News

Blogs

Other stuff

Comic Strips

Radio Stations on the web

Online references

• Yahoo! Maps
• MapBlast
• Mapquest

Weblog:

Thursday, February 27 2003

Oprah Winfrey joins the billionaire club

Most billionaires' fortunes dwindled this past year, but:

"Meanwhile, Oprah's media empire grew steadily stronger, and she made the list this year with a net worth of $1 billion. Her debut comes just two years after Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson became the first black billionaire."

Meanwhile, The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a list of the past year's biggest donors, topped by: the late Walter H. Annenberg ("who made his fortune in publishing"), Ruth Lilly ("an heiress to the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical fortune"), and Thomas S. Monaghan ("founder of the Domino's Pizza chain").

The Conservative Media

Salon.com editor David Talbot takes a look at Eric Alterman's book "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News" and gives some of his own insight into the right-tilted media landscape.

Wednesday, February 26 2003

Therapy vs. Repression

Interesting article at the New York Times suggesting that repressing traumatic past experiences may be better than analyzing them in therapy. Then again, maybe frequent distraction, rather than plain old repression, is the answer.

Tuesday, February 25 2003

Really nice online comic

Same Difference - a fairly long serial about a coupla 20-something Korean-Americans living in San Francisco.

Sunday, February 23 2003

Duct Tales

46% of the duct tape sold in the U.S. is sold by a small company whose founder donated $100,000 to the Republican National Committee and other Republican committees in the 2000 election cycle.

Ridge defends duct tape suggestion for combatting attacks: Ridge said his department had worked for the last eight months, even using focus groups, to find the best ways to prepare the public in the event of terrorist attacks.

Mme Imaercie Esteve

Edition du 12 Juillet, 2001

"Au Centre hospitalier Regional de Lanaudiere le 26 juin 2001 est decedee a l'age de 96 ans et 11 mois Mme Iamercie Esteve epouse de feu Charles Dorcal domiciliee a Berthierville. Mme Dorcal laisse dans le deuil ses enfants: Claude et son amie Lucie Soares (Victoriaville), Jacqueline epouse de Edouard Piou (Washington), Josette epouse de Jean Rompre (Berthierville), Ricardo epoux de Marielle Croteau (Victoriaville) et Hansie Dorcal Mathelier (Virginie), ses petits-enfants: Claude Junior, Feliciano et Magali Dion, Jacques Arnaud, Ted et Magali Piou, Ketty Rompre, Karina et Pia-Maria Dorcal, Hansie Mary et Ricardo Mathelier et son arriere-petit-fils Claude Rene."

Friday, February 21 2003

Virtual Property for sale

There's a Slashdot account for sale on eBay.

Why would you buy a Slashdot account? ID number under 400, supposedly permanently-high karma.

My Slashdot ID is in the 12000's; I put off getting an account with them for a while because I didn't want to be tracked like that. Eventually, the benefits (in terms of site customization) got good enough that I signed up. Given that IDs are up into 650,000+, I guess my ID number is pretty good...

Thursday, February 20 2003

The trouble with electronic voting

Salon has a few articles on the problems with electronic/computer-based voting: most of the computer voting machines being bought by elections officials do not provide a manual recount, and the technology being used is not properly audited; and Voting experts point to numerous documented problems with electroni voting machines over the past few years.

A project to create an open-source Internet voting system has been abandoned because the lead developer has determined that it would be close to impossible to build a computerized voting system that can't be hacked.

More info on the failures of electronic voting, and suggestions on what to do about it.

Wednesday, February 19 2003

STUDENT LOANS ARE FOR SUCKERS

Good article at yahoo.com on the huge loan debt many college students must assume, and the harm it can do.

Related: article on My Rich Uncle, a company which provides funds for students to pay for college, in return for a percentage of their post-graduation earnings.

Tuesday, February 18 2003

Female Promiscuity widespread in animal kingdom

SFGate article on biological studies, indicating that it's fairly normal in animal kingdom for females to mate with many males.

"When it comes to Homo sapiens, scientists urge us not to read too much into all this. Depending on their point of view, people may be horrified or intrigued by the infidelity of the birds and the bees, but in truth birds aren't cheating, they're just doing what they do."

Monday, February 17 2003

Photos from the February 16th protest in San Francisco

I took 260 photos of the Feb. 16th anti-war protest in San Francisco from about 1pm onward; they're available here.

Sunday, February 9 2003

Windows Messenger pop-up ads

On the road using my PC laptop, I've been getting a bunch of pop-up ads as I browse the Net; but instead of showing up as Web windows, they show up as Windows Messenger Service messages (basically, operating system type alerts). Instructions of stopping these things.

Medical marijuana, states' rights, and jury nullification

Salon.com on the jurors in the Ed Rosenthal case (Rosenthal was a medical marijuana grower, hired by the city of Oakland) saying that they would have acquitted him if the judge hadn't forbidden the defense from revealing that he grows marijuana solely for medical use.

"In making their case public, the Rosenthal jurors have drawn national attention to two issues: the Bush administration's offensive against state-level decisions on medical marijuana, and the right of a jury to know -- and to act on -- all the facts of a case.

"Throughout the history of the United States, juries have sometimes ignored the law in favor of what they considered justice. But jury nullification is a double-edged sword. It's easy to trumpet the bravery of the American jurors who refused to let British authorities jail publisher John Peter Zenger in 1735 for criticizing the odious colonial government of New York, and it's hard to argue with the many Northern jurors who refused to convict runaway slaves. But what of the Southern juries who wouldn't convict a white man charged with a crime against a black man, or the Simi Valley jury that acquitted the cops who beat Rodney King, or the jury that has allowed O.J. Simpson to spend his days playing golf rather than doing time?"

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...