Magic:each year the Mediterranean gets cleaner !more and more beaches get the coveted blue flag !Wonderful...Minor detail: measurements are usually made by national authorities, before the start of the tourist season, and after local officials have been notified that the surveyors are due to arrive, so that they make the necessary preparations...Extra: see a not so blue, blue flag sign at http://www.ecoclub.com/news/082.pdf

Mark Inglis, a former mountain guide who had lost both his limbs to frostbite in his twenties, now in mid-life,already an Olympian (silver medal in the 2000 Paralympics) and a winemaker, reaches Mt Everest and proves that (1) the power of an individual can move mountains, (2) that technological progress matters and can be put to good, peaceful use (3) that a caring, inclusive society can work miracles.Still, I have observed many 'able-bodied' fellow citizens who find it so hard to walk.

A fascinating gallery & quick reference guide of microscopic images of the 50 most common pesticides used in agriculture: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/pesticides/index.html Somewhat worryingly, the pictures look similar to those in the beer gallery: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/beershots/index.html

The old anarchist adage goes 'property is theft', however few realise that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon meant the property of state, the landlords and the capitalists, rather than the individual. Indeed he saw individual property as "the triumph of Liberty".The same distinction can apply to 'intellectual property'. Indeed intellectual property presents the added problem that it is meant to be shared, unlike, say, your house, your dog, or your toothbrush. And only by risking its theft through publication, does the right come into definition.So there is a distinction between the individual rights of authors and those of a large publishing house. The internet has further complicated matters, by emancipating individual authors and other inventors/creators, but at the same time easing copying/theft -witness peer to peer programs and their agonising persecution by music multinationals. Plagiarism, a form of intellectual theft, abounds online, but on the other hand it can be detected in milliseconds, also...

Q: which is one of the most expensive googlead keywords?A: pro-poor tourism !Something is rotten in the state of Advertenmark

"Species Trophy Fee" (USD) Baboon 110 Buffalo first 720 Buffalo second 870 Buffalo third 1010 Bushbuck 410 Bushpig 230 Caracal 90 Civet Cat 170 Crocodile 1010 Dik-Dik 210 Duiker 220 Eland 1010 Elephant 5000Zebra 710More "trophies" and shooting menus at http://www.hunting-tanzania.com/trophy_fees.htmSo much for the "conservation value" of animals and other neo-conservationist talk.If you see animals as bucks that's what you get, sorry. When will this sort of thing stop and how?

In an article entitled "Return of antiquities hitting grave robbers in bankbook" The Los Angeles Times reports the return by NY Met Museum of Art to the Italian authorities, of a greek 2,500 year old wine mixing bowl and 20 other items stolen by tomb raiders 40 years ago from an Etruscan tomb near Rome. In March 2005, Italy and Ethiopia, an Italian colony under Mussolini, agreed on the return of the Aksum obelisk to Ethiopia.It is a long established fact that stolen artifacts make up the vast majority of exhibits in the worlds top museums. Thus in 1970 a UNESCO Convention called for the return of antiquities to their countries of origin. Greece has been officially requesting for the last 25 years the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, but the Athens Olympics passed without any positive development, and despite an semi-humorous on-camera request from the then Greek PM to...

War on Terrorism Cost: USD 2,000,000,000,000Iraq war could cost US up to 2 trillion, according to Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, Forbes reports. War on Want Cost: USD 45,700,000,000 (20 times less)War on Want estimates that US$45.7 billion would be required for 62 countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals>>> http://www.waronwant.org/For a running total of the cost of war to the US taxpayer, see:>>> http://nationalpriorities.org/

On New Years' Eve, verse 1 and 3 from John Lennon's Imagine:Imagine there's no heaven,It's easy if you try,No hell below us,Above us only sky,Imagine all the peopleliving for today...Imagine no possesions,I wonder if you can,No need for greed or hunger,A brotherhood of man,Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world...---Imagine John Lennonstill aliveat least he did nothave to seewhat happened inthe last 5 years

The Kronia (or Cronia) was a very ancient greek festival in honor of Kronos (Cronus) and Rhea, adopted by the Romans in the 5th century BCE as Saturnalia (Saturn = Kronos) and much later by the Christians as Christmas. (Early Christians established holidays for each 'pagan' feast - exactly as christian missionaries and conquistadores did much later in Latin America). The Kronia survived until the 12th century in some parts of Greece including the mountainous south of the Peloponese . Kronos and Rhea were the parents of Dias (Zeus - cf. "dio"). During Kronia (and Saturnalia) masters and slaves would exchange roles so this 'revolutionary' character was what probably attracted early Christians to set Saturnalia as their main festivity. Later, in the 4th c. CE the Byzantine/Roman Emperor Theodosius banned any festivity that had not yet been converted to a Christian one, including the Olympics, while the christian mobs destroyed or...