United States attorneys fired recently under questionable circumstances

Carol Lam, the former United States attorney for San Diego, is smart and tireless and was very good at her job. Her investigation of Representative Randy Cunningham resulted in a guilty plea for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors and a sentence of more than eight years. Two weeks ago, she indicted Kyle Dustin Foggo, the former No. 3 official in the C.I.A. The defense-contracting scandal she pursued so vigorously could yet drag in other politicians.
In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired.

The Reverend Lonnie W. Latham: Do as I Say

The lawyer ( Mack Martin) for a former Baptist church leader who had spoken out against homosexuality said Thursday the minister has a constitutional right to solicit sex from an undercover policeman. The Reverend Lonnie W. Latham had supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their ''sinful, destructive lifestyle'' before his January 3, 2006, arrest outside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City. Authorities say he asked the undercover policeman to come up to his hotel for oral sex.

Drug May Counteract Down Syndrome

From http://www.sciam.com/



Researchers may have finally found a drug candidate for reducing the
mental retardation caused by Down syndrome, which afflicts more than
350,000 people in the U.S. Researchers gave low doses of a human drug
to mice bred to mimic the learning and memory problems in people with
Down syndrome. After as little as two weeks, the impaired mice
performed as well as normal ones in learning tests, and the improvement
lasted for up to two months after treatment ended.

John McCain Visits the Creationists

Tomorrow, John McCain will deliver the keynote address at a luncheon co-hosted by the Discovery Institute. For those who are unaware the Discovery Institute is the Seattle based “think tank” that is responsible for spearheading the religious right’s war on science education.

The Institute is responsible for, among other things, the creationist lesson plan that was proposed in Kansas, the anti-evolution language in the Santorum Amendment to the No Child Left Behind act, and the infamous Wedge Document.

None of our elected officials should lend credence to this organization, especially a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Atheist Experience #486: Creationist Arguments

Atheist Community of Austin
1 hr 30 min 5 sec - Feb 4, 2007
www.atheist-experience.com

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Modulated Light

by Mike Groth VK7MJ and Chris Long.

On the
evening of 19 February 2005 the authors spanned a 167 km
(104 mile) path between Mount Barrow's South peak and Mount Wellington
in Tasmania with
audio modulated light beams. This was the culmination of about 35 years
of
intermittent experiments by the two authors
of this web page, initially individually and later in association. The
suggestion to try the Barrow-Wellington path originated in
a chance comment to Chris Long by Jason Reilly VK7ZJA, that
Mount Wellington was visible from the top of Barrow. Jason is a
technician for Optus, regularly visiting the transmitter site on Mount
Barrow,
otherwise we would never have known that crucial piece of information!
Both
summits are above the 1200 metre contour, and the earth's curvature on
the land
between only accounts for approximately a 600 metre bulge, with
reasonable
clearance all along the path. We were surprised to find that the
expected rapid optical
fading cycles caused by atmospheric turbulence over this long path were
not too
severe,
presumably because the effect rapidly diminishes with elevation.