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An acquaintance of my wife had a bit of an emergency recently ... he had to move out of his home in a hurry. He had to leave by Dec. 31 st , taking everything that belonged to him and find himself a new home. Normally, this would be a problem for the best of us -- short notice, fire in the hole, scramble like hell. This situation was not so normal. Imagine your worldly possessions consisting of just your clothes, your computer and personal documents. Imagine having nothing else to your name. Imagine surviving on a limited wage amounting to less than $1,000 per month. Now imagine having no sight whatsoever. Yes, visual impairment. No sight. I can't imagine what I would do. I also suspect I have limited imagination, because I never imagined what would happen next. I never imagined the kindness of complete strangers -- and friends and family of ours. It was mostly my wife's doing -- she regularly restores my faith -- my faith in human altruism. Sharing the story of a...

BlingH 2 O -- just when it couldn't get worse, it does. BlingH 2 O goes and takes what is (and should be) a fundamental human right, and perverts to hell. What the hell is BlingH 2 O? It's water. Just bottled water -- although its makers would rather you think it otherwise, cause BlingH 2 O comes in a corked, 750mL, frosted bottle, that has been handcrafted with Swarovski crystals. Bling! According to the BlingH 2 O website, we owe this little bit of depravity to Kevin G. Boyd , a most un-notable "Hollywood writer-producer", who noticed that "you could tell a lot about a person by the bottled water they carried." So he set out to create a market for water for the super-luxury consumer market -- ie. not for you worthless drivels, "just those that Bling." If you Bling, you must really be stupid, because water, is, well, water, and this BlingH 2 O comes from Dandridge, Tennessee -- a place that certainly doesn't Bling -- but apparently k...

The Beast has published its top 50 list of the Most Loathsome People in America in 2007, chronicled with charges (the reason they're on the list); evidence; and some quite viscous and deserving sentences (if only). Not surprisingly, topping the list are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The list contains the usual suspects, but in a surprise move, the number nine position is occupied by you -- Americans that is. And here's what the Beast had to say about Americans: Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. Yo...

In the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, a grinning Al-Qaeda has stepped forward to take responsibility. Regardless of whether Al-Qaeda had any hand in the murder or not, the chaos that has resulted can only serve to bolster the reigning poster child of terrorism -- and likewise, give those cloaked in the anti-terrorism flag , firmer ground to stand on. Could Bhutto's death have been prevented? She attracted enemies from all sides, and all had much to gain from her demise. Pervez Musharraf can now do away with the planned elections in two weeks, and crack down with martial law as Pakistan is torched by mobs. Al-Qaeda can claim another victory, further destabilize the region and recruit more supporters. Extremism has won yet again.

It's happened again -- in one deadly act of violence, the radicals have won yet another battle. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered in the run up to the country's farce of an election. The motivation of the murderer can only be inferred at this point -- but I think I can safely say that it wasn't an act of an individual. There were many that wanted Bhutto dead. She was a woman twice elected to lead a muslim state -- and twice deposed on trumped up corruption charges. She was the only real challenger to President Musharraf in the upcoming election, in which Musharraf is attempting to retain control of the country. I'm sure Bhutto had her faults -- she was after all a politician -- but she represented a refreshing choice in a country that desperately needs a choice. She would not have been the choice of the United States, as her credentials in dealing with terrorism is lacking -- but her committment to democracy is without question. And th...

It's extraordinary how absolute power corrupts. In the case of America, the only superpower left in the world -- that power is rotting the core of America -- its justice system. The Bush Administration made it legal in their adventures against terrorism, to kidnap foreign nationals, on foreign soil, and drag them off to the Guantanamo purgatory. Now it appears that law can be leveraged against any foreign national, suspected of running afoul of American law, to be kidnapped and brought back to America to face American justice. The Times Online reports on a senior lawyer in the American government, who recently told a British judge in a British court, that American law allows America to kidnap British citizens and bring them to justice in America. In this stance, there is no respect international law, or the laws of other nations. This is a case of might equaling right. I wonder what the American response would be if other nations started doing likewise. I believe George W....

For the "bigger is better" crowd, here's HugeURL . You've probably heard of TinyURL -- a site offering to translate huge an unweildy URLs to something more manageable. For example, TinyURL translates http://www.dabydeen.com/ to http://tinyurl.com/2rg3fz . HugeURL however, creates a really big URL in response. Why? Cause bigger is better?

Ever wanted to know just how much of our tax dollars are being squandered by our elected officials? You know, the dweebs we put in government to serve our interests? Check out the Government-Wide Reporting page of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat . It's quite an eye-opener -- and may just make a fiscal voyeur out of you. Here's one from my random sifting, that opened my eye a little: Ruth Dantzer of Canada School of Public Service -- the government organization responsible for educating the public servants -- spent $17,928.86 on a flight to South Africa to attend and give a keynote speech to the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management Board of Directors Meeting, in April. WTF? A quick scan of Dantzer's expenses will show that she travels a lot in her cushy government appointed gig that she's held since 1995.

Stephen Leahy has a post on the machinations of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a business-government forum that is an off-shoot of the NAFTA agreement, that is slowly plundering Canada's natural heritage for the sake of economic integration . As Global Warming, mismanagement and drought continue to dry the US, Canada's water stores in the north will be become very important the American machine. Not that I am not concerned for our American cousins, but they have yet to prove they're nothing more than a spoiled, ravenous beast, when it comes to the management of the environment. Canada isn't much better, but with a population ten times smaller than the US, at least we have an opportunity to correct the squander of the past. The SPP today operates without public oversight. Negotiations are conducted in the dark, where short-term thinking and self-interest stink the air. The American public would be up in arms at some of the compromises being made on...

While is playing up to American conservatives and promoting Iran as a land free of nuclear weapons and homosexuality, Israel is apparently turning up the rhetoric on first strike options on Iranian nuclear targets. Times is reporting that Israel is contemplating a two pronged attack at Iran's underground nuclear facilities, that involves an initial strike with conventional weapons, followed by an attack with low yield nuclear weapons. Mossad is apparently reporting that Iran is only a couple of years away from refining enough enriched uranium to make bombs -- and Israel either wants to US to act against Iran or stay out of it and let Israel do the deed. Now guess: just what do you think the response will be from the Islamic zealots -- and maybe even moderates? If there isn't polarization yet, this is sure to put an end to any hope of respite from the madness. Have all the sane people left the world?

It's time to stomp out atheists in America. The majority of Americans would love to see atheists kicked out of America. If you don't believe in God, then get out of this country. The United States is based on having freedom of religion, speech, etc., which means you can believe in God any way you want (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc.), but you must believe. I don't recall freedom of religion meaning no religion. Our currency even says, "In God We Trust." So, to all the atheists in America: Get off of our country. Atheists have caused the ruin of this great nation by taking prayer our of our schools and being able to practice what can only be called evil. I don't care if they have never committed a crime, atheists are the reason crime is rampant. I don't think I need to clarify the letter to the editor above. It speaks too well for itself. These people are out there, and they will be the ruin of the world if they are not mocked, silenced and s...

A college professor in Red Oak, Iowa, claims he's been fired for giving an academic treatment to Christianity in his western civilization course. In the course, Steve Bitterman, teaches that the Biblical story of creation should not be taken literally. At the end of a recent class, he remarked to a couple of students that the story of Adam and Eve was just a fairy tale. Oops. The students apparently threatened a lawsuit in response, and the whole matter go escalated to the college administration -- who, with the usual intestinal fortitude of administrations everywhere, recoiled from confrontation -- and fired Bitterman. This of course, is Bitterman's claim only -- but the college has done little in their official response to counter his claim. So, WTF Iowa? I'm well aware that America is reveling in its new new found religious fundamentalism -- but surely the people in charge know that the recent surge of the religious right is only a phase -- and should be limited to a...

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Or when it falls apart really bad, and publicly for a scorned organization? In their battle against media pirates, movie studios and record companies have placed great store in MediaDefender -- a company that has been employing some nasty tactics to fight bittorrent traffic on the internet. MediaDefender however, just got a nasty surprise. It was outted on the internet by the very same protocol it sold itself as trouncing. It appears that a whole lot of internal MediaDefender emails have been made available via bittorrent. The leaked emails apparently came from an employee that forwarded most of his emails to his gmail account, which got hacked by a group called MediaDefender-Defender. The emails reveal some disturbing practices by MediaDefender -- including entrapment activities that posted torrent files to lure surfers. Bittorrent users are now having a good laugh.

Blackwater USA is a private, mercenary army that is under the employ of the US military. It has quite a comprehensive operation in Iraq, protecting diplomats, contractors and other non-military types. The company has been regularly criticized for its operations in Iraq, where it operates as an unofficial extension of the US military, but without the oversight of civilian and military law. Iraqis have repeatedly complained that Blackwater's employees indiscriminately fire on, and kill, civilians during their operations. Now it appears that the Iraqis have finally had enough. The Iraq government has ordered the expulsion of Blackwater from their country after eight civilians were killed in the aftermath of a car bomb explosion -- although this expulsion may not affect Blackwater's operations that cater to the CIA or US State Department. Of course, the US has quickly reacted and has promised an immediate investigation. The US military would be unable to operate in Iraq without ...

The Khaleej Times is one of the top English dailies in the Middle East, with circulation across the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It also reaches into India and Pakistan. The paper, based in Dubai, recently ran an anti-smoking ad on the anniversary of 9/11. (Click the thumbnail image on the right to see it.) The ad shows two smoking cigarettes standing upright, side-by-side, and carries the following text: 5.4 million die of smoking related causes every year. That's 2000 times a 9/11.

The latest beat of the war drums south of the 49th, is for a possible massive blitz against Iran , in the continued escalation over the Iranians insistence on continuing their uranium enrichment program. The Americans could simply be rattling their sabres in the hopes of getting Iran to back down, and getting more teeth on the latest UN sanctions. Or maybe, in the twilight of the Bush Administration, ole George is about to ensure the world is even more fucked up before he's finished. Who knows. Regardless, if you're Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you may want to read, " So you’re about to be invaded by the United States " -- a rant posted on Craiglist. The post informs the potential victim of an invasion of what they can expect -- and possible courses of action they can take. Enjoy!

Here are two maps. The top one reflects military spending, based on 2002 numbers. The US far outweighs the other countries of the world, taking up 45% of the land mass to account for its $353B war chest. By contrast, the second map shows deaths related to war in 2002. The dark bloody blot on the map represents the Congo and 26% of the 172,000 deaths from war worldwide. Africa continues to be brutalized by conflict, and the world's $789B military budget represents such potential for peace on the continent. All it takes is the will to make a difference. These maps were sourced from Worldmapper , via the Daily Mail .

"Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were both on television last night, answering questions," said Jon Stewart on Wednesday's Daily Show, comparing the rarity of the event to "a giant squid having sex with Bigfoot as the ghost of Jim Morrison claps giddily." The Raw Story has Jon Stewart at his best, as he takes apart a couple of the puppeteers of the Bush Administration. Click the image to read more and watch the video.

What happens when you mashup Linden Labs' Second Life with Google Earth? No one knows for sure, because that hasn't happened yet -- but, the speculation is already happening. Users of Second Life explore reality using the 2D simulated world that Linden Labs built online. Already, Second Life is serving as a platform for business and academic experimentation. But what if Second Life wasn't just a made-up world, but instead, simulated geo-spatially, the Earth? MIT's Technology Review explores that possibility in their latest issue . Watch out folks, the future Metaverse is on its way, whether you like it or not.

The rate at which the world's largest expanse of tropical glaciers is melting, has been increasing over the last few years. Another sign of the impact of global climate change. The glaciers, sitting on the Andes and running through Peru, Bolivia, Columbia and Ecuador, are melting so fast [PDF], that climatologists expect them to completely disappear within the next couple of decades. The ramifications to human habitat in those countries will be unending hardships. The countries of South America, are, in general, poor [PDF]. The population along the Pacific coast are heavily dependent on the glacier-fed rivers -- either directly, or indirectly, via water diversion schemes. Everything from farming, to cities to portions of the Amazon, will be at risk [PDF]. The price of our terraforming the planet is about to be felt, and there's not much than can be done about it. Heavy investment in energy production and water diversion would alleviate the impact on urban population...

Islamic terrorists don't hail from just the Middle East. They're now originating from our own western democracies. Young men, inspired by a strict interpretation is Islam and fanciful promises of never ending virgins for martyrs, are entering a fantasy world, where the killing of innocents is the objective. As important as terrorist cells and training camps in Africa and the borders of Pakistan are, they pale in comparison to the importance of the internet for terrorists . The internet represents the ultimate borderless landscape. With near-anonymiity, freedom of expression and unparalleled access to a world audience, the new breed of cyber terrorist exhibit the same fearlessness and bravado as those who remove their social filters when anonymously commenting on the internet. For these individuals, far removed from a war zone or a scene of murder, cyber-terrorism probably feels a bit like a game. It's anything but a game however. Cyber terrorists serve the most impo...

Here's a scary bit of news ... there's a growing trend in the medical industry of doctors gaining patent protection over surgical techniques, procedures and methods -- then leveraging the courts to enforce their patents in order to gain monetary compensation. Thankfully, this form of patent protection hasn't been used to prevent the practice of medicine -- so patient care has thus far been unaffected. Patent holders have instead been suing medical equipment manufacturers. The fear does exist however, that if this slippery slope is allowed to continue, then surely it's only a matter of time before someone is sued for having a patent-protected procedure used on them. Another reason why the patent process needs overhauling.

China is in a bit of a quandary. The country, opened to economic growth by Deng Xiaoping , remains closed otherwise, by the current Communist Party leadership. The result: unparalleled economic growth by any country in the history of the world, and tremendous challenges on the social, environmental and political fronts, that ironically, perhaps only a strong central -- and dare I say, one party -- government, may be capable of solving without risking the economic collapse of the country. Unfortunately, the government that can fix the problems, is also the cause of the problems. China's central government stresses economic growth above all else. To achieve these goals, local government officials dabble in industry, compromising the welfare of the state and its people. They invest heavily in local businesses -- sometimes tying business prosperity with personal fortunes of corrupt politicians. This has led to lax laws or simply laws that aren't enforced to protect China...

Chinese food quality is making the rounds in the news in North America. Food quality is also making the news in China. Yesterday, as I flew out of Shanghai, I heard the news of an undercover TV crew that busted a dim-sum restaurant in Beijing's Chaoyang District. The restaurant, in a effort to save money amid rising pork prices, started to cut their steamed pork-stuffed buns with cardboard. The recipe went like this: Cardboard was soaked in water and an industrial-use caustic soda, a poisonous chemical, was added. The cardboard lost its normal color and became fragile under the soda's strong causticity, making it look more like pork. Finally, pork-smell essence and pork fat were stirred into the concoction to make the stuffing more "vivid." Product quality in China is suspect, and to be fair, China is starting to take product quality seriously. Earlier this month China executed the State Food and Drug Administration director, Zheng Xiaoyu , for taking bribes to ...

What happens when zero tolerance rules are in place? What happens when it's in place in the Texas, in the food ole U.S. of A.? What happens? Insanity rules and all semblance of intelligence -- if there ever was any -- departs. In the case of 12-year-old Shelby Sendelbach in the Katy Independent School District, you get a 4-month suspension for writing " I love Alex " in marker on the wall of the school gym. The same punishment that is reserved for making terrorist threats, possessing drug and assaulting someone. What does a society do when this madness takes over?

Love this song!

There's something deeply disturbing about this picture. There's always something disturbing with homophobes in general, especially those religiously motivated. This protester however, tops the list -- and I'm assuming here that this one ain't a fake, as it seems to be in the middle of an orgy of homophobic display. This protester is specifically targeting Alan Turing , a British mathematician and cryptographer, largely regarded as the father of modern computing and the code breaker that cracked the German Enigma machine in the second world war. Turing was gay in a time when homosexuals were not tolerated, and the law and medical science tried to cure the homosexual affliction. Turing was stripped of his security clearance, which in effect led to the termination of his work for the government cryptographic department. Alan Turing committed suicide at the age of 41, in 1954.

Nicholas Carr, ever the optimist, uses Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar [PDF], to sermonize on the limitations of the open source model for innovation, in strategy+business magazine. If you're not familiar with Raymond's paper, Carr summarizes it as follows: Traditionally, sophisticated programs had always been "built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation." An open source project, in contrast, was the product of a large and informal community of volunteers who in aggregate "seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches." What was amazing, Raymond wrote, was that "the Linux world not only didn't fly apart in confusion but seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed barely imaginable to cathedral-builders." With the advent of the Internet, an efficient vehicle for information exchange, the bazaar took off. Innovati...

Russian dictator-in-the-making, President Vladimir Putin, is stirring up international unrest by laying claim to large portion of the Arctic in order to secure rights to untapped oil, gas and mineral wealth. Putin has been pushing his luck lately, as his one party state has gained more international confidence due to its new found oil wealth. While it's always fun watching someone mess with George Bush, as Putin did during the last G8 summit, this latest move is going far beyond pissing off Bush -- it has the potential to wreck havoc on one of the last pristine environments left in the world, and give the finger to the international community. What's with the mental midgets that continue to make the world a dangerous place?

Why is America shipping military gear to Iran ? A good question that should be asked, since America has been rattling sabres since GW got tingle for Mahmoud . The answer is not one that most Americans will care to hear, nor interested in doing much about. It comes down to the mixing of commerce and war. When the two meet, only horrible things can result. America's defense department apparently has a lot of surplus and legacy equipment -- the over capacity no doubt a result of defense contractors pushing Uncle Sam to buy more. Through a series of third parties, the defense department moves equipment out to civilian hands, from where it skips the country and tend to end up in the hands of the highest bidder. Playing this out to ultimate end will find surplus American military gear in the hands of enemies on a battlefield. American made equipment being used to kill American soldiers, fighting wars triggered by politicians, at the behest of military contractors. If the present...

Back in the day, when fighting music piracy wasn't the primary goal of record companies -- record companies actually liked their customers. Liked them so much, that in some vinyls released in the 1970s and 80s, they included bonus material. The bonus material that came shipped on the rare vinyls were computer code embedded in audio, to run on the Sinclair Spectrum home computer (my first computer was the Timex Sinclair ). Some of the code that was secreted on vinyls, included simple computer games. As Kempa.com points out, some of the games and emulators to allow you to play them on your computer, are available. If you missed the gems the first time around, you can still give them a spin.

Group work in the business world wouldn't have been if it wasn't for Edith and Charlie Seashore . Since the 1950s, the Seashores have been espousing the value of the group in solving problems and bringing change to organizations. Chances are, you've practiced some of the techniques they pioneered with like-minded fellows of the National Training Laboratories: ... giving feedback, conducting "check-ins" to begin meetings, sitting in circles, using flip charts, scribbling on big pieces of paper taped around the room, collaborating on visions for the future, and forming "fishbowls," or groups set up in the center of a larger circle to interact while those around them observed what they were doing. If you throw a group of people together, conflict is inevitable. Hiding from conflicts however, doesn't make them go away. Instead, they fester, and eventually infect those around them. The Seashores teach that good leaders don't avoid conflict, but...

The Bible defines Pi as 3. A whole number, as pointed out at the Gospel of Reason . So just how do fundamentalist Christians reconcile the Biblical proclamation with Mathematics? Well, a helping hand. I Kings 7:23-26 references something "circular in shape" -- not a circle. So really, it wasn't a circle. Just more evidence of God testing the faithful.

Harvard has an Implicit Association Test (IAT) online, to measure the association with white and black Americans. The IAT is used social psychologists "to measure the strength of association between mental representations of objects in memory. The IAT requires the rapid categorization of various stimulus objects, such that easier pairings (and faster responses) are interpreted as being more strongly associated in memory than more difficult pairings (slower responses)." The aggregated responses from those who've taken the test online is captured in the image above. Take the test and see where you land. The result doesn't necessarily reflect racial prejudices towards whites or blacks -- but definitely a bias -- although there is controversy in the use of the test.

The Citarum [PDF] is the garbage dump for nine million living in Jakarta. Their household waste; their factory refuse. The river is so polluted , you can't see the water. Garbage covers the entire river surface. Below the garbage covered surface, the river is poisoned by chemicals flowing from factories -- most of them textile factories. The river flows into an irrigation system that supplies water to rice paddies and local families. The Citarum is the story of human desecration of the planet. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Just before you think you're innocent of this travesty, you should check your closet to see where your clothing comes from.

Humans have had a short and spectacular history on this planet. Short. Extremely short. To some of the species we're busily taking to extinction, we've just barely blinked into existence. We're quite the surprise for the planet. Follow this link for an animated view of how we took over the planet. In a brief period of time, we've forced frightening changes on our world -- but the planet has seen its share of disasters. It has bounced back from mass extinctions . It will survive the one we're bringing. Will we?

In research just published , scientists have found that microorganisms with the melanin pigment, have a natural hunger for radiation, and may be using the pigment to consume radiation in much the same way that chlorophyll converts solar radiation in plants. Organisms studied, the fungi Cryptococcus neoformans , Cladosporium sphaerospermum and Wangiella dermatitidis , all consumed high levels of ionizing radiation, resulting in exponential growth – sometimes even when they were not in a nutrient rich environment. The ability of melanin to confer protection against radiation is well known. Melanin is responsible for our skin pigmentation, and has been found in organisms inhabiting extreme environments. Melanized microorganisms have been found in high altitudes, Arctic and Antarctic regions, and recently, colonizing the walls and surrounding soil of the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor. There is also fossil evidence that suggests that melanin has been around for some time, conferri...

LibriVox is a cool site for both the literati and the podcasters. The site's mission is the "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain." For the podcast generation, this is one great community powered project aimed at introducing books in the public domain to those who would not otherwise indulge and engage their minds. In addition to providing free audio books, the project also looks for volunteers who would like to lend their voices to the cause. If you fancy yourself an orator, love books and have some free time to spare, check out the site and volunteer.

Back in 2002, Scientific American published 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense -- an attempt to rebut "some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution." Having to refute creationists arguments against evolution isn't a new thing. As SciAm points out, Charles Darwin was similarly challenged in his day by scientists, until evidence from numerous scientific disciplines mounted a bulwark against "creationist nonsense." Today of course, science faces a the challenge of misunderstanding, misinformation and just plain lies. Even the informed is challenged to face the barrage of idiocy. Here's some help then. 15 common arguments that creationists raise, and answers you could wield to knock them back to the dark ages (let's face it, some will never see the light). Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those...

Mark Morford of the SF Gate has written a biting commentary on the impending (or not so) death of the Hummer -- comparing its representative excesses and false American machismo to that of the Bush Administration, and the "bloated, arrogant, offensive," and dead, Jerry Falwell. It's an absolute pleasure to read. Check it out.

The UK's Channel 4 news show, Dispatches , filmed a documentary of extremist Islam being practiced in British mosques. While they publicly talk moderation, Dispatches "finds preachers condemning integration into British society, condemning democracy and praising the Taliban for killing British soldiers" in their mosques. The extreme views may be coming from a few, but those Muslims that do nothing to counter them are just as guilty. Watch the video and be afraid.

Australia's Herald Sun is carrying an interview with Trent Reznor, in which he harangues the music industry, music fans, himself and the illegal downloading of music. Here's an excerpt, in which Reznor is confronted on why his latest CD goes for $34.99 at the local HMV. Well, in Brisbane I end up meeting and greeting some record label people, who are pleasant enough, and one of them is a sales guy, so I say "Why is this the case?" He goes "Because your packaging is a lot more expensive". I know how much the packaging costs -- it costs me, not them, it costs me 83 cents more to have a CD with the colour-changing ink on it. I'm taking the hit on that, not them. So I said "Well, it doesn't cost $10 more". "Ah, well, you're right, it doesn't. Basically it's because we know you've got a core audience that's gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get ...

Just when you think it couldn't get much worse ... it gets much worse. There seems to be no end to the travesty that is the Bush Administration. The latest comes from one of the political lackeys of King George, who was appointed to the Interior Department. Julie MacDonald filled the role of deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, until she resigned last week -- a week before Natural Resources Committee launched an investigation into inappropriate actions on the part of MacDonald. MacDonald it appears was busy harassing scientists of her department and removing fish on the endangered species list. Inappropriate in itself -- but far more inappropriate when you realize that MacDonald was making a cool $1 million annually from her fish farm that profited from the extinction of said fish. [Read more .] Can this woman be shot?

Rouge Government is carrying a post exposing the Bush Administration's National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive , that effectively makes the President of the United States a dictator, should a "catastrophic emergency" occur. Section 2b) defines such an emergency in really vague terms: "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions. Should Americans be afraid at this point? Yup. Should Americans challenge this trampling of their fundamental rights? Yup. Are Americans afraid of this? Mostly, no. Are Americans going to doing anything about this? Nope. They're way too busy watching American Idol to care.

Africa is dry, and climate change is going to make it even more so. It has been suggested that the current conflict in Sudan, is not just a manifestation of religious and ethnic animosities -- it's also a conflict of too few resources to meet the demand of the existing population. If the world is serious about ending the genocide in Sudan, it will also have to address the problem of dwindling resources, exasperated by the Sahara pushing further south, down the continent. It is another perspective on climate change. Our consumption habits in the developed world is being paid for, in part, by the lives of Africans -- by the genocide happening in Sudan. This perspective begs for urgency in addressing climate change. The conflict and resulting genocide in Sudan may be an early warning sign of the coming consequences of climate change. It won't happen fast, but ancient hatreds around the world, currently held at bay by economic and social prosperity, will certainly ignite wh...

The latest on intellectual property protection south of the border, comes courtesy of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Bush Administration. They are seeking to ensure that their friends of the old guard can continue to milk profits from content, regardless of fair use rights. Copyright infringement is already against the law, but Gonzales is now proposing that attempting to commit piracy should also be a crime, punishable by America law. Considering that close to 80% of internet traffic is from file sharing activities -- and just making a wild guess to say that at least half of those people are partaking in copyright infringement, exposes a whole lot of people to potential jail time. Is it just me, or is there a huge disconnect with reality on the part of the Bush Administration and their business supporters? Believe it or not, a whole lot of people aren't looking for jail time, but neither are looking for draconian measures on how they can consume content they'...

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger has penned an interesting paper that goes against our natural tendency to preserve our past. In Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing [PDF], Mayer-Schönberger argues that in the digital age, a comprehensive trail of our actions, words and beliefs is being preserved for posterity, and aided with distributive and recovery capabilities of the internet, could inadvertently pose a danger to society. In effect, our technology-aided ability to recall everything is creating panopticon world that threatens to stifle the public discourse that fuels the engines of our democracies. Technology evolved fulfilling our retention desires, with default to retain, rather than delete. Mayer-Schönberger wishes to reset the default; to enable our technology to forget. Already, there has been growing concerns with the retention and use of private, historical information. Just about all of our public, and increasingly private transactions are bei...

Most now admit that the global climate is changing on a massive scale, and its happening within our lifetime. Regardless of whether you accept the science that places the blame on human activity, or choose to believe that the change is being driven by other mechanisms, know that unprecedented change is happening. Science has had years of practice in building climate models that have been tested with data to verify their accuracy. Honed by a broad range of climate scientists, the model represents atmospheric and oceanic systems. Like other global models, it simulates interrelated processes: for example, the warming of Earth's surface by solar radiation; the absorption of heat by the oceans; the reflection of solar energy by land surfaces, ice sheets, and particulates in the atmosphere; and the effects of the accumulation of excess carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases that trap heat. [Read more in MIT’s Technology Review ] The problem with such models however is the sca...

As results from our various instruments pour in, we get an increasingly accurate view of our universe, and our place in it. Recently, researchers analyzing data from the Voyager spacecrafts, began to piece together an image of our solar system’s place within the galaxy. The solar system travels in an invisible bubble, created by solar particles streaming towards interstellar space. The edge of our solar system is in fact, defined as the point where particles from the Sun and those of interstellar space, reach a happy medium -- undulating against each other. Our solar system moves through the Milky Way, carving it’s way through interstellar space -- with the bubble of solar particles shaped like a bullet , forming a protective shell around the system. The edge of this bubble, carves a path through the Milky Way’s magnetic field at an angel of 60-degrees, traveling at 1/3 the speed of light. The bullet shaped is formed from the solar particles hitting the galactic magnetic field. ...

A draft declaration on global warming being prepared for the G8 Summit in early June, hosted by Germany, is being systematically taken apart by the US . The US apparently is opposed to a pledge to limit global warming; cut greenhouse gas emissions; supporting carbon markets; and having the UN be the forum where the world tackle the climate crisis. Not surprisingly, Steven Harper still has his head lodged firmly up George W. Bush's rotting ass. Harper's government is backing the US stance to water down strong global warming message Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to push through. History will look back at this, and see failure in our elected representatives to do the right thing. History will look back at each one of us, and judge our actions in response to the political inaction.

Spread the word ... it's World Fair Trade Day .

The North Pacific Gyre , occupying an area of about 34 million square kilometres in the northern Pacific Ocean, is a swirling vortex of ocean currents that sweeps up waste material, creating a garbage dump that is estimated to be twice the area of the state of Texas. Most of the material in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch , as it is lovingly known, is plastic. Plastic that is making it's way into the food chain -- rapidly. Forget the images of marine life and birds digesting the visible plastic trash. Tiny pieces of plastic, estimated by Charles Moore of Algalita Marine Research Foundation , to outweigh plankton in North Pacific Gyre by six times, is making its way insidiously into us. At the genetic level, the toxins from plastic are messing with out collective biochemistry. And it's too late to do anything about it. At best, we can stop adding to the wasteland our world and bodies have become -- that's because plastic doesn't decompose, and worldwide, less tha...

We send a lot of stuff into space. A lot. Not everything that goes up and stays out there, necessarily had a primary mission. Upper rocket stages of spacecrafts for instance -- they're just there to make sure the crafts we send up, get to where they're going, and have a chance at completing their missions. Upper rocket stages -- well, they just sort of get left to their own devices when they've been spent. As Space.com points out in a recent article, an interesting possibility arises from that scrap metal. The spacecrafts that get sent out are usually sterilized to ensure they're clean -- not so with the upper rocket stages. They're teeming with bacteria from the engineers who built them. The amazing thing about bacteria is their ability to survive. Bacteria has been known to hibernate for millions of years -- waiting for the right conditions to arise so they continue doing what bacteria do -- multiple, and evolve. Right now, upper rocket stages are hurt...