7/16/2001; 1:01:05 AM

CNET (AP): Search engines accused of deceptive results. “A consumer watchdog group Monday filed a complaint with the FTC, asserting that many online search engines are concealing the impact special fees have on search results by Internet users… By late Monday afternoon, three of the search engines had responded to The Associated Press’ inquiries about the complaint. Two, LookSmart and AltaVista, denied the charges. Microsoft spokesman Matt Pilla said MSN is delivering ‘compelling search results that people want.'”
6:04:09 PM  

Science Daily: Nano-Transistor Switches With Just One Electron, May Be Ideal For Molecular Computers. “Most previous single electron transistors (SETs) could only operate at super-low temperatures, because heat can also provide the energy necessary to add electrons to the island… Now, Dekker’s group has made a device so tiny that heat fluctuations are irrelevant, even at room temperature.”
6:00:53 PM  

The Associated Press is reporting that Trent Lott has called on Gary Condit to resign: “Infidelity is always unacceptable, but particularly when you have an elected official involved in a position of trust with a young girl, an intern. If these allegations are true, obviously he should resign.”

While I agree that Condit’s infidelity is morally unacceptable (IMHO), by itself it isn’t enough for me to say that he should resign. The bigger issues are of honesty and integrity. Now if I were a defense lawyer, I’d probably have told Condit not to admit anything to police, and for your average Joe, that’s the right advice from a legal point of view.

But Condit is a public official. He has the voters to answer to, as well as the police, so at least politically speaking, lying about the affair was just plain stupid. It should have been obvious to him that he would be unable to keep the affair secret, so he should have just come clean in the first place. (That is, of course, unless he really did have something to do with her disappearance, which at this point, I doubt.)

Much more important than the fidelity issue however, is the integrity issue. Personally I don’t really care about the infidelity in and of itself. But Levy was an intern, and Condit was “in a position of trust”. It’s totally inappropriate for him to have had an affair with her, in particular. I don’t care if he slept with a flight attendant, but having an affair with an intern, less than half his age is unacceptable. If he were a college professor and Levy were a student, he’d probably be fired.
1:24:02 PM  

Jeff finally put up pictures taken on his trip to Alaska.
1:17:56 PM  

Wired: Floridians Mock Cop Cams. “Wearing masks and making obscene gestures at police cameras, about 100 people protested a new security system that scans faces in the city’s crime-ridden nightlife district to search for wanted persons.”
1:15:28 PM  

Reuters: Russia Says U.S. Missile Test Threatens ABM Treaty. “In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement: ‘A logical question again arises — why take matters to the point of placing under threat the entire internationally agreed structure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including its core, the 1972 ABM treaty?'” Remember the Cuban missile crisis?
1:08:40 AM  

NYT: How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote. “In its investigation, The Times found that these overseas ballots – the only votes that could legally be received and counted after Election Day – were judged by markedly different standards, depending on where they were counted.”
1:05:36 AM  

spacetoday.net: Spacecraft detects water in extrasolar system. “…Observations by the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) detected a cloud of water vapor around a dying star, CW Leonis. That cloud… is likely created as the star, growing brighter in the final stages of its life, is vaporizing several hundred billion icy bodies in a disk similar to the Kuiper Belt around the Sun.”
1:04:35 AM  

BBC: Solar craft aims for altitude record. “Helios, an unmanned craft powered by 62,000 solar cells, reached an altitude of 22,800 metres (75,000 feet) before beginning its descent.” Cool!
1:03:21 AM  

Wes: “My phone is not working; I wonder how long it’s been like that.”
1:01:59 AM  

Dictionary.com Word of the Day: crux.

Frank Zappa: “The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.”
1:01:05 AM  

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