The Pope still lives in his dream world: "Chastity helps prevent the spread of AIDS" - which is of course a pretty absurd position when you look at the problems in regions like Africa. There, large parts of the population cannot even engage in the sexual intercourse for procreation that the Catholic Church actually endorses without getting infected...
The Pope's stance on this issue is simply irresponsible. Especially in developing countries, the Church often has far too much influence and should be aware that people there are dying because of their nonsensical statements. You cannot counter the problems of overpopulation in such regions and the danger of AIDS infection with silly references to chastity - only education campaigns and, specifically, the promotion of condom use help.
heise online - EU Council to make another attempt at software patents and continues to trample on the opinion of the population and parliaments. And our government in Berlin sits on its fat ass, greased by the economy, and does nothing. Never mind if such nonsense will cause problems for the software mid-market, never mind if it only benefits the big software giants, never mind if it's just brown-nosing America. Nobody really cares about the issue, after all it's just a bunch of software nerds making a fuss, who cares about them anyway.
And eventually even the dumbest minister will realize that software patents don't create jobs.
The Bangkok Hilton is installing cameras in the death row to publicly broadcast the lives of prisoners waiting for execution - it doesn't help that they don't plan to show the execution itself. That convicted criminals also have human rights is unfortunately repeatedly ignored. And in doing so, the state ultimately puts itself on the same level as the criminals. It is therefore not surprising that similar practices in the USA - at least in part - are already commonplace. That capital punishment itself is one of the most inhumane ideas a society can have (unlike all other common punishments, it is not reversible or at least compensable in case of error) is beyond question anyway. I cannot regard states with capital punishment (and thus ultimately a legal system based on ideas of revenge rather than protection of society) as particularly civilized...
Outlook together with Hotmail access for rent - great, so one of the two biggest virus spreaders is spreading even more than it already is.
The seemingly strange decision by the judge in the SCO vs. IBM case is — as usual — explained by Groklaw. The judge's role is not to clarify who is right — that's a different judge's job. Her job is only to ensure that all parties put all relevant material on the table. So it's solely about the investigation documents. Still, this is of course the annoying delay tactic by SCO at work. But it's not the big interim victory for SCO as one might possibly see it.
At Spreeblick, the Planetopia journalist requested removal of the recording of the questions - what fascinates me about it: he had no qualms about publishing his distorted conclusions on air to an audience of millions. But he objects to publishing the questions he asked. Can't he take his own medicine?
The headline State ceremony for flood victims in the Bundestag is a classic proof that the German language urgently needs parentheses to define precedence
Insurers Want Access to Gene Test Results. Was predictable that something like this would come. After all, it's the best way for these rip-off companies to get out of the few remaining situations where they might actually have to pay. And that's exactly what insurance is about: selling people something they're not actually willing to provide in an emergency. It's easy too, politics forces citizens to do it if necessary.
But there are no risks whatsoever in genetic engineering and building gene sample collections, and we're all just way too paranoid not to believe these liars and fraudsters. Yeah. Right. And pigs can fly.