The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

- Bertrand Russel

House Votes to Launch Do-Not-Call List

House Votes to Launch Do-Not-Call List: 'The House approved legislation Thursday aimed at ensuring the national "do-not-call" list goes into effect as scheduled next week so consumers can block many unwanted telemarketing sales pitches' (from Associated Press, via Yahoo News). You can register with the National Do Not Call Registry.

The ordering of the letters doesn't matter:'Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.' (from Joi Ito's Web).

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely*:

Federal prosecutors used the [patriot] act in June to file a charge of 'terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction' against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car [I guess he terrorized his own private parts?].

A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons [Meth a weapon? 'Stand back, or I'll force you to be hyper by making you take this meth!']. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months

Um, I think that isn't exactly in the spirit of that law (from Associated Press, via Yahoo News).
* 'Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to to govern.   Every class is unfit to govern...Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' (Lord Acton).

North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading 'We like ice cream' and 'USA deserves a tax cut' (from The Smoking Gun).

A stage version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail - directed by Mike Nichols and tentatively titled Spamalot - will open in New York in spring 2005 (from BBC).

New York Flash Mobs Met Their Maker:

The mother of all flash mobs officially came to an end on Wednesday night, in an inexplicable grand finale that amazed and confused both participants and mob organizers.

New York City's Mob Project was launched in May by a man known only as 'Bill' as an experiment in participatory street performance. People received an e-mail invitation to a mob event, where they interacted with others according to a loose script, and then dissipated just as suddenly as they appeared

(from Wired).

Presidential candidate Howard Dean likes terrorists, wants to be their friend and counts these killers who target defenseless civilians to be equivalent to the honorable men and women of the US armed forces:

Dean has been under fire for suggesting the United States should not take sides in the Middle East conflict and Israel should get out of disputed territories of the West Bank. While he has insisted that he backs U.S. policy supporting Israel, statements made on Wednesday about Hamas raise new questions.

'There is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war,' Dean said Wednesday.

Dean condemned terrorism but his description of Hamas - designated by the United States as a terrorist group -  as 'soldiers in a war' conflicts with U.S. policy. The European Union also approved last week the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization

(from Fox News).

'The revamped $20 bill, along with its faint tinge of peach color in the background, will make its way into bank vaults and consumers' pockets in early October, according to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department' (from Reuters, via Yahoo News). Also see the interactive flash twenty dollar bill and my post from May 16 with pictures of the new $20 bill.

'The hunt for Osama bin Laden has been narrowed to a 40-square-mile section of the Waziristan region of Pakistan, senior U.S. officials told ABCNEWS.'