Isn't it amazingly positive news that Warren Buffet and Melinda and Bill Gates have put up the $600 billion challenge which is "asking the nation's billionaires to pledge to give at least half their net worth to charity". And if you haven't already read about it, Warren Buffet pledges 99% of this company stock to charity. All good news but what's really interesting is reading peoples comments on the CNN page. A handful pick:

"Interesting article. It is saddening, however, to ponder just how much of this crowd's wealth was made through unfair business practices, worker exploitation, price fixing, etc. I suppose philanthropy on the back end is a nice afterthought, though, and certainly earns more praise from the public than would lessening their profit margins at the get-go."

"Pay their taxes first, then contribute with after tax money."

"If I may be cynical. Perhaps these super rich people should have done more for the people that worked for them so that they made more money and the leaders made a little less. Buffet owns companies that make goods in second and third world countries at some of the lowest possible wages."

"$1000 in the hands of ONE could be investment money. $1000 distributed $1 to ONE THOUSAND could get each a Coke (no fries)."

But also, there are some more "positive" comments:

"There is sooo much negativity in this country! I don't care what anyone of you says...Bill and Melinda came from Blue Collar....and now they are giving back and I think it's awesome!"

"I think what they are doing is very admirable. The Gates Foundation is the reason I was able to pay for college. People need to not criticize what they do with their money, at least they are trying to make a difference."

In conclusion from skimming the comments it's pretty obvious that people in the USA are angry and bitter. What is there to complain about? Really? Poor Obama, he's doing a great job but with all this resentment sizzling around it's going to be very hard if even "extreme philanthropy" gets butchered like this.

If I've understood it correctly, this is a mashup made on Guardian's API made by someone not at the Guardian. More photos here

What's interesting about this chart, which I've never seen like this before, is the last one where they show how much money various countries pledged versus how much they actually delivered. It's something I've also wanted to see because it opens up a whole new dimension of truth to the equation. For example, Canada has pledged USD 130m to the Haiti Earthquake but they only delivered 51% of what they pledged to the 2004 Tsunami crisis.

"Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away."

From the brilliantly informed and well articulated article How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

Just so you know, I love China, but there's a lot of things I hate about it too. Admittedly, any country in their position would perhaps do the same as the force of people getting rich is more powerful than almost anything else. Please do take the time to read this article as it helps to give an interesting perspective on the post-Copenhagen-conference talks.

Funniest sad news of the week:

"Muzzammil Hassan was charged with second-degree murder after police found the decapitated body of his wife, Aasiya Hassa"

And what makes this horrible sad news so funny:

"He launched Bridges TV, billed as the first English-language cable channel targeting Muslims inside the United States, in 2004. At the time, Hassan said he hoped the network would balance negative portrayals of Muslims following the attacks of September 11, 2001."

D'oh!

(assuming you do)

Because you like Barack Obama or because you fear John McCain?

And if it's because of the latter, how much of that fear is because of Sarah Palin?

Watch this speech and listen. It's impressive. As long as I can remember I've always thought the US elections being phoney and very much about the guy (until this year I guess) and his charm, looks and presentation. Unlike politics here in Europe (I've only lived in three European countries) it has always seemed that election campaigns over here are more about the issues and the politicians trying to sell their side of the issues. Until now. This Obama guy does make a difference. He talks about concrete issues, how to solve them, how important they are and actually gives evidence of understanding why they are important. And last but not least, he ridicules the press and the whole election itself for not being about the issues. Quite refreshing.

Please take the time and watch the 6 minute speech.

Sadly the McCain supporters are not going to reach my blog post and watch the video. But if there are, against all odds, any McCain supporters here, what do you think about this speech? Please let me know what you think.

This is propaganda against senator John McCain and a lot of the snippets of what he says is out of context making it borderline unfair. I'm not American and I can't vote in this 2008 election but if I could I would certainly not vote for McBush.

There are a lot of Youtube videos making fun of McCains incompetency, lies and gaffs. Some are just plain funny and some are quite refreshing but we have to, bear in mind that this is nothing but propaganda and should we really endorse this kind of stuff? Well, I'm genuinely afraid that if America continues to let corporations rule the world and allow politicians use their might to kill people and the planet then maybe a little propaganda to get the message out might be OK. Or, is the reason we support progressive candidates like Ron Paul and Barak Obama that we reject lies and propaganda.

The question is, with this much at stake should we play by the rules?

I'm not a political editor and I can't confirm the validity of these statistics but if they're at least close to true it's a hell of a scary picture of the injustice in the Israeli/Palestine conflict.

Israel receives $6.8 million per day in aid. I doubt that all of that money goes towards building better schools for Israeli families.

There's a really interesting blog article on Think Moderate worth a read. Clearly some moron commented on it which caused the author to append this update to it:

I am NOT saying that murdering innocent American citizens is justifiable, as some commentors have suggested. I am also fully aware that many of our foreign enemies disagree with our lifestyle as well as our foreign policy, but as one commentor has said: "which one do you think motivated twenty people to come half-way across the world and kill themselves just to strike a blow against America? The fact that you're directly responsible for their countries being shit-holes and the deaths of friends, family-members and groups they identify with, or the fact that our women wear revealing tops?"

Read the whole article for a refreshing yet brute article on american political introspection.

On the subject of bombing civilians as a counter action to the injustice the die hard arabs feel; I think it's the wrong action to take. They should have their revenge in some other way that doesn't cause further death and despair. However, "we" (by that I generalise us as being all europeans) don't hate your freedom either dear US. But we do hate your foreign policy. Europeans are fortunately treated well by the americans and our neighbouring enemies don't get $illions of dollars in montary aid. If you did, perhaps we'd become "freedom haters" too.

"Including the $124.2 billion bill, the total cost of the Iraq war may reach $456 billion in September, according to the National Priorities Project, an organization that tracks public spending.

The amount got us wondering: What would $456 billion buy?"

This is an amazing slideshow article made by boston.com about what the Americans could have done instead of spending $456 billion on the Iraq war. Granted, the republicans objective was to go in an exploit the country for oil which they saw as an investment whereas investing in health and life in Africa would be too far fetched for the shortsighted morons in Washington.

Ok. Suppose George and co. would have been successful in Iraq and with that, move in a few lucrative industrial deals for oil and reconstruction. I wonder how many thousands of years it would take to get return on that investment if the input is $456 billion.

Hmm. Of all the stupid things conservative Christians and other fundamentalists make up, this must be near the top. Apparently, the fact that no new life is created in any jar of peanut butter means that evolution does not happen. WTF? Are you nuts?

If you're still thinking at this point: no, this is not a proof against evolution.

The question why life started in this corner of the universe is still an interesting question, but refuting evolution is naive and plain outright stupid. If you base your morals on arguments and counter arguments for and against things you will pretty sure see an overwhelming dominance of proof for evolution everywhere. The fact that this video was made is quite scary.

Stop the non-sense! Evolution is still here to stay.

This has to be one of the best youtube.com clip of the year. It's funny, scary and just outright amazing.

"What currency do they have in the United Kingdom" the report asks.
"I don know. American money?" answers the Texan man.

Sure, there are a lot of people in USA and not all of them are rednecks but those that are scare me more than insurgents in the middle east.

The scariest part of this clip is towards the end when they ask people if the support president Bush on Kyrgyzstan being a threat and whether the United States should invade it.

Disclaimer: I know a lot of Americans and they're lovely people. I do understand that this clip selects only few exceptional cases but that doesn't make the clip any less fun

"Scientists say the global energy crisis can be solved by using the desert sun"

I've been wondering for a long time why the open deserts in north Africa isn't used for solar energy. There's 3 times as much sun there as there is in Europe. Unlike wind power plants in Europe, there's plenty of space for solar energy mirrors on the vast stretches of the north African desert.

This Guardian article is really interesting for me. Here are some interesting facts:

"[the two German scientists] calculate that covering just 0.5% of the world's hot deserts with a technology called concentrated solar power (CSP) would provide the world's entire electricity needs"

"Together the region could provide all its electricity needs by 2050 with barely any fossil fuels and no nuclear power. This would allow a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production over the period."

The article also sheds some light on the comparison of fusion reactors compared to solar power.

"The outlook is not promising. More than 30 countries last week agreed to spend £7bn on an experimental fusion reactor in France which critics say will not produce any electricity for 50 years, if at all."

As some of my friends on this website have might have noticed, I was threatened by Carphone Ware because of supposed defamatory comments made on this page

Here's an interesting article on BBC News about a case (in USA I should add) where a blogger could not be sued for the comments other people placed on her blog.

"Overturning a decision by the San Francisco appeal court, the court ruled that people claiming they were defamed online could now only seek damages from the original author of the comments - and not the website which re-posted it."

I need to think a bit more about it before I resurrect the currently removed comments from the page about Carphone Warehouse.

Unless you're a die-hard US republican you probably don't watch Fox News and the Bill O'Reilly show. You might, like me, remember him from a part of Fahrenheit 9/11 when he tells Jeremy Glick to shut up (or was that another film?)

Bill O'Reilly is a nut. A unsympathetic right-wing nut. It's people like him that causes us europeans to disrespect and, dare I, hate the USA. I like and have an open mind about the USA but it's people like Bill O'Reilly being shown on a large national network that just makes me feel sick.

Here's a great videoclip on youtube.com where Phil Donahue has a right go at him. This is the best thing I've seen since George Galloway (my MP by the way) shredded this Sky News reporter to pieces

Dear american friends, if you want my respect back, do something to get these repulicans off the set. It's making me sick!