eCigs banned in Oregon

So it appears that clove-flavored eCigs aren't an option either...  The Oregon Attorney General is banning them.

News from the Net

I know, I know... some of you (ahem, Will) feel that I have been shirking my duty to distill the latest news to you on a regular basis.... I'm working on it ;)

Creativity Potentially Linked To Schizophrenia

Gene Causes Memory Loss Before Age 60

For boys who had been through the juvenile justice system, compared to boys with similar histories without judicial involvement, the odds of adult judicial interventions increased almost seven-fold

A breakthrough in OLED technology that reduces the ultra-thin lights' energy consumption by 75%

A radioprotectant that all but eliminates acute radiation sickness even in cases of lethal doses of radiation in tests on rats and monkeys, when injected up to 72 hours after exposure.

Pull out your 3d glasses (the red/blue ones not the polarized clear ones) and start doing some home movies :)

Scuba divers off the Californian city of San Diego are being menaced by large numbers of jumbo squid.

Developing ultrasound blasts to disrupt enemy sonar may sound more like a submarine arms race than animal evolution. But, believe it or not, some moths have done just that to evade hungry bats

For those of you with kids in the Beaverton area, Party in the Park returns Saturday, July 25

South Africans plan to set aside 67 minutes of their time in community service as a symbolic tribute to anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela on his 91st birthday

Wells Fargo

Since I already have a beef with Wells Fargo for refusing to send my bills to my billing address (wtf is it for then?), I literally laughed out loud when I saw this bit of bad publicity they were getting:

From Slashdot:

Extreme economic problems require extreme solutions, and Wells Fargo Bank has come up with a good one. They have decided to sue themselves. Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium that is going into foreclosure. As holder of the first, they are suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is Wells Fargo. It gets better. The company has hired a lawyer to defend itself against its own lawsuit. The defense lawyer even filed this answer to the complaint, "Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property. All other allegations of the complaint are denied." On the website The Consumer Warning Network, Angie Moreschi wrote: "We've apparently reached the perfect storm for complete and utter idiocy by some banks trying to foreclose on homes."

Don't you want a company this smart being in charge of where you live?

Jury of Peers?

So let's start with a quote from Wikipedia:

The definition of obscenity differs from culture to culture, between communities within a single culture, and also between individuals within those communities. Many cultures have produced laws to define what is considered to be obscene, and censorship is often used to try to suppress or control materials that are obscene under these definitions: usually including, but not limited to, pornographic material. As such censorship restricts freedom of expression, crafting a legal definition of obscenity presents a civil liberties issue.

So tell me how a California couple can get prison time for "a felony charge of conspiracy to distribute obscene material through the mail and over the Internet" to Pennsylvania.

First of all, why are Californians being subjected to Pennsylvania law? By that logic, every single person on the internet is committing some crime since some places that read their emails/blogs/posts/etc do not allow free thought (say, China for instance).

Secondly, how can there be a such thing as "federal obscenity statutes" when even according to Wikipedia, the definition of obscene differs between communities or even individuals in a community. I think this is just the type of thing Wikipedia warned of with "civil liberties issue". By this token, I think Oregon should send to prison everyone on the internet that posts a non-liberal comment... anything religious or right-wing should do. Maybe we should start with U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, of the Western District of Pennsylvania for violating Oregonian perceptions of decency.