This is a fascinating report on research being done on whether electric lights contribute to higher rates of cancer.

So far, the theory is based largely on suggestive, but inconclusive, observational studies. For instance, night-shift workers such as nurses tend to be more prone to develop breast cancer than day-shift workers, and blind women are less likely to have breast cancer than women with sight.

It seems there is some great play on words here as Kerry seems to be doing 180s on signing Form 180.

Last week we noted that he told Tim Russert that he would sign.

Now he says his records are already public…

Lots more analysis of this 180 at Captain’s Quarters.

The Washington Times continues its coverage …

Under the headline “UN’s Good Name Tarnished” (HAH!):

Is the United Nations damaged beyond repair? Evidence of double-dealing in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal is stacking up by the week, and more and more of the organization’s officials are being implicated.

It was just two weeks ago, in a rented suite of offices on the 15th floor of an anonymous Manhattan office block, that Benon Sevan finally discovered that his story would not hold. For months, the burly, bristling Armenian-Cypriot, known within the United Nations for both his bonhomie and bad temper, had insisted that the talk of oil deals with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and strange petroleum companies in Panama had nothing to do with him.

And in another article in the same paper:

While it is certainly true that Saddam began flouting sanctions long before the program was created in late 1996, Mr. Annan’s defenders overlook the reality that the problem became much worse between 1997 and 2003 as a result of policies instituted by Mr. Annan. Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies notes that in January 1997, when Mr. Annan became secretary-general, Oil for Food was just a temporary program, permitting Saddam to sell limited amounts of oil in order to purchase relief supplies for Iraqis. But Mr. Annan successfully recommended that the Security Council expand the program — and with it Saddam’s ability to amass illicit revenues in order to bribe journalists and foreign politicians, and possibly finance terrorism and reconstitute his weapons programs.

And there continue to be updates here at “Friends of Saddam“.

Polish? Did you spy on the former communist regime? You might be famous!!!

Budding Jordan cyber love ends in divorce:

AMMAN (AFP) - A budding romance between a Jordanian man and woman turned into an ugly public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife, state media reported.

Separated for several months, boredom and chance briefly re-united Bakr Melhem and his wife Sanaa in an Internet chat room, the official Petra news agency said.

Bakr, who passed himself off as Adnan, fell head over heels for Sanaa, who signed off as Jamila (beautiful) and described herself as a cultured, unmarried woman — a devout Muslim whose hobby was reading, Petra said.

Cyber love blossomed between the pair for three months and soon they were making wedding plans. To pledge their troth in person, they agreed to meet in the flesh near a bus depot in the town of Zarqa, northeast of Amman.

The shock of finding out their true identities was too much for the pair.

Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: “You are divorced, divorced, divorced” — the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.

“You are a liar,” Sanaa retorted before fainting, the agency said.

I’ve noticed that there seems to be a common confusion by some conservatives about how to deal with issues like the GoDaddy.com and Gretchen Wilson stuff we saw last night on the Super Bowl.

This is clearly demonstrated on some of the comments posted on WizBang’s blog.

One poster says:

I never thought I would hear decent conservative folk on the side of lewd pornography. Have some standards.

Another responds:

The spot was neither lewd nor pornographic, as Kevin stated in the post, the cheerleaders were wearing less then the GoDaddy Girl was. Conservatives are supposed to be against the government imposing themselves in our lives and yet here we have an instance where the NFL and FOX censored an ad that poked fun at censorship because they are worried about what the government (in the guise of the FCC) will do to them.

And another:

I would have to agree that this censorship has gone too far. I don’t want government in my wallet, I also don’t want government censoring non-pc material. There was nothing pornographic about the ad.

And:

NFL is full of crap, this ad has been circulating for days prior to the bowl along with all the other ads in order to hype them. For the NFL to claim it was offended after it was shown on the air is total bull****.

I saw this ad on Fox News days before the Super Bowl

To deconstruct a bit, one side says “this is pornographic, conservatives should not be for this.” And the other says “conservatives should want to keep the government out of this.”

While both of these arguments I’m sure have merit, there are some points being missed, but the last poster above came the closest to hitting it. There are two different types of censorship. 1. Self-censorship by responsible citizens and corporations and 2. Government censorship, designed to be a safety net for the viewing public when self-censorship is not working. What happened last night, at least the removal of the second ad, was clearly SELF-censorship (though really a false self-benefiting claim of self-censorship). It is a bogus argument to say that Fox was worried about the FCC getting on them, because they aired it once, and clearly knew what was in the ad. But for certain, the pulling of the ad had nothing to do with government censorship.

And for those that argue there is no place for government censorship, and that “conservatives should be against all government intrusion” - I submit that you have to draw the line somewhere. We can, and will, argue for generations on where that line should be, but there HAS to be a line, because self-censorship does not work in all cases.

Oh, and one final point on this:

The spot was neither lewd nor pornographic, … the cheerleaders were wearing less then the GoDaddy Girl was.

The logic here is simply non-existent. Because the cheerleaders were wearing less does not make the other one not lewd or pornographic.

UPDATE: Slightly Off Center points out this related Bush quote:

“They put an off button on the TV for a reason — turn it off.”

Sure is difficult to watch the Super Bowl with young kids these days. Went to a Super Bowl party at church last night, hanging out with friends, generally having a good time, and we get to see GoDaddy.com mocking last year’s wardrobe malfunction with a completely inappropriate ad, and as Carnivorous Conservative points out, Gretchen Wilson’s performance may have been worse, though I didn’t actually watch the pre-game or halftime shows (whenever it was she sang). Lyrics here.

While I agree they certainly have the right to show this stuff, and I have the right to turn it off, it sure would be nice if some of these “American past time” entertainment events were things we could enjoy as a family.

Apparently, the NFL pressured Fox to pull the scheduled second airing of the GoDaddy.com ad. Good for them!

UPDATE: More of my thoughts here.

Power Line has another Ward Churchill quote:

One of the things I’ve suggested is that it may be that more 9/11s are necessary. This seems like such a no-brainer that I hate to frame it in terms of actual transformation of consciousness. ‘Hey those brown-skinned folks dying in the millions in order to maintain this way of life, they can wait forever for those who purport to be the opposition here to find some personally comfortable and pure manner of affecting the kind of transformation that brings not just lethal but genocidal processes to a halt.’ They have no obligation—moral, ethical, legal or otherwise—to sit on their thumbs while the opposition here dithers about doing anything to change the system. So it’s removing the sense of—and right to—impunity from the American opposition.

Lots of others are covering this Ward Churchill scandal (and his questionable status as an Indian), I haven’t delved into it much, so check out those blogs for more.

The American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council representing the National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed thousands of innocent people’s lives.

Churchill’s statement that these people deserved what happened to them, and calling them little Eichmanns, comparing them to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who implemented Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate European Jews and others, should be condemned by all.

The sorry part of this is Ward Churchill has fraudulently represented himself as an Indian, and a member of the American Indian Movement, a situation that has lifted him into the position of a lecturer on Indian activism. He has used the American Indian Movement’s chapter in Denver to attack the leadership of the official American Indian Movement with his misinformation and propaganda campaigns.

Michelle Malkin observes:

Tougher enforcement of immigration laws is finally coming…. in Britain.
…
Spain’s Socialists, on the other hand, are going the amnesty route.