Archive for April 2006
A comet falls apart and RI plans massive wireless network
TIME.com: Eye on Science – Science Blog Archives – Death of a Comet
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 was first discovered in 1930, then lost and rediscovered in 1979. In 1995, it started to fragment, and now it’s in at least 33 major pieces, and still disintegrating.
Reuters: Rhode Island embarks on statewide wireless network
America’s smallest state is seeking to become its first to offer a wireless broadband network from border to border.
Backers of Rhode Island’s $20 million project say it would improve services and make the state a testing ground for new business technologies.
Congressional Democrats arrested
For protesting at the Sudanese Embassy. Tom Lantos (CA), Jim McGovern (MA), John Olver (MA), Jim Moran (VA), and Shelia Jackson Lee (TX) were arrested along with 6 others for illegally demonstrating outside of the Sudanese Embassy.
“This generation has watched the slaughter in Cambodia. This generation has watched in the slaughter in Rwanda. We will not watch the slaughter in Darfur,” said Lantos, who’s a Holocaust survivor. “The Sudanese government has shown total disregard for the wishes of the global, civilized community. I have no optimism as to the actions of the Sudanese government.”
Around 50 demonstrators marched in front of the embassy carrying signs that read “Stop the slaughter” and “Women of Darfur suffer multiple gang rapes.”
Moran said the United States needs to act to stop the abuses.
The arrests were expected by the Representatives.
Loading “CNN.com – U.S. lawmakers arrested at Sudanese Embassy protest – Apr 28, 2006”
Daily Kos has links to video of the arrests and photos of the demonstration.
Related: Madame Secretary on Darfur
Madame Secretary on Darfur
TIME.com Nation — Madeleine Albright Opens Up
But Darfur is a rolling genocide. We’ve watched it for a couple years. I find it ironic and passing strange that at time when there are so many commemorations of Rwanada, we are watching this and not doing enough. I personally think there needs to be more American assistance, whether in logistics or communication, and some troops on the ground in a way to support others.
Also, she doesn’t understand people’s fascination with her weightlifting regimen and she loved appearing on Gilmore Girls though not so much how the CoS on The West Wing ran foreign policy in place of a Secretary of State/National Security Advisor or the way in which Geena Davis came to office in Commander in Chief. She’d rather have seen her elected.
Somewhat Related: Brief miscellany
And I’m not exactly sure why I keep referring to her as “Madame Secretary”. It is the title of her autobiography though, and, of course, her formal title.
AR Governor retaliates
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee doesn’t like the opinions of the staff at the Arkansas Times so he’s cut them out of “the e-mail lists for routine news releases, public scheduling and other items widely disseminated to members of the public and the media.”
Arkansas Blog: The governor’s office goes silent
Updated: Arkansas Blog: National eyes on Huck’s action against us
Free roaming quarks
New Scientist SPACE – Breaking News – ‘Starquake’ explosion rips neutron star open
Astronomers have measured the thickness of the crust of a neutron star for the first time. The technique, which involves studying how the dense stellar corpse reverberates during a “starquake”, may one day reveal the nature of the exotic matter thought to lie at the star’s core.
“We think this explosion, the biggest of its kind ever observed, really jolted the star and literally started it ringing like a bell,” says Strohmayer. “The vibrations created in the explosion, although faint, provide very specific clues about what makes up these bizarre objects.”
Preview.app inconsistent with OS X
Something’s been bugging me for a while now. In Preview.app, if you modify an image and then try to close it, say you’re cropping a screenshot and then Export it to a different format and try to close the original, you’re given a confirmation dialog:
Unlike other applications, in Preview, if you hit the space bar (a keyboard shortcut for “discard without saving”), you save the image. Problem: Sometimes you don’t want to overwrite the original image.
Other applications don’t behave this way, take TextEdit for instance. Note the blue ring around “Don’t Save”:
Pressing the space bar here discards the changes and closes the window.
Apple shouldn’t make a standard like “space bar discards and closes window” and not apply it universally throughout their software. I could understand some if this was a third-party application, but this is Apple’s Preview.app. Come on…
This applies to OS X 10.3.9.
Children of illegal immigrants shouldn’t be made to suffer
Children who are brought to this country illegally by their parents and later abandoned should not be made to suffer for it.
High school kids who go through so much on their own, who have worked so hard and come so far shouldn’t be sent out of the country just because their parents broke the law.
Student’s Prize Is a Trip Into Immigration Limbo – New York Times
Yet for Amadou, who helps operate the robot the team built, success has come at a price. As the group prepared for the flight to Atlanta today, he was forced to reveal his secret: He is an illegal immigrant from Senegal, with no ID to allow him to board a plane. Left here long ago by his mother, he has no way to attend the college that has accepted him, and only a slim chance to win his two-year court battle against deportation.
In the end, his fate could hinge on immigration legislation now being debated in Congress. Several Senate bills include a pathway for successful high school graduates to earn legal status. But a measure passed by the House of Representatives would make his presence in the United States a felony, and both House and Senate bills would curtail the judicial review that allows exceptions to deportation.
“He’s been a hard-working and diligent student with mathematical ability and a scientific mind,” said Rhonda Creed-Harry, a math teacher at Central Park East. But though he has been accepted at the New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn, he said he could not attend because he does not qualify for financial aid.
The Supremacy of the Executive
AlterNet: Bush’s Imperial Presidency
The Bush administration has pushed hard for limitless powers to spy on, imprison and torture American citizens in the name of ‘security.’ Is this really what America stands for?
Also:
Must be an AlterNet Wednesday.
43 going on 49
Senator Edward Kennedy’s been in office for 43 years now. He’s the third-longest serving member in the Senate behind Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond. He’s up for re-election in November and by the time that he finishes that term, he’ll be the second-longest serving Senator in history, having surpassed Strom Thurmond’s 47 years by two years.
He recently sat down with a Reuters reporter:
“The defining aspect of our country is opportunity — the hope that you can do better, that your children can do better,” Kennedy said. “But you need an even playing field.”
“To do that, you can’t be sick and be in school. You’ve got to have health care. You’ve got to have an economy working to give people a chance to get ahead. It is not guaranteed. But you have to have an opportunity.”
“Our country is big enough and strong enough and wealthy enough to give that kind of opportunity to everybody. That’s what I work on every day,” he said.
Putting Granny in the Klink
“Peace” grannies on trial in NY for Iraq protest | Reuters.com
Some hobbled in on canes, others walked gingerly, but a group of grandmothers remained defiant as they faced trial on Thursday after being arrested while protesting against the Iraq war.
The group of women aged 50 to 91 were supported by others such “Raging Grannies” from Canada, whose members wore badges, chanted and held banners that read “Arrest Bush, Free the Grannies” and “Can’t whip the Insurgents? Whip Grannies.”
JeffSay... 
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