Author: Carl Setzer

Australians unite, almost, on Aboriginal apology

It’s sad how little of this I’ve heard in the US media. It is a critical moment in world history, and in the global movement for aboriginal peoples.

‘Mobile, coffee don’t cause cancer’

Brendan Stewart, a professor at the University of New South Wales, has released a study that refutes the idea that cell phones, coffee, and deodorants cause cancer. It also damns tobacco as the worst carcinogen, stating it worse than asbestos.

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".

I feel a bit negligent that I just noticed this dust up over that really started last week. I’ve had a great deal of respect for Archbishop Rowan Williams, and certainly don’t envy the fault lines he needs to navigate in the current state of the Anglican Communion.  What I find most compelling in his statement is the idea of multiple tiers of “the law”.  This debate really seems to be concerning the limits of the state. Should a non-governmental agency have the ability to offer up some type of judicial action, or is that only reserved for state sanctioned courts? Personally, I see the state in charge of minimally necessary social laws (private property rights, what-have-you), perhaps leaving room for some other level of social governance. However, for these entities, people should be able to engage and disengage at will. In other words, if someone converts from Islam, they would no longer be subject to the Sharia court’s jurisdiction. I guess this could be viewed as a secondary social compact. Anyway, with this, just because someone might be able to disentangle themselves from this court doesn’t mean that they would be free of recrimination for violating the covenant they engaged in, whether ostracization or something else. The state would just provide limits on the level of punishment. Interesting ideas, really. This is just what rattles off my fingers at the basic, first read. I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say, of course.

This is one of the most bizarre products I’ve seen in ages; a canned cheeseburger! Now, if they come up with canned French fries, these folks might get the Nobel nod. Thanks to Lindsey for the link, uh, well, I think.

I’ve had this Blogger account for several years, and it’s mostly been satisfying. However, I’ve been playing with the idea of shifting my blog’s hosting from Blogspot to something with a unique domain (I don’t know if I’d use Questionsall.com or something else, like flyingmonkeys.com or whatever). The biggest thing, it seems, is whether I want to start from scratch, or port this blog over. Porting no problem, and I could simply utilize my Blogger account, blah blah. I wonder, though, about Word Press’s tools. A number of my friends swear by them. From my limited messing around, they seem quite solid. I’ve event found some sites that explain ways to port Blogger info into Word Press. We’ll see, I guess. I still have a great deal of deciding to do, and my brain’s bandwidth is rather strapped right now.

CBS Adds On-Demand Music To Last.fm

First, I’m rather embarrassed that I didn’t know that CBS had acquired last.fm. This is a nice leap for them. Though Forbes only mentions Napster, Real and Yahoo as competitors, this is really helpful against groups like Pandora. Streaming music is becoming an interesting intersection of commerce and netizens.

A second point with this, Forbes.com seems to have figured out the web. First, they have dropped their annoying intro videos (I passionately hated them). Secondly, they’ve added solid social elements, such as comments, Digg, Facebook, and del.icio.us tags. Forbes might be leading the way for grown-up social media on the web.

Perhaps I’m silly, but why is Congress investigating baseball and steroids? Why is this in the national interest? Heck, I’d even be a bit annoyed if the FBI was spending resources on this, and this is within the scope of their function. This is absolute foolishness! However, Dr. Grossman, Dean Julius Isaacson professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, says it with much better sarcasm and wit than I could muster.