In this 1988 interview, Bill Moyers discusses religion with Isaac Asimov. Can religion be "reconciled" with science? Asimov says yes, as long as the players are reasonable and as long as religion is not confused as science.
You can really eat a light bulb. I saw this done at a fair a few years ago. Fascinating. The instructor says, "Don't try this at home."
President Obama kicked off a meek and week NSA reform effort. The EFF has described what real reform would involve. [Reposted with creative commons permission by the EFF): 1. Stop mass surveillance of digital communications and communication records. It doesn’t matter what legal authority is being cited—whether it’s the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act, or an executive order—the government should not be sweeping up massive amounts of information by and about innocent people first, then sorting out whether any of its targets are included later. The NSA has disingenuously argued that simply acquiring this data isn’t actually "collecting" and that no privacy violation can take place unless the information it stores is actually seen by a human or comes up through an automated searches of what it has collected. That’s nonsense. The government’s current practices of global dragnet surveillance constitute general warrants that violate the First and Fourth Amendments, and fly in the face of accepted international human rights laws. Obama needs to direct the NSA to engage only in targeted surveillance and stop its programs of mass surveillance, something he can do with a simple executive order. 2. Protect the privacy rights of foreigners. The NSA's surveillance is based upon the presumption that foreigners are fair game, whether their information is collected inside the US or outside the US. But non-suspect foreigners shouldn't have their communications surveilled any more than non-suspect Americans. The review group recommended limited protections for non-US persons and while that is a good start, the president should do more to ensure that actual suspicion is required before either targeted or untargeted surveillance of non-US persons. 3. Don’t turn communications companies into the new Big Brother: no data retention mandate. Obama’s review group recommended ending the NSA’s telephone records program, which we strongly agree with, but then indicated that a reasonable substitute would be to force American communications companies to store the data themselves and make it available to the government. The group ultimately recommended a data retention mandate if companies won’t comply voluntarily. But companies shouldn’t be pressed into becoming the NSA’s agents by keeping more data than they need or keeping it longer than they need to. To the contrary, companies should be working on ways to store less user data for less time—decreasing the risks from data breaches and intrusions like the one that just happened to Target. Data retention heads in the wrong direction for our security regardless of whether the government or private parties store the information. 4. National Security Letters need prior judicial review and should never be accompanied by a perpetual gag order. One recommendation of the review group we heartily endorse is reining in National Security Letters. The FBI uses these letters to demand user data from communications service providers with no judicial review. Providers are forbidden from talking about receiving NSLs, which means the letters also serve as perpetual gag orders. EFF was successful in convincing a federal judge to strike down these NSLs last year. The case is on appeal but Obama can remedy the situation more quickly by instructing the FBI not to issue NSLs without prior judicial review, and to limit its use of gag orders. 5. Stop undermining Internet security, weakening encryption, and infiltrating companies. Recent revelations show that the NSA is undermining Internet encryption, making us all less secure when we use technology. These practices include weakening standards, attacking technology companies, and preventing security holes from being fixed. As the president’s review group recognized, this has serious consequences for any industry that relies on digital security—finance, medicine, transportation, and countless others, along with anyone in the world who relies on safe, private communication. Obama should follow the recommendations of his review group and immediately stop the NSA’s efforts to undermine or weaken the security of our technologies. [More]
What kinds of things do people stick into their orifices? It's limited only by their imagination, it seems. This article summarizes hospital reports and it's an eye-opener---wait, I shouldn't have said that, because some of you might now try to stick something in your eye. The data comes from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. Here's a sample of things people stuck into their ears: Ear: SEED PAINTBRUSH "SOME BALLS" SLAG MAKEUP BRUSH PATIENT TOLD PARENTS THAT THE CATS STUCK SOMETHING IN HER EAR GASOLINE BUTTERFLY HERSHEY KISS "CLASSMATE PUT A ROCK IN EAR, HAS PIECE OF PAPER IN OTHER EAR" Check out the article for lots more. But now I must mention that I once attended a deposition of a doctor in Atlanta. On his bookshelf, he had a big jar of screws, nails, coins, nuts and bolts and other metal things. It all weighed more than a pound. The doctor related that a man came to the ER complaining that he didn't feel good. An x-ray revealed all of this crap in his stomach. The medical staff did surgery to take it all out. Shortly thereafter, "the man died of something else." Go figure.
The articles have been coming at a steady clip, and it's difficult to keep track of all of the revelations. But this article by Jodi Avergan lists the access that the NSA has to our private lives, many of these with links.