J. M. Verville

Osama is at it again:

Osama bin Laden has warned the Sunni Arabs in Iraq against fighting Al Qaeda and vowed to expand the terror group’s holy war to Israel in a new audiotape, threatening “blood for blood, destruction for destruction.”

Most of the 56-minute tape, which was released Saturday, dealt with Iraq, apparently Al Qaeda’s latest attempt to keep supporters in Iraq unified at a time when the U.S. military says it has Al Qaeda’s branch there on the run.

The tape did not mention Pakistan or the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Thursday, though Pakistan’s government has blamed Al Qaeda and the Taliban for her death. That suggested the tape was made before the assassination.

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An injection of common sense for you guys:

BY now, it’s almost a truism: the protectionist agricultural farm policies of the big, rich nations - mainly the European Union, the United States and Japan - are essentially barring poor countries from development. (more…)

… They’ve finally realized that blogs can be both sexy and political. And they don’t like that.

Vietnam needs to control blogs to prevent the spread of subversive and sexually explicit content, communist government officials said according to a state media report Wednesday.

Weblogs have exploded in Vietnam in recent years, especially among youths, providing a forum for chatting about mostly societal and lifestyle issues and providing an alternative to the state-controlled media.

Recent anti-Chinese protests over the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands, which were halted following rebukes from Beijing, were organised and debated on the Internet but almost completely ignored by the official press.

The ministry responsible for culture and information, which controls traditional media, in July said it was drafting regulations that would fine bloggers who post subversive and sexually explicit content online.

AFP 

We take a lot of things for granted in America. Chiefly amongst these is our sexy and political internet pages.

If they think that this is going to do anything to prop up the system in the long run they are terribly wrong; people do not accept this as they used to.  People want basic freedom of expression and if one cannot casually express one’s views on the internet then it suddenly loses a whole lot of worth to a whole lot of people.

You cannot suffocate the people with regulations.

This is quite enjoyable:

KEC Hire Hokuriku, a “maid taxi service for the disabled” that started in Kanzawa, Ishikawa Prefecture just three months ago, has been forced to close its doors due to the large number of otaku feigning physical problems in attempts to get close to the livery service’s staff.

Though the taxi service was specifically for the disabled and though it charged 5,700 yen per hour for its services, they were swamped with requests from otaku. (more…)

It is always cute to hear when the left implodes on itself:

The elusive British artist had painted six images around the town to help drum up tourism before Christmas and to illustrate the hardships faced by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

But the irony behind the depiction of an Israeli soldier checking a donkey’s identity papers was lost on some residents, who found it offensive. (more…)

An interesting study:

Compared to non-users, users believed more strongly that cannabis would help them fit in with their friends, feel relaxed, forget their worries, and enjoy themselves. They also believed that their friends would approve of their use.

Additionally, users believed that certain factors including force of habit, wanting to relax, feeling stressed, and being around other people using cannabis would encourage them to use, while non-users rated work and study as strong reasons for not using cannabis. (more…)

This is certainly odd:

Anger is appropriately blamed for flawed thinking since it tends to alter perception of risk, increase prejudice, and trigger aggression. But is anger always destructive” Three recent experiments published in the latest issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, an official publication of The Society for Personality and Social Psychology suggest it’s not. Anger can actually prompt more careful and rational analysis of another person’s reasoning. (more…)

Apparently men can become impulsive and less rational if they have higher testosterone and are fed images of sex:

The study was carried out by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

It split 176 heterosexual men into groups, some of whom were exposed to various sexual images, the others weren’t.

Then they were put in a lab version of a communal game where with another person where they had to decide how to split $10. (more…)

I think if vanity was destroyed much good would be done. It is the route of almost all waste.

Imagine if as people got richer they didn’t feel the need for status symbols… As opposed to people owning four or five cars and giant homes, they would own practical cars and practical homes; the money that is invested in vain things like Ferraris would instead have been invested in simply superior advancements in cars.

Global warming would be less of an issue because people from the start would’ve been in competition to make the most fuel efficient vehicles for the practical reduction of cost. Luxury car brands would have been defined by the practicality of vehicle… They would have been racing for efficient alternatives to fuel the second that it became clear the damage was being done. (more…)

The article is more of a testament to the fear that race will become an issue. They are trying to imply that criticism of Obama’s drug use equates to racism…

This is what we call playing the race card.

Immediately the debate is mucked up because now anyone who criticizes the drug use in his path is now some person trying to cast blame on all blacks and is doing something underhanded… (more…)