Quickies

The U.S. is filing a complaint with the WTO regarding China's inability to crack down on wide spread piracy. The MPAA is the main driver behind this initiative. They are not only set on destroying their consumers in the U.S., but now wish to alienate consumers in the world's largest country as well! Good show, MPAA! Love this quote:

Announcing the case in Washington on Monday, Schwab said the US recognised Beijing's efforts to crackdown on copyright piracy and asked that the complaints "not be viewed as hostile action against China".

We're only threatening you with legal action and forced arbitration, but it's not a "hostile action". Talk about double speak. If this goes very far, don't be surprised if China starts placing calls on the U.S. deficit/debt that they've been financing for years.

Read the headline this morning: Australia to double Afghan forces. Read further and you learn that this doubling is to 1000 troops. Granted, that's 1000 lives at risk, but it's not exactly an overwhelming number.

Speaking of numbers, Al Jazeera reported yesterday that the rally calling for U.S. troops to go home from Iraq was attended by "hundreds of thousands" of people. The NY Times reported that it was "tens of thousands". By the time it was reported on NPR news while I was driving home last night from work, it was reduced to "thousands" of people. What's the deal with the shrinking number?

Finally, some words from Billy Bragg:

While I am not one of those who claim that multiculturalism has "failed", I do recognise it has created a vacuum at its centre. For while we celebrate our differences, we have given too little attention to those things that we have in common. As a result, trust and solidarity between communities are beginning to falter, and racist parties are exploiting this breakdown for their own evil ends.

He's speaking specifically of Britain, but I think we can agree that this issue is not British-centric.