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Call of Duty IV Trailer

Click here for HD version.

Apparently they've gone for a modern combat setting.

US Campaign '08: Analyses of voters & Iraq

A poll about the US elections in 2008 and the Iraq funding compromise. Who will become president next year? Full poll is in the main link.

Confusing Google

I ripped pimp's Baghdad blogger video and uploaded it to Google Video so I could post it on a video blog I frequent. The video was put online after a while, only to be rejected a couple of minutes later. I received this email (in Dutch):

Hallo, Uw video "BaghdagBlogger.avi" is geweigerd omdat deze niet voldoet aan ons programmabeleid. De ingezonden video's worden van tevoren gecontroleerd om ervoor te zorgen dat ze voldoen aan onze richtlijnen. Wanneer video's niet hieraan voldoen, worden ze afgekeurd.

To which my reply was: "What are you talking about, what is this strange language that you are using?" To which their reply was:

Hi ****, Thanks for your email. The previous email was in Dutch. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused. Your video "BaghdagBlogger.avi" was rejected because it didn't comply with our Program Policies.

the funny thing is, the video is still online.

Jet Man!

Finally, and this since last Autumn, his dream became reality mainly because of 4 model-engines which were built under his wings. With these, he can fly at over 200km/hr and conquer mountain summits. During the flight, Yves's body becomes the likes of a bird and, other than a gas handle, Yves does not ride his wings but truly flies them, using various light body movements that he has learned to handle with perfection. These body movements are equal to those that birds use to fly...

And like Batman, when he flies alongside airplanes they can only look and admire him when he activates the acceleration button which makes him disappear at an incredible speed through the blue skies.

What a rush that must be...

Baghdad Blogger

I'm sure you are all aware of the situation in Iraq. Maybe you haven't heard of the Baghdad Blogger, Salam Pax. He has made 4 short films about life in Baghdad. About life he says: "Our lives today are as valuable as empty bullet casings". Those 4 films have been broadcasted in 2 programs by CNN, World's Untold Stories. Salam on his first and second program. And this is CNN's description: We see disturbing pictures from Iraq on a daily basis. Reporters reporting. Politicians talking. But what about the ordinary Iraqis who struggle to earn a living, keep the family unit intact and simply survive from one day to the next? "Baghdad Blogger" Salam Pax takes an insightful and sometimes irreverent look at the daily travails in two reports: "How to Stay Alive in Iraq" and "How to Have Fun in Baghdad." Although women make up 60 percent of the population in Iraq, they remain marginalized. Since the war, many feel their position has deteriorated. "Millions are being pushed back into their houses. We are seeing measures that were not there before," states one resident. In "The Battle for Women's Rights," Baghdad Blogger Salam Pax looks at the extraordinary challenges -- and risks -- that many women in Iraq face. Also in this edition of "World's Untold Stories," Pax shows us how to "Make it Rich" in a country with an economy in tatters.

Astronomers Find First Habitable Earth-like Planet

Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and capable of having liquid water. Using the ESO 3.6-m telescope, a team of Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists discovered a super-Earth about 5 times the mass of the Earth that orbits a red dwarf, already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet. The astronomers have also strong evidence for the presence of a third planet with a mass about 8 Earth masses.

This exoplanet - as astronomers call planets around a star other than the Sun -- is the smallest ever found up to now [1] and it completes a full orbit in 13 days. It is 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is from the Sun. However, given that its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581 [2], is smaller and colder than the Sun -- and thus less luminous -- the planet nevertheless lies in the habitable zone, the region around a star where water could be liquid!

"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explains Stéphane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) and lead-author of the paper reporting the result. "Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky -- like our Earth -- or covered with oceans," he adds.

Full Article...

Hopefully they will hurry up with Darwin, New Worlds Imager and Terrestrial Planet Finder, so we might be able to really see the planet and even determine if life is there. But we will probably have to wait to either 2014 or 2020 for the first of the missions to launch.