Senate’s Turn in Clone Zone. The U.S. Senate is now mulling over whether to follow the House’s lead and ban cloning. Also: Patent thickets and the Patriot Act, as Washington Bureau Chief Declan McCullagh’s D.C. notebook returns to Wired News. [Wired News]

Signs of Intelligence: Gay-Bashing Victim Sues Attackers and their Parents. Since local law enforcement was unwilling to enforce the law, a victim of near-fatal gay bashing is suing his attackers and their parents… [Morons Dot Org]

Is a U.S. bioweapons scientist behind last fall’s anthrax attacks?. A growing number of scientific experts have come to this conclusion. But the FBI seems strangely reluctant to zero in on the most likely suspects. [Salon.com]

14629 ª February 9 4:42 AM. Enough Already With The Journalists – What Do The Finest Political Philosophers Think About Terrorism? There aren’t many of them. On the liberal side of things, apart from John Rawls, Michael Walzer [here’s a fascinating interview with him]is probably the most original and intelligent pluralist alive. In the above-linked article in Dissent he sets out the questions that we should be asking ourselves right now about terrorism. Something tells me we should be paying attention. But what would our answers be? Or are we too caught up with the banality of columnists and pundits to actually face up to the thoughts of a real political thinker? [MetaFilter]

14627 ª February 9 12:29 AM. Ask and you shall receive. Move over, Amazon Honor System! Now you can sign up for a one-click service that lets visitors to your Web site donate something you’ll really appreciate: oral sex. Best of all, they don’t keep a percentage of your donations like Amazon and PayPal do. [MetaFilter]

Here’s another one:

<%params = {}; xml.rpc("127.0.0.1",5335, "radio.users", @params)%>

This uses MySQL to report the users currently connected to my site.

U.S. patent number 6315213, filed on November 13, is described as a method of modifying weather and should concern the public. [Adam Curry: CurryDotCom]

You can see the actual patent here

MSNBC: Tracking spam to the source. We’ve never heard of most of the companies sending the e-mails, and many of the offers are for products and services we don’t need. Almost all end up in the electronic trash can moments after we read the subject line. Still, we’re curious. Who is sending this stuff? [Tomalak’s Realm]

14605 ª February 8 10:09 AM. Eat a candy bar – go to Jail. An update on a previous Mefi thread: Hemp foods are now illegal as per new DEA rules that took effect this Monday, 02/06. (PDF version is available as well.)

This Canada study shows that it would take the consumption of a hell of a lot of Hemp products to reach the same THC levels as Marijuana. [MetaFilter]

14606 ª February 8 10:37 AM. Town passes law banning nudity… … but more notable is the section of the law banning erections in males over 10 years old. Why was a law like this needed? (link via Obscure Store) [MetaFilter]

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