:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Friday, April 23, 2004 ::

Yahoo! News - Sweden to Charge Traffic Toll in Capital:

"Motorists will have to pay a toll of between $1.30 and $2.60 to get into increasingly congested Stockholm during a trial period beginning next year, officials said Thursday.

The 13-month trial period will start on June 1, 2005, and end on July 31, 2006, six weeks ahead of a referendum on whether to make the tax permanent.

'The trial period should be long enough for the Stockholmers to get an idea of how it will work and for a serious and scientific evaluation of the trial,' said Annika Billstroem, head of Stockholm's administration.
The different tolls will depend on the time of day a motorist drives into the Swedish capital and are designed to alleviate traffic congestion and stem pollution. Taxis and buses above a certain weight are exempt.

The city plans to install devices around the city to read electronic tags on the cars. Every time a car is registered, a signal will be sent to a central computer, which will bill the owner.
London adopted a similar plan last year, charging motorists on weekdays to enter a crowded, eight-square-mile zone that includes the bustling financial district.

The tolls were hailed as a success by Mayor Ken Livingstone, who in February said they had cut the traffic volume in central London by 18 percent since the program began. "

:: Jim Nichols 4/23/2004 01:24:00 AM [+] ::
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Passion In The Era of Decaffeinated Belief:

"The credentials of those who, even prior to its release, virulently criticize Mel Gibson's new film on the last 12 hours of Christ's life, seem impeccable: are they not fully justified in their worry that the film, made by a fanatic Catholic traditionalist with occasional anti-Semitic outbursts, may ignite anti-Semitic sentiments? More general, is Passion not a kind of manifesto of our own (Western, Christian) fundamentalists and anti-secularists? Is then not the duty of every Western secularist to reject it? Is such an unambiguous attack not a sine qua non if we want to make it clear that we are not covert racists attacking only the fundamentalism of other (Muslim) cultures?"

:: Jim Nichols 4/21/2004 10:49:00 PM [+] ::
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An audience with Jacques Derrida
:

"The atmosphere at the Royal National Hotel in central London on a freezing March night resembles the humming anticipation before a rock legend's gig. Some 850 people are crammed uncomfortably close together. Dozens more sit or stand around the edges of the hall and scores queue outside for returned tickets."

:: Jim Nichols 4/21/2004 10:45:00 PM [+] ::
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Books | The semantic engineer:

"'Some of the most beautiful and deep ideas of the 20th century come from engineering. Certainly in America, engineering is very declassé. It has never had the cachet of physics, or even chemistry. And yet the deep insights of computer science, and a lot of the insights of molecular biology, are fundamentally engineering insights. Thermodynamics, too - a lot of it came from work with steam engines. So I think that thinking about machines, and how to get purpose out of material, has been a wonderful source of insight. I don't think it's an accident that some of the greatest artists of all time have been engineers.' "

:: Jim Nichols 4/21/2004 09:34:00 PM [+] ::
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UC Davis to enroll 10 percent fewer freshman - 2004-04-21 - Sacramento Business Journal:

"The University of California Davis has offered freshman admission to 11 percent fewer California high school students due to a state-mandated cut to UC's freshman enrollment. A total of 15,499 California high school students will be offered admission for fall 2004, compared to 17,418 in fall 2003. "

:: Jim Nichols 4/21/2004 09:05:00 PM [+] ::
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Study to probe genetics of depression: Finding genes linked to mental illness may yield new drugs.:

"A massive project to probe the genetics of depression was launched this week at the Human Genome Meeting in Berlin, Germany. The multinational study aims to aid the development of the novel drugs against the condition."

:: Jim Nichols 4/19/2004 11:17:00 PM [+] ::
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Been watching the Stanley Cup...

tonight....Calgary v. Vancouver... sweet last second goal to put it into OT

:: Jim Nichols 4/19/2004 10:13:00 PM [+] ::
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Politics returns to campuses | csmonitor.com:

"Suddenly, young people matter. More than at any time in recent history, the MTV crowd is capturing the attention of both major parties in a presidential election year. Traditionally, they've been a great source of free labor, foot soldiers willing to stuff envelopes and knock on doors. But few campaigns have spent significant resources on the young, in part because 18- to 24-year-olds have proved unreliable voters, turning out in much lower numbers than their older siblings, to say nothing of their parents and grandparents.

But this year, a combination of factors have converged to put Generation Y on a more equal footing with the Social Security set. First, there's the whole notion of the '50/50' nation. With the country deeply divided, and all but a small percentage already decided, young people have emerged as one of the few large demographics with votes still up for grabs. Then there's the shift from televised persuasion toward more grass-roots mobilization. Studies have long shown that the traditional nasty ads and robo-calls have little impact on students' voting patterns. But grab one by the arm, as Ms. Stollwerk plans to do, sit down and talk to them, and they're far more likely to vote.

Finally, there's some precedent: Youth turnout during the Democratic primary surprised many experts - call it the Generation Dean effect. Young voters' turnout quadrupled in Iowa and was up more than 50 percent in New Hampshire. A newly released survey by Harvard University found that 62 percent of college students say they will 'definitely' vote in November."

:: Jim Nichols 4/19/2004 09:21:00 PM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Ballot Measures Flourish in California:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has championed 'direct democracy' since he was swept into office in an extraordinary recall election last year. But come this fall, he could be confronted with too much democracy for his own liking. "

:: Jim Nichols 4/19/2004 01:59:00 PM [+] ::
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