March 5, 2003

Protein Could Shield Brain During Stroke: Rat Study Yahoo News -  A recently discovered brain protein called neuroglobin appears to play a role in minimizing brain damage caused by stroke, a study in rats has found. Why are we trying to minimize brain damage in rats?  Let em die, the filthy beasts. 2:06:47 PM

Court upholds Calif.'s '3-strikes' law United Press International - The Supreme Court, in two 5-4 votes Wednesday, upheld California's "Three Strikes and You're Out" law, saying it did not violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 11:45:33 AM

Lack of sleep affects kids' alertness United Press International -  An extra hour of sleep could mean the difference between an alert child and a more sluggish one, research reveals. 9:56:41 AM

Pope steps up diplomatic pressure BBC - Could the Pope make a dramatic effort to prevent war in Iraq with a personal plea to the United Nations? The speculation follows the decision by John Paul II to send an envoy to Washington to urge President Bush to avoid military conflict. 9:55:11 AM

Deadly Bus Explosion Rocks Israel Washington Post -  A suicide bomber blew himself up aboard a crowded bus in the northern city of Haifa (today), killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens in the first terrorist attack in two months, officials said. 9:52:27 AM

Savaging Donahue, signing up Savage Working for Change - In hopes of saving MSNBC from the dust bin of television history, top brass at the cable news network have come up with another brainstorm. This one appears to fuse the wackiness of Morton Downey Jr., the pompous rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh, and the ideology of David Duke: Let's all welcome Michael Savage to the MSNBC family! Michael Savage (AKA Michael Weiner) is a former peddler of herbs, who on the cusp of his sixtieth birthday is making his television debut. Savage's modus operandi is a blend of bigotry, narrow mindedness, inflammatory rhetoric, ridicule and self-promotion. Over the years, he's made a string of well-chronicled notorious comments: Hispanics -- they "breed like rabbits"; women -- "should have been denied the vote"; gays and lesbians -- "the gay and lesbian mafia wants our children"; immigrants -- "you open the door to them, and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your country and breeding out of control"; the ACLU -- "the greatest danger to the American public today is the ACLU." (For more Michael Savage in his own words, click here.) 9:50:50 AM

Windows Longhorn leaks again The Register - A new build of Longhorn, Microsoft's follow-up to XP, has leaked, and although it's still an alpha, reports of increased stability make it sound almost worth stealing. Build 4008, also labelled Longhorn M4 Build, doesn't implement the new WinFS file system yet, as you'd expect, but has had a lot of cosmetic and semi-cosmetic work done it. Some of this gives indications of the kinds of functionality Microsoft client operating systems will have when WinFS does roll out. 9:47:07 AM

High court to hear Web smut case CNET News.com - In the latest test of Congress' ability to control online content, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments over whether libraries should be required to filter out porn on their Internet-connected computers. 9:45:28 AM