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chinguetti over at ChromeSpot.com has posted a very useful link showing how to change your icons in the Chrome bookmarks bar.

According to a report by Associated Press, a Malaysian blogger was charged with sedition “for allegedly implying that the deputy prime minister was involved in the killing of a young Mongolian woman.” Several opposition members and bloggers came to court in order to support Raja Petra Raja Kamaruddin.

Back in April Raja Petra wrote in his site “Malaysia Today” implying that Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife were involved with the 2006 murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu who was a Mongolian interpreter.

Bloggers and supporters worldwide are saying that the charges constitute a violation of free speech.

A recent report in Reuters India titled “U.S., EU must cut back on biofuels: U.N. adviser”, reports that “‘The United States and Europe should cut back on production of biofuels because they are hurting food supply at a time of rising prices’, an adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.”

The author’s article, Ingrid Melander, says that bio-fuels “compete with food for farming land and help to push up food prices, worsening a global crisis that is affecting millions of poor.”

According to Ban Ki-moon’s adviser Jeffrey Sachs, “in the United States as much as one third of maize crop this year will go to gas tank. This is a huge blow to the world food supply.”

Melander writes that “supporters say they are the only renewable alternative to fossil fuels and generally result in lower greenhouse gas emissions.”

The problem with these and similar comments is that they are politically charged and based on faulty reports concerning “Global Warming,” a religious-like movement among the liberal class, including many Democrats.

If education had been a primary focus of the U.N. and other countries who were handing out crates of food to people in under-developed countries, this would not be an issue. If these people were educated in how to grow their own crops and raise livestock for agricultural and food purposes, this would certainly be a “non-issue.”

The United States, as it always does, receives the blunt of the blame and will be pressured into giving almost a hundred percent of the aid for these under-developed countries. It will be the hardworking Americans who pay for this in their taxes.

Photo: A veteran farmer rides his aging orange tractor into corn fields surrounding Kutztown PA, as he prepares a harvest for sileage. (c) jzlomek.

To read the entire article, see U.S., EU must cut back on biofuels: U.N. adviser, by Ingrid Melander; Copyright (c) 2008, Reuters India.

An interesting post over at Jammie Wearing Fool about how global warming is being blamed on the recent shark attack in California and Mexico.

“Junk journalism like this should be rejected by the editors at the newspapers. Such irresponsible reporting does nothing but bring discredit upon the news business.”

Back in April of 2006, (yes, 2 years ago) Michelle Kosinski on NBC’s program Today, said:

“This new report on global warming, the most frightening yet. In Greenland and Alaska, scientists say, ice is melting at rates that could see many coastal cities- including Boston, Charleston and right here in New York City- completely under water by this October.”

Uhmmm, riiiiight.

Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action.

This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we’ve seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators- and many scientists - seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes.

The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth’s climate history, it’s apparent that there’s no such thing as an optimal temperature - a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman’s forecast for next week.

(Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Newsweek)

Deportation reinforces China’s failure to uphold promise of openness before Games

Hong Kong - Two members of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) were barred from entering Hong Kong today, the same day that 17 Tibetans were sentenced in Lhasa to between three years and life in prison in connection to the March protests against China’s occupation of Tibet. The two Canadians deported from Hong Kong, Tsering Lama, 24, from Toronto, and Kate Woznow, 27, from New York, were detained and questioned for three hours upon their respective arrivals at Hong Kong International airport. The activists had planned to hold a press conference in Hong Kong to coincide with the Olympic torch run through the city on May 2nd. The press conference, organized jointly with London-based Free Tibet Campaign, would have drawn attention to the likelihood of further protests and another violent crackdown by Chinese authorities in Tibet if the International Olympic Committee does not cancel the provocative Tibet leg of the torch relay. The torch is scheduled to summit Mt. Everest in May and pass through other areas of Tibet in June. Free Tibet Campaign’s Press Officer, Matt Whitticase, was also refused entry into Hong Kong today.

“The Chinese authorities are doing everything in their power to hide their campaign of intimidation and repression in Tibet from the outside world,” said Kate Woznow, Campaigns Director for Students for a Free Tibet, before being deported. “The Chinese government has shut out international observers and media from Tibet, and now they have even stopped individuals from speaking out in Hong Kong about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Tibet. They clearly have much to hide.”

Protests by Tibetans inside Tibet and consequent detentions, beatings, and disappearances are still being reported in Tibet, including in areas through which the torch is scheduled to pass and from which the international media has been refused entry since late March. Arrangements for reporters scheduled to accompany the torch when it summits Everest were changed at the last minute to reduce the time they could spend in Lhasa, and Tibet campaigners fear that journalists might not be allowed free access as the torch passes through or near Tibetan areas from June 8th to 30th. Compounding Tibet groups’ fears of what may happen along the torch route is a leaked internal memo from the International Olympic Committee, which makes clear that the IOC knows that deaths may occur because of protests along the torch route within China (including Tibet), but advises officials to respond simply by expressing “deepest sympathies or condolences.”

“The message from the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee seems to be ‘no criticism of the torch, whatever the cost,’” said Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “Today Hong Kong took a blow to freedom of speech when authorities denied entry to Tibet campaigners, and the IOC earlier threw the Olympic Ideals to the wind when it calculated that the price of Tibetan lives is less than the cost of angering China by changing the Olympic Torch route to avoid Tibet.”

Looks like a delay for XP users to get the long awaited SP3, which has been in the hands of ITs and some programmers for a little while now.

Gregg Keizer of Computer World reports that “Microsoft confirmed Wednesday that it delayed the rollout of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) because changes to the operating system can corrupt data in the company’s retail point-of-sale and store management software.”

Microsoft will not be auto-publishing (via Windows auto update) XP SP3 for a while.  Apparently Microsoft says that the main reason for the delay is due to compatibility issues but, as the norm, they wouldn’t elaborate on the specifics surrounding their problems.

More info and comments

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Vista struggles to bust out as business customers snub it

Associated Press is reporting that a Muslim terrorist group said that “the man believed to be the head of al-Qaida in Somalia was killed in an overnight airstrike along with 10 other people”

More from Reuters

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