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Three-fifths of Americans oppose Bush's mission to moon, Mars WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than three-fifths of Americans oppose President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s proposal to return to the moon and eventually put a human on Mars, according to a poll. His plan to spend billions of dollars to manned mission to the moon and eventually to Mars drew opposition from 61 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed January 14-15. Bush called late Wednesday for a new space vessel capable of traveling to the moon as early as 2015. He would give the US space agency NASA (news...

<p>All the Democrats seeking to evict George Bush from the White House denounce him for ``unilateralism,'' meaning insufficient respect for international institutions and obligations. Now some of those Democrats may turn on a dime and demand that he defy an international organization, and disregard clear obligations freely entered into, by ignoring the World Trade Organization.</p>

Name some of the things that make us so much better off than Americans of just a couple of generations ago. One of the most important things are new medicines that not only prolong life but leave us vigorous at ages when old folks used to sit around in rocking chairs. Airplanes have put the whole world within our reach. Computer operating systems have enabled people with no understanding of the science and technology of computers to use them nevertheless to do innumerable things. You might think that those who created these things would be among our heroes. On the...

The East Coast blackout last week offers California a valuable lesson in how to improve our own electric system, beginning with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. As the analysis of this latest blackout unfolds, California should be weary of false solutions put forward by the utility industry. The solution to our energy problems, East Coast, West Coast and between, is greater energy efficiency and conservation, more renewable energy and a shift to clean, localized power generation.

<p>Since Belinda Martineau stopped manipulating plant genes eight years ago and began pondering agricultural biotechnology's effects on society, nothing has riled her more than the assertion that biotechnology will cure world hunger.</p> <p>"They're making these claims, and they're just promises. At this point, they look like empty promises," said Martineau, a plant biologist who used to work for Calgene in Davis, where she helped invent the first commercial biotech crop, the "Flavr Savr" tomato.</p>

Satellites crucial to American warfare In-Depth Coverage By JON SARCHE Moving through the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a Special Operations group came upon a fortified Taliban position that Northern Alliance guides said could take several weeks of ground fighting to defeat. Nineteen minutes later, the site was reduced to smoking rubble, a victim of America's growing use of space in warfare. "We've done even better than that in Iraq," said Col. Jim Rodgers of the Air Force Space Command. "We have a goal of single-digit minutes." Making that possible are scores of satellites providing soldiers and commanders with navigational, communications...

Facts are Being Ignored, Proponents of Ban Say Debate on Capitol Hill continues on several important national issues: the economy, the pending war with Iraq, partial-birth abortion, and of course, the recent shuttle tragedy. But not to be lost in the mix is another of particular concern to Christians and pro-life advocates -- human cloning.The White House has officially announced that it will push Congress for a bill banning all human cloning. President Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove says the bill will be a priority. Those opposed to human cloning welcome the news, saying it is time to ban the...

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) will move to pass a permanent ban on all forms of human cloning in the new Congress, a Frist aide told Human Events.Despite Frist’s public ambivalence last year over whether he would support a ban or merely a moratorium on cloning, the aide said Frist would push for a permanent ban in the new Congress. The aide said Frist had spoken for a moratorium last year only because that was all he thought would pass the Senate at the time, and that a moratorium would be "better than nothing."Still, thanks to continued opposition from...

January 8, 2003 A "Moderate" Prohibition A new study by Center for Science In the Public Interest isn't in the public interest. By Ronald Bailey "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks both the authority and the information to adequately evaluate the safety of genetically engineered (GE) foods," claims the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in a just-released study. An uncritical Washington Post story about the study describes CSPI as "moderate" on the issue because the activist group claims it is not in principle opposed to genetically enhanced crops. But with this new report, they join...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The chairman of President Bush's bioethics council demanded a public apology from Stanford University, accusing the school of trying to conceal the nature of its stem cell research and mischaracterizing the bioethics council's views.</p> <p>Stanford has said its new cancer institute will conduct stem cell research using nuclear transfer techniques -- work that many consider to be cloning of human cells. However, Stanford said the characterization of its work as cloning is wrong because the institute won't create human embryos, just cells.</p>

Source: American Geophysical Union (http://www.agu.org/) Date: Posted 10/10/2002 Control Of Methane Emissions Would Reduce Both Global Warming And Air Pollution, Researchers Find WASHINGTON - Both air pollution and global warming could be reduced by controlling emissions of methane gas, according to a new study by scientists at Harvard University, the Argonne National Laboratory, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The reason, they say, is that methane is directly linked to the production of ozone in the troposphere, the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere, extending from the surface to around 12 kilometers [7 miles] altitude. Ozone is the primary constituent of smog...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. DIAMOND BAR, Calif. (AP) — Regulators responsible for cleaning up the air breathed by about half of California's population want to phase out the most commonly used dry cleaning solvent, saying it endangers public health. Their efforts could make the greater Los Angeles area the first place in the nation to ban perchloroethylene, or perc. But the proposal faces opponents as big as the chemical industry, and as small as the corner dry cleaner. Dry cleaners say perchloroethylene is a must for clean clothes. But officials with the South Coast Air...

The Other Fake MeatFriday, August 30, 2002 By Steven Milloy You might think the anti-meat food police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest would be cheering the new meat substitute Quorn. Instead, CSPI is scaring the public and bad-mouthing Quorn to the Food and Drug Administration. Quorn is "the processed cellular mass that is obtained from the filamentous fungus Fusarium venenatum strain PTA-2684," according to the manufacturer's application to the FDA. The fungus by-product was approved in the U.K. in 1985 and is the top-selling meat substitute in Europe. The FDA approved Quorn in the U.S. last...

<p>You might think the anti-meat food police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest would be cheering the new meat substitute Quorn.</p> <p>Instead, CSPI is scaring the public and bad-mouthing Quorn to the Food and Drug Administration.</p> <p>Quorn is "the processed cellular mass that is obtained from the filamentous fungus Fusarium venenatum strain PTA-2684," according to the manufacturer's application to the FDA. The fungus by-product was approved in the U.K. in 1985 and is the top-selling meat substitute in Europe.</p>

Source: Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu/) Date: Posted 4/11/2002 Prescription Drug Pollution May Harm Humans, Aquatic Life The millions of doses of prescription drugs that Americans swallow annually to combat cancer, pain, depression and other ailments do not disappear harmlessly into their digestive systems, researchers have determined, but instead make their way back into the environment where they may contaminate drinking water and pose a threat to aquatic wildlife. With this in mind, environmental engineers at The Johns Hopkins University have launched an ambitious research program aimed at identifying the scope of the nation’s prescription drug pollution problems. The researchers recently...

  GET OUR E-MAIL UPDATES Just enter your email address:        SEARCH SITE  SEARCH WEB HARD COPY   WEB TOOLS   EMAIL US  LINKS      THE LUDDITES OF MICROSOFT Making machines that smash themselves Sam Smith ON THIS DATE in 1811, Ned Ludd and friends smashed weaving machines in effort to preserve jobs for the workers. Last weekend your editor observed the anniversary by attempting to recover from the ill effects of a smashed machine, in this case a computer.It occurred to me, as I toiled away on the minutia of data retrieval, that the Luddite tradition was alive and well...