This amazing image is licensed under Creative Commons on Flickr, here.

“China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said … His statement came as a Dutch think tank reported that China had already overtaken the US as the world’s biggest emitter of CO2 … [But] It is estimated that the [...]

“Flickr launched sites in seven languages Wednesday, expanding beyond just English. But because of a German law, the company decided it had to restrict the photos German members could see to those that had been marked ’safe’ by members…”
This is a few days old, but I only just found the story. It seems Flickr is [...]

“Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of 24-hour-a-day showroom … Palestinians - whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling Hamastan - are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs.”
Naomi Klein examines [...]

Slashdot links to an article about a 1906 record, which shows that the music industry’s stringent EULAs and licensing terms are nothing new. The back cover of the sleeve states that unless the disc was sold to them for more than one dollar, the user does not have a licence to play it and it [...]

Death Piglet reproduced by kind permission of Johan. Original here.

“The chief executive of internet search firm Yahoo, Terry Semel, has quit his position and has been replaced by co-founder Jerry Yang.”
Whether this is a temporary position for Jerry Yang, and whether or not the change can turn around the fortune of a company rapidly losing ground to Google, remains to be seen. BBC News [...]

An internal BBC report has warned that the Corporation needs to beware in case it suffers from a liberal bias. Personally, I think this is overly self-critical - the BBC is one of the most neutral organisations I can think of. Examples given in the report included the Vicar of Dibley campaigning against poverty and [...]

“British censors have banned a violent video game from the UK for the first time in a decade … The video game Manhunt 2 was banned for its ‘unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying’, the British Board of Film Classification said.”
This kind of censorship is ridiculous. Surely grown adults are capable of deciding what [...]

Protests are sweeping the Muslim world after it was announced that Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, is to receive a knighthood. Pakistan’s religious affairs minister went as far as to suggest that a suicide bombing against him would be justified. I understand that the book is offensive to Muslims, but it’s ridiculous that [...]

“The US and the EU are to normalise ties with the new Palestinian government, lifting embargoes on aid to support an administration without Hamas.”
We don’t support a government voted in through largely free and fair elections. However, once that government’s sacked and a new one is appointed under a process of questionable legality, everyone suddenly [...]

Slashdot links to an article on European operators’ reluctance to sign up to exclusive iPhone contracts, largely due to Apple’s expensive and limiting terms. However it notes that, unlike in the US (where not all operators are GSM) Apple could sell the phone SIM-free in Europe. Personally, I think a large part of the issue [...]

From YouTube, here.

Andrew Dubber has published an e-mail exchange between himself and a member of the IFPI and BPI, similar to the US RIAA. Dubber had posted a link to a report on someone countersuing the RIAA. Paul Birch of Revolver Records responded, effectively claiming it was inappropriate to link to anything critical of the RIAA because [...]

“MPs are to debate controversial moves to allow mentally ill people in England and Wales to be detained even if they have not committed crimes.”
This proposal really worries me. Yes, there is a need to protect the public from the possibility that mentally ill people may commit crimes. However, surely if a person is so [...]

“History is full of brutal leaders who have plunged their lands into poverty and war through greed, corruption, and violence. And though many events—natural disasters, economic shocks, an influx of refugees from a neighboring country—can lead to state failure, few are as decisive or as deadly as bad leadership.”
From Foreign Policy’s report on The Failed [...]

“Last week, I was talking to my sister about sex on drugs - no, not asking her for it, but talking about listings on gay sites where men say they’re looking for ‘Chem Sex Now’ and other glorious things. My sister was pleasantly surprised that it’s short for Chemicals rather than that they’re all looking [...]

” ‘Here, in America’, he said, ‘If you are homeless, its your own fault, its because you were drinking too much or something’ … This is one thing that distinguishes Americans from Europeans. Europeans despite their many differences tend to think much more that if you are homeless and poor this is as much a [...]

A fascinating insight into the way in which we view the world, translating a letter to a Brazilian poet which shows that the human desire to communicate and create reality is not something new. From YouTube, here.

“Lawmakers appear to be on their way to fixing one glaring flaw in the law-enforcement system as a direct response to the massacre at Virginia Tech. But another change that is vital to public safety is facing heated resistance from opponents of gun control who seem to have trouble drawing a line between the right [...]