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Lest we forget, this is not a Persian crime, but a religious one, and one based upon opinions that are shared by some people from all the Abrahamic religions. Some people email me wondering what I have against religion: I think belief is an abrogation of our moral responsibility as human beings to reason and empathise with other people rather than passing the responsibility to a text which cannot be reasonably challenged or ammended. I do think that religion makes good people better, but it makes bad people worse – and it is easier to destroy things than build them. Until someone disproves the 2nd Law, religion and humans are a volatile mix. I think that the more secular a society is, the more moral, creative and innovative it is. In America people are not arguing about whether gays should be executed but whether they can marry, I am not…

Gibson has truly lost his marbles.link » tags: [news] posted via Wists: permamark

At least there is one thing in the news to be cheerful about – All hail people called Armstrong: Neil, Louis and Lance.link » tags: [news] posted via Wists: permamark

The thumbnail shows where abortion is legal in green and blue and illegal in red and orange. Nothing shows more clearly what an anomaly it will be if the US joins the red and orange gang being pretty much the only member in the northern hemisphere or anglosphere. Interestingly it also serves as an accurate map of fervent Christianity and Islam. (For the record, I think if you are religious then an anti-abortion stance is entirely logical, and I respect that. I do believe that raised taxes to provide support for single parents or abandoned children follows. I am not religious and not likely to ever be pregnant.) Some example countries below. Some of the countries where abortion is illegal (many, many scary places with a few exceptions such as Ireland): Afghanistan Angola Bangladesh Brazil Central African Rep. Chile Colombia Congo (Brazzaville) Dem. Rep. of Congo Egypt Indonesia Iran Iraq…

Very useful lowdown from Fred Wilson on poor performance of RSS ads. This is to be expected. Ads are about persuasion, and they need to be seductive, which is why the average TV ad costs more per minute to make than a feature film. In the context of search, text ads work because people are looking for things to be spelled out simply. They rely solely on a seductive slogan. On a destination site, the picture becomes more blurred – but the fact of the matter is that the sites with the most traffic do not generate the most revenue from CPC based text ads, like Adsense – it comes from CPM based banner or rich media ads or brand sponsorship. Adsense ads can be made to perform better by placing them in different positions on the page, but the performance will rarely be as good as rich media ads…

Traditionally if you wanted to invest in oil, you would have to invest indirectly in oil related companies, or have gallons of crude decorating your front yard. In the UK a stock is about to be released which will be directly linked to oil prices. If oil drops below $50 again, I’ll be buying it.link » tags: [peakoil] posted via Wists: permamark

All films with Bill Murray in are very funny. Having religiously watched Jacques Cousteau's deep sea adventures with aahttreeehjus accent as a kid, The Life Aquatic is very funny, and it hits you even more the next day – like a bad curry.link » tags: [fav=movie] posted via Wists: permamark

link » tags: [sevenseven] [news] posted via Wists: permamark

link » tags: [news] [olympics] posted via Wists: permamark

New York is great for urban archeology, but with the worst roads and the best architecture in the developed world, the interface between the sidewalk and street produces an amazing variety of types. Have put my pictures of NYC curbs on Flickr, tagged as fucked_up_curb.link » tags: [photos] [nyc] posted via Wists: permamark

Couldn't resist the headline. A famous European surfing beach has mysteriously lost its waves.link » tags: [news] posted via Wists: permamark

Read the small print and you can see that there has been some horse trading for the G8 agenda and that France looks like the loser over Africa, instead of the US over Global Warming. In exchange for compromize on Global Warming, the US has agreed to fair trade concessions for Africa – this completely turns the tables on France where farm subsidies can no longer been seen as socialist in terms of the global view. "On the other major issue to be discussed at the summit, African aid and debt relief, he signalled he was ready to abandon US farm subsidies, which have unfairly distorted the market for African farmers. But he said he would only do it, if the European Union was prepared to scrap its Common Agricultural Policy. "We've got agricultural subsidies, not nearly to the extent that our friends in the EU have," he said. "…