Month: January 2007

Street Charging Services in Uganda

Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect: Power Up: Street Charging Services in Uganda
Uganda is a country coping with a severe energy crisis resulting in frequent power cuts. In addition, access to mains electricity in rural locations is limited. Given that mobile phones require power, and access to power can be unpredictable – how do people keep their mobile phones and other electrical devices charged?

There are two forms of mobile phone battery charging services in Kampala – either offered as an additional service by phone kiosk operators or as a stand alone service. It costs 500 Ugandan Shillings (0.2 Euro) to have a battery recharged similar to the price of 2 or 3 phone calls. Whist both services appear to thrive there are a number of barriers to use: customers cannot use their phone whilst the battery is being charged; the customer risks, or perceives the risk that their battery being swapped for an inferior one; a perceived risk of phone theft – signs that suggest service providers are not responsible for loss or theft are evident.

Monster Bunnies For North Korea

Fat German Rabbits to Feed Poor: Monster Bunnies For North Korea – International – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News
An east German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs has been asked by North Korea to help set up a big bunny farm to alleviate food shortages in the communist country. Now journalists and rabbit gourmets from around the world are thumping at his door.

It all started when Karl Szmolinsky won a prize for breeding Germany’s largest rabbit, a friendly-looking 10.5 kilogram “German Gray Giant” called Robert, in February 2006.

Images of the chubby monster went around the world and reached the reclusive communist state of North Korea, a country of 23 million which according to the United Nations Food Programme suffers widespread food shortages and where many people “struggle to feed themselves on a diet critically deficient in protein, fats and micronutrients.”

Continue reading “Monster Bunnies For North Korea”

Trailer Park Millionaires

Most residents make sale toast of the town
The vote:Residentschose to accept a $510 million offer from Boca Raton-based Ocean Land Investments for the 488-unit mobile home park.

The plans: Ocean Land envisions condos, townhomes, a hotel, retail and commercial space, restaurants and parks.

The process: Ocean Land must get state and local approval, including input from neighboring towns, which have said they will consider legal challenges.

The payoff: Residents split $500 million, at $31,700 a share. While the average is about $1 million a unit, some will be paid more and some less.

Residents vote to sell oceanfront town for $510M.
Video NEWS 12 video report
Your Post: Share comments
What happens now
Sale toast of the town
Residents sound off
Mementos gain meaning

Boomer Entitled Selfishness

Robert J. Samuelson – Entitled Selfishness – washingtonpost.com
It’s no secret that the 65-and-over population will double by 2030 (to almost 72 million, or 20 percent of the total population), but hardly anyone wants to face the implications:

? By comparison, other budget issues, including the notorious earmarks, are trivial. In 2005, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (the main programs for the elderly) cost $1.034 trillion, twice the amount of defense spending and more than two-fifths of the total federal budget. These programs are projected to equal about three-quarters of the budget by 2030, if it remains constant as a share of national income.

Opportunities for gradual change have been squandered. These public failings are also mirrored privately. I know many bright, politically engaged boomers who can summon vast concern or outrage about global warming, corporate corruption, foreign policy, budget deficits and much more — but somehow, their own Social Security and Medicare benefits rarely come up for discussion or criticism. Older boomers (say, those born by 1955) are the most cynical, hoping their benefits will be grandfathered in when inevitable cuts occur in the future.

New Year’s nightmare for visiting Yale singers

New Year’s nightmare for visiting Yale singers
How’s this for an only-in-San Francisco story:

Members of the Baker’s Dozen, the renowned, all-male a cappella singing group from Yale, are pummeled outside a New Year’s Eve party after singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The attackers allegedly include graduates from Sacred Heart Cathedral, one of the city’s oldest and best-known private schools.

The attack happens outside the home of two prominent San Francisco police officers — former mayoral bodyguard Reno Rapagnani, now retired, and his wife, Leanna Dawydiak — who were both accused and later cleared of leaking internal SFPD personnel documents during the Fajitagate debacle.

Dead birds rain down on towns half a world apart

Dead birds rain down on towns half a world apart | the Daily Mail
Officials are baffled by the unexplained deaths which have affected Australia and the U.S.

Three weeks ago thousands of crows, pigeons, wattles and honeyeaters fell out of the sky in Esperance, Western Australia.

Then last week dozens of grackles, sparrows and pigeons dropped dead on two streets in Austin, Texas.

As birds continue to die in Esperance and the town’s dawn chorus remains eerily silent, vets in both countries have been unable to establish a cause of death – despite carrying out a large number of autopsies on the birds.

Jalapenos can kill cancers

BBC NEWS | Health | How spicy foods can kill cancers
Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells.

They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria – the cells’ energy-generating boiler rooms.

The research raises the possibility that other cancer drugs could be developed to target mitochondria. Continue reading “Jalapenos can kill cancers”

A Brief History of Oil

Conversion from using whale oil to crude oil (rock oil) for ilumination Mid 1800″s( John D Rockefeller’s Std Oil that was its origin)and later the utilization of gasoline (a byproduct of refining to make kerosene ) to power automobiles (Henry Ford cars for the masses ) 1908 first Model T and the British Royal Navy converting from coal to oil almost overnight courtesy of Winston Churchill 1912.WW 1 won on a sea of oil. Sets off the scramble for energy assets see Iraq today.100 years of unprecedented economic growth powered by fossil fuels and now the sleeping giant China powering up using even greater amounts of fossil fuel.The world is now at a point in time using 1000 barrels of crude oil every second! James Watt perfecting the steam engine harnessing the power of steam generated by Coal to run the pumps 1756 to enable the miners in England to keep the deep pit coal mines dry from water flooding to fuel the industrial revolution of UK. England goofs sides with the hashemite kings against the whabbi kings over the deserts of Arabia and forever loses the trust of the Saud family(Whabbi Sunni) paving the way for Chevron, then Texaco to put togeather the energy giant1938-48 now known as Saudi Aramco but until 1973 owned lock stock and barrell by Exxon MObil, Chevron, Texaco and Gulf. Continue reading “A Brief History of Oil”

A Brewing Battle of Heavyweights in Tehran

News: A Brewing Battle of Heavyweights in Tehran
Iranians are deserting the president they elected by a landslide in June 2005. Not only did university students heckle Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with chants of “Death to the dictator!” during a speech last month in Tehran, state-run TV had the temerity to report it. Some of his own supporters criticized his recent international gathering of Holocaust revisionists as harmful to Iran’s national interests. And thanks to his economic flubs, Iranians are grumbling about inflation instead of reveling in an oil-boom windfall. Iranian TV reported that news, too, and when Ahmadinejad complained about the story, the network’s director (a former ally) replied: “We just tell the truth.” The legislature has stopped rubber-stamping the 50-year-old president’s decisions, and the latest local elections cost him all but two of his allies on Tehran’s 15-seat city council.