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Canada's forgotten weapons of mass destruction. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Canadian navy began to dispose of its surplus chemical weapons by dumping them off the shore of Atlantic Canada. Large quantities of chemical agents, including mustard gas, were loaded onto barges and scuttled at undisclosed locations. Over 50 years later, some of these military dumpsites have become lost due to poor record keeping. With increasing offshore oil exploration and a commercially successful shellfish industry, there's a possibility that these forgotten chemical agents could return to the coasts of "Canada's Ocean Playground".
comment posted at 12:24 PM on Jan-13-03

Join the mission to rig this poll by voting for the red bar. (You can vote a second time by deleting your GuardianUnlimited cookies.)
comment posted at 10:12 AM on Jan-9-03

Federal appeals court rules that the US can hold citizens as enemies, without the protection of constitutional rights, 'at need' in time of war.
So much for the "home of the free and the brave".
comment posted at 9:07 AM on Jan-9-03
comment posted at 1:42 PM on Jan-9-03

some action on global warming in the US senate
mccain and lieberman introduce some long overdue legislation to curb global warming in the US. where's the major media coverage of this? it was nearly 60 degrees here in minnesota today - in january. global warming? nah.
comment posted at 8:43 AM on Jan-9-03

"Just do it. I don't care how." 'In a significant transformation...U.S. Special Operations Command...and its satellite units around the world, can now plan and execute their own hunt-and-destroy missions.' An "Open Order" is a very, very dangerous thing. A real life License to Kill, issued to thousands of men.
comment posted at 10:42 AM on Jan-8-03

The movie Gattaca had a reoccurring theme of "the government and police have a right to your DNA." I thought it was silly sci-fi, decades ahead of reality. It appears I was wrong, as the Lafayette police go door to door taking DNA samples from 50-to-100 citizens in the hunt for a killer.
comment posted at 7:32 AM on Jan-8-03
comment posted at 7:33 AM on Jan-8-03

historical use of medical marijuana for some reason im guessing certain souther baptists will disagree with the assertions of this particular article via newstoday
comment posted at 11:01 AM on Jan-7-03

Whose Side Are You On, Mr. President? The former Dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas, asks the question. I didn't know there was any question about this matter.
comment posted at 9:17 AM on Jan-3-03

African village attacked by vampires. I thought this article was an email hoax until I found it at Yahoo news via AP. Bizarre.
comment posted at 6:13 AM on Dec-27-02

With negotiations breaking down, the Chicago Cubs have decided to sue "rooftop clubs" that sell tickets to watch games on rooftops surrounding Wrigley Field. Apparently the tickets cost between $70-$130. The Cubs are claiming unjust enrichment and public performance of a copyrighted work, due to the "clubs" showing the games to patrons via television. (via the Trademark Blog)
comment posted at 8:34 AM on Dec-20-02

FTC creates national ‘do not call’ list While there have been state lists for quite some time, and some organizations (like the DMA) maintain do-not-call lists requiring members to honor DNC requests, the FCC is now talking about a single, federal list that would require compliance from all telemarketers, and levy fines for non-compliance. Is this the end of telemarketing as we know it today?
comment posted at 10:47 AM on Dec-18-02

At the time of posting, Rotten Tomatoes has 1 'rotten' review and 76 'fresh' reviews for Peter Jackson's The Two Towers. I thought it was a superb film, but I hardly thought it would unite the critics like this. This has got to be one of the most universally praised films of all time!
comment posted at 11:37 AM on Dec-18-02

The Overcrowding Police

Belleville inspectors and armed police officers show up without search warrants to check for occupancy code violations, and ticket people who don't let them in -- a practice experts say is unconstitutional.
.....
Invite friends over, babysit your grandchildren or allow relatives to spend the night in Belleville and you risk an armed police officer turning up at your door to search your home and give you a ticket. Enforcement teams consisting of a housing inspector and a police officer do not obtain search warrants before showing up to check for occupancy code violations, a Belleville News-Democrat investigation found.
comment posted at 1:39 PM on Dec-13-02

Female Victims of Church Scandals Speak. With all the news of Cardinal Law resigning, and the church trying to oust homosexuals from their ranks, I thought this article about the under-reporting of female victims of the scandal was timely.
comment posted at 8:37 AM on Dec-13-02

Busy Marquee. "The idea behind Busy Marquee is very simple and yet very immature: find signs that have interchangable letters, bring your Scrabble skills, and rearrange omnipresent advertising to form Dadaist bits of landscape." My boner is screaming hello!
comment posted at 7:43 AM on Dec-13-02

Is a Christmas gift registry a bad idea? WalMart doesn't think so? However, a manner expert warns that it is "very, very tacky."
comment posted at 8:21 AM on Dec-13-02

It's the ten-year anniversary of NAFTA this week. Has it been a success? [more inside].
comment posted at 8:34 AM on Dec-13-02

Three Strikes Laws May Increase Murder Rates A recent article in the journal Criminology & Public Policy suggests that the politically popular "three strikes" laws may have the perverse effect of causing more murders. Because the sentences for murders and "third strikes" are the same, criminals have an incentive to change their M.O. to murder witnesses and police officers. Maybe using baseball metaphors in determining crime policy isn't such a good idea after all.
comment posted at 5:59 AM on Dec-12-02

Stupid baby names. Parents share suggestions about misbegotten, badly-spelled monikers with which to saddle their innocent offspring for life: I named my daughter Madyson Caite and I regret doing that because every little girl in the last 3 or 4 years has been named Madison. Everyone complements it, but I still hate it. I would rather call her Caite (Kate) but am not sure. Please, everyone, pick something normal for your child. If you choose something different and unique, please don't keep following the trends of Madisons, and Mackenzies, and Taylors, and Destinys. This is getting old.
comment posted at 12:57 PM on Dec-11-02

Enter ... the Rawhide Kid! Marvel is about to unveil the first openly gay gunslinger. Name's the Rawhide Kid. Its creators say it will likely be campy. With a name like that, how could it be anything but?
comment posted at 6:15 AM on Dec-10-02

Will Sir be needing a catchy slogan to go with that acronym?
comment posted at 9:28 AM on Dec-6-02

eight terms in office, one hundred years on earth. he has been a democrat, he has been a republican, and at one time he was a mere three heartbeats away from sitting the oval office. he is senator strom thurmond, and today is his 111th 100th birthday. pushng shadows of ageism aside for a moment, this begs the question: just how old is too old to remain in office?
comment posted at 8:19 AM on Dec-6-02

Reader-submitted designs for the WTC I know I'm going to hell for saying this, but some of these are tremendously funny...
comment posted at 5:56 AM on Dec-5-02
comment posted at 5:58 AM on Dec-5-02

Wal-Mart's Female Trouble
With shopping on many people's minds these days, here's a story detailing charges of worker discrimination practiced at that store everyone knows (it's also America's largest private employer).

An informed consumer is a responsible consumer. Know where your money goes.
comment posted at 3:05 PM on Dec-4-02

"It's a vast departure from the way we've done business," said Donna Harlan, an associate superintendent in the Northampton school system. "We are not in the business of giving lists of names of kids to anybody. That was tough. The issue was if we were to receive federal or state money, we had to comply with the law."
comment posted at 3:57 PM on Dec-2-02

Roswell Smoking Gun? Army General said to be holding document in press photo (Not the one they used obviously) that reveals proof of cover-up: "Using a digital photo scanner to enlarge and enhance words printed on the folded piece of paper Ramey held, and using another computer program to select the most likely words, researcher David Rudiak, who has a Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley, found two key phrases: "the victims of the wreck" and "in the 'disc' they will ship."
comment posted at 5:56 AM on Nov-25-02
comment posted at 7:08 AM on Nov-25-02

Winston Churchill has been voted as the Greatest Briton in a BBC survey. Yes, he gave some great speeches when he needed to, but who gave him the language to make them? Who is missing from the list?
comment posted at 8:22 AM on Nov-25-02

Afterlife Telegrams. For a fee of $10 per word (5 word minimum), our customers can have a telegram delivered to someone who has passed away. This is done with the help of terminally ill volunteers who memorize the telegrams before passing away, and then deliver the telegrams after they have passed away.
comment posted at 7:27 AM on Nov-26-02

Pre-order your Ginger today! Amazon scores exclusive selling rights, apparently.
comment posted at 8:51 AM on Nov-18-02

Victoria Beckham aka Posh Spice is fighting a move by second division Peterborough United to register their nickname POSH as a trademark for it's club merchandise claiming that the nickname is recognised around the world as belonging to her.

The term POSH is widely believed to have originated in the time of the British Raj when P&O passenger ship tickets were marked POSH -Port Out Starboard Home - port (left-hand side) berths were mostly in the shade when travelling out (easterly) and the starboard ones when coming back. So the best and most expensive berths were POSH. Unfortunately P&O say they have never issued such tickets and none have ever been found even though many tickets do exist from the time.

But this page from the US Navy METOC site claims it originated in Boston as a label for the luggage of wealthy passengers travelling from the US to Europe to indicate which side of the ship to place the luggage to protect it from the sun.

Should you be allowed to register a word in common usage as a trademark? If posh goes what word is next.
comment posted at 12:21 PM on Nov-13-02

Reading the 9th Prophecy of the American Hopi Indians has sent a chill in my spine! Some interpretations I have read say that this prophecy is an interpretation of Nasa's Skylab falling back to Earth circa 1979. However when I read this prophecy a few months ago the crash of the World Trade Center immediately popped into my mind! The Hopi's 9th prophecy states "You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash! It will appear as a blue star." "These are the Signs that great destruction is here: The world shall rock to and fro. The white man will battle people in other lands - those who possessed the first light of wisdom. " Is this not our time?
comment posted at 6:27 AM on Nov-11-02

Polo Cited For Forcing Employees To Buy Polo "Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., in a court filing, has denied allegations that it requires store employees to buy and wear the company's clothing at work..." Probably many Mefi readers have had retail jobs, and count me as one of them. At the department store where my mother and I worked, we probably spent about 30% of our wages on the store's merchandise in order to keep up with the dress code. After reading this I see that it might be a widespread practice. Has this happened to you? Is this a trend in how retailers treat their employees? Do you have any other examples?
comment posted at 3:59 PM on Nov-7-02

Welcome to the public library. Please check your rights at the door. The Patriot Act contains provisions that gag librarians when subpoenaed (from a secret court!) for circulation records. Seems like in at least one place, it's already being used. How about your own library?
comment posted at 7:21 AM on Nov-6-02

Go cannabis! As discussed in an earlier Mefi thread, there are a handful of medical marijuana referendums in various states. Possibly the most interesting is Nevada's constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana for medicinal use. It looks like this will become the law of the land (scroll all the way down). Arizona seems to have a few more NARCs (Proposition 203) than it does free-thinkers. In South Dakota, it looks like an industrial hemp initiative (bottom) has failed (Initiated Measure 1). How are the pot-legalization crusaders doing in your own home state?
comment posted at 7:38 AM on Nov-6-02
comment posted at 9:00 AM on Nov-6-02

Rez, a Japanese title for the Playstation 2 that was supposedly inspired by Kandinski's ideas on synaesthesia, comes packaged with a piece of hardware called a "trance vibrator."

Here's an entirely NOT SAFE FOR WORK guide to how one couple came to refer to the game as "Tron on Ecstasy."
comment posted at 1:25 PM on Nov-5-02

A New Constitutional Convention? Well, as we are all aware it's election days. Time to reshape our government as we see fit. And we have an remarkably robust blueprint for our government, one that has stood the test of time. But is it time to change? What would your suggestions be if you were present at a new creation? I know these links have a lefty feel, there what I could find. But I'm interested in reasoned perspectives from left and right. Is this process necessary or desirable? What Would You Do?
comment posted at 1:31 PM on Nov-5-02

Florida Machine Records Votes for Wrong Candidate. OK, I know Matt Drudge isn't exactly a venerated news outlet, but he is in South Florida. And he's reporting that a West Palm Beach voter called in to a South Florida radio talk show to report that when he voted for McBride this morning the machine counted his vote for Bush. After he'd tried three times, the voter said, an observing poll worker finally acknowledged that the machine would have to be reprogrammed, since earlier voters had experienced the same problem. There is no official confirmation of this problem, but calls to the same radio show two years ago evidently foreshadowed the 2000 election debacle. I'll be keeping an eye on sites like Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo as the day wears on. In the end, what should the electorate do (in addition to initiating lawsuits) if outcome-determining irregularities surface in yet another Florida election?
comment posted at 11:43 AM on Nov-5-02
comment posted at 11:45 AM on Nov-5-02

Today, Georgia becomes the first state in the US to have standardized, state-wide electronic voting. Not wanting to be "the next Florida", Georgia spent nearly $60M to go from paper punch cards to touch screens. What's in store, fame or infamy? After using the computer myself and hearing raves from all the sweet old ladies, I'll bet on the former.
comment posted at 11:50 AM on Nov-5-02

'Come Out To Vote On November 6th' In Baltimore, Republicans are accusing Democrats of paying people to canvass African-American neighborhoods on Tuesday. Democrats are accusing Republicans of intimidating minority voters by planning to use members of the Fraternal Order of Police to serve as GOP poll workers. Meanwhile, a flyer being circulated in African-American communities 'reminds' readers to vote on November 6th - but only if all outstanding tickets, warrants, and outstanding rent payments have been paid.
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Nov-5-02

Criminal profilers are racist for not thinking a black man could fire a rifle well enough to be the sniper. They didn't think a black person could be smart enough" to pull off three weeks of terror, driving into very public places, hitting his mark, then eluding all the local, state and federal officers. Wow.
comment posted at 10:39 AM on Oct-30-02

Are Ernie and Bert gay? What is Gonzo? Find out the answers (question 19 and 10, respectively) and more at the Muppet FAQ. Read the profiles of your favorite Muppets like Zoot or Animal. Or maybe you'd be interested in one of the Henson feature creatures and its background. Read about it. Explore the fascinating world of Jim Henson and muppets in general.
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Oct-29-02

Barbers getting snippy with Jesse In a beautiful turnabout, a group of barbers is demanding an apology from Jesse Jackson for his previous call for action against the movie "Barbershop."
comment posted at 1:54 PM on Oct-25-02

Sen. Wellstone's campaign plane crashes in Minnesota. It's not known yet whether the Senator was on board.
comment posted at 2:16 PM on Oct-25-02

Vatican to test if trainee priests are gay. As if the Catholic Church doesn't have bigger concerns. They seem to be trying to throw dirt onto their own graves. Organized religion is SO last millennium. If a gay person really wanted to be a priest, wouldn't it be simple to "pass" a psychological screening? And what self-respecting gay person would want to be a part of something that seeks to exclude him?
comment posted at 7:17 AM on Oct-25-02