Month: February 2003

The one bit of George Bush’s State of the Union speech that made sense to me was the announcement of increased funding to combat AIDS in Africa. Well, it turns out, that most of it comes from funds we’re using to fight malaria, malnutrition and various diseases that can be prevented by vaccination:

Table 1 clarifies that for the combined total of the Global AIDs Initiative and the Child Survival and Health account (which includes the bulk of HIV/AIDs assistance in H.J.RES.2), the Administration’s request for fiscal 2004 shows no net increase relative to the fiscal 2003 funding in H.J.RES.2. This is because the Administration’s increase of $450 million for the Global AIDs initiative is offset by a $470 million shortfall in its Child Survival and Health request relative to the fiscal 2003 appropriations bill.

So why isn’t this being mentioned in the press?

Hope you like the site’s new look…and if you don’t, tough! Actually, if you don’t, you can view the site with the old look by changing the theme to “miri” – just look for the drop down list in the left side navigation. (You must have cookies enabled for your choice to “stick.”)

Hee! A fine example of how “user interface” can impact us in ways we’d never guess.

Here’s an amazing loop of radar pictures of the debris trail. There have been reports that debris was found not to far from my house – at an IBM facility.

So close to the anniversary of the Apollo and Challenger tragedies, we have another reminder of the perils of space exploration and travel. I’m sure we will be bombarded ad nauseam about the investigation and possible reasons for the crash – I can’t imagine how awful it would be to be a family member of one of the astronauts lost and have to hear these reports over and over again.

Ah…what a wonderful point: Freedom of speech doesn’t require 51 percent.