BITS & BITES

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
POLITICS
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

VERMONTERS LIKE INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING

A UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT poll found that 66% of Burlington voters liked
the instant runoff voting used in the recent mayoral election and only
16% didn't. 62% would like to see it used in the governor's race and 26%
said no. The only group that didn't favor it were Republicans (only 40%
said yes)

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

EASIER TO RIG VOTING MACHINE THAN LAS VEGAS SLOT MACHINE

RICHARD MORIN, WASHINGTON POST - It's easier to rig an electronic
voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of
Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas
slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines,
Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things,
that President Bush may owe his last win to an unfair vote count.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/
AR2006031502318.html?nav=rss_nation


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ARTS
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

GREAT MOMENTS IN RESEARCH

WASHINGTON POST - "Artists' Suicides as a Public Good" by Samuel
Cameron, Bijou Yang and David Lester in Archives of Suicide Research,
Vol. 9 No. 4. A British and U.S. research team argues that artist and
celebrity suicides may benefit society by increasing the emotional
benefits fans derive from the dead star as well as boost "sales of the
artist's products and associated merchandise."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/
AR2006031502318.html?sub=AR

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WORLD
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

HOUSE OF LORDS DEFENDS DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARLIAMENT

GUARDIAN - The Lords tonight defied the government for a third time on
its controversial plans to introduce identity cards. Peers voted 218 to
183, a majority of 35, to keep the scheme voluntary. The parliamentary
battle between the two chambers continues after peers again voted to
reject what they regard as "creeping compulsion" by forcing passport
applicants to also get an ID card.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1731606,00.html?gusrc=rss


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
HEALTH & SCIENCE
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PHARMA FUNDED 'SCIENTIFIC' STUDY OF THE DAY

BENEDICT CAREY - Antidepressants work better than psychotherapy in
preventing relapses in elderly men and women who have recovered from
depression, a new study suggests. The government-financed study,
published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that a
combination of drugs and therapy was the best way to restore well-being
in seriously depressed patients 70 and older. Once the patients had
recovered, however, drug treatment was more effective over the next two
years than once-a-month psychotherapy. . . Dr. Reynolds and members of
his team have received research support from GlaxoSmithKline, the maker
of Paxil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/health/16depress.html