I'm glad to see this. Finally, a black student-athlete saying that there is no reason to lower admission standards. I've heard of colleges lowering their standards, I've heard of the NAACP saying standardized tests are biased, and I've heard of players dumb as a rock... but finally there's a student-athlete speaking out, all because of a stupid statement by Hornung.

Yahoo! News - At Least 21 Killed in Uzbekistan Clashes I'm so glad I live in the US.

This is news? Oh come on... there isn't a large corporation in America that doesn't contribute thousands of dollars each year to both Republican and Democratic campaigns. This isn't anything new either.

Rhetoric from the left proclaims that the Bush administration is catering to private interests. The fact is, this is done by every politician and the spin-doctors should get over it. In my opinion, it's best to appoint industry insiders to government positions... government could benefit from the streamlined practices of private industry. Admittedly, this could lead to preference in government, but I think this would be small enough that the benefits outweigh the problems.

I was watching the news last night, and one segement called "News in Black & White" came on. In this segment, news stories were shown separately to a group of white people and a group of black people. The two groups were asked about their feelings after watching each story. Not surprisingly, the white and black groups had different feelings, and the black group had feelings related to race whereas the white group did not. I felt that I needed to comment on this.

First off, as a group of people, whites are trained now from an early age not to try to draw any racial inferences from situations. Even if they do, they should not at any cost talk about it. So they wouldn't say anything about race even if they thought about it. Pretty much, we suppress those feelings and don't talk about them often.

I remember seeing one of the news stories they showed to the groups, and I remember what I was thinking. It was about a kid who claims he was harrassed by the cops when they questioned him about a nearby robbery. I agree with the black group... it shouldn't have been news. My reasoning was that the kid (by his own admission) did not respond to the cops when they first asked him over to their car. The dumbass should learn not to ignore a cop. The black group's reasoning, however, stemmed from racial issues. They reasoned it happens every day to black people and you don't hear about it, but since this was a white kid it made the news.

My real point here is that if you dwell on a topic enough, and keep it in your mind enough, eventually everything seems to relate. A devout Jew who is constantly studying Jewish/Christian relations might always see things that seem to point to bad feelings toward Judaism. A devout Christian who is constantly studying sex in the media might always see things that really aren't sexual in nature as bad. A person who is always studying racial tension might see something racial in an innocuous media item. My point is, if you're always looking for conspiracies, conspiracies are all you'll see.

Oh, and this article is what got me to thinking of this... if Japanese people can play a game where they "fight" against their forefathers, why does America have a hang up with racism? The difference is that Japan has left the past where it should be, in the past.

Good illustration of the way politics work. Say you want to cut taxes and get backed by everyone, say you want to up benefits, and get backed by everyone. But point out that doing both of those is impossible, and everyone distances themselves from you.

I agree with Bush, that a marriage should be between a man and woman, but really... is this a matter that needs a Constitutional Amendment?

Damn right this woman should be fired!

One of these days, people will learn that our law enforcement agencies are not infallible.

Science Fiction becoming reality... BBC NEWS | Technology | US military creates second Earth

A group of scientists, including 12 Nobel Prize winners, charged President Bush's administration with "suppressing and distorting scientific findings that run counter to its own political beliefs." US scientists tax Bush on climate. According to one report, cataclysmic global change could push us all into chaos within 20 years. Did this report come from some left-wing liberal tree-hugging group? No, this report was commissioned by the Pentagon. Will Bush listen to it and make his administration take steps to ensure our future? Or will he ignore it like the Kyoto Protocol?

I think this is a cool idea. I would love to do something like this, just to improve my photography skills.

This report is a little off kilter. For one thing, it points out that "the creation of new jobs always overwhelms the destruction of old jobs by a huge margin." True, but misleading. The number of jobs isn't what's important here, it's the jobs themselves. For instance, in my job, one must be a worker for a while before being a manager. That route gets cut when the worker jobs move overseas.

I also found this article about robots interesting.

I'm bored. I wish I didn't have to work today... [clicking heels together three times and chanting there's no place like home, there's no place like home...] HRRUMPH! Didn't work.

Ah.... is it mud-slinging season already?

It was never really a question of should we or shouldn't we, it was only a matter of time.

People, please read your software disclosure statements when you install software. You never know what that corporation really wants to do.

Can the Mouse be bought? This would create another entity to rival Time Warner maybe, but I don't think it will happen.

Next time I'm on the phone with an automated phone system, I'll just yell a few obscenities into the handset in order to get a real person. Wired News: A Way Out of Automated Phone Hell

Please, Please, Please protect your computer, for everyone's sake! Wired News: Cheapskate's Guide to a Safe PC