The Thrill Is Gone

That was a brief fling. No sooner had Barack Obama called for more allied support in Afghanistan than Germany's romance with the Democratic Presidential hopeful was on the rocks.

A day after his Berlin speech before an adulating crowd last week, Mr. Obama said more NATO troops in Afghanistan would allow the U.S. to cut its presence there. The "billions of dollars" saved, he told CNN Friday, could "finance lower taxes for middle-class families."

Rice University physics Professor W.J. Llope alleges that according to his yet unpublished research, some granite countertops found in U.S. homes give out dangerous radon fumes and gamma radiation, due to their uranium content. While most stones are not radioactive, a few are, and it appears that nobody tests them.

Professor Llope tested some 55 stones of more than two dozen types of granite bought from dealers in and near Houston, Texas. A few of those could expose homeowners to 100 millirems of radiation in a time span of a few months, which is the annual exposure limit set by the U.S. Department of Energy for visitors to nuclear labs.

On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill according to which trans fats are to be banned in all the state’s restaurants; unsurprisingly, this is the first US state to apply such a law.

Starting with 2010, trans fats, identified as being the cause of several serious conditions, must be taken out from the composition of restaurants products and by 2011, all baked goods must be completely trans fat – free.

A similar law was approved in 2006, but for a much smaller area, namely New York. It seems NY has started a trend, as soon, Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md., followed its example.

Some Fellow Republicans Question Tactics

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 28, 2008; A08

In his most direct challenge yet of his Democratic presidential rival's Iraq policy, Sen. John McCain suggested yesterday that Sen. Barack Obama had crafted a war strategy designed to further his own political advancement.

McCain also intimated that Obama skipped a visit of wounded U.S. troops in Germany last week because it would not generate sufficient publicity for his campaign, a charge that the Republican made the centerpiece of a new television ad.

By Robert M. McDowell
Monday, July 28, 2008; A17

The Internet was in crisis. Its electronic "pipes" were clogged with new bandwidth-hogging software. Engineers faced a choice: Allow the Net to succumb to fatal gridlock or find a solution.

The year was 1987. About 35,000 people, mainly academics and some government employees, used the Internet.

By Mike Musgrove
Sunday, July 27, 2008; F01

Among all the new applications I've downloaded to my iPhone this month, it seems that there's something else new tucked in that I wasn't counting on: bugs.

As in software bugs, the type that cause the occasional freeze, crash or system reboot of the still-awesome gadget I shelled out $600 for about a year ago. Every once in a while, when I try to fire up a program, it fails to launch. Others sometimes flicker out unexpectedly and return the iPhone to its home screen.

By Dan Balz and Karla Adam
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 27, 2008; A11

LONDON, July 26 -- Sen. Barack Obama wrapped up his week-long foreign tour Saturday by meeting at length with past, present and possibly future British prime ministers.

The Democratic presidential candidate met for breakfast with former prime minister Tony Blair before going to see Prime Minister Gordon Brown at No. 10 Downing Street and later visiting with David Cameron, the leader of Britain's Conservative Party.

Moves Affect Development Unit in Dulles

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 26, 2008; D01

AOL is slashing more products -- including some that had been promoted as on the cutting edge of the company's future -- as part of its effort to cut costs and focus resources on what is working for the beleaguered Internet giant.

The moves could further dilute AOL's presence in Dulles, where employees have been buffeted by several rounds of layoffs. The Northern Virginia office already lost attention this year when AOL moved its headquarters to New York to focus on its online advertising operations. The latest reorganization involves the products team headed by Kevin Conroy, an executive vice president in Dulles.

Google’s answer to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, Google Knol (short for Knowledge), launched earlier this week to some fanfare, at least from cash-strapped authors and other subject-matter experts.

"At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads," according to the official Google blog. "If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads."

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a vote on legislation to rein in speculation in the energy markets, instead calling for energy votes that would expand domestic petroleum production and more nuclear power development.

Democrats, in a 50-43 vote, failed to gain the 60 votes needed to bring the speculation bill forward for consideration on the Senate floor. Now they face another week of energy debate as Republicans threatened to hold the measure up to hammer home their "drill more, use less" policy.