Someone get Fox News on the case.
December 2005 Archives
You might have missed it--I did--but Knoxville recently attained Honorable Mention status on the League of American Bicyclists list of Bicycle Friendly Communities.
What merited this recognition? Miles of bike lanes and wide-shouldered roads being constructed in West Knoxville? Sadly, not.
According to a press statement:
The honorable mention recognition marks Knoxville's growing commitment to improving conditions for bicycling. The Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization's Regional Bicycle Program works with local governments and citizen groups to improve bicycling conditions and promote bicycling as a transportation option. The recent expansion of bike racks in the city, bicycle safety education in the elementary schools, and successful bike-to-work programs are significant factors in earning the distinction for Knoxville.Well, that's something. From what I've seen, the efforts have been more promotional in nature than any changes in physical infrastructure. But I suppose Rome wasn't built in a day, either. Perhaps someday K-Town may indeed attain that coveted Bronze award."The recent improvement for cyclists took Knoxville to the cusp of receiving an award," said Andy Clarke, executive director of the League. "We applaud how far Knoxville has come in a short amount of time, and we encourage them to continue strengthening their bicycling program."
League staff and reviewers consider several factors before granting a community Bicycle Friendly Community status, including:
* The physical environment for bicycling -- on-street facilities, trails,
parking etc.* Education programs to promote a "share the road" ethic among bicyclists and drivers
* Promotional initiatives to persuade people to ride or ride more often
* Enforcement of traffic laws for both motorists and bicyclists
* Future plans and evaluation techniques to improve conditions further
The League's Bicycle Friendly Community program has become a catalyst for positive change in communities across the country. "We encourage Knoxville to continue its steady work to improve conditions for bicycling-they were very close to bronze this time, and we feel confident they can achieve that designation, or better, with more work in the coming years," Clarke said.
A scientist today issued an apology as he resigned from South Korea's top university after the school announced he had fabricated results in stem cell research that had raised hopes of new cures for hard-to-treat diseases.I'm clearly no expert on this, but isn't this a little like a suspect in a high speed car chase trying to escape from a helicopter and six police cars? The question being not if he is going to be caught, but when? How long did this guy think he could keep lying indefinitely about his work, and no one find out?
. . .
Earlier today, a panel of experts at the university said Prof Hwang had faked results of at least nine of 11 stem cell lines he claimed to have created in the May paper - the first confirmation of allegations that have cast a shadow over all his purported breakthroughs in cloning and stem cell technology.
. . .
The university panel said today it found that "the laboratory data for 11 stem cell lines that were reported in the 2005 paper were all data made using two stem cell lines in total".To create fake DNA results purporting to show a match, Prof Hwang's team split cells from one patient into two test tubes for the analysis - rather than actually match cloned cells to a patient's original cells, the university said.
"Based on these facts, the data in the 2005 Science paper cannot be some error from a simple mistake, but can only be seen as a deliberate fabrication to make it look like 11 stem cell lines using results from just two," the panel said.
A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."Mind those terrorist books!Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."
UPDATE: Per comments, the validity of some of the claims in this story has been called into question.
Good news, from the astronautical front:
Length of DayYes, it's the winter solstice. While we still have a few months of cold weather for me not to look forward to, at least the days are now getting longer. The combination of dark, cold days really wears on me--not to mention the impact it has made cutting into my cycling time.
9h 42m
Tomorrow will be 0m 1s longer.
Spring can't get here soon enough.
One of its mighty warriors sustains a combat injury.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats, spearheaded by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), are set to release possibly the sharpest congressional critique to date surrounding Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.That's got to be a big book if they are covering all those topics.The report, titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Coverups in the Iraq War," is slotted to be made available to the public Tuesday.
Via Eschaton, Dana Milbank gets to the heart of the White House's latest Iraq marketing strategy:
This is why the "victory" strategy is brilliant: As my sage colleague Al Kamen points out, Bush is taking the Potter Stewart approach. I don't know the definition of victory, but I know it when I see it. While the president has put himself in position of being the sole arbiter of victory, he has managed to make all his opponents appear to be advocating the opposite, which is defeat.Pretty simple when you think about it: Bush's policy = victory; those opposing him want defeat.
Came across a couple yesterday:
filterseep An American living in Norway.
Cycler's Life A car-free couple living in Missoula, Montana.
Perhaps I should assemble or find a list of these.
In some areas, the aerial photography is much better than Google Maps. Unfortunately, the Knoxville area isn't available yet.
Canadian politicians (or probably in any nation, for that matter) who dare say anything critical of Bush administration policy.
These people must be stopped.
What in the world has become of this nation that meetings of Quakers are monitored by the U.S. military as a "threat"?
Isn't this abuse of government power the kind of thing that so-called conservatives cared about once upon a time? I guess these days they're too busy Christmas policing the retail stores to notice.
Heh. In defense of the Chicago Daily Tribune, it only had a few hours to fix its boo boo, not a few weeks.
A behind-the-scenes glimpse at our leader:
Take Social Security, for example. One House Republican, who asked not to be identified for fear of offending the White House, recalls a summertime meeting with congressmen in the Roosevelt Room at which Bush enthusiastically talked up his Social Security reform plan. But the plan was already dead--as everyone except the president had acknowledged. Bush seemed to have no idea. "I got the sense that his staff was not telling him the bad news," says the lawmaker. "This was not a case of him thinking positive. He just didn't have any idea of the political realities there. It was like he wasn't briefed at all."That's what we gets from this:
Bush generally prefers short conversations--long on conclusion, short on reasoning. He likes popular history and presidential biography (Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington), but by all accounts, he is not intellectually curious. Occasional outsiders brought into the Bush Bubble have observed that faith, not evidence, is the basis for decision making.No need to worry about facts when you know you're right.
Oh brother. Really, what's the point of a "rocket-powered' bicycle? If you're going to incorporate artificial power, at least a motorcycle is pretty stable at high speeds. I don't think most bicycle or bicycle tire manufacturers put a lot of research into how their products will hold up at 100+ mph.
As for the speed record, at least this resembles the act of you know, actually pedaling a bicycle.
I didn't make it past the lede on this AP story before my head started spinning:
After a century of nearly uninterrupted medical improvements and longer lives, it looks like the baby boomers could screw things up. A new government study shows deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke continue to drop, but it also shows that half of Americans ages 55 to 64 _ including the oldest of the baby boomers _ have high blood pressure, and two in five are obese.I summoned the courage to read further, but it didn't get any better. That's a real piece of work; one a Comp 101 teacher could use as a case study in how not to write.This means that this large group of aging Americans is in worse shape in some respects than those born a decade earlier were when they were the same age.
With Christmas approaching, a lot of people are shipping packages these days. A natural question is: how long will it take this to reach its intended destination?
I don't think it's "normal" shipping is this slow, but if you happen to have something shipped by the United States Postal Service's slow service, it might take a long, long time.
Recently I placed an order at Performance Bicycle. I'm not 100% sure where it ships out of, but I'm pretty sure it's North Carolina, since that's where the company is located and where returned products are sent. The order was shipped on November 2. Here's the tracking information:
DELIVERED - KNOXVILLE,TN 11/15/2005 12:02 PMThat's right--it took two weeks to go travel to an adjoining state. Once en route, it took a week to get from Atlanta to Knoxville.
ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL TO POSTAL FACILITY - DDU CEDAR BLUFF - 379239998 11/10/2005 12:00 AM
DEPARTED - APX ATLANTA 11/8/2005 3:16 PM
SCANNED AT INTERMEDIATE HUB - APX ATLANTA 11/7/2005 11:55 PM
DEPARTED - APX NORTH EAST 11/6/2005 7:40 AM
SCANNED AND ENROUTE - APX NORTH EAST 11/4/2005 9:08 PM
LOAD RECEIVED - APX NORTH EAST 11/3/2005 9:23 AM
I could have ridden my bike over to Chapel Hill, picked up the order, and ridden back in considerably less time than it for the carrier to deliver. So much for that notion of the world getting smaller, eh?
You gotta love the Internet. Without it, where would we get fun time-wasters like this.
And here I incorrectly thought all these years that if I dug a deep enough hole, I'd end up in China.
Les Jones created a website intended to help find the person who stabbed Knoxville resident Johnia Berry to death.
Today is the one-year anniversary of the murder.
You mean that the person killed in Pakistan over the weekend might not be number three on the al Qaeda totem pole?
But . . . but T.V. news said it was true!
I'm shocked.
One has to wonder how that training of security forces is going in Iraq.
Yesterday it was reported that the Iraqi vice president disputes Bush's claims on the rate of training of security forces.
Today, suicide bombers killed at least 43 at Baghdad's police academy.
If it's not safe at a police academy, one wonders where Iraqis can provide security.
I sometimes watch Fox News Watch. Unfortunately, I missed the segment this past weekend on the supposed "War on Christmas"; not to worry--Crooks and Liars has the video. I liked this response:
Neal: We're at war, there's Darfur, there's an AIDS crisis and you're worried about whether people should say Merry Christmas? What world do you live in?Yep, that sums it up. Instead of talking about real issues, this is the rightists' seasonal wedge issue trotted out to fire up the base.
The discovery of two large pieces of the Titanic's hull on the ocean floor indicates that the fabled luxury liner sank faster than previously thought, researchers said Monday.This part is funny:
Explorer Robert Ballard found the bulk of the wreck in 1985, at a depth of 13,000 feet and about 380 miles southeast of Newfoundland. Ballard was not impressed with the expedition's find.Interesting how Mr. Ballard is so cavalier about the matter now. Where was this "the ship sunk--get over it" attitude a few years ago when he was involved in a multi-million dollar venture investigating the debris field?"They found a fragment, big deal," he said. "Am I surprised? No. When you go down there, there's stuff all over the place. It hit an iceberg and it sank. Get over it."
In case you, like me, wondered about this but were too lazy to do the math:
The average price of printing a 4-by-6 at home is 27 cents, if you include the costs of photo paper and ink but not the printer, according to IDC. The retail segment, stores like Walgreen or Costco, has an average price of 21 cents a print. For online photo services like Kodakgallery.com, Shutterfly.com or Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Snapfish.com, the average price is 30 cents, including shipping.I've had a digital camera for over a year and have not bought a photo printer. Frankly, I've only printed a few pictures--to give away; by and large, I just burn them onto CDs. But even if I did make a lot of hard copies, this suggests it just as cheap to let someone else print them.
CBS has yet to make its move, but it seems pretty clear to me that NBC is the only broadcast network not experiencing a notable drop off in replacing its big anchor.
I haven't seen a lot of Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff, but they both seem mediocre. Moreover, they don't strike me as having the kind of on-screen presence to gracefully handle the havoc of an breaking news/extended-coverage type event.
It's pretty bad when you have to lower the goalposts at photo ops.
