Nation: The California Energy Commission is finalizing plans that would allow it to have the emergency power to control thermostats in homes and buildings across the state, The International Herald Tribune reports.
World: Not so fast, say thousands of protesters in Georgia who say the recent election of Mikheil Saakashvili was rigged, Breitbart reports.
Arts: It’s an age-old struggle. In England, when the money gets tight (or £112.5 million of cultural money is diverted to the coming Olympics), the arts get the ax. According to The Guardian, about 200 regional companies (most theatres) are in danger of losing all their funding. Sir Ian McKellen and and others a leading a vocal protest.
Science: New York City is cloning 25 historical trees — five each from the five boroughs — for the planting of a million new trees across the city, The AP (via Physorg.com) reports.
Health: In a controversial reversal of the current organ donor protocol, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says doctors in Britain should be allowed to harvest organs from a dead body unless the patient opts out, the Telegraph reports.
O P I N I O N
Though I must come clean and admit I worked for a couple advertising agencies in the past and know the value of their work, I’m disgusted by the intrusiveness of current pop-up style campaigns. Ads load first on Web pages and make you wait when you try to sign off from AOL. How many precious minutes of your life are wasted by these advertising efforts — many that would not even appeal to you?
At the newspaper where I worked, “flying ads” with activated cars that would drive across the screen blocked access to the breaking news. Last night a TV show I was watching had ads running continuously and obtrusively along the bottom of the screen, while a logo for something else floated in the upper left-hand corner. On VH1, I saw singer Kate Nash performing while the screen was split, broken up into floating cubes or flashed back and forth between her and ads for new series and a coming disaster flick.
I know we all shorter attention spans these days, but this trend is ridiculous.
♣ Nation/world news tally in my local paper today: 2¾ pages
Feed me 5 Under the Radar
