Bush Wins World Stupidity Award

U.S. President George Bush is a big winner in this year's World Stupidity Awards, joining the likes of the entire petroleum industry and Vice President Dick Cheney as the recipients of top honours.

Bush was nominated in several categories, including Stupidest Statement of the Year and Most Out of Touch with Reality in the awards roundup which was created to "salute achievement in ignorance and stupidity."
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060920/stupidity_awards_060920/20060920?hub=TopStories

3 Million Year Old Hominid Child Found

The paleontologists who are announcing the discovery in the journal Nature said the 3.3 million-year-old fossils were of the earliest well-preserved child ever found in the human lineage. It was estimated to be about 3 years old at death, probably female and a member of the Australopithecus afarensis species, the same as Lucy?s.

An analysis of the skeleton revealed evidence of a species in transition, the scientists said in interviews today. The lower limbs supported earlier findings that afarensis walked upright, like modern humans. But gorilla-like arms and shoulders suggested that it possibly retained an ancestral ability to climb and swing through the trees.
?The child really confirms that afarensis was walking upright,? said Tim D. White, a paleoanthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. ?It has the potential to answer old questions and raises some new ones? ? including their behavior in trees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/science/21childcnd.html?hp&ex=1158811200&en=269f73ec99908815&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Climate Change: You've Been Lied To

Exxon and the big tobacco companies have been funding bogus "scientific" debates, reviews, and groups that have set back climate science by a decade. If you don't believe in climate change, maybe it's because you've been lied to?
Seriously, wake up.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1875762,00.html

African Christians Object To Their Own Evidence

"We are objecting to the message that the fossil exhibits represent the scientific evidence of human evolution," said Bishop Boniface Adoyo, chairman of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, which claims to represents churches of 35 denominations with 9 million members. "They do not. Human evolution is still a theory and this cannot be called as evidence.?
What they're talking about is the Turkana Boy and a bunch of Leakey's other finds.
The situation has gotten ridiculous. More than ridiculous. Dangerous. Why do we allow this kind of stupendously stupid situation go on in the name of ?tolerance?? Why allow dogma to interfere with the rational investigation of our beginnings? And why is the religious right so afraid of science when instead they should have faith that it would prove them right, unless deep down they have something to fear?
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,71795-0.html?tw=rss.index

Linux Ready For The Desktop... In Australia

Perhaps in North America we need to wake up. I've been running Linux on our family PC for almost a year now with very few problems -- it's definately ready for the desktop.
The user experience is in fact superior -- I had to dual-boot back to XP for a couple of days to get at some data, and Hiyat was less than happy with it -- she said now that she's used to linux it felt cheap.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/linux-wins-over-new-fans/2006/09/04/1157222061911.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Snow Patrol: Eyes Open

A FAB disc. Accessible yet challenging, and "Chasing Cars" pretty much defines Hiyat and I's relationship.
http://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Open-Snow-Patrol/dp/B000F3UADO/sr=8-1/qid=1158166119/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6091692-0544717?ie=UTF8&s=music

Class-Action Lawsuit Against Microsoft

Looks like there's a class-action lawsuit in Iowa against Microsoft for abusing it's monopoly and anti-competitive actions. Another reason to switch to Linux...
http://www.iowasoftwaresuit.com/