Gulfstream

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3646 The ethically troubling sources of gold, chocolate, cell phones. The Economist also has a nice account of an 18th Century British sugar boycott that caused the sugar-loving Shelley some distress. 11:25

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article304029.ece Buildings in Mecca and Medina dating back to the time of Mohamed and before are being destroyed by Wahhabists in an attempt to prevent idolatry. (The Wikipedia claims that even Saudi Arabia was against the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan.) 11:14

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/ One day I’ll write this up properly, but in the meantime here’s another datapoint in the manipulative and misleading charity category: Heifer International’s online gift catalog lists pigs, honeybees, and a flock of ducks among the concrete and specific (and cute) gifts you can give to needy families around the world—but if you read the fine print, you find that your purchase is “symbolic” and “represents a contribution to the entire mission of Heifer International.” (To reinforce the impression that you’re not simply writing a check, the copy goes like so: “The Joy To The World collection includes two sheep, four goats, a heifer and two llamas. These animals mean new hope in the lives of the hardworking poor families who receive them. Cow and goats’ milk is full of nutrients and your animals will provide a family with daily provisions of vitamin-rich milk.” Way to subvert and distort the otherwise straightforward gift catalog concept!) 08:28

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/4749393.stm The space shuttle landing process involves flying upside down and backwards, as well as right-side up and forwards. (Point form.) 06:54

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/old-black-eyes-is-back/
2006/12/16/1166162364593.html?page=fullpage Panda sex news: “They were known for shyness, a low sex drive and a diet that was overly dependent on eating huge quantities of a barely nutritious and hard-to-digest bamboo that was inedible every six years or so.” In an effort to get their charges to mate, researchers in China tried Viagra (“We’ll never do that again … the panda was excited for 24 hours”), but have now settled on a mixture of panda porn, and swapping hot females with those not so hot at the last moment (“When the males find out, they get very angry and start fighting the female … we have had to use firecrackers and a water hose to separate them”). 07:48

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/about-transferable-
stock-options.html Google employees will soon be able to sell their options. One of the benefits is that it gives a tangible value to the options themselves. (I look forward to a James Surowiecki explication. How well will they track the value of GOOG options themselves? 09:48

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/fashion/07evite.html “Her Evite reply had to indicate she was glad to have been invited. It had to illustrate she had good reason for not attending. Most of all, it had to be so witty that invitees she did not even know would find themselves wishing she was coming to the party.” Too serious piece on the politics and psychology of publicly accepting or declining Evite invitations. 23:10

http://www.mysql.com/products/tools/workbench/ Oh MySQL AB, why do you need to make things so difficult? As far as I can tell, it’s at least five clicks from the MySQL Workbench product information page to the download, and to get there you have to go via the “Community” tab, dodge a not-mandatory-but-looks-like-it registration page, and download four MySQL products all at once. 11:28

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore?productLearnMore=M9470 Problems with the AirPort Express? Just after ordering a new one I noticed a whole lot of reviews from owners saying that their Express had died soon after the 12-month warranty expired. Mine did too! (see also) 00:58

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/world/europe/30nato.html The NY Times reports that Estonia’s admired-by-some flat tax was put in place because Estonia’s former prime minister, Mart Laar, erroneously believed that a flat tax had been implemented in the West after reading Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose.” 13:49