[Quote:]

“Intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

[..]

Said the judge: “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”

[Quote:]

Aberrant transcriptional repression through chromatin remodelling and histone deacetylation has been postulated to represent a driving force underlying tumorigenesis because histone deacetylase inhibitors have been found to be effective in cancer treatment. However, the molecular mechanisms by which transcriptional derepression would be linked to tumour suppression are poorly understood. Here we identify the transcriptional repressor Pokemon (encoded by the Zbtb7 gene) as a critical factor in oncogenesis. Mouse embryonic fibroblasts lacking Zbtb7 are completely refractory to oncogene-mediated cellular transformation.

Woa there! Think of the Intellectual Property!

[Quote:]

The name of a cancer-causing gene has been changed from “Pokemon” to Zbtb7 after Pokemon USA threatened legal action to keep scientists from referring to the gene by the game’s name, according to an article in science journal Nature.

In January’s issue, geneticist Pier Paolo Pandolfi of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York describes the cancer-causing POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene, calling it Pokemon.

[Quote:]

A set of four priceless archival recordings from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) of the outstanding Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman – arguably the greatest science lecturer ever. Although the recording is of modest technical quality the exceptional personal style and unique delivery shine through.

Feynman gives us not just a lesson in basic physics but also a deep insight into the scientific mind of a 20th century genius analyzing the approach of the 17th century genius Newton.

For the young scientist, brought up in this age of hi-tech PC / Power Point-based presentations, we also get an object lesson in how to give a lecture with nothing other than a piece of chalk and a blackboard. Furthermore we are shown how to respond with wit and panache to the technical mishaps that are part-and-parcel of the lecturer’s life.

[Quote:]

From a distance, it looks like an Army base camp, or perhaps the old set from the television series “M*A*S*H.” But here, a little more than a stone’s throw from the Gulf of Mexico, on a muddy gravel lot that used to be a Little League field, a makeshift village has emerged for some of the many families who, as winter approaches, are still homeless because of Hurricane Katrina.

[Quote:]

President Bush is making selective use of an opinion poll when he tells people that Iraqis are increasingly upbeat.

The same poll that indicated a majority of Iraqis believe their lives are going well also found a majority expressing opposition to the presence of U.S. forces, and less than half saying Iraq is better off now than before the war.

April 20, 2004, President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the USA Patriot Act
Kleinshans Music Hall
Buffalo, New York

[Quote:]

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. I think you’re going to find this to be a really interesting discussion about how federal, state and local authorities are working hard to prevent a terrorist attack. That’s what we’re here to talk about-and why it’s important for those of us in positions of authority to give federal, state and local authorities all the tools necessary to do the job we expect of them. That’s what we’re here to talk about. But I’ve got some things I want to say before we start talking about it.

<snip> …terra….9/11…..terra…9/11….terra…..terra….9/11….</snip>

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires-a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

And on Dec 19, 2005, after it was discovered he, well, lied about getting those court orders:

[Quote:]

Accused of acting above the law, President Bush forcefully defended a domestic spying program on Monday as an effective tool in disrupting terrorists and insisted it was not an abuse of Americans’ civil liberties.

Bush said it was “a shameful act” for someone to have leaked details to the media. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said it was “probably the most classified program that exists in the United States government” – involving electronic intercepts of telephone calls and e-mails in the U.S. of people with known ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

At a news conference, Bush bristled at the suggestion he was assuming unlimited powers.

“To say ‘unchecked power’ basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject,” he said angrily in a finger-pointing answer. “I am doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country.”

[..]

“Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?” asked Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said Bush’s interpretation of the Constitution was “incorrect and dangerous.”

Bush said he had asked, “Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely,”

Check out this letter from Senator Barbara Boxer:

[Quote:]

On December 16, along with the rest of America, I learned that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without getting a warrant from a judge. President Bush underscored his support for this action in his press conference today.

On Sunday, December 18, former White House Counsel John Dean and I participated in a public discussion that covered many issues, including this surveillance. Mr. Dean, who was President Nixon’s counsel at the time of Watergate, said that President Bush is “the first President to admit to an impeachable offense.” Today, Mr. Dean confirmed his statement.

From the Declaration of Independence against another Mad King George:

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

[Quote:]

The brazen we-make-the-rules-around-here attitude reflected in the Bush administration’s domestic spying ukase, and its let’s-punish-the-leakers reaction to its exposure, is certainly not just an executive branch phenomenon.  Last night’s House Republican maneuvers on budget and defense appropriations measures exhibit the same mentality, especially in the strategem that made it possible: a rules change that basically abolished all the rules.

The House’s adoption, on a party-line vote, of so-called “martial law,” suspending, among other items, the normal requirement that Members have at least 24 hours to read major legislation before they vote on it, was authoritarian even by House GOP standards.    

Thanks to martial law, the incredibly convoluted series of decisions made totally behind close doors on the budget bill, turned into a simple loyalty test for partisans. There was a grand total of 40 minutes of debate, which was probably about right since nobody had the chance to read the bill in the first place.

This is, of course, an old tradition for congressional Republicans, dating back to the mother of all unread bills, the 1981 Gramm-Latta II budget reconciliation substitute motion, which basically packed a year’s worth of legislation into a multi-thousand-page “amendment” that was drafted in secret and hastily sent to the floor.

At least back then, Democrats controlled the House, and thus the House printing office, and were able to draw attention to the mindlessness of this exercise by publishing Gramm-Latta II exactly as it was received from Republican staffers, with lobbyist phone numbers and lunch orders scribbled in the margins (all of which were duly voted into law).

I bet you’re not going to guess who the photographer is:

Give up?

Die tintelende nazomerdag was de luie, gesubsidieerde bohémien zich al ’s morgens vroeg te buiten gegaan aan een dolce far niente op zijn aftandse tweezitscrapaudtje.

De antiheld deed alles op zijn elfendertigst en leverde de op z’n jan-boerenfluitjes in elkaar geflanste genreschilderijen steevast te elfder ure voor de subsidiëring af bij de mecenassen. De luiwammesende vrijeberoepsbeoefenaar keek naar het tv-kanaal van de op reclame-inkomsten gedijende supercommerciële pulpzender; daar werd net het eerste tête-à-tête van een twee-eiige tweeling vastgelegd.

De door treiterijen geteisterde anchorman die in beeld kwam, was het door Jan en alleman voor overgelopen farizeeër versleten kijkcijferkanon; hij werd door onze kunstenmaker beschouwd als bijdetijdse ambassadeur van de jansaliegeest die het janhagel abusievelijk voor excentriciteit verslijt.

‘‘Waar blijft mijn croque-monsieur?’’, blèrde de aquarellist naar zijn eega, een voormalige heroïneprostituee, die een half dozijn dictees terug, toen zij nog een frêle spring-in-’t-veld was, op de vip-plaats van de parkeerfaciliteit de reputatie van een promiscue oud-Tweede-Kamerlid te gronde had gericht.

Zelf was dit op zijn eigen idee-fixe terende product van de bohème ook geen casanova meer; maar zoals zijn muze in een geforceerd up-tempo de wijnfles en de kurkentrekker binnenbracht, deed zij hem verlangen naar de nymfomane gepiercete lolita naast wie hij zich kortgeleden nog terneervlijde.

Alleen de T-vormige accessoires van haar telkenmale geüpdatete gsm’etje verlenen haar nog een fractie sex-appeal, bedacht hij toen hij de etiketloze fles als een pasgeboren baby dodijnde in zijn elleboogholte.

‘‘Dat je als een houten klaas de reclameomzet van de nieuwe zender opvijzelt, is tot daar aan toe’’, zei het in een feeërieke boerka gehulde ex-seksobject terwijl zij wat gemorste tuttifrutti onder het smyrnatapijt wegwerkte, ‘‘maar je kunt tenminste toch je schoenen uittrekken!’’