Columbia President Suspends Search for New Dean of Journalism School
(From the N.Y. Times)
The search for a new dean to lead Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism was abruptly suspended yesterday by the university's new president. He said the school, long regarded as a leader in its field, needed to rethink its mission and curriculum and place less emphasis on teaching skills like reporting and editing.

Huh.

Right, wrong, who cares? It's all relative, anyway ...
"Three quarters of all college seniors report that their professors teach them that what is right and wrong depends "on differences in individual values and cultural diversity," a poll conducted for the National Association of Scholars (NAS) reveals."
I wonder, if your prevailing philosophy is that right and wrong are relative, how you could teach a student anything without feeling like a bit of hypocrite? After all, whatever was being taught, might be right, might be wrong. And if it was wrong, then that means there must be absolute truth, but how could that be if truth is only relative? But if it's not wrong, then how can truth be relative, because the truth would have to ... ah, screw it.

The Newt For Governor
Ladies and Gentlemen, the next governor of New Hampshire ... The Red Spotted Newt!

The Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation....

Clueless Mailers: The Latest Ugly Trend in Spamming
If you needed someone to draw a map for you, here it is.

Spam-a-lam-a-ding-dong
If you want to be your own boss and make money working from home while increasing the size of your penis and shopping for cut-rate electronic products from China -- you're in luck... Wired explains how junk e-mail is about to increase -- big time.

Hey, that's not English!
Where can you find a sports drink called "Pocari Sweat", "My Fannie" toilet paper and "Shape Horny Remover?" Only in Japan, and only when Japanese marketers are trying to use mangled English to sell their products. (Came across this while dutifully checking out a local New Hampshire site that had submitted a link request to NH.com. The site, http://www.boottothehead.com, is also worth checking out.)

Atheist prof says Christianity bad for animals, kill infants instead
Princeton University Professor Peter Singer, dubbed the 'godfather' of animal rights, says Christianity is a "problem" for the animal rights movement because it tends to make humans think of themselves as "superior to other species."
Singer doesn't think humans should have the right to kill animals, but that a "severely disabled" infant may be killed up to 28 days after its birth if the parents deem the baby's life is not worth living.
Among other interesting positions Singer takes: humans and nonhumans can have "mutually satisfying" sexual relationships as long as they are consensual.
I bet you think I made all that up, don't you?

Texas wants to rewrite history
Conservative groups in Texas objected to two paragraphs in a nearly 1,000-page textbook that explained that prostitution was rampant in cattle towns during the late 19th century, before the West was fully settled.

Dracula-Land theme park bites the dust
Romania has abandoned plans to build a Count Dracula theme park with a massive mock Castle Dracula and surrounding vampire rollercoasters after an international campaign against it led by, among others, the Prince of Wales.