binaryoppositionpublic

holding a lump of what looked like putty

surrounded by police holding machine guns.

quickly determined that the device was harmless.

charged with possessing a hoax device

shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."

Will scientists and technologists soon live in fear of someone point a finger at them in a public place?

gathered sleep data on 10,308 civil servants in the late 1980s and then again in the early 1990s.

Those who changed their sleep habits by cutting the time in bed from 7 to 5 or less hours were 1.7 times more likely to die, and twice as likely to die from cardiovascular problems.

sleeping too much also turned out to be bad. Going from the standard 7 hours of sleep to more than 8 hours also upped the risk of death twofold.

This research suggests that we all should be getting 7 hours of sleep a night, and we should religiously stick to that quotient.

n America, you are expected to go to bed at 11 o'clock and basically die until 7 a.m., and if you don’t, you have a pathology—insomnia,"

ther cultures where people don't work in offices, no one is all that interested in who gets how much sleep

everyone gets up at least once a night and does something, like tend the fire or comfort someone's baby.

"Humans are really bi-phasic sleepers," McKenna claims. He says that we are biologically designed to sleep in two or more interrupted bouts during the night and then fall asleep again during the day.

Sleeping at our desks in the middle of the day, then, is a good thing.

Representatives of the beverage trade group say that sports drinks are “appropriate” for high school students and “essential” to young athletes

it is appropriate for infants after they have been weaned from breast milk, as it helps kids who are losing fluid due to illness.

replace electrolytes that water does not

taste makes people want to drink more

37 percent longer before feeling fatigue.

Gatorade is no better than water because it isn’t retained any better than water

Some people have suggested that only athletes should have access to sports drinks and that they should be removed from vending machines in cafeterias.

the study was privately funded and the gum companies partially paid for them.

Dr. Peter Lurie of Public Citizen says,"What does the seal really mean? If it had been an FDA-style approval, we would know what studies had been done and we would be able to scrutinize them for ourselves. Because this study has been done privately, we have no way of knowing the clinical benefit."

Wrigley paid $36,000 to include its Orbit, Extra, and Eclipse brands in the study, and that Wrigley "regularly spends $35,000 to $45,000 in exhibit booth space at the ADA's annual meeting, advertising in its publications, and on other sponsorships."

it's widely accepted that the ADA's tests are tough and comprehensive, and that sugar-free gum does promote dental health by stimulating saliva production.

don't know this either: the names of the true inheritors of the Civil Rights Movement, the brave students who sat under the "white tree".

asked, and received, permission to do so.

no march last week, no year of unrelenting "Afro-sphere" agitation, had the school refused them permission and no black took it on himself to kill whitey in revenge.

same oppression to which the black community continues to apply anachronistic, gotcha!, 60s-style tactics.

through its high visibility and outside agitation, has pushed the issue into public consciousness and influenced public policy.

more, well, middle of the road

Valet bicycle parking is now commonplace at major events in town

Superior Court judge last year blocked implementation of San Francisco's official bike plan.

creation of more bike lanes, even if that means removing traffic lanes and on-street parking spaces to accommodate cyclists at the expense of the more numerous members of the public who drive.

CIVIL RIGHTS:  All Department of Civil Rights activities will stop during a government shutdown. 

forcing the state-licensed casinos in Detroit to close.

This means no permits (air quality, surface water discharge, wetlands, dredging, etc.) will be processed and no environmental complaints will be received or investigated.

LOTTER & GAMING:  Lottery sales will end at the close of business on September 30, 2007. Players will not be able to purchase or redeem winning tickets. 

EDUCATION:  All Department of Education operations will shut down, except for the Michigan School for the Deaf.

NATURAL RESOURCES:  All DNR operations will be shut down

all state parks, recreation areas, DNR visitor centers and state forest campgrounds be closed, including day use areas

STATE POLICE:  The Michigan State Police will continue to protect Michigan citizens during shutdown. 

All road construction, routine maintenance, and administrative operations will stop.  The state's rest areas will be closed

FBI said it had been asked by the State Department to send a team of investigators to Iraq to look into the September 16 shootings. No criminal charges have been filed yet against Blackwater over that incident.

whether the growing use of military contractors undermines U.S. efforts in Iraq.

in most instances Blackwater fired first.

more interested in getting the company to pay off victims' families and "put the matter behind us" than in investigating what happened.

State Department contractor Blackwater, under investigation for the shooting deaths of 11 Iraqis on September 16,

Of those, there were 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 cases with property damage

"In 32 of those incidents, Blackwater were returning fire after an attack while on 163 occasions (84 percent of the shooting incidents), Blackwater personnel were the first to fire,"

Blackwater, which has been paid a little over $1 billion by the U.S. government since 2001, declined comment.

lackwater had fired 122 of its staff in Iraq over the past three years for a number of infractions, including 28 weapons-related incidents and 25 cases involving drugs and alcohol violations.

"These are tough jobs and these people often perform heroically in very difficult circumstances," Casey said. "But at the same time they have to be held accountable for their actions."

n a shooting incident on December 24, 2006, a security guard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi was killed by an allegedly drunken Blackwater contractor, who was then flown out of the country and faced no charges, the memorandum said.

he State Department's charge d'affaires recommended Blackwater pay $250,000

State Department's diplomatic security said that was too much and would cause Iraqis to "try to get killed." Eventually Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment.

Seventy-one percent of the 2006 gasoline displacement came from the use of alternative fuels.

hirty percent of that was from the use of compressed natural gas, mostly in heavy-duty vehicles.

The use of E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, grew substantially in 2006

umber of E85 stations doubled – from 436 to 995

cquiring almost 44,000 hybrid electric vehicles

Idle reduction efforts displaced 8.4 million gallons in 2006, including 1.2 million gallons from truck stop electrification.

Almost 2 million gallons were saved by reducing the number of miles traveled.

number of studies have demonstrated negative effects of heavy television viewing

Sustained exposure to television was associated with behavioral problems.

analyzed data for 2,707 children

timing of exposure is an important consideration as reducing viewing to acceptable levels can reduce the risk of behavioral and social problems

Parents were surveyed about their child’s television viewing habits and behavior at 2.5 and at 5.5 years of age.

Concurrent viewing was associated with fewer social skills, while sustained and early viewing had less of an impact on social skill development.

children watched two hours or more of television daily at 2.5 years of age (early exposure)

two hours or more of television daily at 5.5 years of age (concurrent exposure)

watched two hours or more of television daily at both 2.5 years and at 5.5 years of age (sustained exposure)

Critics have again charged that the polls were deluged by Ron Paul internet spammers.

suggested their own polls have been fixed simply because Ron Paul won them.

CNBC even removed its own poll

when they realized Ron Paul was winning

Neo-Con blog sites do not even include Ron Paul in their polls

not as a result of one person voting multiple times, as in all the online polls only one vote per IP address is allowed

only allowed Paul a total of 5:44 minutes

6.5% of the time allotted in total to all candidates

Giuliani and Fred Thompson were both asked over double that amount.

slammed the candidates who willingly accepted the idea of striking Iran from the air without the authorization of Congress

calling for massive cuts in spending

much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like,"

an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA"

The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation

n response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad.

produced by the State Department

Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product.

While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.

"Essentially it's corporate advertising or propaganda masquerading as news,"

based on real reporting and real information

People support affordable housing with their labor, money, and votes—just so long as it's nowhere near them.

retired schoolteacher had sent him inside a Monet greeting card, which began, "You are a disgrace to the human race and should be ashamed of yourself."

teacher's home is worth almost as much as his own. "And it's surrounded by vacant lots,"

Martha's Vineyard, 10 homeowners sued earlier this year—on environmental grounds—to block construction of an affordable house for a fisherman who'd been living with his wife and children in a tent.

Joni Lynch says her most strident foes were button-wearing progressives.

few development projects have been more enigmatically unpopular

Marin project

three luxury houses will be clumped onto a 17.5-acre hill in a way that preserves most of the land as open space.

Duane and I climbed into his Mercedes station wagon and drove to the project site, a hillside of chaparral and grass. He'd promised me it would be obvious that congestion was already bad. A lone Toyota Prius with a "Save Tibet" sticker silently cruised by. "Usually this whole area is packed with cars," he insisted. And if I researched the matter, he hinted, I might learn that the endangered Tiburon mariposa lily grows here (naturalists doubt it), and that an Indian burial spear discovered nearby might have belonged to the county's namesake, Chief Marin (a Marin anthropologist says Duane is "reporting things that are not there"). Duane next raised an environmental justice concern: Placing the affordable housing in the shadow of million-dollar homes fosters "a slave kind of mentality."

most opposition to affordable housing boils down to homeowner fear of lowered property values and higher school costs.

son of Daniel Mijangos, who is running for the post of mayor for the PP (Patriotic Party), was shot dead.

mafias linked to drug trafficking, smuggling, and money laundering are responsible for at least 14 of the murders

Cuba will import $300 million to $350 million in goods from the USA

Granma daily newspaper, which on its website proclaims it the "Official Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba," is printed on newsprint made at three south Alabama paper mills

Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said earlier this year that it would be "naive" to think that easing trade restrictions would improve conditions in Cuba

corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate

blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history

family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Richard H. Carmona

Bush administration's frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist

senior official told him that "this will be a political document, or it will not be released."

scientific and medical experts inside and outside the government against Steiger and his political bosses

Steiger

Steiger

"often inaccurate or out-of-date and it lacked analysis and focus."

Steiger confirmed that he sharply disagreed with Carmona on the issue of how much the report should promote Bush administration policies

let Americans know what their generosity is already doing in helping to solve those challenges

linking public health problems with violence and other social ills

The hunger, disease, and death resulting from poor food and nutrition create social and political instability

the report charts trends in infectious and chronic disease; reviews efforts to curb AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; calls for the careful monitoring of public health to safeguard against bioterrorism; and explains the importance of proper nutrition, childhood immunizations and clean air and water

disease and suffering do not respect political boundaries in an era of globalization and mass population movements

"I don't think public health was what his vision was. As far as the international office was concerned, it was a political office of the secretary. . . . What he was looking for, and in general what he was always looking for, was, 'How do we promote the policies and the programs of the administration?' This report didn't focus on that."

Mark A. Abdoo

"We believe this document should be focused tightly on the Administration's major priorities in global health so the American public can understand better why these issues should be important to them. As such, the draft should be a policy statement, albeit one that is evidence based and draws on the best available science."

Steiger, 37, is a godson of former president George H.W. Bush and the son of a moderate Republican who represented Wisconsin in the House and hired a young Dick Cheney as an intern

Steiger's parents, now deceased, were "lifelong friends" of many members of the same congressional class, including the Rumsfelds and the Bushes.

Steiger promoted interest in global health

doubling the number of expert staff members overseas

"You have to look at his skills as an executive leader in spite of the fact that he doesn't have a medical degree or a public health degree," Hall said.

Public health advocates have accused Steiger of political meddling before

demanding changes in the language of an international report on obesity

U.S. food manufacturers and the sugar industry.

Carmona at one point suggested that Steiger release the global health report in tandem with a separate report of the sort Steiger wanted,

Carmona testified

tarnish the office of the surgeon general when our colleagues saw us taking a political stand."

U.S. used to be a leader in this field," Novotny said.

global health document was one of several reports

suppressed because they disliked the reports' conclusions

Bush administration has always believed that public health policy should be rooted in science. "While we appreciate and respect Dr. Carmona's service as surgeon general, we disagree with his statements," Hall said.

Nominally, the sponsor of No. 07-0032 is Californians for Equal Representation. But that’s just a letterhead

address is the office suite of Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, the law firm for the California Republican Party, and its covering letter is signed by Thomas W. Hiltachk, the firm’s managing partner and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal lawyer for election matters

winner-take-all rule, which is in force in all but two states, does seem unfair on the face of it.

while everybody else is still going with winner take all by state, the real-world result

Republicans

Ohio-size gift of electoral votes

audacious power play packaged as a step forward for democratic fairness.