In a stunning but obviously not unprecedented example of politicians not having anything resembling a clue regarding the value of new technologies and the way that they function, a bill has been proposed in New Jersey that would require all open forums on the whole (frickin'!) internet to demand ID from everybody, you know, to keep tabs on who's saying what. Is this 1984 knocking at our door, or just tech-phobia taken to a ludicrous extreme? Maybe a bit of both.

Citing “bigotry” Isaac Hayes, a scientologist, leaves South Park

The first mayoral debate took place on Tuesday night, beginning what promises to be a very ironically entertaining election period.

I thought it was a hoax when I first saw the picture, but the “Yeti Crab” seems to be for real.

Lately people have been working so hard just to keep up morale that to have a stranger come down and party for a week, then predict that we will be washed away again but won’t care is insulting and injurious.

Will advances in genetics result in a vast social engineering project? And is genetic determinism a myth?

The notion of a potential "e-mail tax" has haunted the online world since the days when people would ask you if you'd get charged by the phone company every time your 2400 baud modem started shrieking those sweet, sweet connection noises at the top of its digital lungs. Is some shadowy government agency or corporation finally buying up the internet and turning our (ideally) freely communicative world into a "pay-to-play" environment? Not exactly, but AOL has something up its sleeve in their little corner of the internet that could have a serious impact on free communication in the long run.

3-D body modification for those who want to "customize their flesh."

While many young designers are flocking to the American coasts, some are moving a little closer to the heartland.

V.S. Ramachandran believes mirror neurons may be the key to consciousness.

As the market gets heavy, jewelers are becoming trendy and celebrity conscious.

Sploid, a consistently good source for freaky animal news, has a story today about a mysterious creature that’s turned up at the Tyco Electronics headquarters in North Carolina. It’s a lovely, graceful thing that looks like a dog crossed with a fox crossed with a faun.

A new horror movie featuring the first face transplanted woman is about to be released.

For someone who spent so much time scowling at the camera, I find the idea of her as model of the high-end products she now covets as kind of ironic.

The other night, a friend of mine from Cincinnati told me that there was a town across the river in Kentucky that had a dog for a mayor. Like most stories that people in bars tell about animals, this one turns out to be true.