Nouchette's Blog

This sh0uld be a lifetime or Hallmark tv movie but.L

2009-02-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

it's actually real life events...

We've all heard about this Whittier lady (well named "the breeder" on an interesting blog post I read today) who recently gave birth to octuplets.

I am not a big fan of the idea (I've been trying to weigh my words recently), and here is why, in bullet points, you know, so I don't sound too angry or bitter.

She lives and is being supported by her mom (yes she is 34 and yes her mom "broke the anonymity" and told the whole story, for money maybe??)
One of her 6 previous kids has autism, one could assume the kid might need attention, including financial attention...might be hard with 13 brothers and sisters (assuming everyone survives...)
It is highly suspected that the genius doctor she saw for the fertility treatment implanted at least 4 or 5 embryos in the woman, the legal limit for that age category being 2, will def. check out that guy on the medical board website, if he ever dares to release his name;
She refused to abort 2 fetuses because of her moral and religious values, how do those values fit for those 7 kids on respirator and the one who has to be given oxygen on a permanent basis (the viability of octuplets has never been an established fact)
the insatiable thirst for kids, in my opinion, shows mental instability
who paid/pays for medical care??
who is going to pay for these kids' education? is she going to home school them? good idea, she sounds smart
If you love kids soooooo much, why dont you adopt kids who are in need, instead of creating new lives that will require permanent medical attention and might not be able to "enjoy" "life" more than a few weeks, poor babies, seriously.

I understand that each and every woman is free to do what she wants with her body, but this is not a positive contribution to human kind, this was done breaking laws, and to help satisfy this woman's craving. It must be so frustrating for people who are trying hard to have kids to see women like this, who basically made that many kids just to get America's attention, surfing the wave of success of shows like "Jon & Kate +8" (I love them btw) and "17 (or 18) kids and counting". I saw online today calls to boycott the networks that would dare offering a contract to this woman.
I will finish congratulating this woman's mom for the insanely great education that she gave to her daughter, she gave interviews to newspapers this week explaining that she knew her daughter had an insane craving for giving birth to more kids, but did not think she would go all the way. FAIL!
Ok failure regarding the whole "not trying to sound angry" thingy. Sorry about that.

How are the occidental powers going to cope with the situation??

2008-08-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

The Russian army violated the boarders of Georgia on Friday, as, officially, a retaliation against the brutal and criminal military policy that the georgian government use to keep Ossetia under control. It has actually been a while since Ossetia declared their independance from Georgia, and the situation has been really crappy for all this time. Other conflicts were keeping the UN, the US and the european union busy. And now it all hits the fan,
Russia attacks Georgia, whose army, to help out their good old american friends, is almost entirely positionned in Irak, the american friends (who seem pretty interested in the old USSR "satellites" cf the whole nuclear shield story in Ukraine) are now helping the Georgian army to get out of Irak to put them back home, where they are being destroyed by a strong russian contingent, and that does not please Putin either.
Putin started a maritime embargo and warned that any shipped that would get in the security zone in the black sea would be destroyed...
The goal is clearly to take over the country, and they are on a good track since they managed to take control of 50% of the country in 3 days, according to the news centers (reliable?), and to obtain control of the gas pipe that crosses the country.
So now what?
Show the same rigidity as with the negotiations with Iran? That would be a dangerous game. Some of Russia's supporters would find there a great opportunity to let loose.
Pass a resolution? Yeah, right Russia wont use the power of veto...
Send Bush as messenger for peace and have him declare that the military operations of Russia are inacceptable was not smart, they should leave that to Khouchner, it's a matter of credibility among other things. No one can predict what's going to happen, an international military conflict? Russia taking over more countries and progressively rebuilding its geopolitical power?
The international community has lots of regional conflicts like this one to expect, that's for sure.

What would our lives be like if Gore had won the elections in 2000

2008-05-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

I watched the Hbo tv movie "recount"yesterday, a detailed presentation of the chronology of events that led to Bush's victory at the 2000 elections. I was then in France, thinking of these elections as a fraud, but the movie gave me a whole new perspective. I imagined how crazy it must have been at the time, it must have been unbearable to watch Fox or cnn... The unfairness is obvious, the legal proceedings ending, after hope given by the Folrida Supreme Court, by an unbelievable one time BS opinion by the Supreme court, recognizing the violation of the constitution but using technical obstacles the court had itself created to refrain from ordering a recount, which would have been the remedy for these violations.
So, yeah, Al Gore should have been the winner, what would have changed for us if life was fair and the american electoral system was not a joke?
-We can potentially assume that 9/11 would not have happened
-Thus no war would have started in Iraq, and lets fantasize even more, maybe Gore's interntaional skills would have been so awesome that he would have got rid of Saddam through hmm more peaceful means
- As a consequence, The Patriot act would not have been enacted and the anti french wave would not have launched
-The UN would have more legitimacy for it would not have been stepped on brutally on so many levels.
-We would all be driving Hybrids, and they would be super cheap (sorry for the extreme positiveness, I just came back from Disneyland)
-My visas would have been less expensive (still in the idea thta the Patriot Act would have never been enacted)
and so many more things...

But no... the recount was stopped, the palm beach county electoral ballots were never taken in consideration, and so many people did not have the right to vote for BS reasons.
And why wouldn't it happen again? I'm scared for November...

Invading Myanmar?

2008-05-14T16:12:00.001-07:00

I read in an article in the NY Times a disturbing theory. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know...

I'm not quoting the person who wrote the article for lack of interest

But his / her theory was that an invasion of Myanmar was long overdue and that now would be the perfect time, considering the junta refuses most international help, causing 1000s of deaths that could have been avoided.

Several questions arise though

1) Good timing? really? a little reminder that the population in Irak (although, granted, they got rid of a mean mean dictator) does not seem to have wealthy florishing lives, to say the least. Imagine the same situation in Myanmar, I don't think that it's a good idea to bomb a village because the junta has positions over there when people are dying for lack of food, water, safety etc etc etc. And I don't believe in what they call surgical bombing, that never worked, really.

2) Are we feeling a bit guilty?
No one except for the UN (whom nobody lsitens to anyways...) really cared about Burma until now. The junta has been governing the country since 1990, but we let the situation degrade and focused on other parts of the workd that were maybe more lucrative? and now we're talking about invading? That will not resuscitate the hundreds of thousand of death due to the regime or to the cyclon. Sorry about you big powerful countries feeling guilty.

3) what now? are we sending planes and submarines? or are we leaving qualified entities the task of negotiating for a peaceful acceptance of international help by the Junta?

Ban Ki Moon, sadly, you have to speak louder... they're not listening.

Here are some useful links:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/burmaaidlinks.html

CNN.com: Student "twitters his way out of Egyptian jail"

2008-04-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html

Interesting... Our generation's answer to emergencies and crisis, I hope he will find his friend

First Oprah related article that made me laugh, or smile rather

2008-02-02T16:14:00.001-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/01/17/love.songs/index.html

A "new" insight on the upcoming elections...

2008-02-02T16:03:00.000-08:00

Today I helped a friend of mine who had an assigment for her journalism class.the mission was to walk around SOMA (that s the neighborhood that has been assigned to her for the semester) and ask people their general input about the upcoming primary elections.

I must admit that people beat a lot of the stereotypes I was expecting/hoping for.

I am not a us resident, I can't vote, I have my opinions, obviously, having lived here 4 years.

I was sure that most of the people we would interview would be torn between Obama and Clinton... Well no. A few people we saw made me feel really unwelcome in this country, aliens stealing jobs etc.. The goal being not to argue (that dude would not have understood my accent anyway). A girl my age saying that her favorite candidate was Huckabee, who for me represents the best the dysfunctional side of this country, well of course it's democracy and I really thought the open-mindness of ALL the people we've seen was awesome (who you will vote for is mostly taboo in France) although confirming my fears for the November elections.

Participating to this assignment was great, and very instructive.

What Would Jesus Buy Trailer

2007-11-08T22:24:00.001-08:00

just in time to save us, when the christmas music is already filling us up, you can feel the "christmas spirit" growing with sales, bundles discounts and credit lines increases (2 of my cards so far and christmas is two months away)
we can totally relate to that movie right now

Google's new translation method!!

2007-10-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

yay! Google changed its translation method to a new one that seems to be way more accurate than the one that google used to use, that was also the one that Babelfish used.

everything is explained here:
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/04/statistical-machine-translation-live.html

I am pretty excited cause I have been doing a lot of translations recently, and it is always good to have an efficient and reliable translation system to double check your work.

A new system to keep Paris under surveillance...

2007-10-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/infog/0,47-0@2-869660,54-965983@51-956422,0.html

Well, with an autonomy of 40 minutes...

Blackwater - A new idea about security!

2007-10-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

Blackwater is all over the news these days. In case you missed it, the idea is that Blackwater has been hired by the US givernement to ensure security in the territory "occupied" by the US army. They worked in Afganistan, they work in Irak, where they are suspected to have commited around 170 crimes, to have been euuh how to out it right yeah "overzealous" in ensuring the security over there. Right now, they are accused of having killed 17 civilians, and they were apparently not responding to an attack. The iraqi governement says that they want to try these guys in front of the iraqi justice. Of course the case is investigated also by the US governement and the FBI, it would not be as fun to see american citizens (if they actually are american citizens, cause do we know who the employees are?) be hung in public than it was to see Saddam Hussein right? We could have started by not airing the first hanging in first hangings in first place, in my opinion, but that is another story.

On lemonde.fr, we learn interesting facts about that company:1) in 84% of the cases (i.e. deaths of civilians), the blackwater guys fired first, 2) Blackwater earned more than a Billion of dollars since 2004 for their "services" (whatever that means) in Afganistan and Iraq. and 3) Blackwater, which we might think could be embarrassing for the US governement considering the complaints, the spoof investigations and testimonies and the huuuge media coverage, just had one of its subsidiaries "Presidential Airways" sign a new contract on MONDAY (!!!!!) with the American governement.

Gives us subject matter to meditate right?

UPDATE: Kenneth Foster Won't be executed!

2007-08-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

Kenneth Foster had been convicted to death pursuant to the Law of parties (see 8/3 post). His death sentence has been turned into a life imprisonment sentence, the judges finally realizing how insane iot is to condemn somebody to death 1 and mostly somebody who was "just" an accomplice and did not kill anyone! An epiphany or just a guilt trip?

Woot! One Day One Deal!

2007-08-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Just discovered through my gizmodo deals RSS subscription this website Woot.com. The idea is simple, one item each day at a very very low price, you can get it only for 24hours or until sold out. They sell random stuff, but today they had a 30gb zune player for $149! Reason told me not to do it but I must admit it is super tempting!
You can add the page to your RSS reader so you dont need to actually go on the website and check what is the item of the day!! Can't wait until midnight!
www.woot.com

Reckless indifference to human life...

2007-08-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Kenneth Foster just got an execution date, he will be executed on August 30, 2007. He has been convicted as a secondary actor in a murder to a death sentence according to the Law of the parties, law fortunately neither well known nor applied by most states except for the beautiful state of Texas. So yeah he was a member of a group that was screwing up, robbing stores etc.. and one day it went wrong, he was there, did not kill the guy, but he stayed with the guys who did.
The law of the parties allows a Court to give somebody a death sentence when this person participated somehow in the crime, it is very well explained here http://www.freekenneth.com/lawofparties.htm on Kenneth Foster's website. The law mentions that the person must have displayed a reckless indifference to human life. What do you call executing somebody for being around when a crime is being committed?? For sure the guy could face charges, but death sentence ? Come on... How can those judges sleep at night?

Facebook

2007-07-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, we all use facebook more and more everyday right? It is the guilty pleasure that can take away more than a few hours of your work day (ok mostly when you play scrabble with your co workers). A lot of people are there , apparently 10,000 more each day. I even just learned that facebook is the 5th most visited website right after google. Mark Zuckenberg's (23!!!) possession of facebook is being challenged in front of of a Mass. Court Tomorrow Wednesday. He participated to the creation of Harvard Connect in 2003. and his old higyh school pals now claim that he copied Harvard Connect to create facebook. They claim all the proprietary rights and royalties the website has led to. To be continued...

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-651865,36-938655@51-937763,0.html (in French)

10 things you should know before you get an Iphone

2007-07-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/buyer.s-guide/wait-ten-things-you-should-know-before-you-buy-an-iphone-274432.php

Going crazy for the IPhone

2007-06-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

I ve been super skeptical about the I Phone since the beginning, well, not them, some people are already in line in NY in front of the Apple store, 4 days of camping on 5th avenue! Crrazy!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/26/first-iphone-camper-smelled-at-apples-5th-ave-store/

What!!???

2007-06-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

New campaign marketing move for Hilary Clinton, that I personally think is ridiculous. She made a video with her husband that is apparently a spoof of the last episode of the Sopranos. We even have Johnny (the NY mob boss in the show) as a special guest.
Did not think it was funny, don't really see the point, leave spoofs to comedians, you are a presidential candidate. I am curious to see how that is going to influence her place in the polls!

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1

(Might be a little frustrated cause I was a huge fan of the Sopranos and I am really upste it ended lol)

What could lead me to get a Macintosh!!!

2007-06-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

addendum:
that's gona make it easier! thanks Steve jobs!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/11/BUGGUQDCF34.DTL

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple-apple-apple-apple/r2d2-hologram-effect-coming-to-ichat-267813.php

that is sooo cool!

"Off the Record : US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the 'War on Terror'"

2007-06-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_17779.pdf

A report published today 6/7 on the Amnesty International website re states the dark side of the US government, those prisons they installed discretely in a lot of European, middle eastern countries, detaining people abducted, arrested with no legal foundation whatsoever (two children 7 and 9 have been arrested for example) . A complaint has been filed by NGOs with a US Federal Court to request information about those detainees pursuant to the Freedom of information Act.

Also the article on Lemonde.fr:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3222,36-919924@51-919940,0.html

A lawyer becomes a LEGO artist

2007-05-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

I have always been fascinated by Legos, apparently Nathan Sawaya too!

He does crazy things out of Lego Bricks

In the Article you have a link to a gallery with a few examples of his works. (I love the giant pencil): http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/05/31/lego.artist/index.html

They played, they lost!

2007-05-31T12:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/05/23/coca.cola.sentencing/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Some former Coke Employees were sentenced to Prison Terms after their plot to sell Coca Cola Co.'s Trade Secrets to Pepsi was revealed last year.

I'm sure you have already asked yourself...

2007-05-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

This SF Gate reporter asks himself why there are so many people in SF that are just chilling or hanging out on week days, he went around town o investigate

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/05/21/onthejob.DTL

Who will be in The Governement?

2007-05-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-823448,36-910448@51-907099,0.html

The last rumors about the composition ofthe future governement.

Francois Fillon's wikipage:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francois_fillon

Frank Romano in San Francisco

2007-05-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

Our Nanterre/GGU Teacher Mr. Romano is going to come to San Francisco for a signing of his book "Storm Over Morocco"

Here is the presentation sheet:

Storm Over Morocco is a true story of a young man’s search for God among militant Moslems, transformed into a desperate struggle for survival when he is accused of sabotage.

Frank Romano discusses his new memoir:

STORM OVER MOROCCO

His book relates his tumultuous, yet powerful, experiences living with a fundamentalist religious group in Morocco in the 70's.

Wednesday, May 23rd
12:30 pm

Talk, Discussion and Book Signing
Alexander Book Co.
50 Second St.
San Francisco, CA

“Torn between physical and psychological hardships, the book reveals how the author did find his spiritual truth amidst fanatics. Not only is Storm over Morocco an interesting story but is also a deep, thought-provoking work that addresses humanistic concerns like universality, peace, tolerance, and freedom”. Review by Ernest Dempsey, World Audience Publishers, www.worldaudience.org, New York, March, 2007.

More Info: www.frankromano363.com

The situation involved poor judgment...

2007-05-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/05/13/faked.attack.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

A few eeks after the massacre at Virginia Tech, some elementary school teachers in Tennessee had a brilliant idea... fake a gunmen attack on terrified 6th graders!
Creepy

Where do emoticons come from?

2007-05-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting post on the Meebo blog this morning about the origins of emoticons, of course, as usual, wikipedia helps us solve the "mystery" with a really complete article about those little things that invaded our lives (for those who say LOL when they talk :) ). It is interesting to see that emoticons were used way before the boom of IM!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

Just one of those things you would never think you would need to know...

Bill Maher on France

2007-05-10T01:27:00.001-07:00

some really really funny comments although some facts would be disputed by the most chauvinistic of french people!!

Sarko president

2007-05-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

ok so it appears that France has a new president
while we re waiting impatiently to see who is going to be in the Government etc.. there is a tool that allows you to check the results by town, which is pretty interesting (to me at least lol)
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/minires/recherche/1,0-0@2-823448,1-0,0.html

so now we just have to wait and see
for those who are interested, the video of Sarkozy's speech yesterday

http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/elections-2007/0,,3442707,00-sarkozy-vous-decevrai-pas-.html

Human Rights Watch on Walmart

2007-05-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch issued a report on walmart's "anti union" practices. they of course encourage their employees not to particpate in unions statingt hat they don't need unions when they have managers and store directors that listen to them and are available for them

here are some training videos, an example illustrating those practices:

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/walmart/video.htm

the letter from Walmart to HRW:

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/us0507/15.htm#_Toc164069768

the report (210 pages)

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/us0507/

French elections ... First Round

2007-04-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here is another great interactive map from lemonde.fr (results by Departments)

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/vi/0,47-0@2-823448,54-899917@51-899913,0.html

not a lot to say about this first round...

Most positive point for me: Le Pen lost 1 million votes since 2002, people understood that he is not the one to vote for just to challenge the system, which is good, but but... guess a lot of these "votes protestataires" went to Besancenot and the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, which I am not a big fan of. 15.4% of abstention, not bad at all, almost 60% of abstention for the french people abroad (yeah... time to rethink to adminitsrative requirements to sign up with the consulates, it sucks when you work, and I am sure it is worst in some other cities/countries, at least in SF we have a consulate!!)

second round in two weeks, we will see...

(En Francais) Le Pen... passera ou passera pas

2007-04-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Un posting en Francais pour parler des elections qui arrivent a grand pas.
Une rumeur a couru cette semaine selon laquelle un institut de sondage (le nom m'echappe mais il me semble que ce n est pas un des gros) aurait publie une etude selon laquelle lepen passerait o 2eme tour avec 19% (tout en prevoyant 20% pr Sarko et 18% pour Sego). Bon, un dementi officiel immediat de cet institut a coupe court aux rumeurs, mais nous pouvons quand meme nous demander quelle sera l' ampleur du vote Front National.
Une infographie comparative sur lemonde.fr montre que les intentions de vote FN sont beaucoup plus important cette annee qu'en 2002, c' est pas rassurant tout ca!

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/infog/0,47-0@2-823448,54-880011,0.html

Back from Death Valley

2007-04-11T12:44:00.001-07:00

I just came back from a wondeful road trip throughout California with Axelle and Julien.
Death Valley is great, hot (gosh 102 degrees), immense, and dry (we quickly understood that the signs saying "caution cows" were a huge joke for no cows could really survive there). We camped there, between two RVs, went to the Local saloon in Furnace Creek, the only city with trees in the whole Valley (at some point you HAVE to find some shadow), and checked out the tourist designated places.
We then took 395 (which I totally recommend that road is beautiful) that crosses Mammoth, the Sierras etc to end in Nevada, and we spent the last night of the trip in the confort of the house in Tahoe. It all went way too fast!!
I put our pictures online... http://picasaweb.google.com/anne.montastier

ouuuuuh shiny useless stuff

2007-04-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a charm for your cell phone with a tiny living plant in a tiny little bottle with pretty colors like blue or pink :) the plant survives for weeks by itself, how great and useless... and all that happiness for only 9 bucks
if you have time have a look at the website, it s crazy!!!

http://www.strapya-world.com/categories/12_71_1175.html

The US Black List

2007-03-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here is the infamous black list, that most administrations use/refer to in this country (I read on lemonde.fr that a guy, whose middle name was the same as one of the aliases of a potential son of Saddam Hussein, was refused a loan by his bank, we might add that we are not even sure this Hussein's son exists by the administration's own admission). Randomness is the key word these days lol

Bon, I checked, I am not on the list, I feel better...

Top 10 Apple Flops

2007-03-27T16:39:00.001-07:00

It is pretty funny...

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/top_10_apple_products_which_flopped.php

What a week!!!!

2007-03-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

For once, I am going to post something more personal, to give some news since a lot of change came this week!!
Both my roommates are moving out, Daniel left last evening, and Mike at the end of the week, I have been living with Daniel Over a year and Mike almost two. Two new roommates are moving in this week. A french girl named Jordane and a guy named Xavier. I am going to be taking over Daniel's room, way bigger than mine, I am finally going to be able to breathe!
In the list of huge events this week: Jo & Nico are moving back to the States!!! Today actually! They are going to be living in Carmel at first but ultimately will find their way back to our beloved neighborhood.
Also... Axelle and Julien are coming to visit for two weeks, among the karaoke/drinks nights, we re going to Death Valley, we are really excited!
Let's also mention the upcoming "events", like Jo & Nico's wedding for example, Nas and Patrick Bruel in Concert... :)
Hope all is well for everybody!

RIAA v. a little girl and her disabled mother

2007-03-26T13:28:00.001-07:00

The Recording Industry Association of America is suing a 7yo and her disabled mother for copyright infrigement, supposedly of 1046 copyrighted elements , wanted to check but the complaint is not available in those documents.
here is the story from Recordingindustryvspeople.com:
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/#964459867713969746
that is the gizmodo article that lead me to that story (though it was sadly very funny)
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/riaa-sues-10+year+old-girl-with-a-disabled-mom-puppy-next-247077.php

About the free publicity generated by the Iphone!

2007-03-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/iphone-generated-400-million-in-free-publicity-243222.php
They are arguing in the comments about the amount, but the idea itself of Apple getting free publicity is insane!
http://www.pdastreet.com/articles/2007/3/2007-3-19-iPhone-Generates-400.html
"gross profit margin of 50% on every I phone" ouch!

Smart technique , let s hope that the product will be good, but we had previous experiences with I pods !!

the 12 candidates

2007-03-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Our 12 candidates to the presidential elections:
François Bayrou, Olivier Besancenot, José Bové, Marie-George Buffet, Arlette Laguiller, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Frédéric Nihous, Ségolène Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gérard Schivardi, Philippe de Villiers et Dominique Voynet

Laws regulating euthanasia

2007-03-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a map of the laws regulating euthanasia throughout the world (note the strong influence of religion in most of the countries where euthanasia is totally banned)
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/infog/0,47-0@2-3210,54-630254@51-880355,0.html
The doctor and the nurse in France who are being tried right now will most cretainly get probation instead of a jail sentence. Euthanasia will hopefully be one of the "hot" subjects of the new president/governement in France. It's high time somebody dealt with it!

French Presidential Elections...

2007-03-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/panorama/0,11-0@2-823448,32-877664@51-841384,0.html
That's an infography about the intentions of vote fopr the upcoming elections.
2 scary things to notice:
1)More intentions to vote LePen than in 2002
2)People who intend on voting for him are pretty damn sure of their choice, so we can predict the other candidates' electorate's level of uncertainty to help him as well.
What if ...

We already knew that peanut butter was bad but...

2007-03-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

The FDA issued a warning not to eat peanut butter from the brands Peter Pan Peanut Butter and Great Value Peanut Butter purchased after May '06 because there is a chance those have been contaminated with Salmonella.
Here is the warning:
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01563.html
If you eat a lot of peanut butter and get paranoid here is a Q&A:
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/pnutbuqa.html
Salmonellosis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonellosis#Symptoms

Could this be more wrong??

2007-03-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

CNN.com published today a list of US most admired companies i.e. the ones with the best reputations.
The fact that GE is the first of the list made me want to go and have a look on Knowmore.org (great website that was recommended to me by Remi)
and the response is a question: why would you admire them, it is not as if they were doing great thing for the society ...The votes came from "Business People" whatever that means!
Here is the list:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2007/index.html
Ratings (I just put the most striking ones) :
General Electric #1: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/General_Electric_Company
Starbucks #2: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/Starbucks_Corporation
Apple Inc. #7: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/Apple_Computer%2C_Inc. (good globally compared to the others though except for business ethics...)
Microsoft #12: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/Microsoft_Corporation
Target #13: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/Target_Corporation (breaks my heart lol)
Costco # 18: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/CostCo
And the winner is.......
Walmart (yes walmart you read well) #19: http://www.knowmore.org/index.php/Wal-Mart_Stores%2C_Inc.

The Swiss "Genocide" Trial

2007-03-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

A turkish nationalist leader is on trial for denying the Armenian Genocide, pursuant to a Swiss Law making a crime to deny a genocide (Somebody should take Le pen on vacation to Switzerland then). Answer of the guy: "I have not denied genocide because there was no genocide"
Here is the Article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6424025.stm
Here is thw Wikipedia plage on the Armenian Genocide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia#World_War_I_and_the_Armenian_Genocide

Ask your doctor if it's time for a knee replacement!!

2007-02-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

So... I guess all of you living in this beautifule country have seen the commercialselling the "gender knee". Yeah...
After looking around the web for a few minutes hoping to find a sign that it is a joke (seriously when you look at it, we are no talking about a leg wax, we are talking about major surgery!!) I realized that no, it is FOR REAL!
http://www.genderknee.com/micro/z/ctl/op/global/action/8
For those of you who think I am crazy check out their website.
And don't forget to ask you doctor if it's time for a knee replacement!

Thank you for smoking!

2007-02-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3222,36-869700@51-869701,0.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/02/20/scotus.tobacco/index.html
You should check out the movie thank you for smoking, after seeing it such a decision makes more sense than ever!

Two years after Hariri's Death...

2007-02-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

In the midst of the terrible bus bombings that took place this week in Lebanon, the country remembers its former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri assassinated two years ago, along with 21 other people, after the detonation of 1000 kgs of TNT.
His murder is still under investigation by the UN. Syrian authorities are widely suspected, a bunch of feuds opposed Hariri to Members of the Syrian government (that is when the world thought that the US would launch a military action against Syria).
Hariri was a wealthy entrepreneur who built everyhting by himself, and did not hesitate to use his personal forune to help rebuild his country.
Since his death, Lebanon's situation have considerably worsened, from the growin Hezbollah's influence, mitigated by the facts that as Hariri said, the presence of Hezbollah in Lebanon has more than once been one of the only obstacles to an invasion of Lebanon by Israel. As for the assassination of Rabin in 1995, it is always the " good guys" (in the sense of those that try to progress towards Peace) that the world makes disappear first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafiq_Hariri#UN_Investigation

American Proof against Iran!

2007-02-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/portfolio/0,12-0@2-3218,31-866292,0.html
I am convinced ... let's go to Iran and re create the success of Irak!

This Film is not yet rated

2007-02-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

I just watched a very cool documentary called "This film is not yet rated"It deals with the process of the rating of movies by the MPAA, process introduced in 1968 (did'nt we have that question at Trivia night?!).It is very well done, you learn a lot about the history of MPAA, its founder, the mystery surrounding the raters, the discretionary power of the raters and their "intense"relationships with the big studios, the criteria that are kind of inverted compared to the type of ratings we have in Europe (apparently here violence is not a big deal but pubic hairs are), the process of Appeals, and there again the mystery of the compsition of the board of appeals, the religious representant particpating in the appeals, and finally the rating of this very movie. All that illustrated with very funny and smart examples, really good movie!PS: don't forget to go check out the special features, it is hilarious!http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/

The Iranian Threat...

2007-02-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

After a conflict, another conflict, no rest whatsoever, we need to find more excuses to be fighting. Irak is not entertaining enough? The Republican party is low in the polls? No worries, we are going to season the truth, and create a legitimate reason to go there...
So yeah Khamenei say Iran will respond if attacked by the USA, on Cnn the story highlights are creepy, and cnn basically uses Khamenei's declaration as a proof that those guys need to be bombed!
Surprise? Ahmadinejad is insane, he showed it several times, he says crazy things, don't like too many people. He is simply trying to get the US to react to his insanity and attack them, how convenient would it be for him?! (He would not be a victim once again, the not very precise air strikes would mostly kill civilians, the usual). But yeah, him and his friends, in which we can count all the Middle Eastern Countries fed up with the american hegemony, plus who? Maybe China and Russia?! My point being why would you attack Iran, right now, in this conjoncture? Don't you have some other big big issues to deal with? Problem is it seems nowadays to be either we do nothing or we bomb, most likely we bomb, diplomacy is not respected anymore and even if one might say it would be impossible to negotiate/find diplomatic recourse in the Iranian problem, please for everybody's sake, think think and think! And don't try to make your people hate middle eastern people more than since they watched 24 last week!
So yeah once again, is there a way out of all this violence? This is less and less a possibilty!

Will Bill Gates show clemency?

2007-02-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

A russian middle school teacher has been charged with copyrigths violations for using illegal copies of Windows in his class room. Gorbatchev is asking Bill Gates to withdraw his complaint. Why, if the violations are established right? Because the poor guy who most certainly did not even know what he was doing was illegal (besides the fact that I guess not a lot of schools in the Ural region have enough money to buy licenses), and on top of all, the punishment would be, how to say that, disproportionate? Yeah we can say that, the teacher if convicted would be sent to a Siberian Prison Camp. Come on Microsoft Lawyers! What is your actual loss on this one?! Sincerely hope that they will withdraw their complaint and give this random school free copies of Windows, the purpose of technology should be mainly educational anyway right?!

Apple Inc. v. Apple Corp....

2007-02-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs' Apple Inc. and The Beatles' Apple Corp. apparently finally reached a settlement as to the rights related to the use of the "Apple". All the brands relating to the word Apple will belong to Apple Inc., and Apple Corp. should get its fair share too. None of the parties have been really explicit as to what the settlement implies. But is the document ever going to be released? For our curiosity please yes!

Another Good initiative

2007-01-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

Correction: the 5 minutes without lights is tomorrow 2/1

Another good initiative...
By Nouchette
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3228,36-862035@51-853716,0.html
French people are invited to turn off their lights off tonight between 7.55 and 8.
They are even going to turn off the Eiffel tower. It is obviously pretty symbolic but a good start and will certainly not be vain if everybody follows..
Schwarzy, you know what your next move should be :)

Azerbaidjan

2007-01-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

Chirac, during a visit in France of the Azerbaidjan president Ilham Aliev, issued a statement in favor of Peace in the troubled region of Karabakh,where the mostly Armenian population wants to obtain their independance (they declared themselves independent in 1991 when Azerbaidjan itself became independent but apparently that did not work out) , against the will of Aliev's government.
Chirac once again proves us that whatever his value or lack of value as to domestic affairs is, he is GOOD at international relations, he is a great diplomat and gives a crap about things happening in the world. Seriously, nobody talks or knows about Azerbaidjan, in the US tv show 1 v 100 , the name of the country was even one of the possible answers to a multiple choice question being what in the name of the Iranian President. Honestly, the most detailed knowledge I have about Azerbaidjan is a souvenir from my crazy History teacher in High School who repeated all the time, "A Bakou y a bakou bakou de petrole"
The country has never been really exposed to the media, although in almost 20 years of conflict about 35,000 people died, not mentioning the hundreds of thousand of refugees.
So, even if the attempt will most likely be vain (I m not positive as to the international community and its evolution) , thanks mr Chirac for alerting us!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaidjan