An independent poll shows Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has gone from ten points ahead to ten points behind, and that even those who like and support him may vote against ending term limits for him. The vote is on Dec. 2.

Recently Raul Baduel, his former military chief and long-time friend, came out publicly against the referendum. Chavez called him a “traitor,” an foolish charge, as Baduel expressed an opinion and did not call for overthrow of the government.

[Chavez] urged Venezuelans to see vote as a referendum on him.

“It’s black and white — a vote against the reform is a vote against Chavez,” he said in a state television interview.

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

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That would be Peter Garrett, former lead singer for Midnight Oil.

And on climate change policy, I’ve never heard anyone more articulate and compelling than Peter Garrett who I met and listened to carefully last September in Melbourne.

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At least 35 structures including the home of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers are gone. More threatened.

Malibu is a wonderful place. But there are canyons there where homes simply should not be built.

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Kevin Rudd, the just elected new Prime Minister of Australia, has pledged to make global warming a major priority, sign the Kyoto Protocol, and bring the troops home from Iraq. This is astoundingly good news, assuming that he does as promised.

The Guardian called this “the first climate change election.”

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Not satire.

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Some hacked into a Wordpress blog and created an admin account for himself. The bloggers found the database entry for the account. The password was semi-encrypted using a technique called MD5 into what is called the hash. On a hunch, they googled the hash and, bingo, Google returned “Anthony” - and they had the plaintext password. So, someone somewhere had used that hash before, and Google knew about it.

Go here to create a hash of your important passwords, then Google them to check. Much more on this at the Guardian Tech blog.

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Crime is increasing in a affluent, religious area of Sydney, Australia - and authorities think “mortgage stress” is a major factor.

That financial problems lead to increased crime is only news when it happens to the well-off.

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