Nuclear options

Unable to figure out on his own why the United States hasn’t built a new nuclear power plant in 30 years, George W. stated during a tour of just such a plant that we need more “safe, clean, reliable electricty,” and apparently installing more nuclear power plants with nuclear waste we’re not sure of what to do with or how to protect them from terrorist attacks is just the ticket!

And we’ll just ignore for the moment that the man’s pending energy bill — loaded to the gills with tax incentives and loan guarantees for energy producers (hello, big oil!) — will cost you and I a net revenue loss of $1.2 billion.

Also: Any guesses as to how many times the first idiot said “nucular” during his tour and pronouncements?

UnPhotoshopping

Scientists from the University of Roma Tre in Italy have developed a way to tell if an original digital image has been changed to reflect, oh, I dunno, Tom Cruise naked or Pamela Anderson with tiny breasts. A computer generated hologram is watermarked into an image’s bits and bytes. If the original image is then tampered with, those with the encryption key can go in and pull the CGH back out.

The CGH is added as random, high frequency noise that can’t be detected by the naked eye. This hologram is based on light patterns made by a real hologram, so it’s much smaller than the original.

Ass Crack City

Apparently, New York City has an ass crack problem, and not just with its plumbers. Men of every stripe (but, one hopes, more of the fit and muscular than the flabby and sagging) are lowering their wasitbands and exposing inches of butt cleavage and pube tips.

These aren’t the baggy jeans that skater punks and hip-hop wannabes of yore used to lower to their knees, these are the $150+ per pair designer jeans from Seven, Prada and Blue Cult that line the racks of trendy boutiques — and in some cases, the boys are wearing the girls’ styles.

If, in fact, New York is one year ahead of the west coast — and two years ahead of the rest of the country — in fashion trends, I fear that the 2007 pre-election Presidential blitz through the red states is going to depend heavily on one’s ass crack, rather than one’s butthead.

U.S. Justice: 3 burned SUVs = 22.5 prison years

In 2000, Jeff Juers was 22 years old and concerned about America’s contributions to global warming. But rather than whine about it on a weblog like you and I, he set fire to three SUVs on a Eugene, Oregon car lot.

So the judge called him an “ecoterrorist” and sentenced to 22 years, 6 months prison time. He is starting his fifth year behind bars this month.

In order to silence him, the Department of Corrections has tried to strip him of all free speech rights while he sits in prison, censoring his outgoing mail and denying CNN and 60 Minutes access to videotape him, all of which are in violation of prison restrictions placed on other prisoners — except those in Gitmo, probably.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Luer remains convinced of his views, points out many inconsistencies concerning how the U.S. government defines and handles terrorist acts, and believes his act of anarchy pales in comparison with what corporations get away with every day.

Is Fake for real?

Flickr founder Fake says that the next big online challenge will be engendering trust, or Reputation Management in AJAX-speak. Speaking at Supernova this week, Caterina Fake says that with everyone blogging, photoblogging, podcasting and invading your so-called privacy on an hourly basis, “trust (will be) the thing that makes the Internet possible.”

And you thought it was all about wires, servers, hubs and computers! Ha! Moron.

But how does one build trust online? Obviously not by hiding behind some fake names and posting shit about whatever cranks your ‘nads. Except here. Because we’re more special than that and you trust us because we… we don’t…

Hmm.