Googles the mind

You know Google's planned free mail service? They plan to read your mail and attach relevant ads. They won't be reading mine.

Is it just me?

Is there something creepy and disrespectful about putting the mummy of a 12 year old girl on show? Disturbing the peace of the dead for learning is one thing, but this is like a sideshow attraction... in one Meet the Ancestors, they unearthed Christian graves, and then monks came and prayed and sang over them. I read of archaeologists in Central America lighting candles for the ancient dead (and pinched it and put it in Sleepy). Let the child get some rest.

Politics and the English Language

Orwell, on obfuscation: Politics and the English Language.

And here's a picture - Donald Rumsfeld, on the mess in Iraq:

"I certainly would not have estimated that we'd have had the number of individuals lost in the last week. If someone had said, 'Would you, a year ago, have expected you would be where you are at the present time?' obviously . . . one would not have described where we are."

Or, in English:

"I didn't guess so many Americans would die in just one week. We didn't see this coming."

(OK, to be fair, spoken English shouldn't be judged as harshly as written English, which has time to be redrafted. But Rumsfeld's euphemistic rambling betrays exactly the mentality Orwell describes. <- how's *that* for a sentence? Holy cow!)

Fatally unsafe working conditions

HIV scare calls halt to porn shoots

One of the reasons I largely eschew video porn: how can I be sure someone wasn't killed while making it?