BREVITAS

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SCIENCE & HEALTH

NEW SCIENCE TECH - The glut of seemingly obvious patents granted in the
US in recent years could be invalidated by a Supreme Court decision last
week. In a ruling that shocked patent lawyers, the court said that a
patent application should not be granted if it is "the product not of
innovation but of ordinary skill and common sense". Although the
decision merely reaffirms code 103 of the US Patent Act, which outlaws
patents on obvious inventions, the Supreme Court says lower courts have
let this principle drift. In 1999 Amazon was infamously granted a patent
on a system to "buy online with one mouse click".

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/mg19426035.700-
us-to-outlaw-common-sense-patent-applications.html


SCIENTIFIC QUIRKOLOGY
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19426031.
700-a-quirky-look-at-our-quirky-species.html


ARTS & CULTURE

GALLERY: WHAT TO DO WITH OLD CORKS
http://lovemyearth.blogspot.com/2007/05/crazy-for-corks.html


OUTLYING PRECINCTS

BEST 12 SECONDS EVER ON CNN
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/cnn_
international_chyron_bush_resigns_58889.asp


FIRST EVER YOU TUBE VIDEO OF A CONGRESSIONAL HEARING FROM CHAIRMAN'S
PERSPECTIVE
http://dc.metblogs.com/archives/2007/05/capitol_hill_me.phtml

POST

JUSTICE

COMMON DREAMS - Three established U.S. newspapers, two of them among the
10 largest in the country, in three different states have in the past
weeks abandoned their century-old support of the death penalty and
become passionate advocates of a ban on state-sponsored killing. The
newspapers - the Chicago Tribune in Illinois, the smaller Sentinel in
Pennsylvania and the Dallas Morning News in Texas - announced their
change of heart in strongly-argued editorials following a series of
investigative articles highlighting the flaws in the death penalty
system in their states and country.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/11/1117/

GEORGE WILL - The federal hate crime law enacted in 1968 enhanced
punishments only for crimes against persons engaged in a federally
protected activity, such as voting. HR 1592 would extend special federal
protections to persons who are crime victims because of their race,
color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender
identity or disability. . . Hate crimes are seven one-hundredths of 1
percent of all crimes, and 60.5 percent of them consist of vandalism
(e.g., graffiti) or intimidation (e.g., verbal abuse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/
AR2007051102133.html?nav=rss_print/outlook


THE MIX

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION ON BLACK AMERICANS FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE
PRESENT
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/38691.html

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