"Life is cheap here," he mutters. He displays boxes and boxes of seized high-tech gear. Even personnel at the bottom of the cartel food chain have Israeli night-vision goggles, ICOM radio frequency scanners, and Magellan GPS handhelds.

Posted by GeeTee at July 02, 2002 09:52 PM

Since June 18, 669 kilograms of radioactive blueberries have been seized and destroyed.

Posted by GeeTee at July 02, 2002 09:27 PM

Psychiatrists plan to use the virtual environment to convince patients that their hallucinations are not real experiences, and that they suffer from an illness that requires treatment. They also hope that confronting patients with their own psychoses in this way will help when drug therapy fails, teaching them to ignore hallucinations in real life, just as virtual reality is already helping patients with phobias about spiders or heights.

Posted by GeeTee at July 02, 2002 11:53 AM

Oystein Dahle, retired vice president of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea, observes, "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow prices to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow prices to tell the ecological truth."

Posted by GeeTee at July 02, 2002 11:51 AM

In a country where the average wage is around $100 a month and Western consumer goods are highly desirable, the price gulf between ``real'' and pirated versions of software, music or films remains a significant factor. ``When I told my children I was looking for a video in a shop, they told me I was mad,'' said Marina, a university teacher in Moscow. ``They said `Why pay all that money when everyone else will buy copies ?'''

Posted by GeeTee at July 02, 2002 11:14 AM

Buddha: Visionary. Sage. Godhead. Out-of-home venue? Officials in the Chinese city of Leshan have decided to turn the city's world-famous Buddha statue into an advertising vehicle, according to a report in The Week. Plans call for a gigantic billboard to be placed between the feet of the statue, which, at 230 feet, is the tallest of its kind in the world. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which in 1996 designated the statue a protected World Heritage site, opposes the plan for some reason or other. The Great Buddha of Leshan was carved into a hillside 1,300 years ago.

Posted by GeeTee at July 02, 2002 10:15 AM