Drinking pesticides for fun and profit

Here’s a subtle clue that your housekeeping might not be the best: after hearing a loud crash in my bedroom during one of Sunday’s earthquakes, I couldn’t figure out what had fallen down.

The fed gov is asking a court to dismiss a suit by a whistle blower who said that Star Wars doesn’t work, and was fired. The gov says that letting her have her day in court would let military secrets out (like the fact that Star Wars doesn’t work, I’m guessing).

Speaking of secrets, Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator of Nebraska, owned the company that ran the voting machines that counted the votes that put him into that office in 1996 in a surprise win (the company threatened to sue someone who found went public). Article on how computerized vote-counting is a black box that leaves no verifiable paper trail. The whole country is now Florida. The Hill reports (there’s a link to the story from the above link) that Hagel failed to disclose his interest in the company, as required by law. His company makes half the voting machines used in the US, and this is very paranoid-making.

So why is Tony Blair, whose pursuit of whatever the latest opinion poll tells him to pursue is legendary, following Bush’s line so assiduously when he can’t even bring the Labour party behind him, much less the British people? I’m thinking Shrub’s got pictures of him tied up and being whipped, possibly by Hillary Clinton. Today, Mr. Blur actually channeled Lyndon Johnson: "History points to this lesson: show weakness now and no one will ever believe us when we try to show strength in the future”.

Guardian on the US’s war in Colombia, and the legalization of new death squads in that country. For the spelling-challenged, this is the nation of Colombia, not the space shuttle Columbia. When Colombia falls apart in a mass of flaming debris, it will not be available at reasonable prices on Ebay.

Bayer paid college students, mostly in Edinburgh, to test out some pesticides. By drinking them. This actually violates the Nuremberg Code. Bayer is a subsidiary of IG Farben, which brought you Zyklon B.