Interesting news snippets from last week: President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors decided to move the official start date of the last recession from the generally accepted March 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2000, when Bill Clinton was still president. Scientists found that people are more likely to tell lies when using the telephone. Colin Powell said that the conquest of Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein would have used weapons of mass destruction if only he had had some. An internal Pentagon report warned that global climate “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.” Pakistan was preparing for a spring offensive against the Taliban, which was handing out fliers in Afghanistan warning people that they will be killed if they register to vote. Homosexuals were lining up to get married in San Francisco; [New York Times] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the California attorney general to put a stop to it, and declared that the city was becoming a “risk to civil order.” A black hole was observed eating a star, and astronomers found a crystal the size of our moon in the heart of a dying white dwarf.

Mmm..snippets!