AFP is reporting that a grand assembly of filmmakers, actors and producers from around the world have signed a petition urging the release of director Roman Polanski, who was arrested Sunday in Switzerland on a warrant for a 1977 underage sex case in the United States…

Polanski petition signatories, as of September 29th:

Just two days after HarperCollins announced that Palin’s “Going Rogue” had been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17, preorders Wednesday night for the former Alaska governor’s memoir made it No. 1 on both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

Among the books “Going Rogue” is outselling: Sen. Ted Kennedy’s “True Compass,” Mitch Albom’s “Have a Little Faith” and Brown’s “The Lost Symbol,” his first novel since “The Da Vinci Code” and, perhaps until now, the year’s most anticipated release.

SUCK IT LYMPIANS! 

*gah* Next!

N.O’Really

Masked Palestinian Hamas militants speak to the press during a press conference in Gaza City, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009. Israel and Hamas militants announced a deal Wednesday that will see Israel release 20 Palestinian women from prison this week in exchange for a videotape proving that a captive Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip is still alive. The decision was the first tangible sign of movement in more than three years of talks over the release of the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who has not been seen since he was captured by Hamas-linked militants in a cross-border raid in June 2006.

First Lady Michelle Obama is shown in this undated publicity photograph as she plants a garden on “Sesame Street” with characters Big Bird and Elmo.

It’s not a scientific poll on the popularity of President Barack Obama, but souvenir shops in Washington and elsewhere say sales of all things Obama are softening.

Back in January, it was nearly impossible to escape the Obama commercial boom. His image and words were on millions of T-shirts, posters and commemorative plates. Even Corporate America got in on the Obama blitz with PepsiCo and Swedish furniture store Ikea joining the chorus.

At the Political Americana store across the street from the White House, the red, white and blue Obama “Hope” image that appeared on many campaign posters is still the most popular T-shirt.

The slowdown follows a slide in the polls and intense debate on issues including the bailouts and health care reform.

There’s always HOPE

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday easily rejected the inclusion of a government-run “public” insurance option, backed by President Barack Obama, in its sweeping healthcare reform bill.

This is where Ratti’s Trash Track project comes in. His team have developed tags consisting of a battery-powered Sim card and motion sensor, encased in resin, which updates them about the location of a piece of rubbish every 15 minutes for up to eight weeks.

Lewis Girod, who designed the tags, says they can use the mobile phone network to pinpoint an object to within 100 metres or so in the city, and around half a mile in the country.

Ratti likens the use of these tags to injecting a radioactive substance into a patient in order to find blockages that might be causing health problems.

In this case, the blockages are problems with a city’s waste-disposal system: by tracking the final resting place of pieces of waste, from coffee cups to fluorescent bulbs, they can discover whether stuff that can be recycled ends up in a landfill. That applies not just to glass and plastics, but valuable (or toxic) substances such as gold, aluminium, nickel, copper, zinc, lead, cadmium and mercury, too.

As soon as he had spelt out the potential, I asked Carlo if I could get hold of some tags for a pilot project. A few months later, I was able to sit in London and watch a similar screen, tracking 60 pieces of rubbish in Seattle. Each one had a story to tell…

N.O’Really

Values

...The theory was that great nations start out tough-minded and energetic. Toughness and energy lead to wealth and power. Wealth and power lead to affluence and luxury. Affluence and luxury lead to decadence, corruption and decline.

...Yet despite its amazing wealth, the United States has generally remained immune to this cycle. American living standards surpassed European living standards as early as 1740. But in the U.S., affluence did not lead to indulgence and decline.

That’s because despite the country’s notorious materialism, there has always been a countervailing stream of sound economic values. The early settlers believed in Calvinist restraint. The pioneers volunteered for brutal hardship during their treks out west. Waves of immigrant parents worked hard and practiced self-denial so their children could succeed. Government was limited and did not protect people from the consequences of their actions, thus enforcing discipline and restraint. ...

He’s got a point, there.  But then....

A crusade for economic self-restraint would have to rearrange the current alliances and embrace policies like energy taxes ...

*sigh*

I know it wasn’t rape-rape...

CAfacepalm

Yet even among such dilettantes, the abruptness of Whitman’s conversion from businesswoman to politician stands out. Not only has the 2010 gubernatorial candidate never held office, but an analysis of her record by the Sacramento Bee showed that she hadn’t even registered to vote until she was 46 years old, and only became a Republican two years ago.