Friday

  • Work.
  • Took an extended lunch and went to Hut d’Pizza with Julia, Naomi, Rick, Land and Brian.
  • More work.
  • Saw Blade II; here’s the official site, as well. I liked it. They even had a decent recap at the beginning of the movie, in case people had either forgotten what had happened or had not seen the first movie. (note: DC Comics’ The Flash used to do the same sort of thing in every issue: The first caption of the issue was told in first person narrative style: “My name is Wally West. I’m the Flash, the fastest man alive.”) The only bad thing about seeing the movie is that, unlike Bob Uecker, we were in the front row. The VERY front row. The “Hey, let’s look up Wesley Snipes’ nose!” row. That made it a little difficult to follow some of the action shots and camera cuts. But, all in all, it was good.
  • Late night eats at Ghetto Denny’s.
  • Home.

Talk of the Nation – Science Friday: Today’s topics were:

  • Stream Contaminants – about testing that the U.S. Geological Survey did of 139 streams in thirty (30) states.
  • Monkey Thought Control which focused on research done at with monkeys at Brown University. In this study, monkeys actually moved a computer cursor… with thought impulses only. They had been outfitted with a sensor that detected the electrical impulses that govern arm motion and had been wired to move the cursor based on what the actual actions would have been. If this technology is advanced, it could possibly mean huge advances in the field of neuroprosthetics.
  • Anthropology – A new fossil find in Ethiopia adds another piece to the puzzle of human evolution.
  • Human Evolution – “What will the Earth look like thousands of years from now? Will humans be around to see it? In this hour, we’ll talk with geologist and author Peter Ward and artist Alexis Rockman. Their new book Future Evolution, offers their vision of life on Earth in the millennia to come.”¹

All Things Considered topics included:

  • Oregon: Assisted Suicide Hearing – “NPR’s Wendy Kaufman talks to Liane Hansen about today’s hearing in U.S. District Court on the Bush administration’s effort to nullify Oregon’s assisted suicide law. Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to use federal drug laws to prohibit doctors from writing prescriptions for the lethal drugs used in the country’s first legal physician-assisted suicides.”²
  • Britain: Assisted Suicide – “John Ydstie speaks with Helen Studd, from the The Times in London, about a landmark ruling by Britain’s High Court that grants a woman the right to die. What makes this case unusual is the woman, known only as “Miss B.”, is not terminally ill, but is a quadriplegic who can not breathe without mechanical assistance.”³

As Forrest Gump said,”That’s all that I have to say about that.”

Peace.

¹ From the Talk of the Nation website.
²,³ From the All Things Considered website.