| Saturday, April 26, 2003 |  |
| Judge Orders Potter Books Back On Shelves | 0 comments |
 26 Apr 2003 @ 18:02Judge Orders Potter Books Back On Shelves By CARYN ROUSSEAU .c The Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A federal judge ordered Harry Potter books back onto an Arkansas school district's library shelves Tuesday, rejecting a school board's claim that tales of wizards and spells could harm school children. Ruling in favor of a fourth-grader's parents, U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren ordered the Cedarville School District to put the four books in J.K. Rowling's popular series back in general circulation. The district's board drew wrath from national free-speech groups for its June decision to require students to obtain parental permission to check out the books. The 3-2 decision, which overruled a unanimous decision by the district's library committee, came after a parent complained about the books. The Harry Potter books have been assailed by some Christian groups for their themes of witchcraft. The American Library Association says the books were the most frequently challenged of 2002, but rarely did those challenges lead to restrictions or bans. Plaintiffs Billy and Mary Nell Counts said they feared their daughter Dakota would be stigmatized if she were identified as someone who read books the district considered ``evil.'' First Amendment associations and children's author Judy Blume filed a brief in support of the couple last month. They claimed the Cedarville district was committing censorship and trampling on students' right to receive information. ``Everybody is just thrilled with the decision,'' the plaintiffs' lawyer, Brian Meadors, said. The school district did not immediately return calls seeking comment. In depositions, the three board members who voted for the restrictions said they felt the Harry Potter books prompted children to disobey authority and pushed occult messages. Scholastic, which publishes books for school markets, said its Harry Potter series teaches children about right and wrong. ``We're proud to publish the Harry Potter books,'' spokeswoman Judy Corman said. ``We think they're about good and evil and we don't believe in censorship.'' The books chronicle the fictional adventures of young, bespectacled Harry and his wizard pals at the Hogwarts magic school as they battle Harry's nemesis, the evil sorcerer Voldemort. More than 190 million copies of the novels have been printed in at least 55 languages. The fifth book in the series, ``Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,'' is due June 21. |
| Anything Into Oil | 0 comments |
 26 Apr 2003 @ 17:20DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 5 (May 2003) Anything into Oil Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year By Brad Lemley Photography by Tony Law In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil. Really. "This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming." Pardon me, says a reporter, shivering in the frigid dawn, but that sounds too good to be true. "Everybody says that," says Appel. He is a tall, affable entrepreneur who has assembled a team of scientists, former government leaders, and deep-pocketed investors to develop and sell what he calls the thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing. Unlike other solid-to-liquid-fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water. While no one plans to put people into a thermal depolymerization machine, an intimate human creation could become a prime feedstock. "There is no reason why we can't turn sewage, including human excrement, into a glorious oil," says engineer Terry Adams, a project consultant. So the city of Philadelphia is in discussion with Changing World Technologies to begin doing exactly that. Full Story Here |
| Lost Treasures From Iraq | 3 comments |
 26 Apr 2003 @ 17:05This site is highly incomplete at this point. We will continue to add pictures over the next few weeks as we acquire them; a searchable object database is planned as a second phase for the website, to be developed over the next few weeks. In the world of Mesopotamian archaeology, no other museum could rival the collections from the Iraq Museum. Spanning a time from before 9,000 B.C. well into to the Islamic period they included some of the earliest tools man ever made, painted polychrome ceramics from the 6th millennium B.C., a relief-decorated cult vase from Uruk, famous gold treasures from the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Sumerian votive statues from Tell Asmar, Assyrian reliefs and bull figures from Assyrian capitals of Nimrud, Nineveh, and Khorsabad, to Islamic pottery and coins--an unrivaled treasure not only for Iraq, but for all of mankind. In the days following the conquest of Baghdad the Iraq Museum was looted. Reports on the damage vary--the number of lost or stolen objects varies between 50,000 to 200,000. Irrespective of numbers, the losses not only to the world of a archaeology but to mankind in general are tremendous . This site contains Oriental Institute images of objects from the Iraq Museum, sorted by categories. Other images were scanned from books and are posted here with permission of the publishers: Eva Strommenger. Fünf Jahrtausende Mesopotamien. München: Hirmer Verlag. 1962. In addition, several institutions and individuals generously contributed pictures from their own holdings--their help is gratefully acknowledged here. It is hoped that it will be of use as a reference tool in the recovery of artifacts should they appear on the antiquities market. Naturally, this site is highly incomplete at this point. We will continue to add pictures over the next few weeks as we acquire them; a searchable object database is planned as a second phase for the website, to be developed over the next few weeks. More >  |
| Judge Rules: File - Swapping Tools Are Legal | 0 comments |
 26 Apr 2003 @ 16:51Judge: File-swapping tools are legal Cnet Tech News By John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 25, 2003, 12:46 PM PT update: A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies. In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry. "Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote in his opinion, released Friday. "Grokster and StreamCast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights." The ruling is the second major setback to date to the entertainment industry's efforts to keep a tight rein on online file-swapping, following a similiar decision in the Netherlands last year that found that Kazaa was not liable for its users' copyright infringements. If upheld, the decision could lead artists, record labels and movie studios to cast new legal strategies that they have until now been reluctant to try, including bringing lawsuits against individuals who copy unauthorized works over Napster-like networks. Full Story Here |
| World's First Hydrogen Service Station Opens In Iceland | 1 comment |
 26 Apr 2003 @ 16:32Environmental News Network 25 April 2003 By Richard Middleton, Associated Press REYKJAVIK, Iceland — A filling station for hydrogen-powered vehicles, said to be the first in the world, opened Thursday in Iceland. "In time, what is happening in Iceland will show to the rest of the world that hydrogen fuel is a real, commercial possibility that will lead to a cleaner, pollution-free environment," Industry Minister Valgerdir Sverrisdottir said at an opening ceremony on Iceland's official First Day of Summer. He opened the station by filling up a hydrogen-powered Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van, a prototype product of a European Union–backed program. The major partners in the venture are Icelandic New Energy, DaimlerChrysler, Norsk Hydro, and Royal Dutch Shell. Iceland was chosen for the project because 90 percent of its electricity is generated geothermically or from hydropower. The European Union contributed 2.8 million euros (US$3.1 million) of the 7 million euros ($7.7 million) cost of the project. In August, three DaimlerChrysler hydrogen-powered buses will be introduced and tested for two years in Reykjavik. Each bus will have a range of about 200 kilometers (125 miles) before it needs refueling. Another hydrogen station is to open in Hamburg, Germany, in May, and others will follow in major cities in the Netherlands, Spain, Britain, Belgium, and Sweden. "It is an important stepping stone along the long road to a commercially viable hydrogen future," said Jeroen van der Veer, vice president of the committee of managing directors of Royal Dutch Shell. "We are confident that in time, hydrogen can make a significant contribution to the global energy mix. But none of us expect overnight success. Despite the years of hard work and the existence of hydrogen fuel cell technology for decades, we are in a real sense at the very beginning of the hydrogen economy story." Norway's Norsk Hydro developed the hydrogen electrolyzers that use electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. When used in a fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen again combine, and water is the only exhaust product. Professor Bragi Arnason, head of chemistry at the University of Iceland's Science Institute, said the nation's fishing fleet could be running on hydrogen within 25 years. "Using hydrogen, from renewable geothermal water in Iceland, is really only the first step towards a pollutant-free environment," Arnason said. More > |
| Can't Keep a Good Man Down... | 0 comments |
| 26 Apr 2003 @ 16:23 With respect to his family. What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at this moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in... and then the trouble started. |
| This Morning's Muse | 2 comments |
 26 Apr 2003 @ 06:40This is everything, All there is, A sapling on the mountain side,nursing from the soil, Ancient Mother's arms. Crisp steps I take in chilling mornings dawn, Life, it courses as sun rays split the sky. Not only in the air, There is magic in my bones, A faint glimmer of mysteries I have known before. The Art and Music of Raymond Powers More > |