] A plan by the Kremlin which would allow Moscow to sell
] off the 843m hectares of Russia's forests to private
] logging companies has raised fears of an ecological
] disaster.
]
] Forest makes up 70% of Russia's territory and spans 12
] time zones. It is known as Europe's lungs and is second
] only to the Amazon in the amount of carbon dioxide it
] absorbs, and is home to many rare species.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | It's Europe's lungs and home to many rare species. But to Russia it's £100bn of wood

] Almost 70 percent of all private ownership in Russian
] companies, around $85 billion, is not publicly disclosed,
] Standard & Poor's latest study finds.
]
] Another study, to be released Wednesday by the Russian
] Institute of Directors, shows that while companies
] release a lot of information, they tend to stay mum about
] data pertaining to their directors and share ownership.

A nation asks itself, "Who owns our economy?" Only certainty... "Not us."

Who Owns $85 Billion?

] Personally, when the PC revolution got underway, I bought
] an Apple IIe soon after its introduction. VisiCalc caught
] my eye. As did Flight Simulator, and going online with a
] 300-baud modem to local computer bulletin boards. But
] when it came to writing -- in those days, three drafts of
] a first novel -- I would not abandon my trusty Hermes
] portable typewriter. The Apple would not tempt me to some
] writing Eden. The complexity of computers, I sensed,
] could only sap the creative process.

Slashdot | Word Processors: One Writer's Retreat

"He violated the law of stupidity if nothing else," Hill said.

CNN.com - Homesick man who flew as cargo recounts journey - Sep. 10, 2003

] Each evening, thousands of Americans drift into Chinese
] restaurants or, if they are too lazy to go out, pick up
] the phone and order one of the most popular dishes on the
] menu: General Tso's Chicken, a sugary-spicy melange of
] dark-meat tidbits, deep-fried then fired up with ginger,
] garlic, sesame oil, scallions and hot chili peppers.
]
] Not one in 10,000 knows who General Tso (most commonly
] pronounced "sow") was, nor what terrible times he lived
] through, nor the dark massacres that distinguished his
] baleful, belligerent career. Setting their chopsticks
] aside, patting their stomachs, the satisfied diners spare
] scarcely a thought for General Tso, except to imagine
] that he must have been a great connoisseur of hot
] stir-fried chicken.
]
] Who was he?

Who Was General Tso And Why Are We Eating His Chicken? (washingtonpost.com)

Please keep in mind that these are static jpgs...
Hold onto your seat...

Freak out man!!!

] Heads up, sharers of music, video and software files: If
] a prominent Michigan lawmaker has his way on Capitol
] Hill, you will soon be a felon.
]
] U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, is the
] sponsor of the Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner
] Protection and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003, which
] declares sharing a single copyrighted file online to be a
] felony.
]
] Because the bill doesn't specifically name the type of
] file, you could theoretically become a felon by copying
] and posting this very column on your Web site. (We frown
] on that sort of thing anyway, but webmasters, be warned.)
]
] Giving fake information to the folks who register domain
] names, the basic Internet Web addresses (such as
] freep.com), would be punishable by up to five years in
] prison and a fine. Using a camcorder to record a movie in
] a theater -- whether you share it or not -- would be a
] federal criminal offense.

HEATHER NEWMAN: 60 million file sharers could face prison, fine

] The tags on the $12 sweaters said %u201CMade in
] Indonesia.%u201D
]
] Sweat-shop labor. Multinational. The Gap (Old Navy%u2019s
] parent company). Shopping malls. All the reasons why such
] authentically middle-class-quality clothes were available
] for lower-middle-class prices. This, I realized, is The
] Gap%u2019s strategy: use globalization to make
] middle-class clothes available to the lower classes at
] Old Navy; solid middle to upper-middle class-type clothes
] clothes at struggling middle-class prices at The Gap; and
] yuppie/upper-middle-class-level clothing at solid
] middle-class prices at its %u201Chigh-end%u201D store,
] Banana Republic. Each offers you an affordable and real
] climb up the socio-economic ladder. Like Wal-Mart.
]
] Here a cruel and almost funny cycle revealed itself.
] Think about it. The $12 sweater in the Old Navy bin is
] made by grossly underpaid Indonesian sweatshop workers.
] Their exploitation allows me and the Latinos to stock up
] on nice sweaters for prices far less in real terms than
] these sweaters might have cost a decade ago. But the
] exploitation also feeds the resentment against America
] that draws Indonesians towards Islamic extremism. That
] extremism feeds terrorism, which leads to America%u2019s
] military response: war. The war is fought predominantly
] by America%u2019s underclass%u2014the very people who
] shop at Old Navy, the very people who benefit from the
] sweatshop labor that produced the terrorism that drew%2

Ames is freaking hilarious and insightful here.

eXile #169 - Feature Story - Elite versus Elitny - by Mark Ames

] And when they presented them at a forum of chief
] information officers of the country's largest financial
] services companies -- clicking on a single cable running
] into a Manhattan office, for example, and revealing the
] names of 25 telecommunications providers -- the
] executives suggested that Gorman and Schintler not be
] allowed to leave the building with the laptop

Dissertation Could Be Security Threat (TechNews.com)

Recursion

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