ecoclub.com/blogs - news & views from ecoclub.com members

The link between sun lotions, sunbathing and skin cancer is now well-established. Ironically, the higher the protection-factor - pharmaceutical companies trying to sell you the most expensive one - the higher the risk of developing skin cancer. However, scientists are now starting to also worry about the impact of sun lotions on thyreoid, due to the presence of the chemicals 4MBC and benzophenone in mass-produced sun lotions. Perhaps it's time to appreciate and immitate the cultures who dress-up fully on the beach, and realise the stupidity of sunbathing - we are not seals after all.

Search engines are wonderful tools. Like all wonderful tools, they are not inherently benevolent. Unlike all wonderful tools, they are not only controlled by their user... Have you ever wondered that major search engines now know: where you live, what you search, what you post, where you buy, what you buy, where you advertise, what you read, what messages you send, what messages you receive, oh and what you have inside your pc. Your only slim advantage? that you know that they know. But they also know that you know that they know. And who is 'they' ? Just follow the money...

Seen on the web:Bar for sale - 'a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'(included: a very friendly local partner) QUOTE The bar itself is renowned, not only as an entertainment hub with a massive turnover, ....the only such system on the Island. Fair, open contracts with all staff are in place and our local partner, essential for good island relations, has a small 10% share. He is also a well respected member of the Island’s head family, and is very content with the way the business has integrated into the community.

The world's second-richest person, duly noted that 6bn people have less money than the six wealthiest people in the United States, then pledged 80% of his fortune to the world's first-richest person. Very moving. 6bn are jumping up and down with joy.

In tennis, 'Quiet please' is a soft-spoken polite request to chattering/gossiping fans.Mix the livelier world of football and the proverbial sex tourism destination, however, and you get more potent results:http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=...427&sec=apworld QUOTE A gunman shot and killed two soccer fans at the beach resort of Pattaya, Thailand after complaining they were cheering too loud during a broadcast of Italy's World Cup opener against Ghana

The World Cup starts in a few hours in Germany, and all hope that it will be peaceful and not in any way similar to the Munich games. Our forecast:  France vs Italy and Zidane will get a red card  (...)More serious however is the influx & illegal trafficking of prostitutes from all over Europe to cover the 'needs' of some 3 million, mostly male sports fans.The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women has issued this petition in many languages,http://catwepetition.ouvaton.org/php/index.phpbut one wonders if any of the 'clients' will bother to read it, or really ever comprehend thatprostitution is just the flip side of oppression, and lack of freedom in human relations.

Thousands of astrologists, witches and other religious experts are hiding today, as 666 is already yesterday and we are all still here. Prejudice, mysticism, secret signs & codes etc will of course gradually re-surface - next year is the 777, then 888 and so on. Witness also the success of the Da Vinci Code feature film, which borders between the banal and the amusing.More important, however is when backwardness and irrationality, masking under religion, directly impact on the lifes of millions: Already 40 MILLION people have contracted AIDS, and 25 MILLION have already died. So what can one say of those religious leaders who keep on preaching against the use of condoms in the developing world on 'moral grounds' and those neo-cons who support them by banning funding to birth control charities? Well, one can say that they are morally responsible for the deaths of millions from AIDS, and that they can, and I bet will, be successfully sued by some clever lawyer out there. Any takers?

media are dominated by cries of anguish when autocrats turn 'populists' overnight through some form of divine enlightenement, and decide to expropriate large 'underused' expat/absentee properties, but the idea of big nothern NGOs buying huge swaths of land in developing countries (the sort that 'behave themselves') to 'protect it', 'save it' and other divine interventions, could it also be a form of expropriation?

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.