Greg's View of Todays News - 02/04/2009

• Back Paddock Chicken chucker charged over bizarre crime - Weekly Times Now

  NSW POLICE reckon they've seen it all after nabbing a man for allegedly trying to smash his way into a cafe using a frozen chicken.
  
  "Police will allege that the man smashed the shopfront window using a frozen chicken stolen from the butcher and a number of rocks," police said.
  "In the process the man suffered a minor injury to his wrist."
  The 20-year-old was nabbed early today after he called authorities seeking help for his injury.

• Comment: Whatever he was on, I want some of that! (Greg)
  

• In-flight confrontations can lead to charges defined as terrorism - Los Angeles Times

  Reporting from Los Angeles and Oklahoma City -- Tamera Jo Freeman was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver in 2007 when her two children began to quarrel over the window shade and then spilled a Bloody Mary into her lap.
  
  She spanked each of them on the thigh with three swats. It was a small incident, but one that in the heightened anxiety after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would eventually have enormous ramifications for Freeman and her children.

  • These domestic issues are as much about terrorism as WMD were about declaring war on Iraq. Sure, the airlines must maintain order on their aircraft and simply refusing passage should be enough to stop stupid incidents like this from happening.
    Invoking the law on terrorism is a waste of the court's resources and that of all those invoved.
    Maybe, the airlines should look at counselling their on flight crews - post by gnaylor

• Holding talks down tanks - Weekly Times Now

  AS VICTORIA sweltered in record temperatures last week, State Water Minister Tim Holding outlined why the Victorian Government had rejected recycled water, tanks and dams as options to boost the state's water supply.

  • I am all for desalination
    
    Cities located on the coast have the ability to opt for desalination to provide all of their water supplies. The argument of putting the salt back whilst removing the water is rather pathetic when you consider the volume of water in the sea and the amount of salt returned. In fact, the water removed drains back to the sea anyhow.
    
    I am against pipelines
    
    Transferring water from one catchment to another changes the balance of nature by reducing the available evaporation at the source thus dring out the micro climate in that area - post by gnaylor

• Former Australian PM still backs Bush

  • During a visit to Vancouver Monday, Howard said he remains convinced that his ideological mate’s reputation will improve over time.
  • Although the Bush administration acknowledged that Hussein had no connection to the 9/11 attacks, said Howard, “they thought there would be another attack and they saw Hussein as an agent-provocateur for another attack.”
  • Howard said it is a “great myth” that deregulation of the financial industry during the Bush era caused or contributed to the banking crisis and the economic downturn.
  • Overblown or not, there was a certain symmetry to Howard’s role in the Blair House dust-up. In 2007, Howard attacked Obama, saying his anti-war policies would be embraced by al-Qaida in Iraq.
    • What a disaster it would have been if John Howard had been re-elected as Prime Minister.
      With the global economic collapse underway, and a PM who believes that deregulation of the banks did not cause it, He would be having difficulty working with the man he dubbed a friend of Al Quaida. Thank God we learned in time! - post by gnaylor

• New Playground Architecture: Bye, Jungle Gym - TIME

  New York City–based architect David Rockwell has come up with some ingenious ways to amplify that familiar scene and, in the process, is bringing to the U.S. the most innovative playground design since child psychologists started fiddling with jungle gyms in the 1960s. Dubbed the Imagination Playground in a Box,

  • 
  • "You just open this thing up, and kids' fantasy worlds instantly kick in," Rockwell says. "They use the parts to build cities, houses, castles, spaceships, even sewer systems."
    • Sounds like this will become a fair-ground commercial entertainment unit that will pop up at country fairs and fundraisers. Looks good - post by gnaylor

• Students promised $15 lap top | Herald Sun

  INDIA has unveiled plans to produce a laptop computer costing just $US10 ($15) to help improve the skills of millions of students across the country.
  
  The laptops will be mass-produced as part of a Government-sponsored education scheme launched today in the southern city of Tirupati.

  • "Its cost will be $US10. If the parents want to gift something to their kids, they can easily purchase this item.''

    The laptop will reportedly have a two gigabyte memory and wireless internet capability, but officials have not publicly demonstrated a prototype - or yet explained how it can be produced at such a low cost.
    • This may well be the stimulus to revolutionise the Internet with "Cloud Computing" where software is provided online as a service to users.
      
      The downside of a $US10 computer is it's inherent disposability factor - who would even try to get one fixed. With the disposal problems of electronics, we have faced for years, they should be forced to produce a fully bio-degradable unit - post by gnaylor

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