Five years ago, MTV’s ratings were flatlining as music videos started to look like a relic of the eighties. Now it’s the envy of every other network, spawning The Osbournes, Jackass, and a score of other offbeat—and wildly popular—offerings. How’d it happen? Call it chaos theory, managed (barely) by two of television’s unlikeliest executives. Man, this could be chaos. [more]
What started out as an attempt to shame a local high school into dropping a mascot name viewed as racist has raised at least $100,000 for scholarships for Indian college studentsThey raised it all by selling more than 15,000 shirts and hats ... Hey, you even get to pick your own Logo design.
So-called "parasite programs" are logging what you do online and, like a nest of busy gossips, sharing the information with anyone who will pay to listen. Most parasite programs divide into two categories:
"adware" - programs on your computer that fling pop-up ads at you, install toolbars full of adverts or hijack searches and web use; and
"spyware" - more underhand, these devices surreptitiously watch what you do, steal personal information and dispatch it across the web.What they have in common, is that they quietly download onto your computer while you are online ... Sometimes without your permission [more]
While we were looking away, Bush has slowly begun to dismantle environmental protections. Over the last two weeks the administration has taken action relating to logging and clean air that will negatively affect us for years to come.
fear that these changes are only the first of many. We can't allow Bush and headline media to distract us from what is really happening. The world that Bush is creating is not the one that I envision for my children and grandchildren.
Blacks remain the most highly segregated minority group in neighborhoods across the United States, despite changes over the last 20 years, the U.S. Census Bureau reported on Wednesday.Billed as one of the agency's most exhaustive study ever of residential segregation, the report focused on trends between 1980 and 2000.
Seeds for low-nicotine tobacco were essentially banned by the USDA in 1963. To this day, in order to be eligible for full government price supports, farmers must certify each year that they are not growing any low-nicotine varieties.
So, while the government sues tobacco companies for killing 400,000 Americans each year, it is enforcing laws that ensure cigarettes remain addictive.[more]
NY Sen. Chuck Schumer slammed Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter yesterday as the wrong man to head the Pentagon's new "big brother" program, saying the retired admiral barely escaped jail.
"If we need a big brother, John Poindexter is the last guy on the list that I would choose," said Schumer (D-N.Y.). [ more]
(Via Ronn, Jason, Brad.)
Southern African countries marked World AIDS Day on Sunday with hopes that the region, which has the highest rate of HIV positive people on the planet, can slow the spread of the disease.
There are 42 million HIV positive people worldwide, with sub-Saharan Africa home to 75 percent of them, according to UNAIDS, the U.N.'s AIDS agency.
South Africa has more HIV positive people than any other country in the world. Figures released by the government more than two years ago showed that 4.7 million people -- one in nine -- were infected, and the figure today is believed to be substantially higher. [more] Via Newsday
