| Thursday, May 8, 2003 |  |
| Portable Toilets With Web Access | 0 comments |
 8 May 2003 @ 23:30Portable Toilets With Web Access Thursday, May 8, 2003 Posted: 9:11 AM EDT (1311 GMT) SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Now on the way: "Surfing on the loo" with Internet access at portable toilets. The iLoo being developed by the MSN division of Microsoft Corp. in Britain is a standard portable toilet -- a loo to the British -- with a wireless keyboard and extending, height-adjustable plasma screen in front of the seat. There would also be a "Hotmail station" with waterproof keyboard and plasma screen on the outside for those waiting in line. MSN officials say they're negotiating for the manufacture of toilet paper imprinted with Web addresses that users may not have tried. "The Internet's so much a part of everyday life now that surfing on the loo was the next natural step," MSN marketing manager Tracy Blacher said. "People used to reach for a book or mag[azine] when they were on the loo, but now they'll be logging on." The device is expected to be in use at festivals this summer in Britain, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Tuesday. There's no word on if, or when, the iLoo will make its way across the pond. |
| Ten Lessons Of The Iraq War | 0 comments |
 8 May 2003 @ 23:24Ten Lessons Of The Iraq War By David Krieger 5-7-03 There are always lessons to be learned after a war. Often governments and pundits focus only on lessons having to do with military strategies and tactics, such as troop deployments, engagement in battles, bombing targets and the effectiveness of different weapons systems. There are, of course, far bigger lessons to be learned, and here are some of the principal ones from the Iraq War. 1. In the eyes of the Bush administration, the relevance of international organizations such as the United Nations depends primarily upon their willingness to rubberstamp US policy, legal or illegal, moral or immoral. 2. The Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War may be employed against threats that have no basis in fact. 3. The American people appear to take little notice of the bait and switch tactic of initiating a war to prevent use of weapons of mass destruction and then celebrating regime change when no such weapons are found. 4. A country that spends $400 billion a year on its military, providing them with the latest in high-tech weaponry, can achieve clear military victory over a country that spends 1/400th of that amount and possesses virtually no high-tech weaponry. 5. Embedding journalists with troops leads to reporters providing only perspectives sanctioned by the military in their reports to the public. It is analogous to the imprinting of ducklings. 6. The American people can be easily manipulated, with the help of both embedded and non-embedded media, to support an illegal war. 7. An imperial presidency does not require Congress to exercise its Constitutional authority to declare war; it requires only a compliant Congress to provide increasingly large sums of money for foreign wars. 8. It is far easier to destroy a dictatorial regime by military might than it is to rebuild a country as a functioning democracy. 9. If other countries wish to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, they better develop strong arsenals of weapons of mass destruction for protection against potential US aggression. 10. In all wars it is the innocent who suffer most. Thus, Saddam Hussein remains unaccounted for and George Bush stages a jet flight to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, while Ali Ismaeel Abbas lies in a hospital bed without his parents and brother, who were killed in a US attack, and without his arms. The most important lessons of the Iraq War may be as yet unrevealed, but there is a sense that American unilateralism is likely to continue to alienate important allies, while the triumphalism of the Bush administration is likely to taunt terrorists, making them more numerous and tenacious in their commitment to violent retaliation. David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation "If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing; If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself." --- Lao Tzu "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." --- US Constitution, First Amendment "Peace is the only battle worth waging." --- Albert Camus |
| Survey Reveals Geographic Illiteracy | 0 comments |
 8 May 2003 @ 23:12Well, I'll have to admit that I am one of those who failed to retain what was presented to me about national and world geography. When there is an international story I usually need to look up on a map to get a visual of what is being talked about. Slowly I am getting the global picture. Survey Reveals Geographic Illiteracy Bijal P. Trivedi National Geographic Today November 20, 2002 See Survey Results and Test Yourself In a nation called the world's superpower, only 17 percent of young adults in the United States could find Afghanistan on a map, according to a new worldwide survey released today. The young U.S. citizens received poor marks generally in geography. But then, as results showed, their counterparts in other countries were hardly star students. The National Geographic–Roper 2002 Global Geographic Literacy Survey polled more than 3,000 18- to 24-year-olds in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden and the United States. Sweden scored highest; Mexico, lowest. The U.S. was next to last. "The survey demonstrates the geographic illiteracy of the United States," said Robert Pastor, professor of International Relations at American University, in Washington, D.C. "The results are particularly appalling in light of September 11, which traumatized America and revealed that our destiny is connected to the rest of the world." About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn't even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent. Are Young U.S. Citizens Americentric? Despite the threat of war in Iraq and the daily reports of suicide bombers in Israel, less than 15 percent of the young U.S. citizens could locate either country. More young U.S. citizens in the study knew that the island featured in last season's TV show "Survivor" is in the South Pacific than could find Israel. Particularly humiliating was that all countries were better able to identify the U.S. population than many young U.S. citizens. Within the U.S., almost one-third said that population was between one billion and two billion; the answer is 289 million. "It gives the sense that there is this Americentric thing going on—that we are big and powerful and have all these people in our country," said John Fahey, President and CEO of the National Geographic Society. On the other hand, Pastor suggests that the results could mean that most young Americans just have no idea of the total world population (about six billion). Poor Geographic Literacy Worldwide Young adults worldwide are not markedly more literate about geography than the Americans. On average, fewer than 25 percent of young people worldwide could locate Israel on the map. Only about 20 percent could identify hotspots like Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. Of all the young adults in the survey, only about one-third in Germany, Sweden and Japan, could name four countries that officially acknowledge having nuclear weapons. In the rest of the countries that number dropped to less than a quarter. In France 24 percent did not know that that their own country was a nuclear nation. The survey results are not all bleak, says Roger Downs, head of the geography department at Pennsylvania State University, in State College, and a National Geographic geographer-in-residence in 1995-1996. Geography Not Valued in Schools Since the last Geographic-sponsored survey in 1988, said Downs, the percentage of young U.S. citizens who reported taking a geography course in school rose from 30 to 55 percent. And students who had studied geography did better on the current survey. U.S. schools generally have slighted geography. "If geography is not in the curriculum," Downs said, "it's not tested—and that says to the students that it is not valued." The schools are not solely to blame, either. "Wouldn't it be nice if parents also read atlases to their children?" Downs says. Questions covering current events or practical activities yielded more promising results. Most young U.S. citizens knew that Africa was most affected by the AIDS epidemic, and about half knew that El Niño caused erratic weather. "When geography and life intersect, people pay attention," said Nick Boyon, senior vice president for international research at RoperASW, in Manhattan. Boosting Geography Geographic knowledge increases through travel and language proficiency, among other factors. In the highest-scoring countries—Sweden, Germany and Italy—at least 70 percent of the young adults had traveled internationally in the last three years, and the majority spoke more than one language (in Sweden, 92 and 89 percent, respectively). In the U.S. and Mexico only about 20 percent had traveled abroad during the same period and the majority spoke only one language. To fight geographic ignorance, and apathy, among young people in the U.S. and around the world, the National Geographic Society will convene an international coalition of leaders in American business, education and media. Next year the panel will recommend initiatives to policymakers in those areas—and to parents and children. |
| Weeds Are Good Eatin' ! | 3 comments |
 8 May 2003 @ 22:57Chart of Comparative Nutritional Values of Leafy Vegetables and Weeds Most of our common weeds contain more nutrients than our garden crops.This chart shows the comparison levels of nutrients. Details of each weed follows. Those that have links will take you to a more in depth look at each one. http://www.living-foods.com/articles/whywildfood.html http://visitors.gardeningclub.com/mag_articles/article_8.asp http://www.olivenaturals.com/foods.htm http://www.rawfoodliving.com/foraging.html ------------------------------ ,B>"Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food" Hippocrates More > |
| Does Our Sun Have aTwin? | 1 comment |
 8 May 2003 @ 22:43 By Paul Blakemore The Telegraph - UK (10-22-2) In 1846, researchers noticed that Uranus was wobbling in a way that confounded Newton's Law of Motion. This meant they had two options: rewrite the most time-honoured of the laws of physics, or "invent" a new planet to account for the extra gravitational pull. Compared to Newton's reputation, an eighth planet seemed much less massive and Neptune was discovered. Today scientists working in the University of Louisiana have discovered a statistical anomaly of similar proportions. Professors John Matese [see below], Patrick Whitman and Daniel Whitmire have studied the orbits of comets for 20 years, and their recent findings have led to startling theories. Intrigued by the work of two palaeontologists working for the University of Chicago, Prof Whitmire, along with Nasa colleague Dr Al Jackson, had earlier attempted to explain the amazing discovery that six apocalyptic events, including the extinction of the dinosaurs, have all occurred, like clockwork, every 26 to 30 million years. To try to explain this mass extinction cycle, they looked to the possibility that comet showers were to blame. The latest effort of Matese, Whitman and Whitmire studies 82 comets from the huge cloud of comets, called the Oort cloud, that exists around our solar system. They took the aphelia of these comets, the points on their orbit that are farthest from our Sun, and plotted them on a globe. Expecting to find an even distribution, they instead found that a particular band of sky, about one sixth the total, contained more than one quarter of all the comets, and that about 25 per cent of the comets coming from this cloud have anomalous paths. So what was affecting the orbits? They went on to theorise that the best explanation is the existence of a previously unknown body - that our solar system is made up of the Sun and a shadowy partner, either a brown dwarf or a massive planet, in a wide binary system. In effect, the solar system had two stars, the Sun and a dark companion, spinning around each other. Now I know what you're thinking Surely I'd have noticed a second Sun in the sky? But, as Prof Whitmire explained, the process of assumption based on statistical anomalies has always been a cornerstone of scientific discovery. According to their current theory, he says, "the companion is a brown dwarf star or massive planet of mass between two and six times the mass of Jupiter". A brown dwarf is a star too small to sustain the nuclear fusion that powers our Sun, and so is relatively cool (surface temperature of less than 1500C) and so also very dim, being barely hot enough to give off light. But it gets worse. Under their original theory, called the Nemesis theory, this small dark star, which lurks at around 90,000 times farther away than the Earth is from the Sun, may be on an orbit that, once every 30 million years, ploughs it into the densely packed inner cloud. Here its immense gravitational pull would drag out several of the Oort comets and give them the "kick" needed to send them towards the Sun on orbits perilously close to the Earth. This explains, in the professor's view, the ominous mass extinction cycle, due to regular periods of increased cometary activity every 30 million years. However, before we head for the bomb shelters, we should take heed of the professor's words: "As a practical matter our models will never be generally accepted (and shouldn't be) until the actual object is found." However stressing that they are "sufficiently plausibleto give incentives for others to look". Today, their current paper has moved away from the Nemesis theory and proposed, on the basis of comet orbits, a less massive planet about three times the mass of Jupiter. None the less, with an explanation for the mass extinction cycle yet to be found, he has admitted that they may not be mutually exclusive; and that there could be two dark stars, one a failed partner to our own, and another one that is acting almost as an alarm clock for doomsday. Even so, he says: "I'm still hopeful that ultimately these might turn out to be the same object.". "An original idea in science is often a gut instinct, but this should not influence the development of the idea," says the professor. "I always try to be my own worst critic". The scientific world remains intrigued but sceptical. However, the recent bombardment of Jupiter is a reminder that if the team is right, there may not be many around to hear them say: "I told you so." Full Story Here More > |