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Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

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For those of you, for who Christopher Reeve will be the only Superman, there's about to be a whole lot more coming to a DVD release near you. Not content with milking the public on the latest from the franchise, Warner Bros. will be releasing the Christopher Reeve Superman Collection and the Ultimate Superman Collection for this Christmas. What's special about these collections? The latter includes the Richard Donner cut of Superman II , a film that was refilmed, reedited and changed completely from the original filming of Superman II. Yes, there was pretty much two Superman II movies made. One that we all saw, and the other that was lost, until now.

The 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments

PC World Magazine has a top 13 list of the most embarrassing moments that have made it on to the web. I question the veracity of the list, but nevertheless, it's quite entertaining. Enjoy. The best, IMHO, is the Monkey Boy dance. A classic that I had forgotten about, but enjoyed thoroughly once more.

HIV Prevalance

This was created with maps from WorldMapper. Check out the maps , and try and figure out what's wrong with this picture.

Toronto Maple Leafs Game Schedule on Google Calendar

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I'm messing around with Google Calendar, and I've just created a new one -- publicly open for everyone to see. It's the Toronto Maple Leafs 2006-07 game schedule. It's really created for my wife, who is the greatest Leafs fan I know. Now she won't miss a game, and I will know which nights I can actually take her out. If you have a Gmail account, you can access Google Calendar, and you can include this one easily into yours. Click the button to see the calendar.

Separation of Church and State

CorrenteWire has a post that should serve as another warning of the continued descent the United States seems to be on -- the descent that will see the merging of the church and state. They already hold the sway in political discourse, and are certainly not afraid to proclaim their allegiance to the church first, themselves second and their constituents third. In the post, a Republican loser in the recent election, congratulates the Democratic winner, and encourages him to bring Jesus into his world and let Jesus guide his path. The only problem is, the Democratic winner is a Hindu.

Rape: Weapon of War

If you've seen the movie Hotel Rwanda , you may recall the scene where Paul Rusesabagina visits George Rutaganda's camp after the Interhamwe has overrun the country. The camera pauses briefly as Paul sees a cage, where nude women are kept. If I remember correctly, as the camera pans from the cage, it leaves a scream behind. Most will not want to think what that scene was all about. Most will know. It was a silent recognition of what has happened, and what continues to happen in Rwanda and the Congo -- the systematic rape and brutalization of women and girls -- victims of war; hostages of the conflict; possessions; and worse, targets to be sexually neutralized for genocidal and psychological purposes. If there is a hell, these women are living it. If the world has heroes, this is where they are needed. If you're human, you will try and do something to stop this from continuing to happen. Newsweek has a graphic article on the topic. It describes the rape being used ...

Confused About Kyoto

The Conservative government has managed to embarrass Canada on the world stage with their latest misleading messages regarding Canada's support of the Kyoto Protocol. You've got to wonder, what were they thinking? Do they really think the world is as dull as the voters that put them in power? Or is this Harper's effort to continue building his niche in Bush's behind? Because if anything, Canada's back-pedaling on our obligations to the Kyoto Protocol has only served to distract the world from the even more shameful example being set by the United States. Harper's has been demonstrating his diminutive intellect ever since he took over the Tories and started campaigning against the Kyoto Protocol -- vowing that if elected, he would reverse the Liberals support of the Kyoto Protocol and Canada's commitments. Even though the Tories have yet to release their climate change policy , it is quite clear which direction they're heading in -- and their be...

Confused by Harper

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Harper is a strange man . He is quicker to pucker at the mere whiff of George W.'s dusty Texan, yet continues to do his best to be a nag at Jintao's capitalist excursion at every opportunity. Doesn't he realize that Bush has two more years in office? Which if the Democrats have their way, will be keep Bush quite subdued -- yet Hu will be in power for, well, as long as Hu damn well pleases. Doesn't he realize who the next superpower is going to be? And that China will emerge as the leading economic power within his political career? Why does he continue to do it? I for one find it hard to believe that Harper gives a rat's ass about human rights in China -- so I'm at a complete loss.

Mostafa Tabatabainejad

Mostafa Tabatabainejad is a UCLA student, who was tasered repeatedly by police when he didn't leave the library immediately after he was told to. He was told to leave the library after he couldn't produce his student ID card during a random police check. He's a UCLA student who just happened to forgot his student card. There isn't much more detail available, as neither Tabatabainejad or the police are talking. If I can hazard a guess however, I'd say the name says it all: Mostafa Tabatabainejad. Update: Here's a six-minute video of the whole incident.

Stupid People on TV

Really, only stupid people ever end up on TV. Take this interview that CNN's Glenn Beck did of the newly minted congressman, Keith Ellison. The following transcipt is posted on Media Matters , along with the video: BECK: History was made last Tuesday when Democrat Keith Ellison got elected to Congress, representing the great state of Minnesota. Well, not really unusual that Minnesota would elect a Democrat. What is noteworthy is that Keith is the first Muslim in history to be elected to the House of Representatives. He joins us now. Congratulations, sir. ELLISON: How you doing, Glenn? Glad to be here. BECK: Thank you. I will tell you, may I -- may we have five minutes here where we're just politically incorrect and I play the cards face up on the table? ELLISON: Go there. BECK: OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. I've been to mosques. I really don't believe that Islam is a religion of evil. I -- you know, I think it's being hijacked, quite fran...

The Executive Colouring Book

The Executive Colouring Book -- I'm not saying anything else. Click the damn link.

IT Led Business Process Improvement?

Business Process Improvement , Process Reengineering or Business Process Management -- by whatever name you call it, it's the same thing -- the systematic and continuous improvement and adoption of processes throughout an organization, aimed at efficiency, flexibility and adaptability. First introduced in the 1990s by Michael Hammer and James Champy, BPI had its time in the limelight, and faded like a fad. Under the new moniker of BPM however, the fad is back, as consulting and software vendors attempt to sell more products and services. BPM has its promises, but I'm a skeptic of its potential, as it aims to do something almost inhumane to people. That hasn't stopped the sales people from calling however. One such salesperson is Roger Burlton, who seemed to have had his way with CIO Magazine 's Meridth Levinson, because her article in the November 1st issue is nothing more than Burlton's sales pitch -- which Levinson backs up with selected evidence from succe...

The Art of Influence

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You can't get anywhere in business without the ability to influence people -- convince them -- to follow, to lead, to just do what needs to get done. This may be obvious to a whole lot of us on reflection, but you'd be surprised how many of us don't actually practice the art of influence to get things done. Often, due to time constraints or impatience, we fall back to the standards that should work, but hardly ever. Appealing to logic, correctness and authority often fails, and the reason it does, is because people are naturally distrustful of change. Whatever you're trying to convince them to do is not something they're already doing, so why should they do it now because you want it done? People do what you want them to do because they trust you -- and trust doesn't come free, it comes with work -- it's earned. The only way to earn trust is by establishing relationships with individuals -- which takes time. Trust is capital that you need to have in t...

Polish Student's Fundamentalist Experience

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What do you expect of America when you travel from across the world to spend six months as a foreign exchange student with an American family? For 19-year-old Michael Gromek, he certainly didn't expect the family to try and banish the devil from his soul -- but that was exactly the hell that greeted him when he landed at the airport in North Carolina. Little did he know that his host family's only interest in him was to use him to spread the fundamentalist baptist word -- Gromek was supposed to go back to Poland to help build the church and spread the faith.

The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library

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Want to waste some time? Just a little time? Then checkout Angry Alien Productions ' recreation of some famous movies, lasting 30-seconds and starring bunnies. 'Nuff said.

PocketMod: Personal Disposable Assistant

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PocketMod -- who needs a PDA when you have this nifty little application, built on Flash, that allows you to create your own paper-based PDA. You can equipe your new analog PDA with pages to write on, games to play, yearly calendar and more. And just like a digital PDA, when you get back to your computer, you can sync it up with an analog to digital converter: your fingers and the keyboard. You can also find a PDF-to-PocketMod converter that will convert any PDF file into the PocketMod format, allowing you to carry around large documents in an easy to manage PDA format. This is absolutely cool!

A Dragon in R&D

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The face of globalization continues to evolve. First, it was low cost manufacturing from the developing nations of the world -- cheap labour, low quality. Well, the quality has improved, and so has the skills of the labour. China is now looking beyond manufacturing. What's next? Innovation. A combination of ruthless capitalism, still cheap labour, lax intellectual property protection, government encouragement and national pride is transforming China . While the masses aren't being educated to challenge the world, there's enough up and coming with a University education that have the potential to take initiative and be creative. China is rapidly changing from a country with no only a large manufacturing base, but also a growing niche in technology innovation.

Amazon's Risky Business

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A lot of people seem to be wondering just what Jeff Bezos is doing with Amazon. BusinessWeek has the scoop on Amazon's services play that has been evolving over the past few years. Amazon is betting that it can turn the powerful infrastructure that runs its online retail store into a services offering, and in so doing, make a play as a utility company of the internet. Think of it as Amazon wanting to be the equivalent of the electric, water, gas, etc., company for your home and business. They've had to develop the infrastructure for their online store, with excess capacity to handle the spikes in their business -- most of the time however, a fair bit of that capacity sits idle. What Amazon is going is turning their excess capacity, which more or less is the utility for online businesses, into services they can sell. It's catching on -- slowly -- and if Bezos' bet pays off, the long term windfall will be huge.

Bush and his Poppy

The UK Times has an entertaining psychobabble analysis by Andrew Sullivan, of George W. and the fate that has brought him where he is today. Sullivan focuses on Bush's relationship with his dad, Poppy -- as Bush Sr. is known to family members. As Sullivan puts it, it's a tale suitable to a Shakespeare drama.

Convert or Die

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Left Behind: Eternal Forces has hit the shelves just in time for Christmas. In the videogame, based on the popular novels by Tim Lahaye, gamers will take on roles in either the Tribulation Forces, a Christian army, or Global Community Peacekeepers, a UN like peacekeeping force led by the anti-Christ. As a Christian soldier, your goal is to attempt converting those who are not Christian, to save their souls for when the Christian god returns -- failing that, fragging their asses is justified. Who needs saving? Well, the usual heathen suspects: Jews, Muslims, Hindus -- basically, anyone who isn't Christian. All of this takes place in the oft battered New York City. Christian mythology has always been good fodder for entertainment, and I'm quite sure the premise of the Left Behind story makes for a great videogame. I am concerned however about the marketing of the game. The game is being pushed heavily to Christian kids via evangelical channels. Christian parents concern...