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Remember Deep Impact � that global disaster movie from the 1990′s when the world’s finest astronauts embarked on a suicide mission to save mankind from a comet heading straight for Earth? Now, imagine if the producers introduced a new twist to the plot: besides the comet, NASA is pitted against a Russian astrologist who sues the space agency because destroying a comet would irrevocably harm her “system of spiritual values”.

Well, we’re not in the direct trajectory of a comet (not yet anyway), but a Deep Impact mission is underway, with a NASA spacecraft scheduled to collide with the Tempel-1 comet on July 4, perhaps blasting it to smithereens. That’s right, it’s Independence Day.

Now, the last thing NASA expected was a lawsuit from Russia.

But Russian astrologist Marina Bai gave it a try, and, according to her lawyer Alexander Molokhov, it looks like she may just pull it off. In a lawsuit she filed last month with the Presnensky district court in Moscow, Bai is demanding that NASA call off its $311 million operation, with the spacecraft already in its cruise phase. She also wants 8.7 billion rubles (the ruble equivalent of the entire cost of the mission) in compensation for moral damages.

“The actions of NASA infringe upon my system of spiritual and life values, in particular on the values of every element of creation, upon the unacceptability of barbarically interfering with the natural life of the universe, and the violation of the natural balance of the Universe,” Bai said in her claim.

I notice the US Army is following the great example their Commander In Chief is setting.

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A pregnant 13-year-old girl in Florida has been told she cannot have an abortion because she lacks the maturity to make such a decision.

A state court granted an injunction which prevents the girl from terminating her pregnancy.

She is three months pregnant and had planned to have an abortion on Tuesday of this week.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will launch an urgent appeal against the ruling.

Florida’s department of children and families intervened and took the matter to court, arguing the teenager, who is under the care of the state, is too young and immature to make an informed medical decision. Judge Ronald Alvarez in Palm Beach accepted that argument and has granted a temporary injunction and psychological evaluation, which effectively blocks her from terminating the pregnancy.

It is a case which, once again, plays into the heated and divisive debate about abortion in America.

The judge’s ruling comes in spite of Florida state law which specifically does not require a minor to seek parental consent before an abortion.

Damn activist judges!

The cluetrain has hardly left the station.

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Rather than expand into untapped creative markets, Adobe seems hell-bent on expanding into the jerks-wearing-suits market, a market that’s completely at odds with the creative market they’ve dominated for nearly two decades.

Adobe’s best and core products are their oldest, and they are graphics products: PostScript, the Adobe Type Library, Illustrator, and Photoshop. InDesign is relatively new but genuinely fits alongside these products. This is why Adobe’s core customers – who still use and love many of their products – are dismayed and confused by the company’s direction in recent years. But is it any surprise that a company that is run by jerks-wearing-suits is now targeting the jerks-wearing-suits software market?

Them modern intarwebs are mighty nifty. Here’s where my new iBook is hanging out:

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The Bush administration has been pressing the Chinese government for years to allow its currency, which is pegged to the dollar, to trade more freely. It got its wish on Friday – but only for 20 minutes.

A freely trading Chinese yuan would probably rise in value against the dollar, making Chinese exports to the United States more costly. That, in turn, would give relief to American manufacturers battered by low-priced Chinese goods as the American trade deficit has been growing faster with China than with any other country. It would also be a political victory for the Bush administration.

Until this afternoon, China had ignored the demands. But as traders drifted back to their desks from lunch in Asian financial capitals on Friday, the yuan suddenly broke out of its prescribed trading range. No one knows for sure if the move was deliberate or a result of a technical glitch.

But regardless of whether it was a Chinese test of their ability to manage a rising yuan or simply a case of the Chinese central bank briefly failing to buy enough dollars to keep supporting the American currency, traders noticed it and the prices for many other currencies began to shift in response.

The yuan climbed until it took 8.270 of them to buy a dollar instead of the usual 8.276. That difference, of only six thousandths of a yuan, might not seem like much of a change.

But it came on the eve of a weeklong holiday in China and at a time of intense speculation that a Chinese revaluation of the currency, which has been fixed by Beijing against the dollar for years, might be imminent. The brief appreciation, a hint of further rises if the yuan were to float, was enough to roil currency markets around the world.

The dollar fell and the euro, yen and gold rose as investors placed bets that if China let the yuan rise against the dollar, other countries would also permit their currencies to appreciate against the dollar because their exporters would no longer be so fearful of being undercut by Chinese rivals.

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A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

“I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” school Principal Diana Russell said.

State police, Clovis police and the Curry County Sheriff’s Department arrived at the school shortly after 8:30 a.m. They searched the premises and determined there was no immediate danger.

In the meantime, more than 30 parents, alerted by a radio report, descended on the school. Visibly shaken, they gathered around in a semi-circle, straining their necks, awaiting news.

“There needs to be security before the kids walk through the door,” said Heather Black, whose son attends the school.

After the lockdown was lifted but before the burrito was identified as the culprit, parents pulled 75 students out of school, Russell said.

Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on.

“The kid was sitting there as I’m describing this (report of a student with a suspicious package) and he’s thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, they’re talking about my burrito.’”

Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her.

“He said, ‘I think I’m the person they saw,’” Russell said.

The burrito was part of Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product.

LeeAnn Warren (L) comforts her friend Ashleigh Pfister, as they look at the medals her husband, Army Spc. Jacob Pfister, was awarded during funeral services outside St. Vincent de Paul Church in North Evans, New York, on April 29, 2005. Also pictured are Amy McGregor (second R), the mother of Jacob, and sister Monica Morrisey. Army Spc. Jacob M. Pfister died April 19 when a suicide car bomber hit their squadron near Baghdad, also killing a fellow soldier from Pennsylvania and injuring four. Pfister, 27, a Buffalo-area native was on his second tour of duty. REUTERS/Gary Wiepert

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Het aantal tegenstemmers bij het referendum over de Europese grondwet neemt toe. Als het referendum nu zou worden gehouden, zegt 32 procent “nee” tegen de EU-constitutie. Twee weken geleden was 19 procent van de stemmers nog tegen. Het percentage voorstanders slinkt al een paar weken en ligt nu op 30 procent.

Hetzelfde effect zag je in Frankrijk. Zodra mensen inhoudelijk horen wat er gaat gebeuren, worden ze “tegen”.