from the don’t-look-now dept.

According to this story from Ananova, a campus group has failed in its effort to ban two nude scenes from a student play at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. The play is based on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and features one character (male) jumping naked into a pond and another character (female) breast-feeding a starving man. Rachel Brooker, head of the school’s anti-nudity campaign, vowed to fight on, saying, “If God had wanted us to see each other naked, we wouldn’t be born wearing clothes.”

from the roasted-nuts dept.

From Ananova comes this account of a Danish man who was having a mole removed from his posterior when he inadvertently released some methane, which came into contact with the electric knife being used by his surgeon. The gas ignited, in turn igniting the alcohol solution he’d been prepped with. Ouch. He’s suing now (naturally), for pain and suffering, missed work, and an inability to make love to his wife.

from the funny-because-it’s-true dept.

From mamselle comes this funny (to me, at least) error message. Actually, I do need some fresh air.

from the post-hoc-ergo-prompter-hoc dept.

A new study is being cited by the music industry as proof that file-sharing systems and CD burners are hurting sales of music CDs. Interesting how, in the days before they managed to kill off Napster, increased CD sales were happening despite the popular song-swapping service. Now that Napster is gone, the drop in sales is being blamed on the (arguably less useful) services that replaced it. I’ve got a better explanation: Napster helped CD sales, reacquainting people with their favorite forgotten music and with new music that the suckily degregulated radio industry wasn’t exposing them to. It is the record industry itself that is responsible for sowing the seeds of its current harvest of ill-will. Serves them right.

from the grinding-ideological-axes dept.

David Corn has an opinion piece at workingforchange.com in which he discusses neoconservatives’ growing impatience with dubya on the get-Saddam issue. Leading luminaries of the Right are reportedly growing concerned over the increasing murkiness of the President’s thinking on this whole War on Terra thing. The failure to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Sharon in the pursuit of a Palestinian Final Solution sounded the warning bell, and a go-it-alone invasion of Iraq is now emerging as the litmus test, apparently, for whether the hawks will give dubya their support in the next election.

from the your-government-at-work dept.

The good people at FDA have officially approved Botox, the purified form of botulism bacteria, for cosmetic use, as reported by a story at Canada.com. Doctors have been prescribing it for their Hollywood patients for years, of course, to clear away wrinkles or paralyze sweat glands, under FDA’s previous approval for medical use. This new approval means Allergan, the manufacturer, can now advertise the $400 injections specifically as a cosmetic aid. Oh. Goody.

from the $88-million-doesn’t-go-as-far-as-it-used-to dept.

Former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, who recently won an $88 million judgement against the estate of her fabulously wealthy late husband, is back in court asking for an additional $30 million. Explained Smith, “People don’t understand all the expenses I have. I mean, $88 million sounds like a lot of money, but when you actually start adding everything up, it goes pretty fast.”

from the ants-go-marching-one-by-one-hurrah dept.

CNN is one of several outlets carrying an AP story about a supercolony of Argentine ants that stretches for 3,600 miles along the European coastline from the Italian Riviera to northwest Spain. The ants, which were accidentally introduced to Europe in the 1920s, cooperate with neighboring colonies, rather than competing with them.

from the good-luck-on-this-one dept.

Skirmishing continues over the question of how many Palestinians have been killed in the Jenin refugee camp, and in what manner. Israeli military sources put the death toll at “dozens”, most of them gunmen shot in house-to-house fighting. Palestinian sources claim “hundreds”, many of them civilians, including women and children buried alive as buildings were demolished by Israeli bulldozers and tanks. Some interesting items to appear today are a piece from the Independent, in which a reporter who managed to enter the camp paints a picture very much in line with the Palestinian position, and an editorial from the Jakarta Post, calling for a United Nations investigation. Ananova also has a story about an Amnesty International team that has arrived to investigate.

from the statement-of-desire-does-not-a-policy-make dept.

Slate’s Anne Applebaum has written an opinion piece that points out the obvious about emperor dubya’s new Middle East clothes: he isn’t wearing any. More specifically, the President’s demand that Sharon withdraw from the West Bank immediately, followed by Sharon’s casual ignoring of same, has left U.S. prestige in the region at a new low. “If rhetoric could have solved his conflict, it would have been over a long time ago. But in order to create a genuinely new policy, Bush would have to take sides, one way or another, and put his money, or his military, where his mouth is.” So far, no sign of either from dubya; it’s all mouth so far.

from the pay-per-view-rights-alone-would-be-astronomical dept.

It’s only mentioned briefly in the course of an otherwise garden-variety piece on the Israelis’ and Palestinians’ irreconcilable differences, but Dan K. Thomasson has a suggestion for resolving the current Mideast impasse: let Sharon and Arafat fight each other directly. Which I realize is an old idea, but it got me to wondering, seriously, if you did that, which one would win? Arafat isn’t getting any younger, but Sharon was carrying some extra pounds the last time I checked.

from the another-drug-war-propaganda-related-death dept.

From ABC News comes this 20/20 story about 16-year-old Brandy French, who died after taking Ecstasy for the first time, while the friends who gave her the drug spent hours, literally, trying to decide if they should risk calling 911 or taking her to a hospital. Now the girl’s father is suing her friends, hoping to send a message to others who might find themselves in a similar situation. Too bad he didn’t name the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in the suit, for the role that organization plays in fostering the environment of fear and ignorance that leads to deaths like these.

from the oops,-goofed-again.-sorry dept.

From Reuters comes the story of a report to be issued soon by the Illinois commission charged with coming up with reforms to reduce the number of innocent people executed in the state. Among the suggestions are the outlawing of convictions based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of accomplices and jailhouse informants, and the videotaping of the entire police interrogation process, rather than just the confession obtained at the end. The commission unanimously concluded that no reforms would eliminate the possibility of innocent people being executed (no reforms short of doing away with the death penalty altogether, that is, a step that a majority of panelists reportedly supported). The commission, which spent two years preparing its report, was impaneled by Illinois Governor George Ryan after DNA testing led to a wave of overturned death-penalty convictions in the state.

from the shiver-me-timbers dept.

This story in Ananova caught my eye, in part because I just recently got the Pirate’s Booty habit. I was unaware, though, that in January Robert’s American Gourmet Food, makers of the snack, recalled it in order to correct an error in its labelling. Previously the label said each serving contains 2.5 grams of fat; in fact, outside testing has revealed that each serving actually contains 8.5 grams of fat. (Though this bag I’m scarfing from now says 5 grams. Hmm…) Anyway, a New York woman, Meredith Berkman, has now sued the company for $50 million, claiming the incorrect labelling made her gain weight. She refuses to say how much weight, exactly, though presumably that will come out if it actually goes to trial.

from the replacing-meat-with-chemicals dept.

Food activist Rich Ganis has an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times today (last one, I promise) looking at the new veggie burger announced last month by Burger King. Although the folks from PETA (that’s the ethical-treatment PETA people, not the easting-tasty PETA people) think it’s a great idea, Ganis disagrees.

from the guilty-pleasure dept.

I’m ugly-American enough to get a kick out of Engrish (wacky English, as delivered by our good friends in Japan), and this collection from Syberpunk.com is one of the best I’ve seen.

from the gubment-do-take-a-bite,-don’t-she? dept.

Again from the L.A. Times Opinion section comes this story by John Balzar, titled Only Suckers Pay Taxes. Balzar lays out in painful detail just how badly the tax code in this country is broken, and who’s paying the price. Hint: It’s not the fat cats. So, anyone remember Jerry Brown’s flat-tax proposal? Filling out the back of a postcard looks pretty good right now.

from the glad-to-say-I-was-wrong dept.
From March of 1996 comes this story in which I (Perfect Tommy, I mean) talked about the Challenger space shuttle disaster, and predicted that another such calamity would occur in the near future due to NASA budget cuts. Five years later, it’s clearly time for an apology to all the hard-working folks at NASA, who’ve managed to keep their astronauts very much alive since then. I was reminded of the story by a news item about Barbara Morgan, a teacher who was Christa McAuliffe’s backup on the original Challenger mission, and who later quit teaching, joined NASA full-time, and now is slated to fly in an upcoming mission. Anyway, follow the link below, or scroll down, to see the original story.
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from the geopolitical-incompetence dept.

The L.A. Times has a fairly scathing op-ed piece from Immanual Wallerstein, in which the Yale University scholar says Bush has painted himself into a corner on Iraq, and now has little choice but to pursue a war with Saddam Hussein that will be a “disaster” for the United States.

from the new,-IMPROVED-Gore dept.

As reported in the Nando Times, Democratic hearts (well, some of them) are a-flutter in the wake of Al Gore’s speech yesterday to the Florida Democratic Convention. Gore was clean-shaven and feisty as he offered his support for Bush’s ongoing War on Terra, while criticizing the administration on issues like the environment and the squandering of the Social Security surplus.