The News Corporation, making one of its largest bets on the Internet, announced today that it is paying $580 million in cash to acquire Intermix Media Inc., a Los Angeles-based company whose chief asset is MySpace.com, a Web site that is enjoying surging popularity with young audiences.

News Corporation to Acquire Intermix for $580 Million - New York Times

Healing the Divide promotes understanding, cooperation and innovative solutions to issues that threaten the welfare and prosperity of people and communities around the world.

"Lasting and meaningful change in the world can only happen when people come together to boldly re-imagine what might be and to find creative solutions to the issues affecting them."

-Richard Gere

Healing The Divide

The process requires putting a given amount of human or other animal waste into a "digester," which ferments it using bacteria to release methane gas that can be captured and then burned as fuel. Attached is a "compensating chamber" that replenishes the supply of bacteria to keep the operation self-sustaining.

The lead engineer on the project, Ainea Kimaro, says that within four weeks, 100 cubic meters of waste can be transformed into 50 cubic meters of fuel.

Biogas is being used around the world, including in homes in Nepal and to power trains in Sweden.

Kimaro said that while waste smells bad initially, the biogas that is produced has no foul odor. He added that the Rwandan prisoners are not put off by the idea of using the byproduct of human waste to cook.

"Our people are very adaptive," he said. "They see it working; they want to use it."

Once the methane is produced, the remaining waste is used as an odor-free fertilizer for the gardens at the prison.

WIRED: Human Feces Powers Rwandan Prison

Snurched, stolen, thefted, nicked and generally swiped from all around. I will unapologetically update as and when ... unless someone objects to being quoted in which case I will, in fact, apologise.

quotes on LJ from British citizens about the bombing.

you and me and the devil makes three -

Bombs in subways. Bomb in buses. All details fuzzy. Story obviously being managed.

WikiNews is on it. Here is a Google News link.

Here is one particular disturbing pic of some people trapped in the underground in a station filled with smoke.

People in London are saying on IRC that cell phones are not working.

The original BBC story on the explosions said it was an electrical explosion. They recently changed the story's lead to say there was a bomb on both a bus and the underground. It is ironic that in the first hours after the WTC bombing, it was believed to be a transformer explosion.

News stations are now saying it was definitely a coordinated attack. Very little information is being released right now. It is very clear big shit is going down.

If you work in NYC, I suggest that you wait till noon to go to work.

Blair just gave a statement. Its officially terrorism.

For those picking up on this as they wake up, here is a timeline of events so far.

Wow. We will have to wait and see what the whole story is.

London Terror Attack - 7/7

It may be one of the most important First Amendment cases in a generation.

And it is one the media is on the verge of losing.

Two reporters, one each from The New York Times and Time magazine, are to appear in federal court Wednesday for a hearing on whether they should go to jail for refusing to talk to prosecutors investigating the potentially illegal disclosure of the identify of a CIA operative.

Federal District Judge Thomas F. Hogan in Washington has said he would sentence the reporters, Judith Miller of the Times and Matthew Cooper of Time, to jail Wednesday if they refuse to answer questions before a grand jury.

KRT Wire | 07/05/2005 | Reporters facing jail in CIA leak case to be sentenced Wednesday

I really can't think of a more underappreciated form of art than firecracker labels. Think about it. Sure you might buy the ones that look the coolest, but soon after you're lighting 'em on fire. The once amazing artwork is now blown to smithereens and you couldn't care less.

Happy 4th of July!

I-Mockery.com | The Underappreciated Art of Firecracker Labels!

"A Pentagon investigation last year by Major General George Fay reported that in January 2004, a leashed but unmuzzled guard dog was allowed into a cell holding two children. The intention was for the dog to "'go nuts on the kids,' barking and scaring them."

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib, told Fay about visiting a weeping 11-year-old in the prison's notorious Cellblock 1B, which housed prisoners designated high risk. "He told me he was almost 12," Karpinski recalled, and that "he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother."

Children like this have been denied the right to see their parents, a lawyer or anyone else. They were not told why they were detained, let alone for how long. A Pentagon spokesman told Hersh that juveniles received some special care, but added, "Age is not a determining factor in detention."

Children, too, are abused in U.S. prisons

I just wanted to say that I passed my second qualification exam (oral exam) on Tuesday, and am now officially a PhD candidate. Yay!

Congrats!!

w00t!

p to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim. Many of these "Lost Boys", some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and told they will never see their families again or go to heaven.

[ Ugh. Seriously. I wish Jesus would take a more active role in disavowing fools who claim to do hateful, vicious shit in his name. I know he's about turning the other cheek, but couldn't he at least be like "Seriously, guys, you crazy. I mean, I'm not gonna kill ya, but for real, I didn't say any of that stuff. Just saying, you know?" -k]

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives