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/ 31 October 2007

The bogeyman of modern science

For a room in which one of the most astonishing experiments in modern science is being conducted, the laboratory in the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, is understated. It is divided into wooden workstations reminiscent of a school science lab. There are stacks of glass test tubes and pipettes, and one wall is lined with air-controlled boxes containing Petri dishes, writes Ed Pilkington.

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/ 30 July 2007

Is this the real president?

It is a party trick well known to curious teenagers across the United States. Zoom down on Washington via Google Earth and you get an extraordinary eagle-eyed view of the world’s greatest powerhouse. There’s the White House and its West Wing. Sweeping south-east across the Potomac you soar above the Pentagon. But there is one thing you can’t do.

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/ 10 July 2007

Michael Moore, the guardian angel

It’s not easy being a nemesis. Particularly if your opponent is Michael Moore. Jim Kenefick has spent years trying to expose the documentary maker’s "deceptions and half-truths" through his website, Moorewatch.com, under the mantra: "Watching Michael Moore’s every move."

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/ 13 November 2006

Eco-nasties

We may be at a green tipping point — but not everyone’s got the memo yet. The following products are so ungreen that they deserve the title "eco-nasties". Air "freshener" is a stupid idea, and this one, called "Baby after bath", smells like a box of perfumed nappy sacks. But let’s not worry about the perfume, even though, according to the label, it "may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment".

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/ 30 October 2006

Iraq war chills the hearts of Middle America

At this time of week Pastor Russell Johnson begins sharpening his pencil. He’s got two more sermons to write before the mid-term elections on November 7, and he’s got a job on. Up to 3 200 worshippers will turn up for prayer over next two Sundays at his Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio, that looks like the factory. It is, a factory of Christian conservatism.