The Change Mariner: Category: Quadrant

September 1, 2004

Philadelphia Considers Wireless Access For All

Yahoo! News: City officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot. The ambitious plan, now under discussion, would involve placing thousands of small transmitters around the city -- probably...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 10:50 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

July 8, 2004

The Chinese Century

Interesting tidbits from cover story of The New York Times Magazine cover story, The Chinese Century: Because 12 percent of China's exports to the U.S. end up on Wal-Mart's shelves, and because Wal-Mart's trade with China accounts for 1 percent...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 7:18 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 14, 2004

Blog Readers Defy Stereotypes

MediaDailyNews: Blog readers are just a bunch of kids with too many opinions, too little money, and too much time on their hands. Think again. According to a survey of blog readers conducted by Weblog ad network Blogads, they're older...

Posted by Jennifer King at 6:23 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 27, 2004

Parliment Demands Annual Fat Test For Children

Times Online (UK): All children will be ordered to have an annual -- to prevent them becoming so obese that they die before their parents, under proposals being considered by ministers. The plan follows a scathing report on the obesity...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 3:17 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 15, 2004

EU: Genetically Modified Food OK To Eat

San Jose Mercury News: The European Union's head office said Friday that it would approve a type of genetically modified corn for human consumption, ending a six-year biotech moratorium that the United States has challenged at the World Trade Organization....

Posted by Bob King at 9:01 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 14, 2004

Shaking The Timbers Of The House Of Saud

Business Week Online: It is dawning on everyone who does business with the kingdom that the Saudi government is locked in a long, vicious struggle with Islamic militants that threatens to send wave after wave of jitters through the oil...

Posted by Bob King at 4:47 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 13, 2004

North Korean Crisis: China Shows The Way to Pyongyang

International Herald Tribune: Recently, China has begun playing a remarkably proactive role in trying to facilitate a resolution to the North Korean nuclear crisis. The behavior is in direct contrast to its discreet demeanor during the 1994 phase of the...

Posted by Bob King at 7:29 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Gay Marriage: Opening A Pandora's Box?

Town Online (MA): The Supreme Judicial Court's recent decision to allow gay marriages can't prevent same - sex siblings from marrying, says Town Clerk Robert Shea. "I definitely see that happening," said Shea. "There is nothing in the law that...

Posted by Bob King at 4:46 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 11, 2004

Iraq, Digital Photography and The Internet

BBC NEWS: Last year's US-led war in Iraq presented a showcase for the Pentagon's superior military technology - but as the occupation drags on, gadgetry is increasingly showing another side of the American armed forces. Pictures taken by US troops...

Posted by Bob King at 10:47 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

U.S. Training African Forces to Uproot Terrorists

The New York Times: The American campaign against terrorism is opening a new front in a region that military officials fear could become the next base for Al Qaeda -- the largely ungoverned swath of territory stretching from the Horn...

Posted by Bob King at 10:41 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 10, 2004

Islamic Terror Threat On The Rise

San Jose Mercury News: ROME - A series of recent developments in the war on terrorism, barely noticed in the United States, suggests that global Islamist extremism is spreading. Monday, Turkish authorities charged nine people, believed to be part of...

Posted by Bob King at 3:22 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

DARPA's $2.8 Billion Quantum Computing Project

InformationWeek : At a late-January meeting in a Marriott off the Washington beltway in Falls Church, Va., the Defense Department's main technology-research arm floated a proposal as nearly 100 scientists listened. They'd come from Boeing, IBM, Lockheed Martin, and other...

Posted by Bob King at 1:49 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 9, 2004

Threat of 'Dirty Bomb' Growing

Los Angeles Times: Concerns are growing that Al Qaeda or a related group could detonate a "dirty bomb" that would spew radioactive fallout across an American or European city, according to intelligence analysts, diplomats and independent nuclear experts. Although safeguards...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 10:35 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 3, 2004

Healthcare Cost Weigh On California

San Jose Mercury News: From care delivered through the mammoth Medi-Cal program to grants that subsidize university research, the burden of health care is woven into nearly every page of California's $99 billion budget. Last year, the state's medical bill...

Posted by Bob King at 8:34 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Eastern Europe's Immigration Challenge

International Herald Tribune: The changes are small but plain to see: the stray African face on the subway, Ukrainians who clean and build, vegetable markets run not by Czechs but by Vietnamese who offer something truly foreign here - a...

Posted by Bob King at 5:10 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Newest 'Europeans' Struggle to Define That Label

The New York Times: As one of the new generation of Euro-executives who fly around the Continent as readily as others might take the bus across town, Petr Eisler feels at home in Europe, mostly. It is only now and...

Posted by Bob King at 12:45 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 27, 2004

Heightened Surveillance in Wealthy Florida Town

NewsObserver.com: Manalapan, Florida -- One of the nation's wealthiest towns will soon have cameras and computers running background checks on every car and driver that passes through. Police Chief Clay Walker said cameras will take infrared photos recording a car's...

Posted by Bob King at 1:11 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 21, 2004

States' Interest in Stem Cell Research Up

KTOK-AM Oklahoma City: Growing U.S. interest in embryonic stem cell research has produced some 100 bills in 33 states, USA Today reported Wednesday. In California, for example, there is a voter initiative in November that could pump nearly $3 billion...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:53 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 17, 2004

Now Can We Talk About Health Care?

The New York Times: Twenty-first-century problems, like genetic mapping, an aging population and globalization, are combining with old problems like skyrocketing costs and skyrocketing numbers of uninsured, to overwhelm the 20th-century system we have inherited. The way we finance care...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:58 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 16, 2004

FBI Buried by Security Demands

The Washington Times: The number of secret surveillance warrants sought by the FBI has increased 85 percent in the past three years, a pace that has outstripped the Justice Department's ability to process them quickly. Even after warrants are approved,...

Posted by Bob King at 12:20 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 14, 2004

FTC Says Pornographic 'Spam' Must Be Labeled

Yahoo! News: Pornographic "spam" e-mail will have to contain a warning on the subject line so Internet users can easily filter it out, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday. Starting May 19, sexually explicit e-mail will have to...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:30 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

A Change in China's Nuclear Policy

FT.com: China's application to join the 40-nation NSG and its discussion on entry into the MTCR reflect a sea change in thinking in Beijing about where its national interests lie with regards to proliferation, foreign policy experts said. For years,...

Posted by Bob King at 8:08 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

CIA, FBI Need 5 Years to Make Post 9/11 Changes

CBC (Canada): Enormous intelligence and law enforcement gaps that contributed to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are being filled, but it will take years more for America to build the needed systems to effectively combat terrorists, the heads of the...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 5:06 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 13, 2004

Vinod Khosla Leaves Juniper Board, Blames Sarbanes-Oxley

San Jose Mercury News: Vinod Khosla, one of the Bay Area's premier venture capitalists, said Monday that onerous securities regulations had pushed him to step down as a board member of Juniper Networks. He said a host of recent regulations...

Posted by Bob King at 5:01 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 12, 2004

Reject Terror's 'Logic of Death,' Pope Urges

New York Times: Under heightened security that included airport-style metal detectors at the gates of the Vatican, Pope John Paul II used his Easter message on Sunday to plead for the world to unite to overcome terrorism and "the logic...

Posted by Bob King at 9:40 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 4, 2004

Indonesia's Elections

CNN.com: Voters will elect members for a range of government bodies, including a new 550-member national parliament, setting the stage for the country's first direct presidential elections in July. Polling booths in the sprawling archipelago's eastern-most regions opened first in...

Posted by Bob King at 8:31 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

April 3, 2004

Ireland's Smoking Ban

Sunday Herald You might once have met them at close of day, heading with florid faces to bar or restaurant with grey, smoke-filled interiors, but no more. As Alan Taylor discovers, the world's first national ban on smoking seems to...

Posted by Bob King at 8:34 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

Stricter Rules on Foreign Visitors

San Jose Mercury News: The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it planned to require travelers from 27 industrialized nations -- including longtime allies like Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and Australia -- to be photographed and electronically fingerprinted...

Posted by Bob King at 7:58 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 24, 2004

New French Terror Threat: AZF

My Way News: AZF's threats, first disclosed earlier this month, appeared in at least three letters sent to the offices of President Jacques Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Dec. 10, Feb. 13 and Feb. 17. The letters, demanding...

Posted by Bob King at 11:22 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

U.S. Puts World Ports On Notice

New York Times: The response to this threat is a new law of the sea, spurred by Admiral Loy, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush 16 months ago. A parallel global code was adopted days later under American...

Posted by Bob King at 11:17 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

Medicare Overseers Expect Soaring Costs

New York Times: Medicare's financial condition has significantly deteriorated, partly because of exploding health costs and partly because of the new Medicare law, the government reported on Tuesday. In its annual report to Congress, the Medicare board of trustees said...

Posted by Bob King at 9:02 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 17, 2004

Health Savings Accounts

KXAN: There are some healthy benefits in the new Medicare law that could help you save money. Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs, have been in effect since Jan. 1. Like Roth IRAs, they're a tax-free way for people to set...

Posted by Bob King at 2:27 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 14, 2004

Cracks In U.S. War Machine

Times Picayune: Since toppling Saddam Hussein last year, a number of cracks have developed in the U.S. war machine: -- The Iraq invasion caught the Pentagon so short of military cargo planes that it had to hire Russian aircraft to...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 7:19 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 12, 2004

Ikrut, Russian Military Plane Maker, Goes Public

New York Times: In another sign of just how far Russia has changed, Irkut, a formerly secret maker of military airplanes that had spent decades helping the Soviet Union defend itself against the capitalist West, has turned to the stock...

Posted by Bob King at 2:54 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 9, 2004

Is Your 14 Year-Old Ready to Vote?

San Jose Mercury News: Sen. John Vasconcellos, in an unusual and likely quixotic bid to boost participation at the polls, introduced a bill Monday to allow Californians as young as 14 to vote. The proposal, which would grant people ages...

Posted by Bob King at 9:02 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 4, 2004

Gay Marriage Enters Political Mainstream

Mercury News: The issue of gay marriage continued its seemingly inexorable spread beyond San Francisco on Wednesday, with ceremonies in Portland, Ore., the possibility of new benefits in San Jose and a more powerful presence in the race for the...

Posted by Bob King at 8:53 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

Swiss Re Warns of Global Waming Catastrophe

The world's second-largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, warned on Wednesday that the costs of natural disasters, aggravated by global warming, threatened to spiral out of control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own making. In a report...

Posted by Bob King at 8:51 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 26, 2004

China To Stifle Online Speech

Los Angeles Times: China on Monday launched a major crackdown on one of the most vibrant parts of the Internet, the news discussion groups that have pushed the boundary of free speech. The new rules ban independent reporting that has...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 10:48 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 24, 2004

China Now Driving Japanese Exports

The Herald (UK): The latest upturn in Japan's economic fortunes is once more export led, despite a currency that is 10% stronger today than it was a year ago. However, the primary driver behind today's soaring demand for Japanese goods...

Posted by Bob King at 2:17 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 23, 2004

Outsourcing Jobs To India: Meet The Zippies

New York Times (Op-Ed): "The Zippies Are Here," declared the Indian weekly magazine Outlook. Zippies are this huge cohort of Indian youth who are the first to come of age since India shifted away from socialism and dived headfirst into...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:03 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

Blogs: Lasting Impact On Politics

WSJ.com (subscription): Blogs, for instance, have been closely identified with the Dean campaign from the start. These are personal, frequently updated Web pages that typically contain short essays on sundry topics. The early Dean blogs, created by backers of the...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 12:07 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 22, 2004

The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare

Fortune.com by David Stipp : The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues. Scientists generally refuse to say much about that, citing a data deficit. But recently, renowned Department of Defense...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 10:51 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Security Efforts Turning Washington, D.C. Into Armed Camp

New York Times: Day by day, the nation's capital is becoming a fortress, turning a city known for graceful beauty into a virtual armed camp. In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal security agents along with their...

Posted by Bob King at 8:12 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Japan, South Korea Draw Closer

New York Times: In recent years, especially since Japan and South Korea were co-hosts of the World Cup in 2002, the exchange in popular culture has risen sharply. Although the legacies of Japan's brutal colonial rule here remain close to...

Posted by Bob King at 7:25 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 21, 2004

The Internet Political Attack Ad

New York Times: When the Web was in its infancy, Internet utopians envisioned a political revolution, predicting that the new medium would engage and empower voters as never before. Much of what they envisioned has come to pass, with the...

Posted by Bob King at 9:55 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 19, 2004

Low-Carb Boom Isn't Just For Dieters Anymore

New York Times: Marc and Connie Foreman are not on the Atkins, South Beach, Zone, Lindora or any other low-carbohydrate diet. Yet here they were, waiting for a table at T.G.I. Friday's, a restaurant they have only driven past for...

Posted by Bob King at 5:19 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 18, 2004

Scott Peterson Case: Satellite Tracking Data Admitted

Mercury News: A judge ruled that evidence police gathered using electronic devices to track Scott Peterson after his pregnant wife disappeared can be used in his murder trial, despite defense objections that the technology is unreliable. Because global positioning system...

Posted by Bob King at 9:37 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 16, 2004

China Rethinks The Peg Tying Yuan and Dollar

WSJ.com (registration required): Pressures building within China's hard-charging economy are driving Beijing to re-examine the Chinese currency's iron-like tether to the U.S. dollar, with a loosening looking more and more like a matter of when, not if. The U.S., the...

Posted by Bob King at 12:41 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Russia's Health Care System Is Crumbling

Wall Street Journal (registraton required): The dire state of Russia's public-health system has helped create what President Vladimir Putin calls a national emergency: Every year nearly a million more Russians die than are born. Even with surging immigration, mostly from...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 12:21 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 14, 2004

Gay Nuptials for Hundreds in San Francisco

A San Francisco judge Friday refused to stop the city's unprecedented gay marriage spree, prompting elated officials to declare they will keep City Hall open through the three-day weekend so more same-sex couples can tie the knot. Superior Court...

Posted by Bob King at 10:03 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

The Change Mariner Quadrant - Political