'Any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout,' the study reports, 'and all organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure.'

Welcome to the cold war aftermath, where studies implicating serious health hazards have been withheld for years. (VIA One Point Zero)

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Columbia, made a flawless ascent to orbit early yesterday morning, and despite a reported glitch with a cooling system, The mission will continue. "The Columbia crew faces a challenging mission to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope, with a planned series of five spacewalks. During one of the spacewalks, Astronaut Michael Massimino (a former Long Islander) -- who is on his first spaceflight -- and colleague James Newman, will install a camera that should produce images of more faint objects in the cosmos than the current wide-field camera on the Hubble."

How do you know that you know? Call it disinformation, deliberate deception or propaganda this concept has been with us throughout history and practiced by various countries and political entities.

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I am all in favor of improving the economic conditions of the poor but I still think it's best done through spending for education and training rather than the current administrations plans to spend 300 million to promote marriage for low income people. Sure, social science studies have concluded that marriage is good for children and helps build strong family values, but will this program also take care of marital problems? ... That's a whole other story I'm sure.


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The History Channel is probably the only channel that I watch on a regular basis. There's so much that can be learned about human nature when things are evaluated from an historical perspective. March is Women's history month find out about the incredible women who blazed trails and changed the world.

The web has created many new words. "Cyberposium"  is one such example. The last cyberposium convention can be seen in this video, important info and ideas.

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White House Regrets Blaming Mideast Violence on Clinton "I mistakenly suggested that increasing violence in the Middle East was attributable to the peace efforts that were under way in 2000,'' White house spokesman Ari Fleischer said in a rare written statement that expressed regret for his earlier remarks.

Windows VS Lindows for the first time since its inception in 1983, the validity of the windows trademark is being questioned in a court case. Interesting, but I suspect that this is the first and last time we'll hear about this. The Microsoft lawyers will put an end to that one very quickly.

Rockers U2 and neo-soulster Alicia keys picked up the most awards at the Grammys. The results were a little different than I expected but all the winners were deserving. My picks? ... good on 3 out of 5. dissapointed that my girl India Arie didn't win any awards. But props to Alicia keys, she's Hot!

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Woman gets fired because of her weblog
You just never know. (via metafilter)

The 44th annual Grammy awards will begin in just a few hours. This year's show promises to be an exciting event. I expect Alicia Keys to finish strong. Here are my predictions for some of the categories.

Ray's Picks

RECORD OF THE YEAR
Nominees: "Video", India.Arie; "Fallin", Alicia Keys; "Ms. Jackson", OutKast; "Drops of Jupiter”, Train; "Walk On", U2.
Will win: "Fallin", (Alicia Keys) on its chart strength.

SONG OF THE YEAR
Nominees: "Drops of Jupiter", Charlie Colin, Rob Hotchkiss, Pat Monahan, Jimmy Stafford and Scott Underwood, songwriters (Train); "Fallin", Alicia Keys; "I'm Like a Bird", Nelly Furtado; "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", U2; "Video", India.Arie.
Will win: "Fallin" (Alicia Keys)

NEW ARTIST
Nominees: Nelly Furtado, David Gray, India.Arie, Alicia Keys, Linkin Park.
Will win: India.Arie should edge out Keys. She combines style, substance and stand-out singing that will only get better with time.

R&B ALBUM
Nominees: "Aaliyah", Aaliyah; "Acoustic Soul,” India.Arie; "No More Drama", Mary J. Blige; "Survivor", Destiny's Child; "Songs in A Minor", Alicia Keys.
Will win: "Songs in A minor", Alicia Keys.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Nominees: "Acoustic Soul", India.Arie; "Love and Theft", Bob Dylan; "Stankonia", OutKast; "All That You Can't Leave Behind", U2; "O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack,” various artists.
Will win: Well, this is a toss up in my mind. "All That You Can't Leave Behind” by Bob Dylan stretches the bounds of pop lyrics. But "O Brother... ” (U2) is a very good album, it will be a close race, but I predict that U2 will get it..

The War on Terrorism has been good for GWB. His Gallup approval rating is said to be at 80%+.

The voters who didn't vote for Bush (that would be most of them) might take heart, and those that did might take caution, from the experience of Bush the Elder: GHWB enjoyed a post Gulf War rating of 89% that eventually bottomed out at 29%. He didn't get reelected. I'm sure Al understands the dynamics.

They spoke of retaliation, of vengeance, of punishment. We are at war, they said. And I thought: They have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from the history of the twentieth century, from a hundred years of retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of terrorism and counterterrorism, of violence met with violence in an unending cycle of stupidity.
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Oh, and the latest study says that as many as 1 million Americans have HIV and, half are either untreated or totally unaware that they have the disease. .... The more the reason to practice safe sex, not that I need to worry about that any more ... uh, I'm saying.

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Want to buy the Brooklyn bridge? Talk to mayor Bloomberg.

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" We’re in a lull between waves of commercialization in digital media, and bloggers are seizing the moment, potentially increasing cultural diversity and lowering barriers to cultural participation". Yet another new article about blogging... oh, and another

Time management

Blogging to me is a great exercise in time management and an opportunity to stay informed. I work 10 hours a day 4 days a week and the balance of my time is devoted to my family, my wife and other hobbies and projects. How far and which direction will this blogging phenomenon go, only time will tell. As the web develops and other new technologies emerge, I'm sure there will be new horizons to explore.

The intensification of global instability The list of global crises continues to grow ... The instability can be found on each continent and in all possible areas, from political crises to military confrontations to economic turmoil. these are difficult times.
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A pure signal of optimism however, reminiscent of the heyday of dot coms such as Priceline . ------ William Shatner is back!

This is unbelievable, Bush gives a speech in Japan, the transcript says:


My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. (Applause.) It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific. And in that peace, the world has witnessed the broad advance of prosperity and democracy throughout East Asia.



We then take a look at the same transcript on the White House website, and we get:


My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. (Applause.) It begins here because for half a century now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific. And in that peace, the world has witnessed the broad advance of prosperity and democracy throughout East Asia.


Is the White House press officer trying to hide the fact that his boss forgot that they dropped a couple of bombs over there not so long ago?

The Right Stuff

Fortune magazine has just published it's annual list of America's most admired companies . Also, a look back at how and why the qualites we admire in a company has changed. As for me, I'm more concerned with which companies are the best to work for .

Just when you thought Sports Illustrated was the only mag that had the once-a-year swimsuit issue market cornered ... Well, the folks over at Maxim are also in the game, and some say with more class (I'm not sure about that, but indulge me). Maxim mag is a British import that took over America's boring men's magazine sector about four years ago with its shameless mix of stories about sex, sports, beer, gadgets along with some articles of the more serious variety.

Black Community Diverse, Divided
A new African American community is being forged, sociologists and anthropologists say, in which culture and nationality are becoming more important than skin color.

Letters

Re "Welfare Chief Is Hoping to Promote Marriage" (Registration required)

To the Editor:

Why would the Bush administration want to focus on eliminating poverty by spending $100 million a year to promote and encourage marriage among low-income people? 40 percent of poor children already live in two-parent households.

I think that the reason so many two-parent households are so mired in poverty is because poor women often marry poor men. Government marriage promotion will not change that. The $100 million is far better invested in education and job training.

Ray Garraud

Etcetera
So, the drug war continues. I often wonder what can be said now that hasn't already been said by the eggs frying in the pan campaign of the 1990s or the "just say no" campaign of the 1980s. Well guess what? In the 2000s, If you do drugs, you're helping the terrorists.

Light that joint, my friend, and you might just as well be one of the evildoers. Now if the thought that the money might wind in the hands of a guy with a turban doesn't keep a crack addict from firing up or some corporate lawyer from stuffing $500 worth of Bolivia's finest up his nose I don't know what will.

But seriously, Critics say the campaign has other shortcomings-- "it plays the terror card and unduly blames America's youth for terrorism". But if this campaign, in appealing to one's patriotism, prevents even a handful of youngsters from going down the road to addiction, then it may provide some needed ammunition in this ongoing war.

By the way

As I drove home on Saturday evening, I notice that the usual express route was blocked off by several police cars. There seemed to be something serious going on. I turned on the radio thinking that perhaps I might hear the scoop... sure enough, I heard that apparently some Hells Angels biker types got out of control, armed with daggers, machine guns, baseball bats etc. Damn! there goes the neighborhood.