasonably good speech today, considering his point of view, outlining at least some american position on the middle east conflict. maybe theyve accepted that if they can broker a peace it would actually be a major foreign policy victory for bush. i would accept him as the reluctant peacemaker even if he was forced to confront the problem because of his desire to "get saddam". theres little downside for bush to get involved at this point as his lack of resolve is beginning to hurt him in the polls and he aint invading iraq without some arab acquiescence.

[link]


absolutely nothing

“Why should I go to kill and to be killed — for what?” says Ron, one of about 400 Israeli soldiers refusing to join the fight in the West Bank and Gaza.

“This is a war that we have no chance to win,” he says.

Lt. Itai Ryb got the call to serve on Friday. But this week he decided to pack not for war, but for jail, joining other refuseniks who have signed a letter saying they’d rather go to prison than serve in the military campaign.

“This war is not acceptable to me,” he says. “I can’t take part in it.”

The Israeli action in the West Bank is wrong, he says, because “it’s occupation, it’s illegal; mostly it harms the well-being of Israel. The sooner we end the occupation, the sooner we’re going to have peace in this country."

[link]


here i go again

"SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Actress Tawny Kitaen, wife of Cleveland Indians pitcher Chuck Finley, was charged Wednesday with spousal abuse and battery for allegedly attacking her husband." (this was especially linkable because it lets me say, "dude...isnt that the chick from the whitesnake video?")

[link]


Wednesday, Apr 03, 2002

shotgun mic

"The International Federation of Journalists today launched a global solidarity appeal for Palestinian media staff under siege in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and an "end to targeting of journalists" by Israel in its military intervention in the West Bank."

[link]


Tuesday, Apr 02, 2002

uk is smoking

"The last political obstacle to the relaxation of Britain's cannabis laws will be cleared this month when the Commons home affairs select committee backs plans by the home secretary, David Blunkett, to downgrade the classification of the drug, the Guardian has learned"

[link]


plane facts

"A bizarre book claiming that the plane that ploughed into the Pentagon on September 11 never existed, and that the US establishment itself was at the heart of the New York and Washington attacks, has shot to the top of the French bestseller lists to indignation on both sides of the Atlantic."

[link]