So long Bob & thanks for all the rats!

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Dictators, Habit #3; Refuse All Assistance
In the past there have been numerous stories of conditions worsening in Zimbabwe and of people going to great lengths to keep feeding themselves.
This article in the Cape Argus is an indication of just how bad things have gotten in Zim; people are eating rats to keep surviving & following railway lines where grain is transported, hoping to pick up a few stray seeds.
Obviously Robert Mugabe's tactic of "Food crisis? What food crisis?" is still working.
Illegal immigrants are still flooding into South Africa on a daily basis, desperate to send home food to their families while Bob sits in his presidential palace cutting up a nice, juicy steak every night.
And while Bob chews through that medium/rare morsel, I have to wonder how many of those starving Zimbabweans know that 1) Robert Mugabe's diet hasn't suffered at all in the last ten years, 2) Mr . Mugabe has regularly refused food aid from the US - using various excuses & 3) the Zanu PF government has done almost nothing about the crisis, often denying that there is one...
Obviously Bob's dementia is now available in a handy tablet form, taken daily by every Zanu PF cabinet member - with water after a full gourmet meal!

Yeti or stretch of the imagination?

I've been mulling over this story since I read about it 2 days ago.
Apparently on the left is the footprint of a Yeti and on the right is a human footprint.
Firstly, I feel sorry for the poor individual who had to take their shoe & sock off in frozen Nepal for the shot on the right.
Secondly, I'm supposed to believe that the shot on the left is actually a footprint of a bipedal creature?! Riiiiight. I mean, I have an imagination, a really good one at that. But that's pushing it.
I'm more likely to believe that a bunch of deer got drunk, followed the researchers around, measured their feet at night, made their own mock-up of a human foot (which is quite difficult without opposable thumbs I must tell you - & that'll explain the odd shape better than a change in temperature would) & then trotted around leaving funny impressions in the snow before snickering off and watching the enthralled researchers from behind a bush.
Yehp, about as believable as an abominable snow man that has so cleverly eluded researchers and their cameras for almost a hundred years now.

Zimbabwe's vets up in arms! (Okay, so I couldn't resist the pun)

That's "vets" in the sense of war veterans and not those wealthy people who charge you more money to treat your dog's sniffles than you'd pay to eat at one of Johannesburg's finest restaurants...
So why are these war veterans up the miff tree? Because Morgan Tsvangirai is not attending the latest summit claiming to address the "Zimbabwe Crisis".
The leader of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (They have an association for this?!) has threatened to "take action" against Tsvangirai, who is not attending the talks in Swaziland due to troubles with travel documents.
Surprise, surprise! The Zimbabwean government refused to issue Tsvangirai with a new passport, providing him with emergency travel documents only...
Sounds very conducive to change and democracy in Zimbabwe, now doesn't it?
Oh yeah and it gets better; the leader of this association for war vets, Mr Jabulani Sibanda has accused Tsvangirai of causing Zimbabweans "to suffer" and that "If he behaves the way he is behaving, this nation will take action to defend itself from him. He is leaving the people of Zimbabwe with one option: to take action."
Oh boy, that's rich considering where it's coming from.
The talks have been postponed till Monday and will now be held in Harare, but Morgan Tsvangirai has stated that he will continue to boycott unless the government issues him a passport.
The government has countered this by stating that there is no paper to issue new passports with.
There's a paper crisis in Zim?!?! I guess it'll have to be filed under the Continuing Crises List, right under No Food, No Electricity, No Fuel, No Democracy & No Slush Fund for the War Vets, No Brill Cream for Bob's Hairdo, etc etc...

Renew your rodent's recall

So apparently researchers have been able to erase traumatic memories from the minds of mice, by manipulating one protein...
So naturally as a Supervillain, I immediately thought; Okay. Of mice and so what of men?
How much longer will it be until we can manipulate people's minds, forming them into the perfect passive minions we've always wanted?
Imagine being able to wipe the slate clean with your wife; she'll never know how often you've forgotten your anniversary - you could make her forget you've even had an anniversary!
Or your previously disgruntled staff will forget about what a cheap-skate boss you've been, or how those bonuses you mentioned, never got paid.
You could turn your naughty kids into obedient little angels within a single day, or maybe even erase that memory of your bad first impression with that hottie you met at the bar...
There's so much potential here; especially for gullible 'super heroes'...
"Now if you'll just step into this little machine please. Hold still while I put this device over your head and jab you with this little needle. You'll be out in no time!"

How did we end up here?

Take a look at this slide show from Vanity Fair, featuring some iconic photos from the publication through the years and ask yourself this: how (and why?) has public perception of "beauty" & attractiveness changed?
Long gone are the days of Cary Grant & Jean Harlow - people who by today's standards wouldn't be considered that good-looking. And yet in their time, they were the pin-ups & heart-throbs.
These days it's botoxed "beauties" that blaze their ways across magazine covers as the ambassadors of attractiveness.
Somewhere, someone made the wrong turn at Albequerque...

Keystroke eavesdropping

And you thought you were pretty clever; typing in your password quickly & making sure no one was watching. Well now they don't have to.
Remember the days when individual keys on ATMs emitted a unique sound when pressed, until someone realised how easy it was to figure out people's passwords... It took a while, but eventually each key sounded the same note as all the others on the keypad.
What has this got to do with your keyboard and password? Well if you've ever wondered how a keyboard works on a computer, you will no doubt have wondered how long it would be until someone could guess your password by standing next to you and recording those little electronic impulses sent by each keystroke.
Four guys from the Security and Cryptology Laboratory in Switzerland have figured out how to do it remotely; by measuring the electromagnetic waves each keystroke creates.
They found four different ways to fully or partially recover keystrokes from 11 different wired keyboards - but before you throw a "but" in my direction, read the article. You'll see that the keyboards were a range of models from different years and even a laptop keyboard was tested (Check out the sample videos).
So what does this mean?
A hell of a lot for information security in the future. It's not like every single PC-user out there has super-secret information, but there are many companies out there that are going to have consider methods to guard against this.
But how exactly do you counter this? While a couple of answers spring to mind, they're all methods that can be worked around...

Umbrellas in space, oh my!

In an effort to combat climate change, individuals have dreamed up all sorts of ideas; like an array of umbrellas that would cast an even shadow over the earth...
So while self-tan sales would go up, what exactly are the plants supposed to do - take a vacation from photosynthesis?
It's about as ambitious as Tsiolkovsky's Space Elevator. And while both would be very expensive projects, at least the space elevator would be useful in the long run.

Sir Robert Mugabe?!?!

So apparently the Queen has finally stripped old Bob of his honorary knighthood as a "mark of revulsion" in response to the violence and outright violation of human rights in Zimbabwe.
Uh... it's taken her this long to revoke his knighthood??? Did she just forget about the fact that she'd knighted him some 14 years ago? I mean, during the last few elections, where international observers have reported violence and intimidation of non-ZanuPF supporters, did the Queen go: "Hmmm, nagging thought, nagging thought... did I knight him? I can't recall..."
Maybe someone was recently perusing the "Honorary Knight" tome from 14 years ago & suddenly went: "We knighted him?!" and ran off to remind the Queen of the rather embarrassing fact.
The following is an excerpt from the letter, informing Bob of his ex-knight status:

Mr Mugabe,
We regret to inform you that we have un-knighted you. You will no longer be referred to Sir Robert Mugabe, nor will you enjoy the privileges associated with the title.
Your membership to Arthur's Club House has been canceled, you will no longer be permitted to sit at the Round Table. Access to Merlin's Magical Bath House will no longer be free, Morgana's Massage Parlour will be off-limits and we will be sending someone over to collect your armour, sword, lance, horse, pageboy and squire.
While this incident gives us no pleasure, recent events have changed our disposition towards your knighthood status.
We are not trying to tell you how to run your country & we have even reserved judgement in the past, keeping quiet during previous times of violence, intimidation and election-rigging. In fact, we hardly even noticed that, we get so little coverage on the telly here.
But anyways, we have now decided to take a strong stance against your dicatorship by using intimidating words in the press and revoking your knighthood.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Regards,
The Queen
(Of England)

Phoenix lander now with free dvd. (Delivery to Mars only, terms & conditions apply)

Take a look at the round disc on the left of the american flag... Yep, that's a mini dvd. What's on it you ask? Why, an assortment of things; "a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories and art inspired by the Red Planet as well as the names of more than a quarter-million earthlings"
Great idea! I'm sure the super-advanced aliens out there that we haven't met yet, all use mini dvd roms... I bet they also read English (& the american version at that), would understand our art and would like to know the names of our people, just in case they want to take over our bodies, or pretend to be one of us in an effort to understand all those splashes of paint we like to call "modern art". :P

Hooray for Botswana!

Well, it seems Botswana's government has gone against the current trend of "What crisis in Zimbabwe?" by condemning the recent arrests and detentions of MDC officials.
Finally someone has bothered to openly criticise Mugabe's blatant disregard for the will of Zimabweans! Why on earth has it taken so long for someone to speak out & why was the smallest of Zimbabwe's neighbours the first to do so?
Thabo Mbeki is obviously still going: "Hi Bob, I'm so glad you're holding a second election. The results of the first one were totally inconclusive, there's no way the MDC won. Of course, they won't win in this next "election" now will they? They have no hope of winning when you're rigging the vote, giving out free food for Zanu-PF voters & threatening people to vote for you. Maybe I should use the same tactics. My terms is almost finished & I wouldn't mind extending it. Seems to have worked for you."
Of course, no one ever expected the election to be fair and we certainly don't expect these next ones to be either. Everyone knows that they're rigged.
The results will probably state a small percentage of votes to MDC, just so that it appears "legitimate" to observers. Here's a behind the scenes look at the political mechanics of it all:
Bob: "Do we have the results?"
Head Zanu-PF Cronie #1: "What results comrade? I thought we were making it all up..."
Head Election Rigger: "Well, what results did you have in mind Mr Mugabe? We obviously don't want to arouse any suspicion about the vote counting."
Bob: "I was thinking of 100% Zanu-PF, 0% MDC."
Head Zanu-PF Cronie #1: "Excellent comrade!"
Head Election Rigger: "You don't think that's a little too generous? It might cast some doubt on the election results."
Bob: "Hmm... perhaps... Okay! 99% Zanu-PF & 1% MDC. That's my final offer!"
Head Zanu-PF Cronie #1: "Excellent comrade! Very clever. No one will suspect a thing!"
Head Election Rigger: "Uh..."