General political news and comments:

 U.S. Unemployment Government Statistics Hiding the Dismal Truth: «A total of 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008 – the most since World War II. A jobless rate that's at 7.2% – and climbing. About 11 million people out of work. [...] 791,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in 2008, hitting the auto sector hardest. 260,110 people lost jobs in the financial sector, part of the overall service sector that accounts for some 80% of all employment. The construction sector shed 899,000 since peaking in September 2006. The retail sector shed 522,000 jobs for all of 2008. [...] If you include the people that the government doesn't even count – such as unemployed farm workers, the idle self-employed, and workers in private homes – the unemployment rate approaches an astonishing 18% (top line). [...] As many as 785 trucking companies with a combined fleet of 39,000 trucks went out of business in the third quarter of last year. [...] Overall, 48% of all companies downsized in 2008, and a staggering 60% are planning reductions in 2009, according to a Society of Human Resource Management survey.»

 Hunger in the U.S.: A Problem as American as Apple Pie: «In a country with enough food and money to feed the world twice over, 1-in-8 people struggles to put food on his or her table. [...] Try explaining to an African that there is hunger in America. I’ve tried, and it’s not easy. [...] How could I explain to him that a country as wealthy as mine still has tens of millions suffering from poverty and hunger? How could I explain to him that America -- the nation of Bill Gates, "streets paved with gold," Shaquille O’Neal and all-you-can-eat-buffets -- actually has a serious hunger problem? That in a country without drought or famine and with enough food and money to feed the world twice over 1-in-8 of our own people struggles to put food on their tables?»

 Apocalypse Now: It's Not Going to Be OK: «The economic crisis could plunge the U.S. into a long period of social instability. Our democracy is in peril; the threat of totalitarianism is real. [...] The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time.»

 Veneroso: Japan on the Edge of the Abyss: «Every week it gets worse and worse and worse. Today it was Japan.... THERE HAS NEVER BEEN DATA THIS BAD FOR ANY MAJOR ECONOMY – EVEN IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION. December industrial production came in down 9.6%, worse than the METI forecast. It is now down almost 21% year over year. METI forecasts a further 4.7% decline in February. [...] IT’S A DEPRESSION IN JAPAN – ALREADY – PURE AND SIMPLE.»

 Police Clash With Greek Farmers for Second Day. Something similar is to be expected in Bulgaria.

 Spain’s Unemployment Rose Sharply in January: «The number of unemployed people in Spain rose by nearly 200,000 in January, the fastest monthly increase in more than a decade, as companies struggling with declining sales and the tight credit markets laid off workers or sought bankruptcy protection. Spain’s labor ministry said Tuesday that the number of people out of work rose to 3.33 million. [...] The government said last month that it expected unemployment to rise to 16 percent this year, while the economy would contract 1.6 percent. However, Maravillas Rojo, the deputy labor minister, hinted Tuesday that this estimate could rise.»

 Premier faux-pas pour Obama: «Barack Obama a fait mardi un extraordinaire aveu d'égarement en déclarant avoir "foiré" ("screwed up") sur la nomination de son secrétaire à la Santé, le jour où l'état de grâce du président américain était soumis à sa première épreuve sérieuse. "Je pense que cela a été une erreur. J'ai foiré. J'en assume la responsabilité et nous allons faire en sorte de régler le problème pour être sûrs que cela ne se reproduira pas", a déclaré Obama à la chaîne CNN. Plus tôt dans la journée, Obama avait annoncé dans un communiqué que celui qu'il avait nommé secrétaire à la Santé lui avait demandé d'y renoncer à cause de ses ennuis avec le fisc.»

 Obama and the Firestorm Over Ethics — reactions from the readers of the New York Times on the very same issue of Tom Daschle.

Technology news and comments:

 Vaporware of the day: India's $10 laptop sort of official, and may cost $100; India Unveils $20 Laptop .

 OTOH... OLPC se porte bien: Le chiffre du jour : un million d'ordinateurs à 100 dollars dans le monde.

 Technology sucks, I want back in my '50s and '60s: Coulommiers passe au tout numérique: «Mercredi 4 février à 17 h 30, les habitants de Coulommiers, en Seine-et-Marne, seront privés de télé. Du moins seront-ils les premiers en France à voir disparaître la télévision analogique, un mode de diffusion aussi vieux que la télévision elle-même, au profit exclusif du numérique.»

 Compact florescent bulbs suck big anyway: Lightbulbs Lasting 60 Years? No! «The old-school, inefficient, heat-generating incandescent bulbs are all but history, CFL (compact florescent) bulbs taking the pedestal what with how relatively inexpensive and efficient they are when it comes to both electricity consumption and overhead cost. However, even these may have a short-lived supremacy as British scientists developed a new way of "growing" the material needed for LEDs on silicon instead of sapphire wafers, which was the original and somewhat expensive way of doing it. Because of this, household-grade lights of LED nature can be produced for under $5.00 and last up to sixty years. LEDs are three times more efficient than CFLs, last substantially longer, and contain no mercury, so they're even more environmentally friendly. These wonder-bulbs are supposed to be available to consumers within two years. It is estimated that if these new bulbs were to be installed in every home and office, it would cut electricity used on lighting by 75%.»

 UPDATE: Budget encryption: Attacking a weak crypto system: «Our previous experience with hardware encryption has shown that budget is equivalent to almost useless. Unfortunately, Raidon's Staray S series is no exception and the various models in the series offer no real protection from serious attacks. This article explains how we conducted our analysis.»

Miscellanea and trivia:

 Snow is evil, as it even lands on cats! Mark Steel: Snowmen are costing Britain billions: «Most things were still shut on the second day, even though the snow had mostly gone, because someone said there might be more coming. If one of these space probes finds evidence of snow on Mars, the buses will all be cancelled just to be on the safe side. Then the reporters do that heroic bit where they stand under an umbrella gasping, "This LITERALLY apocalyptic downfall has landed on EVERYTHING. It's landed on trees, pavements, even on CATS if they've been outside, NOTHING is spared the relentless flakes. Reports are coming in of people walking across a park to find their socks are quite LITERALLY damp. Huw, I've read the Bible and quite frankly a plague of locusts would be welcome relief after this." And we're told, "The police have issued a warning that for the time being no one should do anything whatsoever. Even filling in a crossword, they say, could lead to a broken hip or even an avalanche so just sit still for a few more days." The weather office had been warning the snow would arrive for a week, but still there were hardly any preparations made to keep anything running. Transport for London will probably issue a statement that "This is a valid criticism, so next time we won't be caught out. Instead of cancelling everything on the day we'll cancel everything a week in advance."»

 Some people should be neutered (spayed): Octuplet Mother Also Gives Birth To Ethical Debate: «Public opinion seems to be cresting against her, her own mother is rattled, and now fertility experts are suggesting the case of Nadya Suleman and her octuplets constitutes a breach of medical guidelines. Suleman, 33, gave birth to six boys and two girls by Caesarean section Jan. 26 at a Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower, Calif. The miraculous event -- reportedly one of only two live octuplet births ever in the United States -- quickly drew criticism after it was revealed that Suleman is single, unemployed, lives with her mother and already has six children -- including twins -- ranging in age from 2 to 7.»

 Medical first: Surgeons remove healthy kidney through vagina: «On February 2, 2009, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announced that a team of their surgeons successfully removed a healthy kidney from a female donor through a tiny incision in the back of her vagina.»

 A new meaning for “Chocolat Belge”: Cloaca No.5 is a Monster Pooping Machine.

 The dirty mind is... woman's! Bonobo Sex and "Ladyboners": Wrestling With Female Desire: «Current research seems to consider men's arousal to be straightforward, while women's is presented as weird and abnormal. [...] Meredith Chivers hooked up a plethysmograph (an apparatus that fits over the penis or in the vagina and measures blood flow), and gave subjects a keypad to indicate arousal, then showed men and women, both straight and gay, short clips of bonobo monkeys having sex, of human heterosexual sex, male and female homosexual sex, a man masturbating, a woman masturbating, a chiseled man walking naked on a beach and a well-toned woman doing calisthenics in the nude. The men responded the same way genitally and through the keypad. The heterosexual men were aroused by heterosexual or lesbian sex, by the masturbating and exercising women, and were unmoved by the other clips. The gay males were aroused in "the opposite categorical pattern." But "all was different with the women. No matter what their self-proclaimed sexual orientation, they showed, on the whole, strong and swift genital arousal when the screen offered men with men, women with women and women with men ... with the women, especially the straight women, mind and genitals seemed scarcely to belong to the same person. The readings from the plethysmograph and the keypad weren't in much accord. During shots of lesbian coupling, heterosexual women reported less excitement than their vaginas indicated; watching gay men, they reported a great deal less; and viewing heterosexual intercourse, they reported much more. Among the lesbian volunteers, the two readings converged when women appeared on the screen. But when the films featured only men, the lesbians reported less engagement than the plethysmograph recorded. Whether straight or gay, the women claimed almost no arousal whatsoever while staring at the bonobos."»

 Women Have Boobs -- Get Over It: «Mine are really big -- and they're a burden. They come with the label "airhead" and "slut." Will we ever end our collective obsession with boobs?»

 Comcast Apologizes For Super Bowl Porn Glitch: «Just after the last touchdown by the Cardinals, with 3 minutes to go in the game, approximately 30 seconds of pornographic material was shown, seen by an unknown number of Comcast customers in Tucson, Arizona who were watching the game in standard definition.» Superb owl porn :-)

 Mobile phone battery explosion kills a man.

 Mii Sought in Hit and Run: «Calling all cars: Be on lookout for this Mii in connection with a hit and run. Driver last seen in Moo Moo Meadows wearing Mii Outfit B. Suspect is believed to have unlimited blue shells. No, really, that is a wanted poster and that is a Mii on it, and that made me laugh so hard I sprained my epiglottis. The Kanagawa kops (Japan) are searching for the Mii, or a someone who looks like it, anyway. The blogs that have posted about this are inconclusive as to whether that is the actual Mii of the actual suspect (to say nothing of how they might have gotten it) or if the cops used the Mii creator to build their composite. Oh my God, I hope it is the latter. Would that really fly in Japanese court?»

Microsoft:

 Microsoft To Eliminate Home Basic, Starter from Western Market

 Windows 7 (8 Editions): Ultimate, Enterprise, Professional, Home Premium, Home Basic, Starter

 Microsoft SKUs Windows 7 clarity

 The Release Windows 7 Now Campaign