Size does matter: Reuters/MSNBC

Condoms designed to meet international size specifications are too big for many Indian men as their penises fall short of what manufacturers had anticipated, an Indian study has found.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, a leading state-run center, said its initial findings from a two-year study showed 60 percent of men in the financial capital Mumbai had penises about 1 inch shorter than those condoms catered for.

For a further 30 percent, the difference was at least 2 inches. A poor fit meant the prophylactics often didn't do the job they were bought for, and led to some tearing or slipping off during use.

Tragic, isn't it?

not interested in going the way of YouTube: NYT

Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, caused lots of head-scratching Thursday as he tried to explain to a bunch of Wall Street types why his company is not interested in "monetizing" his ridiculously popular Web operation. Appearing at the UBS global media conference in New York, Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates -- and not so much to make money.

Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a "a culture clash of near-epic proportions." She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn't, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). "That definitely is not part of the equation," he said, according to MediaPost. "It's not part of the goal."

"I think a lot of people are catching their breath right now," Mr. Schachter said in response.

How refreshing.

Annan calls for urgent action on Darfur

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, today urged an emergency session of the UN human rights council to take immediate action over atrocities in Darfur, Sudan.

Mr Annan called on the council, a new human rights watchdog set up last June, to send an independent team to investigate reports of an increase in violence, including mass rapes of girls as young as eight.
(snip)
The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, warned last week that the Darfur conflict had spread into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic and was in "freefall", with the prospect of 6 million people lacking food or protection.

John McCain - Less Jobs More War

Arctic ice melting away

As Norway entered yet another December week of unseasonably warm temperatures, experts were warning that all the ice in the Arctic may melt by 2040.

The Arctic ice is melting faster than even the most pessimistic forecasts of just a few years ago. Norwegian climate experts have worried about the Arctic for years, while also noting how glaciers on the Norwegian mainland are shrinking by the year.

Now researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the US claim that if greenhouse emissions continue at the current rate, the ice in the Arctic will gradually disappear and be gone from large portions of the North Pole by 2040.

John McCain - Less Jobs More War

.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

21%  Just 21 percent approve of President Bush's handling of the war, the lowest number he's ever received. - an 8 pct drop- Most of that drop has been among Republicans and conservatives.

No, the decider-in-chief has decided - He needs help.

"Facing strong pressure to shift course in Iraq, President George W. Bush said in a veiled message to Iran and Syria on Monday that Iraq's neighbors need to help Baghdad's struggling government survive."

And if they say No, there's always The Google.

Professor Juan Cole  finds Saudis clerics can no longer wait for Bush to decide on the Saudi Royals' ultimatum and  have called for Sunnis Worldwide to mobilize against Iraqi Shiites.

Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

As noted above, the Arctic may be close to a tipping point that sees all-year-round ice disappear very rapidly in the next few decades, a team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Washington, and McGill University, warn.  They found that the ice system could be being weakened to such a degree by global warming that it soon accelerates its own decline, with the arctic being ice-free in September by 2040, or perhaps even 2030.  This will have monumental changes on the arctic ecology and the lives of indigenous peoples.

But one quick way to cool the climate would be a small nuclear war </snark>.  Even a small-scale nuclear war would have far-reaching consequences for the global climate, say scientists.  Scientists using the latest supercomputers have modeled the effects of a limited conflict in the light of new concerns over weapons proliferation. For an exchange of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, the modeling suggested there would be millions of deaths, as well as climate cooling and ozone damage.  (The link has a graph of global warming to date, and the cooling that could result from a nuclear winter, for comparison.)

People with many younger siblings are more likely to develop brain tumours, according to a new study. Those with four or more siblings have twice the risk of brain cancer compared to only-children, the study found.  The finding suggests that an infectious agent, such as a virus, may be involved in some brain cancers, say the researchers, who compared over 13,000 incidences of the disease.

The concept of "hotspots" of biodiversity that can be targeted for protection may be too simplistic, as different species have differing essential territories.  Use of a computer algorithm to maximize the number of species protected in the minimum amount of land set aside is recommended to address the problem.

Scientists have identified 23 cerebrospinal fluid protein biomarkers that may someday be used to identify a person living with Alzheimer's disease.  The researchers at Cornell University and the Weill Cornell Medical College say the protein biomarkers act as a neurochemical "fingerprint" for the disease.

In an advance toward understanding the origin of life on Earth, scientists have shown that parts of the Krebs cycle can run in reverse, producing biomolecules that could jump-start life with only sunlight and a mineral present in the primordial oceans. The Krebs cycle is a series of chemical reactions of central importance in cells -- part of a metabolic pathway that changes carbohydrates, fats and proteins into carbon dioxide and water to generate energy.

Scientists from the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year project to catalog the 200,000 species thought to live in the oceans, have discovered species of shrimp, mussel and clam living at temperatures near boiling point three kilometers down in the equatorial Atlantic.  They are unable to explain how the shrimp are able to live without being cooked on the walls of volcanic vents carrying fluids from the Earth's core.  More here, with photo of the newly-discovered "Yeti Crab."

Recent observations by scientists tracking satellite orbits have shown that the thermosphere, which begins about 60 miles above Earth and extends up to 400 miles, is beginning to become less dense due to global warming.  This confirms a prediction made in 1989 that the thermosphere will cool and contract because of increasing carbon dioxide levels. The new study is the first to analyze whether the observed change will become more pronounced over the next decade.  This change will potentially affect low-orbiting spacecraft and satellites, which will experience less drag and stay in orbit longer as a result.

In the WaPo: Al Gore is waging a fierce campaign for recognition and an Oscar statuette for his global warming documentary, while reviving talk that he's pursuing a bigger prize: the presidency.

In the NY Times:  Without economic incentives, the needed investments in industrial cleanup, innovative low-carbon technologies, fuel-efficient cars and other ways of reducing energy waste will not occur.  


"Money ruined Democracy. Washington is lost. We only have the grassroots left." - Bill Moyers

CBC:

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe threatened Monday to try to topple the Harper government over the mission in Afghanistan unless the current mandate is changed.

Duceppe warned he might table a no-confidence motion if the mission isn't "rapidly and profoundly" altered, with more resources put into reconstruction instead of fighting.

"We will not go along with an obtuse government that digs in its heels," Duceppe told a Quebec City audience.

"Because if nothing changes, we are certainly going to get stuck.

"If [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper refuses to make these changes, we won't hesitate to withdraw our support and, if need be, to defeat his government on the Afghan question."

Cont'd

parvum opus

Shirl told me about this case last night and I looked it up this morning and found this article....this probably should be a diary as it's importance is very great insofar as further inroads into our privacy and scary that big brother has a new tool.  Hopefully someone will write a diary on this.

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.
What's new:

The FBI is apparently using a novel surveillance technique on alleged Mafioso: activating his cell phone's microphone and then just listening.
Bottom line:

While it appears this is the first use of the "roving bug" technique, it has been discussed in security circles for years.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

Click here to step into the Village Blue2

via CBC:

The federal government has called an inquiry into the cases of three other Canadians detained in Syria, the public safety minister said Tuesday after a separate inquiry released the second report on the Maher Arar affair.

Stockwell Day appointed former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci to lead the inquiry involving Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad El Maati.

Iacobucci will be asked to determine whether "the detention of these three individuals to Syria or Egypt resulted from actions of Canadian officials, particularly in relation to the sharing of information with foreign countries," Day told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa.

Cont'd

Just heard this one on the news.


parvum opus