World Outsources Pregnancies To India

IT companies outsourced programming there, other companies outsourced customer support amid other services, now it's pregnancies that are being outsourced to India... The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and counsels them afterward. Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies. More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years... [Source: The...

Continue reading this entry...

Rudy Guiliani Will 'Chase Muslims Back To Their Caves'

So here's an interesting quote from John Deady, a designated surrogate for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign, and a leader with a group called "Veterans for Rudy"... "He's got I believe the knowledge and the judgment to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims, and make no mistake about it, this hasn't happened for a thousand years. These people are very, very dedicated and they're also very smart, in their own way. We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or...

Continue reading this entry...

Copyrighting 'Allah'

Just came across this weird bit of news from Malaysia... A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims. In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries. Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional and unreasonable. [Source: BBC News] Fortunately, they've woken up, and reversed the ban now... But, of course it was unconstitutional and unreasonable, also stupid and unthinkable. I can't find one ounce of logic behind a decision or...

Continue reading this entry...

Cheap And Efficient Solar Energy Breakthrough

Great news: Cheap and efficient solar energy is becoming a reality... The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what British scientists called "a revolution" in generating electricity. The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected...

Continue reading this entry...

Netscape Navigator Officially Dead

AOL just announced that Netscape Navigator, the browser that launched the commercial Internet in October 1994, and that they acquired in November 1998 as part of their Netscape Communications Corp. acquisition deal for $4.2 billion, will die on February 1, 2008. Netscape Navigator is currently at version 9. Recent surveys suggest that Netscape currently has only 0.6% market share among browsers, compared to Internet Explorer's 77.35% and Firefox's 16.01%. This is down from more than 90 percent of the market in the 90s, when the browser wars began, then the Microsoft antitrust trial took place, before IE took over as...

Continue reading this entry...

Top Seven Health Myths

The list of the top seven health-related myths and misconceptions, that even some doctors fall prey to, and that we've been hearing time and again, goes as follows: 1. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight. 2. Using cell phones in hospitals is dangerous. 3. Fingernails and hair grow after death. 4. We use only 10 percent of our brains. 5. You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day. 6. Shaved hair grows back faster and coarser. 7. Tainted candy from strangers is a Halloween threat. Full article: Top Seven Health Myths (Newsweek)....

Continue reading this entry...

Egypt to Copyright Pyramids And Sphinx

Egypt's MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids or the sphinx. Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt, in all countries, and that the move was necessary to pay for the upkeep of the country's thousands of pharaonic sites. This could be a potential blow to themed resorts all across the world, from Vegas to Tokyo, where large-scale copies of Egyptian artefacts pull in...

Continue reading this entry...

Hamed Is Gone

A few days ago Hamed passed away... Hamed was born in the city of Sbiba, in the governorate of Kasserine, in the west of Tunisia, almost 90 years ago. He never got married, nor did he have kids; even though he dreamed of having a son to take care of and love until the last days of his life. In the war, a bomb exploded in front of him, and the shock made him deaf and mute. Some time after that he moved to Manouba where my grandfather offered him a room and a job on his farm. He was...

Continue reading this entry...

Morals And Belief...

It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it's perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God. -- J.K. Rowling Very true... It's not what you believe, it's how you act on what you believe that counts......

Continue reading this entry...

Tunisia: One Of Top 53 Places To Go In 2008

The New York Times recently published a list of the 53 places to go in 2008, and Tunisia ranks 3rd in their list, directly after Laos and Lisbon. Here's what they have to say: Tunisia is undergoing a Morocco-like luxury makeover. A new wave of stylish boutique hotels, often in historic town houses, has cropped up alongside this North African country's white-sand beaches and age-old medinas, drawing increasing numbers of well-heeled travelers. The Villa Didon (www.villadidon.com) in Carthage, for one, has a restaurant originally run by Alain Ducasse. Indeed, TripAdvisor ranks Jerba, a resort island off Tunisia's southern coast, as...

Continue reading this entry...

After Annapolis; Peace Or More Illegal Israeli Settlements?

On the heals of the Annapolis peace conference in which Israel and the Palestinians agreed to move forward on bringing peace to the region and launching talks on final status issues, which are supposed to end up with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state; Israel doesn't seem to want to stop building illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land, and it has been revealed that money will be put aside to construct 740 new buildings next year. The construction ministry's proposed budget for 2008 includes 500 apartments for the Har Homa area in east Jerusalem, and 240 at Maale Adumim,...

Continue reading this entry...

10 Forgotten Humanitarian Crises That Still Largely Exist

I just came across an article about ten humanitarian crises that should have gotten more coverage in the year 2007, but didn't, and that have been more or less forgotten, even though they still largely exist. -Colombia: Internal refugee crisis after four decades of civil conflict Large numbers of Colombians live in areas controlled by militia or guerrillas, with basic human rights under threat and unpredictable violence. - Sri Lanka: The civil war between the government forces and the separatist Tamil Tigers, taking a horrendous civilian toll. - Somalia: Violence and increasingly ferocious guerrilla style attacks surpassing even Darfur in...

Continue reading this entry...

IDF in Gaza: You are the law. You are God.

A quote by an IDF soldier that gives a clear picture of the Israeli forces' illegal actions in Gaza and the state of mind that drives them. "The best thing is that you're not obliged to follow any laws or rules. You feel like you are the law. You are the law. You decide. It's as if the moment you leave Israel and pass through the Erez Checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God." -- Comment by one of the IDF soldiers interviewed by Israeli psychologist Nofer Ishai-Karen. [Via: Lawrence of Cyberia]...

Continue reading this entry...

Things You Should Never Include on a Resume

I just came across this really interesting list of the 25 things you should never include in your resume. I agree with most of the list, but the top ten ones for me, in no particular order, are the following: 1. What You Hated About Your Last Job 2. What You Hated About Your Last Boss or Co-Workers 3. Irrelevant Job Experience 4. Lies About Job Experience 5. Lies About Educational Background 6. Negative Thoughts, Words or Ideas 7. Prejudices 8. Information About Your Family Members 9. Every Job You've Had Since You Were 16 10. Low GPAs Read the...

Continue reading this entry...

Peter Jackson On Board For The Hobbit

Great news came out today that Peter Jackson, director of the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, will be will taking part in the making of "The Hobbit," the prequel to the great series, as well as a sequel to it, after settling disputes with New Line Cinema over LOTR residuals. MGM and New Line will co-finance and co-distribute the two films, “The Hobbit” and a sequel to it, with New Line distributing in North America and MGM internationally. Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh will serve as Executive Producers of these two films based on “The Hobbit.” Both films...

Continue reading this entry...

Success: Doing What You Want To Do

What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. -- Bob Dylan, US singer & songwriter...

Continue reading this entry...

Stardust

A couple of days ago, I watched "Stardust", featuring Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro and Sienna Miller. I'd heard about the movie on TV a number of times, but there wasn't much that pulled me in to see it. But then a friend at work told me he had seen it and that he actually liked it. So when I got the chance to see it, I was like: why not. It turned out to actually be quite a nice movie, that I enjoyed. It's sort of a light fairy tale about a young man who...

Continue reading this entry...

Childhood, Illness And Missing School

While doing some random surfing, I came across a list of the top 5 illnesses that cause kids to miss school. These illnesses are as follows: 1. The Common Cold 2. The Stomach Flu 3. Ear Infection 4. Pink Eye 5. Sore Throat The main two that I personally got hit with as a kid, and that kept me from going to school sometimes, were the common cold and sore throat. Until I ruined it for myself, that is... The thing is that after a few times of falling sick and not having to go to school, I found that...

Continue reading this entry...

Randomly...

Randomly, out of nowhere, there was a big fat universe sitting around... Randomly, this universe exploded and expanded into its current state... Randomly, solar systems were created in which planets rotated around central stars... Randomly, planet Earth was created with the characteristics we all know today... Randomly, a single cell living entity came into being... Randomly, this single cell evolved into many different, yet independently perfect species... Randomly, these different species kept evolving to their current states today... Randomly, one of these species became the human race... Randomly, every single little organ, with every single tiny detail and every exact...

Continue reading this entry...

Work: Job, Environment And Money

It's evaluation period at work, that time of year when tension gets so thick sometimes it could be cut by a knife. It's also the time when a lot of people, depending on whether or not they get a raise or promotion, how much the raise ends up to be, or what that new position is, start thinking about their jobs, and if they should maybe consider moving to some other company. Personally, I think there is a very simple equation to all this, which mainly consists of the balance between job, environment and financial satisfaction. The main questions a...

Continue reading this entry...

On Products & Services...

Giving the people what they want is fundamentally and disastrously wrong. The people don't know what they want... [Give] them something better. -- Samuel "Roxy" Rothapfel [Source: Blue Ocean Strategy]...

Continue reading this entry...

Pizza Cono, Pizza In Cones

I think if there's any country in the world that could compete with Italy itself in the number of pizza places and pizza consumption, it'd definitely be Tunisia; There are at least two or three pizza places in every street or corner of every city. So why am I writing about yet another one? Well because this ones sell pizza that's not quite like the pizza we're used to finding everywhere. Pizza Cono, like its name actually suggests, sells pizza in the form of cones. It is pizza dough shaped into the form of an ice cream cone, and filled...

Continue reading this entry...