It’s incredible that nobody is the mainstream media has even mentioned this yet. A huge story unfolding.

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Dropping boulder on a car, killing driver, is a minor crime in Edmonton.

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Even if medicine in the USA isn’t the most accessible or inexpensive system in the world, at least we like to think it’s the best. What if we don’t even have that?

It is easy to be a prophet while Bush is in power. One need merely predict the inevitable. After five years of Bush’s regressive administration, the consequences for public health and safety are finally showing their effects nationwide.

A 15-month inquiry by a top House Democrat has found that enforcement of the nation’s food and drug laws declined sharply during the first five years of the Bush administration. The seizure of mislabeled, defective, or dangerous products dipped 44 percent, according to the inquiry pursued by Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee.

The Times article also reports, “The biggest decline in enforcement actions was found at the agency’s device center, where they decreased 65 percent in the five-year period despite a wave of problems with devices including implantable defibrillators and pacemakers.”

This administration is ruining our environment, our economy, our world standing, and now our health?

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Utilizing up to 14 cameras positioned throughout the Kennedy Space Center, HDNet’s extensive live coverage on the launch date will begin at 10:00 a.m. EDT with behind-the-scenes access to the astronauts as they suit up and board the shuttle, complete with their pre-launch routine inside the crew module. Then viewers will witness the countdown, launch, and follow the shuttle as it reaches far into the earth’s atmosphere.

The coverage will be hosted by Greg Dobbs, however, in keeping with HDNet’s practice of delivering live world news raw and uninterrupted by outside commentary, the network will also broadcast the natural sounds of the launch enhanced by NASA’s commentary, allowing the HDNet audience to receive their information directly from mission control.

Liftoff currently is scheduled for Saturday at 1948 GMT, 3:48 PM EDT. If you haven’t seen something like this in Hi-Def before — and you have access to an HD system carrying HDNet — don’t miss it. It’s very much raw, live coverage — as reality often is.

Update July 4th: A beautiful launch, a safe launch.

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Finally, a solution to a vexing problem.

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A bigger question is why do some people feel the need to be on the phone 24/7? What is wrong with them?

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Fundis in a flap over abortion funding.

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“Tongue of the Fatman” was only #18! Imagine what the rest are.

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President Bush was swift to react angrily against the New York Times for exposing U.S. monitoring of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) as a suspected conduit for the transfer of terrorist funds. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese accused the newspaper of giving “aid and comfort to the enemy,” which is tantamount to treason. Belgian and European authorities also reacted angrily against the Bush administration for tapping SWIFT’s Belgian-based supercomputers without the green light of a Belgian judge. The hullabaloo generated much heat and little light.

President Bush’s denunciation of the New York Times seemed a tad hyperbolic. Transnational terrorists have studiously avoided getting tangled in the ones and zeros of electronic interception in favor of a time-honored, time-tested, interception-proof system known as Hawala (Arabic for “transfer” or “wire”). It’s an informal funds transfer (IFT) mechanism, swifter than SWIFT that leaves no paper or digital trail.

I first used Hawala fifty years ago. It’s always been fast and secure.

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You won’t believe this one.

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Is everyone is Hollywood doing this now?

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Mexico state wants only “normal” Mexican names for kids.

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Yet another interesting idea from the West Coast slackers.

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Excellent interview with Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Kevin Rose of Digg.

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We’ve already got the One Laptop per Child program, and now this. Will more companies start to pay attention to the low end?

Imagine a world where the next generation of computers isn’t a hundred times faster and a lot more expensive than the one you just bought. What if they were designed without all the bells and whistles to be just a little more practical at a fraction of the price? A small Chinese firm has made good on the not-so-new idea that the bulk of personal computing can be done for much less money.

YellowSheepRiver Municator is selling a new Linux-based desktop for about $150. Like Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child project, makers of the Municator say they want to banish the digital divide.

“As (the) OLPC project is for children, Municator is for all people with such needs — the scope is a little bit different,” said David Lin, executive director at YellowSheepRiver, in an e-mail. “Although the target end users are different, one point (that) remains the same is that both OLPC and Municator would like to promote computers to people all over the world with a reasonable and affordable price.”

A good, basic computer is what most people need, anyway. (As long as gadget heads can still buy Alienware.)

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