System Lets Parents Spy on Kids' Lunches

MARIETTA, Ga. - As Garin Hughes picks through his school-lunch burrito and unidentifiable apple-pear dessert, he has a secret. Hidden underneath the eighth-grader's right leg is a chocolate cookie in shrink-wrapped plastic. That's for dessert. In the past, his parents had no clue when he bought a treat at school. Now, thanks to a new school-lunch monitoring system, they can check over the Internet and learn about that secret cookie.

Health officials hope it will increase parents' involvement in what their kids eat at school. It's a concern because federal health data shows that up to 30 percent of U.S. children are either overweight or obese.

"My parents do care about what I eat. They try, like, to keep up with it," said Hughes, a 14-year-old student at Marietta Middle School.

Three school districts in the Atlanta area last week became the first in the country to offer the parental-monitoring option of an electronic lunch payment system called Mealpay.com, created by Horizon Software International of Loganville, Ga.

For two years, the payment system, used by 1,000 school districts in 21 states, has allowed parents to electronically prepay for student lunches. Students type in their identification number before the cafeteria cashier rings up each day's lunch bill. The bill then is deducted from the student's account.

The system was initially designed as a convenient way to make sure children bought lunch without worrying that lunch money would get lost, spent on other things or stolen.

However, these days parents increasingly are interested in what their kids eat away from home. It was requests from concerned parents that prompted Horizon Software to develop the online meal-monitoring option.

Under the system, parents can see all of a student's lunch purchases. Even those paid in nickels and dimes ? instead of the prepaid lunch account ? are recorded in the system, said Tina Bennett, program director.

"A parent could give a child $20 and within two days that money's gone. This allows them to see if they bought chips," Bennett said. "What we're really hoping is to get parents' involvement, to let them know what's happening."

Mary Carol Eddleman looked into what her daughter at a Hoschton middle school was buying and found she was getting an extra 12-ounce can of juice each day, even when a four-ounce bottle of juice came with lunch.

"That's about 150 extra calories a day. It's one thing if she did it occasionally, but she was getting in the habit of buying it every single day on top of lunch because her friends are drinking it," Eddleman said. "They drink it down like a Coke."

Eddleman talked to her daughter, who has since switched to buying a bottle of water instead.

"Any system that would help parents understand what's happening to their children's diets while at school ... undoubtedly will help by raising awareness to the problem," said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston.

The biggest challenge for many school lunch programs, though, is "moving things clearly not good for kids out and making the choices more appealing," said Dr. Douglas Kamerow, an obesity expert at RTI International and a member of the
Institute of Medicine panel that released a report on childhood obesity last fall.

"The problem in general is the a la carte system," said Kamerow, also a professor of clinical family medicine at Georgetown University. "Now you can buy french fries, chips and a Coke and it's called lunch."

Kids, when you buy a bootleg DVD, you may be supporting people who might sympathize with a terrorist group that hasn't actually attacked us

First it was drugs, and now it's DVD piracy. Some guys in the intellectual property crimes unit of the LAPD, guys who probably get made fun of by cops who risk their lives going after real criminals, have apparently played up their role as noble defenders of the homeland by telling Congress what the MPAA and RIAA want lawmakers to hear as they contemplate even more draconian copyright enforcement measures: copyright piracy funds terrorism. Or, rather, it probably has some kind of link to terrorism, because people whose homes have been raided over it may have been overheard saying anti-Israeli things and might also have some sympathies with Hezbollah, all of which of course means that when you buy a bootleg DVD you basically have the blood of innocent Americans on your hands.

"Some associates of terrorist groups may be involved in IPR crime," Stedman said. "During the course of our investigations, we have encountered suspects who have shown great affinity for Hezbollah and its leadership."

Even though Stedman's evidence is circumstantial, his testimony comes as Congress is expected to consider new copyright legislation this year. An invocation of terrorism, the trump card of modern American politics, could ease the passage of the next major expansion of copyright powers. Steadman said he saw Hezbollah flags and photographs of the group's leader in homes that he raided, coupled with anti-Israel sentiments on the part of those arrested.

In other news, I hear that it's a proven fact that Hezbollah gets some of their money from people who sell gasoline on the open market, right out in front of God and everybody. But don't expect Congress to trumpet that particular terrorist connection, much less use it as a pretext to go on the warpath against gasoline usage.

Cell phones on planes worry US law enforcement

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Allowing airline passengers to use personal cell phones during flights could help potential hijackers coordinate an attack or trigger a bomb smuggled on board, U.S. security officials have told regulators.

The U.S. Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation late on Thursday outlined the potential dangers associated with allowing cell phone use during plane flights, as the
Federal Communications Commission has proposed if safety issues can be resolved.

The Federal Aviation Administration would also have to approve any rule change.

At present personal cell phones and other communication devices must be switched off at takeoff, landing and for the duration of commercial flights because it could potentially interfere with the operation of the plane.

While some have told the
FCC they worry about an increase in loud, irritating chatter on flights, law enforcement officials were focused on preventing a possible attack.

"The uniqueness of service to and from an aircraft in flight presents the possibility that terrorists and other criminals could use air-to-ground communications systems to coordinate an attack," they said in comments to the FCC.

During Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, passengers and crew on the hijacked planes used cell phones as well as phones embedded in the seats to call for help and talk to loved ones.

If the cell phone ban were lifted, law enforcement authorities worry an attacker could use the device to coordinate with accomplices on the ground, on another flight or seated elsewhere on the same plane.

If wireless phones are to be allowed in-flight, the law enforcement agencies urged that users be required to register their location on a plane before placing a call and that officials have fast access to call identification data.

"There is a short window of opportunity in which action can be taken to thwart a suicidal terrorist hijacking or remedy other crisis situations on board an aircraft," the agencies said in the comments.

The security officials also worried that personal phone use could increase the risk of a remotely-controlled bomb being used to bring down an airliner. But they acknowledged simple radio-controlled explosive devices have been used in the past on planes and the first line of defense was security checks at airports.

Still, "the departments believe that the new possibilities generated by airborne passenger connectivity must be recognized," they said.

MORE AIR RAGE?

In other filings with FCC, several flight attendants worried that allowing cell phones to be used on planes could make their jobs harder during an emergency and lead to further cases of air rage by passengers.

"The introduction of cell phone use in the cabin will not only increase tension among passengers, it will compromise flight attendants' ability to maintain order in an emergency," said American Airlines flight attendant Joyce Berngard.

The possibility of air rage incidents also raised concerns among law enforcement who feared that it could complicate the job of armed air marshals disguised as passengers who are deployed on thousands of U.S. airline flights each week.

"The first and overriding priority of federal law enforcement on board aircraft is to ensure the safety of the aircraft and the flight," the law enforcement officials said.

< In other news, the FCC recently banned pencils from elementary schools throughout the country citing their usage as possible planning tools for terrorists. "President" Bush was also heard to say that they could be used as an instrument of domestic terror by "poking someone in the eye". In sports... >

Bush-Cheney require signed "loyalty oath" to attend public events

Some Democrats who signed up to hear Vice President Dick Cheney speak here Saturday were refused tickets unless they signed a pledge to endorse President Bush.

The measure was a security step designed to avoid a disruption, which Bush campaign spokesman Dan Foley alleged Democrats were planning. Democratic Party officials denied it.

Several Democrats, at least, encountered the screening measures Thursday after calling from a line that self-identified as ACT, America Coming Together, an activist group that supports Kerry, Foley said. Others attempted to give false names and were denied tickets, he said.

Two men who had sought tickets reported they were required to give name, address, phone number, e-mail address and driver's license number, then were presented the pledge of endorsement when they arrived to pick up the tickets Thursday.

One of them, John Wade of Albuquerque, said he signed the pledge because he wanted the tickets but then changed his mind.

"I got to thinking this is not right," Wade said. "They're excluding people -- that's what has me so upset."

He returned the tickets and campaign workers returned his pledge.

Vietnam veteran Michael Ortiz y Pino said he refused to sign the pledge and was refused tickets.

Ortiz y Pino said he was asked if he associated with veterans, pro-life, gun rights or teacher groups.

Neither man wanted to give driver's license numbers but did so.

"I said why do you need that?" Ortiz y Pino said.

A campaign worker, he said, replied: "Secret Service stuff."

Kerry campaign spokesman Ruben Pulido Jr. said there had been no plan by the campaign to disrupt Cheney's event.

"I think that every American should have the right to see their vice president and hear from him firsthand what he plans to do for our country," Pulido said.

He also said the Kerry campaign had not attempted to screen Bush supporters out of Kerry's appearance at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque on July 9.

On that occasion, about a dozen Bush supporters wearing flip-flop beach sandals began chanting "Viva Bush" and waved their flip-flops over their heads. They contend Kerry has flip-flopped on the war.

< Letsee. He makes decisions that effect us all, but you have to be his friend to hear him talk. Interesting choice. >

Creation Museum sparks evolution debate

PETERSBURG, Ky. (AP) - Ken Ham has spent 11 years working on a museum that poses the big question - when and how did life begin? Ham hopes to soon offer an answer to that question in his still-unfinished Creation Museum in northern Kentucky.

The $25 million monument to creationism offers Ham's view that God created the world in six, 24-hour days on a planet just 6,000 years old. The largest museum of its kind in the world, it hopes to draw 600,000 people from the Midwest and beyond in its first year.

Ham, 53, isn't bothered that his literal interpretation of the Bible runs counter to accepted scientific theory, which says Earth and its life forms evolved over billions of years.

Ham said the museum is a way of reaching more people along with the Answers in Genesis Web site, which claims to get 10 million page views per month and his "Answers ... with Ken Ham" radio show, carried by more than 725 stations worldwide.

"People will get saved here," Ham said of the museum. "It's going to fire people up. If nothing else, it's going to get them to question their own position of what they believe."

Ham is ready for a fight over his beliefs - based on a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.

"It's a foundational battle," said Ham, a native of Australia who still speaks with an accent. "You've got to get people believing the right history - and believing that you can trust the Bible."

Among Ham's beliefs are that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, a figure arrived at by tracing the biblical genealogies, and not 4.5 billion years, as mainstream scientists say; the Grand Canyon was formed not by erosion over millions of years, but by floodwaters in a matter of days or weeks and that dinosaurs and man once coexisted, and dozens of the creatures - including Tyrannosaurus Rex - were passengers on the ark built by Noah, who was a real man, not a myth.

Although the Creation Museum's full opening is still two years away, already a buzz is building.

"When that museum is finished, it's going to be Cincinnati's No. 1 tourist attraction," says the Rev. Jerry Falwell, nationally known Baptist evangelist and chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. "It's going to be a mini-Disney World."

Respected groups such as the National Science Board, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Teachers Association strongly support the theory of evolution. John Marburger, the Bush administration's science adviser, has said, "Evolution is a cornerstone of modern biology."

Many mainstream scientists worry that creationist theology masquerading as science will have an adverse effect on the public's science literacy.

"It's a giant step backward in science education," says Carolyn Chambers, chair of the biology department at Xavier University, which is operated by the Jesuit order of the Catholic church.

Glenn Storrs, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cincinnati Museum Center, leads dinosaur excavations in Montana each summer. He said the theory of dinosaurs and man coexisting is a "non-issue."

"And so, I believe, is the age of the Earth," Storrs said. "It's very clear the Earth is much older than 6,000 years."

The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Pleasant Ridge, takes issue with Ham's views - and the man himself.

"He takes extraordinary liberties with Scripture and theology to prove his point," Adams said. "The bottom line is, he is anti-gay, and he uses that card all the time."

Ham says homosexual behavior is a sin. But he adds that he's careful to condemn the behavior, not the person.

Even detractors concede that Ham has appeal.

Ian Plimer, chair of geology at the University of Melbourne, became aware of Ham in the late 1980s, when Ham's creationist ministry in Australia was just a few years old.

"He is promoting the religion and science of 350 years ago," says Plimer. "He's a far better communicator than most mainstream scientists."

Despite his communication skills, Ham admits he doesn't always make a good first impression. But, that doesn't stop him from trying to spread his beliefs.

"He'd be speaking 20 hours a day if his body would let him," said Mike Zovath, vice president of museum operations.

Ham's wife of 32 years agrees. "He finds it difficult talking about things apart from the ministry," Mally Ham says. "He doesn't shut off."

Ham said he has no choice but to speak out about what he believes.

"The Lord gave me a fire in my bones," Ham says. "The Lord has put this burden in my heart: 'You've got to get this information out.'"

Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefs

What is Wicca?

Wicca is not a centralized religion but a belief system observed by 50,000 Americans that is recognized by reference texts such as the U.S. Army Chaplain's Handbook.

Wicca is related to European tribal nature worship. Wiccans regard living things as sacred and often show a concern for the environment.

They do not worship Satan, but some cast "spells." Some worship in the nude as a sign of attunement with nature.

The core value of Wicca states, "As it harm none, do what you will."

An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple's divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion.

Bradford refused to remove the provision after the 9-year-old boy's outraged parents, Thomas E. Jones Jr. and his ex-wife, Tammie U. Bristol, protested last fall.

Through a court spokeswoman, Bradford said Wednesday he could not discuss the pending legal dispute.

The parents' Wiccan beliefs came to Bradford's attention in a confidential report prepared by the Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau, which provides recommendations to the court on child custody and visitation rights. Jones' son attends a local Catholic school.

"There is a discrepancy between Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones' lifestyle and the belief system adhered to by the parochial school. . . . Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon (the boy) as he ages," the bureau said in its report.

But Jones, 37, Indianapolis, disputes the bureau's findings, saying he attended Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis as a non-Christian.

Jones has brought the case before the Indiana Court of Appeals, with help from the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. They filed their request for the appeals court to strike the one-paragraph clause in January.

"This was done without either of us requesting it and at the judge's whim," said Jones, who has organized Pagan Pride Day events in Indianapolis. "It is upsetting to our son that he cannot celebrate holidays with us, including Yule, which is winter solstice, and Ostara, which is the spring equinox."

The ICLU and Jones assert the judge's order tramples on the parents' constitutional right to expose their son to a religion of their choice. Both say the court failed to explain how exposing the boy to Wicca's beliefs and practices would harm him.

Bristol is not involved in the appeal and could not be reached for comment. She and Jones have joint custody, and the boy lives with the father on the Northside.

Jones and the ICLU also argue the order is so vague that it could lead to Jones being found in contempt and losing custody of his son.

"When they read the order to me, I said, 'You've got to be kidding,' " said Alisa G. Cohen, an Indianapolis attorney representing Jones. "Didn't the judge get the memo that it's not up to him what constitutes a valid religion?"

Some people have preconceived notions about Wicca, which has some rituals involving nudity but mostly would be inoffensive to children, said Philip Goff, director of the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

"Wiccans use the language of witchcraft, but it has a different meaning to them," Goff said. "Their practices tend to be rather pacifistic. They tend to revolve around the old pagan holidays. There's not really a church of Wicca. Practices vary from region to region."

Even the U.S. military accommodates Wiccans and educates chaplains about their beliefs, said Lawrence W. Snyder, an associate professor of religious studies at Western Kentucky University.

"The federal government has given Wiccans protection under the First Amendment," Snyder said. "Unless this judge has some very specific information about activities involving the child that are harmful, the law is not on his side."

At times, divorcing parents might battle in the courts over the religion of their children. But Kenneth J. Falk, the ICLU's legal director, said he knows of no such order issued before by an Indiana court. He said his research also did not turn up such a case nationally.

"Religion comes up most frequently when there are disputes between the parents. There are lots of cases where a mom and dad are of different faiths, and they're having a tug of war over the kids," Falk said. "This is different: Their dispute is with the judge. When the government is attempting to tell people they're not allowed to engage in non-mainstream activities, that raises concerns."

Indiana law generally allows parents who are awarded physical custody of children to determine their religious training; courts step in only when the children's physical or emotional health would be endangered.

Getting the judge's religious restriction lifted should be a slam-dunk, said David Orentlicher, an Indiana University law professor and Democratic state representative from Indianapolis.

"That's blatantly unconstitutional," Orentlicher said. "Obviously, the judge can order them not to expose the child to drugs or other inappropriate conduct, but it sounds like this order was confusing or could be misconstrued."

The couple married in February 1995, and their divorce was final in February 2004.

As Wiccans, the boy's parents believe in nature-based deities and engage in worship rituals that include guided meditation that Jones says improved his son's concentration. Wicca "is an understanding that we're all connected, and respecting that," said Jones, who is a computer Web designer.

Jones said he does not consider himself a witch or practice anything resembling witchcraft.

During the divorce, he told a court official that Wiccans are not devil worshippers. And he said he does not practice a form of Wicca that involves nudity.

"I celebrate life as a duality. There's a male and female force to everything," Jones said. "I feel the Earth is a living creature. I don't believe in Satan or any creature of infinite evil."

< File this under "none of your fucking business, asshole." >

Odd U.S. state laws ban owning skunks, swearing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In Virginia, under the terms of a 1950 law, no animal may be hunted on Sundays except raccoons, which may be hunted until 2:00 a.m.

In Connecticut, a 1949 ordinance forbids the storing of town records in any place where liquor is sold.

A 1974 Tennessee law states: "It is unlawful for any person to import, possess, or cause to be imported into this state any type of live skunk."

The legal codes of U.S. states, counties and cities are replete with archaic, sometimes nonsensical and often humorous laws, many of which were passed decades or even centuries ago for a reason that seemed good at the time but has long since been forgotten or faded into irrelevance.

But these old laws occasionally come back to bite.

Sheriff Carson Smith of Pender County, North Carolina, recently relied on a 1805 law banning the cohabitation of unmarried persons to give one of his employees an ultimatum.

He told Deborah Hobbs she could either marry her boyfriend, move out of the house they were living in together or get fired. Hobbs, 40, quit and went to the American Civil Liberties Union, which launched a legal challenge to the law.

"This is not a dead-letter law in North Carolina. We have found this statute has been used 36 times since 1997 to charge people with a crime. At least seven have been convicted," said Jennifer Rudinger, the ACLU's North Carolina director.

It turns out six other states also have anti-cohabitation laws: Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi and North Dakota. Four other states -- Illinois, Minnesota, South Carolina and Utah -- have laws against fornication, defined as unmarried sex, according to Dorian Solot of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a group based in Albany, New York which advocates for equality and fairness for unmarried people.

"The good news is most of these laws are not enforced, as far as we know," said Solot. "They occasionally come up when a prosecutor is already looking into an individual and may decide to throw another charge at them."

The ACLU argues all these statutes are unconstitutional, citing a 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law, which established a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy.

In Washington state, Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a law last month allowing pregnant women to divorce their husbands. It was prompted by the case of Shawnna Hughes who was denied the right to divorce her physically abusive husband by Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine because she was pregnant.

"There's a lot of case law that says it is important in this state that children not be illegitimized," the judge said at the time.

NO CUSSING

Most states still have anti-swearing laws on their books which police occasionally try to enforce. Judges usually throw them out but citizens sometimes get fined or spend a few hours in a local jail.

In one Michigan case, a man who let loose a stream of curses after falling out of a canoe in 1999 was convicted of violating a law against cursing in front of women and children. He was fined $75 and ordered to perform four days of community service. In 2002, an appeals court struck down the 1898 law and threw out the conviction.

According to Chris Edwards of the conservative Cato Institute, all this argues for increased use of "sunsetting clauses" when passing new laws and regulations. Such clauses automatically terminate statutes after a specified period, unless the legislature expressly reauthorizes them.

Sunsetting was included in important sections of the 2001 U.S. Patriot Act, passed by Congress shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks to give law enforcement agencies more tools to fight terrorism. Congress is now debating reauthorization and seems likely to make some changes.

"These hearings on the Patriot Act are exactly the kind of thing you want. Government doesn't spend enough time on oversight, looking at what's been done and how it's working," Edwards said.

President Bush's 2001 tax cuts also included sunset clauses; its provision are supposed to expire in 2010. However critics charge that this time, sunsetting was little more than a smokescreen, allowing Republicans to keep the projected costs of the tax cut within limits set by a congressional budget resolution.

Silly laws can be a source of amusement. Two enterprising high school students in Georgia, Andy Powell and Jeff Koon, started an Internet site, www.dumblaws.com. It gets up to 10,000 hits a day and has been spun off into a book and a follow-up on dumb warning labels.

The site contains numerous gems, although Powell acknowledged he has been unable to verify them all.

According to the site, in Minnesota a person may not cross state lines with a duck atop his head. In North Carolina, it is illegal to sing off key. In Idaho, you may not fish on a camel's back while Ohio makes it unlawful to get a fish drunk or to fish for a whale on Sundays.

Jackson, Wisconsin....

Sheriff investigators say that a 32-year-old woman was upset that her 9-year-old son had shot and killed a bird with his BB rifle, so she took the gun and told him he "needed to know how it feels" to be shot. "He began to run around in circles because it's harder to hit something that is moving," the investigation report says. The mother, who was not named to protect the identity of her son, fired but couldn't hit him, so she ordered him to stand still so she could shoot him in the chest. The boy was not seriously injured. When a sheriff deputy told her actions constituted child abuse, she replied, "Well, if you're going to arrest me, arrest me." He did: she has been charged with intentionally causing bodily harm to a child, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

< 15 years in prison. Is there any possibility that a person should be at risk of losing 15 years of their life in a situation where a) no harm was done and b) they were carrying out their parental responsibility to teach a child not to kill shit randomly? The government here is absolutely as evil as it can be. >

Man arrested for wearing Grinch mask

WHEELING, W.Va. - A man is in trouble with the law for wearing a Grinch mask in public.

Norman Gray, who was stopped by police on Tuesday, was told to take the mask off and not put it on again.

Police say Gray took the mask off and asked why he couldn't wear it. After officers told him that wearing masks in public is illegal, he reportedly put the mask back on and said he didn't believe it.

Gray was then arrested and the mask confiscated.

Wearing a mask or hood in public is a misdemeanor under West Virginia law, punishable by a fine of up to $500, up to a year in jail, or both. Prosecutors say masks can hinder efforts by law enforcement officials to identify criminal suspects.

Children are allowed to wear masks. There are also exceptions for safety gear, theatrical productions and Halloween.

---

WHEELING, W.Va. - City and county attorneys are defending Wheeling police who arrested a man for wearing a Grinch mask while walking along a city street.

Norman Eugene Gray, 42, was arrested Tuesday. He was arraigned and released on a personal recognizance bond.

Officers saw Gray about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, told him to take the mask off and not put it on again. Gray removed it and asked why he could not wear it, according to Wheeling police reports. Officers told him wearing masks in public is illegal.

Gray said he felt he had a right to wear it and said it was not illegal. He put the mask back on and was arrested. The mask was confiscated.

Wheeling City Solicitor Rosemary Humway-Warmuth and Ohio County Prosecutor
Scott Smith said masks as well as dark window tinting in vehicles can pose a safety hazard to law enforcement officers and hinder efforts to identify criminal suspects.

"When we think about masks, we don't always think of Halloween," Humway-Warmuth said.

Smith said wearing a mask or hood in public is a misdemeanor under state law, punishable by a fine of up to $500 or up to a year in jail, or both. Children up to 16 years old can wear masks. Traditional Halloween masks, safety gear used in occupations, theatrical productions, civil defense or protection from bad weather also are legal.

< I feel compelled to say something about this, but where to begin? A year in jail? >

Doctors say knives are too pointed

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.

The researchers said a short pointed knife may cause a substantial superficial wound if used in an assault - but is unlikely to penetrate to inner organs.

Knife wound
Kitchen knives can inflict appalling wounds

In contrast, a pointed long blade pierces the body like "cutting into a ripe melon".

The use of knives is particularly worrying amongst adolescents, say the researchers, reporting that 24% of 16-year-olds have been shown to carry weapons, primarily knives.

The study found links between easy access to domestic knives and violent assault are long established.

French laws in the 17th century decreed that the tips of table and street knives be ground smooth.

A century later, forks and blunt-ended table knives were introduced in the UK in an effort to reduce injuries during arguments in public eating houses.

The researchers say legislation to ban the sale of long pointed knives would be a key step in the fight against violent crime.

"The Home Office is looking for ways to reduce knife crime.

"We suggest that banning the sale of long pointed knives is a sensible and practical measure that would have this effect."

Government response

Home Office spokesperson said there were already extensive restrictions in place to control the sale and possession of knives.

"The law already prohibits the possession of offensive weapons in a public place, and the possession of knives in public without good reason or lawful authority, with the exception of a folding pocket knife with a blade not exceeding three inches.

"Offensive weapons are defined as any weapon designed or adapted to cause injury, or intended by the person possessing them to do so.

"An individual has to demonstrate that he had good reason to possess a knife, for example for fishing, other sporting purposes or as part of his profession (e.g. a chef) in a public place.

"The manufacture, sale and importation of 17 bladed, pointed and other offensive weapons have been banned, in addition to flick knives and gravity knives."

A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes."

New Swedish law to ban downloading of films, music

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's parliament approved a law on Wednesday that bans the downloading of copyrighted material such as films and music from the Internet after being singled out for criticism by Hollywood.

Sweden had until now allowed downloading of files, while uploading, or putting material on the Web, was illegal.

Actor
Morgan Freeman, in a Reuters interview, recently cited Sweden as an example of a country where illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing was a growing problem.

The Swedish parliament's decision, which comes into effect July 1, aims to change that.

"The decision means that a clear ban has been introduced against downloading music, pictures and other material on the Internet for private use without the copyright holder's permission," parliament said in a statement.

Anyone breaking the law can be ordered to pay damages.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents the U.S. film industry, had in March hailed a raid by police on a company hosting Internet servers as a major blow against piracy in Sweden.

The MPAA said the authorities seized four computer servers -- one reputed to be the biggest pirate server in Europe -- containing enough digital film and music content for up to 3-1/2 years of uninterrupted play, the organization said.

It added that authorities in Scandinavian countries had been reluctant to take such action in the past.

The MPAA says the film industry loses $3.5 billion a year to videotapes and DVDs sold on the black market, but it has no estimate for how much Internet piracy costs the industry.

The new Swedish law allows people to make one copy of a CD for personal use and to make copies of newspaper articles.

< This is from where EI draws it's concept of retroactive law. If a law was valid in the first place, it should always be, and vice versa. Sweeden just criminalized a whole shitload of it's citizens. For this to happen is about as far from what's right and good as possible. In cases where something depends in particular on a specific changable event or fact, it can be written in as an exception to retroactivity, but this will be rare. >

Senators urge international copyright crackdown

U.S. senators urged the Bush administration on Wednesday to increase pressure on Russia and China to respect copyright law, warning that those nations have become havens for movie and software piracy.

Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who chairs the Senate copyright subcommittee, made one of the most ominous statements to date about what might happen if unfettered piracy continues. "Before Russia enters the (World Trade Organization), many of us will have to be convinced that the Russian government is serious about cracking down on the theft of intellectual property," Hatch said during a hearing.

James Mendenhall, the acting general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative, said his colleagues are hosting a delegation from China this week to talk in part about copyright law. "We're going to be issuing a request through WTO rules seeking additional information from China on the status of enforcement in China," Mendenhall said. (A WTO spokesman later said the talks were still ongoing.)

The USTR recently highlighted the governments of both Russia and China as top copyright offenders. A report in April placed both on a "priority watch list"--along with Brazil, Israel and Indonesia--and plans to wield the WTO apparatus as a lever to force greater compliance with international norms. Another U.S. tactic is to ink free-trade deals including strict copyright regulations with individual nations.

Piracy in China alone costs U.S. companies between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion a year, the USTR says. Industry estimates place Russia's infringement rates last year at 80 percent for motion pictures, 66 percent for records and music, 87 percent for business software, and 73 percent for entertainment software.

Hatch and Vermont's Patrick Leahy, the panel's top Democrat, said that pirated copies of "Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith" already were available on the streets of Beijing and Moscow and expressed frustration about the situation. "What is enough of either a carrot or a stick to make them change, especially when it seems to be governmental policy to allow this?" Leahy asked.

"We've raised the issue at the presidential level, we've put them on the priority watch list," replied Mendenhall. Further progress will take negotiations, WTO pressure and patience, he said.

< Ignore for a minute the fact that what's illegal in this country isn't necessarily illegal in another. Several of the key precepts of this issue strike at the very heart of copyright's purpose in *this* country.

Copyright must strike a balance between providing payment to the creator for his or her work and making that work as widely available as possible. Without offering the work a free sphere of influence, there is no need for copyright, because the creator would be able to control it in other ways, through contract or by showing actual theft. On the other side of the issue is pfoviding feedback, and payment, to the creator. When the creator exceeds his sphere of influence, there is no profit to be made. You can't create an underground comic in Pikipsi and expect to get royalties from Zimbabwe. When you figure the profit potential for these works outside this country, your numbers quickly drop to zero. Even in places where they are Not zero, they are so miserably low that the value of the publicity you may achieve by being there far outweighs the value of capitalist earnings in the same sector. Assuming for a moment that practically no copyrighted works in this country have any valid use outside the country unless they are specifically designed to do so, why is it necessary to even brach the issue? Things which are tailored for release in other areas would, if the creator had a lick of sense, also be tailored for release within the system currently in place in those areas.

Where america goes wrong is in trying to force it's own versions of copyright, which are in no manner superior, rather than allowing other countries to deal with them in their own manner. Sure, applying pressure is fine. Then you have to also realize that the entire issue of copyright springs from popular usage of those materials. When profit wasn't the big catch, copyright was ignored for the most part and everything was fine. In other countries there are other social motives which may make copyright very important or totally useless. This narrow-minded view of what's acceptable is precisely why much of the world dislikes us and knocks over our trade-centers. >

EBay Drop-Off Stores Balk at Regulation

Daniel Brady of Tallahassee, Fla., was arrested on charges of violating a state law on secondhand stores. The case was later dismissed.

The pirate statue had 14 days to leave Massapequa, N.Y. And leave it did.

The owner of the six-foot-tall resin figure recently took it to the QuikDrop store on Long Island to have it photographed and put up for auction on eBay for 14 days. An online bidder from Utah paid $750 and the store's workers packed it and were preparing to send it last night.

Next in line were 59 videotapes with several years' worth of "I Love Lucy" episodes, a pile of aluminum wheel rims and a Happy Holidays Special Edition 1988 Barbie.

Such troves of junk are innocent enough. But as more eBay drop-off stores spring up around the nation to help redistribute the accumulated cargo of an acquisitive culture, some public officials worry that they could become unwitting fences for stolen goods. As some states push to regulate the industry, eBay and the stores are joining together to oppose oversight.

States like California and Florida are debating whether drop-off stores like QuikDrop International, AuctionDrop and iSold It should be governed by the laws to prevent the sale of stolen items that currently apply to pawnbrokers, secondhand stores and auctioneers.

The focus on drop-off operations is intensifying because they are multiplying rapidly.

According to eBay, there are more than 7,000 locations listed in the company's directory of independent businesses, or trading assistants, that sell on behalf of others and offer drop-off services. Many of these, including about 3,800 AuctionDrop locations in U.P.S. Stores, are retail-style storefronts. And hundreds more of these stores are expected to open in the next year.

The stores and eBay have no corporate connection, but they are closely linked. EBay's revenue growth is based in part on signing up new eBay sellers; the drop-off stores help bring into the eBay fold people who might be reluctant to hold an online auction themselves.

In California, where the number of drop-off centers has grown quickly, secondhand dealers are required to report transactions, fingerprint people selling items like high-priced jewelry and electronic equipment, and hold onto those items for 30 days.

EBay is lobbying against a proposed law that would set up an electronic database to track stolen goods sold at secondhand stores in California. The state attorney general recently released an opinion that the drop-off stores should be classified as secondhand dealers. EBay asked that the bill exempt the centers from regulation, but such an exemption has not yet been written into the bill.

"We simply cannot see the need for any of this legislation," said Tod Cohen, vice president for government relations at eBay, which is based in San Jose, Calif.

Some law enforcement agencies, however, argue that drop-off centers could well become conduits for stolen items as Internet-based crime rises.

So far, there has been little evidence of stolen goods passing through drop-off stores. But law enforcement officials say that is because there is no easy way to track stolen items in and out of the centers.

"People are using pawnshops less and less," said Danny R. Macagni, chief of police in Santa Maria, Calif. "These eBay drop stores don't have to notify us like a pawnshop, so stolen property could be sold and we'll never even know about it."

The drop-off stores typically take in an item, photograph it and put it up for sale on eBay. If a sale goes through, the store sends the seller a check, minus a store commission that is often as high as 35 percent as well as a fee for eBay and other processing charges. If the item does not sell within a certain number of days (at QuikDrop, it is two weeks), the owner is asked to retrieve it.

Chief Macagni said that as more commerce - and crime - move into the online world, increased monitoring of online sales can only help. State and municipal laws regulating pawnbrokers and secondhand dealers vary, but usually require that dealers report transactions to the police, hold items for a certain period before selling them, and even take fingerprints of customers.

California, Florida and Texas have been considering legislation that would impose regulations on drop-off stores. And in New York City, where secondhand stores must obtain a license and maintain transaction records for police inspection on demand, the Department of Consumer Affairs is considering whether the drop-off stores qualify as secondhand stores, said Dina Improta, a department spokeswoman.

EBay officials and store owners, however, say criminals are not likely to walk into a drop-off store, offer personal information, leave a telephone number and wait for a check to arrive in the mail.

Still, lawmakers say legislation is needed as a deterrent.

"These drop-off stores are now sort of the locus of potential stolen property," said Leland Yee, a California state assemblyman who is sponsoring the bill. "You don't necessarily go through a fence, you go through the Internet, and eventually it lands at these drop-off places."

The regulatory ambiguity surrounding drop-off stores became evident this year, when Daniel Brady, the owner of an eBay drop-off store in Tallahassee, Fla., was arrested for violating a state law governing secondhand stores. The law requires those stores to give transaction records to local police within 24 hours and hold each item for 15 days before selling it.

Mr. Brady, who spent several hours in jail, had his case dismissed when a judge ruled that the law did not apply because the store never owned the merchandise at any time, as secondhand stores do. Florida lawmakers debated updating the existing law to encompass drop-off stores as well, but did not take action in the legislative session that ended this month. The bill is expected to resurface next year.

Mr. Brady disputed the suggestion that his store was anything like a secondhand store, and definitely not a pawnshop, which typically pays cash for the items it receives. "We don't buy anything," Mr. Brady said. "All we do is facilitate the sale of the goods for the customer."

But Robert Verhoeff, president of the Collateral Loan and Second Hand Dealers Association in California, a supporter of the legislation in California, argues that drop-off centers should have to comply with the rules that govern pawnshops and secondhand dealers.

Mr. Verhoeff said "the benefit to law enforcement is clear" in applying regulations to online auction middlemen. Some states have introduced legislation that would require the drop-off stores to register with the state as licensed auctioneers, which often means completing training courses, paying an annual licensing fee, and even placing payments in escrow accounts. Others, such as Louisiana, have no proposed legislation but are considering such a requirement. Intensive lobbying on the part of eBay recently helped win an exemption for drop-off stores as well as individual eBay sellers from legislation in Ohio on auctioneering. Now the company has focused a team of lobbyists on Sacramento to defeat Assemblyman Yee's bill.

"I feel for the pawnshops," said Jack Reynolds, co-founder of QuikDrop, based in Costa Mesa, Calif. "I realize they're in a highly regulated business with a lot of paperwork, but there's a reason for it." He noted that pawnshops offer cash for items and "we don't do that."

Elise Wetzel, the founder of iSold It, which is based in Pasadena, Calif., agreed. "In an online selling format, you don't give the customer money right away, and the item is posted on the world's largest public marketplace for all to see."

Ms. Wetzel's chain has 80 franchises open, with 200 more planning to open by the end of this year. The chain has held more than 160,000 auctions in just over a year.

All the iSold It stores, she said, get information on every customer and mail checks. "They don't get a check until the item sells," she said, "and it gets mailed to their residence. It's very different from what happens through a pawnshop."

But those safeguards may not be sufficient to prevent thieves from using the drop-off middlemen.

Even the high commission that the stores charge, Chief Macagni said, would hardly be a deterrent for a criminal. "When they drop off a full set of wheels and tires from a dealer's lot that's worth $4,000, they can afford to let 35 percent go."

Mr. Cohen of eBay, however, argued that the sale of stolen goods was a "very small subset" of overall fraud on eBay and imposing a paperwork burden on drop-off centers would do little to reduce crime.

Instead, he said, the push by pawnbrokers and auctioneers to have regulations apply to drop-off stores is mostly a tactic to make life harder for new rivals.

"This is in the fraternity hazing category," Mr. Cohen said. "If I got hazed, you're going to be hazed, too."

< These assholes cause *actual* harm *right now* by bothering the shit out of some people on the *chance* of preventing *hypothetical* harm in the future. Do you see what's wrong with this picture? >

Critics take aim at 'Star Wars' meals

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - An entertainment watchdog group is asking Burger King to pull its "Star Wars"-themed children's meals because the latest movie is rated PG-13, according to a published report.

USA Today reported Tuesday that the Dove Foundation is urging Burger King to pull the "Star Wars"-themed Kids Meals from its restaurants because the film is not appropriate for the meals' target market of children ages 4 to 9.

"Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith" is the first of the six "Star Wars" movie to be rated PG-13, meaning it has been judged more appropriate for older children, although younger children are allowed to attend. The film, which opened May 19, pulled in a record $158 million in its first four days in theaters.

The newspaper reports that 13 years ago the same group got Burger King competitor McDonald's to apologize for "confusion" from its promotion of the movie "Batman Returns," which was also rated PG-13, with its Happy Meals.

The Dove Foundation describes itself as a non-profit organization established to encourage and promote wholesome family entertainment. Its Web site gave its Dove Family-Approved seal to the latest "Star Wars" movie, although it warned that more graphic violence made it appropriate for children ages 12 and older.

The chairman of the group told USA Today that it is not appropriate for Burger King to help market the film to younger children.

"When Burger King puts that in a Kids Meal, there's an implicit endorsement of the movie," said Dick Rolfe, chairman of the Dove Foundation.

While terms of the promotion deal between Burger King and the filmmakers are not disclosed, the Kids Meals promotion, dubbed "Choose Your Destiny," is the 50-year-old fast-food chain's first global promotion, according to the newspaper.

A Burger King spokeswoman said the promotion is not specific to the latest "Star Wars" movie, only to the whole series of films, with just four of the 31 Kids Meal toys specific to "Episode III."

The toys "clearly celebrate not just one film but the entire 'Star Wars' saga," said Edna Johnson, a Burger King spokeswoman. "The reception at our restaurants and from our customers has been overwhelmingly positive."

But Rolfe said a survey his group conducted of 889 adults and says 83% felt the promotion was not appropriate for kids.

Another critic told the newspaper that filmmaker George Lucas is as much to blame as Burger King for the inappropriate promotion effort.

"It's irresponsible of George Lucas to OK the marketing around this PG-13 movie to young children," says Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and author of "Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood."

A spokeswoman for Lucas defended the film's marketing efforts.

"'Star Wars' is broader than a single movie," says Lynn Fox, a LucasFilm spokeswoman. "Parents know that 'Star Wars' has been a positive influence."

< Very confusing this is... >

Pentagon reveals rejected chemical weapons

THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.

Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the proposal says.

Other ideas included chemical weapons that attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats to troop positions, making them uninhabitable. Another was to develop a chemical that caused "severe and lasting halitosis", making it easy to identify guerrillas trying to blend in with civilians. There was also the idea of making troops' skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight.

The proposals, from the US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, date from 1994. The lab sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals". The plans have been posted online by the Sunshine Project, an organisation that exposes research into chemical and biological weapons.

Spokesman Edward Hammond says it was not known if the proposed $7.5 million, six-year research plan was ever pursued.

Lost. And, Often, Found.

It wasn't the missing camera that Hayato Miwa grieved for; it was the contents.

Mr. Miwa, an assistant chef at the Gramercy New York pastry shop in Osaka, Japan, was touring top-tier New York restaurants with some fellow Japanese chefs to sample their pastries when he realized he had left his digital camera in a cab. It was worth only $200, but gone with it were photos he had taken of desserts concocted at Nobu, the Spice Market, Joseph's, the Park Avenue Cafe and the Gotham Bar & Grill.
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Jerry W. Hoefer for The New York Times

Blair Huber, a lost-and-found specialist for Southwest Airlines at Love Field in Dallas, may just have your cellphone.

Luckily for him, a couple found the camera and it was eventually reunited with its owner. "People had told Hayato New York is a dangerous city, that people here don't even smile," said Toyoko Kametani, a Japanese food company executive who organized the chefs' trip. "Now he thinks New Yorkers are wonderful."

More and more business travelers are finding occasion to gush similar sentiments, not only about New Yorkers, but about finders of lost goods all over the world. It turns out that people are losing more and more things because they are lugging so many additional gadgets and communications devices - and often misplacing them in airplanes and airports, hotel rooms, restaurants, cabs and rented cars.

A study conducted by Pointsec Mobile Technologies, a mobile-data protection software company in Chicago, found that the number of laptops abandoned in one London cab company's taxis rose 71 percent in the second half of last year from the same period in 2001, while the number of P.D.A.'s left behind shot up 350 percent.

Pointsec also tracked items left behind in taxis in eight other countries. One cab company in Chicago had the highest numbers: in the final six months of 2004, it found, in its 113 taxis, 387 mobile phones, 97 P.D.A.'s and Pocket P.C.'s and 20 laptops. (It did not have comparable 2001 data.) Extrapolating from those numbers, Pointsec calculated that 85,600 mobile phones, 21,500 P.D.A.'s or Pocket P.C.'s, and 4,425 laptops disappeared into Chicago's 25,000 cabs in those six months.

The plague of forgetfulness has given rise to several services that locate vanished goods. Trackitback (www.trackitback.com), in Winnipeg, Manitoba, uses coded identification labels and a reward system to encourage people to call a toll-free number when they find a lost item with the affixed label. A lifetime fee of $9.99 covers standard shipping costs.

BoomerangIt (www.boomerangit.com) in San Leandro, Calif., provides two labels and two snap-on luggage tags for $14.95. It charges a return fee of $10 for properly registered items, plus shipping and handling. Both companies respond to inquiries 24 hours a day.

Jet lag and fatigue are making road warriors on hectic travel schedules "slower on the uptake and more prone to forgetting stuff," said Doug Herrmann, a psychologist and memory specialist and professor emeritus at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.

Short of praying to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost or stolen things, Mr. Herrmann counsels travelers to "imagine you're going into the jungle and take preventive measures," like keeping a tight grip on your cellphone, decorating your briefcase with bright colors to set it apart and making a paper checklist of all the important belongings you are taking with you.

The travel industry has mobilized its troops to help out. Andrea Torrance, executive director of rooms at Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, says the housekeeping employees at its 44 properties are instructed to check for lost items behind night tables and between sheets. "When guests check out, we open every drawer and closet," she said.

Karen M. Krugel, a senior account supervisor for Lou Hammond & Associates, a New York public relations firm specializing in travel, says such vigilance saved her from the doghouse with her new husband. At the Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pa., she left a $5,000 diamond necklace, his wedding present to her, in a spa robe pocket. "I was sobbing like a 6-year-old," she said. Hotel employees, however, rifled through the pockets of every robe in the laundry hampers and found the jewelry.

The method of recovery was not quite so straightforward for Lee Hurley, editor in chief of Executive Traveler magazine, but he got his treasure back, too. He and his wife were celebrating their 16th wedding anniversary at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta, and he had brought along a $90 Baccarat crystal wine glass, an anniversary gift, to share a toast over dinner in their room. They left the glass on the tray and room service took it away that night. The couple only realized their mistake the next morning.

"At first I thought, 'No problem, I'll call room service and surely they'll find it,' " said Mr. Hurley. "But I found out that a 365-room hotel stocks well over 1,000 glasses. Then I thought I'd go look for it myself. But insurance liability rules restrict nonemployees from kitchen areas." Room service soon called to say the glass could not be found.

Now panicked, Mr. Hurley called the manager on duty and declared his wife would not leave the hotel without it. Eighteen minutes later, they got it back.

Lost items are usually held for about five days at the terminal where they are found, then shipped to a central warehouse. At Dallas Love Field Airport, Southwest Airlines receives close to 11,000 articles each month, said Laura Adams, director of central baggage services for the carrier. Those unclaimed after 60 days are sold to a salvage company or donated to charities.

Airlines consider no lost item too insignificant, as John W. Lampl, a British Airways vice president, found out. He left the novel he was reading on a Continental Airlines flight from Newark to Miami in February. Back at the Miami airport five days later, he asked about the book. "Lo and behold, within 15 minutes a customer service rep was standing there with it," he said. "It had no monetary value but it meant something to me. They made me feel like a somebody. Hats off to them."

< It's pretty rare that we get to post something from the other side. Our hats off to those people who returned other people's stuff. We realize it's your perogative and that your willingness to do so depends on your life situation. Nevertheless, this makes for the best possible outcome and those of you whose life situation might not lead you to return an object of value but do so anyway, you may be foolish but you're certainly good. We particularly applaud good customer service. This is alltogether too rare and is one of the best ways to fight corporate evil. >

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, Start the Computer Revolution

LET'S get this straight: Jerry Garcia invented the Internet while he was tripping on acid. No, actually, it was Ken Kesey, who thought computers were the next thing after drugs - which, according to John Markoff, they really were.
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Fred Moore, the founder of the Homebrew Club. Apple Computer's Stephen Wozniak came to the first meeting.

"What the Dormouse Said: How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" (Viking, 287 pages) is Mr. Markoff's hymn to the 1960's, and to the social idealists and, well, acid freaks who wanted to use computers to promote an agenda of sharing, openness and personal growth.

His brief is that the longhairs liberated computers from I.B.M. and the military industrial complex and profoundly shaped the technology that is ubiquitous today. Formerly sequestered behind forbidding glass walls, computers went on to become accessible, usable and friendly. The industry had its consciousness raised - became a vehicle of togetherness.

Grant, at least, that computers became cool. During my adolescence, computers were evil. You remember HAL - the electronic demon of "2001: A Space Odyssey." Computers made people powerless. They represented war, capitalism and grownups. Then (I think I was out for coffee) kids took over. So now computers are about freedom. As I explained to my daughter the other night, "Turn the darn thing off." Read a book, for Pete's sake.

According to Mr. Markoff, a senior writer for The New York Times and the author of other books on computers, the counterculture made it happen. He demonstrates that a good many of the electronics freaks who were working on inventing the future in the 60's and early 70's were, simultaneously, soaked in drugs, antiwar politics and weird ideas.

At the heart of his story is Doug Engelbart, a Navy veteran trained in radar during World War II who became obsessed with the idea that computers could augment human intelligence. Mr. Engelbart set up a research group at Stanford that, despite its Pentagon funding, became an outpost for young, creative and sometimes radicalized engineers.

In the 1960's, computers were machines for math - for "computing." Mr. Engelbart saw much more. His team invented or envisioned "every significant aspect of today's computing world" - point-and-click screen control, text editing, e-mail and networking. Mr. Kesey, the writer, was shown how Mr. Engelbart's computers worked and declared them to be "the next thing after acid." Even Mr. Engelbart, a white-shirted pied piper, experimented with LSD, encounter groups, Chairman Mao and est. It's a wonder he got anything done.

Actually, he didn't. In 1968, he demonstrated computer interactivity at a conference that wowed everyone and that the author, appropriately, dubs the "computing world's Woodstock." And then - nothing. Too dreamy to part with his technology until perfected, Mr. Engelbart never got around to developing commercial applications. His staff gradually defected to Xerox, which was actually interested in selling products. Xerox ultimately blew its commercial opportunity, but its technology would be widely cloned.

Occasionally, the tale splinters like an acid trip that goes on too long, with side trips and fervent hyperboles that, in a strange way, do put one in mind of the 60's. Engineers show up at Stanford, protest the war and drop out to join communes. One of them will "alter the world's politics"- by which Mr. Markoff means the engineering student staged a fast against the R.O.T.C.

Stewart Brand, one of the most interesting figures in the book, shepherds Mr. Kesey through an acid trip, an event to which Mr. Kesey invited guitarist Jerry Garcia and his band - giving rise to the Grateful Dead. Then, Mr. Brand turns up as the cameraman at Mr. Engelbart's computing Woodstock.

This is the kind of psychedelics-to-circuits connection that Mr. Markoff makes much of - sometimes too much. Anyway, Mr. Brand went on to found the Whole Earth Catalog, a very hip compendium of random information that was, as I recall, perfectly useless. But Mr. Brand had a singular insight with regard to information - "it wants to be free."

When Whole Earth got to be a drag, Mr. Brand staged a demise party, at which he stunned guests by giving away $20,000, his original investment. There was a debate over how to spend it. Came the sage investment advice, "Give it back to the Indians." It was decided that Fred Moore, an ardent pacifist of anti-R.O.T.C. fame, would safeguard the funds, which meant putting them in a tin can and burying them. Did this have anything to do with computers? Actually, it did.

Money made Mr. Moore unhappy. Computers excited him, as did a sense of community. In 1975, he founded an enthusiasts' society, the Homebrew Computer Club. Hundreds of hobbyists came to the first meeting, including Stephen Wozniak, who went on to co-found Apple Computer. The idea was that everyone would share information. Mr. Moore believed that his club "should have nothing to do with making money."

But it did. Twenty-three entrepreneurial seedlings, including Apple, would trace their roots to the club. Mr. Markoff writes, "The deep irony is that Fred Moore lit the spark . . . toward the creation of powerful information tools." This is hyperbole. Lit a spark would be fair.

The first commercial PC, the Altair 8800, had been developed - in New Mexico, 1,000 miles away - before Homebrew ever assembled. But the attendants did, excitedly, pass around a copy of software written for the Altair, which had been developed by the infant Micro-Soft, as it was then known. Bill Gates, its 20-year-old tycoon-to-be, sarcastically objected to the pirating of his product. "Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share." Needless to say, Mr. Moore's view of sharing was not endorsed by Mr. Gates. At this point, Marx and the history of the software industry diverged.

IN Mr. Markoff's view, the PC era, which placed each user in charge of an isolated box, was a long detour from the higher aim of information sharing conceived by Mr. Engelbart. This purpose was vindicated by the Internet. The tension still persists between profit-seeking publishers and, ahem, idealists who would love to share what belongs to others - music rights, for instance. According to the author, this is today "the bitterest conflict facing the world's economy."

Such overwrought claims aside, at the core of "Dormouse" lies a valid and original historical point. Computer technology did turn out to be creative, spirited and even freeing. Most of this was a result of the fabulous advances in the power of the microchip. But perhaps, also, in the tactile clicking of the mouse, you can hear the faint strumming of a guitar.

Public schools, private billions and the best of intentions

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Bill Gates raised some hackles with his withering assessment of American high schools, but at least the billionaire founder of Microsoft is putting his money where his mouth is.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested $2.3 billion since 2000 in new visions of education, with smaller schools and more personalized instruction to prepare young people for the working world and post-high school learning.

The foundation has programs in 42 states and the District of Columbia; it supports more than 1,500 high schools -- about half totally new and the others redesigned. Its three scholarship programs, designed to fill tuition gaps left by other grants and aid, have assisted more than 10,000 students.

At one of its schools, the Truman Center in Federal Way, about 20 miles south of Seattle, 12 teacher/advisers tend 208 students -- helping them figure out what they care about and how to pursue it. Two days a week are set aside for job-shadowing and internships in the real world.

Shawn Dube was going nowhere in 2001 when he transferred to Truman, one of 16 schools in the state being transformed with a five-year grant and scholarships from the Gates Foundation's Achiever program.

"It was kind of a last-resort thing that I was there," recalls Dube, now 18.

An internship at an upscale local restaurant put Dube on his path. He found a mentor, eagerly honed his skills and is now a first-year student at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. He plans a stint in France and dreams of a restaurant of his own.

Shawn's mom, Kim Dube, credits the Gates program with giving Shawn the confidence to chase his dream and scholarships to finance it.

"My husband and I didn't go to college," Kim says. "It just got him past that fear."

Since 2000, the education branch of the Gates Foundation has been working to upgrade the nation's high schools, which Gates characterized as "obsolete" in a February speech to the National Governors Association.
Rigor, relevance, relationships

In that speech, he spelled out his "new three R's" for building better high schools:

Rigor: Making sure all students are given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work.

Relevance: Making sure kids have courses and projects that relate to their lives and their goals.

Relationships: Making sure kids have adults who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve.

"The idea is that every district should have a rigorous academic alternative for kids who do not succeed in the traditional high school setting," said Gates Foundation spokeswoman Marie Groark.

Such alternatives don't come cheap. And with states struggling to pay for basic education and keep up federal accountability requirements -- what happens when the five-year grants expire?

"If you don't get a commitment from the school district to continue, it's just an exercise you go through," said Leon Horne, a middle-school teacher and former union leader in Tacoma.

The foundation's intent with the grants is to get the ball rolling by demonstrating alternatives that work, Groark said. "Our goal for all our work is sustainability -- that we can disappear."

Followup and monitoring will be essential, said Shirley Malcom, head of education and human resources at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

"The big question is the learning goals," Malcom said. "What is it we want these children to know? ... Are they going to be job-ready, and are they going to be college-ready?"

New tests, mandated by federal law, are designed to help assess student progress.
Innovation from the inside

The sustainability of the foundation's work will depend on whether it fosters innovation from inside or tries to impose it from outside, Malcom said. School districts will be more likely to support -- and help spread -- innovations developed within schools and communities.

That's a belief the foundation shares.

"When we give a grant, we give it because the community wants it and asks for it," Groark said. "It's not the Gates Foundation telling the community to do something. It's the Gates Foundation supporting work that's already begun."

There's no question that most high schools don't work, Malcom said. But the structure is very difficult to break down for various reasons, including the often massive size of the buildings themselves.

Creating small schools, usually schools within schools, has been a fundamental part of the foundation's approach.

The Truman Center, for example, has just six classrooms -- crammed with projects, art, words of wisdom. "Quiet rooms" are set aside for those who need to concentrate. The only doors are on the bathrooms and to the outdoors.

"Our high schools were designed fifty years ago to meet the needs of another age," Gates told the governors in February.

"Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting -- even ruining -- the lives of millions of Americans every year," said Gates, himself a product of the rigorous standards and hands-on instruction at Seattle's private Lakeside School.

"Only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship," he said. "The other two-thirds, most of them low-income and minority students, are tracked into courses that won't ever get them ready for college or prepare them for a family-wage job, no matter how well the students learn or the teachers teach."
Hands-on approach

Despite his position atop one of the world's biggest technology companies, high-tech education reforms have been a small part of the foundation's work. Online schools are the subject of just two grants, totaling less than $3 million.

The foundation's education wing has a staff of about three dozen, eight or nine of whom monitor grant recipients.

At Truman, school officials write frequent reports to keep the foundation up to date, and foundation officials make yearly visits, said Principal Judy Kraft.

The foundation gets points from educators and observers for its hands-on approach.

"Their staffers are engaged in ways other funders are not engaged, in part because their staff comes from the education field. They're not heavy-handed at all," says Patricia Sullivan at the Center for Education Policy in Washington, D.C., which receives some funding from the Gates Foundation.

That's not to say all goes smoothly on foundation projects. In Tacoma, teacher Horne said, it took three years to work out union concerns and get teachers set up for foundation programs at three of the city's five high schools, a year longer than the usual training phase.

"I don't think they'd really thought the whole thing through," said Horne, who suggested the program's test run in Tacoma might have been more effectively conducted at a single school.

He also noted that the foundation's vision -- of one teacher/adviser overseeing a small class throughout high school while teaching most subjects -- seems to clash with the federal No Child Left Behind law, which calls for teachers with high expertise in specific subjects.

Still, across Washington state, where the foundation is based, it is generally acknowledged as a positive force, said Charles Hasse, president of the teachers union, the Washington Education Association.

Although teachers sometimes bristle at guidance from outsiders, he said, "the people at the foundation are seen as partners at improving education and essentially allies of classroom teachers."

Kiss your old SSN goodbye

Some good might actually come out of all of these recent data mishaps.

Politicians are starting to realize that permitting data brokers like Acxiom and ChoicePoint to buy and sell your Social Security number like a raffle ticket may not be that wise after all.

Some members of Congress, like Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, have been warning about the dangers of SSN misuse for years. The surprise now is that some key congressional figures are agreeing.

Rep. Joe Barton, another Texas Republican who happens to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said last week that he plans to "outlaw the use of Social Security numbers for any purposes other than government purposes."
Purloining someone's SSN can permit a criminal to empty the bank accounts and run up the credit cards of the hapless victim.

The politics go something like this: Some type of legislation is likely to be enacted this year in response to the string of security snafus involving companies like ChoicePoint, Bank of America, payroll provider PayMaxx, and Reed Elsevier Group's LexisNexis service.

The big question is what the details of that law will look like. Barton, a conservative but idiosyncratic Republican who represents the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, could have the final say in that process.

"The time has come to tip the balance in favor of individual privacy and find another way to help businesses determine the identity of the people they want to give credit to," Barton said at last week's hearing.

This would represent a new campaign for Barton, first elected to the House in 1984, whose other top causes have been an unsuccessful attempt to preserve the Superconductor Supercollider that was to have been built in Waxahachie, Texas, and enacting a balanced budget amendment. He's also known for being sympathetic to oil and gas companies and for holding hearings that investigated the fund-raising and travel practices of the Clinton administration.

Relentless expansion
The history of the SSN is the history of a government program run amok, creating what has become a national ID number.

In 1935, Congress enacted the Social Security Act, which authorized only the creation of some record-keeping scheme and not the SSN itself. But the Treasury Department decided SSNs were the best way to create those records, and things have gone downhill ever since.

By executive order, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt required all federal agencies to use the SSN "exclusively" to identify individuals, and the IRS began to employ it as a tax ID number in the early 1960s. Later that decade, divulging your SSN became necessary to buy Treasury bonds, obtain Medicare benefits, and join the military. The Social Security Amendments of 1972 slapped SSNs on school children and foreign workers with visas, and a 1983 law required banks to obtain SSNs for savings accounts.

Nowadays, the SSN has mercilessly extruded its way into the private sector. Many corporations and universities use the SSN as a unique identifier, as does everyone from physicians to insurance companies to mutual funds.

That's why the SSN has become so valuable for identity thieves. Even though the SSN was never intended as a password--it lacks an important feature of a password, which is an ability to change it--companies and government agencies routinely use it that way. Purloining someone's SSN can permit a criminal to empty the bank accounts and run up the credit cards of the hapless victim.

Support for some type of SSN reform this year seems to be growing in a thoroughly bipartisan way.

It's true that Barton's proposal, if enacted into law, would inconvenience companies that have inadvisably come to rely on SSNs to identify records in a database. But it's possible for them to generate random, custom IDs for the identification purposes. Quite a few universities and corporations already do.

Support for some type of SSN reform this year seems to be growing in a thoroughly bipartisan way. There's the Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act, the Social Security Number Misuse Prevention Act, the Social Security Number Protection Act, Social Security On-line Privacy Protection Act for starters, and that's not even counting what Barton plans to do.

One way to accomplish his goal would be to eliminate the public SSN in nearly all cases. The Social Security Administration would still generate the numbers and use them internally--but generally would not release them even to the person associated with each SSN.

Here's how it could work: The only legitimate use for an SSN is to match an individual with his or her supposed "retirement account." As long as the Social Security Administration can find a match and allocate payroll taxes accurately based on information like name, birth date, address, birth location and employment history, there's no need for someone to know what their SSN actually is.

A more radical reform would be to permit younger Americans to opt out of the Social Security system entirely. Perhaps they'd still be required to fork over half of their current payroll taxes to fund today's retirees, but the rest would be returned to them to invest freely. No SSN would be attached and no long-term tracking would be necessary.

That would take more flexible thinking, true, and it would certainly outrage defenders of the status quo. But today's SSN system is so diseased that radical therapy may be the only cure.

Hugging Ban Sparks Dispute at Ore. School

BEND, Ore. - A 14-year-old girl received detention over a lingering hug she gave her boyfriend at school, infuriating her mother and putting school officials on the defensive.

School officials said they had warned Cazz Altomare that lingering hugging was unacceptable, but she continued to disobey the rule when she received the detention earlier this year.

Rules at Sky View Middle School in Bend permit "quick hello and goodbye hugs," but administrators said some students have been taking advantage of it.

"It's not like we are the hug Nazis," Laurie Gould, spokeswoman for the Bend-La Pine School District, said Monday. "Kids hug, they hug hello and they hug goodbye, but if you take it farther, you make people uncomfortable."

Cazz got detention after giving her boyfriend a protracted hug in the hallway at Sky View Middle School in Bend.

Her mother, Leslee Swanson, was infuriated by the punishment. When she went to pick her daughter up from detention, she gave her a good, hard hug.

"I'm trying to understand what's wrong with a hug," Swanson, 42, said in a story Sunday in The Bulletin of Bend. People should not "blindly accept these fundamental rights being taken away from them," she said.

Gould said "usually kids don't get detention just for hugging."

All middle schools in the Bend-La Pine district restrict hugging to some degree, as well as hand-holding and some other forms of physical affection.

"Really, all we're trying to do is create an environment that's focused on learning, and learning proper manners is part of that," said Dave Haack, the principal of Cascade Middle School, also in Bend.

Students only end up with detention after repeated warnings earlier this year, he said.

Outside Pilot Butte Middle School on a recent lunch break, two seventh-grade girls said they disagreed with the policies.

"I think we should be able to hold hands or hug at least," said Annie Wilson, 12. "Because it's not doing anything bad."

Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs

The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.

A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.

Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.

A presidential directive is expected within weeks, said the senior administration official, who is involved with space policy and insisted that he not be identified because the directive is still under final review and the White House has not disclosed its details.

Air Force officials said yesterday that the directive, which is still in draft form, did not call for militarizing space. "The focus of the process is not putting weapons in space," said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force spokeswoman, who said that the White House, not the Air Force, makes national policy. "The focus is having free access in space."

With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them.

"We haven't reached the point of strafing and bombing from space," Pete Teets, who stepped down last month as the acting secretary of the Air Force, told a space warfare symposium last year. "Nonetheless, we are thinking about those possibilities."

In January 2001, a commission led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the newly nominated defense secretary, recommended that the military should "ensure that the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space."

It said that "explicit national security guidance and defense policy is needed to direct development of doctrine, concepts of operations and capabilities for space, including weapons systems that operate in space."

The effort to develop a new policy directive reflects three years of work prompted by the report. The White House would not say if all the report's recommendations would be adopted.

In 2002, after weighing the report of the Rumsfeld space commission, President Bush withdrew from the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which banned space-based weapons.

Ever since then, the Air Force has sought a new presidential policy officially ratifying the concept of seeking American space superiority.

The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space.

The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies object to the idea that space is an American frontier.

Yet "there seems little doubt that space-basing of weapons is an accepted aspect of the Air Force" and its plans for the future, Capt. David C. Hardesty of the Naval War College faculty says in a new study.

A new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, calls for a military space plane carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions. General Lord told Congress last month that Global Strike would be "an incredible capability" to destroy command centers or missile bases "anywhere in the world."

Pentagon documents say the weapon, called the common aero vehicle, could strike from halfway around the world in 45 minutes. "This is the type of prompt Global Strike I have identified as a top priority for our space and missile force," General Lord said.

The Air Force's drive into space has been accelerated by the Pentagon's failure to build a missile defense on earth. After spending 22 years and nearly $100 billion, Pentagon officials say they cannot reliably detect and destroy a threat today.

"Are we out of the woods? No," Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who directs the Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview. "We've got a long way to go, a lot of testing to do."

While the Missile Defense Agency struggles with new technology for a space-based laser, the Air Force already has a potential weapon in space.

In April, the Air Force launched the XSS-11, an experimental microsatellite with the technical ability to disrupt other nations' military reconnaissance and communications satellites.

Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.

A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down to targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words of an Air Force plan.

Captain Hardesty, in the new issue of the Naval War College Review, calls for "a thorough military analysis" of these plans, followed by "a larger public debate."

"To proceed with space-based weapons on any other foundation would be the height of folly," he concludes, warning that other nations not necessarily allies would follow America's lead into space.

Despite objections from members of Congress who thought "space should be sanctified and no weapons ever put in space," Mr. Teets, then the Air Force under secretary, told the space-warfare symposium last June that "that policy needs to be pushed forward."

Last month, Gen. James E. Cartwright, who leads the United States Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services nuclear forces subcommittee that the goal of developing space weaponry was to allow the nation to deliver an attack "very quickly, with very short time lines on the planning and delivery, any place on the face of the earth."

Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who is chairman of the subcommittee, worried that the common aero vehicle might be used in ways that would "be mistaken as some sort of attack on, for example, Russia."

"They might think it would be a launch against them of maybe a nuclear warhead," Senator Sessions said. "We want to be sure that there could be no misunderstanding in that before we authorize going forward with this vehicle."

General Cartwright said that the military would "provide every opportunity to ensure that it's not misunderstood" and that Global Strike simply aimed to "expand the choices that we might be able to offer to the president in crisis."

Senior military and space officials of the European Union, Canada, China and Russia have objected publicly to the notion of American space superiority.

They think that "the United States doesn't own space - nobody owns space," said Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, a policy analysis group in Washington that tends to be critical of the Pentagon. "Space is a global commons under international treaty and international law."

No nation will "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death star," Ms. Hitchens told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting last month. "I don't think the United States would find it very comforting if China were to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could strike at targets on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes."

International objections aside, Randy Correll, an Air Force veteran and military consultant, told the council, "the big problem now is it's too expensive."

The Air Force does not put a price tag on space superiority. Published studies by leading weapons scientists, physicists and engineers say the cost of a space-based system that could defend the nation against an attack by a handful of missiles could be anywhere from $220 billion to $1 trillion.

Richard Garwin, widely regarded as a dean of American weapons science, and three colleagues wrote in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum, the professional journal of electric engineering, that "a space-based laser would cost $100 million per target, compared with $600,000 for a Tomahawk missile."

"The psychological impact of such a blow might rival that of such devastating attacks as Hiroshima," they wrote. "But just as the unleashing of nuclear weapons had unforeseen consequences, so, too, would the weaponization of space."

Surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are a crucial component of space superiority. But the biggest new spy satellite program, Future Imagery Architecture, has tripled in price to about $25 billion while producing less than promised, military contractors say. A new space technology for detecting enemy launchings has risen to more than $10 billion from a promised $4 billion, Mr. Teets told Congress last month.

But General Lord said such problems should not stand in the way of the Air Force's plans to move into space.

"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."

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School Boards Want to 'Teach the Controversy.' What Controversy?

The recent so-called debates on the teaching of evolution in Kansas have me thinking about different theological reactions to the teaching of evolution.

The Roman Catholic Church, which stands on common ground with conservative Christians in opposition to abortion, and which is doctrinally committed to notions like the Virgin Birth, apparently has no problem with the notion of evolution as it is currently studied by biologists, including supposedly "controversial" ideas like common ancestry of all life forms.

Popes from Pius XII to John Paul II have reaffirmed that the process of evolution in no way violates the teachings of the church. Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, presided over the church's International Theological Commission, which stated that "since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism."

At the same time, those who wish to include "intelligent design" in the science curriculum insist that if we leave the creator out of discussions of the origin and evolution of life, then such "naturalism" must be incomplete - and that it opens the door to moral relativism and many of the other ills that go along with it.

The ultimate extension of this position may be Representative Tom DeLay's comment that the tragedy at Columbine happened "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud." Evolutionary biology is not the only science that appears to raise theological issues.

As a cosmologist, I am reminded of a controversy that arose from the development of a consistent mathematical solution of Einstein's equations, devised in 1931 by Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest and physicist.

The solution required what today we call the Big Bang. By confronting the conventional scientific wisdom that the universe was eternal, and instead demonstrating that it was likely to have had a beginning in the finite past - indeed, one that could certainly be said to be born in light - Lemaître was hailed by many, including 20 years later by Pope Pius XII himself, as having scientifically proved Genesis.

Lemaître, however, became convinced that it was inappropriate to use the Big Bang as a basis for theological pronouncements. He initially inserted, then ultimately removed, a paragraph in the draft of his 1931 paper on the Big Bang remarking on the possible theological consequences of his discovery. In the end, he said, "As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside of any metaphysical or religious question."

While this argument may seem strange, Lemaître was grasping something that is missed in the current public debates about evolution. The Big Bang is not a metaphysical theory, but a scientific one: namely one that derives from equations that have been measured to describe the universe, and that makes predictions that one can test.

It is certainly true that one can reflect on the existence of the Big Bang to validate the notion of creation, and with that the notion of God. But such a metaphysical speculation lies outside of the theory itself.

This is why the Catholic Church can confidently believe that God created humans, and at the same time accept the overwhelming scientific evidence in favor of common evolutionary ancestry of life on earth.

One can choose to view chance selection as obvious evidence that there is no God, as Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and uncompromising atheist, might argue, or to conclude instead that God chooses to work through natural means. In the latter case, the overwhelming evidence that natural selection has determined the evolution of life on earth would simply imply that God is "the cause of causes," as Cardinal Ratzinger's document describes it.

The very fact that two such diametrically opposed views can be applied to the same scientific theory demonstrates that the fact of evolution need not dictate theology. In other words, the apparently contentious questions are not scientific ones. It is possible for profoundly atheist evolutionary biologists like Dr. Dawkins and deeply spiritual ones like Dr. Kenneth Miller of Brown University, who writes extensively on evolution, to be in complete agreement about the scientific mechanism governing biological evolution, and the fact that life has evolved via natural selection.

Students are completely free to make up their own minds, in any case. What is at issue is whether they will be taught the science that should allow them to make an informed judgment. But impugning the substance of the science, or requiring the introduction of essentially theological ideas like "intelligent design" into the curriculum, merely muddies the water by imposing theological speculations on a scientific theory. Evolution, like Lemaître's Big Bang, is itself "entirely outside of any metaphysical or religious question."

The Discovery Institute, which promotes "intelligent design," a newer version of creationism, argues that schools should "Teach the Controversy." But there is no scientific controversy.

State school board science standards would do better to include a statement like this: While well-tested theories like evolution and the Big Bang have provided remarkable new insights and predictions about nature, questions of purpose that may underlie these discoveries are outside the scope of science, and scientists themselves have many different views in this regard.

Or one might simply quote Lemaître, who said of the limitations of science and of his own effort to reconcile his scientific discoveries with his parallel religious beliefs: "To search thoroughly for the truth involves a searching of souls as well as of spectra."