Mike's Minutiae

"Dear God, please, please, please ... let the winner win big."

That was the prayer uttered last week by the nation's election officials as they gathered for a conference in Washington, D.C., the last time they will meet nationally before November's presidential election.

State and county election officials from around the country are praying that this year's presidential race ends with a wider margin of victory than it did four years ago when George W. Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by only 547 votes. A close victory this year would likely result in more charges of voter fraud and calls for recounts, two things that election officials don't relish.

"When you have the sheer number of what we have in elections in this country, it is unlikely that everything is going to go perfect," Lewis said. In the eyes of election officials, he added, a seemingly perfect election is simply one in which mistakes don't become common knowledge, and it would be folly to think that something won't go wrong this year.

Technology is changing the huge global market for record collectors. As music dealers like those immortalised in the book High Fidelity disappear, will vinyl and CD rarities survive the download revolution?

Second-hand record shops are becoming almost as rare a sighting in the UK as a first edition Beatles EP.

Sexual frustration has driven a mild-mannered chimpanzee to take up smoking and spitting, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

[...]

Xinhua reported that Feili [the chimp] became excited when she saw a visitor light up a cigarette, and grew impatient when they showed no sign of giving it to her.

A team of researchers at Arizona State University has demonstrated the ability to move water molecules by light -- a phenomenon they believe could have widespread use in analytical chemistry and possibly pharmaceutical research.

The discovery could have an important effect on the fledgling field of microfluidics, said Tony Garcia, an associate professor in the Harrington Department of Bioengineering. The use of an ordinary beam of light to move water around without the need for potentially damaging electric fields, air bubbles (which can denature proteins), or moving microscopic mechanical pump parts (which are expensive to make and difficult to repair) could significantly aid development of microfluidic devices, which are themselves tiny, sophisticated devices that can analyze samples.

Instead of the riotous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago - Wexler's setting - [director Stephen] Marshall's movie exploits the political conventions of 2004, following the travels of a fictional cameraman, played by [Nate] Crooker, through the real-life happenings of Boston and New York.

"The protagonist is Jake Cassavetes...who is a famed war shooter just back from Iraq and is shooting the conventions when he finds out that his network has made a Faustian deal with Homeland Security to pass his footage over to quote-unquote 'terror threats.' That kind of draws from Haskell's original script, in which he intimates that the main character's footage is being given to the FBI for COINTELPRO." When This Revolution began shooting at the DNC last month, "we were involved in a huge scuffle where the cops grabbed a couple of guys and beat them down and we got that all on tape. We shot the state troopers in SWAT gear coming out and lining up and marching around—I'm like, this is an action sequence with production values that I could never afford!"

In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution.

Catching Blondie's reunion tour broadcast at 4 in the morning wasn't an option for XM satellite radio subscriber and single father Scott MacLean. "I was missing concerts that were being broadcasted when I was asleep or out," he said.

So the 35-year-old computer programmer from Ottawa, Ontario, wrote a piece of software that let him record the show directly onto his PC hard drive while he snoozed.

The software, TimeTrax, also neatly arranged the individual songs from the concert, complete with artist name and song title information, into MP3 files.

Then MacLean started selling the software, putting him in the thick of a potential legal battle pitting technically savvy fans against a company protecting its alliance — and licensing agreements — with the music industry.

The proposed functionality would allow users to make digital copies of transmissions but not to break those copies up into individual tracks.

[...]

The major record companies are concerned that digital radio will be used as a means of copying CD-quality music and uploading it onto file-sharing services on the Internet; at the same time, they know they must avoid restricting time-shifting activities that are guaranteed by legal precedent. Digital radio users would be allowed to edit copies of broadcasts into individual songs, of course, if they convert the content to analog or transcode it into an editable digital format; such processes amount to "speed bumps" that hinder the scalability of pirate activity.

U.S. News & World Report mistakenly reported that the band would be joining Randy Travis and Bobby Womack on a pro-Bush concert tour designed to counter the anti-Bush rock roadshow featuring Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. "I have no idea where they got that," Foghat drummer Roger Earl tells PAGE SIX. "Foghat are not supporters of George Bush, and we're certainly not going on the road with him."

Back-to-school shopping lists are constantly evolving to keep up with technological advancements, many even including cell phones, laptops, Blackberrys and iPods. But one clear staple remains — the pencil.

[...]

Though there is a trend toward online testing, there has not been a real drop-off in paper and pencil testing, Loomer said. "Not everyone has a computer, but I guarantee you can get everyone a pencil," Loomer said.

Mike Finn, spokesman for PaperMate, which says it is the biggest producer of pencils in the United States, said pencils are still popular and necessary. Demand for pencils is strong, he said, but children are interested in more modern pencil options, not just the simple yellow wooden pencil. An increasing number of children are opting for mechanical pencils or color pencils, but PaperMate's general sales of pencils have not waned as technology increasingly enters classrooms and children's homes, he said.

Musgrave Pencil Co. in Shelbyville, Tenn., has seen an increase in preference for fancy pencils in recent years. Lynn Hulan of Musgrave said the pencils preferred today tend to have bright colors and often include slogans such as "I Love to Read" and "Honor Roll."

Even Tim Draper, founder of fabled Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson,...has recently asked for proposals from outfits developing flying cars. Indeed, while an airborne vehicle may still be 10 to 20 years away, it's already making some VCs see green.

In theory, as everyone begins flying to work, these contraptions could dwarf today's $850 billion auto industry. The devices -- ranging from air taxis to personal flying machines -- could breathe life into aerospace companies' growth or create a whole new generation of startups. Best of all, some versions of this vision could start to come true within several years.

Eventually, passengers might even be able to read the paper or eat breakfast while their flying car's brain does all the work. University of Florida researchers are hoping to use a bunch of living neurons -- located in a sealed dish on the ground -- to pilot a toy plane through the air.

The neurons, which are nerve cells found in the brain and the spinal cord, are connected to silicon chips that would communicate with the plane wirelessly. In today's experiments, however, they keep in touch through a long cable. Sensors on the plane collect information about its surroundings and pass their findings -- such as images of a fast-approaching building -- to the neurons, which then tell the plane to swerve away.

(or, if you don't have a Washington Post account, use this clickthrough link):

At one point this week, soldiers from a 1st Cavalry Division battalion led by M1-A1 Abrams tanks and heavily armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles watched in bemused wonder as their opponent sent a donkey with a rocket-propelled grenade strapped to its side onto the field of battle. The remote triggering device was a string running toward the building corner from which the animal had emerged.

"We actually had reports of 'engage and destroy the donkey,' " said Maj. Tim Karcher of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. The animal appears to have died as another enemy casualty.

Today, many movies -- including several of the top box office successes in history -- are rated PG-13.

* USA Today has the award, in my book, for the dumbest photo caption ever. Accompanying a story about mad cow disease in the mid '90s, they included a photo of a cow. The caption read, "Cow."

Woody Guthrie wrote his classic American song in 1940, when the copyright laws granted a copyright term of 28 years, renewable once for an additional 28. According to EFF, the initial copyright term was triggered when Guthrie sold his first versions of the song as sheet music in 1945. The copyright on the song then ran out when Ludlow failed to renew its registration in 1973.

...the JibJab movie does not technically classify as a parody of "This Land." In order to qualify legally as a parody of the song, LiCalsi said, the new material must comment on or criticize the ideas represented by the original property. Since JibJab was making a statement about politics, and not Guthrie's song, he said, the film's use of "This Land" was not protected.

* People who insist on believing that the Guthrie song is a nationalist anthem apparently ignore the verse which goes "As I was walking, I saw a sign there/And that sign said 'No trespassing/But on the other side, it didn't say nothing/Now that side was made for you and me!" as well as the concluding one about the people "grumbling" near the relief office.

Albert Norman has made a minicareer out of blocking Wal-Mart. He has evidently had some success.... He says in the last decade he has helped towns from Charlevoix, Mich. to Hood River, Ore. to Eureka, Calif. beat back 180 Wal-Marts (and 70 other big-box stores).

Fifteen years ago, the largest telescopes in the world had yet to locate a planet orbiting another star. Today telescopes no larger than those available in department stores are proving capable of spotting previously unknown worlds. A newfound planet detected by a small, 4-inch-diameter telescope demonstrates that we are at the cusp of a new age of planet discovery. Soon, new worlds may be located at an accelerating pace, bringing the detection of the first Earth-sized world one step closer.

Rock band Queen, fronted by gay icon Freddie Mercury, has become the first rock act to receive an official seal of approval in Iran.

Western music is strictly censored in the Islamic republic, where homosexuality is considered a crime.

But an album of Queen's greatest hits was released in Iran on Monday.

Oregon State University researchers are working on fizzy fruit, carbonated apples, pears and other sweet treats.

Texas neurobiologist Galen Kaufman discovered fizzy fruit while on a sailing trip.

He bit into a pear that had been in a cooler chilled with dry ice -- and discovered that carbon dioxide gas had entered the fruit. That left the pear pleasantly fizzy.

Now Kaufman is working with OSU professor John Henry Wells, an expert in food packaging and storage at the Oregon Food Innovation Center in Portland.

On slanted steel support pilings: "Milking a cow on a stool with diagonal legs is a lot sturdier than milking a cow on a stool with straight legs," explained [California Department of Transportation's Douglas] Coe."

On design of expansion joints: Unlike traditional expansion joints that only move a few inches before breaking -- leading to structural failures like the collapse of the bridge deck in 1989 -- the new joints can slip up to a meter in a worst-case scenario. They are also designed to bend but not break if an earthquake pulls the roadway on each side of the joint in different directions.

On concerns over the safety of the design: "[University of California at Berkeley engineering professor Abolhassan] Astaneh-Asl notes that no one has ever built a self-anchored suspension span with just one tower before, leaving only test data for engineers to rely on. "They are playing with the safety of the people," said Astaneh-Asl about the California Department of Transportation. "This bridge is the most important bridge in the U.S. This is not the place to try a self-anchored design."

Masked robbers stormed into an art museum in Norway and stole Edvard Munch's famous paintings "The Scream" and "Madonna" at gunpoint before the eyes of stunned museum-goers.

Sunday's raid happened in broad daylight at the the Oslo museum named after the Norwegian artist.

"The Scream" was stolen 10 years ago, from Oslo's National Art Museum, and recovered three months later after the perpetrators failed to extract ransom for its return.

Official estimates of the devastation that the explosion would cause [include] predictions of a three kilometre high column of water, mud, metal and munitions sent into the air by the blast.

There's 1,400 tonnes of TNT on there, that's about one twelfth the size of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. It could blow up for a number of reasons - it could blow up spontaneously, it could blow up in parts or it could blow up the whole cargo. It could blow up because of terrorism, somebody might target it, or it could blow up simply because of bombs moving in the tide.

[Moktada al-Sadr] started announcing that the Shiite messiah, who is known as the Mahdi, is about to arrive any day now and that he will appear in Iraq. In Shia tradition, the Mahdi is the 12th and last ancient imam, who disappeared and is expected to reappear some day. Moktada al-Sadr claims that the Americans knew the reappearance was imminent, and that this is why they invaded Iraq: to grab the Mahdi and kill him. In rallies, Mr. Sadr's supporters often chant his name in a way that implies that he is the "son of the Mahdi," and he named his militia the Mahdi Army. Recently he even claimed that the army "belongs to the Mahdi" and thus he is not at liberty to disband it.

Raising expectations of an imminent appearance of the Mahdi is highly unusual in Shiite history because it can excite people to extreme and dangerous actions.

*used here as in the definition "a close friend; Pal," not in the alternate sense, "animal or vegetable matter (as chopped fish or corn) thrown overboard to attract fish"

The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites.

An exception is if an athlete has a personal Web site that they did not set up specifically for the Games.

The IOC's rationale for the restrictions is that athletes and their coaches should not serve as journalists -- and that the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first.

Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments.

[...]

Employees were arrested in Turkey because Kurdistan had been shown as a separate entity on maps of the country, [so] a decision was taken to remove Kurdistan from all maps.

One mistake that caused catastrophic offence was a game called Kakuto Chojin, a hand to hand fighting game. The fighting went on with rhythmic chanting in the background which in reviewing the game Mr Edwards noticed appeared to be Arabic.

"I checked with an Arabic speaker in the company who was also a Muslim about what the chant meant and it was from the Koran. He went ballistic. It was an incredible insult to Islam." He asked for the game to be withdrawn but it was issued against his advice in the United States in the belief that it would not be noticed.

Three months later, the Saudi Arabian government made a formal protest. Microsoft withdrew the game worldwide.

Earlier this month, Warner [Brothers Records] became the first major record label to ask MP3 blogs to play its music. The blogs - which are relatively new but increasingly popular - are personal Web sites that offer music criticism right next to the actual music, in the form of downloadable MP3 files.

[...]

Two weeks ago, at least eight MP3 bloggers received an e-mail message from Ian Cripps, a Warner employee. In the messages, which were identical and came with an MP3 file attached, Mr. Cripps told the bloggers that he loved their sites.

"We are very interested in blogs and I was wondering if you could post this mp3," he wrote. "It's by one of our new bands - The Secret Machines. They are an indie rock band and we would love for people to hear the band's music from your site. Here it is, listen to it and let me know if you will post it. Thanks!!"

The pitch to MP3 blogs was part of an ambitious online campaign that was the work of Robin Bechtel, vice president for new media at Warner Brothers and Reprise Records. The campaign's first unusual component was a decision to start selling the Secret Machines album through Apple's iTunes store and other online outlets last February, nearly four months before it was available on CD. The move drew attention to the album, which received strong reviews.

Ms. Bechtel said that the company had contacted many sites for the Web part of the publicity effort, and that the messages to MP3 blogs were an experiment. "We're really progressive in trying things," she said.

A few comments, posted under several different names, stood out because they looked like something one might read on a teen-pop fan site.

"I never heard these guys before, but theyre awesome," read a posting last Thursday under the name Ron. "I went to their website and you can listen to a lot of ther other stuff, very cool and very good!" Another post, sprinkled with casual profanity, asserted that big corporations could still release good music, and cited the Beatles as an example.

A check of site records by [mp3 blogger Mark] Willett revealed that all four of the suspect comments had been posted from the same Internet Protocol address, indicating that they came from the same computer or from a computer within the same company. That address was also the source of two e-mail messages that Ms. Bechtel sent to a reporter, as well as the original messages sent to the bloggers.

The entertainment industry has for some years been going into chat rooms and message boards to promote its products. But Ms. Bechtel said this kind of activity was not part of the Secret Machines campaign. She said the comments could have been posted independently by fans of the band who worked at the company.

We live in a quicksilver technological environment with courts ill-suited to fix the flow of internet innovation. The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well established distribution mechanisms.

Yet, history has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player.

Thus, it is prudent for courts to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude. [citations omitted and paragraphing added]

At the Statue of Liberty, recently reopened after a two-year closure, stashing a package offers a glimpse into the future. To rent, close and reopen lockers, visitors touch an electronic reader that scans fingerprints.

"It's easy," Taiwanese visitor Yu-Sheng Lee, 26, said after stowing a bag. "I think it's good. I don't have to worry about a key or something like that."

[...]

"All these customer-facing applications, they're emerging," said Joseph Kim, a consultant with the International Biometric Group, which follows the industry. "We'll be seeing a lot more very, very soon. Whether that sticks or not depends on how customers feel about it."

Scattered grocery stores have tested systems that let consumers check out with a touch of a fingerprint scanner. Piggly Wiggly recently installed such a system at four South Carolina stores and expects to expand it to 116 other outlets, saying it offers speed, convenience and protection against credit card theft.

Climate modeling results published today [8/13] in the journal Science indicate that heat waves at the end of the 21st century will be more severe, more frequent and longer lasting than those of recent years.

Humanity has the hardware in hand to halt the rise in heat-trapping greenhouse gases it pumps into the atmosphere and forestall the worst effects of global warming projected for the end of this century.

The goal could be achieved within the next 50 years by more widespread use of a portfolio of at least 15 approaches - from energy efficiency, solar energy, and wind power to nuclear energy and the preservation or enhancement of "natural" sinks for carbon dioxide such as rain forests, or the conservation tillage techniques on farms worldwide, say two Princeton University researchers in a study published Friday.

Now, Haley Waldman’s mother is pushing the Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican to make an exception, saying the girl’s condition — celiac sprue disease — should not exclude her from participating in the sacrament, in which Roman Catholics eat consecrated wheat-based wafers to commemorate the last supper of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion.

[...]

According to church doctrine,...communion wafers must have at least some unleavened wheat, as did the bread served at the Last Supper. The Diocese of Trenton has told Waldman’s mother that the girl can receive a low-gluten host, drink wine at communion or abstain entirely, but that any host without gluten does not qualify as Holy Communion.

Pelly-Waldman rejected the offer, saying even a small amount of gluten could harm her child.

A long-sought trove of rare Beatles material that reportedly was found last month by a lucky British tourist remains lost, a leading Beatles expert says.

Last month, The Times newspaper reported that a suitcase bought by Fraser Claughton, 41, at an Australian flea market for about $35 was packed with Beatles memorabilia, including photos, concert programs and unreleased recordings.

But Pete Nash, a memorabilia expert from the British Beatles Fan Club who examined the contents of the suitcase on behalf of a British television channel, said he saw photocopied ticket stubs, laser-scanned pictures from the 1990s — and no rare reel-to-reel recordings.

The most fundamental Article of space law, Article II of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (often called the 'Magna Carta' of Space Law), expressly excludes the possibility that any state may incorporate any part of outer space, including the moon, into its territory.

One consequence is that the legal systems of states cannot be simply extended to outer space.

President Herbert Hoover (right) prepares to get the "fair and balanced" treatment by a young Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly developed his concept of a "no-spin zone" when hand-crank film cameras were replaced by motorized models, allowing him to hold a notepad in his hand instead of the crank-handle. This revolutionary approach later led to two Peabody Awards.

The director of a new music documentary pieced together from 34-year-old footage of a tour by some of rock's biggest names has said modern "rockumentaries" are too pre-planned.

Bob Smeaton, whose Festival Express features The Band, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead and Buddy Guy travelling across Canada on a train, told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme that key moments in modern music movies were "set-up."

"Ninety-nine percent of the documentaries being made now are being made with the artists' consent, and they have a great deal of editorial control," he said.

"A lot of stuff that is meant to be fly-on-the-wall isn't fly-on-the-wall, it's set up."

The first time someone's caught using a four-letter word at the fair, they'll get a warning. Repeat offenders will get kicked off the fairgrounds for the rest of the event, which begins next Saturday.

Absent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions, the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense.

The ALA sees a need for this because materials offered by groups like the Business Software Alliance and the Motion Picture Association of America are designed to influence kids with one-sided information, said Rick Weingarten, director of information technology policy for the ALA. Topics like "fair use" -- the right to use copyright material without the owner's permission, a key concept in American law that intellectual-property experts say leads to innovation -- are not adequately addressed.

"There is certainly concern about the fact that when the content industry talks about copyright and young people in the same sentence, they are either calling them all crooks or they are making claims for copyright that far exceed what copyright is all about," Weingarten said. "Any education program that comes from that source is inherently going to be biased."

We are deeply saddened by our national tragedy. Our thoughts, hearts and prayers go out to all individuals and families.

---We are deeply saddened and horrified at the shocking attack against our nation. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this national tragedy. Pray for our troops and God Bless the USA. (site)

---We are deeply saddened and horrified at the shocking attack against our nation. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this national tragedy. To join in support during this difficult time, we have gathered a list of resources below for those seeking information on loved ones or how you can help. [links follow](site)

---We are all deeply saddened and horrified by the shocking attack against our nation. Our hearts are very heavy with sadness, our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this national tragedy. To join in support during this difficult time, here is a compiled list of resources for those seeking info on loved ones or how one can be of assistance. [links follow] (site)

---We are deeply saddened and horrified at the shocking attack against our nation. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to everyone everywhere affected by this national tragedy. (site)

Dear Friend:

Sorry for your recent tragedy. My deepest sympathies go out to you and anyone you know. Please accept my ecumenical prayers.

Very sincerely,
Some faceless internet company

Today's Muzak is played in the Gap, McDonald's and Barnes & Noble and in homes via the Dish Network, to name a few. It sounds completely different, featuring combinations of upbeat, toe-tapping songs.

And there are words, real words sung by the artists themselves. Muzak has been doing that for decades. If it's a Beatles song, you'll actually hear Ringo, Paul, George and John. Unless, of course, it's a rendition sung by Tori Amos, Aerosmith or Nirvana.

It's, dare we say, hip?

Collis...remembers when the song "Devil Inside" by INXS was popular in the 1980s. After some debate, Muzak decided to put the song on its soundtrack. But a Christian woman shopping for a suit heard the song in a store and walked out before buying.

She wrote a letter to the president of the retail company, who complained to Muzak. Muzak cut the song from its playlist forever.

A Longmont man was arrested Tuesday after he threw a 7-Eleven hot dog at parked police cars, according to a police report.

[...]

Seibel was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing, obstructing emergency services, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and throwing missiles.

The campaign also includes an online game in which the ferret races to destroy pirated copies of software while collecting valid licensing agreements.

In April of 1878 Edison went to Washington D.C. to demonstrate for Congress the workings of the wonder of the age, the phonograph. There was a great demand to see and hear the phonograph, for no one could understand how it worked. Thomas Edison even performed a private demonstration for President Rutherford B. Hayes at the White House.

Film archivists in Russia have discovered a rare German language version of a film by comic duo Laurel and Hardy, the Munich Film Museum said on Friday.

The 40-minute movie, entitled "Spuk um Mitternacht" (Ghost at Midnight), is a rare production in which the comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy spoke in German with the help of speech coaches.

"Because dubbing was still difficult at the start of the sound era, (films) were shot in various languages," the museum said in a statement.

"Supporting actors were swapped for native speakers and the stars -- using speech coaches -- had to say their lines phonetically in foreign languages."

The Patent and Trademark Office has issued nearly seven million patents; the first 10,000 are known as the X-patents. They were issued from July 1790, when the United States patent system was created under an order signed by George Washington, to July 1836, when every one of them burned in a fire. Virtually every patent is available to the public on paper, microfiche, CD-ROM and the Internet - except the X-patents.

In the 168 years since the fire, only about 2,800 have been recovered. Over time, the appearance of missing X-patents grew fewer and farther between, so that now no one at the patent agency, which does not have an official historian, can remember the last time it happened.

Until this spring, that is, when two lawyers with a passion for patent history uncovered a clue to several important patents from the 1790's - including one from 1826 for the first internal combustion engine. Following the trail to Dartmouth College, they discovered inventor copies of 14 patents that had been written off as lost forever.

Reporter: Wait! Something's happening...

(HISSING SOUND FOLLOWED BY A HUMMING THAT INCREASES IN INTENSITY)

Reporter: A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from that mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they're turning into flame!

(SCREAMS AND UNEARTHLY SHRIEKS)

Reporter: Now the whole field's caught fire! (EXPLOSION) The woods... the barns... the gas tanks of automobiles... it's spreading everywhere. It's coming this way. About twenty yards to my right...

(CRASH OF MICROPHONE... THEN DEAD SILENCE)

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue the broadcast from Grovers Mill. Evidently there's some difficulty with our field transmission. However, we will return to that point at the earliest opportunity.

Researchers working with Raytheon Co. have developed a weapon called the Active Denial System, which repels adversaries by heating the water molecules in their skin with microwave energy. The pain is so great that people flee immediately.

"It just feels like your skin is on fire," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the laboratory who, as a test subject, has felt the Active Denial System's heat. "When you get out of the path of the beam, or shut off the beam, everything goes back to normal. There's no residual pain."

A Humvee-mounted Active Denial weapon is expected to be given to all services by the end of this year for evaluation, with a decision about deployment expected by the end of 2005.

The American Civil Liberties Union is in turmoil over a promise it made to the government that it would not knowingly hire people whose names appear on watch lists of suspected supporters of terrorism. Those lists are the very type it has strongly opposed in other contexts.

[...]

[ACLU Executive Director Anthony] Romero said he signed a certification in January that the group "does not knowingly employ individuals or contribute funds to organizations found on" lists created by the federal government, the United Nations and the European Union. The certification referred specifically to three lists maintained by the Justice, State and Treasury Departments, including one called for by the Patriot Act, the antiterrorism law that the group has often criticized.

All charities, including Federations, which apply for participation in the CFC must now certify that they do not knowingly employ individuals or contribute funds to organizations found on terrorist related lists promulgated by the U.S. Government, the United Nations, or the European Union. Presently, these lists include the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals List, the Department of Justice's Terrorist Exclusion List, and the list annexed to Executive Order 13224.

ABDALLA, Fazul (a.k.a. MOHAMMED, Fazul Abdullah; a.k.a. ADBALLAH, Fazul; a.k.a. AISHA, Abu; a.k.a. AL SUDANI, Abu Seif; a.k.a. ALI, Fadel Abdallah Mohammed; a.k.a. FAZUL, Abdalla; a.k.a. FAZUL, Abdallah; a.k.a. FAZUL, Abdallah Mohammed; a.k.a. FAZUL, Haroon; a.k.a. FAZUL, Harun; a.k.a. HAROON; a.k.a. HAROUN, Fadhil; a.k.a. HARUN; a.k.a. LUQMAN, Abu; a.k.a. MOHAMMED, Fazul; a.k.a. MOHAMMED, Fazul Abdilahi; a.k.a. MOHAMMED, Fouad; a.k.a. MUHAMAD, Fadil Abdallah); DOB 25 Aug 1972; alt. DOB 25 Dec 1974; alt. DOB 25 Feb 1974; POB Moroni, Comoros Islands; citizen Comoros; alt. citizen Kenya (individual)

Are you on one of these "U.S. Government Terrorist Related Lists"?

• The Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals List
• The Department of Justice’s Terrorist Exclusion List
• Executive Order 13224

A wreath thrown on Mediterranean waters commemorated the day 60 years ago when Antoine de Saint-Exupery, aviator and author of "The Little Prince," disappeared without trace during a wartime flying mission.

The ceremony took place off the south French city of Marseille near the island of Riou where Saint-Exupery's Lightning P38 military aircraft crashed and sank on a reconnaissance mission on July 31, 1944.