Great vocabulary

YMFC

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Oh, the woes...

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and
Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."
                -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

New battery could change world, one house at a time

New battery could change world, one house at a time

The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.

Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Do you hear a buzz?

all creatures [great and small]

gilmoure:juliasegal: I love you…

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Garfield minus Garfield

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/post/161525440

Click it to go to the site...

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

[BBC] Phone that recognises tube stops

.Augmented Reality (AR)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8194222.stm

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Toys and stuff - Mythos Buddies - Cthulhu mythos - items and other things referring to HP Lovecraft's books

Toys and stuff - Mythos Buddies - Cthulhu mythos - items and other things referring to HP Lovecraft's books.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

MSI's Viral X-Slim Butt Clenching Video - Tom's Hardware

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/msi-x-slim-butt-clenching-video,8440.html#xtor=RSS-181

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Uncommon Sense: Nobody may give a damn about Ariel Sigler, but I do

Uncommon Sense: Nobody may give a damn about Ariel Sigler, but I do

Nobody may give a damn about Ariel Sigler, but I do

Ariel Sigler Amaya

For almost a week, I have been haunted by Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya's description of what the Castro dictatorship is doing to him as he sits in a Havana hospital suffering from a litany of health problems.

"This is obvious," said Sigler, "they are killing me little by little."

[More, much more...]

Freedom isn't free!  It is bought and paid for with the lives of those like Ariel Sigler Amaya. We need to be paying closer attention!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Perseids Like Celestial Bug Splatter

Perseids Like Celestial Bug Splatter

... on our cosmic windshield.

Unfortunately the link appears to have stopped working... but I loved the headline.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

[Later: link seems to be working now.]

Practice being Independently Poor

For too long we have ascribed to the practice of being wealthy.  We practiced diligently.  We found new ways to increase our wealth.  We used our wealth to measure our self worth.  You might say we became adept at being wealthy.

Then in our wealth we became complacent.  When we wanted or ...*gasp*... really needed something we simply snapped our plastic fingers and let our wealth 'take care of it'.  The relative cost of the desired bauble or perceived "need" was hidden from us.  Hidden in the automatic withdraws, electronic debits or far worse the "co-pay" which isolated us from any real cost of health care.  It stopped being about real value and became instant gratification.

It is time that we began practicing being Independently Poor. 

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

What to do with the flu

Flu.gov

Updated Guidance for Schools for the Fall Flu Season

Updated federal guidelines offer state and local public health and school officials a range of options for responding to 2009 H1N1 influenza in schools, depending on how severe the flu may be in their communities. The guidance says officials should balance the risk of flu in their communities with the disruption that school dismissals will cause in education and the wider community. Find the guidance and associated toolkit on the school planning page or watch the video archive of the school guidance news conference.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Reporters Sans Frontières

Reporters Sans Frontières

This is how to move democracy forward.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Winer nailed it!

Starting here [Link]
 . . .

And that imho is the answer -- we, the users, need to own a technology company -- and have it work to serve our interests. It has to help us achieve our goals to do what we are excited about.

. . .

So that's what I'd like you all to think about -- founding a People's Software Company whose first act is to IPO and pool the financial resources of users who believe there is a gap in what Silicon Valley is providing using their old models for corporate structure. We're living in the proof that the gap exists, with all the failures of the centralized system in just the last week. See if your imagination takes you to the same place it takes me.

 In order to meet the needs of users -- we, the users, need to own a technology company...  Call it communal computing, call it cyber-socialism, call it anything you want... we need systems that serve the community and are not just Merger & Acquisition fodder.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Fortune Cookie # 59

It is by those who have suffered that the world is most advanced.

 

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Google Wave is just a ripple with no big splash

Anyone who knows me or my work will affirm that I am an Early Adopter Of All Things Google (EAOATG).  This is being composed in gMail, it will be posted to Blogger, and will be referenced in Google Reader.  Copies will most likely be stored as Google Documents.

So my concern is that Google is waiting too long to bring the Wave into fruition.  After such a glorious introduction this interminable wait is only undermining the Wave's seeming potential.  To that end the question arises, "Whats wrong with the Wave?"

Why haven't we heard more substantive reports about its functionality.  Why haven't we heard Wavers swooning its praises?

Why can't EAOATG's get access to even the sandbox version?

Perhaps all we can do is wave ... as the ripple diminishes into the Google sunset.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Friedbook & Fiendface

Image via CrunchBase

My gut reaction is ... revulsion.

Facebook is a necessary evil. Everyone (well, almost everyone) has an account. It is the only way to keep in touch with some folks - people who don't blog, don't use e-mail - the sheep who feel comfortable being fleeced in a flock.

Twitter is just frivolous. (I ke

Image via CrunchBase

ep an account as an emergency communication channel.)

Losing the integrity and functionality of Friendfeed is devastating. Just hours before the announcement I had finally massaged my user lists to a point where I was beginning to see FF working correctly. In my case, being unknown, it was finding the balance between too many and too few folks to follow. That coupled with what "News" feeds to include. I had just arrived at a working balance.

Sooooo....

My social media networking community has just become more focused. Here is how it is going to work, give or take a little massaging (messaging)...

Image via CrunchBase

I use Google Reader to stay current with the 'feeds' - those folks and entities that consistently offered real world views. My responses, observations, blatherings, et al will eventually find themselves published in this Blog. Pa^2 Patois. Then through the magic (which I don't do) of the intertubes my humble offerings will be distributed to those other venues - Pa^2 Patois (Posterous), Papa@FriendFeed, Facebook, and finally Twitter.

Image via CrunchBase

Losing FriendFeed is the equivalent of having an intertubal ligation. While such a declaration is both premature and unduly terse I am and will continue to be an advocate for ...

Open Society and Culture ...a CGI ant carrying a digital grain of rice...

Google Ad - Sheep igg Blockers

Sheep igg Blockers

Minimize heterophilic antibody (HA) interference with TRU Block or IgG.

www.MeridianLifeScience.com

This must have been targeted to me for the phrase... "the sheep who feel comfortable being fleeced in a flock."

Pa^2 Patois @ posterous.com

Posted via SMS from Pa^2 Patois

Cowardly Lions

Iran: Twitter and Facebook in Trial

from Global Voices Online by Hamid Tehrani

Yesterday, Iranian authorities held the second round the of mass trial of protestors and reformist politicians. Defendants in this round included a 24 year-old French woman, Clotilde Reiss, who was accused of spying. Almost all the defendants were accused of inciting riots and undermining national security. The Iranian judiciary went on to blame a litany of Western intelligence agencies, media organizations, and software companies, including Israel's Mossad spy agency, Facebook, Twitter, Voice of America, BBC Persia, and even Google's new Persian-to-English translation software, for their roles in the supposed vast conspiracy. See photos from the trial here.

I wonder if the "authorities" cited above could ever realize just how silly they appear?

Mo(w) Sunday...

...taking a break from 90+ temps... too hot to mow.

Neither a borrower nor lender be...

From CIA: The World Fact Book

This entry records a country's net trade in goods and services, plus net earnings from rents, interest, profits, and dividends, and net transfer payments (such as pension funds and worker remittances) to and from the rest of the world during the period specified. These figures are calculated on an exchange rate basis, i.e., not in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.

DOWNLOAD DATA

Rank country Current account balance Date of Information

1	China	$ 368,200,000,000	2008 est.

2	Germany	$ 267,100,000,000	2008 est.

3	Japan	$ 187,800,000,000	2008 est.

4	Saudi Arabia	$ 151,000,000,000	2008 est.

5	Russia	$ 97,600,000,000	2008 est.

. . .

187

France

$ -58,000,000,000

2008 est.

188	Italy	$ -68,820,000,000	2008 est.

189	United Kingdom	$ -72,540,000,000	2008 est.

190	Spain	$ -152,500,000,000	2008 est.

191	United States	$ -568,800,000,000	2008 est.

Psssst, hey buddy, there is no 192...just in case you were wondering.

---

DEFINITION: Net trade in goods is the difference between exports and imports of goods. The category includes goods previously included in services: goods received or sent for processing and their subsequent export or import in the form of processed goods, repairs on goods, and goods procured in ports by carriers. Trade in services is not included. Data are in current U.S. dollars.
--

---

Economy Statistics > Debt > External (most recent) by country

Rank Countries Amount Date
# 1 United States: $12,250,000,000,000.00 2007
# 2 United Kingdom: $10,450,000,000,000.00 2007
# 3 Germany: $4,489,000,000,000.00 2007
# 4 France: $4,396,000,000,000.00 2007
# 5 Italy: $2,345,000,000,000.00 2007
# 6 Netherlands: $2,277,000,000,000.00 2007
# 7 Ireland: $1,841,000,000,000.00 2007
# 8 Japan: $1,492,000,000,000.00 2007

---

DEFINITION: Total public and private debt owed to non-residents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services.

---

Don't be silly!

[Hat tip to Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By]

. . .

It might be Friday...

News: Fake egg in Myanmar

Published on August 1st, 2009

Warning from the Ministry of Health

On 31 July, Myanmar official news papers report about fake eggs entering Myanmar through border from neighbouring countries. According to official announcement from Ministry of Health, fake eggs made by chemical means are appearing in markets along the border areas as well as some markets inside Myanmar. These eggs are similar to ordinary eggs and cannot be distinguished easily.

Made with chemical powders

According to the announcement, the white of the fake egg is made of benzoic acid, jelly, unknown chemical substance, chemicals used in the production of starch gravy and baking powder. The yolk of the fake egg is made of unknown yellow substance, mixed with unknown fluid and calcium chloride. This fluid is known as “magic water“.

These two parts (fake yolk and fake white) are poured into the plastic mould to make fake egg. Magic water prevents the two parts from mixing together, by forming a thin layer of film. The egg shell is made of a mixture of paraffin containing wax and an unknown white substance. This mixture is poured onto the formed yolk and white, let to dry for a few minutes. The result is a fake egg, indistinguishable to the real egg.

[More]

It is right that he too...

It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories,
his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the
worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one
day like any other day, only shorter.
-- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies"

Global Voices Online » China: Pros more trustworthy than government officials

Global Voices Online » China: Pros more trustworthy than government officials: "A startling result of an online survey of more than 3,376 people published by Insight China magazine reveals that China's prostitutes are considered by some to be more trustworthy than its politicians, teachers and scientists!

The survey found that 7.9% of the respondents considered sex workers trustworthy, placing them third behind farmers and religious workers. A post on China Daily website says a result like this is surprising and embarrassing at the same time. The article analyzes the social background and reasons which lie behind the sex workers' unexpected prominence on this list of honor and concludes that it reflects the government's indifference to, if not disregard of, citizens."

Say it isn't so!

Really?

That's just in China, you think?

Hmmm...

I am a conscientious man

I am a conscientious man, when I throw
rocks at seabirds I leave no tern unstoned.

-- Ogden Nash, "Everybody's Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"

The shirt is good but the reviews are outstanding...

13,215 of 13,339 people found the following review helpful:

Dual Function Design, November 10, 2008

By	B. Govern "Bee-Dot-Govern" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women.

---

Ya just gotta read on... it is just hi-larry-us! [ Continue ]

Must see: High Speed Robotic Hands

. . .
[GerbilGod7]

[Hat tip to /Ambivalence ]

A New Technology: Starting from scratch ....

...

Chris Harrison, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University whose human-computer interaction work we've written about previously, will demonstrate his new scratch input technology. The system turns any surface into an instant input device by sensing the unique sound produced when a fingernail is dragged across it.

-- Technology Review

Gotta be trippin'

[ Source ]

Not right!

From I'll Make Lemonade

“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants « Here There and Everywhere

“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants « Here There and Everywhere: "“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants

This woman doesn’t have to take the whipping – she was a UN employee, and could claim diplomatic immunity. She wears a headscarf, she wears modest clothing. She could have quietly escaped. But like Rosa Parks, the black woman in segregated America, who refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus, Lubna Hussein has chosen to take a stand, even take a whipping, rather than back down.

Do you think it is un-Islamic for women to wear pants?

‘Whip me if you dare’ says Lubna Hussein, Sudan’s defiant trouser woman
Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese woman who is daring Islamic judges to have her whipped for the “crime” of wearing trousers, has given a defiant interview to the Telegraph.

...

The officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for mercy, as most of their victims do.

Instead she turned the tables on them – and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for women’s rights in one of Africa’s most conservative nations.

She has become an overnight heroine for thousands of women in Africa and the Middle East, who are flooding her inbox with supportive emails. To the men who feel threatened by her she is an enemy of public morals, to be denounced in the letters pages of newspapers and in mosques.
As she recounted her ordeal in Khartoum yesterday Mrs Hussein, a widow in her late thirties who works as a journalist and United Nations’ press officer, managed cheerfully to crack jokes – despite the real prospect that in a couple of days she will be flogged with a camel-hair whip in a public courtyard where anyone who chooses may watch the spectacle.

Her interview with The Sunday Telegraph was her first with a Western newspaper.

“Flogging is a terrible thing – very painful and a humiliation for the victim,” she said. “But I am not afraid of being flogged. I will not back down.

“I want to stand up for the rights of women, and now the eyes of the world are on this case I have a chance to draw attention to the plight of women in Sudan.”

Faces of the Iranians killed and Arrested

Faces of the Iranians killed and Arrested:

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

The Poetry of Heroism

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to war,
and even more so to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy.

-- Celine

Oh no, I've a spoot on my tie...

Spoot

[a jaunty tip of the hat to Bro. James who doesn't blog, yet!]

Wilde thoughts

gapingvoid - sage brush advice

Twitter / Search - gapingvoid: "gapingvoid I've got to get better at following my own advice: 'IGNORE EVERYBODY'

Bare arms

LETTERSTREAM — LetterCult

Global Warming

Kawano Takeshi | Fubiz™: "kawanotakeshi_3"

Sam Jinks - Artist

Sam Jinks - Artist: (Caution: NSFW - hyper-realistic sculptures may be disturbing to some viewers.)

You cannot legislate common sense.

Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While Driving -- Texting -- InformationWeek:

"Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While Driving

The four major wireless operators agree that the practice is dangerous, but not all believe national legislation is the best way to solve the problem."
. . .
"We've got to figure out a way to stop this behavior because it's irresponsible and reckless," Taylor said of texting while driving. "You would think anyone with common sense would know that, but obviously that's not the case."

Throw AT&T under the bus.

The Camel's Back Broke: 1984 Days of Bad PR for Apple:

"Throw AT&T under the bus.

That's all we ask. Here's how it works: Apple can save face here. All they have to do is release the Google voice app (and not cancel GV Mobile) and announce that they had been getting pressure from AT&T..."

I can haz a cookie

Carabaas

Gonna be ona dem days...

AC is out at the office - servers shut down out of self-defence... Waiting for the repairman.

Hunting gutter snipes

If you know what this is then you have a good idea what I did for my Saturday "Honey-Do" project. This odd thing-a-ma-bob is one well engineered little machine. So much so that I feel compelled to acknowledge it here. So here goes...

A couple of weeks ago, just before dark, the wind commenced to blow. Not your gentle kite-flying breeze but rather your precursor-to-a-wicked-storm gale force wind. It did blow. Then all of a sudden there were thunderous crashing sounds - obviously right on the roof over the kitchen. Said gale force wind had torn one end of the gutter loose and was proceeding to just beat it against the roof. Why it didn't come off completely I will never know. The flailing 14' section of gutter eventually folded up the incline of the roof and became lodged under the lip of one of the roof vents.

So I knew I needed some form of attaching device to reconnect the loose end of the gutter. Off to research my choices at Lowes. I looked at plastic brackets. I looked at 10-packs of Ferrule and Gutter screws. Then I spied the Amerimax 5-1/4" Aluminum Hidden Gutter Hanger. It was gutter love at first sight.

After a half hour of drill motor and right-sized-socket, extension cord and ladder logistics I was ready to scale the heights and do battle with the errant gutter. I gently eased it from beneath the roof vent lip. To my great surprise, like an extended tape measure rotated and bent, the gutter simply 'snapped' back into position. Only a very slight amount of adjusting was necessary to straighten out the kink. Even the proper slope was intact to insure the run-off runs off in the right direction.

Now all I had to do was fit these Hidden Gutter Hangers and screw them in. It took longer to go up and down and move the ladder six times than it did to re-secure the gutter. Ahhhhh... now I have plenty of time to do some real snipe hunting. Ha! Get your mind out of the gutter. I would never kill a snipe.

Externalities - The hidden costs...

True Cost

• Kalle Lasn | 15 Jul 2009

What is the real cost of shipping a container load of toys from Hong Kong to Los Angeles? Or a case of apples grown in New Zealand to markets in North America? And what is the true cost of that fridge humming in your kitchen, that car purring on the road or that steak sizzling on the grill? Practically every one of the products we buy in the global marketplace is undervalued because the environmental costs haven’t been taken into account. As a result, every one of the billions of purchases we make every day pushes the world a little deeper into the cosmic red.

But what if we were to implement this simple idea: true cost?

We calculate the hidden costs associated with products – what the economists nonchalantly refer to as “externalities” – and incorporate them. We force the price of every product in the global marketplace to tell the ecological truth. [More...]

Soylent Green is the economists answer to ever rising population numbers and ever diminishing natural resources. Processed field corn and soybeans provide most of the "delicious and nutritious meals" that we can afford. Monied interests and mega-corporate farms have convinced us that the only economical way to feed the nation is by offering "New and Improved" Soylent Green.

Bon Appetit

Haute Dogs!

10 Off-the-Wall Hot Dogs

Check out the most formidable findings between a bun (or on a stick)

By Brynn Mannino
Posted June 17, 2009 from WomansDay.com

The Chihuahua

Crif Dogs, the popular New York City eatery located in the

East Village, is beloved for its variety of wrapped and overloaded
franks. This particular culinary explosion contains a hot dog blanketed
in bacon then capped with sour cream and avocado. Photo courtesy of Chelsea Peretty/chelseaperetti.blogspot.com

Everything is as it should be.

Image by Plamoe via Flickr

Everything is as it should be.

Everyone is doing what they should be doing.

1000 Words to celebrate freedom

Michelle and Barack Obama

Shaving your palms

Blogging about blogging is a lot like sending yourself e-mail. Both practices I have engaged in for a number of reasons. Testing out a new e-mail addy, making sure the new mail proggy works correctly, even double checking filter rules. But blogging about blogging is something I really try to avoid at all costs - except for today. Today I am going to engage in the tradition of link-love under the guises of telling rendering a great adventure analytical tale observation about blogging. In any event it will not be a long one, tail that is.

Two distinct philosophies of blog publishing are typified in the works of Humorlessbitch (Zo) and Listics (Frank). Now I am not here to offer deep contextual reviews of respective expressed world views(Weltanschauung ( [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] (help·info)) . (See also Life-world (Lebensveld). Derived from phenomenology (q.v.), it refers to the taken-for-granted universe of daily social activity-- the forms of life (Wittgenstein).) Rather I am here to amplify certain nuances in blogging styles.

I wonder, for instance, if Zo gets to see how her blog is presented in different readers. Publishing only the 'teaser' looks like this in Google Reader.

One Split Second Before Sex

from HUMORLESSBITCH

rabbit blog: You’re craving that one split second BEFORE you fuck the guy, and nothing more. Most of us are hung up on that moment, thanks to being flooded with its supreme significance through every minute of our waking hours on earth. Well, yes … it represents everything. The moment at birth when your gaze locks onto [...]

"The moment at birth when your gaze locks onto ... " Yeah, you got me clicking on the headline link looking for the next phrase. An endearing reflection of grandson's first breath and love.

... someone to whom you’d just become the center of all existence.

Never mind that it isn’t true. Obviously, we are meant, in order to thrive, to believe it for a while. To live in the center of her love, in order to learn. In order to become a human child. Obvious, too, that the craving of that moment, anticipating it, is way easier than growing up.

A wonderful roller-coaster ride that takes a sudden left turn and drops you squarely into the rabbit hole blog... who in turn sends you head-spinning off to
"Poets and Writers." Poets and Writers and rabbits, oh my.

Frank on the other hand lays his meat, maintenance and a cherry pie right on the table in his Saturday Farm Report. In his usual style Frank seasons the offering with a slight spicy aside ... " that’s (J)erry Garcia on the pedal steel on the cut above." referring to Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, The Farm ... eliciting fragmented memories of a hot summer day in East Lansing on the campus of Michigan State University... it was a day long happening...hippies and blankets, insence smoke and music...bellbottoms and tie-dyed t-shirts...and music. All contained in a hastily erected cyclone fence corral. The guy at the gate insisted on the $5.00 admission fee that I didn't have...so I and hundreds of others watched from the periphery...until the inevitable happened. The promoters abandoned their economic pursuit in deference to the pressing crowd. The fence came down and Jefferson Airplane took the stage. Grace Slick belted out...

Look whats happening out in the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Hey Im dancing down the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Aint it amazing all the people I meet
Got a revolution got to revolution
One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry
Hey now its time for you and me
Got a revolution got to revolution
Come on now were marching to the sea
Got a revolution got to revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we
We are volunteers of america

And if you don't mind my saying Zo, you remind me of her.

Headline Questions - a cheap journalist ploy.

It would appear that we have become a society of questions.

Russia: Which way with the WTO?

Is Instant-On Chrome OS's Killer App?

QOTD: Are You Going 32 or 64-bit for Windows 7?

Israel: Does Violence Pay?

Chrome OS to Bring More Linux IT Jobs?

Azerbaijan: Overzealous minions?

Microsoft Window 7: Is New OS The Beginning Of XP's End?

Journalism or what passes for it these days is little more than reiteration of sound bytes and cut&paste press releases. What seems to be the objective is to entice the reader into rereading the pablum. To this end authors or more probably editors try to shift the responsibility from the writers to the readers.

I have written before that when I am asked a question the onus of the responsibility shifts from the asker to the askee. I have become increasingly uncomfortable with this shift. I find myself in the onerous position of either ignoring the question - and as such becoming the "Bad Guy". All too often the plaintive whimper issues forth, "I was only asking a question."

Or, should I pay attention to the question, I am faced with the ever present threats of dealing with a rhetorical question or even worse an inane (go-google-your-own-answer-question). The worst by far is the "I can ask you a question to remind you that I have the power to ask such questions." In all three cases I must accept the onus of responsibility (and do the work) of answering counter-productive questions.

For supposed journalists to rely on such a questionable practice speaks to their lack of initiative. The News should be reported as statements of fact - as best be determined by diligent research. Editorial content should be equally reported with straight forward declaration instead of whining attempts to garner interest or agreement.

Politkovskaya laureate murdered

Russia: Politkovskaya laureate murdered

from Global Voices Online by Vilhelm Konnander

This morning, prominent Russian Human Rights activist Natalya Estemirova was abducted from her home in Ingushetia by armed men. She was later found dead, a bullet through her heart. As mainstream media reports just another death of an activist - even when it comes to the assassination of one of the country's leading Human Rights' adovcates - some bloggers react with abhorrence.

Estemirova and Kovalev receive the Robert Schuman Medal

(Read more)