Balance Sheet
Assets
Degree Democracy According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, college enrollment for black males is at its highest point ever. In 2004, 758,400 were enrolled, up from 603,032 in 2000.
Online Whine After the Supreme Court struck down limits on interstate wine sales, wholesalers' groups predicted teens would rush to buy the stuff online. According to a survey by Teenage Research Unlimited, just 2 percent of Americans aged 14 to 20 have done so. The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, who paid for the survey, call this result "shocking."
Ahoy, Stranger! The Swedish Pirate Party launches its own snoop-free "darknet," a network that masks users' identities from trespassers—and governments. The party espouses an agenda of "shared culture, free knowledge, and protected privacy."
Share Police Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire ruckus-maker Mark Cuban makes a new ruck with Sharesleuth.com. The site promises to uncover shady claims by publicly traded companies, with Cuban possibly shorting some shares along the way. Expect lawsuits from Wall Street.
Gator Gold Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center find that alligator blood has potent bug-killing properties. Gator serum killed bacteria responsible for E. coli, dysentery, salmonella, strep, and more.
Blimp Bits The first Stratellite, a robot airship 13 miles up, is tested in the Mojave Desert. The idea is to use the ships as cheap platforms for communications gear. The $3 million blimps could bring modern communications to the far corners of the unwired Earth.
Liabilities
Meat Puppets Kansas beef producer Creekstone Farms can't test all its cattle for mad cow disease, because the U.S. Department of Agriculture won't let it. Allowing Creekstone to do its own testing would imply that other meat is unsafe, USDA says.
Recruit Dispute A GAO report finds that military recruiters are increasingly likely to bend the rules in order to meet monthly recruiting goals. Violations include hiding disqualifying info about recruits and otherwise faking documents.
Google Kleenex Google lawyers fire off letters warning publishers and Web-heads not to use "google" as a verb, as in "We googled for directions." The correct formulation, they insist, is "run a Google search."
Monkey Business According to a survey conducted in 2005, Turkey is the only country more hostile to evolution than the United States. Residents of the U.S. and 32 European countries were asked if the following statement was true or false: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Only half of American respondents agree.
Baddies Banned Reportedly responding to pressure from U.S., British, and Israeli authorities, India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting bans all Arab TV stations from its airwaves. The broadcasts are said to be too inflammatory for the Indian public.
Vote Cure Political promises hit a new high—or low—as a U.S. Senate hopeful pledges to cure cancer. "We are going to lick cancer by 2015," Democratic Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin tells a small audience at the Hope Well Cancer Support Center. Looks like Cardin will need two Senate terms to do that.