Anti-gay religious group targets Shrek 2

TORONTO ? Uh oh! That other jolly green giant could be in trouble. Shrek 2 is the latest animated film title to be "outed'' by Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.

On its website the Traditional Values Coalition is warning parents about the cross-dressing and transgender themes contained in the hit DreamWorks feature, now on DVD.

"Shrek 2 is billed as harmless entertainment but contains subtle sexual messages,'' says the coalition, which describes itself as a grassroots inter-denominational lobby with more than 43,000 member churches.

"Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see Shrek 2 may wish to consider the following.''

The article then proceeds to describe one of the characters, an "evil'' bartender (voiced by Larry King) who is a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.

In another identified scene, Shrek and Donkey need rescuing from a dungeon by Pinocchio and his nose, which is made to extend as an escape bridge by getting the wooden boy to lie about not wearing women's underwear.

The TVC report, A Gender Identity Disorder Goes Mainstream', raps DreamWorks for helping to promote crossdressing and transgenderism.

But Charles Keil, a film studies professor at the University of Toronto, says transgendered groups might also have reason to complain about being parodied.

"You have an image within a comic context that could be read either way,'' says Keil, who adds quickly that such humour is designed for parents anyway and goes way above the heads of the children in the audience.

"If the kids don't get it, it doesn't really matter.''

Keil says the whole idea behind the Shrek movies is a general message of tolerance -- that outward appearances don't matter and that it's what's underneath that counts -- and such complaints defeat that larger, more important message.

"Targeting minuscule elements within a much larger work and then trying to extract from that some kind of argument that borders on the paranoid is really misconstruing the general aim of this entertainment.''

So far, the Coalition's gaydar doesn't seem to have picked up on DreamWorks' Shark Tale, in which a shark mafioso, voiced by Robert DeNiro, must come to terms with the fact he has a vegetarian son who likes to dress up as a dolphin.

But the Shrek accusation follows hot on the heels of other cases of animated characters being accused of infiltrating the minds of America's children with pro-gay messages, much to the detriment of traditional family values.

Recently, PBS was upbraided by the group Focus on the Family -- and supported by the U.S. secretary of education no less -- for an episode of the cartoon series Postcards From Buster, in which Buster the rabbit encounters a couple of kids with lesbian parents.

Christian activists have also targeted SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney the dinosaur and Sesame Street's Bert & Ernie as children's characters who are conduits for a soft-on-gays message.

Just last month, the American Family Association took exception to the makers of a new video being distributed to thousands of U.S. elementary schools and which the organization said used characters like SpongeBob and Barney to indoctrinate children into a homosexual lifestyle.

The video is designed to coincide with National We Are Family Day in March. But what upset the AFA in particular is the We Are Family Foundation's website and a tolerance-for-diversity pledge (including sexual orientation) that children and others are asked to sign there.

It seems all of this began back in 1999 when Rev. Jerry Falwell described that purse-toting Teletubby, Tinky Winky, as a gay role model.

One wonders how far back critics could go, though, in seeing pro-homosexual context in cartoons. Remember when shotgun-toting hunter Elmer Fudd realized Bugs Bunny was in drag? He was furious, but only because he saw Bugs's cotton tail and learned he was a rabbit in disguise.

"There's all sorts of things going on in those cartoons that are pretty suggestive,'' concedes Keil. "But (the kids) are laughing at the pratfalls, the funny voices, the very basic humour.

"Kids at that age don't even have pre-formed notions of sexuality.''

In the recent SpongeBob movie, there is a scene in which the oddball undersea character suddenly pops up in his neighbour's shower (and quickly gets the boot). It's also been pointed out that he holds hands with a pink friend and gets boating lessons from a teacher called Mr. Puff. Creator Stephen Hillenburg assured the Wall Street Journal that the sponge-man was not gay but that the show had become a gay community favourite because of the tolerant attitude displayed by the show's characters.

"Everybody is different and the show embraces that,'' Hillenburg said. "I always think of them as being somewhat asexual.''

Keil wonders what these religious groups would accomplish if they managed to get a law passed banning any representation of untoward social behaviour in children's entertainment.

"It would still be there covertly,'' he argues. "What would these groups see as the ideal state of affairs?''

Science hopes to stop truck bombs

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Scientists at a top U.S. defense research center have unveiled technology they say could prevent trucks from being used as bombs on wheels.

The remote-controlled device would allow police to trigger another device within a truck to deploy its brakes and bring it to a screeching halt, according to researchers at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Legislation would be needed to require trucks to carry the devices, which have been tested to withstand wireless hackers setting them off or interrupting their signals.

The devices would be contained in tamper-proof boxes.

"Terrorism is mostly in other countries, but we want to be ready in case they try to come here," said Ronald Cochran, the research center's executive office.

The technology also could be installed in buildings to prevent trucks from crashing through gates, researchers said.

"This is a great way for facilities that have trucks routinely coming on site to add a layer of protection," said Dave McCallen, a researcher who developed the technology.

Former California Governor Gray Davis and the California Highway Patrol commissioned studies into the technology after the September 11, 2001, attacks and following a January 2001 fuel-tanker crash into the California capitol building.

House approves tougher indecency fines

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chafing over racy broadcasts like Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday authorizing unprecedented fines for indecency.

Rejecting criticism the penalties will stifle free speech and homogenize radio and TV broadcasts, bill supporters said stiff fines were needed to give deep-pocketed broadcasters more incentive to clean up their programs and to help assure parents that their children won't be exposed to inappropriate material.

The measure, which passed 389-38, boosts the maximum fine from $32,500 to $500,000 for a company and from $11,000 to $500,000 for an individual entertainer.

The bill enjoyed broad bipartisan support from lawmakers upset about incidents like Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

"This is a penalty that makes broadcasters sit up and take notice," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee that sent the bill to the full House. "This legislation makes great strides in making it safe for families to come back into their living room."

The White House, in a statement, said it strongly supports the legislation that "will make broadcast television and radio more suitable for family viewing."

The Senate is considering a similar bill. Any differences in the two will have to be worked out before it goes to President Bush for a signature.

Last year the two chambers were unable to reach a compromise.

Opponents said they were concerned stiffer fines by the Federal Communications Commission would lead to more self-censorship by broadcasters and entertainers unclear about the definition of "indecent."

They cited the example of several ABC affiliates that last year did not air the World War II drama "Saving Private Ryan" because of worries that violence and profanity would lead to fines, even though the movie already had aired on network TV.

"We would put Big Brother in charge of deciding what is art and what is free speech," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, who opposed the bill. "We would see self- and actual-censorship rise to new and undesirable heights."

Parents -- not the government -- are the best judges of what their children should see and hear, said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California.

"No one knows when one person's creative work will become another person's definition of a violation of indecency," Waxman said.

The FCC has stepped up enforcement of the indecency statute, perhaps most notably with a $550,000 fine against CBS for Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction." Radio personality Howard Stern also has been a frequent target.

Fines for indecent programming exceeded $7.7 million last year. Four years ago, FCC fines totaled just $48,000.

The FCC has wide latitude to impose fines. It can fine an individual company, groups of stations owned by a company and individual entertainers. In the case of CBS, it imposed a fine of $27,500 against each of 20 stations owned by the network.

All five members of the FCC -- three Republicans and two Democrats -- favor greatly increasing the fines.

The House bill allows the FCC to fine an individual entertainer, such as a disc jockey, without first issuing a warning, which is the case now. The FCC has never before issued such a fine.

"By significantly increasing fines, they are going to be at a level where they can no longer be ignored," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, who introduced the bill. "Parents can rest easy."

Under FCC rules and federal law, radio stations and over-the-air television channels cannot air obscene material at any time, and cannot air indecent material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The FCC defines obscene material as describing sexual conduct "in a patently offensive way" and lacking "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Indecent material is not as offensive but still contains references to sex or excretions.

The House bill gives affiliates protection from fines in instances in which they carry network programming that later is deemed indecent. It also requires the FCC to hold a license revocation hearing after a third offense by a broadcaster, and to respond to an indecency complaint from a viewer or listener within six months.

The Senate bill calls for raising the maximum fine on broadcasters to $325,000, with a cap of $3 million for one day. The House bill does not include a cap.

Kraft cans 'Road Kill' candy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kraft Foods Inc. said Friday it would bow to demands by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA) that it stop selling candies shaped like animals that have been run over by cars.

The group publicly demanded removal of Road Kill candy, sold under Kraft's Trolli Gummi brand, earlier this week.

"This is not sending the right message to kids," NJSPCA spokesman Matthew Stanton said.

Kraft (Research) said it wanted to be sensitive to consumer concerns about the candies, which are shaped like flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels with track marks on their bodies. They were introduced last summer.

"We understand how this product could be misinterpreted, and we respect that point of view," Trolli Brand Manager Jim Low said in a statement.

US denies patent for part-human hybrid

WASHINGTON -- A New York scientist's seven-year effort to win a patent on a laboratory-conceived creature that is part human and part animal ended in failure Friday, closing a historic and somewhat ghoulish chapter in US intellectual property law.

The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected the claim, saying the hybrid -- designed for use in medical research but not yet created -- would be too closely related to a human to be patentable.

Paradoxically, the rejection was a victory of sorts for the inventor, Stuart Newman of New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. An opponent of patents on living things, he had no intention of making the creatures. He said his goal was to set a legal precedent that would keep others from profiting from similar "inventions."

But in an age in which science is increasingly melding human and animal components for research -- already the government has allowed many patents on "humanized" animals, including a mouse with a human immune system -- the decision leaves a crucial question unanswered: At what point is something too human to patent?

Officials said it was not so difficult to make the call this time because Newman's technique could easily have created something that was much more person than not. But newer methods are allowing scientists to fine-tune those percentages, putting the patent office in an awkward position of being the federal arbiter of what is human.

"I don't think anyone knows in terms of crude percentages how to differentiate between humans and nonhumans," said John Doll, a deputy commissioner for patents. But the office also is not comfortable with a "we'll know it when we see it" approach, he added. "It would be very helpful . . . to have some guidance from Congress or the courts," he said.

The Newman case indicates how far US intellectual property law has lagged behind biotechnology. The Supreme Court has addressed the issue of patenting life only once, and that was 25 years ago.

It also raises profound questions about the differences -- and similarities -- between humans and other animals, and the limits of treating animals as property.

"The whole privatization of the biological world has to be looked at," Newman said, "so we don't suddenly all find ourselves in the position of saying, 'How did we get here? Everything is owned.' "

Newman's application, filed in 1997, described a technique for combining human embryo cells with cells from the embryo of a monkey, ape, or other animal to create a blend of the two -- what scientists call a chimera. That's the Greek term for the mythological creature that had a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.

Others had used similar methods to create a "geep," part goat and part sheep. But Newman's human-animal chimeras would have greater utility in medicine, for drug and toxicity testing and perhaps as sources of organs for transplantation into people.

In collaboration with Jeremy Rifkin, a Washington biotech activist and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, Newman challenged the patent office: Issue the patent, which would keep others from pursuing such work for 20 years, or reject it, effectively accomplishing the same thing.

The two had until Friday to appeal the latest rejection, but they decided to let it pass and declare victory.

For Rifkin, the case was déjà vu in reverse. When US scientist Ananda Chakrabarty applied for the first patent on a living organism, a genetically engineered bacterium able to digest oil spills, the case ended up in the Supreme Court because the patent office did not want to patent life forms. Rifkin had filed the main amicus brief supporting the patent office.

They lost. In a 5-to-4 decision, the court declared that patents could be issued on "anything under the sun that is made by man."

The office has obliged, issuing patents on bacteria, yeast, and as of last fall, 436 animals.

In 1987, the patent office announced it would draw the line at humans, but it offered no legal rationale or statutory backing.

The paper trail created by the Newman claim offers perhaps the best explication yet for that ban. One rationale in the documents sent to Newman is that such a patent would be "inconsistent with the constitutional right to privacy." After all, the office wrote, a patent allows the owner to exclude others from making the claimed invention. If a patent were to be issued on a human, it would conflict with one of the core privacy rights in the Constitution-- a person's right to decide whether and when to procreate.

Patents on humans also could conflict with the 13th Amendment's prohibition against slavery. That is because a patent permits the owner to exclude others from "using" the invention. Because "use" can mean "employ," officials wrote, a patent holder could prevent a person from being employed by any other -- which "would be tantamount to involuntary servitude."

Finally, the office noted it is illegal to import products that are made abroad using processes patented in the United States. To show how that could cause a problem in a world in which people are patentable, it gave an example in which a man goes overseas and undergoes one of the many surgical procedures patented by US doctors. Simply by returning to America, the office said, that "surgically altered human" could be guilty of patent infringement for illegally importing himself.

Not all those concepts hold water with legal scholars. But the general position was greatly strengthened two years ago when Representative David Joseph Weldon, Republican of Florida, added a rider to an appropriations bill -- renewed this year -- barring patents on humans or human embryos. Unresolved by that wording, however, is what is human and what is not. Patent officials conceded they lack a good way of defining the "human" that Newman's patent supposedly too closely resembles.

The decision letter to Newman notes that many people have heart valves from pigs. A patent has been issued on the use of baboon cells in people to aid in organ transplantation. Those procedures, the letter says, "did not convert the human patient to a nonhuman."

Similarly, mice that contain up to 1 percent human brain cells in their skulls are clearly mice, said Stanford University biologist Irving Weissman, one of the scientists who helped make hybrid rodents. The tricky part, all agree, is what to do with the middle ground. Weissman and others, for example, have talked about their desire to produce mice whose brains are composed entirely of human cells.

Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers.

'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.

'We're very early on in the process of trying to figure out what's going on here. At the moment we're stabbing in the dark.' Dr Nelson's investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. Its aim is to detect whether all of humanity shares a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into without realising.

And machines like the Edinburgh black box have thrown up a tantalising possibility: that scientists may have unwittingly discovered a way of predicting the future.

Although many would consider the project's aims to be little more than fools' gold, it has still attracted a roster of 75 respected scientists from 41 different nations. Researchers from Princeton - where Einstein spent much of his career - work alongside scientists from universities in Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. The project is also the most rigorous and longest-running investigation ever into the potential powers of the paranormal.

'Very often paranormal phenomena evaporate if you study them for long enough,' says physicist Dick Bierman of the University of Amsterdam. 'But this is not happening with the Global Consciousness Project. The effect is real. The only dispute is about what it means.' The project has its roots in the extraordinary work of Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton University during the late 1970s. He was one of the first modern scientists to take paranormal phenomena seriously. Intrigued by such things as telepathy, telekinesis - the supposed psychic power to move objects without the use of physical force - and extrasensory perception, he was determined to study the phenomena using the most up-to-date technology available.

One of these new technologies was a humble-looking black box known was a Random Event Generator (REG). This used computer technology to generate two numbers - a one and a zero - in a totally random sequence, rather like an electronic coin-flipper.

The pattern of ones and noughts - 'heads' and 'tails' as it were - could then be printed out as a graph. The laws of chance dictate that the generators should churn out equal numbers of ones and zeros - which would be represented by a nearly flat line on the graph. Any deviation from this equal number shows up as a gently rising curve.

During the late 1970s, Prof Jahn decided to investigate whether the power of human thought alone could interfere in some way with the machine's usual readings. He hauled strangers off the street and asked them to concentrate their minds on his number generator. In effect, he was asking them to try to make it flip more heads than tails.

It was a preposterous idea at the time. The results, however, were stunning and have never been satisfactorily explained.

Again and again, entirely ordinary people proved that their minds could influence the machine and produce significant fluctuations on the graph, 'forcing it' to produce unequal numbers of 'heads' or 'tails'.

According to all of the known laws of science, this should not have happened - but it did. And it kept on happening.

Dr Nelson, also working at Princeton University, then extended Prof Jahn's work by taking random number machines to group meditations, which were very popular in America at the time. Again, the results were eyepopping. The groups were collectively able to cause dramatic shifts in the patterns of numbers.

From then on, Dr Nelson was hooked.

Using the internet, he connected up 40 random event generators from all over the world to his laboratory computer in Princeton. These ran constantly, day in day out, generating millions of different pieces of data. Most of the time, the resulting graph on his computer looked more or less like a flat line.

But then on September 6, 1997, something quite extraordinary happened: the graph shot upwards, recording a sudden and massive shift in the number sequence as his machines around the world started reporting huge deviations from the norm. The day was of historic importance for another reason, too.

For it was the same day that an estimated one billion people around the world watched the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales at Westminster Abbey.

Dr Nelson was convinced that the two events must be related in some way.

Could he have detected a totally new phenomena? Could the concentrated emotional outpouring of millions of people be able to influence the output of his REGs. If so, how?

Dr Nelson was at a loss to explain it.

So, in 1998, he gathered together scientists from all over the world to analyse his findings. They, too, were stumped and resolved to extend and deepen the work of Prof Jahn and Dr Nelson. The Global Consciousness Project was born.

Since then, the project has expanded massively. A total of 65 Eggs (as the generators have been named) in 41 countries have now been recruited to act as the 'eyes' of the project.

And the results have been startling and inexplicable in equal measure.

For during the course of the experiment, the Eggs have 'sensed' a whole series of major world events as they were happening, from the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia to the Kursk submarine tragedy to America's hung election of 2000.

The Eggs also regularly detect huge global celebrations, such as New Year's Eve.

But the project threw up its greatest enigma on September 11, 2001.

As the world stood still and watched the horror of the terrorist attacks unfold across New York, something strange was happening to the Eggs.

Not only had they registered the attacks as they actually happened, but the characteristic shift in the pattern of numbers had begun four hours before the two planes even hit the Twin Towers.

They had, it appeared, detected that an event of historic importance was about to take place before the terrorists had even boarded their fateful flights. The implications, not least for the West's security services who constantly monitor electronic 'chatter', are clearly enormous.

'I knew then that we had a great deal of work ahead of us,' says Dr Nelson.

What could be happening? Was it a freak occurrence, perhaps?

Apparently not. For in the closing weeks of December last year, the machines went wild once more.

Twenty-four hours later, an earthquake deep beneath the Indian Ocean triggered the tsunami which devastated South-East Asia, and claimed the lives of an estimated quarter of a million people.

So could the Global Consciousness Project really be forecasting the future?

Cynics will quite rightly point out that there is always some global event that could be used to 'explain' the times when the Egg machines behaved erratically. After all, our world is full of wars, disasters and terrorist outrages, as well as the occasional global celebration. Are the scientists simply trying too hard to detect patterns in their raw data?

The team behind the project insist not. They claim that by using rigorous scientific techniques and powerful mathematics it is possible to exclude any such random connections.

'We're perfectly willing to discover that we've made mistakes,' says Dr Nelson. 'But we haven't been able to find any, and neither has anyone else.

Our data shows clearly that the chances of getting these results by fluke are one million to one against.

That's hugely significant.' But many remain sceptical.

Professor Chris French, a psychologist and noted sceptic at Goldsmiths College in London, says: 'The Global Consciousness Project has generated some very intriguing results that cannot be readily dismissed. I'm involved in similar work to see if we get the same results. We haven't managed to do so yet but it's only an early experiment. The jury's still out.' Strange as it may seem, though, there's nothing in the laws of physics that precludes the possibility of foreseeing the future.

It is possible - in theory - that time may not just move forwards but backwards, too. And if time ebbs and flows like the tides in the sea, it might just be possible to foretell major world events. We would, in effect, be 'remembering' things that had taken place in our future.

'There's plenty of evidence that time may run backwards,' says Prof Bierman at the University of Amsterdam.

'And if it's possible for it to happen in physics, then it can happen in our minds, too.' In other words, Prof Bierman believes that we are all capable of looking into the future, if only we could tap into the hidden power of our minds. And there is a tantalising body of evidence to support this theory.

Dr John Hartwell, working at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, was the first to uncover evidence that people could sense the future. In the mid-1970s he hooked people up to hospital scanning machines so that he could study their brainwave patterns.

He began by showing them a sequence of provocative cartoon drawings.

When the pictures were shown, the machines registered the subject's brainwaves as they reacted strongly to the images before them. This was to be expected.

Far less easy to explain was the fact that in many cases, these dramatic patterns began to register a few seconds before each of the pictures were even flashed up.

It was as though Dr Hartwell's case studies were somehow seeing into the future, and detecting when the next shocking image would be shown next.

It was extraordinary - and seemingly inexplicable.

But it was to be another 15 years before anyone else took Dr Hartwell's work further when Dean Radin, a researcher working in America, connected people up to a machine that measured their skin's resistance to electricity. This is known to fluctuate in tandem with our moods - indeed, it's this principle that underlies many lie detectors.

Radin repeated Dr Hartwell's 'image response' experiments while measuring skin resistance. Again, people began reacting a few seconds before they were shown the provocative pictures. This was clearly impossible, or so he thought, so he kept on repeating the experiments. And he kept getting the same results.

'I didn't believe it either,' says Prof Bierman. 'So I also repeated the experiment myself and got the same results. I was shocked. After this I started to think more deeply about the nature of time.' To make matters even more intriguing, Prof Bierman says that other mainstream labs have now produced similar results but are yet to go public.

'They don't want to be ridiculed so they won't release their findings,' he says. 'So I'm trying to persuade all of them to release their results at the same time. That would at least spread the ridicule a little more thinly!' If Prof Bierman is right, though, then the experiments are no laughing matter.

They might help provide a solid scientific grounding for such strange phenomena as 'deja vu', intuition and a host of other curiosities that we have all experienced from time to time.

They may also open up a far more interesting possibility - that one day we might be able to enhance psychic powers using machines that can 'tune in' to our subconscious mind, machines like the little black box in Edinburgh.

Just as we have built mechanical engines to replace muscle power, could we one day build a device to enhance and interpret our hidden psychic abilities?

Dr Nelson is optimistic - but not for the short term. 'We may be able to predict that a major world event is going to happen. But we won't know exactly what will happen or where it's going to happen,' he says.

'Put it this way - we haven't yet got a machine we could sell to the CIA.'

But for Dr Nelson, talk of such psychic machines - with the potential to detect global catastrophes or terrorist outrages - is of far less importance than the implications of his work in terms of the human race.

For what his experiments appear to demonstrate is that while we may all operate as individuals, we also appear to share something far, far greater - a global consciousness. Some might call it the mind of God.

'We're taught to be individualistic monsters,' he says. 'We're driven by society to separate ourselves from each other. That's not right.

We may be connected together far more intimately than we realise.'

< This is posted only to illustrate that if there IS something "supernatural" out there, the correct way to approach and examine it is through a method such as this where-in there exists no guesswork "evidence" and what is is taken for what it is, unverified. >

It's a Warmer World, But Does That Mean Armageddon?

OSLO (Reuters) - When bears wake early from hibernation, Australia suffers its worst drought in 100 years and multiple hurricanes hammer Florida should we believe The End is nigh?

That's the nub of a debate over the human impact on global warming that pits scientists who say such anomalies are signs of impending doom against those who say they are evidence that the earth's climate has always been chaotic.

Amid those signs of warming, for instance, Algeria had its worst snow in 50 years last month.

This month 141 countries will attempt the best effort to arrest a forecasted continued rise of global temperatures by bringing into force the Kyoto protocol. The treaty is an agreement aimed at curbing emissions of gases from cars and industry, blamed for trapping the earth's heat.

"Dealing with (global warming) will not be easy. Ignoring it will be worse," the United Nations says.

At issue is how humanity should deal with global warming, the risks of which are not yet fully understood despite broad consensus among scientists that people are heating the planet with the emission of such heat-trapping gases as carbon dioxide.

Not everyone is convinced of Kyoto's importance. President Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, reckoning it will be too costly and that it wrongly excludes developing countries from cuts in emissions until 2012.

Bush accepts there are risks from climate change but says more research is needed -- exasperating even allies who say that the time for Kyoto-style caps on emissions is now.

"We're talking about spending perhaps $150 billion a year on Kyoto with fairly little benefit," said Bjorn Lomborg, Danish author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist."

Lomborg said that money would be better spent on combating AIDS and malaria, malnutrition and promoting fair global trade.

Many climate scientists say that floods, storms and droughts will become more frequent and that climate change is the most severe long-term threat to the planet's life support systems.

Rising temperatures could force up ocean levels, swamping coasts and low-lying Pacific islands and drive thousands of species to extinction by 2100.

But full proof is elusive.

A Caribbean hurricane season last year, when Florida was the first U.S. state to be hit by four hurricanes in one season since 1886, might be a fluke. Bears are waking in Estonia in the warmest winter in two centuries, again a possible climate freak.

"Imagine a pot of boiling water on the stove. If I turn up the heat I can't say that each bubble is from the extra heat," said Mike MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs at the Climate Institute, a Washington think-tank.

"But there are more bubbles and they're larger," he said, adding it was best to act now rather than risk disaster.

The warmest year at the world's surface since records began in the 1860s was 1998, followed by 2002, 2003 and 2004, according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization.

World surface temperatures have risen by 0.6 degrees centigrade (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s when the Industrial Revolution started in Europe.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,000 scientists which advises the United Nations, projects a further rise of 1.4-5.8 degrees centigrade by 2100. Even the lowest forecast would be the biggest century-long rise in 10,000 years.

BEYOND DOUBT?

Yet the evidence for a human impact on the climate falls short of being "beyond a reasonable doubt," the standard of proof needed in a criminal court.

"It is really for a legal mind to decide whether the scientific consensus of the IPCC provides findings that are beyond reasonable doubt," said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri.

Many so-called skeptics concede that carbon dioxide stokes global warming but say U.N. models of what will happen in 2100 are about as reliable as tomorrow's weather forecast.

Other factors, like variations in the sun's radiation, ash from volcanoes or other natural effects may have a bigger role, they say. The IPCC tries to account for all such effects.

"My bottom line is that natural variations are much larger than the human component," said George Taylor, state climatologist for Oregon state.

Backers of Kyoto say it is a blueprint for regulating the climate by cutting rich nations' emissions of carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Supporters say that much deeper cuts will be needed after 2012.

In a landmark phrase in 1995, the IPCC said that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence on the global climate. And its 2001 report spoke of "new and stronger" evidence that humans had caused warming in the past 50 years.

Pachauri said that he hoped the next report, in 2007, would fill in gaps in knowledge. But Washington has given no signs of being won over to Kyoto, preferring to focus on funding new clean technologies like hydrogen.

The Environmental Protection Agency says:

"The fundamental scientific uncertainties are these: How much more warming will occur? How fast will this warming occur? And what are the potential adverse and beneficial effects? These uncertainties will be with us for some time, perhaps decades."

< It's like the old evolution vs. creationism debate, one of them has all the evidence pointed squarely at it, and yet they "hedge their bets" saying that we need to consider the other as a viable alternative. They are stupid. >

U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings

More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.

The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need to be protected.

More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business.

Bush administration officials, including Craig Manson, an assistant secretary of the Interior who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, have been critical of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, contending that its implementation has imposed hardships on developers and others while failing to restore healthy populations of wildlife.

Along with Republican leaders in Congress, the administration is pushing to revamp the act. The president's proposed budget calls for a $3-million reduction in funding of Fish and Wildlife's endangered species programs.

"The pressure to alter scientific reports for political reasons has become pervasive at Fish and Wildlife offices around the country," said Lexi Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Mitch Snow, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency had no comment on the survey, except to say "some of the basic premises just aren't so."

The two groups that circulated the survey also made available memos from Fish and Wildlife officials that instructed employees not to respond to the survey, even if they did so on their own time. Snow said that agency employees could not use work time to respond to outside surveys.

Fish and Wildlife scientists in 90 national offices were asked 42 questions and given space to respond in essay form in the mail-in survey sent in November.

One scientist working in the Pacific region, which includes California, wrote: "I have been through the reversal of two listing decisions due to political pressure. Science was ignored ? and worse, manipulated, to build a bogus rationale for reversal of these listing decisions."

More than 20% of survey responders reported they had been "directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information."

However, 69% said they had never been given such a directive. And, although more than half of the respondents said they had been ordered to alter findings to lessen protection of species, nearly 40% said they had never been required to do so.

Sally Stefferud, a biologist who retired in 2002 after 20 years with the agency, said Wednesday she was not surprised by the survey results, saying she had been ordered to change a finding on a biological opinion.

"Political pressures influence the outcome of almost all the cases," she said. "As a scientist, I would probably say you really can't trust the science coming out of the agency."

A biologist in Alaska wrote in response to the survey: "It is one thing for the department to dismiss our recommendations, it is quite another to be forced (under veiled threat of removal) to say something that is counter to our best professional judgment."

Don Lindburg, head of the office of giant panda conservation at the Zoological Society of San Diego, said it was unrealistic to expect federal scientists to be exempt from politics or pressure.

"I've not stood in the shoes of any of those scientists," he said. "But it is not difficult for me to believe that there are pressures from those who are not happy with conservation objectives, and here I am referring to development interest and others.

"But when it comes to altering data, that is a serious matter. I am really sorry to hear that scientists working for the service feel they have to do that. Changing facts to fit the politics ? that is a very unhealthy thing. If I were a scientist in that position I would just refuse to do it."

The Union of Concerned Scientists and the public employee group provided copies of the survey and excerpts from essay-style responses.

One biologist based in California, who responded to the survey, said in an interview with The Times that the Fish and Wildlife Service was not interested in adding any species to the endangered species list.

"For biologists who do endangered species analysis, my experience is that the majority of them are ordered to reverse their conclusions [if they favor listing]. There are other biologists who will do it if you won't," said the biologist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

California Considers Ban on Pet Cloning

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California lawmaker said on Wednesday he would introduce a bill this week to ban sales of cloned pets, a move that could end a California company's plans to replicate beloved domestic animals.

A ban is necessary because the technology is unregulated and animal shelters are filled to capacity with potential pets, Assembly Member Lloyd Levine said in an interview.

"If you were to use animals for experiments, for agriculture, for all sorts of things, there are all sorts of regulations ... Who knows what's going to happen if these things get released into the wild?" Levine said.

The proposal follows the first pet cloning last year from Sausalito, California-based Genetic Savings & Clone Inc., which charges $50,000 to clone a cat. The company in December revealed it had cloned a cat -- named Little Nicky after its progenitor Nicky -- for a client in Texas.

"Why do we need to pay $50,000 for a cat?" Levine said. "We're not banning legitimate scientific research. We're simply banning the exploitation of vulnerable people."

The privately held company says it has four other cat clones in various stages of production and is developing a dog cloning service.

"The proposed ban is based on myths and science fiction and would neither improve animal welfare nor serve the interests of consumers," said Ben Carlson, a spokesman for Genetic Savings & Clone. "I have the impression Levine is pandering to animal rights advocates."

Burglars get unwanted Valentine's card

BURGLARS in a south London suburb are set to receive a special Valentine's Day card next week from a rather unwelcome admirer - the police.
As part of an operation to fight burglary in Croydon, the Metropolitan Police said it was fitting houses in hot spot neighbourhoods with anti-burglary forensic coding systems, known as Smartwater.

Known offenders in the area will meanwhile receive a card signed by Chief Superintendent Vicki Marr that reads on the front, "Thinking of you and what you do at this time of year".

Inside, the message turns more sinister: "Roses are red, violets are blue, when Smartwater is activated, it's over for you."
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The police said they had funded more than 50 Smartwater home kits, which have been given to repeat victims of burglary, with more to come online.

Greater patrols and other crime prevention methods had resulted in a 26 per cent drop in burglaries in the Croydon area in January compared with the same month in 2004, authorities said.

"As well as a total of 73 arrests made, we were able to gain police intelligence on criminal activity to prevent further crime being committed," Superintendent Nick Jupp said.

Man Fined $600 for Hurling Egg McMuffin

A man was fined $600 and put on probation for throwing an Egg McMuffin at a McDonald's restaurant manager after he said he didn't get what he ordered.

Scott Rodgers, 46, was convicted Thursday of misdemeanor assault and battery. Besides probation, he was sentenced to three days in a work program and a fine and is banned from the McDonald's.

Authorities said Rodgers and his 6-year-old son stopped to get four Egg McMuffins with ham on Oct. 9 but returned to the service window to complain that at least one of the sandwiches had sausage.

County prosecutor Craig Bunce said that when the shift manager asked him to give the sandwich back, he threw it through the window at her.

"The manager was picking egg out of her hair," he said.

Rodgers' attorney said he did not throw the sandwich, but rather returned it quickly.

Implanted ID chip finds way into ERs, bars

Since U.S. regulators approved them for medical use last year, implantable identification devices from VeriChip have turned up in some interesting places.

Harvard Medical School's chief information officer, Dr. John Halamka, had himself injected with a VeriChip identification microchip in December, the company announced on Friday.

The rice grain-sized chips, designed to be injected into the arm's fatty tissue, can be scanned like a bar code to call up personal information such as name, blood type and medical records.

The devices can also be linked to financial information such as credit card numbers and buying habits, which is why a nightclub in Glasgow, Scotland, recently began offering to implant its patrons with the chips. The club, called Bar Soba, said the chips let customers leave their wallets at home and count on their favorite drink being ready as soon as they walk through the door and get scanned.

VeriChip is a subsidiary of a Palm Beach, Fla., company called Applied Digital, which also makes implantable chips for tracking livestock and identifying lost pets. All are based on technology called radio frequency identification, or RFID.

The technology is commonly used in quick-pay toll systems and building access cards. It's also being used by Wal-Mart and other major retailers to monitor inventory and deter theft.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared VeriChip for medical use in October. The company is targeting patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other conditions requiring complex treatment.

Harvard's Halamka, a practicing emergency room physician, said the chips may also be useful for speeding care in emergency situations in which patients are often unconscious or nonresponsive. The technology could also help prevent errors in treating and administering medication to patients, he said.

"I'm not endorsing the product, yes or no," Halamka said. "I'm evaluating the product. So far there've been no problems."

Halamka said he has no financial relationship with VeriChip or its parent company.

Others who've had the devices implanted include Mexico's attorney general and some of his staff. A nightclub in Spain beat the one in Scotland; it's been offering chip implants since last April. At last count, in July, VeriChip had sold about 7,000 of the devices; about 1,000 of those have been inserted in humans, the company reported.

The practice has drawn criticism, however. Privacy advocates worry the technology would make it easier for the government to spy on its citizens and for marketers to identify customers and bombard them with sale pitches. Others object at a gut level, equating human RFID chips with the "mark of the beast," a demonic symbol described in the Bible.

Violent video games are not child's play, Washington officials warn

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Linking best-selling violent or sexually explicit video games to youth crime, Washington's mayor Anthony Williams and councilmembers are calling for steep penalties for anyone providing them to minors.

Businesses that sell or rent such games -- like those in the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto or Mortal Kombat series -- to people under 17 could lose their license and face fines of up to 10,000 dollars under a bill unveiled Thursday.

People who sell, rent or furnish such games to minors face a fine of up to 1,000 dollars, according to the regulation, provided to AFP by Washington Councilmember Adrian Fenty's office.

"These ultraviolent and sexually explicit games are obscene and encourage our youth to commit crime in our community," Fenty warns in a statement on his official Internet site.

"These are not the simple games of a few years ago; these are not like any mainstream action movie. These games graphically depict scenes of rape, murder and mayhem, and even the video industry agrees that they are not suitable for children. It's time the community takes a stand," he said.

The regulation applies to games that the industry-created Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has officially declared for "Adults Only," or "AO," which are intended for people 18 and over, and "Mature," or "M," for gamers 17 and over.

The ESRB says "AO" games "may include graphic depictions of sex and/or violence," while "M" titles "may contain mature sexual themes, more intense violence and/or strong language."

The just-released "Playboy: The Mansion," in which gamers take over Hugh Hefner's magazine empire and hold parties at his famous home, gets an "M" for "nudity, strong sexual content (and) use of alcohol," the ESRB warns.

The fighting game "Mortal Kombat: Deception," in which players can kill each other in graphic and gruesome ways, like pulling off an enemy's head with the spinal column attached, received an "M" for "blood and gore (and) violence."

A search on the ESRB's Internet site turned up no "AO" games for video-game consoles like the Sony Playstation or the Microsoft X-Box, but found 18 such titles overall, most of them for personal computers.

< Watching themselves grow up in a lawsuit culture where there are fines and jail time for Everything you can possibly do, now that's negative influence.>

Girls sued for delivering cookies

DURANGO, Colorado (AP) -- Two teenage girls who surprised their neighbors with homemade cookies late one night were ordered to pay nearly $900 in medical bills for a woman who says she was so startled that she had to go to the hospital.

Judge Doug Walker declined Thursday to award punitive damages, saying he did not believe the girls acted maliciously.

Taylor Ostergaard, 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitti, 18, baked the chocolate chip and sugar cookies one night last July.

They made packages with a half-dozen cookies each and added large red or pink construction-paper hearts that carried the message, "Have a great night."

The notes were signed with their first initials: "Love, The T and L Club."

Then they set off to make their deliveries.

Wanita Renea Young, 49, said she was at her rural home south of Durango around 10:30 p.m. when she said saw "shadowy figures" outside the house banging repeatedly on her door.

She yelled, "Who's there?" but no one answered, and the figures ran away.

Frightened, she spent the night at her sister's home, then went to the hospital the next morning because she was still shaking and had an upset stomach.

The teenagers' families offered to pay Young's medical bills, but she declined and sued, saying their apologies were not sincere and were not offered in person.

The girls declined comment after the ruling. Taylor's mother said the girl "cried and cried."

"She felt she was being punished for doing something nice," Jill Ostergaard said.

Young said the teenagers showed "very poor judgment"

"The victory wasn't sweet," Young said. "I'm not gloating about it. I just hope the girls learned a lesson."

The teens said they did not answer when the woman called out because they wanted the treats to be a surprise.

Half of Bankruptcy Due to Medical Bills -- U.S. Study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by soaring medical bills and most people sent into debt by illness are middle-class workers with health insurance, researchers said on Wednesday.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, estimated that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans every year, if both debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children, are counted.

"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates (news - web sites) you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (news - web sites) who led the study.

"Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection."

The researchers got the permission of bankruptcy judges in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas to survey 931 people who filed for bankruptcy.

"About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9 to 2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy," they wrote.

"Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness."

The average bankrupt person surveyed had spent $13,460 on co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services if they had private insurance. People with no insurance spent an average of $10,893 for such out-of-pocket expenses.

"Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick," the researchers wrote.

Bankruptcy specialists said the numbers seemed sound.

"From 1982 to 1989, I reviewed every bankruptcy petition filed in South Carolina, and during that period I came to the conclusion that there were two major causes of bankruptcy: medical bills and divorce," said George Cauthen, a lawyer at Columbia-based law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.

"Each accounted, roughly, for about a third of all individual filings in South Carolina."

He said fewer than 1 percent of all bankruptcy filings were due to credit card debt. "That truly is a myth," Cauthen said in a telephone interview.

Cauthen said he was not surprised to hear that so many of the bankrupt people in the study were middle-class.

"Usually people who have something to protect file bankruptcy," he said. "The truly indigent -- people that we see on the street -- there is no relief that we can give them."

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard associate professor and physician who advocates for universal health coverage, said the study supported demands for health reform.

"Covering the uninsured isn't enough. We must also upgrade and guarantee continuous coverage for those who have insurance," Woolhandler said in a statement.

She said many employers and politicians were pressing for what she called "stripped-down plans so riddled with co-payments, deductibles and exclusions that serious illness leads straight to bankruptcy."

Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes

Dr. John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in Birmingham, Ala., recently when he met a young woman who had just begun work as a biology teacher in a small school district in the state. Their conversation turned to evolution.

"She confided that she simply ignored evolution because she knew she'd get in trouble with the principal if word got about that she was teaching it," he recalled. "She told me other teachers were doing the same thing."

Though the teaching of evolution makes the news when officials propose, as they did in Georgia, that evolution disclaimers be affixed to science textbooks, or that creationism be taught along with evolution in biology classes, stories like the one Dr. Frandsen tells are more common.

In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue.

Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities.

"The most common remark I've heard from teachers was that the chapter on evolution was assigned as reading but that virtually no discussion in class was taken," said Dr. John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, an evangelical Christian and a member of Alabama's curriculum review board who advocates the teaching of evolution. Teachers are afraid to raise the issue, he said in an e-mail message, and they are afraid to discuss the issue in public.

Dr. Frandsen, former chairman of the committee on science and public policy of the Alabama Academy of Science, said in an interview that this fear made it impossible to say precisely how many teachers avoid the topic.

"You're not going to hear about it," he said. "And for political reasons nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school children and parents to ask just what is being taught in science classes."

But he said he believed the practice of avoiding the topic was widespread, particularly in districts where many people adhere to fundamentalist faiths.

"You can imagine how difficult it would be to teach evolution as the standards prescribe in ever so many little towns, not only in Alabama but in the rest of the South, the Midwest - all over," Dr. Frandsen said.

Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said she heard "all the time" from teachers who did not teach evolution "because it's just too much trouble."

"Or their principals tell them, 'We just don't have time to teach everything so let's leave out the things that will cause us problems,' " she said.

Sometimes, Dr. Scott said, parents will ask that their children be allowed to "opt out" of any discussion of evolution and principals lean on teachers to agree.

Even where evolution is taught, teachers may be hesitant to give it full weight. Ron Bier, a biology teacher at Oberlin High School in Oberlin, Ohio, said that evolution underlies many of the central ideas of biology and that it is crucial for students to understand it. But he avoids controversy, he said, by teaching it not as "a unit," but by introducing the concept here and there throughout the year. "I put out my little bits and pieces wherever I can," he said.

He noted that his high school, in a college town, has many students whose parents are professors who have no problem with the teaching of evolution. But many other students come from families that may not accept the idea, he said, "and that holds me back to some extent."

"I don't force things," Mr. Bier added. "I don't argue with students about it."

In this, he is typical of many science teachers, according to a report by the Fordham Foundation, which studies educational issues and backs programs like charter schools and vouchers.

Some teachers avoid the subject altogether, Dr. Lawrence S. Lerner, a physicist and historian of science, wrote in the report. Others give it very short shrift or discuss it without using "the E word," relying instead on what Dr. Lerner characterized as incorrect or misleading phrases, like "change over time."

Dr. Gerald Wheeler, a physicist who heads the National Science Teachers Association, said many members of his organization "fly under the radar" of fundamentalists by introducing evolution as controversial, which scientifically it is not, or by noting that many people do not accept it, caveats not normally offered for other parts of the science curriculum.

Dr. Wheeler said the science teachers' organization hears "constantly" from science teachers who want the organization's backing. "What they are asking for is 'Can you support me?' " he said, and the help they seek "is more political; it's not pedagogical."

There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living things evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been going on for billions of years and that evolution can be and has been tested and confirmed by the methods of science. But in a 2001 survey, the National Science Foundation found that only 53 percent of Americans agreed with the statement "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

And this was good news to the foundation. It was the first time one of its regular surveys showed a majority of Americans had accepted the idea. According to the foundation report, polls consistently show that a plurality of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago, and about two-thirds believe that this belief should be taught along with evolution in public schools.

These findings set the United States apart from all other industrialized nations, said Dr. Jon Miller, director of the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University, who has studied public attitudes toward science. Americans, he said, have been evenly divided for years on the question of evolution, with about 45 percent accepting it, 45 percent rejecting it and the rest undecided.

In other industrialized countries, Dr. Miller said, 80 percent or more typically accept evolution, most of the others say they are not sure and very few people reject the idea outright.

"In Japan, something like 96 percent accept evolution," he said. Even in socially conservative, predominantly Catholic countries like Poland, perhaps 75 percent of people surveyed accept evolution, he said. "It has not been a Catholic issue or an Asian issue," he said.

Indeed, two popes, Pius XII in 1950 and John Paul II in 1996, have endorsed the idea that evolution and religion can coexist. "I have yet to meet a Catholic school teacher who skips evolution," Dr. Scott said.

Dr. Gerald D. Skoog, a former dean of the College of Education at Texas Tech University and a former president of the science teachers' organization, said that in some classrooms, the teaching of evolution was hampered by the beliefs of the teachers themselves, who are creationists or supporters of the teaching of creationism.

"Data from various studies in various states over an extended period of time indicate that about one-third of biology teachers support the teaching of creationism or 'intelligent design,' " Dr. Skoog said.

Advocates for the teaching of evolution provide teachers or school officials who are challenged on it with information to help them make the case that evolution is completely accepted as a bedrock idea of science. Organizations like the science teachers' association, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science provide position papers and other information on the subject. The National Association of Biology Teachers devoted a two-day meeting to the subject last summer, Dr. Skoog said.

Other advocates of teaching evolution are making the case that a person can believe both in God and the scientific method. "People have been told by some evangelical Christians and by some scientists, that you have to choose." Dr. Scott said. "That is just wrong."

While plenty of scientists reject religion - the eminent evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins famously likens it to a disease - many others do not. In fact, when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."

Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said he thought the great variety of religious groups in the United States led to competition for congregants. This marketplace environment, he said, contributes to the politicization of issues like evolution among religious groups.

He said the teaching of evolution was portrayed not as scientific instruction but as "an assault of the secular elite on the values of God-fearing people." As a result, he said, politicians don't want to touch it. "Everybody discovers the wisdom of federalism here very quickly," he said. "Leave it at the state or the local level."

But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to make their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and physics on issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe.

"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about this."

South Carolina police officer uses stun gun on 75-year-old woman in nursing home dispute

ROCK HILL, S.C. -- A police officer used a stun gun on a 75-year-old woman who became distraught when she could not locate a sick friend at a nursing home, according to an internal report.

Officer Hattie Jean Macon received a verbal warning and was required to attend a Taser retraining course after the investigation found she acted prematurely when she used the 50,000-volt Taser, according to the report released Thursday.

Macon was called to the nursing home after Margaret Kimbrell refused to leave. Kimbrell has said she was distraught after the staff would not disclose the location of her sick friend, and she became concerned the friend had died.

Kimbrell jerked away from the officer and swung her arm at Macon, according to a police report. The officer then fired the Taser, police said.

Kimbrell, who has claimed she did not swing her arms or threaten Macon, was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest. Her lawyer has said she will plead not guilty and may sue the department.

U.S. students say press freedoms go too far

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys "too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount, 32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.

The findings aren't surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. "Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment," he says.

The survey "confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time," he says: Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults' attitudes.

"It's part of our Constitution, so this should be part of a formal education," says Dvorak, who has worked with student journalists since 1968.

Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express "unpopular opinions," 74% say people shouldn't be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement; 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 ruled that burning or defacing a flag is protected free speech. Congress has debated flag-burning amendments regularly since then; none has passed both the House and Senate.

Derek Springer, a first-year student at Ivy Tech State College in Muncie, Ind., credits his journalism adviser at Muncie Central High School with teaching students about the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, press and religion.

Last year, Springer led a group of student journalists who exposed payments a local basketball coach made to players for such things as attending practices and blocking shots. The newspaper also questioned requirements that students register their cars with the school to get parking passes.

Because they studied the First Amendment, he says, "we know that we can publish our opinion, and that we might be scrutinized, but we know we didn't do anything wrong."

Grokster and America's future February 2, 2005, 4:00 AM PT By Mark Cuban TrackBack Print E-mail TalkBack Grokster and America's future

I remember being very nervous back in college.

There was very real discussion about the United States losing its station as the world's most powerful nation. There were American hostages in Iran. There was an Olympics boycott. The Japanese stock market was booming, and many thought it wouldn't be long before our economy would be second to theirs. The U.S. auto industry was under attack by imports. Inflation was at record highs.

At Indiana University, our school newspaper carried headlines from around the state. I knew that Anderson, Ind., had an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent. Numbers that people were suggesting reflected Great Depression-era depths. Other cities were almost as bad.

Students weren't quite brimming with optimism. As I prepared to graduate, getting an interview was a battle. Fortunately, while our manufacturing economy was taking it on the chin, others were working late--including the labs at Xerox; the garages in Silicon Valley, Seattle and New Mexico; and the offices on Massachusetts' Route 128 and in Armonk, N.Y. The personal-computer business was getting ready to explode.
Studios get your hard-earned money, and they make it illegal for you to make a copy to keep just in case your DVD gets scratched. That's wrong.

The history of computing and, in particular, the microprocessor revolution, is well-documented. What may not have been nearly as well-understood is the role it played in revitalizing our economy and how we felt about ourselves.

In a scant five years, college kids went from worrying about jobs to being positioned at the lead of the new PC generation. When I graduated from college, I had taken one computer class that required me to punch in a Fortran program on cards and feed them to a huge computer I never saw. A number of jobs available in the computer field were limited to "computer scientists." That changed in what seemed a heartbeat.

If you knew how to use a spreadsheet, you could get a job. If you could write batch files in DOS, you could get a job. If you were advanced and could integrate local-area networks, grasp multitasking, program using relational databases--you could pick the job of your choice.

The PC revolutionized the job market for college graduates and more importantly, the business of business. But it didn't stop at PCs. Software was developed for every application imaginable. PCs were connected into local and worldwide networks. Printers went from modified typewriters to laser. Communications went from modems to broadband. Online services expanded from the thousands to the millions--and that was before the Internet and America Online. We went from Moore's Law to Metcalfe's Law.

This technology revolution has been amazing for two reasons. First, the technology has continued to evolve this long. We may be at a point where we aren't surprised to read about new technologies, but entrepreneurs continue to generate ideas that lead to new products and services. Technology continues to have a significant impact on the U.S. economy and to create jobs.

Second, the government managed to stay out of the way for as long as it did. Who knows why, but our elected officials managed to let the free markets stay free.

Until now.

Taking a wrong turn
Things started to get a little shaky back in 1998. In October of that year, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed. The DMCA was basically a law that set a very unnerving precedent--that the government would do what it could to protect the interests of content owners at the expense of technological development.
Entertainment companies just feel that because P2P impacts their business in a way they can't control, it's better to make it illegal than adapt to the new technology.

By itself, the DMCA didn't kill technological innovation. At the time it passed, the DMCA was more a nuisance than anything else. Digital content wasn't all that prevalent, and there certainly wasn't much money in it. Not many people cared that our tax dollars were being spent to make sure that your Internet radio station never played more than three songs in a row from the same artist. Or that it became illegal to have a 24-hours-a-day station dedicated to the Beatles (or any other artist).

In 1998, few people were buying DVDs. It was easy to buy a VHS tape and make a second copy for your own use. The DMCA rarely touched home. In 2005, it's a whole different ball game.

You know those scratched DVDs you own? How nice it would have been to be able to make a copy first, knowing that the kids were going to ruin them at some point. But you can't. It's illegal to make software that allows you to make backup copies. You paid a lot of money for your DVDs. The movie industry has made billions upon billions of dollars from DVDs. Many movies make more from DVDs than from theatrical release. They get your hard-earned money, and they make it illegal for you to make a copy to keep just in case your DVD gets scratched. That's wrong.

It's the law of unintended consequences. Few people knew that DVDs would basically replace VHS in our homes. Few had any idea that DVDs would regularly get scratched and rendered useless. No one had any idea that trying to make a protective backup of that DVD would be illegal. It was perfectly legal to do it with VHS tapes.

The law of unintended consequences is never repealed. It goes on forever. Next month, a case entitled MGM v. Grokster will go before the U.S. Supreme Court. If this case goes the wrong way, that law of unintended consequences could put a hurt on us in the future.

The case is about whether peer-to-peer software that enables the peer-to-peer networks most of us read about--and few of us use--should be illegal or not. The big entertainment companies are pushing the argument that because some of their content gets stolen through the use of this software, all uses of the software should be illegal.

They are not, however, arguing that there aren't legitimate reasons to use the software. They acknowledge that businesses and individuals are using the software for purposes other than those that impact their music or movie businesses. They just feel that because it impacts their business (they still don't know if it's a positive or negative impact) in a way they can't control, it's better to make it illegal than adapt to the new technology.

In reality, this case isn't about whether music or movies are illegally downloaded using P2P software. This is purely about control.

In reality, this case isn't about whether music or movies are illegally downloaded using P2P software. This is purely about control. The entertainment industry wants control over technology that could impact its business.

Technology has advanced further than any of us could have imagined in the last 15 years. Even the best forecasters would have been shocked at the number of us who now use cell phones, e-mail and DVD players. They'd be equally stunned at the number of people who spend as much time online as they do watching TV, who own MP3 players or who are replacing film cameras with digital cameras--and more.

The next 15 years will have just as many new devices that we can't imagine today. But what if they all became illegal?

We are living in a world where information is becoming 100 percent digital. Of all the digital information across the world that is being created and exchanged, what percent is comprised of music and movies? What percentage of that is owned by Hollywood and the big music companies?

Think about all the home movies we are creating and saving on our computers. All the digital pictures of our families and friends. All the personal music created at home. All the corporate data and presentations. All the books, software, newsletters, newspapers, discussion forums, blogs, Web sites and e-mails that are created and saved digitally. How big a percentage of that could music and movies make up--one-tenth of 1 percent? At most?
Everything our imagination creates and touches that can be made digital is at risk if Grokster loses.

Every single one of these items can benefit from the distribution efficiencies created by peer-to-peer networks. Every person and company in this country that wants to exchange digital data can benefit from peer-to-peer technologies. Just because the uses aren't prevalent or obvious to some today doesn't mean they won't be two or five years down the road.

In the MGM v. Grokster case, the fewer than 50 companies who control less than 1 percent of all digital information are trying to take control of innovation in the technology industry and pry it away from the rest of us. Everything our imagination creates and touches that can be made digital is at risk if Grokster loses.

What innovations will be condemned by law before they have a chance to come to market, because they could have an impact on Hollywood and the music industry? We have no idea, and that is a very scary prospect.

Which brings me back to 1980.

The last 25 years have seen unimaginable increases in productivity, creativity, economic development and American pride because amazing people have been able to take amazing ideas and develop them without fear. That fearlessness ends if Grokster loses and the content industry is able is to take on the role of technology gatekeeper. There will be a time, as there was in 1980, when we need a spark, when we hope that something new helps us escape from something old. Let's not let the content industry steal that opportunity out from underneath us.

This is a call to action. Call your representative. Call your senator. Let them know that you respect the rights of the content industry, but that protecting innovation is more important. Our future could depend on it.