GameBanshee Forums

[QUOTE=Fiona]I am sorry to hear this has touched you so closely,Tony. I hope that both continue their recovery. It is important to remember those who are killed and injured in the course of other work, besides the soldiers and civilians from all sides who are more often mentioned[/QUOTE]

Thanks Fiona.

The biggest news story here other than the Super Bowl (Deeetroit represent! ) is the passing of Coretta Scott King, the widow of the late Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King. She died January 30th at the age of 78 after battling ovarian cancer and recent stroke and heart attacks. Thousands showed up at her funeral to honor her memory and everything she and her husband stood for. Rest In Peace ma'am.

This isn't the biggest story of the day, but it caught my eye. A young man who was appointed to the NASA press office by President Bush wants NASA to say that the Big Bang Theory is only a theory and that "Intelligent Design" is a viable alternative theory that should be taught to all students. I first saw the news at The Inquirer at: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29502

The original story cab be seen in the The New York Times at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/scien ... nted=print

Here is a sample:

In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."

...On Friday evening, repeated queries were made to the White House about how a young presidential appointee with no science background came to be supervising Web presentations on cosmology and interview requests to senior NASA scientists. The only response came from Donald Tighe of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "Science is respected and protected and highly valued by the administration," he said.

[QUOTE=VonDondu] A young man who was appointed to the NASA press office by President Bush wants NASA to say that the Big Bang Theory is only a theory and that "Intelligent Design" is a viable alternative theory that should be taught to all students.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it's the same with biology textbooks, I believe. Some US schools require textbooks to say it is only the author's opinion or put intelligent design in with Darwin's Theory of evolution.

Does anyone know if this has been confirmed by any real newspapers? As far as I'm concerned The Enquirer is just slightly less reliable than a crumpled up napkin with something written on it in crayon, found on the bathroom floor of a strip club.

PS> If it is true then we are in serious trouble.
PSS> I don't doubt that is true.
PSSS> Why can't Intelligent Design and Big Bang live in harmony, couldn't they be the same thing?
PSSSS> Can't we all just get along?

In a day and age where articles are about the extinction of a species...this was article was uplifting to read....and hopefully the area will remain preserved.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said Tuesday

The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during its rapid survey of the Foja Mountains, an area in eastern Indonesia's Papua province with more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060207/ap_ ... ew_species

[QUOTE=jopperm2]Does anyone know if this has been confirmed by any real newspapers? As far as I'm concerned The Enquirer is just slightly less reliable than a crumpled up napkin with something written on it in crayon, found on the bathroom floor of a strip club.

PS> If it is true then we are in serious trouble.
PSS> I don't doubt that is true.
PSSS> Why can't Intelligent Design and Big Bang live in harmony, couldn't they be the same thing?
PSSSS> Can't we all just get along?[/QUOTE]
The article in The Inquirer was merely a summary of the article linked to in The New York Times. I've never picked up a napkin off the bathroom floor in a strip club, so I'm not sure how The New York Times compares to that.

Okay then, I didn't actually click the link.
The Times is a little better than The Napkin, and about ten times better than The Post.

[QUOTE=jopperm2]Okay then, I didn't actually click the link.
The Times is a little better than The Napkin, and about ten times better than The Post. [/QUOTE]

It's ok Jop I made the same mistake: I was about to bring up "Batboy" when I noticed it wasn't the same Enquirer .

BMW PWNED by Google - thank you, Googlicious

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4685750.stm

It was on the BBC economic news today

On the newspaper:

>Lula wants to upgrade our commercial relations with Argelia, halving the current balance deficit of one billion dollars a year or something.

>A mom was caught burning his kids with a spoon (sick people should be beaten, I tell you)

>and, of course, the inevitable cartoon news.

[QUOTE=Fiona]I would like to know what is making headline news in the different countries represented here. I am interested in what preoccupies different nations and if it is often the same things or if there are wide variations. If anyone can be bothered, could you post what is being presented as important in your national press just now?[/QUOTE]
Maybe someone else already turned you on to this site, but if not you should check out [url="http://www.watchingamerica.com/index.shtml"]Watching America[/url]. It is a site that takes articles about the USA from all over the world and translates them into English. It is a great resource for Americans, but it also might interest you and other non-American types.

Here is a follow-up to the story about NASA that I told you about earlier. Apparently, somebody did some fact-checking after George C. Deutsch insisted that NASA should always be "honest" with the public, and it turns out that Mr. Deutsch lied on his resume. So another religious zealot turns out to be a lying hypocrite. But he is a loyal Bush devotee, so he will probably be appointed to some other job by the Bush administration.

UPDATE: I think I have found out who was responsible for discovering that George Deutsch lied on his resume. One of his old classmates tipped off a blogger at The Scientific Activist, who proceeded to check the records of Texas A&M University. I suppose the reporters at The New York Times did their own fact-checking when they heard the news.

There is a larger issue here: namely, NASA is in the process of revising its public communication policies after being under pressure by the Bush administration to present science the way the Bush adminstration wants them to. You can read the article at The New York Times, but it requires registration, so I have reprinted it below.


THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 8, 2006
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.

"Under NASA policy, it is inappropriate to discuss personnel matters," said Dean Acosta, the deputy assistant administrator for public affairs and Mr. Deutsch's boss.

The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming.

"As we have stated in the past, NASA is in the process of revising our public affairs policies across the agency to ensure our commitment to open and full communications," the statement from Mr. Acosta said.

The statement said the resignation of Mr. Deutsch was "a separate matter."

Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA's public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.

According to his résumé, Mr. Deutsch received a "Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Class of 2003."

Yesterday, officials at Texas A&M said that was not the case.

"George Carlton Deutsch III did attend Texas A&M University but has not completed the requirements for a degree," said an e-mail message from Rita Presley, assistant to the registrar at the university, responding to a query from The Times.

Repeated calls and e-mail messages to Mr. Deutsch on Tuesday were not answered.

Mr. Deutsch's educational record was first challenged on Monday by Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M last year with a biochemistry degree and has been writing a Web log on science policy, scientificactivist.blogspot.com.

After Mr. Anthis read about the problems at NASA, he said in an interview: "It seemed like political figures had really overstepped the line. I was just going to write some commentary on this when somebody tipped me off that George Deutsch might not have graduated."

He posted a blog entry asserting this after he checked with the university's association of former students. He reported that the association said Mr. Deutsch received no degree.

A copy of Mr. Deutsch's résumé was provided to The Times by someone working in NASA headquarters who, along with many other NASA employees, said Mr. Deutsch played a small but significant role in an intensifying effort at the agency to exert political control over the flow of information to the public.

Such complaints came to the fore starting in late January, when James E. Hansen, the climate scientist, and several midlevel public affairs officers told The Times that political appointees, including Mr. Deutsch, were pressing to limit Dr. Hansen's speaking and interviews on the threats posed by global warming.

Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.

"He's only a bit player," Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. " The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."

"On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed," he said. "The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here."

[QUOTE=Luis Antonio]
>A mom was caught burning his kids with a spoon (sick people should be beaten, I tell you)[/QUOTE]

Strange mother - I hope that was a typing error. I hate when things like that happen...

[QUOTE=GregtheSleeper]Strange mother - I hope that was a typing error. I hate when things like that happen...[/QUOTE]

No, it wasnt a typing error. it happened. Horrible innit? The eldest son ran away and told his dad (divorced from his mother) that his mom was burning them with the back of the spoon, cause of some small matter. The father, then, called police and went to the wife's place, to find that she was gone, and she left the kids with scars on the legs, torso and arms.

Awfull thing.

Global warming was the front page story in the Independent yesterday. The newspaper has commissioned research which seems to show that the concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere has already passed the point which will lead to a 2 degree rise in the mean temperature across the world. While there are still some uncertainties and some protective factors, this seems to me to be a concerning finding

http://news.independent.co.uk/environme ... 344690.ece

Time and Punishment was the order of the day... as it shall be for the whole week.

A while ago (maybe 10 months?), 9 Australians were caught smuggling drugs into Bali. They have been labelled as 'drug mules', simply people who got a free trip to Bali, and found out later that nothing was actually free. Bali is very strict, and the judgements are finally being made. Two were done today, both given life sentences (which in Bali, life means... life). That is actually considered less, as they would normally receive death, had they not testified against the two leaders of the group. They are expected to get the death by firing squad, while the 5 other mules will most likely receive life also.

I may post a link later, but a bit busy now.

In Scotland, there is a story about a 7-week old baby who was accidentally given the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) jab instead of diphtheria - the jab is not normally given until at least 12 months.

Link: [url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4707788.stm"]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4707788.stm[/url]

Also a girl with a brain tumour was exposed to 17 potentially deadly radiation doses.

Link: [url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4691748.stm"]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4691748.stm[/url]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4700154.stm

Turkish Anti-american, Rambo style movie. Delightfull.

[QUOTE=Luis Antonio]Turkish Anti-american, Rambo style movie. Delightfull.[/QUOTE]

'Out in Europe soon'... I'll be waiting

[QUOTE=GregtheSleeper]'Out in Europe soon'... I'll be waiting [/QUOTE]

Oh, dont we all? I guess it is worth a shot.