[Google] News Badges Means I Follow Republicans?

So just over a week ago, Google announced the launch of Google News Badges, a rather comical way of tracking what you read on Google News. Yeah, this got an eyebrow raise from me at the time as well.

Now the gamer geek in my generally enjoys the idea of trophies. Sure, they're meaningless achievements with no monetary value, but they do provide an interesting incentive to keep playing. After all, games are already seeded with all these different secrets,bonus areas and hidden items, so why not track them, right?




But to have the same system be applied to a news aggregation site like Google News? Yeah, it does feel a tad weird. Given that I'm a regular Google News user anyway, I decided to see what badges I might earn with my normal browsing habits. And the result was those four badges up there - at least so far. I guess all my following of the current US budget issues has tagged me as being interested in Republican-related news despite my general affinity for the Democratic party.

Has this enhanced my Google News experience thus far? Not really, at least that's yet to be seen. The badges are hard to attain since you don't know how many articles are needed to win one. Plus you don't even know how an article is tagged in the badge system - thus my wondering why I still don't have a badge related to queer news. Go figure. The other benefit to the badges is supposed to be to help me identify new sections that I might want to create in Google News to track topics of interest, but thus far I'm not seeing anything that I'm not already reading.

But let's continue this experiment and see where it goes. As much as Google Labs is already dead, it looks like Google will continue to tinker with weird ideas like these badges.

[Geeky Bits] Mismatched Google News Images

I'm a regular Google News user - it's nice to have so many news sources in one page and entire blocks of articles about the same topic all grouped together.

But sometimes the algorithms that pick up images and news articles don't always work out.

And so you get weird pieces like these:





What's with dogs today?

And don't get me started on the second image - we all know that issue has already been thoroughly discussed.

[Health] A Difference in Opinion

If you pass by the Health section of Google News, you'll notice that one of the top headlines is about the FDA approval of an over-the-counter diet drug. Pray tell, what is this new miracle drug?

It's nothing new - it's just Xenical at half the usual dosage, which means it'll just be 60mg per capsule. As always, the announcement has everyone disagreeing as to if this is really the right thing to do and other implications of such a drug becoming readily available.

Of course when I first read the articles related to the news, I rememebered that Xenical here in the Phillpines is already an over-the-counter drug. Heck, visit the website and it immediately provides pricing information for the leading drug store chain in the country. This isn't for some weak 60mg version - this is for the standard 120mg version which is under such close scrutiny in the US.

What gives? Why the change in handling? You'd think that given how US-centric this country can get at times, one of the most glaring differences between us and them is how we approach health care and drug controls.

Here most antibiotics are practically over-the-counter. I say practically since even if they weren't, many smaller drug stores will be willing to provide you with the stuff anyway. I'm not just talking about the weak stuff like amoxicillin, I'm talking about the really strong drugs like erythromycin and azithromycin.

Our perscriptions are not for closed-loop series of drugs - we get to re-use perscriptions even when they've already been filled. We don't measure out the entire series in individual bottles labelled with the correct dosage and the name of the patient - we give them in little plastic baggies or we cut them out individually.

The Philippine drug industry is able to get away with murder, quite seriously. Household abortionists know exactly what drugs to get, all OTC here in the Philippines, in order to relieve young women of their burden, to speak in blatant euphemisms. I know all this since I used to work in a smaller drug store and was appalled to learn that people actually tried to get those drugs. What was even more shocking still was that they'd eventually get it somewhere.

Does Xenical really help you lose weight? It appears so, if you believe all the testimonials. That's well and good if you can deal with the loose stool, increased risk of cancer and other adverse reactions. Let's not even to the part where we discuss the negative interactions with any blood thinning, diabetes or post-operation drugs being taken in conjunction and how people getting it OTC around here may not know about the side-effects.

I'm happy for you guys in the US - good job, you know have more access to a pretty powerful drug. What's going to be keeping up a bit more these days is the sad reminder of the state of affairs here and how dangerous our drug industry really is.

Related Link"

• TIME.com: Feds Approve OTC Diet Pill

[Web] What Internet Attack?

There's an item on Google News now about a significant hacking attempt made against the "backbone" of the internet.

The attack was carried out with the aid of a large number of "zombie" computers infected through nefarious spam emails and other similar means in an attempt to overwhelm some of the root servers that help implement the Domain Name System that helps all of us get to the webpages that we want to.

The attack was reported to last as long as 12 hours for some servers, consisting of large requests for information designed to overwhelm the servers and get them to shut down. While the identity of the hackers has yet to be identified, it appears a large number of the attacks originated from computers with South Korean IP addresses.

So in case the net was slow of you within the past 24 hours, this was probably the reason. Personally, I didn't even notice. I guess that's a good thing - it speaks volumes about how resilient the internet has become over the years.

Related Links:

• Wikipedia: Root nameserver
  
• Wikipedia: Domain name system

[US] Bush Attempts a Save

US President George W. Bush is not exactly the most popular guy in the world right now. With approval ratings already skimming the low 30's mainly because of his continued push for the war in Iraq and the recent order to send an additional 21,500 troops. Many analysts and bloggers like TIME Magazine's Jay Carney predicted that Bush would focus on domestic issues that mattered more to the people (and ultimately the voters) in a move similar to how former Presidet Bill Clinton managed to save his presidency in 1995.

It does appear he did precisely that by talking about a number of topics ranging from taxs cuts for health insurance, the No Child Gets Left Behind act and of course a lot of "green" discussions about renewable energy.

After going over the speech in detail, I have to admit that I'm not very impressed with what he had to say. It was a lot of fluff and half thought-out ideas - let's face it, he's still harping on Social Security reform for crying out loud. Despite how much time he devoted to energy policy reform and new targets for certain things, he didn't really have much to offer in terms of solid action plans and what exactly he wanted people to do. He took no risks and didn't even consider mentioning Kyoto.

How can one possibly find confidence in hollow pronouncements like that?

Of course he ended with Iraq and a reiteration of failures in order to appear realistic. This is all well and good - I'm all for the White House finally saying they screwed up, but of course turning around and insisting their current "new" plan for Iraq is a solid one remains a bit too much to swallow for me. Let's face it - he's still infusing Iraq with more American cannon fodder and is simply fanning the flames of secular violence in the region.

What was rather refreshing was how the Democrats tried to make their displeasure known throughout Bush's speech, visibly remaining silent during certain parts where you know you're expected to cheer or something and not applauding for everything he had to say. There were several parts when only his Republican party-mates were the ones applauding.

Oh yes, welcome to 2007, President Bush. Have fun with the Democrats - but do remember to plan nice.

Related Links:

• WhiteHouse.gov - State of the Union Address 2007
  
• C-SPAN: State of the Union
  
• TIME Magazine: Bush Goes Green
  
• Google News - State of the Union

[Entertainment] Movie Awards Season

In case you haven't already noticed, I've recently developed a penchant for the TIME Magazine website, particularly as a source of analysis of current events and not necessarily as a news source - for that it's always best to scan or search Google News.

Recently they've published a string on interesting articles that I wanted to share with everyone about the various awards being given out for the entertainment industry. Enjoy!

• On the Golden Globes - Hollywood with a British Accident
  
• On the Sundance Film Festival - The Trouble with Sundance
  
• On the Academy Awards Nominations - A Nightmare for Dreamgirls

Enjoy!

[Earth News] The Plastic Thing in the Ocean

In stranger, yet also disturbing, news, we found an article on the Reuters website that apparently there's a giant "plastic trash vortex" in the middle of the Pacific ocean threatening marine life. We're serious - this is not the twisted plot of some low-budget horror movie. We didn't want to think about how true this really was until we ran a Google News search for the term [plastic vortex] and ended up with at least 18 related articles at the time of the posting of this entry.


Also known as the "Yellow Thing," for lack of a better name, is a threat to marine life given a variety of species, at least 267 based on the study, manage to get themselves caught in the monstrous garbage barge or worse. Some have attempted to eat some of the non-biodegradable debris while others simply tried to rest upon int and ended up getting entangled in the mixture of plastic wrappers, condoms and other nasty things.

Frankly, it's both disgusting and embarrassing to read about these sorts of things. Our own negligence and lack of concern for other forms of life is repulsive and just plain wrong and it usually takes discoveries of this magnitude to get people even slightly unnerved enough to start to do something about the problem. The challenge is always how to maintain such momentum and get people to continually think about conservation and responsible waste management. These sorts of things tend to become short-lived initiatives that never really pan out since people tend to jump on the next big environmental thing later on.

Sorry for the short rant, but we feel rather strongly about thinking about the planet here at the Guide. Something significant really needs to be done to start resolving these kinds of problems.

[World Affairs] Saddam's Verdict

So it's official - Saddam Hussein has been found guilty of crimes against humanity, the usual cleaned-up term of acts as vile as human torture and genocide used in international tribunals. When you think about it in terms of previous trials of this magnitude, this was a pretty speedy verdict. It's taken less than three years to come to this point.

Under Iraqi law, Saddam Hussein is to be executed by hanging, a rather gruesome way to go compared to the many methods available these days that are generally considered more "humane" as far as capital punishment is concerned, anyway. Some would say that he deserves just a degrading method of death - for us here at the Guide, we're not precisely sure where we stand on this just yet.

The irony behind the whole thing is that he's been found guilty of crimes that took place several decades ago. This has nothing to do with the continued US-led war on terror, as it is called, but because of the brutal murder of almost an entire town's worth of people in the Shiite town of Dujali back in 1982. It's highly unlikely Saddam will live to see trial for any of the US's accusations back at the start of the invasion of Iraq several years ago - it's not like any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were found after the invasion was completed.

It certainly makes you think about what this entire thing really means. Sure, it's a good thing Saddam is due to die - no matter how you think about it, he is truly a dangerous man to co-exist with even on a global scale. However the only reason he is available for trial is because of a war with an identity crises, in a manner of speaking. Where's the justice in that? It's like some sort of illegal search done and this time the evidence was still permitted in court. Yes, this is a very bad analogy, but I'm sure you understand our point in all this. It justs makes one think, that's all.

The story is all over the news these days. Just try a Google News search for the term [Saddam Hussein] and just see what you'll get. What we also liked is how there's a link at the bottom of the results page to also try searching through Google Blog Search using the same key term. If you just want the facts, go with News. If you want more opinions, go with the Blog method.

While simple in theory, Google's many applications will always present you with a potential wealth of information with just one search term used over and over again across various applications. Try it for yourself.

[Pink News] Oct 29 - Nov 4 Digest

Author's Note: Moving forward all gay-related entries will have the header "[Pink News]" in order to standardize things a bit

It's been a busy week for the gay world, in a manner of speaking. If you run a Google News search for [gay], you're going to come up with a variety of news clusters.

Given the upcoming US elections, it's inevitable for you to get articles related to the various state-specific votes about whether or not gay marriages should be banned in places like South Dakota and Virginia. In addition, we still have a few echoes left from the NJ Supreme Court decision from the other week. While putting marriage on the ballot this year is nothing new - it has been attempted before - it is a bit bothersome since this issue is clearly being used by both sides as a rallying point for supporters. Some would say any press is good press when it comes to important issues like this, but then again the atmosphere might not be perfect for this sort of thing and American homosexuals may be made to suffer should the vote not go their way.

More notable items of interest include Neil Patrick Harris coming out through People Magazine's Website in order to finally dispel all rumors about his sexuality. Personally, we here at the Guide are more than proud of Mr. Harris and his decision to come out. Now if only the rest of those celebrity closet queens out there would follow suit - we definitely have a few people in mind that we'd love to turn out queer, but then again these are probably just idle fantasies, haha.

On the darker side of the spectrum, we have the recent gay sex scandal of evangelist Ted Haggard. While he continues to deny the claims of Mike Jones, a gay massage therapist from Denver, CO who told the media that he had been prostituting himself to Haggard for the past three years in a sordid tale of sex, drugs and a very different kind of rocking and rolling, so to speak. Sure, he's denied the claims but he's also taken a leave of absence from the New Life Church and has "temporarily" resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Methinks thou doth protest too much, as the Bard would say.

And our last piece for the week is all about the recent anti-gay protests and violence in reaction to the yearly Gay Pride March that has been held in the so-called "promised land" for the past 5 years now. It appears that borderline tolerance has radically turned into outright hatred in a stunning series of protest actions and attacks from all religious denominations in the country. Whatever happened to religions representing peace and love, eh? The Pride March has united various religious groups ranging from Jewish extremists to Islamic fundamentalists, all against what Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Orthodox Rabbinical Alliance of America and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada has called the "homosexualization of the Holy Land." While the Guide more than supports free expression and everyone's right to their own views and opinions, this never justifies people to cross that line which defines the rule of law and what civilized is supposed to mean and take matters into their own hands.

These are interesting times for homosexuals and a prime opportunity as well to stand up for gay rights. It's a difficult fight, but one that is more than worth fighting for.

[US] Merge Almost But Not Quite

The proposed merger between US telecomunications giants AT&T, Inc. (formerly SBC) and BellSouth met one final hurdle this week after quickly gaining approval from the US Justice Department.

As reported across the web on Google News and other sites (just try a Google News search for either [AT&T] or [BellSouth] to see for yourself), the problem now is in the FCC. Originally they were scheduled to meet regarding the merger today, October 12 in the US, but announced the deciding vote has been moved to Friday, or potentially even farther off than the 13th.

Most news agencies agree that the delay is most likely triggered by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin trying to buy more time to convince other members of the 5 man committee to support the merger as well, having met strong resistance from the two democrat members. Many groups argue that the deal requires more pro-consumer restrictions and concessions prior to allowing it to go through given this is perhaps the largest merger of the year in the US telecommunications industry. AT&T, Inc. and BellSouth both own portions of Cingular, currently the largest wireless company in the US and bringing the two together will ensure that only one company controls the wireless phone service provider. This is not counting their combined assets in the traditional telephone market, DSL services and VOIP telephony as well.

Personally, the deal is highly ironic given all the effort the US Justice Department once put into breaking up "Ma Bell," the former AT&T, back in 1984 because of their being a monopoly. Now just over 20 years later, AT&T is on the move to rejoin with its "Baby Bell" offspring to once again dominate the US telephone market. Are things truly that different not compared to before? Well, it's hard to say. With all the changes made in the US telecommunications market over the years such as the rise of wireless services and the proliferation of consumer VOIP solutions as well, having a traditional landline is just not that essential anymore.

However, given the wide range of services this even larger AT&T, Inc. will be capable of supporting after the merger, I'm sure other competitors in the affected industries are definitely not going to just idly by as the two giants attempt to join forces.

Let's see how Friday's vote turns out before closing the book on this one.

[North Korea] Nuclear Winter

If you try a Google News search for [North Korea] right now, you're going to see a lot of buzz for the somewhat rogue state. In case you've been living under a rock for a least the past week or so, then you might not have heard that the small nation made good it's threat to push through with their nuclear testing despite strong objections from the rest of the international community.

Given the volume or articles being posted real-time across the web, it might take you some time to deterine which topics you might want to check. In terms of the actual test, you can check out this set of articles also through Google news. The test took place at about 10:30 Pyongyang local time, an event which CNet News reports was actually recorded as a 4.2-magnitude event, which is pretty keen. One man's earthquake is another man's nuclear test, perhaps?

The question now is how the international community is going to respond to this. It is definitely a bold move on North Korea's part, something that is sending very strong ripples throughout the region and the world. As much as everyone has kept all eyes on this country and put in different measures to attempt to dissuade them from advancing their tests, clearly North Korea has ignored all penalties thus far.

Does this automatically mean North Korea is a nuclear power? Not exactly. There are a number of things involved in this sort of thing. What we do know is that this proves they are capable of putting a nuclear device together. The next question is if they have the ability to mount such a warhead on a guided missile or a similar payload delivery device. They previously tested their intercontinental ballistics missile (ICBM) capability with a device that could theoretically reach Alaska or Hawaii to no avail. They also tested shorter ranged missiles that could reach as far as neighboring Japan, but this time the test proved successful.

What this leads up to is that if North Korea could theoretically weaponize their nuclear devices, then only the immediate neighbors in the region would be threatened. If you want to know more about Pyongyang's nuclear development, the New York Times has put together a timeline of North Korea's development of their nuclear program over the years which is pretty informative.

So what now? It's hard to say, really. It'll take the international community a bit longer before a formal response to all this can be released in terms actual policy statements, pronouncements and formal resolutions. It's certainly going to be a tense time for everyone. While most of the US's attention has been directed at worrying about Iran, here comes North Korea taking a very big leap by pursuing an actual nuclear test.

There goes the neighborhood.

[Call Centers] India and the BBC

The Indian call center industry is currently worried about a BBC documentary set to air in the UK on Thursday about security breaches at Indian call centers, related to how customer account information has been sold for profit by third party groups dealing with the BPO companies' employees for profit.

Being in the call center industry myself here in the Philippines, the news can mean a different number of things for us. On one side, the expose of sorts, based on a year's worth of investigative journalism, promises to paint the Indian call center industry in a negative light. This might help drive more business to other outsourcing countries like the Philippines or perhaps in companies in South America.

On the other hand, this might trigger an international backlash against all call centers regardless of country of operations, thereby driving companies to return their call center traffic to their domestic operations. Who can really tell where the dice will fall?

What do you think?

[AOL] Launching OpenRide

It's all over the news now that AOL has launched their own browser software called OpenRide, in line with their current thrust to offer more of their previously paid services for free.




The approach they've taken is to divide the window into four panels to cover the major AOL services, namely: Email, Web Browsing, IM and Media in the four panels. The philosophy behind it is that users will more likely want to be able to easily access all of their AOL services from one window rather than resorting to multiple sessions, applications or tabs.

Frankly, I'm not that impressed with the offering. While it is an interesting move that will surely draw a fair amount of their core user base at this time, there's nothing significantly impressive about the application that will really "WOW" people and drive them to switch over to AOL to try their services and read or view their content. At the moment, it's nothing more than a novelty rather than a serious contender in the browser market or even in the Web Services market.

At least they're trying, right?

[US Politics] Dirty Republicans

By now, you must be trapped in a location without power and access to mass media, which is someone I used to be because of the storm that hit the Philippines recently, not to have heard about the latest political scandal to hit the US Republican party. At the time of this entry, Google News has collated at least 1,533 news articles about the Foley E-mails and his subsequent resignation.

Things like this always manage to pop up as the US election season heats up on its way to its inevitable climax. It guess this is most shocking because of course the public is used to Republicans being stereotypically anti-homosexual and to have one of their own practically ousted in so public a manner is definitely a blow against the party.

Being curious myself, I tried a search for [copies of Foley emails] and ended up with these results. Can you fault me for my curiosity? I want to see exactly what all the fuss is about, haha! I managed a quick screen shot here:



The first result - http://tailrank.com/603480/Mark-Foley-s-Emails-To-Former-Teen-Intern - leads us to a Tailrank entry linking to another blog - Pushing Rope. It's one of those rabbit hole results that give you a variety of leads to the article. Tailrank had a link to a PDF file hosted on ABC News, but it was just one email. The Pushing Rope blog had manually re-typed some of the emails in question but of course there had to be more.

The second result - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/foreigndesk/detail?blogid=16&entry_id=9346 - is more promising than the first since it refers us to ABC News' The Blotter and to ABC had one of the IM conversations and links to the other emails, which I couldn't get to load at the time of this entry. The Raw Story was more brutal since they posted some of the emails directly into their article along with an image of a MySpace profile associated with the case.

I ended up stopping here - the IM conversation was enough to have even me squirming. It's both shocking and scary that a member of the US Government can get caught in this kind of a scandal, and perhaps moreso that the media has managed to get access to the emails and even the IM conversations related to this case. Talk about Big Brother,eh?

Let's see where all this leads to - we might end up with a Democrat-controlled house once the elections are over.

[Philippines] Of Typhoons and Billboards

The few times the Philippines, my country, makes it to international news headlines, it normally has to involves natural disasters or political instability. What can a guy do, right? It is a third world country after all in Southeast Asia so storms and typhoons are inevitable along with political strife, coup attempts and pocket revolutions. All that and beauty pageants to boot!

Well, Typhoon Milenyo (international name: Xangsane) has put the Philippines on the world news map, in a manner of speaking, with a reported death toll ranging from 16-28 depending on what report you end up reading. Yes, this country can't even generate a consistent death toll report. Each government department seems to have its own opinion on just how many people are dead, missing or whatever.

Most of the northern island of Luzon remains to be in darkness as a number of power lines remain down - something that makes me hope that this will urge the government to push for underground power lines in the future.



Typhoons like Milenyo always revive discussions about the nature of billboards within the metropolis. Often times they are reported as a hazard to motorists for a variety of reasons such as distracting drivers or getting blown over during typhoons. This is far from the first time this has been considered.

To be fair to the government, the MMDA has previously attempted to get these billboards removed to little avail, meeting resistance from local advertising groups and even the Supreme Court to no avail. Personally, I feel very strongly against the large hazards and hope that this recent storm and the many affected by blown-over billboards might get people to realize the risks we face with them dominating the city skyline and in turn take action.

Then again, money talks more than large scale disasters too, as loathe as we are to admit it at times, and I doubt anything significant will change in time for the next major tropical depression that is bound to hit the country.

Note: Kudos to INQ7.net for using Google as its search engine. It made writing this article a lot easier on the research side.