Techcordance

Resolution

Elected student leaders at American River College in Sacramento, Calif., have adopted a resolution that seeks to protect classmates from the “anti-religious and political indoctrination” of professors and others on campus. “I think we have accomplished a historic and very significant act today by passing this resolution to advocate for a Student Bill of Rights,” said student Rep. George Popko, who authored the resolution. The measure was adopted by an 8-1 vote. “The purpose of the resolution is to go on record asking the administration to adopt the Student Bill of Rights as official campus policy,” the 22-year-old councilman said. The resolution models activist David Horowitz’s “Student Bill of Rights,” a bill which was introduced to the California senate as SB 5 in 2005. Popko says he plans to present a Student Bill of Rights Resolution containing those provisions on May 3 before the General Assembly of the Student Senate of California Community Colleges, an organization representing 2.7 million college students.

Trucks

Ford Motor and Opera Software have announced a collaboration to add Web browsing to the Internet-enabled in-dash computers that Ford is installing in some of its trucks and vans.
The built-in Ford Work Solutions computer, which is being marketed to contractors, farmers, construction workers and business owners, is equipped with Microsoft Auto, a version of the Windows CE operating system.
In addition to accessing the Web through the Opera browser, the computer can run LogMeIn to enable remote access to office and home PCs. The computer also includes Garmin GPS navigation and is integrated into the vehicle cell phone. Internet access, through Sprint’s 3G network is available for $25 a month for a 25-megabyte plan or $50 for up to 5 gigabytes of data, which should be more than enough for the vast majority of users.

Advisory Council

President Obama has named to his faith-based advisory council a self-professed Christian who holds that the New Testament’s teaching that homosexual behavior is unnatural and wrong–which is found in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans–“is not true.”
The appointee, Harry Knox, has also said that Obama’s decision to invite the Rev. Rick Warren to say a prayer at the Inauguration “tainted” the ceremony and that Pope Benedict XVI is a “discredited leader.”
Harry Knox, a professed gay Christian who is director of the religion and faith program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, was named to President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships on Monday. The advisory council gives federal grants to faith-based organizations.

Growing Older

Facebook and Twitter users have wrinkles, torn hamstrings and many, many fillings. And increasingly, they’re beginning to complain about chillblains, varicose veins, and the Social Security system.
In just the last two months, the number of Facebook members over 35 has doubled. And the biggest demographic grouping isn’t 12-18. It’s 35 to 44.
While ComScore reported this week that 10 percent of Twitter users are between 55 and 64. That’s the same percentage as are 18-24. In fact, the majority of Twitter users are 35 or older.
And here’s Reuters telling us that 18- to 24-year-olds are 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter.
Which might mean that young people are groping their way back to some sort of physical bonding experiences. While older people, thinking that, perhaps, they are younger people, are diving into social networking like large Chicagoans on their first trip to a Kauai beach.

Reformation

ISTANBUL, Turkey – You have probably heard of the Christian Protestant Reformation. Now get ready for what some are calling a Muslim reformation.
A group of Islamic scholars in Turkey is attempting to re-interpret some of Islam’s most sacred texts. The goal: to give the faith a modern makeover. Mehmet Kirbasoglu is passionate about his faith in Allah, the Muslim God. But he believes that his religion needs a fresh interpretation for the 21st Century.
“We need a new way of looking at our holy scriptures in the light of today’s social and religious environment,” Kirbasoglu said.
And so for the past few years, Kirbasoglu, and 80 other Muslim Turkish scholars, have been examining the Hadith — a collection of some 170,000 sayings attributed to the prophet Mohammed.

Battery Virus

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have demonstrated how a genetically modified virus can be used to construct both the cathode and anode of a lithium-ion battery.Virus-built rechargeable batteries would have the same power capacity as the batteries used to power hybrid cars, project leader Professor Angela Belcher said in an MIT press statement on Thursday. In a paper published in the journal Science, the research team explained that they manipulated two genes of the M13 virus to equip the bacteriophage with peptide groups that attract single-walled carbon nanotubes at one end, while the other end of the virus was equipped with peptides that nucleate amorphous iron phosphate.
Combining the nanotubes with the iron phosphate created a highly conductive material that was used in a cathode, said the MIT statement. Battery energy was transferred in “a very short time”, as electrons could travel along the carbon nanotube networks and percolate throughout the electrodes.

Pro Life

Pastor Walter Hoye has spent a week in a California jail on charges related to his ministry at a Berkeley abortion clinic.
Hoye was ordered to serve 30 days in jail and pay a $1,000 fine after refusing the court’s offer of probation. Catie Short of the Life Legal Defense Foundation explains that Hoye declined probation because the court ordered him not to help women.
“He told the court that he would do his best to comply with the law,” says Short. “It’s not like he’s saying, ‘I’m going to go out there and violate the law. But in the meantime, I want to be able to go and offer alternatives to women who are considering abortion.’”The judge ordered him to stay 100 yards away from the abortion clinic, which Short calls a severe restriction on free speech. She has also filed suit in federal court asking that the ordinance Hoye violated be declared unconstitutional.

Virus

The dreaded Conficker Windows worm phoned home as ordered Wednesday — but so far hasn’t launched a full-scale attack on the Internet.
Computer security experts breathed sighs of relief and satisfaction that their predictions that nothing would happen had proven true.
“One thing we’re not seeing is any mass malicious activity,” said Joris Evers, an analyst with McAfee. “The Internet today is working just as well as it was working yesterday.”

Iowa Court

DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa Supreme Court says the state’s same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making it the third state where gay marriage is legal.
In a unanimous ruling issued Friday, the court upheld a 2007 Polk County District Court judge’s ruling that the law was unconstitutional.
The case stems from a 2005 lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization. The group filed a lawsuit on behalf of six gay and lesbian Iowa couples who were denied marriage licenses.