A Mind is a Terrible Thing to (fill with) Waste ©

Belated Recognition for Battling Holocaust

HORASHIM, Israel — When 20 people gathered for a modest ceremony in the tranquil cemetery of this kibbutz in central Israel last month, the intimacy and quiet dignity of the event belied the tumultuous historical forces coursing beneath it. The occasion was the reinterring …

Schooling Matt Damon

Actor Matt Damon is a walking, talking public service reminder to immunize your children early and often against La-La-Land disease. In Damon's world, all public school teachers are selfless angels.

A History of College Grade Inflation

The researchers collected historical data on letter grades awarded by more than 200 four-year colleges and universities. Their analysis (published in the Teachers College Record) confirm that the share of A grades awarded has skyrocketed over the years.

China, Largest Holder of U.S. Debt, Remains Tied to Treasuries Making U.S. Woes Its Own

SHANGHAI — However grim Washington’s debt and deficit negotiations may seem to Americans, the impasse is nearly as disturbing for China. It is the ultimate “too big to fail” global relationship, said Andy Rothman, an analyst in Shanghai for the investment …

Software Designer Reports Error in Casey Anthony Trial

MIAMI — Assertions by the prosecution that Casey Anthony conducted extensive computer searches on the word “chloroform” were based on inaccurate data, a software designer who testified at the trial said Monday. The designer, John Bradley, said Ms.

How Bright Promise in Cancer Testing Fell Apart

When Juliet Jacobs found out she had lung cancer, she was terrified, but realized that her hope lay in getting the best treatment medicine could offer. So she got a second opinion, then a third.

French See Strauss-Kahn Case as American Folly

PARIS — The stunning reversals in the criminal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a putative French presidential candidate, have reawakened a dormant anti-Americanism here, fueled by a sense that the raw, media-driven culture of the United States has undermined justice a …

People With Histories of Mental Illness Want to Get Their Gun Rights Back

PULASKI, Va. — In May 2009, Sam French hit bottom, once again. A relative found him face down in his carport “talking gibberish,” according to court records.

Strauss-Kahn Case Seen as in Jeopardy

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement …

U.S. Using 'Mystery Shoppers' to Check on Access to Doctors

WASHINGTON — Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care wh …

Atop TV Sets, a Power Drain Runs Nonstop

Those little boxes that usher cable signals and digital recording capacity into televisions have become the single largest electricity drain in many American homes, with some typical home entertainment configurations eating more power than a new refrigerator and even some centra …

Senate Committee Approves New Rules on Detaining Terror Suspects

WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted for a sweeping and bipartisan package redefining the rules for detaining terrorism suspects, including giving military judges the power to review the cases of prisoners in Afghanistan and mandating military detenti …

Arrest Puts Spotlight on Brazen Hacking Group LulzSec

LONDON — As suspects go, Ryan Cleary did not look dangerous: a pale 19-year-old who looked five years younger, wearing a white skateboarding T-shirt and track pants, standing nervously in a courtroom here on Thursday.

Seized Cellphone Offers Clues of Bin Laden's Pakistan Ties

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The cellphone of Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, senior Amer …

Genetics and Crime at Institute of Justice Conference

It was less than 20 years ago that the National Institutes of Health abruptly withdrew funds for a conference on genetics and crime after outraged complaints that the idea smacked of eugenics.

Microdrones, Some as Small as Bugs, Are Poised to Alter War

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and  …

Chemical Suicides, Popular in Japan, Are Increasing in the U.S

In Japan it is known as detergent suicide, a near-instant death achieved by mixing common household chemicals into a poisonous cloud of gas. By some counts, more than 2,000 people there have taken their own lives, inhaling the gas — in most cases hydrogen sulfide — i …

Immigration Official Revises Enforcement Program Rules and Raises Deportation Threshold

Moving to repair an immigration enforcement program that has drawn rising opposition from governors and police chiefs, senior immigration officials on Friday announced steps they said would focus the program more closely on deporting immigrants convicted of serious crimes. In un …

Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic

WASHINGTON — A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him. Glenn L.

Collective Bargaining Law Upheld in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for significant cuts to collective bargaining rights for public workers in the state, undoing a lower court’s decision that Wisconsin’s controversial law had been passed improperly.

Mysterious Taliban communicator said to be one person in Afghanistan, or several in Pakistan gets his/their message out

KABUL, Afghanistan — Will the real Zabiullah Mujahid, mouthpiece of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, please stand up? Afghan intelligence officials say he is really Hajji Ismail, a 42-year-old man from the Pakistani town of Chaman.

Study Debunks Stephen Jay Gould's Claim of Racism on Morton Skulls

Scientists have often been accused of letting their ideology influence their results, and one of the most famous cases is that of Morton’s skulls — the global collection amassed by the 19th-century physical anthropologist Samuel George Morton. In a 1981 book, “ …

American Way: Sarah Palin email frenzy backfires on her media antagonists

The trove of more than 13,000 emails detailing almost every aspect of Sarah Palin’s governorship of Alaska, released late on Friday, paints a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics. One can only a …

E-Mails Capture Palin's Meteoric Rise

A scan of Ms. Palin’s e-mails in the weeks just before and after she was chosen as Mr.

Profile

The Incredulous One

Articles Posted: 35
Links Seeded: 1533
Member Since: 12/2006Last Seen: 1/26/2012

Bio deleted on request of government agencies with unpronounceable acronyms.

Latest Comments

Recent Votes

The Incredulous One's Feeds

Subscribe to The Incredulous One's content using the feeds below. Use RSS for your newsreader and JSS to insert onto your own blog:
  • Articles
  • Seeds
  • Comments