| Monday, June 9, 2003 |  |
| Feeling Lonely? Snuggle Up To A Pet Cockroach | 20 comments |
 9 Jun 2003 @ 09:01Feeling Lonely? Snuggle Up To A Pet Cockroach By Belinda Goldsmith Reuters / MSNBC May 19, 2003 CANBERRA, Australia, May 19 - Dog too demanding? Allergic to cats? Then how about coming home to a lovable, giant cockroach? Workers in Australia's pet industry say the demand for insects as pets has risen in the past five years because of more cramped living -- and so has the number of people befriending cockroaches, with the biggest of the species native to Australia. "Admittedly they are a bit of an unusual pet, but the kids can play with them without getting hurt and they are very low maintenance," said John Olive, one of the major suppliers of giant cockroaches to the pet market within Australia. "I'm surprised more people don't want them as pets." But roach-lovers are not settling for second best and befriending any of the little critters that scuttle around your kitchen at night or the offensive brown things with huge wings that fly in when you open the balcony door in summer. They want the world's biggest cockroach, the giant burrowing cockroach or rhinoceros cockroach that is native to Australia, and found in the warm, northeastern state of Queensland. "These really are charming creatures. They're clean, they're not stinky at all and there really is nothing horrible about them except for the name cockroach," said Sue Hasenpusch of the Australian Insect Farm, another supplier. These gigantic cockroaches, officially called Macropanesthia Rhinoceros, grow as big as the palm of a hand, measuring about 3.15 inches and weighing 1.2 ounces. They are also known to live up to 10 years. TENDER, LOVING CARE Huge and shiny with spiky legs, they can be kept in a medium sized tank with four to five inches of sandy soil at room temperature, surviving on dry eucalyptus or gum tree leaves. They don't seem to mind handling and some cockroach owners even say their animal hisses softly when stroked. Animal trainer Steve Austin, who has kept giant cockroaches, said they were quite clever animals, wingless and slow moving. Within seven days, he managed to train a group of cockroaches to come when they were called, climbing over small obstacles and through a hoop, to reach some food 6.4 feet away. "They certainly won't be greeting you at the door with a newspaper in their mouth like a dog, but they can respond as a pet as much as a fish, coming when called," Austin said. "They have a certain intelligence and they are getting quite well known as pets now although it is still a new thing." He brushed aside suggestions these giant cockroaches were dirty in any way or spread disease -- unlike some of their smaller cousins who thrive in sewers and rubbish tips. "They're no dirtier than a domestic rat or mouse," he said. Australia is home to about 450 native species of cockroach which are not pests and are mainly bush dwellers, while globally there are an estimated 4,000 species of cockroach. But there are around six species of pest cockroach in Australia, most of which were introduced from outside the island continent and now plague almost every house. ESCAPING THE STIGMA Fans of giant cockroaches are quick to distance themselves from the household pests and some pet shops rename them litter bugs, rain beetles or macrobugs to escape the cockroach stigma. The Australian Insect Farm sells "giant litter bug" kits, comprising of an insect house, sand, some food and three young little bugs, for A$71.50 ($45 U.S.). Peter Nobbs, executive officer of Australia's pet welfare group, the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, said urban living often prevented people from keeping a dog or cat but insects or small reptiles were ideal for life in an apartment. Although the trend is fairly new in Australia, Japan has always had a large market for live insects, with some vending machines even selling live beetles for pets, while stick insects are becoming increasingly popular in Britain. Nobbs said developments in the technology involved in the pet industry, such as lighting and heating, had made keeping insects more popular as it was now much easier to keep them alive. "The animals becoming trendy are the ones that are more portable, with way less animal welfare issues involved in keeping an insect or small reptile in an urban area," Nobbs said. "And let's face it, people just like bizarre pets." Instructions for Care More > |
| Vivendi’s Empire-building | 0 comments |
 9 Jun 2003 @ 09:01First we fight over oil, now water. How many wars will we fight, and for how long, under the guise of control of natural resource? From Corporate Watch Vivendi’s Empire-building Not to be out-done by the oft-repeated fashion-house phrase ‘blah, blah is the new black’, big business has turned neophiliac too. ‘Water is the new oil’ they say. And they are right. According to the World Bank, the water markets of the world are worth up to $800 billion, which makes them comparable in scale to the fossil fuel markets. And what better way to gain access to these markets than through the world’s increasingly GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services)-friendly governments. This is despite the 2003 World Water Forum’s conclusion that privatisation models haven’t proved their worth and that the debate over them 'has not been resolved'…1 The Forum brought together hundreds of groups concerned about the use of the world’s water reserves – from those who want to conserve them (Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad) to those who want to sell them (World Bank). February 2003 saw the announcement that French company Vivendi (one of the big three water conglomerates – the other two being Suez and RWE AG) did what Monsieur Tony Blair just last year refused it; namely, increasing its foothold in the UK water industry. Together with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Vivendi has been allowed to acquire a 19.9% stake in Southern Water with the option to increase it to 25%.2 This is in addition to its existing ownership of the Three Valleys, Folkestone and Dover and Tendring Hundred water companies, and gives Vivendi a 10% share of the UK’s £6bn water market. Vivendi’s patchy history makes this an especially worrying development. Vivendi has been bribing its home country’s government for concessions since the 1980s.3 It now controls 50% of the 80% privatised French water market. In 1985, France’s federal comptroller found that the Paris Mayor’s office had signed a contract with Compagnie Generale des Eaux (Vivendi) that allowed it to indulge in fraudulent accounting to hide enormous profits. Separate judicial enquiries have also alleged that in a 'pact of corruption', Vivendi financed Jacques Chirac’s party through illegal commissions in exchange for public contracts ranging from elevator maintenance to water concessions. One of these inquiries, which opened in June 1997 and is still ongoing, found that the companies colluded with civil servants by paying illegal commissions - primarily to Chirac’s party (the RPR). Between 1989 and 1995, the pact was involved with public contracts worth $3.3 billion with up to $86 million being funnelled to the RPR. Both company officials and party executives have admitted the companies agreed to pay 2% to 3% of the cost of each contract to political parties. Several party executives are awaiting sentancing with Vivendi refusing to comment as the cases are still before the courts. In 1991, Andre Fougerousse, the mayor of Ostwald, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, and municipal councillor of Strasbourg, resigned from his post after being accused of receiving illegal payments from Vivendi, Suez and Saur. Fougerousse did not deny the allegations but claimed they were normal, arguing that other elected city officials enjoyed similar favours. He wasn’t lying. In 1996, Vivendi’s deputy director general, Jean-Dominique Deschamps, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $27, 000 after being found guilty of paying illegal commissions to political parties in exchange for obtaining water contracts in approximately 70 French cities. A year later the former mayor of Angouleme, Jean-Michel Boucheron, was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $172, 000 for taking a $55, 000 bribe from Vivendi. In return for Boucheron’s approval of a water distribution contract, Vivendi put him on its payroll for a job that did not exist. Apparently not satisfied with its influence over one ‘democratic’ government, the Vivendi octopus attached a sucker to Italy. In 2001, Italian judges sentenced former Milan city council president, Massimo De Carolis, to nearly three years in jail for taking bribes from a Vivendi subsidiary during 1998 bidding on a $100 million contract. Alain Maetz, the manager who paid the $2 million bribe, got a year and 10 months. That Vivendi has no qualms about seeking to control governments is not really surprising given that it employs more people than some governments – 295, 000 world-wide. The Vivendi Universal empire is composed of two major divisions, Vivendi Environment and Vivendi Communications. Vivendi Universal created Vivendi Environment in 2000 to consolidate its water, waste (Onyx), energy (Dalkia) and transportation (Connex) units under a single - and presumably large - banner (subsidiaries range from processing Novartis’ waste to ferrying Renault employees to work). In 2002, the conglomerate barely staved off bankruptcy as it struggled to cope with billions of debt, a collapsing share price, boardroom infighting and no clear strategy. Earnings were hit by hefty depreciation in the value of Vivendi''s assets and led to the sacking of chairman Jean-Marie Messier last July. Another sacked employee, Anne Brassens, who worked at Vivendi’s finance office during the same period, explained the problem in an April 2003 interview.4 She said that Vivendi had lacked enough cash at the holding company level to fund an acquisition spree by ex-chief executive Jean-Marie Messier. Brassens said Messier had been driven by a ‘logic of Napoleonic expansion’ and accused the former banker of having no idea about the value of assets he was buying as he turned the water company into a media colossus, owning Universal Studios and Universal Music Group. ‘So we found ourselves with 20bn euros of debts and not a single penny in cashflow,’ said Brassens. Asked why in that case Vivendi had continued to pay out dividends, she was reported as saying: ‘To give the market the illusion of good health.’ Vivendi's balance sheet was a ‘facade bearing no relation to reality,’ she said. Since the introduction of new chief executive, Jean-Rene Fourtou, Vivendi Universal hasn’t done much better. In fact, March 2003 revealed a loss of 23.3 billion euros ($25.6 billion) in 2002, the largest in French corporate history.5 It now looks like Vivendi Communications (which includes the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group, as well as Universal film studios, and various Internet and cable networks) will be sold off. This by no means entails the end of Vivendi Environment. Quite the contrary. Vivendi Environment’s water-related revenue increased from $5 billion in 1990 to $12 billion in 2002, and in January 2000, Vivendi unloaded its entire debt onto its environment division and its lucrative water companies, so that its communications division could go debt free.6 In other words, Vivendi Water holds the key to the empire’s future. Continue... More > |
| Dangers of Teflon Coated Untensils | 1 comment |
 9 Jun 2003 @ 09:01From Environmental Working Group In two to five minutes on a conventional stovetop, cookware coated with Teflon and other non-stick surfaces can exceed temperatures at which the coating breaks apart and emits toxic particles and gases linked to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pet bird deaths and an unknown number of human illnesses each year, according to tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group (EWG). In new tests conducted by a university food safety professor, a generic non-stick frying pan preheated on a conventional, electric stovetop burner reached 736°F in three minutes and 20 seconds, with temperatures still rising when the tests were terminated. A Teflon pan reached 721°F in just five minutes under the same test conditions (See Figure 1), as measured by a commercially available infrared thermometer. DuPont studies show that the Teflon offgases toxic particulates at 446°F. At 680°F Teflon pans release at least six toxic gases, including two carcinogens, two global pollutants, and MFA, a chemical lethal to humans at low doses. At temperatures that DuPont scientists claim are reached on stovetop drip pans (1000°F), non-stick coatings break down to a chemical warfare agent known as PFIB, and a chemical analog of the WWII nerve gas phosgene. For the past fifty years DuPont has claimed that their Teflon coatings do not emit hazardous chemicals through normal use. In a recent press release, DuPont wrote that "significant decomposition of the coating will occur only when temperatures exceed about 660 degrees F (340 degrees C). These temperatures alone are well above the normal cooking range." More > |
| I Live With A Celebrity | 0 comments |
 9 Jun 2003 @ 08:39I got an email from Letecia that our house mate, John Roulac, founder of Nutiva Hemp Foods is also known as Mr.Compost. His book about backyard composting is featured at Green Books and has sold over 20,000 copies. This is a UK site , but it's available online at many US outlets too. Here's the google search I did for it. Here's short synopsis of the book: Composting allows you to do something for the part of the Earth you live with day by day: your own back garden. Backyard Composting follows basic values, such as putting things where they belong and not making a mess. Composting at home reduces your personal volume of rubbish, conserves water, increases plant growth, replaces the need for toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and is also fun. While you may not win an 'environmental hero of the year' award, your trees, earthworms, butterflies and other flora and fauna will be grateful for your composting achievements! Backyard Composting also introduces the various types of composting bins and accessories, explaining the pros and cons of each type, and gives instructions for building one from scrap materials. |
| Is Google Getting Too Powerful? | 1 comment |
 9 Jun 2003 @ 08:39Is Google Getting Too Powerful? Is it time to set up Ofsearch, a regulator of search engines asks technology consultant Bill Thompson Everyone's favourite search engine now owns the world's most popular blogging tool. With its purchase of Pyra Labs, Google now runs Blogger and with it the weblogs of hundreds of thousands of opinionated net users. The story of the buyout was, appropriately enough, broken on a weblog by journalist Dan Gillmor, shortly followed by an 'official' announcement on his personal blog from Prya Labs co-founder Evan Williams. Then the blogs and technology news sites went wild, making this the net news story of the week, if not the month. Not journalism Often blogs are as far from journalism as it is possible to get, with unsubstantiated rumour, prejudice and gossip masquerading as informed opinion Bill Thompson We should not get carried away by all this. Ridiculous comments, such as Dan Gillmor's claim that "with the advent of weblogging, the readers know more than the journalists" only stoke the fires of hyperbole and do not help us understand this new tool. Blogging is not journalism. Often it is as far from journalism as it is possible to get, with unsubstantiated rumour, prejudice and gossip masquerading as informed opinion. Without editors to correct syntax, tidy up the story structure or check facts, it is generally impossible to rely on anything one finds in a blog without verifying it somewhere else - often the much-maligned mainstream media. The much-praised reputation mechanism that is supposed to ensure that bloggers remain true, honest and factually-correct is, in fact, just the rule of the mob, where those who shout loudest and get the most links are taken more seriously. It is the online equivalent of saying that The Sun newspaper always tells the truth because four million people read it, and The Guardian is intrinsically less trustworthy as it only sells half a million. Google's plan This is not to deny the significance of blogging, or the value that comes from having the unmediated opinions and experiences of millions of people available online. Blogging left the geeks behind long ago, and the wide availability of easy to use tools like Blogger, Movable Type and Grey Matter has allowed anyone with an interest and some time to create their own online journal. I just do not subscribe to the view that this challenges 'proper' journalism, even if it does mean that sloppy reporting and analysis based on incorrect assertions are more likely to be challenged by the online community. What then of Blogger and Google? Now that some of the dust has settled it is clear that nobody knows what is going to happen next. Not even, it seems, Evan Williams himself since he admitted that just because he had negotiated the sale to Google "that doesn't mean I know much. For example, about the question: What happens now?" Some think that Google was simply helping out a fellow innovator that had fallen on hard times. Others see it as the start of an attempt by this most successful of search engines to own the 'blogosphere', all the world's blogs. Another theory has it that Google will use the content from the blogs it now owns to fine tune its news service by using the bloggers as an early warning system on breaking stories. Internet entrepreneur and blogger Anil Dash believes it is Google's first mistake, the start of a strategy to turn the search engine into a portal which is doomed to failure. And the paranoid fringe think that it is just another takeover from a secretive, hyper-competitive company with no respect for the personal privacy of its users. I think this last group may actually have a point. Tracking users Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is Bill Thompson Google is a privately-owned US company that has a policy of collecting as much information as possible about everyone who uses its search tool. It will store your computer's IP address, the time/date, your browser details and the item you search for. It sets a tracking cookie on your computer that does not expire until 2038. This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search terms over many years. Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is. It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes. And the much-loved Google toolbar tells Google about every web page you look at. Yet it so dominates the search engine market that no website can afford to ignore it, and it indexes so much of the web that few users think of using another. The way it ranks pages is a commercial secret, outside any external supervision or control. If Google decides it does not like you then you can be dropped from the index. Continue... More > |
| Important Burma Update | 2 comments |
 9 Jun 2003 @ 08:38This comes from The Burma Mission organization. Dear Burma-ban campaigners, As many of you may know, Burma's regime has violently cracked down on the democracy movement over the past week and a half, killing as many as one hundred or more people and imprisoning many more - including democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her "lieutenant" National League for Democracy Vice-Chair U Tin Oo. Both Daw Suu and U Tin Oo are also injured. Things are moving very rapidly. The Free Burma movement is rapidly pushing for as much international pressure on Burma's regime as possible. In the U.S., this is largely taking the form of legislation that will ban all imports from Burma, as well as ensure that the regime can receive no IMF or World Bank loans and freeze their overseas assets. While this legislation has been in the works for a while, it was only just introduced on Wednesday and is moving *very* quickly because of the ongoing political crisis. Please post this alert to your lists TODAY, and please act immediately - first by calling your Senators, then by calling your Representatives. The Senate vote will probably occur first, and very soon. This legislation, if passed as it is, will effectively put an end to our campaigns against "Made in Burma" goods and allow us to turn to other ways of pressuring Burma's regime. Thanks for your continued support and action, ******************************* Dan Beeton Free Burma Coalition ******************************* URGENT ACTION ALERT: CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND SENATORS TODAY 1) Description of Action 2) Talking Points 3) Text of Legislation ========================================= 1) On Wednesday, June 4, both the Senate and House of Representatives introduced legislation to significantly increase pressure against Burma's brutal military regime. It comes just days after a nationwide military crackdown in Burma, during which scores of people were killed and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi was seriously injured and rearrested. While this latest atrocity adds urgency the situation, the legislation is NOT being introduced in reaction to it. It is being introduced because the military regime refuses to participate in UN-sponsored talks with Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy. This is an important distinction--because then in order to escape the legislation the regime would simply have to release Suu Kyi, and we would be back at square one. ========================================= 2) Call your Congressional and Senate offices and ask to speak with the staff member who handles foreign affairs. If you get their voicemail, leave a message explaining that it is very urgent and they need to call you back as soon as possible. -If you do have a chance to talk to them, let them know what has happened in Burma, including to Aung San Suu Kyi. (You can request recent news from national papers and/or papers in your area from us). -Ask for them to co-sponsor the Burma Freedom Act, (if they are a Senator, they will co-sponsor the Senate version BILL S1182, if they are a House member, support the House version, HR2330). -Offer to email them a copy of the legislation. They cannot give you an immediate answer, since they need to ask the Senator/Congressperson. But do ask them when they will be able to tell you what action the Senator or Congressperson is taking. Let them know that the people of your State greatly care about this and that the ongoing crackdown on democracy in Burma makes the situation very urgent. -Write down exactly what happened with each call you make--send us an email and let us know where things stand. Try to be as detailed as possible about your conversations. That will help us answer any concerns they have. ================================================ "We believe in people power. Without your participation, we can achieve nothing." - Min Ko Naing, Burmese student leader imprisoned in Burma since 1989 PLEASE CONTINUE READING More > |