Jan. 19th, 2005

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3.9 Billion people watch the Olympic games: Free on TV.

9 Americans complain: A waste of 10 minutes each.

1 Greek in charge of the opening ceremonies blasts the idiots at the FCC for "investigating": Priceless.

"Far from being indecent, the opening ceremonies were beautiful, enlightening, uplifting and enjoyable," Gianna Angelopoulos (the Games chief) wrote in a weekend commentary in the Los Angeles Times titled "Since When is Greece's Culture Obscene?"

The FCC, whose authority only extends to U.S. media, has said it is looking into complaints, nine of which were listed on its Web site, but it was not clear whether a formal investigation would be launched.

Angelopoulos, who said the handful of U.S. complaints were dwarfed by the 3.9 billion people who watched the ceremony, had a blunt message.

"As Americans surely are aware, there is great hostility in the world today to cultural domination in which a single value system created elsewhere diminishes and degrades local cultures," she said in her commentary.

"In this context, it is astonishingly unwise for an agency of the U.S. government to engage in an investigation that could label a presentation of the Greek origins of civilisation as unfit for television viewing."
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An essay on physics, theology, cosmology, and all that related stuff.

"Editor's Note: Bryce DeWitt wrote this personal essay for Physics Today before he died on 23 September 2004. With it, Physics Today begins its celebration of the World Year of Physics 2005."
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US Senator Boxer destroys Condoleeza Rice in open hearings

and she's going to get confirmed anyway, but that's not the point. There's almost sixty thousand signatures on the petition right now.
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Unknown individual claims that a radioactive dispersal bomb attack on Boston, MA is imminent.

More here

And here

Facts on "dirty bombs"

My opinion:


But, hey, if it's a hoax, it's a hoax that people in Mass are taking seriously.
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Texas considers adding BMI to children's report cards.

Texas school districts would be required to include the body mass index of students as part of their regular report cards under a bill introduced Tuesday by a lawmaker seeking to link healthy minds with healthy bodies.

When the measurement, which calculates body fat based on height and weight, indicates a student is overweight, the school would provide parents with information about links between increased body fat and health problems, said Democratic state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte.

More than a third of school-age children in Texas are overweight or obese, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Eric Allen, a spokesman for the Association for Texas Professional Educators, said most parents don't need to be told their child is overweight.
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Ancient Egyptians sold fake cats, X-rays reveal.

Ancient Egyptian mummy wrappings hide a number of frauds and flaws, which a high-tech, digital X-ray machine recently exposed among the collections at Chicago's Field Museum.

The machine saw through a mummified cat dated to approximately 500 B.C. that contained only twigs and cotton. It also revealed mummification tools that someone accidentally left inside a real mummy, and it solved a 15,000-year-old mystery surrounding what is believed to be the world's oldest known mummy.

The findings support the theory that the ancients were just as prone to mischief and mistakes as we are today. Experts believe the Mikron Digital Imaging portable X-ray machine, along with a Radpro X-ray tube, may one day become standard devices for research use at museums, universities and remote excavation sites.

Curators and scientists alike were surprised when the machine showed that the cat mummy did not contain any feline remains.

"The person who bought it probably used it as an offering to the goddess Bestat, who possessed the head of a cat," said William Pestle, anthropology collections manager at the Chicago natural history museum.

He explained that mummy standards began to "fall off" around the 25th and 26th dynasties, which existed from 8-7 B.C.

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