Ben Goldacre is asking for information about thalidomide and conspiracy theories. I've seen the Horizon programme, but it's interesting that it was scientists who picked up on it and not the homeopaths and alties. 
Valleywag has some Steve Gillmor/Mike Arrington/Nick Carr non-gossip, plus Nick uses the Hookah! pic. 
Dave: there's more to come, mate. And there's lots of new ways that I'm planning to do. Like NMA2006.opml which lists all the finalists and the winner for each categories of the New Media Awards 2006. It's not podcasting, Ma, but it's cool OPML jazz.
Thanks, Dave, for adding my C-SPAN directory to the directory.
I have finally put together my own air conditioner. It's two water bottles, gravity and some plastic tubing. I don't know quite how well it works or not, and I haven't got time to debug it, but it's quite cool.
The two killers have returned to active duty.
Police officers in Hailsham in my dear county of East Sussex have been arrested for the "alleged theft of sweets, crisps and soft drinks" from the station's tuck shop. Oh, bravo. Steal sweets from the station and you get arrested. Shoot a man through the head on the Tube and you get a paid holiday and a slap on the wrist from the Health and Safety Executive - though there is some good news about the Sussex Police.
Don't despair 
Andrew Sullivan points to an interesting article (behind a stinking paywall) about the stem cell funding bill and libertarianism. It sounds like a sensible solution. Bush is a lunatic, but his decision was the right result with the wrong intentions. The big press conference where he had children crawling around looking "beautiful" was just sickening and was a horrible, staged photo-op. Bush wants to make political capital out of a funding decision. The end result isn't a blow for science, it's a good result arrived at by accident.
If you believe that stem cell research is a valuable thing, find a charity that supports said research and give them money. It's that simple. All the money that people waste on lobbyists and political posturing would be far better spent on the research itself. Here in the UK, there is an organisation called the Heart Cells Foundation which has been set up to do trials with adult stem cells to fight against heart disease. We are, of course, prisoners of the metacontext.
Bush's moral arguments are childish, irrational and populist. His photo-op was staged to make people think that using leftover embryonic stem cells was equivalent to using live babies. Following the same logic, you get "every sperm is sacred" and other such puritanical popery.
People on both "sides" of this debate don't seem to realise that it's an argument about funding, not some kind of evil megalomaniac trying to keep people in their wheelchairs vs. a benign holy leader upholding the moral values that define America - everyone wants to turn this in to a moral panic, but it's a far more simple moral rule - government shouldn't force people to pay for research. Funding should come from individuals, charities and private industry.
