ANANOVA - Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking miniature US flags into piles of dog poo in public parks. Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: “This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time.”

The series of incidents was originally thought to be some sort of protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq. And then when it continued it was thought to be a protest against President George W. Bush’s campaign for re-election.

Legal experts say there is no law against using faeces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue.

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Rather than make my stereo and amp work with the PC in my new home office, it finally dawned on me. Chuck the stereo, do everything on the PC instead.

The radio stations I listen to, KPFK, KXLU, and KCRW, are also on the Net, plus the PC has a CD player, so why have a stereo. This may be obvious to many of you, but it was an Eureka moment for me.

So, I now have some powerful new PC speakers, and am listening to great net radio like Kill Radio.

I’ll be trying podcasting soon. This is a truly innovative idea that Adam Curry, former early MTV VJ and now serious tech geek and entrepreneur helped start. Using RSS feeds, audio files, like from a net radio show, are posted via RSS and the file goes directly into your iPod (or other such device) to listen to later. 

IPodder.Net has free software they say makes the process completely transparent and a no-brainer. You just plug the iPod into the computer and choose what feeds you want. I’ll let you know how it goes!

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VIENNA, Austria (AP) — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should be stripped of citizenship in his native Austria for approving the execution of a convicted killer, a leading Austrian politician said Saturday.

A Green politician, I might add! Ah to live in a country where the death penalty is considered a barbaric relic rather than something to be lusted after.

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Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world’s top climate watchdog.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has “already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere” and called for immediate and “very deep” cuts in the pollution if humanity is to “survive”.

His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his predecessor was too “aggressive” on the issue.

God forbid anyone put the survival of humanity ahead of Exxon expoloiting the planet for a buck. The growing and evident to all but the Bushies problem of global warming is a clear example of why capitalism doesn’t work - it puts the well-being of the very few ahead of the well-being of all - and that doesn’t work long-term.

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