Change of Direction.

Rather than posting news stories that interest me I am going to try to post personal content, and useful tech info.

I have changed a lot in the last 3 years through illness and disability, and so have my interests, and politics and world view.so the feel should change.

Israel pats themselves on the back for aid ship deaths

Public opinion throughout the world largely deplored the violence with which Israel enforced its blockade of the Hamas-ruled enclave and stopped the convoy, leaving nine Turkish civilians dead.



Israel's response is a report that exonerates the military with only a few caveats and pats Israel on the back, not only over the conduct of the raid but over the blockade of Gaza in general.

Amplify’d from www.independent.co.uk

As we report today, 52 separate military police investigations over the last two years into Israel's December 2008 offensive in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, which resulted in the deaths of 759 Palestinian non-combatants, have yielded precious little. The level of casualties in the offensive was shocking. A single lethal air strike on a house where about a hundred civilians were sheltering killed 21 of them. There were well-documented cases of Israeli troops using children as human shields. These were corroborated in some instances by Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli human rights activists and former army veterans, some of whose members witnessed these events. A country that resorts to such inhumane tactics while presenting itself as a standard bearer for democracy should be asking itself hard questions about whether it was striking the right balance between security demands and respect for the basic human rights of civilians caught up in a war zone. Read more at www.independent.co.uk

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/fr57NH

Somone is wrong on the internet

via codexon.com

Love this :)

Posted via email from Black Weta's posterous

Earth Hour - kill your neighbour's dog and leave the lights on

Earth Hour - a futile and scientifically unsound gesture towards making ourselves feel better about screwing the earth over.

Advocates say it makes people think about the earth. Well wouldn't it be better to think about it for more than one hour a year? If I was the earth I would be feeling a bit ripped off. New Zealand and Australia both get one whole day a year to them selves, and the whole earth only gets an hour? Shouldn’t it be earth week and we all get a one week holiday?

But wont switching off lights at least drop load at the power station and reduce emissions? No! The Power stations are on idle at night - they have to run at a minimum load. Switching off lights at night doesn’t make them generate any less electricity.  The power is there to use.  It's the DAY time that they go flat-out.

So, if you DO want to reduce energy-produced carbon emissions by a MINISCULE amount by switching off lights, first connect to an electricity provider that isn’t already green, and then switch off lights during the day. But only if your electricity provider is not green already!

Q. What are the folk that do follow Earth Hour going to do in the dark?

A. Make carbon-emission producing kids, burn candles to produce light really inefficiently, or  go for a drive in their SUVs/Hummers to town to spend money on so stuff whose packaging is plastic and created by some filthy pollution generating Chinese factory.

SO, what CAN you do if you really want to make a difference to the earth at Earth Hour?

Take your kids on a family activity to kill your neighbours dog! By doing this you will be saving the earth from the massive emissions of dog food production, and canning processes,  AND the carbon dioxide and methane that the dog would have created from its consumption.

Your neighbour wont have to drive their dog to the park in their SUV anymore either. Win Win.

Brilliant.

How to teach a kid to go far in life

So true these days. It seems to be successful, you need to be an arse.

clipped from www.theage.com.au <img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.theage.com.au/img/06978D28-4518-4908-9A7F-547C32005F24" alt="Friday, 11 September, 2009 Photo: Alan Moir" /> 9 JanAlan Moir, The Sydney Morning Herald's political cartoonist, sketches the political unreality.

KFC racist, or just US media seeing the world through lenses of racism as usual?

This was not a black America issue. This was not even an American ad. It had nothing to do with colour or race. It was about an Aussie cricket fan surrounded by West-Indian cricket fans. Aussies and Kiwis never thought of it as 'white vs black'.

WE are not uncomfortable about people having different skin colours. WE find skin colour irrelevant. It is totally acceptable to bring home a girlfriend of a different race, because it is not important.

Americans view people as either Black or White. THAT is racist. Stop being racist America! Colour should be invisible!

I have heard that KFC didn't have the bottle to stand up for itself. The ad has been taken of air. Pathetic.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Although intended only for an Antipodean audience, the clip has quickly found its way around the world on the internet, prompting stinging criticism in the US where fried chicken remains closely associated with age-old racist stereotypes about black people in the once segregated south. KFC Australia has come out fighting, saying that the commercial was a "light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team" that had been "misinterpreted by a segment of people in the US." In the Australian media, the reaction has been mixed, with some commentators accusing Americans of "insularity". Brendon O'Connor, an associate professor at the University of Sydney, told 9 Network News that the association between fried chicken and ethnic minorities was a distinctly US issue: "They have a tendency to think that their history is more important than that of other countries." Watch Video

Hey Kids! Learn how to plagiarise without being caught.

The war on kids is on.Your teachers are out to catch you copying useful information from websites in to pointless homework (yes research shows most homework has no educational benefit). While you may call it being resourceful and efficient, THEY call it plagiarism. Luckily the Brits have published notes on how they catch you. Good luck sweeties!

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk Children can also be easily tripped up by copying passages from websites containing American phrases and spellings – a clear sign of plagiarism. The comments were made in a series of documents sent to pupils, parents and teachers warning against cheating at school. Among the most obvious giveaways was when an essay suddenly changed “in font, styles, sizes and indentation and line spacing”, Ofqual said, indicating that passages had been carelessly copied. Teachers were also told to look out for the use of phases and spellings in American English, suggesting pupils had downloaded work from foreign websites. This includes phrases such as “go get” for “go and get”, “have gotten” instead of “have got” and “period” for “full-stop”. clipped from www.ofqual.gov.uk Authenticity: A Guide for Teachers (PDF, 586 KB) Avoiding Plagiarism: A Guide for Parents and Carers (PDF, 565 KB) Using Sources: A Guide for Students: Find it - Check it - Credit it (PDF, 653 KB)

Aussie and Kiwi scientists to show "lethal research" is not required to study whales.

I still think they should take some shoulder fired missiles with them and stick a few into the sides of the Japanese whaling fleet.

clipped from www.stuff.co.nz The decision by the New Zealand and Australian governments to send scientists to Antarctic waters next month is a positive new step in the fight to end Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. The scientists will depart next month on the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research vessel Tangaroa. They will collect data on whales by photographing their tail markings, listening to their calls and firing small darts to obtain genetic material. They will also use satellite tags to enable the whales to be tracked. the work should prove that "lethal research" is not required to study whales. This is the device which, despite the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, will allow Japan to kill its quota of about 1000 whales this summer. Unlike the Japanese research, the Australasian scientists' work will be published in peer-reviewed journals, which would make the case against the "scientific" whaling charade even stronger.

Japan declares war in the Antarctic, sink whale-killing protest ship

The Japanese have been hunting whales in a protected wild-life sanctuary for years, and every year the opposition gets bigger. Both sides play tough, but the sides are not evenly matched.

What's annoying is that the Japanese pretend that the hunting and killing of whales is for "scientific" purposes.

clipped from www.theage.com.au The new Sea Sheperd Conservation Society's boat the Ady Gil in November. Photo: Peter Mathew Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd's stealth boat Ady Gil has been cut in half by a Japanese security vessel in the Antarctic today The $1.5 million high-tech vessel's remains were sinking, but its six-man crew had been rescued and was uninjured Captain Watson said the Ady Gil was idling in waters near Commonwealth Bay when it was suddenly approached and rammed by the Japanese ship Shonan Maru, which has been detailed to provide security to the fleet. Earlier today, the fleet was contacted for the first time by the Ady Gil and Sea Shepherd's surprise third vessel, the Bob Barker. "According to the Institute of Cetacean Research, the Ady Gil's crew were launching projectiles at the Nisshin Maru and attempted to entangle its propellers with rope." ICR video footage shows the vessel stalking the Japanese ship, towing ropes from its stern.

Excretement on Money - lovely

A 2002 report in the Southern Medical Journal showed found pathogens — including staphylococcus — on 94% of dollar bills tested. Paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet. And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. It's enough to make you switch to credit.

via time.com

Posted via web from Black Weta's posterous

Excretement on Money - lovely

A 2002 report in the Southern Medical Journal showed found pathogens — including staphylococcus — on 94% of dollar bills tested. Paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet. And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. It's enough to make you switch to credit.

via time.com

Posted via web from Black Weta's posterous

Blogging elsewhere

Blogging at http://newsterrorist.wordpress.com/

Will revisit blogger once services improve and I can import my wordpress blog.

Sri Lanka's banana republic gets away with war crimes at UN

Unbelievable. Until you realise who backed it - all the countries with piss-poor human rights records. There should be a minimum-level of human rights enshrined in a countries constitution before they are allowed to be members.

..

China, India, Egypt and Cuba were among the 29 developing countries that backed a Sri Lankan-proposed resolution describing the conflict as a “domestic matter that doesn’t warrant outside interference”. The resolution also supported Colombo’s insistence on allowing aid group access to 270,000 civilians detained in camps only “as may be appropriate”.

...

Western diplomats and human rights officials were shocked by the outcome at the end of an acrimonious two-day special session to examine the humanitarian and human rights situation in Sri Lanka after the blitzkrieg of the final military offensive that wiped out the Tiger force.

//

...

“The vote is extremely disappointing and is a low point for the Human Rights Council. It abandons hundreds of thousands of people in Sri Lanka to cynical political considerations,” Amnesty International said.

...The UN in Sri Lanka says that at least 7,000 civilians were killed in the first four months of the year alone, with the casualty rate sharply rising as the endgame approached. Many of those deaths are believed to have been caused by Sri Lankan army shelling. The Government denies that it caused a single civilian death, blaming all of them on the rebels.(emphasis added by NT)


...

Western diplomats said that the result called into question the entire purpose of the Human Rights Council — where the 47 members sit as equals with no right of veto for any country. The United States only recently agreed to join it in the belief that the council had been reformed.

...

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had called on Tuesday for an international war crimes inquiry, saying she believed that both sides might be guilty of war crimes. The Tigers are accused of using civilians as human shields and those who fled the war have testified that rebel commanders fired on them to stop them escaping, killing many.

...

Aid agencies have been given only limited access to the sprawling camps and have been barred from bringing in vehicles for fear that Tiger cadres could use them to escape.

Sri Lanka has said that it will allow access to the camps in a month, after screening for former fighters is complete. On a military-led visit to the camps this week, though, officials admitted that no such screening was taking place and that captured fighters were taken to “rehabilitation camps” before they were registered there.

via Sri Lanka forces West to retreat over ‘war crimes’ with victory at UN - Times Online.

New bra boosts women's cleavage when they are aroused.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="238" caption="Not sure if this is the bra, or just a very nice portrait."][/caption]

Slovenia-based Lisca lingerie's Smart Memory Bra alters its shape pushing a woman's breasts closer together when she gets flushed after seeing someone attractive.

More details on this important news announcement:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/lifestyle/2420021/Bra-boosts-cleavage-when-aroused

Use of WP by Taliban on Western Forces reprehensible

After using WP themselves, and supplying it to Israel to drop on Palestinians, now the US military are complaining about it being used against them.

Right-wing news sources usually say stuff like: "White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty that the United States has signed."


That's because the US doesn't like to sign any international treaties that might get them in trouble. Like the International Criminal Court.

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk Taleban fighters have been using deadly white phosphorus munitions, some of them manufactured in Britain, to attack Western forces in Afghanistan, according to previously classified United States documents released yesterday. Last night the US military in Kabul condemned the use of white phosphorus by the insurgents as “reprehensible”. White phosphorus is banned as an offensive weapon under international rules of armed conflict. Major Willis confirmed that the US and Nato’s International Security Assistance Force used white phosphorus in Afghanistan but never as an anti-personnel weapon. “That’s not allowed under the terms of international law,” she said.

US forces accused of using phosphorous bombs on civilians

How can we attack Israelis for wrongful use of WP on civilians when their supplier does the same?

clipped from www.smh.com.au US forces accused of using phosphorous bombs on civilians AFGHANISTAN'S leading human rights organisation is investigating claims that white phosphorus was used during a deadly battle between US forces and the Taliban last week in which scores of civilians may have died. Dr Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to hospital after the incident had "highly unusual burns" on their hands and feet that he had not seen before. "We cannot be 100 per cent sure what type of chemical it was and we do not have the equipment here to find out. One of the women who came here told us that 22 members of her family were totally burned. She said a bomb distributed white powder that caught fire and then set people's clothes alight."

Cat Stuffed Into Bong To Chill Out, Owner Faces Charges

A man who tried to cool out his hyper cat by stuffing her into a boxlike homemade bong faces cruelty charges. The owner told cops 6-month-old Shadow was hyper and he was trying to calm her down.

Shadow was timid but in good condition Monday at the Capital Humane Society. "What the human mind doesn't invent, huh?" executive director Bob Downey said.

The homemade bong, consisting of a piece of garden hose attached to a duct-taped plexiglas box

No word if the cat has the munchies.

via Cat Stuffed Into Bong To Chill Out, Owner Faces Charges.

More here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/03/cat-stuffed-into-bong-to-_n_171423.html

Obama is really Spock

According to Salon, Obabma is a closet Spock, confirmed by Leonard Nimoy.

Leonard Nimoy recalled a recent encounter with a fan.

"About a year and a half ago, I was at a political event. One of our current campaigners for the office of president of the United States saw me -- and as he approached, he gave me the Vulcan hand signal." You can practically hear Nimoy's eyebrow raise. "It was not John McCain."



http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2009/05/07/obama_spock/index1.html

Dont Panic! Don't Panic! U.S. seasonal flu has killed 13,000 since Jan

There have been no U.S swine flu fatalities so far, but since January more than 13,000 people have died of complications from seasonal flu.
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/04/28/US-seasonal-flu-kills-13000-since-Jan/UPI-64801240974841/

People dying of Swine Flu? Noe so far in the U.S, Australia, or NZ.

Chinese ship crew moon the US Navy - continued

According to The Telegraph, the soldiers mooned the Navy crew - now I'm not sure if they just dropped their pants or went all the way. As more information is made available, I'll keep you updated with this important piece of news.

In what a Pentagon official described as a "bizarre" incident, Chinese crew members on board one vessel bared their bottoms after the USNS Impeccable had sprayed them with hoses.

via Chinese ships 'harass' unarmed US navy vessel - Telegraph.

The Chinese have responded to the US allegations of harassment, saying it is the US that is harassing them by conducting illegal surveying in China's special economic zone, AND it suggests the U.S. "do more things beneficial to the stable development of China-U.S. relations. "
Reuters Article

I think the U.S should be careful if they don't want China to increase their interest rate.

In addition, here are some more details not shed some light on the matter:

The Impeccable did not carry large-caliber weapons and was operated by civilians for the Military Sealift Command, Pentagon officials said.

The surveillance mission, focused on undersea warfare, may be of particular interest to the Chinese military, which has invested heavily in a new fleet of diesel-powered attack submarines.

Pentagon officials say that while the diesel variety is not as potent as the Navy’s nuclear fast-attack submarines, the submarines are cheaper and can be purchased in greater numbers, giving the Chinese the potential to overwhelm American defenses at sea.

Address : <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/washington/10military.html?_r=2&ref=world>