That’s right, obesity is getting out of hand in Africa. The World Health Organization is quite concerned. Just don’t correct your mother….
My favorite part of this article is the BEST EVER excuse not to lose weight: "I don’t want people to think I’ve got TB or AIDs…" Try and top that one American Fatties!
And apparently the fat now officially outnumber the starving: "Worldwide, an estimated 1 billion people are overweight, compared to 800 million who are undernourished." Way to go progress!
Neither. (Yet)
Technologically, they are close enough that it doesn’t matter which one wins the "format war" but there are reasons not to jump on the bandwagon just yet.
1) There is a reasonable chance that one will win and the other will die so that should give a consumer pause.
2) There is also a possiblity that neither will win. Some "experts" think video on demand and internet downloaded movies will take over all DVD formats before the new ones become viable. They’re wrong. Just remember these experts have been talking about video on demand since the cable modem was invented – back then it was just a few years away… They are also wrong that customers don’t want to own things. For the same reason the "renting software" concept is going to fail, people don’t trust big companies to hold all their possessions for them. Because their is nothing to stop them from deciding "oh this month viewing your movies costs twice as much".
If a movie service could replace owning DVDs it already would have. Think about how many people live within walking distance of a Blockbuster? And how many of those people still own DVDs? Exactly. Video demand might kill Blockbuster, but it’s not going to off personal movie collections.
3) There is a STRONG possiblity that this won’t take meaningful hold on industry any time soon. I remember back in 1996 when people wondered if they should even buy a regular (non-HD) TV since it was about to be obsolete. Let’s see, 10 years later we have like 1/3 of TV being sold are HD or "HD ready" (I talking all TVs not just the big ones where HD sets have overtaken their 4:3 ratio brothren). Not to mention all HD programming out there. There aren’t nearly enough HD channels available yet and even fewer channels that actually broadcast fully in HD. So keep that in mind as you are considering the need for an HD-DVD player (or Blu-ray).There actually have been higher picture quality DVDs around for while, but most people that are movie collectors haven’t even heard about them. What you didn’t go replace your entire collection with Ultra DVDs? You didn’t even need a different player. Hmm. Now the counter point to this is that progressive scan DVD players were adopted quite quickly. This was largely due to the fact that once you’ve dropped three large on a plasma, a few dimes on a new player is less than the sales tax.
4) Price. Price. Price. A HD-DVD player will set you back $400 and a Blu-ray player $600 – even more if you buy them at a local retailer. Now if you’re going the Blu-ray route I would suggest the PS3 since it also costs $600 and includes a gaming console with your Blu-ray disk player. ;) If you aren’t getting the PS3 I would recommend waiting until next year when players supporting both formats will be out and by next Christmas the prices should be a lot closer to the sweet spot of sub-$300.
So the long and short of it is, if you can help it, don’t pull the trigger on a new DVD setup for another year. By then there might enough hi-def movies out to actually justify it, though I don’t expect fully conversion to the new formats until Christmas 08.
I just finished watching a 12 minute version of the movie Obsession:Radical Islam’s War On The West and you NEED to watch this thing. First it will make you say "Holy Sh##! (these guys are serious!) and then it will really scare you. It is CHILLING to watch small children calling for our deaths and promising to go to their own to accomplish this goal.
After viewing this you will understand why we can’t placate or negotiate with these extremists. You don’t explain to someone that has been trained from childhood that we are THE enemy that – "hey its all a big misunderstanding and that, no really, we’re nice". That doesn’t work. Best case you lock up someone hell bent on your death – at least until you’ve had time to deprogram them. This is something we can’t keep our head in the sand and hope that it goes away.
This film is an actually documentary – not a docu-drama or the like. It uses video footage that has subtext. Some of it is english some of it arabic and some of it is a mix. They are currently looking for a distributor to show their film. Hey maybe the Canadians that released the contraversal film showing the assasination of George Bush could distribute this independant film as well…
This movie used two web sites as a place to get much of the translated footage:? MEMRI TV (Middle East Media Research Institute) and PMW (Palestinian Media Watch).? Both of the sites have even more stuff that will (or at least should) scare you.? The PMW has a clip of a Senate Commitee reaction to some of the footage of children wanting to become suicide bombers.? Even Sen Hillary Clinton goes off on how crazy this training of the palestinian children is…. this is not a Republican vs Democrat thing, this is not a Liberal vs Conservative thing, this is the West vs the Terrorists thing!
Responding to Sen John Kerry’s recent remarks, ("You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq." – Washington Post) a few soldiers made him a sign.
As Bill Engvall would say: here’s your sign… The now famous sign put a hilarous spin on the comment from Kerry. The Senator first claimed he botched joke about Bush, but later after pressure appologized to those people were offended by misinterpreting his joke. (The smart people all knew what he meant to say). Two comments on this:
1) The troops displayed the BEST possible reaction to the badly botched joke – a good one.
2) I can actually understand how Kerry made this honest mistake. Kerry as many on the far left – really doesn’t like George Bush. (really) So much so that anything the Bush is associated with is tainted as fruit from the same tree (to steal a legal metaphore). Thus the extreme anti-Bush sentiment clouds thinking on the war, the troops in the war, everything that eventially leads back to Bush. The problem is then the same people start taking shortcuts in making their points. So the process is Bush bad -> war bad -> troops bad; "the troops are bad!" -> actually a slam on Bush. Blame the need for sound bites or laziness or efficency – the reason for the short cut doesn’t really matter. The point is, that I truely believe that John Kerry does not look down on the troops – well at least any more than anyone else ;) The somewhat frightening thing is the extent that this anti-Bush sentiment can apparently cloud thoughts on loosely related issues.
So a week after a company-wide diversity training program was held at British Airways a woman was suspended for wearing a small metal cross necklace. Now in BA’s defense they claim that she wasn’t suspended just sent home on a (manditory) leave without pay – which is really quite different from suspension. She was told that she could not return wearing her cross in a visible manner: wearing it under her clothing was acceptable, but if anyone ever saw her cross again, she would be disciplined.
Now what makes this outlandish is that Islamic women at BA can wear their full head and face coverings since that is a part of their religion – yeah.
So why is it that it seems diversity and tolerance these days seems to mean the acceptance of all things except Christianity? A provative adult bookstore billboard is "ok" but a large cross on a hill is "offensive". Uttering "Jesus" as a curse word is totally acceptable on TV, but mentioning the man is taboo.
How can the followers of Islam kill so many people and yet its Christianity that has the bad rap. Often after this point is made in the debate, the crusades are brought up. The crusades were misguided and a LONG time ago. Get over it. Islamofascists are killing people today. Just turn on the news. Take for instance the Pope that quotes someone else regarding Islam as violent religion. The Islamic world responds to this with, ta da, violence. Where is the outrage directed? The Pope for saying such "offensive" things. It seems insane. There are those that argue this is proof that Christianity is the one true religion. If its all sheepeople following stories made up by man – why is man trying so hard to destroy it?