The IWC is proposing to "improve the conservation of whales" by improving "the conservation and management of whale populations and stocks on a scientific basis and through agreed policy measures." What does that mean? Japan, Norway and Iceland will continue to hunt whales, because the IWC can't stop them. An impasse has been reached, and instead of forcing these countries to stop hunting endangered species, the IWC is proposing that whale hunts and limits be administer under its control -- in effect, making it OK for whales to be hunted -- again.
I went to the Green Living Show with the family today -- and it was much better than I thought it would be. At the show a few years ago, I was disappointed. A lot of green building products and services -- but not a whole lot more. This year, there was a good balance with the construction stuff, consumer products/services and food -- yeah, food -- and it was good, the stuff I sampled. So good in fact, it passed for lunch, and the probiotics are singing and dancing right now ... "heigh-ho, heigh-ho ...."
That being said, there was enough to hold my interest walking through the entire exhibition floor. And after having given up a perfectly working 486 (yeah, I know), and several CD-ROM drives and a ZIP drive, to barter for entrance, I was looking for value. Here are a few highlights.
Homestead House Paint Co. -- Canada's only milk paint manufacturer, producing odourless and zero-emission paint.
Cycling Painters -- these guys cycle to your place and then paint it, using eco-friendly paint.
Birds and Beans -- offering sustainable coffee -- organic, shade grown, fair trade and bird friendly -- that's right, bird friendly -- where natural habitats are not destroyed to bring you your caffeine fix.
nature's source -- it's a natural dispensary, and you can get 50-cents off your supplements if you bring in your empty bottles for refills.
Taste of Life -- making organic and vegan, Jamaican style patties. Their website doesn't seem to be up, but you can reach them at 905-593-3173 or 1-877-477-6297. I tried some. Hot!
Civic Footprint -- I've signed up, but I'm not sure I fully get what this is all about yet. They help bring volunteer activities to you, and allow you to track how much you contribute -- time and money. Interesting concept, but I don't know how to link my existing activity yet.
The reCYCLER -- this guy takes old bikes and turns them into art -- some, functional.
FrogBox -- absolutely cool solution for those moving. FrogBox rents plastic boxes to help you move. You call them, they deliver, you pack and move, and they pick up the plastic boxes when you're done. Tape not required.
The World's Greenest Business Card -- not sure about the claim, but they give you FSC and EcoLogo certified business cards, printed with veggie ink, using 100% post-consumer recycled paper. And on top of that, they plant a tree for you with every order.
Me to We Style -- they make t-shirts, using sweatshop free manufacturing, eco-friendly fabrics, and then plant a tree for each t-shirt sold and give 50% of their profits to Free the Children. I have one of their tees. It's cool.
iRecycle Computers -- offers sustainable and one-time solutions to deal with electronic waste.
CUSO-VSO -- an international development organization that puts skilled volunteers into developing countries. It's an intriguing organization, but my only disappointment is that they don't put volunteers in at-risk communities within Canada, as well.
Evergreen Brick Works -- while the gardens will be officially open on May 7th, the Farmer's Market won't until May 29th -- and the construction that's going on there, won't be completed until September of this year. Still, if you want locally grown and native plants, it's the place to go in Toronto.
Recently, several governments (not the US), including Canada, expressed some dissatisfaction with Google's sometimes disregard for the privacy of its customers. Wired's Peter Kirwin makes the point, that as Google grows, it may become a "regulated quasi-utility." Google, like all businesses, is already a regulated company. To operate in the public sphere, it must be regulated -- including in areas of privacy. But as Google continues to grow, its utility becomes more apparent. Certainly, it can be replaced -- and it does have competitors that fulfill similar functions for the public -- but Google's goal is to be the portal to all information -- public and sometimes private. If Google succeeds, and there's no reason to think it won't, it becomes essential to the functioning of a modern, technologically adept society. Being regulated as a utility at that point, becomes a requirement -- as Google's purpose would no longer be just to deliver wealth to its shareholders.
in reference to:
"The key challenge for Google involves slowing down the process. Arguably, this now matters more to shareholders than new product development. Regulated companies make smaller profits than you’d otherwise expect. For a company whose shares still trade at 25 times earnings, this is a fate to be avoided." - Word War III: Google vs. Governments | Epicenter | Wired.com (view on Google Sidewiki)
Last year, a Saudi law firm launched a lawsuit against the Danish newspapers for publishing cartoon images of Mohammed -- suggesting that the Danes have insulted the heirs of the prophet. Now, the Danes are returning the favour -- suing the prophet's heirs for libel, for all the insults Mohammed has heaped on non-Muslims.
You don't have to love South Park -- in fact, you can hate it -- but if you live in the free world, you should be willing to defend its right to exist. You should be willing to defend its right to offend, as it does with every episode. That's what free speech is all about. Of course, that free speech also protects those that espouse hate, which South Park does not. (In fact, while it offends, the one thing you can't pin on South Park, is hate. It hates not one. It loves everyone equally, cause it can poke fun at them.)
So recently, when South Park aired an episode featuring the Super Best Friends -- namely Buddha, Moses, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Jesus and Sea Man (actually, Semen) -- and censored Muhammad's appearance -- he appears in a U-haul truck, then a bear costume, since it might offend Muslims -- they got some hate directed at them. Specifically, revolutionislam.com got their shorts in a knot, and posted quite the diatribe on their site -- coming just short of calling for the heads of the South Park creators.
revolutionislam.com opens their April 15th post on the topic with a photo of the stabbed Theo Van Gogh, followed by the text, "Have Matt Stone And Trey Parker Forgotten This?" That was followed by some propaganda, and,
We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.
Apparently, revolutionislam.com was heard. Loud and clear in fact. And their site has gone boom! Quite literally. It was hacked and defaced very quickly after the above threat was posted.
While revolutionislam.com may be able to skirt the laws in America, apparently, they haven't learned that pissing off the hacking community (die-hard fans of South Park), may not be such a good thing.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has gone live, after months of moving into a geosynchronous orbit. Today, NASA scientists revealed "first light" images taken by the telescope.
Let me introduce you, folks, to our very own star, the Sun (Latin: Sol). It is much more spectacular than you've ever imagined.
in reference to:
"With SDO looking on, decaying sunspot 1060 unleashed a minor "B3-class" solar flare. A shock wave issued from the blast site and raced across the surface of the sun (movie). SDO images clearly show magnetic loops and other structures rocking back and forth when the wave passes over them. Eventually, the wave disappeared over the sun's horizon--but the show wasn't over. Four hours after the initial blast, and some 200,000 km away, a massive prominence erupted (image)." - First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory - NASA Science (view on Google Sidewiki)
They may still be "emerging economies" in some books, but that term is so yesterday. If you think the economies of the BRICs were something -- you haven't seen the half of it yet. The rest of the world is coming, and it's not a bad thing. The captains of the first world economies will need a hard reset in their thinking, as colonial thinking will no longer get them anywhere.
in reference to:
"The United Nations World Investment Report calculates that there are now around 21,500 multinationals based in the emerging world. The best of these, such as India’s Bharat Forge in forging, China’s BYD in batteries and Brazil’s Embraer in jet aircraft, are as good as anybody in the world. The number of companies from Brazil, India, China or Russia on the Financial Times 500 list more than quadrupled in 2006-08, from 15 to 62." - A special report on innovation in emerging markets: The world turned upside down | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)
Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on http://collateralmurder.com.
Namir Noor-Eldeen was 22-years-old when he was killed. It is true, in war, accidents will happen. What follows however, shouldn't have been a bending of the truth -- or just plain lies. In this case, it's hard to assess whether this was an accident or deliberate. The crews from the Apache helicopters claim to see AK-47s and an RPG, but it's never clear if there is any. If they could see weapons, they would have also seen Noor-Eldeen carrying a large, professional-grade camera. That should have immediately questioned their assessment of the group as being insurgents. Further, to get the OK to engage, the gunship crew claims there is shooting on the ground -- but the video clearly shows there is none. In fact, the men in the video appear to just be standing around -- even though there is two Apache gunships orbiting their location. After the initial firing, a van pulls up, and a few people started loading the bodies into the van. Without any provocation, the Apaches open fire, killing the adults and wounding two children who were sitting in the van.
A further assessment of the video can be found here.
With this latest revelation, the ball is now in the Americans' court. How the government responds to the evidence will say a lot of whether America has moved beyond the torture years, to again be a respectable global citizen. If America doesn't respond with moral fortitude, then it loses its right to criticize the same behaviour, elsewhere.
Don't disappoint us, America.
Updated: Here's a quick look at how the news was being reported.
Another update: The Vancouver Sun has a full transcript of the video.
... but the least you can do is make some effort to minimize them. Said effort is apparently lost on the Australian shipping authorities, who allow freight vessels, such as the Chinese coal carrier, Shen Neng 1, to traverse through the Great Barrier Reef, unescorted and without pilots experienced in the area. That an accident happened shouldn't come as a surprise then. The Shen Neng 1 has ran aground in the Great Barrier Reef, and is currently leaking oil. It's carrying 65,000 tonnes of coal. The worst is probably still to come.
in reference to:
"Conservationists have expressed outrage that such ships can travel through the reef without a pilot with local expertise. "The state government is being blinded by royalties and their shortsightedness will go down in history as killing the reef," said Larissa Waters, spokeswoman for Queensland's Green party." - Chinese ship runs aground on Great Barrier Reef | World news | guardian.co.uk (view on Google Sidewiki)
I don't know what the comment was, but I'm sure it was rude, offensive and insulting. That would be the comment Guy Earle threw at Lorna Pardy, when she disrupted his comedy act in BC. There's conflicting reports from Earle and Pardy, on what was said, and how it got escalated. But, Earle, had his act disrupted continuously by Pardy, who was was with her partner taking in the act. As the heckles continued, Earle verbally went after Pardy. Pardy on her part, didn't shut up, and threw two drinks on Earle. Earle took her sunglasses off her face, and broke them.
Was Earle wrong? Was Pardy? Yes, they both were. They both misbehaved. Earle should should have expected as much as a live performer. Pardy for her part, should have shown a little bit more respect for the other patrons, and the other comedians.
Where this all goes wrong is with Pardy's suit against Earle and the restaurant owner. She's claiming damages of $20,000, on human rights grounds -- for being discriminated against, due to her gender and sexual orientation. Being insulted, no matter how rudely, isn't a human rights issue. Being denied access to services because of gender or sexual orientation, is. Just like Earle, Pardy has the right to say whatever she wants, including hurling insults at him on stage. That wouldn't constitute discrimination however.
How does this get this far? Why wasn't this dismissed a couple of years ago? The only ones getting any benefit from this, are the lawyers -- and the taxpayers are losing some money for this little farce to play out in public.
The National Post has more, here ... and Ezra Levant has an opinion piece here..
The fact that the IDF goes around killing indiscriminately when operating in Palestine, is no new news. It happens -- not necessarily widespread -- but it happens. That top Israeli commanders would order their soldiers to shoot certain people on-site, is not new -- heck, Mossad went to great lengths to assassinate a Hamas official in Dubai. This shit happens.
Of course, having it happen, and pretending that it's all rumour, is quite different than having proof that it has happened, and that it was premeditated. That's the case right now with an Israeli journalist, Anat Kamm, under house arrest, for reporting on state secrets that would reveal Israeli commanders to have ordered shooting on-site of top Palestinian fighters in the West Bank.
There are those that would argue that the publishing of state secrets is a crime -- should be punished, and should be prevented. But, in a practising democracy, where is the line drawn between what the citizens are allowed to know -- and what they should trust their government for knowing what's good for them? Why should a government hide its actions from its own people? Unless there is an imminent military operation that would be put in jeopardy, the only reason a state would have to hide something, is if it was illegal and would cause embarrassment. The only reason to hide the truth, would be to protect individuals who operate on behalf of the people. It's wrong, no matter where it is practised.
in reference to:
"Specifically, Blau’s article cited a confidential defense ministry document from March 2007 which included an order from Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, then Israel’s senior commander in the West Bank, permitting the IDF to shoot three top Islamic Jihad members even if they did not pose a clear and present danger." - Israel's Censorship Scandal - Page 1 - The Daily Beast (view on Google Sidewiki)
Why do strangers cooperate? Help each other? And practice fairness -- even when there is no direct benefit to themselves? Researchers have long puzzled over this. Is it an evolutionary thing? Or is it cultural?
Using behavioural experiments that looked at notions of fairness in relation to a society's economic integration and how much the individuals subscribed to a world religion, a team of researchers have found that the answer may be cultural. Notions of fairness -- that fairness is a good thing, and unfairness should be punished -- was stronger in economically integrated societies. Societies that lacked economic integration, didn't see much need for fairness -- or much need to punish unfairness. The researchers also found that one's propensity for fairness was also strongly linked to a subscription to a world religion. Religion does bring moral codes, and belief in an omniscient god who punishes bad behaviour and doles out rewards for the good, should favour those who are fair with each other.
Pious Perverts
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The state-funded religious-nationalist school of Orot Girls opened in new
premises in September in the city of Bet Shemesh. As per school
regulations, all ...
