BEGINNERS & SENIORS GUIDE TO COMPUTERS

The House of Representatives is expected to vote, February 1, on an ill-conceived budget reconciliation bill. The National Mental Health Association (NMHA) warns that, if passed, this measure will irreparably tear apart the only safety net for millions of Americans. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) advised congressional leaders late last week of the devastating impact of the bill’s Medicaid cuts. Acknowledging that the human impact could be far deeper, CBO projected that: * 75% of the bill’s Medicaid cuts would harm beneficiaries. * Beneficiaries will carry billions in savings through lost benefits, increasing from roughly 900,000 enrollees sustaining such loss in 2010 to an estimated 1.6 million in 2015. * Most of the reductions in benefits would be for services such as dental, vision, and mental health. * Billions in savings will be achieved by reducing the number of Americans covered by Medicaid and increasing the barriers to coverage. * 60% of those losing coverage w...

Ace Underhill (no, really), an entrepreneur is trying to acquire the rights to the Firefly/Serenity franchise for purposes of mounting a second season to be distributed in alternative media. Underhill told SCI FI Wire that he has contacted Firefly creator Joss Whedon's representatives about starting up a new season of Firefly, which the Fox broadcast network canceled after a single season in 2003. Underhill said in an interview: "If he contacts me and says, 'Hey, we're not interested in Firefly anymore' then I will abandon the project, and essentially it's over at that point. I'm not looking to create a cheap knockoff of the series without Joss' input. So that's not going to happen. ... If he's not going to be involved, then there is no project. There's no point." Underhill added that he has contacted members of the Firefly/Serenity cast and had received a few rate quotes from agents, but he declined to say who. He acknowledged that he...

Japanese Scientists Identify Ear Wax Gene Earwax may not play a prominent part in human history but at least a small role for it has now been found by a team of Japanese researchers. Earwax comes in two types, wet and dry. The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe and the dry form among East Asians, while populations of Southern and Central Asia are roughly half and half. By comparing the DNA of Japanese with each type, the researchers were able to identify the gene that controls which type a person has, they report in the Monday issue of Nature Genetics. They write that earwax type and armpit odor are correlated, since populations with dry earwax tend to sweat less and have little or no body odor, whereas the wet earwax populations sweat more and so may have greater body odor. This could open up a whole Pandora's box of discrimination and harassment: 1. Children devising new ways to torment each other - "oh yeah? your momma has wet ear wax!". 2. New rifts betwee...

Japanese beer maker Asahi plans to give away 5,000 personal bartending robots, each of which can store up to six cans of beer in a refrigerated compartment within its belly. At the push of a button the simple robots will open a can and pour the chilled contents into a glass for a thirsty owner. Hmm...it's the right height. If only it had a flat head and no teeth.

Jack Abramoff ran for student council president at Hawthorne High School in Beverly Hills in 1972. Abramoff got disqualified for exceeding the school's campaign spending limits. He gave out free hot dogs at a party. George Bush is using this as the basis for a new federal program called "No Bribe Left Behind".

Physicists in Singapore have developed a battery that can be powered by human urine. A team at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology developed a paper battery which is designed to be cheap to produce, and use urine as its power charge source. Imagine the uses: recharge your cellphone, mp3 player, digital camera and more just by pissing on them. Recharge your hearing aid by having a friend piss in your ear. During the Christmas season when you need batteries for your kids toys -- tell them to piss off! Perhaps there'd be a new size battery - the P battery.

"Look, it's hard for me to say I didn't have pictures with the guy when I did. And the man contributed to my campaigns...and this needs to be cleared up so the people have confidence in the system." George Bush when asked about Jack Abramoff at press conference January 26, 2006

This is a photograph of: a. Michael Jackson on a good day b. Faye Dunaway sucking a lemon c. An Orc from Lord of the Rings d. Nosferatu e. Madonna (the answer is "e" - be afraid, be very afraid)

Google will be called to task in Washington on February 16 following the decision by the internet search engine to launch a China-based version of its website that will censor results. This represents the first sign of what could become a serious backlash against Google and other internet companies in Washington perceived as capitulating to the Chinese government. Google is accused of collaborating with persecutors who imprison and torture Chinese citizens. The two founders of Google are worth 7.2 billion dollars each and sales last year approached 4 billion dollars. The Google corporate slogan is "You can make money without doing evil". Maybe they should add "but you can make more the other way".

An Orthodox priest has been arrested by police in Bulgaria for selling cannabis joints to parishioners. The drugs were allegedly offered by Father Kiril Papudov, said to be the most popular of the priests working around the villages of Kladenci and Borovichene. He was caught by undercover drug squad officers who say they found 128oz of high quality cannabis in the his home. Father Papudov gives new meaning to "Angels We Have Heard On High".

More than a decade after 16-year-old Amy Fisher had a sexual relationship with a much-older car mechanic and then shot his wife in the face, the one-time "Long Island Lolita" and Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco have agreed to appear together in a televised reunion performing such hits as "Bang, bang...she shot me down", "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" and "Can't Get It Out of My Head". "It's time to just put it behind us," said Fisher, now 31, "We played this all out in a public eye. It'd be interesting to let the public see the healing process at the end. They saw everything else — why not let them see the final product?" The final product? Don't we already know the final product? Amy got out of prison complete with the skills necessary for a successful career as a corrections officer in a womens prison complete with an ample stock of cigarettes and chocolate. Joey Buttafuoco, who has remarried, was sente...

Deborah Howell of the Washington Post recently wrote a column that implied that Jack Abramoff gave money to both Democrats and republicans. Here she sets the record straight with the real truth: "I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties." "My mistake set off a firestorm. I heard that I was lying, that Democrats never got a penny of Abramoff-tainted money, that I was trying to say it was a bipartisan scandal, as some Republicans claim. I didn't say that. It's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a Republican scandal, and that's why the Republicans are scurrying around trying to enact lobbying reforms." The Daily Kos takes the analysis of the situation one step further: "George W. Bush calls indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff "an equal money dispenser'' who he...

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has said that Jack Abramoff might have attended large gatherings with George Bush but added, “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him.” HA! LIES! MORE LIES! The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME magazine has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. The fear of the Bush team is that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become proof of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal. In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window. The shot bears Bush's signature. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, o...

On the seventh day of George Bush's new Medicare drug benefit, Stephen Starnes began hearing voices again, and he started to beg for the medications he had been taking for 10 years. But his pharmacy could not get approval from his Medicare drug plan, so Mr. Starnes was forced to be admitted to a hospital for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia. Mr. Starnes, 49, lives in Dayspring Village, an assisted living center for people with mental illness. When he gets his medications, he is stable. Mix-ups in the first weeks of the Medicare drug benefit have vexed many beneficiaries and pharmacists. Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said the transition from Medicaid to Medicare had had a particularly severe impact on low-income patients with serious, persistent mental illnesses. "Relapse, rehospitalization and disruption of essential treatment are some of the consequences," Dr. Sharfstein said.

Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems. Some quotes: "I don't think there's a commitment in this administration." "Slowing the growth of greenhouse gases isn't enough." "We need leadership, and I don't think we're getting it. To sit back and just push it away and say we'll deal with it sometime down the road is dishonest to the people and self-destructive." "If the United States doesn't deal with those kinds of issues in a leadership role, they're not going to get dealt with. So I'm very concerned about this country and this agency." "You'd need to be in a hole somewhere to think that the amount of change that we have imposed on land, and the way we've handled deforestation, farming practices, development, and what we're putting into th...

An online casino has a piece of Capt. Kirk. Actor William Shatner has sold his kidney stone for $25,000, with the money going to a housing charity, it was announced Tuesday. "This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?" he said in a telephone interview. GoldenPalace.com is noted for its collection of oddities, which includes a partially eaten cheese sandwich thought to contain the image of the Virgin Mary. The money will go to Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for the needy. "This would be the first Habitat for Humanity house built out of stone," joked Darren Julien, president of Los Angeles-based Julien's Auctions, which handled the sale. Shatner, who played Kirk on the original Star Trek TV show and won the Emmy for his role on Boston Legal, passed the stone last fall. Yeah I know, but we all have to lighten up once in a while.

Saying that the Bush administration’s illegal spying on Americans must end, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency seeking to stop a secret electronic surveillance program that has been in place since shortly after September 11, 2001. “President Bush may believe he can authorize spying on Americans without judicial or Congressional approval, but this program is illegal and we intend to put a stop to it,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson said “President Bush's claim that he is not bound by the law is simply astounding. Our democratic system depends on the rule of law, and not even the president can issue illegal orders that violate Constitutional principles.” President Bush signed an order in 2002 allowing the NSA to monitor the telephone and e-mail communications of "hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States" with persons abroad, without a ...

In New York, on January 17, 2006, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and the heads of the other major security agencies, challenging the NSA’s surveillance of persons within the United States without judicial approval or statutory authorization. As has been widely reported, for over four years the NSA, with the approval of the president, has engaged in a program of widespread warrantless electronic surveillance of telephone calls and emails in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The suit argues that the NSA Surveillance Program violates a clear criminal law, exceeds the president's authority under Article II of the Constitution, and violates the First and Fourth Amendments. As a result, the President violated his oath of office to take care that the laws of this nation are faithfully executed, and instead secretly violated a criminal prohibition du...

Here's one beyond belief. Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor . The soldiers reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action. Recently Dragon Skin became an item of contention between proponents of the Interceptor OTV body armor generally issued to all service members deploying in combat theaters and its growing legion of critics. Critics of the Interceptor OTV system say it is ineffective and inferior to Dragon Skin, as well as several other commercially available body armor systems on the market. Last w...

Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman served four terms in Congress, where she played a key role in the House impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. In this article from the January 30, 2006 edition of The Nation, this proven expert on the subject outlines the many reasons why the impeachment of George Bush is justified. EXCERPTS: "Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress." "Like many others, I have been deeply troubled by Bush's breathtaking scorn for our international treaty obligations under the United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions. I have also been disturbed by the torture scandals and the violations of US criminal laws at the highest levels of our government they may entail." "As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of P...

A picture can be worth a thousand words... a comparison of levees from around the world... will rather shock you...

A space capsule bearing comet and star dust successfully made a parachute landing in the Utah desert before dawn today, completing a seven-year journey of almost three billion miles that could provide clues to the formation of the solar system. The 100-pound sample container from the Stardust spacecraft landed at the Air Force's Utah Test and Training range, southwest of Salt Lake City, at 5:10 a.m. Eastern time. After its launching in 1999, Stardust circled the sun three times and even flew by Earth in 2001 for a gravity boost to rendezvous with comet Wild 2 near Jupiter. The spacecraft came within 149 miles of the comet on Jan. 2, 2004, extended a collector filled with a material called aerogel. This low-density silicon material, called "glass smoke" because it is composed of 99.8 percent air, gently slowed and trapped particles without significantly altering or damaging them. Scientists believe about a million samples of comet and interstellar dust, most of them less...

See how much you know about the man.

Dr. Ira B. Black, a neuroscientist and brain researcher who became an early advocate for stem cell research and a founder of the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Philadelphia. He was 64. Dr. Black argued forcefully that medicine would gain from laboratory research involving stem cells taken from tissue and human embryos. He said the cells derived from embryos, while controversial, could constitute "the gold standard" in repairing damaged nerve cells and developing therapies to treat Alzheimer's disease, cancer and other ailments. In 2000, Dr. Black and others reported that they had succeeded in forming cells similar to neurons from stem cells taken from the bone marrow of humans and rats. The experiment did not use cells derived from embryos, whose destruction in other types of stem cell research has angered abortion opponents. Dr. Black and others later transplanted the newly formed cells into the spinal cords and brains of laboratory r...

Things I'd rather do than clothes shopping: Do my income taxes Talk to an insurance salesman Go to the dentist Visit my proctologist Try to convince my relatives that George Bush is the devil I went clothes shopping with my wife and 10 year old son last weekend. Let me preface this by saying we were actually going to buy shoes and a sweater for me. Here's how it went down: 2:00 pm - I returned some gloves and bought a new shirt at Sears. 2:15 pm - Passed by the women's department after failing in my attempt to convince my wife that leaving the store via the paint department, outside to the garden department and back in through automotive was a short cut. 2:20 pm - Wife says "I just want to look for pants. It won't take long." My son and I look at each other - the terror in our faces is now becoming apparent. 3:00 pm - Wife can't find anything. She says "let's go".

Wal-Mart stirred outrage yesterday when its Web site suggested that shoppers who wanted to buy a "Planet of the Apes" DVD - a cult classic in which the Earth is ruled by gorillas - were routed to four movies about Martin Luther King Jr. , actress Dorothy Dandridge , boxer Jack Johnson and singer Tina Turner . When visitors to Walmart.com plug in the name of a movie they want, the site also pulls up the name of several other "similar items" they might like. "It's outrageous. I've never heard of anything like that," the Rev. Al Sharpton said when he was told of the pairings. "They need to straighten it out, and if they do not clarify what happened, we need to take some action." Wal-Mart said the culprit is a "mapping" program that selects alternate recommendations for each of the thousands of movies it sells online. The process "does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles...

Christian con artist, broadcaster and spawn of Satan Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land." "God considers this land to be his," Robertson said on his TV confidence game show "The 700 Club." "You read the Bible and he says `This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, `No, this is mine.'" Sharon, who ordered Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year, suffered a severe stroke on Wednesday. This is yet another example of how the religious right wackos can sin in the name of the lord. Sharon ordered the Israeli pullout from Gaza and was working towards peace in the middle east and this disrupts Robertson's agenda. Pat Robertson's anti-Israel stance is in keeping with his anti-anything-not-christian beliefs. He wants to see the middle east Muslim countri...

"Consider the evidence: Diseases. Torture. Sadness. Pat Robertson. The overwhelming destructive force of antimatter. Michael Bolton's remake of "When A Man Loves A Woman." Yeah, that's right. The evidence of a Devil-Creator is all around us, staring us in the face with its baleful eyes. Do we dare look away?" This is a great article by RJ Eskow . Anyone who equates Michael Bolton with Satan is ok in my book.