About two weeks back, the ACLU hosted a one hour long televised debate between ACLU president Nadine Strossen and Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. C-SPAN has posted a podcast of the debate, however, unfortunately, no written transcript is available. I've hand transcribed about fifteen minutes of the program for my own project, and thought there might be some members who would appreciate the posting of it here. Transcript is below the fold:

Starting 14 minutes 13 seconds into recording:

Moderator: But Professor Strossen, there are these other cases --

Strossen: There certainly are, and here we get to the 'but Nino I don't want you to think you're too popular with this group' [referring to a prior discussion about a privacy rights decision in support of the banning of police infrared imaging by helicopter within homes unsuspected of any criminal activity] I think the -- uh -- and I do enormously respect your -- uh -- being here and thank you for the votes that happen to coincide with ACLU positions. Let me zero in on what I think is probably the single biggest difference, and that is although you have a great respect for privacy in the Kyllo case in enforcing the 4th amendment -- uh -- many people, and including those of us in the ACLU who are very distressed at your failure to find within the constitution protection for what we think is at least as important a type of privacy, namely the right of consenting individuals -- mature individuals in their own homes -- to decide what they are going to see, or read, to decide with whom they are going to live, what kind of sexual intimacies or relationships they are going to engage in. Isn't this, in fact, a confluence of the 1st amendment and the 4th amendment. That government should not have the right to criminalize -- uh -- certain materials that we read, and should not have the right to criminalize certain sexual intimacies.

(applause)

15:37 Scalia: Well, that may well be so. I do not take -- I do not take any public view on whether it would be good or bad for government to allow that. That's not the business I'm in. My job is simply to say whether those things that you find desirable are contained in the constitution. Now your -- your -- Washington -- uh -- President said in his remarks before this session that -- uh -- what the ACLU is for is democracy. Right? --

Strossen: -- I thought you would like that. --

16:11 Scalia: -- You thought I would like that. -- I'm in the business of enforcing the laws. What democracy means is that on controversial issues -- even stuff like homosexual rights, abortion, whatever -- we debate with each other, and persuade each other, and vote on it. Either our representatives, or through a constitutional amendment in the states, we decide the question. Now, there are some exceptions to that. In any liberal democracy -- and in ours most of those exceptions are contained in the bill of rights. But that bill of rights was adopted by the majority. Which is why it is proper in a democracy to have a bill of rights, because the majority adopted it. Now when they adopted it, what did they take out of that general principle -- what did they take out of that general rule of democracy, that we allow open speech, we persuade each other, and we vote -- what did they take out of it? They never took out these issues! Abortion, homosexual conduct, what -- nobody ever thought that they had been included in the rights contained in the Bill of Rights, which is why -- uh -- abortion, and homosexual sodomy were criminal for two hundred years. Now whether that's a good idea or a bad is -- is -- not what I'm talking about. That's not my job to say that. It is my job to say whether the Bill of Rights has taken it out of the realm of democratic debate. Just because you feel strongly about it, it isn't necessarily in the Bill of Rights.

17:39 Strossen: As -- as -- you rightly say, the -- uh -- constitution included an amendment process, and the ACLU's defense of rights does not stop with the Bill of Rights, nor does the constitution. Fortunately, the constitution was amended after the Civil War, to create equality rights, and rights for African Americans, and others who had been excluded under the original constitution, and it is the 14th amendment -- as you know, Nino, we agreed we would be on a first name basis since we usually are -- uh, that you understand, Nino, that the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment has been interpreted by -- I think you are the sole exception in the modern court, to refuse to find that as a source of protection for implied fundamental rights. Going back to the nineteenth century, Supreme Court justices have recognized -- uh -- that that carved out an area free from government regulation, and that area has always included basic decisions about our own bodies, our own relationships, and what we do in our own homes.

18:47 Scalia: Well, whoever said that was wrong. Uh, (laughter) you have a text that says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law. That's not a guarantee of any right, it's not a guarantee of life, of liberty, or of property -- you can be deprived of all three of them, but not without due process. And I will enforce the due process clause when what it is directed to are the procedures of trial -- procedures that are necessary to deprive you of life, liberty, or property. But to say that there is within that due process clause some substantive right to abortion -- or to anything else -- I mean, words have no meaning if you begin to talk like that. And when words have no meaning, a democracy cannot function -- because that is how we express the people's will, through words. So, -- now -- you may say -- and you may be right -- that -- I'm not the only one on the modern court, that at least Clarence Thomas is not a fan of so-called substantive due process, which is a contradiction, and, frankly, more and more law professors are abandoning substantive due process because it is such an obvious contradiction in terms.

(crosstalk)

20:00 Strossen: It's interesting that on the modern court, the very first justice to read the due process clause as protecting the right of individuals to choose to use contraception was a Republican justice, the very revered John Marshal Harlan, but let's come at it from another perspective Nino --

20:18 Moderator: -- Actually, before you do, may I ask you (Justice Scalia) to explain --

20:20 Scalia: to explain whether I would change my mind?

20:24: Strossen: (laughter) May I please make another point?

20:26 Moderator: I was just going to ask Justice Scalia to explain what "substantive due process" means.

20:29 Strossen: Oh. That there are -- um -- affirmative (laughter) He doesn't -- um -- he doesn't believe in it, how could he explain it! (laughter)

20:38 Moderator: He knows what it is! (laughter) Well, whoever would like to explain it.

20:41 Scalia: I don't believe in anarchy either, but I'm (laughter) -- go ahead!

20:49 Strossen: I wanted to start from the opposite perspective, that -- uh Nino, let's put aside what the Due Process clause does or doesn't say. We are a government of limited powers, and unless the framers gave a power to the government the presumption is that we as individuals have that freedom that government may not intrude upon. Where in the constitution does the government have the power to tell free individuals -- adults -- what we may or may not do in the privacy of our own homes with our own bodies, and with those we choose to live with?

(applause)

21:28 Scalia: Nadine, you're appealing to some natural law --

21:31 Strossen: -- Yes! --

21:32 Scalia: I don't know that -- uh -- that I've been appointed to apply natural law, I apply the limitations upon democracy that the American people have adopted. And as long as those are not infringed, the constitution hasn't been violated. It's not up to me to decide -- you know -- what ought the equal protection of the laws to mean. There's a lot of things it could mean, it could mean that in all public buildings you need unisex toilets. Now, you know, does it mean that? No, it doesn't. Why doesn't it? Because nobody ever thought that's what it meant.

22:08 Strossen: Well, let say what that --

22:09 Scalia: -- And, in 1919, when, when, when women's right to vote -- uh -- came up, nobody thought the supreme court would suddenly say 'equal protection of the laws means women suddenly have the right to vote' that's not how it was done! We amended the constitution because it was very clear that when the equal protection clause was adopted nobody thought that it prohibited discrimination in the franchise on the basis of sex, on the basis of literacy, on the basis of property. So the American people did what you do in a democracy, they amended the constitution --

22:45 Strossen: -- Nino, in --

22:46 Scalia: -- and that's the way all this other stuff ought to be brought in.

22:48 Strossen: But when the equal protection clause was adopted, nobody thought that it would outlaw racially segregated schools, nobody thought that it would outlaw interracial marriages. And fortunately, the United States Supreme Court did have an evolving interpretation of the equal protection clause that did read it as prohibiting those vile practices.

23:14 Scalia: Well, that's fine. The question is whether that's right. The question is whether, whether, you can live with an evolving constitution. Once you say it evolves, it doesn't depend what the people thought they were doing when they adopted it -- it evolves. Somebody is going to have to decide how it evolves. Why in the world would you want nine people from a very uncharacteristic class of society -- to whit, nine lawyers -- to decide how the constitution evolves? It means whatever they think it ought to mean!

23:44 Strossen: I would want it for the very same reason that I'm happy that we are not a pure democracy, that the framers of the original constitution -- and certainly of the 14th amendment recognized that there are some rights that are so fundamental that no majority can take them away from any minority; no matter how small and unpopular that minority might be. And who is better positioned to represent and defend and be the ultimate backstop for rights of individuals and minorities than those who are not directly accountable to the electoral process? Namely, federal judges.

(applause)

24:21 Scalia: Well, you know, try putting that in the text. If that was the deal, it should have been in there. How many people would have voted for it? It would have read -- uh -- the phrases within the constitution that have generalized meaning, due process of law, equal protection under the law and so forth, do not mean what they mean today, but rather, they will mean whatever an unelected committee of nine lawyers, known as the Supreme Court, thinks they ought to mean from time to time. Who in the world would vote for government by such an aristocracy? I can't imagine.

25:00 Strossen: This is what the broad textured clauses of the constitution themselves say, Nino. By definition, the framers could have chosen very specific language, and they did, in certain clauses, so one has to assume that they deliberately chose capacious language -- to quote your colleague, or to paraphrase your colleague Justice Kennedy in Lawrence vs. Texas -- if they had intended to confine the meaning of the due process clause to very specific rights, they were capable of writing such specific language but they did not pretend to know what meaning would be appropriate as society evolved. And that was a clarion call for future generations to expand -- hopefully, we're coming closer and closer to what was the aspiration of the Declaration of Independence but far from the reality of equal rights for all under the law in this country.

(applause)

26:05 Scalia: Nadine, language can be capacious without implying that its meaning changes in the future. When they said 'due process of law' they meant those rights of Englishmen in 1791. And the reason they didn't set them forth in detail is because it would have taken a casebook this fat! Of course they couldn't list them all. So they said 'due process of law' which meant something different in France in 1791, or in Hawaii in 1791, but they knew what it meant in America -- it meant, that process which was the right of Englishmen. There's no necessity to say, 'oh, and they invited the Supreme Court to give this thing new meaning' -- whatever new meaning this Supreme Court thinks is a good idea in the future. Someday, Nadine, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court --

26:57 Strossen: -- I think that day has come! (laughter) --

26:58 Scalia: And you're going to regret what you've done.

27:02 Strossen: I think that for those who would conserve the original meaning of the constitution, I think that would be fine. But Nino, do you think that the Supreme Court was wrong in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954? As the court itself has acknowledged, it clearly was not the intent of the framers of the 14th amendment to outlaw racially segregated public schools.

27:23 Scalia: I don't know. It -- uh -- I think, Harlan, when he dissented in Plessy, had the better of the argument, as far as I'm concerned, and I think that would have led to the same result in Brown. But even if you assume that -- yes -- suppose, I have to say yes, Brown was wrong -- which I don't think I do -- but even if I did, what does that prove? I will stipulate that if you have an aristocratic supreme court, who changes the constitution whenever the Supreme Court thinks it's a good idea, you'll get some good stuff! I mean, a king would give you some good stuff. But -- you know -- the untidy process of democracy will not produce. But that doesn't prove it's a good system, just because now and then it gives you good results.

Dale Klein, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was interviewed on C-SPAN's Newsmakers this last Sunday on October 22nd, 2006. Regarding twenty nine recent pending license requests for the construction of new nuclear power plants in the US, he stated that there will be a nuclear renaissance in the United States:

"I do believe that we will see license applications in 2007 and we are looking - we have expressions of intent from a lot of the utilities indicating up - as I said, up to about 29 new nuclear plants. So I believe that there will be a [nuclear] renaissance in the United States."

The interview covered a broad range of nuclear issues, such as: Licenses and permits for pending US nuclear power plant construction, nuclear waste reclamation and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the threat of terrorism against nuclear electric generation facilities, as well as the scope of citizen involvement in the regulatory process. He was interviewed by Cox News reporter Jeff Nesmith and George Lobsenz of Energy Daily, with the event being hosted by C-SPAN's Susan Swain.

Pending Nuclear Power Plant Licenses

Both Lobsenz and Nesmith directly questioned Klein on the issue of new nuclear power plant construction within the United States. Citing the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (full text of legislation), which provides billions of dollars in incentives for the construction of new nuclear power plants through tax credits and loan guarantees, Klein said that the NRC had received twenty-nine 'expressions of intent' from the nuclear industry to build new nuclear power plants throughout the country. Further, he stated that worldwide, there are "... 140 plants either under construction or being planned."

Klein referred to Department of Energy projections which indicate a 50% increase in electrical demand by 2025, along with environmental concerns over global climate change due to carbon emissions, as principal reasons for the reconsideration of nuclear power generation. Currently the United states generates about 20% of its electrical capacity from 104 nuclear power plants. However, private funding availability for nuclear power generation isn't certain, with Lobsenz noting that:

"There's a lot of questions on Wall Street about whether they want to invest in a nuclear plant. I think if you talk to the industry they'll tell you, well, we're going to iron out all the kinks in the regulatory process and building these plants with the first six plants and after that it will be more like a cookie cutter and these plants will be a lot cheaper to build and a lot quicker to build.

I think a lot of people need a lot of convincing on that, particular the money men."

Nuclear Waste Reclamation and Yucca Mountain

Speaking to the issue of the upcoming Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility and nuclear waste reclamation, Klein appeared to contradict long standing US policy against the use fast breeder reactors to reclaim and extend the life of nuclear fuel stock. Calling it "recycling," and noting the large number of nations that already reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Klein suggested it might be a wise policy decision:

"France currently recycles, Japan is recycling, Russia will recycle, United Kingdom recycles. And so there is a lot of experience in the recycling era. Whether that's a viable option for the United States will be a policy decision."

This is in contrast to longstanding US policy against the construction of fast breeder reactors, going back to former President Jimmy Carter's 1977 veto of the Department of Energy Authorization Bill on several grounds, one of which being that it funded the construction of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. Since then, no new fast breeder reactors have been proposed on US soil for commercial fuel reclamation.

One of the principal concerns over the use of breeder technology is that it converts non-weapons grade nuclear waste from uranium into highly radioactive plutonium, which can then be used in the construction of a nuclear weapon. However, reclamation would also stretch out the expected life of a limited nuclear resource, and in the process, reduce the amount of radioactive waste that would need to be stored at Yucca Mountain. As Mr. Nesmith noted, one of the primary arguments against construction of the Yucca Mountain facility is the problem of transporting large amount of nuclear waste cross country for storage.

Threat of Terrorism

Dr. Klein did not speak long on the threat of terrorism against nuclear electric generation facilities, such as crashing a jet airliner into a nuclear power plant (warning: PDF; google cache html version), however, he did address the subject after several direct questions were posed. Lobsenz asked, within the context of 9/11:

"However, the NRC has said that in doing environmental reviews of new plants it will not be looking at possible impacts from terrorism. And I think that there's been a contrary court decision questioning the NRC's position on this. And I guess the question I would have for you is, this is clearly an issue that's in the public's mind about nuclear plants. And if you don't have a public dialog in the course of doing an environmental review, how are you going to address this public concern? Shouldn't there be a public dialog in relation to the building of these new plants about what would happen if there is a terrorism attack and maybe you could even reassure the public somewhat that something is being done?"

Dr. Klein responded by pointing out that the specific issue being questioned had to do with a dry cast storage facility at Diablo Canyon. He then offered a to sooth concern about the potential threat, saying that "...nuclear power plants are examined for terrorist activities. We take that very seriously. We have a very robust program."

Nesmith, noting that the National Academy of Sciences report on nuclear power plant terrorism was less optimistic of US defenses, asked if a plant-by-plant review of safety procedures, as the report recommended, due to it's finding (his words): "that it's only a matter of time before a determined, well-equipped terrorist crashes an airliner into one of these plants and releases a large amount of radioactivity."

Dr. Klein assured Nesmith that such a review had been conducted, "Yes. We do have a very robust plant-by-plant analysis both for pressurized water reactors, boiling water reactors. We have a very detailed assessment."

Scope of Public Participation

Lobsenz also discussed with Dr. Klein the scope of public participation, and limit thereof. Noting that the only means for public participation the review process was through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), he asked about security requirements in disclosing information to the public. Dr. Klein responded:

"In terms of the public's participation, because of the security requirements that are there, there are certain things that we don't go into a lot of detail on how we address security for obvious reasons. The terrorist get too many hints the way it is. So we don't want to provide a lot of information about how we address that, but I can assure you we do look at safety, security and reliability and we are addressing potential terrorist threats in a very robust and effective way."

How this addresses public concern for reactor safety, or what other venues might be opened for the public, was not addressed. However, it would appear that a good deal of thought has been put into place to prevent a new resurgence of the anti-nuclear movement so popular back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Conclusions

Based upon this interview one can reasonably assert several statements of fact:

• The Bush Administration is vigorously promoting a dramatic expansion of nuclear power generation throughout the United States. There are 29 pending 'expressions of interest' for licenses to construct new plants. And there are 140 plant facilities on the drawing board or currently in construction throughout the world.
• A policy review of fast breeder reclamation technology appears to be underway, with the likelihood of a transition away from opposition to new breeder facilities as set by former President Carter.
• Dr. Klein acted to assure the public that the threat against nuclear power plants from terrorism is being handled with all due diligence. Even as the two reporters directly questioned him about a NAS report that suggests the threat is real and highly dangerous.
• The limits to public participation in regulating the nuclear industry are in the form of EPA procedures, thereby forcing all concerns to fit within the framework of environmental concerns. Terrorism, and other issues, are apparently not relevant issues for public participation.

Based upon this interview one might reasonably ask: is the threat from global warming due to human carbon emissions greater than the threat of radioactive contamination due to a nuclear accident or terrorist attack? Is the transition to promoting nuclear fuel reclamation through a new class of fast breeder reactors a wise policy move, or a dangerous one considering its nuclear proliferation potential? And what should the scope of public involvement be for future nuclear regulation?

All worthy questions. The answers, however, are far more difficult to discern.

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Text Copyright ©2006 J. Maynard Gelinas.
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In a joint announcement, both NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) have released findings from the Aura satellite which shows that from September 21st through the 30th of 2006, the Antarctic ozone hole was the largest ever recorded.

"From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America.

Ozone, or O3, is simply three oxygen atoms formed into a single triatomic molecule. It is far less stable than O2, and as such is present in fairly low concentrations throughout the atmosphere. However, in the stratosphere, ozone concentrations act to filter out high energy ultraviolet light from the sun. Known as the ozone layer, without this filtering mechanism, sufficient quantities of ultraviolet light will damage skin by sunburn, and can even lead to a variety of skin cancers. A complete destruction of the earth's ozone layer would be an environmental disaster, likely leaving the planet uninhabitable for most plant and animal life.

The story of ozone begins in the 1930s, when English physicist Sidney Chapman first formulated a theory of atmospheric ozone creation and destruction known as the Ozone Cycle. However, instrument measurements of the actual atmospheric ozone content showed a significant discrepancy between the ozone density as recorded compared to calculations done using his theory. Atmospheric physicists were perplexed until the early 1970s when three atmospheric physicists, Professors Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina, and F. Sherwood Rowland, each began to explore this discrepancy from different angles.

Professor Crutzen, in 1970, untangled a link between certain soil microorganisms and ozone destruction, determining that these bacteria release nitrogen oxides which react as a catalytist to destroy ozone. In 1974 professors Molina and Sherwood then published a study in Nature showing a connection between chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals in widespread use throughout industry as a refrigerant, in plastics and insulation production, and -- most well known -- as a supposedly inert gas to pressurize spray cans, could break down and destroy ozone in the stratosphere.

Their work showed that CFCs, while inert in the lower atmosphere, could float up to the stratosphere, then react strongly with ambient ultraviolet light to break down into chlorine, which would then act to break down ozone. Newly created instruments then detected measurable global atmospheric CFC content throughout the world. While industry leaders downplayed the situation, by the late 1970s near worldwide concern of the use of CFCs led some to suggest a worldwide ban on CFC production. In 1996 the three won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work.

By 1983 the predictions of declining atmospheric ozone were alarmingly confirmed when Joseph Farman (Dr. BBC interview of Dr. Farman on the discovery), a British Antarctic survey scientist, discovered a curious ozone hole in the stratosphere while collecting atmospheric data in the Antarctic. At first he and his colleges "... doubted the validity of their own measurements ..." however their work was "... was quickly confirmed by measurements from satellites and from other Antarctic research stations." (7th paragraph) Due to graphic imagery from NASA and NOAA weather satellites, the story soon made its way to the popular press -- as shown by this old 1987 Time Magazine article. By 1985 the ozone hole was widely understood to be growing in size for reasons unknown, and was considered a serious environmental threat worth serious inquiry.

In 1986, Susan Soloman, a senior scientist with NOAA, along with several others, proposed the first model to explain why ozone above Antarctica might decline to nearly nothing in a yearly cycle of ozone accumulation and destruction, while remaining of fairly consistent (if declining) density in the stratosphere throughout the rest of the world. She suggested it was the extreme cold of Antarctic atmospheric conditions, due to higher than normal sulfuric acid concentrations in stratospheric clouds, that reacted with CFCs to increase ozone destruction beyond the already understood destructive component of ultraviolet light. (11th paragraph)

Due to longstanding concerns about CFCs, and the severity of the data collected, action was swift. In 1987 the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty banning CFC production, was opened for signature and finally ratified by the United States in 1989. Since then most nations worldwide have followed suit, due to the alarming dangers of continued ozone depletion.

Weather satellites of varying capacity have been tracking the situation ever since, the latest of which is known as Aura. It creates daily maps of ozone density, providing a nice detailed image of ozone density over time. It is this satellite, and it's Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), which collected the data from September 21st to the 30th. What it found is alarming. According to the press release, the instrument recorded that the hole itself comprised 10.6 million square miles, compared to an expected 8.9 - 9.3 million miles. Further, on October 9th, balloon and satellite had "...plunged to 93 DU (Dobson Units) from approximately 300 DU in mid-July..." (5th paragraph). The Dobson Unit is a measure of atmospheric ozone concentration.

David Hoffman was quoted in the press release:

"These numbers mean the ozone is virtually gone in this layer of the atmosphere," said David Hofmann, director of the Global Monitoring Division at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. "The depleted layer has an unusual vertical extent this year, so it appears that the 2006 ozone hole will go down as a record-setter."

Fortunately, scientists do believe the ozone hole is nearing the apex of its increasing size. Due to reductions in worldwide CFC gas production, scientists believe it "...is estimated to annually very slowly decrease in area by about 0.1 to 0.2 percent for the next five to 10 years." (11th paragraph) But the long half-life of ozone depleting chemicals can last for as many as 40 years. Meaning constant satellite vigilence of the ozone hole may be necessary for decades, perhaps even centuries, to come.

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Text Copyright ©2006 J. Maynard Gelinas.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

The Guardian reports on a series of recent studies showing that feeding vitamin and Omega 3 fatty acid supplements may decrease violence among repeat offenders by as much as 37%. These results are leading researchers, and some psychiatrists, to conclude that at least some violent outbursts and other mental disorders are the result of vitamin and essential fatty acid deficiency.

For decades nutritionists discounted the notion that the type of oil one consumes has any impact on health. That is, until cardiologists discovered a strong causative link between high cholesterol blood serum levels and heart disease. For years heart patients were encouraged to reduce fat intake in order lower cholesterol levels, until further research untangled the distinction between High Density Lipoprotein and Low Density Lipoprotein, showing that not all cholesterol acts alike in affecting human health.

Cholesterol is just one of many lipids (fats) that act as an essential cellular building block. Like a brick forming only part of a wall, these fats form portions of the cell membrane - that division between the inside and outside of a cell that must both allow essential nutrients in, while blocking dangerous particles out. Thus, the story between cholesterol and heart disease is not one of a dangerous oil invading our bodies to make us sick, but instead one of a critical life-sustaining cellular building-block, that, in some circumstances, can lead to a blood serum lipid imbalance that then, over the long term, is believed to cause atherosclerosis and finally general cardiovascular disease (heart disease).

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So what does this have to do with Omega 3 fatty acids? Well, one might reasonably argue that the state of research into Omega 3s is at about where the research into cholesterol was in the 1970s: Like the discovery that rickets is caused by either a vitamin D or a calcium deficiency, so researchers are discovering tantalizing links between Omega 3 dietary consumption and mental health. For example, results from the Oxford-Durham study indicate that Omega 3 supplementation helps young children with dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder:

Conclusions: Fatty acid supplementation may offer a safe efficacious treatment option for educational and behavioral problems among children with DCD. Additional work is needed to investigate whether our inability to detect any improvement in motor skills reflects the measures used and to assess the durability of treatment effects on behavior and academic progress.

Further, in a recent randomized trial of severely uni-polar depressed patients that supplementing with Omega 3 fatty acids generated "... significant benefits ..." for those who received the supplement and not a placebo.

RESULTS: Highly significant benefits of the addition of the omega-3 fatty acid compared with placebo were found by week 3 of treatment.

Though they do note that since the patients were also taking Lithium, it is impossible to determine whether the benefit from supplementing Omega 3 fatty acids acted alone, or in conjunction, with the drug.

Pubmed has an abstract of the study referred to in the Guardian article, which says:

Mechanisms by which aggressive and depressive disorders may be exacerbated by nutritional deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids are considered. Early developmental deficiencies in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) may lower serotonin levels at critical periods of neurodevelopment and may result in a cascade of suboptimal development of neurotransmitter systems limiting regulation of the limbic system by the frontal cortex. Residual developmental deficits may be manifest as dysregulation of sympathetic responses to stress including decreased heart rate variability and hypertension, which in turn have been linked to behavioral dysregulation. Little direct data are available to disentangle residual neurodevelopmental effects from reversible adult pathologies. Ensuring optimal intakes of omega-3 fatty acids during early development and adulthood shows considerable promise in preventing aggression and hostility.

So, given recent recent findings of a psychiatric benefit for some in consuming Omega 3s, it should not come as a surprise that there may also be a link to other, more violent, behavior disorders. And this is exactly what this recent research would appear to indicate.

The Guardian article describes a study conducted at UK prison trial at Aylesbury jail showing that violent offenders "...fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences they committed in the prison fell by 37%." This is an astonishing number. As the article states that these findings:

... [call] into question the very basis of criminal justice and the notion of culpability. It suggests that individuals may not always be responsible for their aggression. Taken together with [this] study in a high-security prison for young offenders in the UK, it shows that violent behaviour may be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies.

The article is careful to note that not all violence is caused by nutritional deficiencies; this is not a panacea that will rid the world of violence. But in understanding how nutritional deficiencies can cause certain mental disorders, the psychiatric community may soon be better able to tailor combinations of drug and nutritional supplements to better treat patients.

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But what is the underlying causative action? That is, why do Omega 3s impact mental health just as other forms of cholesterol affect heart health? Scientists are currently only able to offer an educated guess. However, there are some facts that lead these guesses to be considered good speculation.

To understand their thinking, one must also understand the differences between various lipids and their relationship to how the body processes them. Omega 3 is a polyunsaturated fat, or a fat with two or more structural points able to support hydrogen bonds that are currently unconnected. This leaves the carbon bond chains weak with respect to trans-saturated fats like animal fat, and is one reason why monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats tend to remain liquid at lower temperatures than trans-saturated fats. Thus, Omega 3 is one of many polyunsaturated fat (the type of fats most physicians recommend patients consume for heart health).

However, Omega 3 is not the whole story. Like how cholesterol lipids are separated into High Density and Low Density Lipoproteins, so are the essential Omega 3 fatty acids broken down into three sets called: alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). As the Wikipedia article states, what makes these lipids Omega 3, as opposed to Omega 6 or Omega 9 fatty acids is that:

... omega-3 (aka "n-3", "-3") signifies that the first double bond exists as the third carbon-carbon bond from the terminal methyl end () of the carbon chain.

And speculates that the carbon ordering may explain certain relationships to cell membrane health:

Structurally, omega-3 fatty acids are helically twisted, because every cis- double bond, separated by a methylene group, changes the carbon chain's direction. This configuration may explain a host of biological phenomena observed in structures that are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane.

-----------------------------------

It is without a doubt that these lipids are essential to proper metabolic functioning. But that doesn't explain why these studies are showing nutritional deficiencies in the industrialized world. Rickets is rarely found outside of the poorest of the developing nations, so why are researchers finding that Omega 3 deficiencies are a common occurrence even in the western world? Current speculation revolves around the radical change in human diet throughout the western world over the last one hundred years.

The three Omega 3 fatty acids (ALA, EPA, and DHA) are called essential because the human liver cannot synthesize these lipids on its own, they must be consumed directly. Currently, the best source of Omega 3s comes from certain types of cold water fish, such as salmon, herring, or mackerel. Oil from some plant seeds, such as flax, chia, and hemp offer ALA, one of the three Omega 3s. It is believed that ALA may then be processed by the liver into EPA and DHA, however, this assertion is debated by others. For example, some claim that the conversion rate efficiency is so poor as to make consumption of only flax seed unable to meet the body's need for the two other essential lipids. Which leaves fish as the only other primary source of Omega 3s.

Yet, according to the United Nations, worldwide fish stocks are at an all time low due to rampant overfishing.

According to a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 70% of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. The dramatic increase of destructive fishing techniques worldwide destroys marine mammals and entire ecosystems. FAO reports that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing worldwide appears to be increasing as fishermen seek to avoid stricter rules in many places in response to shrinking catches and declining fish stocks.

So, assuming that these studies are correct, just as we discover a serious mental health impact due to a widespread dietary deficiency, the very fish species needed to treat this nutritional deficiency are also depleted throughout oceans worldwide. Which brings up the question: If there are not enough fish to supply a proper nutritional balance of Omega 3 throughout the world, who will be the ones to receive the benefit of this research? While one can't say for sure, it is reasonable to conclude: it won't be the poor:

The consequences [of current trends] could be dire, depending on whether supply gains are feasible," says Mahfuzuddin Ahmed, a co-author of the study, which was done by the Penang-based WorldFish Center and the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute. But a continuation of those gains--which have produced a sixfold rise in total fish catch since the 1950s--is doubtful, says his boss, center director Meryl Williams, because three-quarters of the current catch comes from fish stocks that are already overfished, if not depleted. "Those [who study] the population dynamics of fisheries would probably be pessimistic" about supplies, she says.

As one of the researchers quoted in the Guardian article concludes:

Gesch believes we should be rethinking the whole notion of culpability. The overall rate of violent crime in the UK has risen since the 1950s, with huge rises since the 1970s. "Such large changes are hard to explain in terms of genetics or simply changes of reporting or recording crime. One plausible candidate to explain some of the rapid rise in crime could be changes in the brain's environment. What would the future have held for those 231 young men if they had grown up with better nourishment?" Gesch says.

If the poor can't afford the necessary nutrition to stave off certain mental health problems that can lead to violent outbursts, are these criminals due for a proper prison sentencing or patients in need of a proper diet?

---
Text Copyright ©2006 J. Maynard Gelinas.

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Article and updates archived at daduh.org.

Democratic Governor Tom Vilsack was invited to speak at a Council on Foreign Relations symposium on energy security. Vijay Vaitheeswaran, of The Economist, presided over the speech and question and answer session. An audio podcast of the event is available, as well as a rush transcript.

Governor Vilsack has a history of supporting alternative energy proposals, particularly those that benefit his home state of Iowa. In his official bio, published at the state sponsored Iowa governor's website, it says:

Governor Vilsack has worked to build a sustainable energy infrastructure within the state. During his two terms, energy generation capacity has increased 20% including the development of the country's largest wind farm. Iowa now leads the nation in producing ethanol, with total production increasing by almost 300% in the past five years. Due to the governor's initiatives, Iowa not only feeds, it also fuels the nation.

But such a statement doesn't offer the nitty gritty details. At the CFR event, however, he does make several specific proposals worth considering.

Given recent high gas prices, interest in alternatives is at an all time high. Thus, it should be no surprise given that "... agriculture accounts for 10 percent of all Iowa jobs and 10.2 percent of the state's gross product ..." (Iowa State University, College of Agriculture), that Governor Vilsack would propose a drastic increase in ethanol production. It benefits a large and important constituency in his home state. Yet beyond the self-serving nature of his proposals, are some fascinating claims and proposals to bolster his argument. In detail, he argues for a multipoint program of scientific R&D, rethinking tariffs and subsidies, increased alternative energy production, and renewed conservation - all toward the goal of energy independence.

Production:

• Transition to switchgrass and waste cellulose from corn, with a more than six-fold increase in per-acre productivity:
   

  "Today, an acre of corn produces roughly 400 gallons of ethanol. Tomorrow, an acre of switch grass can produce 2,700 gallons of ethanol."

Conservation:

• Increase CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy):
   

  "The reality is that the national government needs to sit down with the auto industry, and the unions need to sit in a room and suggest and indicate that the CAFE standards of today are not adequate for the challenges of tomorrow."

• A carbon emissions trading policy, as well as carbon sequestration, to promote coal use while meeting the needs to thwart the threat of global climate change:
   

  "... we should embrace what California's doing and what Colorado is considering--establishing a national carbon-trading system and sequestration program--so that we can embrace and utilize coal in a more reasonable fashion ..."

• Governor Vilsack argues that by promoting a wide-ranging set of energy generation and conservation alternatives we could generate a unity of purpose among the American people that does not exist today by:
   

  "... ask[ing] every single American to participate in this--everyone can have a role, everyone can play a significant part. We can establish a sense of community and unity in this country that does not exist today. We can provide common purpose."

E85 Transition Investment:

• Encourage fast transition to E85 (85% ethanol fuel mix) through the use of car conversion kits, rather than waiting out the 14 year life-cycle of most cars:
   

  "We also have to recognize that our fleet is roughly 14 years old. In other words, cars basically cycle through the process about every 14 years. And so that's going to be important for us if we're going to embrace renewables and if we're going to embrace conservation, to encourage folks to convert their engines to engines that can use E85. A small kit, a small amount of labor, could really accelerate our embracing of this opportunity."

Tariffs and Subsidies:

• Rethinking our sugar tariffs with Brazil in order to import ethanol:
   

  "...we should rethink our tariffs in connection with Brazilian ethanol."

• And that, along with that rethinking our agriculture and gasoline subsidies. First, he argues that gasoline is already heavily subsidized, thus to claim excess agriculture subsidies for ethanol production ignores gasoline subsidies already in place. He argues that to solve this the subsidy for both ethanol and gasoline should be given to retailers and not producers:
   

  "I would suggest that we take a look at changing the subsidy on ethanol and renewable fuel production to a subsidy that goes to the retailers."

• Further, to solve the agriculture subsidy problem, he argues for an inverse ethanol subsidy pegged to the price of gasoline - the higher the price of gas the less the subsidy:
   

  "I would suggest that this subsidy be a floating subsidy that would be tied to the value of the price of oil. As the price of oil goes up, there is really no need to subsidize ethanol production. As the price of oil goes down, there may very well be a need in order to maintain and retain this industry as a viable option for energy security."

Research and Development of new technologies:

• Research and development of new super-light and superstrong building materials (for example, new materials based on Metallic Glass or Carbon Nanotubes - though he did not cite these as specific examples):
   

  "We also need to challenge our universities and our companies to embrace and renew and extend research and development on new materials. The fact is that we ought to be doing more in trying to figure out precisely what kind of materials can be created that are lighter, stronger, better, using less energy to transport and propel people. Sixty-eight percent of our energy costs are about transportation. If we can figure out more efficient, better materials for transportation, we can obviously become more energy secure."

• Researching new, safer, nuclear technologies that could be used both here and abroad:
   

  "We should also challenge this country to come up with strategies and technologies that allow us to produce nuclear energy without necessarily producing a byproduct that can be converted to something far more dangerous. I believe that can be done. It may not be done tomorrow, but it clearly needs to be worked on."

A few points to consider:

• Governor Vilsack did not mention several other promising alternative energy technologies such as geothermal; solar tower; ocean wave power; etc. I'm sure these omissions were unintended.
• The claim of a more than sixfold per-acre ethanol productivity increase from corn to switchgrass is unreferenced. It may be true, but I have been unable to verify it.
• Governor Vilsack has an obvious self-interest in promoting ethanol consumption, since his state benefits as an ethanol producer. However, his inverse subsidy proposal would act to reduce overall agricultural subsidies in the long term.

The podcast is well worth a listen, both for the speech and the question and answer session afterward. Give it a whirl!

I am absolutely stunned that Slashdot's editors would give credibility to a completely false story, pushed by a paid industry PR professional. As Rugrat said,

The "article" is not an article, but a press release written by an employee of a public affairs company.

"Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company."

For a website that spends so much time and energy combating FUD from Microsoft, and the MPAA and RIAA, it is baffling that FUD that was paid for and is pushed by the oil industry would make the front page here.

Come on, Slashdot. You can do better.

For the last year or so, I've been happily using Debian, with a mixture of sources so I was stable, but current, just like nearly everyone who uses Debian.

Then I tried to upgrade or something insane like that, using aptitude, and the whole thing went tits up on me. No amount of cussing, kicking things, or actual tinkering with the software could save my machine.

I thought about asking for some advice in the Debian forums, or on one of the lists, until I ran out of fingers in my entire family tree to count the times someone said some variant of, "Shut up, noob! Your stoopid and not leet leik I am! Go back to Winblows! Ha! HA! HA!!!1"

Yeah. Guess I'm not venturing into those waters, so I figured I'd just have to grab my network install CD and start over (luckily, I set up /home on its own partition a long time ago, so if I fuck something up really bad, I don't lose all my porn very important data.

The day I planned to reinstall Debian, I read that Dapper Drake had been released, and everyone loved it so much, they totally wanted to marry it. A friend of mine, who is wise in the ways of science and the air speed velocity of unladen swallows has also been singing the praises of Ubuntu for a long, long time, so I grabbed a Live CD to see what all the fuss was about.

Holy shit. What an awesome bit of work it is! It's the first Linux distro to find every single bit of hardware on my old Sony Vaio desktop machine, including all the USB ports. It looked great, too, and was the most "Mac-like" Linux I've ever used.

I realize that a lot of you are mocking me right now, but listen for a second: I'm not interested in hacking on my kernel to make sure something is detected during boot, or modifying all sorts of settings in a text editor just so I can make the damn thing find my camera . . . and don't get me started about CUPS. I love technology, and I love and fully believe in "free" as in speech, and I'm grateful for free as in beer. But also really into "works," as in just does. And on my machine here, Dapper Drake just works, and it's awesome. This is the Linux distro that I can take to my parents, and to my friends who are drowning in a sea of FUD, and convince them that they don't really have to be part of the Borg if they don't want to.

And ultimately, I believe that has to be our goal if we're going to convince people to give Linux a real, serious try as an alternative to Windows. We need to be able to tell them, with confidence, "Put this CD in your machine, and give it a try. I think you'll like it, because it just works."

The first post to the Red Cross article is: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=176887&cid=14682756

And it gets a score +5: Insightful, what for? for saying this about the Red Cross:

Hard to defend the trademark...

That'll be an interesting trademark to defend:

1. Its been used in games for two decades now with nary a lawsuit. You have to actually defend a trademark to keep it.
2. The developers used it in the first place because they routinely saw the symbol in military movies and TV shows emblazoned on the medical jeeps.
3. Its a symmetrical red plus-sign on a white background. I'm sure its possible to create a more generic symbol but I can't think of any off hand.

So, here's the problem with this comment, and the failure of the slashdot moderation system.

It's *WRONG*. The Red Cross and other protected symbols are a matter of international law, specifically the Geneva Convention. It has nothing to do with TRADEMARK, it has to do with the necessity to setup an Internationally Recognized Symbol that can be trusted to be authentic and actual, that can be used to identify those that are neutral to a conflict.

Next thing you know, someone is going to get rated +5: Informative for saying that "SOS" is protected by copyright law, or somethings stupid like that.

Unfortunately, there's no solution to this problem. You can't actually spam enough truth into a slashdot article to get it back to the truth once it's running off on a tangential falsehood, and the moderators, and people with moderation points are generally going to apply them where their lay opinion drives them to put it.

It should be noted that this is completely different from the Wikimedia principle, where people are only driven to provide input when they know a fact to be wrong, or believe a fact is correct enough to place into the article. You don't get crackpot arguments over tangential falsehoods, because there are more people ready to correct information than there are people unintentionally misleading people.

It's still frustrating, because when the whole slashdot crowd is chattering about some stupid wrong prospective, no one can make our your yelling that says "HEY! YOU'RE ALL RETARDED AND HAVE IT WRONG." Grr....

I don't know who wrote this, but I got it from Scott Kurtz at http://www.pvponline.com/

10 reasons Gay Marriage is wrong:

1. Being gay is not natural. And as you know Americans have always rejected unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because, as you know, a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed. The sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Of course MH42 raises point 6, and maintains its validity. I personally find that position as absurd as the author of the rest of the jokes. This is primarily the reason why I posted this journal.

Get some discussion going on.

(Cross-posted to WWdN)

The final table of the 2005 World Series of Poker started at 4pm yesterday afternoon, and wasn't finished until just after 7am today. I'm not sure, but I think that's a record. I'd call Pauly to be sure, but something tells me he's crashed out until at least Sunday.

Two qualifiers from PokerStars made the final table, and one guy, who qualified using free play points, made it to the final two tables, finished in 13th place, and won $400,000. Not bad for a freeroll!

Speaking of Pauly and PokerStars, we're doing a charity tournament on Sunday in memory of Pauly's friend Charlie Tuttle:

Charlie is from Clarksville, Tennessee and he's a twenty-six year old music enthusiast who loves hanging out and playing poker with his friends. Charlie was dealt a bad hand in life when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, which he has been battling this past year. A couple of weekends ago, he was hospitalized because two tumors in his chest pressed up against his lungs, causing him breathing problems. I don't have to tell you how serious his condition was.

Felicia Lee, who is fighting her own battle with cancer, knows several top professional poker players, so she got several of her friends to call Charlie: John Juanda, Marcel Luske, Max Pescatori, and Barry Greenstein to name a few. In fact, when Barry Greenstein won his bracelet in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, he dedicated it to Charlie.

As Pauly wrote:

Situations like this one make you reassess what's really important in life. Las Vegas is a city built on greed. Poker is a game that often attracts some of the lowest forms of life. However, in the past two weeks, there has been a small group of professional poker players who have earned my respect and admiration. Amidst all the darkness and debauchery, I have caught a few glimpses of the bright side of humanity. The hearts of some of the biggest sharks in Las Vegas are filled with compassion.

Thank you, Charlie, for inspiring us all. We'll never forget you.

Charlie passed away on June 22 and his friends have organized a charity poker tournament this Sunday at PokerStars. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I hope to see lots of WWdN readers there.

Details:

SUNDAY, JULY 17th
18:00 EDT (15:00 CDT)
PokerStars
Buy-in is $20 — all of it goes to charity.
"WPBT Charlie Tournament" under Tourneys -> Private tab in the lobby

I'm sure this is just begging for vandalism (unless those douchebags have grown up and finally kissed a girl) . . . but there is an error on my Wikipedia page that needs to be corrected. I'd do it myself, but that's against Wikipedia editing policy.

I am not in Brother Bear. Willie Wheaton, Wil Wheaton, Jr., and Reginald Maudling (Mrs.) are all not me. I've tried to get this taken off imdb, but someone (well-intentioned, I'm sure) keeps putting it back, and Wikipedia editors (also well-intentioned) are putting Brother Bear back up . . . so we're in an infinite improbability loop, and my towel is getting dirty.

Would someone please correct that, and cite this journal entry so it doesn't get corrected back?

I just got back from Starsky and Hutch.

Surprisingly funny. I bet the DVD will be great.

Best part was how anyone in the theatre under 30 didn't get about 70% of the best jokes.

Now I'm hoping that they'll make a CHiPs movie. I wonder what other late 70s to early 80s TV shows would translate well into movies?

Oh, and if you're not watching TRIO every night, you're really missing out on some fantastic television.

There's no "Ask Slashdot" topic available for user journals, but I am intrigued by this reader's question, and I thought it was worth a try to tap into the collective wisdom of Slashdot.

Hi Wil,

you mentioned some time ago in your blog that you did a presentation on writing your book(s) using open source tools. Have you posted these slides (or whatever the medium was) anywhere?

I'm asking as I am about to embark on a writing project that will be north of 80,000 words (assuming I get past the 5,000 word 'pain barrier' that killed me last time) and recent experience with M$ Word has, quite frankly, scared the bejaysus out of me.

Anyways, if you get this it would be great to see you share some of your experiences using OSS to write.

thanks
Conrad

[1]http://www.wilwheaton.net/mt/archives/001401.php

I replied:

Hi Conrad,

Sadly, I didn't use any slides . . . that's *way* over my level of preparation for anything I do.

My talk pretty much focused on how I used OpenOffice.org to compose and edit my two current books, and what some of the pitfalls were.

I can summarize briefly for you: OO.o is a fantastic word processing suite, and did everything that I needed it to do. I was particularly impressed by the "stylist" in OO.o, which exists, I think, because they use some sort of XML-ish language behind the scenes. The stylist allowed me to assign something similar to "classes" to diffferent areas of my text, and was extremely useful in the design of "Just A Geek."

The only time I ran into an annoying limitation was moving to and from the .doc format, because OO.o and MSWord don't play nicely in regards to formatting. I worked around this by using .rtf format, when I needed to send my work out to other people (for notes and stuff). There were a few limitations in formatting, but they were purely aesthetic and didn't affect the actual data in any way.

I briefly looked at Abiword and KOffice, and found them both to be well-written and stable, but they were far more limited than OO.o.

In terms of just putting together a manuscript without regard to formatting, you could work very easily with Kwrite, or Kate, the same way that many other writers use BBEdit on the Mac.

When I finally had a finished product that I liked, I used OpenOffice.org to print to a .ps file, then used the ps2pdf13 command line tool to convert it into a .pdf document, which I sent to my printer. I understand that the newest version of OO.o has a very robust built-in pdf converter which makes that extra step unnecessary. I should also point out that converting files to .pdf on *nix always results in smaller filesizes than if you'd done it on a Mac or Windows platform. Hooray for us.

I'll post this e-mail to my Slashdot journal (CleverNickName) and maybe some of the Slashdotters will have good advice of their own to share with us.

Best of luck with your novel. Just go one scene at a time, and you'll be past 5K words before you know it!

Wil

My presentaton was pretty much limited to "I like this, I don't like this, and this thing was cool." I didn't have the time to get into a 1:1 comparison among all the different Open Source word processing suites. Do Slashdotters have any comments or suggestions? I find myself using Kate more and more when I compose weblog entries or shorter columns for magazines and the like. I occasionally use Abiword to compose and format letters and fax covers when time is a factor (Abiword loads much faster than OpenOffice.org.)

You made the top ten list!

No PointsName Hp [max]
1 20342 Morc-Mon-Hum-Mal-Law died in Sokoban on level 6 [max 9].
Killed by an owlbear. - [79]
2 15917 Morc-Mon-Hum-Mal-Law died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 12.
Killed by a xan. - [68]
3 4171 Morc-Wiz-Orc-Mal-Cha died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 6.
Killed by a water elemental. - [59]

It's cold comfort to be three fucking rocks away from beating Sokoban, only to have a fucking OWLBEAR show up out of nowhere, and whack 70 fucking hit fucking points right off you in one fucking turn.

Gods, I love this fucking game. >:-)

RetroCRUSH is a pop culture website run my my friend Robert Berry.

On November 20, 2003, Robert wrote a humorous article called The Worst Sex Scenes Ever: A Look At The Most Unsexy Sex Scenes". On December 30, 2003, his article was stolen by the UK Tabloid The Daily Star. Robert writes, "The UK tabloid 'The Daily Star' printed the same feature, with the same movies I used (even failing to omit a joke entry for the film Deliverance that I also included in my feature). Instead of crediting my site, however, they credited a seemingly fictitious American magazine named FILM. Not only did they highlight the films I mentioned, but they lifted three separate quotes from my article and attributed them to FILM magazine readers who responded to a (apparently non-existent) poll." It was subsequently syndicated to at least 30 other news organizations without crediting Robert, who is the author of the story.

Robert recounts his conversation with Kieran Saunders, the News Editor at the tabloid: "He said, 'Well, if it's on the internet it's up for grabs. You can't copyright anything on the internet.' I told him that was untrue and he then refused to speak with me further, and said all future communication needed to be sent to their legal contact, Steven Bacon in London. I even tried to call back an hour later to speak with the actual author of the piece, Emily Rose, and Saunders answered the phone, stating, 'I told you never to call here again, speak to our legal group' before ending the call."