Sixteen of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China, according to World Bank research. Yet a report sponsored by the Chinese Government which uncovered potentially scary information was edited to “prevent social unrest”.

Missing from this report are the research project’s findings that high air-pollution levels in Chinese cities is leading to the premature deaths of 350,000-400,000 people each year. A further 300,000 people die prematurely each year from exposure to poor air indoors, according to advisers, but little discussion of this issue survived in the report because it was outside the ambit of the Chinese ministries which sponsored the research.

Another 60,000-odd premature deaths were attributable to poor-quality water, largely in the countryside, from severe diarrhea, and stomach, liver and bladder cancers.

The mortality information was “reluctantly” excised by the World Bank from the published report, according to advisers to the research project.

Sepa and the health ministry declined to comment. The World Bank said that the findings of the report were still being discussed with the government.

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Hey, did you hear about the 5 year old kid who killed a 400 pound bear? Well, now you have… and oh yeah, he’s a descendant of Davy Crockett. Figures.

DEWITT, Ark. — A 5-year-old Arkansas County boy killed a black bear Sunday weighing more than 400 pounds.

Tre Merritt, a descendant of Davy Crockett, was hunting with his grandfather Mike Merritt when a black bear happened upon their stand.

“His 10th great-grandfather was Davy Crockett,” Mike Merritt said. “And Davy supposedly killed him a bear when he was three. And Tre is five and really killed a bear. I really doubt if Davy killed one when he was three.”

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Mother Russia is hurting. And Garry Kasparov is taking the brunt of it.

On Saturday 11/24 while leading a peaceful march he was taken into custody, beaten, and jailed for 5 days. This is nothing new for Kasparov. Back in April he was beaten and arrested during a protest as well. The notable thing about that rally was that it was co-organized by Putin’s own former prime minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov.
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Here is some breaking news. This video was only released yesterday, and it demonstrates a clear and frankly unbelievable abuse of power by a Utah Highway Patrol officer.

Some guy was pulled over for speeding and argued with the police officer a bit about the speed limit. It’s a bit hard to hear but it sounds to me like the guy was going about 60, but the highway speed limit changed to 40, and that is exactly where the cop pulled him over. I’m guessing it was a classic speed trap.

Anyway, the police officer writes him a ticket, which he refuses to sign, so the cop pulls him out of the car and tasers him. Meanwhile his pregnant wife is freaking out!
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Here is some exciting breaking news! My former boss, and head honcho over at SAVVIS Communications, Jack Finlayson just took on the role of CEO and Chairman at Layered Technologies, a good sized Web hosting company that also happens to host WordPress - which as we all know is the software I use to run One Man’s Blog!

Folks, this is pretty amazing because Jack is a $Billion company CEO, and he chose to go to Layered Tech. I believe the reason is that one of this companies specialties lies in Grid Computing, which in essense takes a giant farm of computers, straps them together, and sells you as much or little of the power as you need. Kind of the same philosophy as a utility company. You plug in, use what you need, and only pay for that much.
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A while back I wrote about a video of a Muslim cleric who gave a lecture on the proper way to beat a woman. And of course we were recently reminded of the true tragedy of spousal abuse with this film of a man actually beating his wife.

Well, thanks to Adi again we have this follow up lecture from another muslim “holy” man explaining with amazingly twisted logic why women do indeed need to be beaten.
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Folks, I’ve been saying that if you haven’t already, you NEED to see An Inconvenient Truth. If it doesn’t change the way you look at the world, then you probably have no heart. (Grin!)

I also previously reported that Gore had been Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. This is not just because he made a movie and won an Oscar, it’s because he has devoted his private life to the cause of climate change - and like it or not many, many, many people happen to agree with him and are happy he is carrying out this work.

So, today Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

“for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”

It’s too early to see the announcement on video, but Nobel has a YouTube channel which will no doubt post the video of this announcement shortly. View it here.
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Yea! Southwest Airlines just sent me an e-mail today that very soon they will be restructuring their boarding process. This should help eliminate some of that …having to get to the gate to stand in line for an hour in a cattle stall before you board the plane… crap!

The deal is, now instead of just having a free for all, when you login on line and print your boarding pass you will be assigned a number along with your boarding group. Monitors will direct people to board according to the new more specific groupings, and you don’t have to stand in line to do it!
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Here are this week’s links… otherwise known as things that I would have blogged about, if I had time to do so…

• Beleaguered bear in bridge rescue (in Pictures)
• UK can now demand data decryption on penalty of jail time
• Burmese monks ‘to be sent away’
• 20 Most Amazing Coincidences
• 10 Reasons To Eat More Chocolate

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There are plenty of national and international news sites, but the cool thing about Topix is that after you tell it your location, every time you visit you only see the news that is local to YOU!

This makes the site a must on everyone’s reading list because you don’t want to just be well informed about what is going on elsewhere, you need to know what’s happening at home.
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This is definitely one of the strangest natural phenomenon I’ve ever read about.

Just imagine dumping enough dish-washing liquid into the ocean to turn all the waves into light and fluffy soap bubbles that are soft enough to blow out of your hand into the air…

Well, that’s basically what happened off the coast of Yamba in New South Wales!

Here we see kids frolicking and playing in the wonderful ocean foam, oblivious to the fact that it is comprised of dead plants, decomposed fish, and seaweed excretions!
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Well, a little over a week ago I received my own personal invitation from Hugh Hefner to join the exclusive society of the Playboy Passport club. Ok, it was a form letter, and Hef probably hasn’t even heard my name yet. But the invite does have his signature on it.

What is Passport you may ask? Well, according to Playboy:

Playboy Passport is the elite members-only concierge service dedicated to providing its members exclusive access to the best in dining, nightlife, travel, and special events.

It’s also limited to 1,000 people worldwide. Forever.
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