European Union Blocks Cannabis Exhibition 4/30/04

Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Marco Cappato of the anti-prohibitionist Transnational Radical Party (http://www.radicalparty.org) reported Monday that the parliament has blocked the authorization for an exhibit of industrial cannabis (hemp) products that was to take place in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. The denial of permission was made by the parliament's Quaestors, a small group of MEPs who look after the organization's affairs.

Cappato had been working since July 2003 with Chanvre Info (http://www.chanvre-info.ch), a Swiss hemp industry group, to win authorization for the exhibition, which would have dealt only with hemp products, not those related to psychoactive marijuana. Cappato and Chanvre Info had followed all the rules, Cappato said in a statement, but the Quaestors still refused to allow the exhibit.

Could doggy diapers clear the air of odorous emissions?

By The Associated Press
(4/22/04 - CEDAR RAPIDS, IA) — Dogs may no longer be the butt of their owners' jokes, thanks to Frank Morosky.

Morosky has developed two versions that will go on sale later this month. One, similar to a G-string, will sell for about $20. The other, a denim diaper with a detachable charcoal pad inside, will sell for about $50.

The Next Chapter In Electronic Books
Arik Hesseldahl, 04.26.04, 10:00 AM ET 

	The Librie goes on sale in Japan this month.

NEW YORK- Last month, Sony and Royal Philips Electronics teamed with privately held E Ink to announce the Librié, which is set to go on sale in Japan this month.

E Ink's electronic paper display is reflective and can be read in the sunlight and in conditions of dim light. It presents a resolution of 170 pixels per inch, similar to newspaper. The gadget uses four AAA batteries but only uses power when a page is turned and the image presented on the display changes. A user can turn 10,000 pages before those batteries have to be replaced.

The device itself is about the size of a paperback book and can store the contents of about 500 books at a time.

FORBES.COM GLOBAL NEWSLETTER APRIL 30, 2004

A photo from TV shows naked prisoners positioned in a human pyramid. Photo: Sky News

Photos show jail abuse by US troops

United States soldiers at a prison outside Baghdad have been accused of forcing Iraqi prisoners into acts of sexual humiliation and other abuses.

Some of the photographs, and descriptions of others, were broadcast in the US on Wednesday by a CBS television news program.

In one photograph naked Iraq prisoners stand in a human pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English.

In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered, wires attached to his body. The news show said that he had been told that if he fell off the box he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each other.

"The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners."

"And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumbs-up."

The army also had photographs showing a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and another that showed a dog attacking a prisoner.

Sex, the final frontier: Nasa acts to ensure that astronauts don't follow their urges

By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor

29 April 2004

Dr Rachel Armstrong, speaking yesterday at a British Interplanetary Society symposium on the Human Future and Space, said the US space agency Nasa was considering how to deal with the natural urges of astronauts travelling on long journeys such as a three-year trip to Mars, where the six-strong crew would be likely to include two women.

"Nasa is talking about the chemical sterilisation of astronauts on longer journeys," Dr Armstrong said.

 Douglas Powell, a psychology professor at Harvard University who was recruited in 1999 by Nasa to investigate the behavioural needs of long-term space trips, said: "Like anywhere, these are normal healthy people in their prime and they are sexually active so they are going to get involved with each other. So what's going to happen in space? It's a serious question and it needs to be confronted."

Other scientists have suggested that the best way to ensure there is no interplanetary interplay is to crew the mission with astronauts over the age of 50.

PRINCETON APPROVES GRADE-RATIONING PLAN
 
PRINCETON, New Jersey (AP) -- Princeton University faculty approved a plan to combat rising grades by limiting the number of A's it awards to undergraduates.

Faculty are expected to restrict the number of A's to 35 percent in undergraduate courses. For junior and senior independent work, the percentage receiving A's will be capped at 55 percent.

A's have been awarded 46 percent of the time in recent years at Princeton, up from 31 percent in the mid-1970s.

At other Ivy League schools, the percentages of A grades in undergraduates courses ranges from 44 percent to 55 percent, according to Princeton's Web site. At Harvard University, 91 percent of seniors graduated with some kind of honors in 2001.

Very few students supported the change.

From dharmabums

103 YEARS AGO TODAY

Apr 29 1901

Train robber and one of the last of the Old West outlaws, Thomas "Black Jack" Ketchum is unsuccessfully hanged in Clayton, New Mexico. The executioner's poor choice of rope and Ketchum's recent increase in weight combine to produce a gruesome decapitation in the gallows.

  His hanging turned out to be a big town event. People from the towns around Clayton came, the lawmen sold tickets to see Black Jack get hung and they sold little dolls of him hanging on a stick.

Finally the sheriff took two blows with a hatchet before the rope was cut. When Black Jack fell to the ground, he had been beheaded.  It was the first time anyone was ever hung in Clayton, so many mistakes were probably made  

http://pvs.k12.nm.us/MSpages/Time_line/j_ritter/uncletommy2.gif

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Justice Antonin Scalia  was every bit his usual blunt and confrontational self in Tuesday's Supreme Court argument involving his old friend and hunting partner, Vice President Dick Cheney.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Spanish-language radio station in Miami that crank called Cuban leader Fidel Castro faces a 4,000 dollar fine, according to the Federal Communications Commission

AFP/File Photo

Deliveryman eaten by sidewalk

Cleveland, OH, Apr. 23 (UPI) -- An ice cream deliveryman was in good condition after falling about 15 feet through a sidewalk into an underground vault, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer said.

Neil Cowen was on his way back to his truck Thursday after delivering four 3-gallon tubs of Velvet Ice Cream to a Chardon Township hot dog shop when the cement sidewalk in front of the storefront gave way under his feet.

He plunged through the 6-inch slab of concrete and broke his leg in the fall. Rusted supports under the sidewalk appeared to have failed.

"It just swallowed him up," said Mike Koszewski, owner of Mike's Wienery.