WWEeeeee! Nostalgi Meets the Here & Now, Boys, Here & Now....

WWEeeee?!? Wild Wild East in Saigon?!? Talk about touching a nerve! Listen up, folks!

DEC (David Everitt-Carlson) is doing "Dailies" here in sunny SighGone. Dare i blurt a hallelujah?!? Another gonzo journo fan(atic) -- albeit one eloquent and an adland and online vidi artiste, too -- have actually hit the ground in our edutainment-deprived adoptive Ho'town?

It does indeed look to be so, fellow hoz. DEC gives good EXPLICIT mention to HST, Hisself.

I'll not dally more in feeble tries to tell WEE Dailies' tale. In his own words:

The "Wild Wild East" is a memoir of my ten years marketing in Asia“ you'll find a link in the sidebar. But somewhere along the line you're going to ask, "Hey, what happens in the end?" And of course, that is a trade secret, but to help you all along, here's a daily blog of basically what I'm doing now. You can have all the fun you want filling in the blanks between "then" and "now". ©2008 David.E.Carlson@gmail.com

Email up front! Yo... Good bio brevity, too:

About DEC

David Everitt-Carlson,
HCMC, Vietnam,Independent writer and
Brand Provocateur living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
-- that's Saigon for the old schoolers.

And -- personal peeve -- he even had the balls to go with a black background, ie, far, far fewer pixels turned on, and burning your eyeballs out ;)).

I still prefer Saigon, or SighGone. Guess that makes me old-schooler. Dang... So dying b4 i old. The memories WWE revive make fogey-status indubitable now. Dang, dang, dang...

Done.

To torch a few cobwebs for any of the other oldies about, who might've actually forgotten watching this way2cool TV show way back when -- and, frighteningly, maybe even before the star of Wild Wild West, the feature-lenth flick, Will Smith (huzzah), was but a twinkle in his old man's eye:

From the Internet Move Database (IMDb)

Chord Struck 01: Another Depressing Screed on Global Warming

This post struck a chord: "Another Depressing Screed on Global Warming". It's by an young but already renowned US guy, Nick Brown, someone, who like some 80 percent of Vietnam, is under 45.

Brown's "screed" pretty well sums up the progressive certainty i've been feeling and pondering about at least the evidence, if not the appropriate response, to the "climate crisis", after following the global warming, climate change headlines -- and even reading several of the articles, too -- since i first watched Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" last June. 

To the point of how this might interest an editor at "The Organ[?!?] of the Party Committee, The Communist Party of Viet Nam, Ho Chi Minh City", Sai Gon Gai Phong, well, some 80 percent of Vietnamese are among the generation(s) Brown refers to when he writes:

... frightening. When they explain that, if current trends continue, fifty years from now the next generation - by which they mean me - could easily have a sea level that is one meter higher than the present one, it's depressing.
-- Huffington Post, "December 7, 2007 | 06:17 PM (EST)"

Brown was lamenting the potential disastrous prospects of a "1m SLR" (Sea Level Rise of one meter). But cast that against the following conclusions drawn regarding Vietnam, and, in particular, Ho Chi Minh City (ex/or SaiGon) extracted from a report found at the Social Science Research Network via Googling "vietnam one-meter sea-level rise" (3,290 hits). From "The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis", by analysts of the World Bank's Development Research Group, independent Canadian consultants and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development and funded by the Canadian Trust Fund (TF030569) sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). (The URL for this paper was incorrectly hyperlinked in " Risk of sea-level rise: High stakes for developing countries", posted "01/04/2007", at the site of the Marine Protected Area Network in Vietnam (ficen.org.vn).) From the original World Bank report: 

As shown in Figure..., Vietnam is the most seriously impacted by SLR: Up to 16% of its area would be impacted by a 5m SLR, making it second only to The Bahamas among countries analyzed for this paper. Most of this impact is in the Mekong and Red River Deltas. Note in Figure... that most of Vietnam's land area southwest of Ho Chi Minh City would be severely impacted by SLR.

Large percentages of Vietnam's population and economic activity are located in these two river deltas. As shown in Figures..., 10.8% of Vietnam's population would be impacted by a 1m SLR. This is the largest percentage of impacted population among all 84 countries ( A.R. of Egypt follows with 10.56%). Vietnam's impacted population would reach 35% with a 5m SLR. The impacts of SLR on Vietnam's GDP (Figure...) and urban extent (Figure...) closely follow the impact on its population.

Eleven percent of an impending 90mn population, almost 10 million people! With a 1m SLR, they'd likely be pressured at a snail's pace to move to higher ground over those 50-odd years, but in a nation already packed to the brim with people, a nation already normally hot, wet or dry, and getting hotter and wetter or drier already. 

How would the nation's most practical and capable people respond?

Eighty percent of Vietnam is in the countryside and vastly more poor than the cities' rising young consumer classes. "Brother and Sister Rice", as established urbanites call them, have little chance to fully appreciate the global perspective explicit in global warming. Most of their information comes to them via limited media that's completely one-party-state controlled. And they're way too busy focusing on just keeping their fields fertile, harvesting them and getting a price they can survive better upon.

And 80 percent of Vietnam is under 45, and just getting its first glimpse of a just the decent standard of living they or their parents have already worked too hard to attain.

Thomas Tobin, the president and chief executive of HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Bank) Vietnam, recently summed up their prospects, as quoted in " Foreign banks encounter cultural barrier in Vietnam", by Ben Stocking, The Associated Press, at the site of the International Herald Tribune (IHT), Friday, December 14, 2007:

"Stand on the streets of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City and watch the millions of motorbikes drive past," he [Tobin] said. "Everyone has a mobile phone. Everyone is really well dressed. Every day, you see more and more people able to participate in consumerism."

How many and which of those nouveau riche, young Vietnamese consumers' dreams will they defer, or even pass up, just as they seem within their grasp? Why should they abstain from the unbridled consumerism they see in foreign films and TV news when they soon find out that most of those who can have any significant, if small, impact on reversing the climate crises are not even in their own nation, and worse, a depressingly small percentage of those overseas elite yet have any interest in doing anything significant about the impacts of climate change even in their own domains.

Who can spell "lower, warmer coastal nations' rich-brain drain (LWCNRBD)"?

-- ADM, on the hyperevolution.


From the Huffington Post, a leading US voice of relatively objective, informed dissent:

Nicholas Brown| BIO | I'M A FAN OF THIS BLOGGER

Another Depressing Screed on Global Warming

Posted December 7, 2007 | 06:17 PM (EST)

---

Read More: Carbon Emissions, Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Global Warming, India Pollution, Manhattan Sinking, Polar Bears, Pollution In China, Reducing Carbon Emissions, Rising Sea Level, Breaking Politics News

     

"It's not sinking!" uncle John is angry. Or grumpy. Or both. He has spent far too much of his life screaming logic at disinterested boobs to tolerate misphrasing. "The water is rising."

The 'it' in question is New York, specifically Manhattan.

"True, but isn't that really a matter of relativity?" I ask. "I mean, if we measure altitude in feet above sea level, then if sea level rises we're technically sinking."

"It's not sinking!" John says. Our Thanksgiving table is filled with relatively agreeable people who agree heartily on the catastrophe of carbon emissions, so in order to stir up a really good fight - an important part of any Thanksgiving - it's important to be stubborn over small details.

John's wife, Susan, interjects "Seattle is rising. The rock bed underneath it is moving the city slowly upward. Venice is sinking. Those have nothing to do with the water level."

These are people who have become so deeply embroiled in a cause that shrugging it off as yet another of the world's moral train wrecks is not an option. To them, global warming is apartheid or imperialism or slavery; anyone who can shrug and a buy an SUV is a collaborator and a villain. They are moral and dedicated people. And, like most moral and dedicated people, they make dreadful cocktail companions.

"True," I say "but look: the kilogram is defined by a block of platinum in Paris, right? So if somebody knocks that block and chips off a few molecules, everything suddenly weighs more. It's the same with sea level."

It's important to keep up these stupid arguments because otherwise John or Susan or both will talk about global warming in earnest.

The problem is that they are too distinguished. John is a scientist emeritus at Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute and Susan has her own PhD and for ten years was the president of Ecological Engineering, a wastewater management firm. Their titles carry weight, so when they say Manhattan is sinking - or, I suppose, global water levels are rising thus putting Manhattan underwater in a way that, really, has pretty much the same effect as sinking - it's frightening. As if their knowledge didn't scare me enough, they use metric units, which are terrifyingly scientific.

As the only person in the entire world who has not seen An Inconvenient Truth, I can generally avoid confronting the all-but-inevitable implications of global warming if I set my mind to it. Does this winter seem different from the winters fifteen years ago? Sure, but maybe I'm misremembering.

My aunt and uncle know the numbers. When they explain that water levels are rising about 1mm a year but that rate is accelerating, it's mildly frightening. When they explain that, if current trends continue, fifty years from now the next generation - by which they mean me - could easily have a sea level that is one meter higher than the present one, it's depressing. And when they explain that Manhattan would have to spend gobs of money on levies and water pumps or else be partially submerged, I entertain thoughts of doomsday. I like Manhattan. I live there. I would like it to remain an above-water attraction.

If science is the religion of the secular left, then global warming is our Armageddon. And like any young Baptist who believes in the rapture but isn't sure he'll pass muster, I come out of global warming sermons feeling hollow and jumpy.

John is standing now. He rose to refill his wine glass, but he is irritated so standing will do him just fine. "The kilogram's not the same. Water levels change constantly and we don't redefine the heights of mountains. And it's a dumb way to look at it. The water is rising." His tone has a note of finality to it, and he waits for me to challenge him.

Earlier in the night, John noted that his farm is a good 22 feet above sea level (in a rare scientific lapse, he didn't use meters) and thus will mostly avoid the coming flood. Honestly, this seemed smug.

My generation, our generation for those of you twenty-somethings out there, is going to be the first, by most indications, to really feel the worst effects of climate change. We will have memories of polar bears as creatures that lived in the arctic while our children will understand them as yet another in a long list of extinct species. We could easily see large parts of the Greenland ice shelf collapse into the ocean in our lifetimes. And, again, parts of Manhattan - not to mention Florida, Louisiana and Hawaii - will probably be underwater by the time I am in my seventies.

Pessimism is an unpopular sentiment in American politics, even when it seems pretty close to realism. So we won't hear much in this next election about the preposterously large global effort it would take to mitigate, much less reverse, our current climate trends. For the first time in history, China is emitting more carbon dioxide than the United States and India is closing in on us. The candidates will probably talk a fair amount about the US taking leadership in the battle against global warming. They will probably not talk about the fact that to seriously dampen carbon emissions, we will have to convince 2.6 billion people in China and India to develop a transportation system that doesn't rely on automobiles and a fuel system that doesn't rely on petroleum, and that's assuming we can begin to steer our own people in the same direction.

It's not, of course, that catastrophe is inevitable. There is a chance that climate change will occur more slowly. There's a chance that human technology will limit or even eliminate its effects. It's just that there are a lot of very smart people who know a lot about climate change who think we are making the world irreversibly hotter.

John is waiting for me to respond to his point in our tiny argument, and I do: "look, I'm just saying all motion is relative - that's a basic principle of physics - so both sinking cities or rising water levels are correct." It's a dumb point in a dumb argument. At the end of the day, whether the water is rising or we are sinking, we will all still be in deep - and might I add hot - water.

• Email
• Print

--
AD (Andi) Marshall
Zone: ICT (IndoChina Time, GMT/UTC+7)
Post: HoChiMinh City (ex/or SaiGon), VietNam
Quote: "Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none..."
Source: Shakespeare, 1623, "All's Well That Ends Well"
Get it at Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2246

Biuti: Firefox Redshift v2 theme on Ubuntu

It's a s'shots day today it seems. 

In the environmentally zeitgeist of Blackle, the new Redshift v2 theme for Firefox rocks.  Even with FF overloaded with add-ons, an add-on it doesn't display lusciously has yet to be found. 

Despite unprecedented lobbying and PR, Microsoft's OOXML loses ISO approval vote

[This post will just have to be improved very soon.  More links have to be added, and maybe a few images, too.  But Sir Francis beckons now for brews and grub at 219 No Tran Long, yet again.  :D  Please pardon the inevitable typos and awkwardness.]

According to GesmerUpdegrove LLP's ConsortiumInfo Standards Blog, Microsoft's OOXML just lost the vote for acceptance by International Standards Organization (ISO) as an international standard, leaving the OASIS/OpenOffice ODF standard as the world's sole globally-approved office-document standard. 

The near-term implication, assuming no reversal of the vote, seems to be that digital office documents will now enjoy a single, open standard under which any company, anywhere competitively build information-systems applications. 

The ODF standard could thus provide a common global standard for working with office documents just as HTML has long so successfully provided the same for pages in the Internet's World Wide Web.  (See comments by Canonical, Ubuntu Linux' Mark Shuttleworth in a Vietnam video-conference transcript about the same, near here.)

Of this hardly insignificant event, Andrew Updegrove wrote on the Standard Blog, PDT.05:31.Tue.04.Sep.2007.AD, 'The actual numbers for the final tally are now what you could rightly call "encouraging."  All 41 P members voted, with the following breakdown:  17 yes, 15 no, and 9 abstain.  Or, as the ISO press release more neutrally described the result':

Approval requires at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of national body votes cast negative. Neither of these criteria were achieved, with 53 % of votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 being positive and 26 % of national votes cast being negative.

As Updegrove notes in the outset of his post, the New York Times conspicuously just ran an piece by Kevin J O'brien headlined, "Microsoft Favored to Win Open Document Vote ", 04.Sep.2007, New York (03.Sep, Berlin) -- which now erases most of the doubts i at least had about the NYT's neocon establishment slant since i read a recent interview with Seymour Hersh following Bush Jr's recent self-serving comparison of the USA's invasion of Iraq to its regrettable invasion of Vietnam.

Another highly informative, if potentially biased piece on the MS OOXML ISO approval bid can be found at the Boycott Novell blog, " Has Microsoft 'Bought' the Vote for OOXML in Vietnam?", 27.Aug.2007.   The post's question-veiled proposition is supported by a lot of apparently credible links and what looks at first glance to be a fairly well-rounded argument. 

In fact, it was via a post at the Boycott Novell blog, "It's Final and Official: ODF is the Only ISO Standard", 04.Sep.2007, that Updegrove's post was first found.

6_w_questions_answered-AD.2007.08.23.a.log

Of AD's casket in /home/madm/.estraier:

    number of documents: 12540
    number of words: 215770
    number of keywords: 41088

at

    2007-08-23 17:56 ICT

to

    best content today


The Six Hard-Working-Men's Questions
W-Question    Frequency of Occurance
======================================
what        53826
who        48591
when        43694
how        39928
where        24831
why        19152

The Answer   
Top-100+ Words    Frequency of Occurance
======================================
new        60234
one        57463
up        50833
other        50044
com        49238
news        48164
do        46479
people        42984
time        42226
software        41871
use        40836
linux        38269
world        36011
now        35501
business        34999
free        33517
web        33307
search        32764
first        32486
open        32390
source        32016
see        31576
make        31536
over        31353
work        30591
site        29873
information        29015
here        28684
said        28246
home        28132
two        27590
way        26843
because        26746
www        26632
vietnam        25611
system        25514
top        25204
well        24947
years        24606
page        24520
being        23903
security        23889
find        23701
contact        23624
good        23366
data        22742
help        22687
copyright        22670
using        22482
last        22478
used        22170
year        21997
know        21946
need        21895
google        21815
microsoft        21482
post        21441
next        21441
back        21363
want        21231
email        21069
think        21020
media        21003
life        20714
day        20680
own        20505
support        20503
go        20368
internet        20215
privacy        20157
public        20063
does        20006
read        19973
take        19492
right        19366
made        19313
under        19294
add        19056
based        19034
without        18982
change        18947
blog        18942
same        18894
user        18736
before        18730
long        18700
online        18635
development        18603
technology        18585
policy        18579
still        18323
terms        18292
another        18205
comments        18177
view        18061
related        17965
mail        17925
part        17829
rights        17786
say        17785
off        17743
best        17720
content        17713
today        17560

Twenty Nations Ranked by "Corruption Control"

Click on the chart to enlarge it.

This chart is based on data from the World Bank's "Governance Matters" pages, http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi2007/

VIS/ITS Byte Søup, v.2007.08.09.a [alpha]

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)
Byte Søup

Prioritized Foci: Plants & Animals, including people (PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam ( VN); North America (NAm); Internetworking (iWork); Free / Libre | Linux / Opensource (FLO) InFormation or eVents ( eVs); Buddhism (Budd); Info' Technology (IT); Info' Systems ( IS: Information, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu, ...?

Here : Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now: AD.2007.Aug.09.Wed.XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .00h13.

.00h14. Testing, testing
This is a test of the production and distribution scheme of one edition of the VIS/ITS BS (Byte Søup).

.08.Wed.20h22. The Schaeme [(Bootnote) 01] -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS."
The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about BS."
The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."
The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.08.Wed.23h13. Designed for M2GB-FG2 -- ReVised
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption using Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird), Gmail, Google Reader and Blogger (M2GB) -- and, sort of, for use with Feedburner and Google Groups, too (FG2, the latter for the more textually hardcore or paranoid among Us). Upcoming: Events and Google Calendar tricks.

.08.Wed.23h20. VIS/ITS' BS is Available as, @

• HTML @ SighGone, Hø!: Âm | Yin | Passive Negation - Mumblings of a SàiGòn Hộ; blog
  
• HTML @ 4DM: Dương | Yang | Active Affirmation - Musings 4DM; blog
  
• HTML @ Go Vap! - SighGone: Đạo | Tao | Way - From Gô Vấp, Sài Gòn; blog
  
• Text @ re-creation.vietnam: "re-creation", renovation ("đổi mới" in Vietnamese) and/or new leisure activites, entertainment, education, edutainment for Vietnam (Việt Nam); mailing list, discussion group
  

.00h35. [eVent] Candadian Happy Hour in Saigon
When: 2007.Aug.14.Tue.18h00-20h00
Where: Cafe Central (Upstairs Lounge), Ground Floor, Sun Wah Tower, 115 Nguyen Hue, Q. 1, HCMC, VN
Who: Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (CanCham)
What: Everybody in town---you don't have to be Canadian and you don't even have to like Maple Syrup or Pate Chinois---is invited to join this very informal and popular monthly get-together. Happy Hour discount prices and free snack foods courtesy of Cafe Central until 8:00 P.M. (And there's a lucky draw prize opportunity too!)
How much: No admission charge! No tickets necessary!
More Info: CanCham , telephone 824 3754 or 822 8888-Extension 7305; fax 824 3751, e-mail events@canchamvietnam.org , Website www.canchamvietnam.org

.00h20. Old But Not Yet Busted: HWEx (Harper's Weekly Extracts)
The U.S. military announced that July was the least deadly
of the past eight months for American troops in Iraq, with
only 75 soldiers killed. Seventy-six U.S. senators had
visited Iraq, and 3 percent of Americans approved of how
Congress was handling the war, which was costing the
United States and Great Britain more than $4,000 each
second.

South of Baghdad, a handsome Sunni insurgent
nicknamed George Clooney was shot by members of his
own tribe and turned over to U.S. forces.

Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani
pledged to invade Pakistan, and Colorado Republican
Congressman Tom Tancredo said that, if elected president,
he would respond to terrorism on U.S. soil by bombing the
Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

... an online video game that allows players to torture
and kill corrupt officials and their children proved so
popular in China that the game's website crashed.

In India, where dung-smoke clouds were warming the upper
atmosphere, more than 1,000 people had been killed in
recent floods, and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt was sentenced
to six years of "rigorous imprisonment" for possession
of illegal firearms. "Don't get perturbed," the judge
told Dutt, "for you have many years to go and work like
the 'Mackenna's Gold' actor Gregory Peck."

A New Zealand study found that vegans are disgusted
by sex with carnivores because meat-eaters are "composed
of the lives of others." Researchers at the University
of Texas identified 237 reasons that people have sex,
including "he smelled nice," and Bob Allen, a Florida
State Representative who sponsored a bill to curtail sex in
public parks, said that he recently offered oral sex to a
man in a park because he was afraid of black people.

A lost and distraught lovebird flew amok on a flight from
Bangkok to Manila, and ornithologists remained unsure as
to why some duck species have such long, swirly penises
or convoluted vaginas that spiral in the opposite direction
and feature pockets and culs-de-sac.

A study showed that penduline tits often abandon their
offspring in order to pursue sexual conquests, and scientists
found that a female mouse with a disabled nasal organ will
begin to exhibit masculine behavior: mounting other mice,
engaging in pelvic thrusting, and abandoning her young.
Another team of scientists had bred schizophrenic mice, and
Australian scientists said that rats can learn the risks of
consuming marijuana.

Russia annexed the North Pole, Israelis fired apples, chilis,
corn, cucumbers, mangoes, and tomatoes into the Gaza Strip,
and China declared that Tibet's living Buddhas must seek
permission from the government before being reincarnated.

-- Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

SUBSCRIBE to Harper's Weekly via web: http://harpers.org
via email: join-harpers-weekly@pluto.sparklist.com

.08.Wed. [Stupid] Court won't allow New Zealand couple name their baby son 4Real, but that's OK as they're going to call him Superman instead

from Fark.com

Telegraph

.08.Wed. Vietnam fears - The Age

from Google News

The Age

Vietnam Years
The Age - 1 hour ago
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Welcome Home Marches for Australia's Vietnam War veterans. Warwick McFadyen speaks with author and filmmaker Michael Caulfield about his new book on the war and its legacy.

.08.Wed. Traditional Media Still Losing Ground to Internet, Cable

from Wired Top Stories by Associated Press

Consumers continue to turn away from traditional, advertising-driven media while embracing paid entertainment, such as cable TV and the internet, in greater numbers, a new study finds.

.08.Wed. For Good Girls: 10 Ways To Release Your Inner Vixen

from digg

Its inevitable, whether you've been married for 10 years or in a long term relationship for 5, sex gets dull. Every woman is a siren, a Venus, a being of erotic nature. Sometimes, releasing this inner vixen is all that's needed to spark something new and remind your man that you ARE a goddess.

.08.Wed. China releases Canadian activists

from TO Star

Eight Tibet independence activists detained in China this week -- including three Canadians -- have been released, a spokesperson for their group said this morning.

.00h04. Teen Drug Slang: A Dictionary For Parents

from digg

Know what your kids are talking about with this guide to today's drug terms

.00h11. [Budd] Finding the way to Nirvana on stage

from Buddhism News

"They are very dramatic and I was reading one of them to my girlfriend at the time. She sort of 'oohed' and 'ahhed' at the right points and I thought -- why not do the story of the Buddha."

Siddhartha Gautama, founder of Buddhism, was born in India 500 years before Christ.

via Boston NOW

.00h33. Jeff Stier: Organ-Trading is Not so Weird

from HuffingtonPost by Jeff Stier

Something unusual happened to me. I wrote an op-ed for the New York Post and nobody wrote to tell me they disagreed. Yet the policies I am arguing for are certainly not the norm. I argued in favor of incentives to promote organ donations.

.00h33. Matthew Chapman: At Last A Comic Book Atheist Hero

from HuffingtonPost by Matthew Chapman

Pat Tillman, an extraordinarily square-jawed football player who gave up a lucrative professional life to go and fight for his country, was at first hailed as a hero by a military eager for good publicity. When it was discovered Tillman died as a result of "friendly fire" -- he was shot at close range in the forehead, which seems a little too friendly -- his family pressed hard for a more thorough investigation.

Lt. Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, an officer with responsibilities for Tillman's unit, complained that his relatives were being so insistent because, like Pat, they were atheists. They could not come to terms with his death. From their perspective, after all, Pat was merely "wormdirt". In other words, if they believed in God and an afterlife they would be more compliant.

An interesting point.

.00h45. [NewsFlash] 7.4 earthquake hits Java, Indonesia. Epicenter is just 70 miles from Jakarta (population ~20 million)

from Fark.com

(USGS)

.00h49. Feminine guys better for long-term love: British study

from NowPublic: World by uusjio

read more

Old But Only in VN

.08.Wed. Saigonese taken by website pyramid e-investment scam

from Vietnam: Intellasia

A group calling itself Colony Investment Management Inc. claims it can return 3% interest per day— nearly 100% per month-on any investment according to an alleged claim on the company's website at http://www.colonyinvest.net or http://music.easyvn.com/colonyinvest where the company presents itself in grammatically poor English.

.08.Wed. Wardens blamed for helping inmate get pregnant to avoid death sentence

from Vietnam: Intellasia

Hanoi police have filed charges against two prison wardens for helping a female death row convict have sex and become pregnant with a male prisoner to commute her death sentence. They are seeking indictment against Nguyen Thuyen and Bui Van Quyet, former wardens of a prison in the northern Hoa Binh province, on charges of "abusing power during pubic service".

Bootnotes:
[01] Schaeme: Scheme + Scam

Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license.
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Done .01h03.ICT

VIS/ITS: Bytes, v.2007.08.08.t

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)
Bytes

Prioritized Foci: Plants & Animals, including people ( PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam (VN); North America ( NAm); Internetworking (iWork); Free / Libre | Linux / Open-source (FLO) Information & Events; Buddhism ( Budd); Info Technology (IT); Info Systems (IS: InFormation, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu , ...?

Here: Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now:  AD.2007.Aug.08.Wed .XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .21h41.

.20h22. The Schaeme -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS." 

The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about Bytes."

The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."

The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.21h33. Designed for M2GB-FBG2 -- ReRun
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption using Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird), Gmail, Google Reader and Blogger -- and sort of for use with FeedBurner and Google Groups, too (the latter for the more textually hardcore or paranoid among Us).  Upcoming: Google Calendar tricks.

.07.Tue.12h50. One more bird flu patient in Vietnam dies - Xinhua

from Google News

PRESS TV

One more bird flu patient in Vietnam dies
Xinhua - 12 hours ago
7 (Xinhua) -- A 15-year-old person from Vietnam's northern Thanh Hoa province died of bird flu, the Vietnam News Agency reported Tuesday.
Bird Flu Kills Teenage Boy in Vietnam Voice of America
Vietnam teenager killed by bird flu United Press International
Earthtimes.org - Pravda - Reuters India
all 23 news articles

.07.Tue.12h50. Climate change to be discussed during provincial and territorial ... - 680 News

from Google News

Climate change to be discussed during provincial and territorial ...
680 News - 2 hours ago
Toronto - Canada's premiers and territorial leaders will be acting and talking 'green,' during their annual meeting in Moncton, NB on Wednesday.
Messing with Stelmach Edmonton Journal (subscription)
Premiers Set to Meet in Moncton 580 CFRA Radio
National Post
all 23 news articles

.01h06. Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab

from BBC News: World

Microbes locked in Antarctic ice for as much as eight million years have been "resuscitated" in a laboratory.

.01h17. Technology's Top 10 Legal Battles

from digg

Ever since the dawn of technology, new ideas have spawned legal squabbles. Here are the greatest legal battles in technology - from the Statue of Anne to Apple vs. Apple.

.01h17. Feds Too Busy Busting Medical Marijuana Shops To Catch Anthrax Perps

from digg

Nature's Medicinal Cooperative has been raided by federal agents twice in the last couple of months. After both federal raids, Nature's Medicinal Cooperative re-opened. The owners said they did it because medicinal dispensaries are allowed in California, but prohibited by federal law.

.02h23. Motorola Ships a U.S. Linux Mobile Phone

from Linux Today

LinuxDevices: It's finally happened. Motorola last month quietly shipped its first Linux-based mobile phone 'bound for North America,'...  [But Google might go with OpenMoko - Now Toronto, Canada - 23 hours ago]

.02h31. McDonald's Subverting Toddler Taste Buds

from NowPublic: World by nouseforadave

A recent study out of Stanford unequivocally shows the power of branding on the minds of young children (Robinson et al.; Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children's Taste Preferences (2007)

read more

.02h48. Dirty Jobs Strikes Green Gold in Earth's Grossest Occupations

from Wired Top Stories by Wired Science Blog

Host Mike Rowe talks about the science behind the Discovery Channel's oddball hit, and how it's the most environmentally sound show on TV without even trying.

.02h48. Jargon Watch: Digilanti, Milkomeda, Social Operating System

from Wired Top Stories by Jonathon Keats

And so the geek vocabulary grows.

.02h48. The Future of Bridges: Self-Replicating, Irregular Designs

from Wired Top Stories by Wired Science Blogs

Self-replicating bridges might be more robust, but also weirder looking, than the nearly magical pieces of civil engineering that human beings come up with.

.03h42. An Introduction to Linux Audio

from digg

Linux has come a long way in the last 10 years. At that time, if you were looking through the main audio and music applications on other operating systems, you would have struggled to find comparable, fully developed, apps on Linux.  [Not now. There are TOO many now.  Save me! - ADM]

.03h48. Exotic Warfare

from High Weirdness Project

[http://www.exoticwarfare.com]: a site dedicated to exposing the truth about [military (ab)uses of] the high-tech electromagnetic nanotech energy threads and...

.03h50. 3rd Canadian held in Beijing - Toronto Star

from Google News

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

3rd Canadian held in Beijing
Toronto Star - 2 hours ago
A third Canadian has been detained in China for protesting the country's actions in Tibet. Students for a Free Tibet says Ladon Tethong, the group's Tibetan-Canadian executive director, was arrested in Beijing today along with a colleague, Paul Golding ...
Canadian protesters held in China Globe and Mail
Beijing police detain two more Tibetan activists (Roundup) Monsters and Critics.com
Canoe.ca - Canada.com - CTV.ca - Edmonton Journal (subscription)
all 167 news articles

.22h18. Will We Ever Catch Up?
We'll see.  May be.  Maybe not.

Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license. 
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Done .22h18.ICT

VIS/ITS: Bytes, v.2007.08.08.s

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)
Bytes

Prioritized Foci: Plants & Animals, including people ( PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam (VN); North America ( NAm); Internetworking (iWork); Free / Libre | Linux / Open-source (FLO) Information & Events; Buddhism ( Budd); Info Technology (IT); Info Systems (IS: InFormation, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu , ...?

Here : Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now:  AD.2007.Aug.08.Wed .XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .21h41.

.20h22. The Schaeme -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS." 

The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about Bytes."

The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."

The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.21h33. Designed for M2GB-FBG2 -- ReRun
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption using Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird), Gmail, Google Reader and Blogger -- and sort of for use with FeedBurner and Google Groups, too (the latter for the more textually hardcore or paranoid among Us).  Upcoming: Google Calendar tricks.

Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license. 
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Done .21h44.ICT

VIS/ITS: Bytes, v.2007.08.08.r

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)
Bytes

Prioritized Foci: Plants & Animals, including people ( PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam (VN); North America ( NAm); Free / Libre | Linux / Open-source (FLO) Information & Events; Internetworking (iWork); Buddhism ( Budd); Info Technology (IT); Info Systems (IS: InFormation, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu , ...?

Here : Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now:  AD.2007.Aug.08.Wed .XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .21h31.

.20h22. The Schaeme -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS." 

The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about Bytes."

The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."

The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.21h33. Designed for M2GB-FBG2 -- ReVised
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption using Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird), Gmail, Google Reader and Blogger -- and sort of for use with FeedBurner and Google Groups, too (the latter for the more textually hardcore or paranoid among Us).  Upcoming: Google Calendar tricks.

Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license. 
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Done .21h36. ICT

VIS/ITS: Bytes, v.2007.08.08.q

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)
Bytes

Prioritized Foci: Plants & Animals, including people ( PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam (VN); North America ( NAm); Free / Libre | Linux / Open-source (FLO) Information & Events; Internetworking (iWork); Buddhism ( Budd); Info Technology (IT); Info Systems (IS: InFormation, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu , ...?

Here : Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now:  AD.2007.Aug.08.Wed .XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .21h18.

.20h22. The Schaeme -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS." 

The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about Bytes."

The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."

The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.21h20. Designed for M2GB-FBG2 -- ReVised
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption using Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird), Gmail, Google Reader and Blogger -- and sort of for use with FeedBurner and Google Groups, too (the latter for the more textually hardcore or paranoid among Us).

Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license. 
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Done .21h27. ICT

VIS/ITS: Bytes, v.2007.08.08.p

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)
Bytes

Prioritized Foci: Plants & Animals, including people (PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam (VN); North America (NAm); Free / Libre | Linux / Open-source (FLO) Information & Events; Internetworking (iWork); Buddhism (Budd); Info Technology (IT); Info Systems (IS: InFormation, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu, ...?

Here : Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now:  AD.2007.Aug.08.Wed .XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .21h09.

.20h22. The Schaeme -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS." 

The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about Bytes."

The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."

The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.21h11. Designed for F2GBFB2G -- ReVised
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption via Firefox, Gmail, Google Reader, Blogger, FeedBurner, and Google Groups, too (for the more textually hardcore and paranoid among Us).

Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license. 
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

Done .21h13.ICT