August 23, 2002 -
Return to Sender -- 55,000 Times -
WiredNews, By Noah Shachtman, Law
professor and pro-Palestinian agitator
Francis Boyle expected to have a lot of
e-mail waiting for him after his
two-and-a-half-week vacation. But he never
imagined that there would be 55,000
messages packing his inbox -- many of them
hurt, even belligerent, notes from friends
and fellow activists. Why, they wondered,
had Boyle -- who appeared on national
television last Sept. 13 to campaign
against U.S. involvement in Afghanistan --
written "when I see in the newspapers that
civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank
were killed by American or Israeli troops,
I don't really care"?
The answer was simple. The message that supposedly came from Boyle
was a forgery -- one of thousands sent out in the names and from e-mail
addresses of prominent advocates for the Palestinians -- designed to sow
dissension, create confusion and waste time in the activist community...
August 20,
2002 -
Students Say MS Buys Curriculum
- By Charles Mandel, WiredNews,
WATERLOO, Ontario -- Students at
the University of Waterloo in
Ontario, upset over a CN$2.3 million
partnership fund from Microsoft
Canada, have charged that the
company is trying to buy its way
into the academic curriculum. The
corporation had lobbied UW staff to
use its C# programming language in a
new course before the partnership
fund was announced, Wired News has
learned...
August 27,
2002 -
Jim Beam bourbon plant fighting
citation over employee bathroom
policy - BRUCE SCHREINER,
Associated Press Writer,
CLERMONT, Ky. (AP) -- Employees at
the Jim Beam bourbon distillery are
getting sour over restrictions on
bathroom breaks. Workers on the
bottling line are fuming about being
limited to four breaks per 8 1/2
hour shift, only one of which can be
unscheduled. Extra trips to the
bathroom can result in reprimands.
Workers with six violations can be
fired...
August 15,
2002 -
Turkmenistan Orders Adolescence
Extended To Age 25 -
Associated Press, ASHGABAT,
Turkmenistan (AP) -- Turkmenistan's
president issued a decree Tuesday
that extends adolescence until age
25 and postpones old age until 85,
well beyond the life-span of the
average Turkmen man or woman.
Saparmurat Niyazov's edict,
published in the national newspaper
"Neutral Turkmenistan," divides life
into 12-year cycles...
August 29,
2002 -
Memories Are Made of This, By Dermot
McGrath, WiredNews,
This was one event where everyone
remembered to show up on time. The
finals of the 11th Annual World
Memory Championships, held in
London, gathered together some of
the world's sharpest minds for the
ultimate celebration of cerebral
virtuosity. Over three days, 32
competitors from as far away as
India and Singapore put themselves
through the mental equivalent of an
Olympic decathlon in an effort to
claim the title of best memory in
the world...
August 28,
2002 -
Kennedy
cousin set to be sentenced - ASSOCIATED PRESS, Skakel
lawyers seek leniency, also demand a new trial, STAMFORD, Conn.,
Lawyers for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel have flooded the court with
paperwork in the days leading up to their client’s sentencing date,
asking for leniency and a new trial. Skakel, convicted in June of
beating Martha Moxley to death in 1975 when they were 15-year-old
neighbors in Greenwich, was expected to be sentenced Wednesday in
Norwalk...
August 29,
2002 -
Skakel sentenced to 20 years to life - Michael Skakel was
sentenced after being convicted in June of murdering Martha Moxley,
whose battered body was discovered on Oct. 31, 1975. NBC’s Dan Abrams
was at the courthouse with reaction to the sentence. Convicted killer
eligible for parole in 2013 or 2014. STAMFORD, Conn., Aug. 29 —
After an emotional plea for leniency from the defendant, a judge on
Thursday sentenced Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel to 20 years to life in
prison. “This defendant has been living a lie about his guilt,” the
judge said as he imposed a sentence that was on the high end of the
range under sentencing guidelines. Skakel, 41, will be eligible for
parole in about 11 years. His lawyers will appeal the guilty verdict.
‘I would love to be able to say that I did so that the Moxley family
could have peace. But to do that would be a lie before my God.’ —
MICHAEL SKAKEL
SKAKEL WAS convicted in June of murdering his 15-year-old neighbor
Martha Moxley, whose battered body was discovered on Oct. 31, 1975,
under a tree on her family’s estate, next door to the Skakels.
BLUDGEONED WITH A GOLF CLUB - She had been bludgeoned with a
golf club — later traced to a set owned by Skakel’s mother — and
stabbed in the neck with the shaft of the club. The imposition of the
sentence followed a sobbing appeal from Skakel, a nephew of Ethel
Kennedy, who asked Norwalk Superior Court Judge John F. Kavanewsky Jr.
to spare him a long prison sentence. In an address that lasted nearly
10 minutes, Skakel talked about his religion and urged the judge to
consider the impact jailing him would have on his 3-year-old son,
George. At times he cried so hard that his words were difficult to
understand...
August 23,
2002 -
The deluge - From The Economist Global Agenda, Hundreds
of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes as China's
Hunan province battles against a raging flood. Hundreds of people have
already been killed by floods in Asia. This year has also seen Eastern
and Central Europe hit by serious flooding, leading some to blame
changing weather patterns and global warming. But there are many other
man-made causes closer to home...
August 22,
2002 -
After the deluge, moi? - FRANKFURT AND PRAGUE, From The
Economist print edition, The costs and political consequences of
the great flood, especially for Germany and its chancellor, Gerhard
Schröder could be immense, THE newspapers and television call it
Jahrhundertflut—the once-in-a-century flood. It has cost at least 16
German lives, swept away houses and cars, torn up roads, buckled
railway lines and forced more than 100,000 to leave their homes, the
biggest such evacuation of Germans since the second world war. The
damage it has wrought in the former East Germany, still struggling to
its feet a dozen years after the end of communism, has caused talk
about a “second rebuilding” of the east and how to pay for it. And the
flood might, just, carry Gerhard Schröder back into office as Germany's
chancellor...
August 14,
2002 -
Cities Die. Should New York Be
the First to Clone Itself? If We
Lost It All - by Erik
Baard, VillageVoice.com, lan
Leidner is bound by a singular
challenge. The balding,
middle-aged civil servant holds
New York City in what amounts to
a pickle jar, and he needs to
find somewhere to hide it, safe
from our worst nightmares. Over
the past several years, the
assistant commissioner of
Citywide Geographic Information
Systems has guided the creation
of an immensely detailed,
three-dimensional, interactive,
constantly updated map of New
York City. The digital NYCMap
captures the five boroughs down
to the square foot,
incorporating everything from
skyscraper viewing platforms and
building floorplans to subway
and sewer tubes and ancient
faults in the schist below...
August 20,
2002 -
Haiku'da Been a Spam Filter
- By Michelle Delio, WiredNews, Refined
poetry and ruthless legal prosecution have been brought together in the
latest effort to stop spam. A hidden scrap of copyrighted poetry
embedded in e-mails will be used to guarantee that any message
containing the verse is spam free. And if spammers dare to hijack the
haiku, they will be aggressively sued for copyright infringement...
August 05,
2002 -
Daughter’s ‘model’ site lands
couple in prison -
Arkansas couple convicted after
sheriff’s deputies find nude
videotapes of 12-year-old in
their home, By Mike Brunker,
MSNBC, In what is believed
to be the first prosecution
arising from an investigation of
an Internet “model” site, a
husband and wife in Arkansas who
created a site featuring their
preteen daughter have been found
guilty of filming her engaged in
“sexual conduct.” The conviction
resulted not from the
provocative photos of the young
girl they posted on the Web, but
from three homemade videotapes
showing her nude that were found
during a search of the couple’s
home...
August 05,
2002 -
Fed Lax With Laptops - Associated Press, WASHINGTON --
The Justice Department has lost track of nearly 800 firearms and 400
laptop computers, more than half of which may have contained national
security or sensitive law enforcement information, an internal
investigation found. Some of the weapons were recovered after they were
used in armed robberies, the department's inspector general, Glenn A.
Fine, said in a report released...
