Cars, News
Nov. 11th, 2003 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSo, last week I spent a healthy chunk of change to get the car through it's 60,000 mile tune-up. It ran great when I picked it up, and actually it's still running fine this morning. But as I drove in through the less-thas-crowded freeways, a light on the dashboard illuminated: [Service Engine Soon]. Grr... I guess I just can't win with that one. I called the shop and they said that it was probably the O2 sensor, which they did not replace but which frequently needs replacing at this stage.
Thanks to the Traditional Values Corporation, BushCo has apparently begun intensive questioning of 150 scientists and researchers whose main focus is HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. TVC has compiled this list and submitted it to BushCo in order to question whether or not the research being conducted "is in the public's interests." The National Institute of Health, which processed all of the grant requests says "absolutely it is not a hit list," but the TVC itself says otherwise on its website and in interviews has said they're targetting "inappropriate funding."
A Columbian member of parliament pulled a dildo out of his pocket and waved it around during debate on whether or not the Columbian goverment should encourage and pay for poor people being sterilized. Realizing that he had offended other members of parliament rather than get his point across, he left in a huff, leaving the latex penis on the health minister's desk.
Be afraid. The United Nations is now bucking to to control the Internet. Apparently unhappy with the free-market, do-what-you-can nature of the Internet and ICANN, small nations that "are seeking to protect their culture and interests" are seeking to control Internet distribution and access. Such nations wish to control the flow of information across their borders.
In the same vein, the UN is bucking to exempt "cultural products" from WTO regulation. State-sponsored movies, television, and music are still subsidies however they're perceived, and subsidies are generally frowned upon by WTO regulators. "Ideas and works of creative expression are different [from capital goods] and must be encouraged and managed by national governments," said one regulator. It's on NPR, but it's RealAudio.
I propose two new words for the lexicon. Borg-oisie: those who ready to get every legitimate high-tech implant they can possibly find, and Thanatic: one who actively thinks that one human life span is "enough".
Absolutely freaking cool: Iron-plated snails. Rather than use calcium, one species of snail down in deep hydrothermal vents collects and deposits iron on its outer armor for protection. Even more bizarre, the interlocking plates maintain their integrity by being magnetized.
And SCO marches on. Their claim is that IBM "forced" its customers to switch to the Linux platform, a platform which "has no advantages over commercial Unix." Later they amend that to mean, "other than price."
Excuse me? The Linux kernel does indeed offer technological benefits over other flavors of Unix, not to mention that its development process lends itself to ready auditing and repair of security problems. Ah, well.
Thanks to the Traditional Values Corporation, BushCo has apparently begun intensive questioning of 150 scientists and researchers whose main focus is HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. TVC has compiled this list and submitted it to BushCo in order to question whether or not the research being conducted "is in the public's interests." The National Institute of Health, which processed all of the grant requests says "absolutely it is not a hit list," but the TVC itself says otherwise on its website and in interviews has said they're targetting "inappropriate funding."
A Columbian member of parliament pulled a dildo out of his pocket and waved it around during debate on whether or not the Columbian goverment should encourage and pay for poor people being sterilized. Realizing that he had offended other members of parliament rather than get his point across, he left in a huff, leaving the latex penis on the health minister's desk.
Be afraid. The United Nations is now bucking to to control the Internet. Apparently unhappy with the free-market, do-what-you-can nature of the Internet and ICANN, small nations that "are seeking to protect their culture and interests" are seeking to control Internet distribution and access. Such nations wish to control the flow of information across their borders.
In the same vein, the UN is bucking to exempt "cultural products" from WTO regulation. State-sponsored movies, television, and music are still subsidies however they're perceived, and subsidies are generally frowned upon by WTO regulators. "Ideas and works of creative expression are different [from capital goods] and must be encouraged and managed by national governments," said one regulator. It's on NPR, but it's RealAudio.
I propose two new words for the lexicon. Borg-oisie: those who ready to get every legitimate high-tech implant they can possibly find, and Thanatic: one who actively thinks that one human life span is "enough".
Absolutely freaking cool: Iron-plated snails. Rather than use calcium, one species of snail down in deep hydrothermal vents collects and deposits iron on its outer armor for protection. Even more bizarre, the interlocking plates maintain their integrity by being magnetized.
And SCO marches on. Their claim is that IBM "forced" its customers to switch to the Linux platform, a platform which "has no advantages over commercial Unix." Later they amend that to mean, "other than price."
Excuse me? The Linux kernel does indeed offer technological benefits over other flavors of Unix, not to mention that its development process lends itself to ready auditing and repair of security problems. Ah, well.
