Month: August 2008

Hong Kong – Macau Bridge gets funding boost

China, Macau and Hong Kong have come to some agreements on the proposed Hong Kong – Macau Bridge. The HK Standard is writing that the final agreements on who is going to pay what bit of the approximately $3 billion in costs has been hammered out recently.

Guangdong and the central government will put 7 billion yuan (HK$8 billion) toward the 37.45 billion yuan bill, Hong Kong 6.75 billion yuan and Macau 1.98 billion yuan, according to Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam- kuen, who unveiled financing details during the 11th Hong Kong- Guangdong Cooperation Joint Conference with provincial governor Huang Huahua.

The remaining 21.72 billion yuan for the project will come from loans.

However, neither Tsang nor Huang revealed further details of the loan plan. Tsang said work will start no later than 2010.

Kind of a bummer because I really liked taking the hydrofoils from Hong Kong over to the gambling dens of inequity, but maybe they’ll still run for those who want to enter Macau from the sea.

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Lopez Lomong, a "Lost Boy" of Sudan, to carry the flag for the USA in Beijing

Lopez Lomong, a former child prisoner-of-war in Sudan and recently naturalized US citizen will have the honor of carrying the US flag into the Birds’ nest stadium in Beijing on Friday. Lomong is running in the 1,500 meters and was given that honor after a vote by all of the US Olympic team captains. He was kidnapped as a boy during a stupid civil war and spent 10 years in a Kenyan prison camp before coming to the US in 2001. Here’s a nice piece on his naturalization ceremony.

“The American flag means everything in my life – everything that describes me, coming from another country and going through all of the stages that I have to become a U.S. citizen,” Lomong said. “This is another amazing step for me in celebrating being an American. Seeing my fellow Americans coming behind me (in the Opening Ceremony) and supporting me will be a great honor – the highest honor. It’s just a happy day. I don’t even have the words to describe how happy I am.”

And in case you are wondering, here is the previous list

U.S. OLYMPIC FLAG BEARERS
Year U.S. Flag Bearer (Sport)
1908 Ralph Rose (Athletics)
1912 George V. Bonhag (Athletics)
1920 Patrick J. McDonald (Athletics)
1924 Patrick J. McDonald (Athletics)
1928 Lemuel (Bud) C. Houser (Athletics)
1932 F. Morgan Taylor (Athletics)
1936 Alfred A. Jochim (Gymnastics)
1948 Ralph C. Craig (Yachting)
1952 Norman C. Armitage (Fencing)
1956 Norman C. Armitage (Fencing)
#Warren B. Wofford (Equestrian)
1960 Rafer L. Johnson (Athletics)
1964 William Parry O’Brien (Athletics)
1968 Janice Lee Romary (Fencing)
1972 Olga Fikotova Connolly (Athletics)
1976 Gary W. Hall (Swimming)
1980 USA did not attend
1984 Edward Burke (Athletics)
1988 Evelyn Ashford (Athletics)
1992 Francie Larrieu Smith (Athletics)
1996 Bruce Baumgartner (Wrestling)
2000 Cliff Meidl (Canoe/Kayak)
2004 Dawn Staley (Basketball)
2008 Lopez Lomong (Athletics)

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Coups and Earthquake Updates of the Day

On the basic assumption that Americans care only about world news at it relates ‘coups and earthquakes’, or more recently, coups, earthquakes and hostages, I thought I’d give an update of the world news today.

* There was a coup in Mauritania today, but as most of you haven’t the slightest clue where that is it really isn’t news.

* The three US hostages seized by the FARC and rescued by the Colombian military are going to take a cross country ride to raise attention to the plight of other hostages still being held down there. But as most Americans didn’t even know they were hostages until they were released I’m not sure how successful they will be.

So in news most Americans are interested in–Paris Hilton has made an election video in response to McCain’s ‘celebrity’ video of Obama and the insinuation that Obama is an empty suit (like Paris Hilton). You be the judge if this response is really a counter, or just proof positive of that fact.

(yes, there is satire in this post).

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die
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Europe howls at US execution of Mexican national. Mexico yawns.

The Houston Chronicle has pretty interesting article about the Texas execution of Jose Medellin for the rape and murder of two girls in Texas in 1993. Most of Mexico right now is focused on the kidnapping of 14-year-old Fernando Marti, so much so that the execution was almost a distraction, while in Europe and in the International Court of something or another there have been demands that the US halt the execution and review the case. (For those who are wondering why, when you are arrested in a foreign country you are supposed to be allowed to talk with the embassy/consulate, an option which Mr. Medellin was apparently not given. Of course the Embassy folks can’t do much more than basically say ‘you’ve been very very bad and don’t bend over to pick up the soap’ but it’s the principle of the thing).

Crime in Mexico is not getting much better, so much so that advocates for the death penalty in Mexico are starting to get their voice. Of course that would mean the death sentence would be handed out by the pearly clean and non-corrupt Mexican judiciary. Maybe not.

Bonus: Is Mexico a “failed state” ? Read for yourself.

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How to watch the Olympics online.

This year will see far more streams and other resources for folks wanting to catch the Olympics online. Some are legal, and many many more are not.

The first and easiest way, for an American, is to logon to NBC or MSNBC’s Olympic site and simply click the ‘Video’ section. NBC is showing 2,400 hours of coverage online (starting today with Women’s Soccer, eventhough the opening ceremony is still 48 hours away). To watch online will require the Microsoft program Silverlight (free) which works on Windows and Mac (not sure about the LINUX version just yet).

Youtube will have some Olympic coverage for folks in Africa and South America.

Then there is the option of http://www.myp2p.eu. These are peer to peer TV program links, requiring you to download Sopcast or TVAnts. It will be interesting to see how long these sites stay online and whether their feeds get interfered with by the authorities.

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War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007

The Government Printing Office has a new title out that’s actually quite a big seller apparently. ”War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007″ is written by military doctors and covers some incredibly gruesome casualties they’ve experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, both military and civilian victims. The book is being given to a number of hospitals (especially ER rooms who deal with gunshot wounds) and also to doctors arriving in country for the first time:

“The average Joe Surgeon, civilian or military, has never seen this stuff,” Lounsbury said. “Yeah, they’ve seen guys shot in the chest. But the kind of ferocious blast, burn and penetrating trauma that’s part of the modern IED wound is like nothing they’ve seen, even in a New York emergency room. It’s a shocking, heart-stopping, eye-opening kind of thing. And they need to see this on the plane before they get there, because there’s a learning curve to this.”

Amazon is sold out apparently. Unfortunately I suspect a lot of people are going to use this either for their own sick ‘glee’ and curiousity or for some sick political purposes (apparently the photos are pretty rough). The military tried to censor the book from coming out but doctors said it was needed and would save lives, so eventually the DoD relented.

War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007 (Textbooks of Military Medicine).

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Will you be able to watch the Olympics on the Internet with P2P / Internet TV?

Well that’s something we’ll probably have to wait until Friday to find out. Rumors abound that sites like myp2p.eu will have tons of links that work with TVAnts and Sopcast, but ‘officially’ all Internet streams are supposed to be ‘region locked’ to specific areas.

FTA (Free to Air) satellite might also yield a few stations that have streams. CCTV 4 and CCTV 9 are not going to have live coverage apparently as only CCTV stations within China will be allowed to show the games. Of course CCTV 1-10 are the most popular stations on most Internet TV p2p programs.

There are lots of hints of ‘destructive efforts’ to prevent pirated feeds from going out on the net, and with the Chinese government sitting on some massive computer power and a certain less than ‘live and let live’ attitude, I suspect we’ll see some interesting jamming activities.

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What was Collin McKenzie-Gude really plotting with rifles and maps of Camp David?

Collin McKenzie-Gude was arrested the other day with a bunch of assault rifles and the names and addresses of some teachers at his school. Nothing out of the ordinary in the world of the trenchcoat mafia (in fact trenchcoat.com is already talking about him). But today it took a bit of a weirder turn.

Police found a map of Camp David marked with a presidential motorcade route inside the Bethesda home of the teen at the center of a bombmaking probe, along with a document that appears to describe how to kill someone at a distance of 200 meters, a Montgomery County prosecutor said today at a court hearing.

The youth, Collin McKenzie-Gude, 18, also had fake identification, Montgomery Assistant State’s Attorney Peter A. Feeney said. According to Feeney, one of the ID’s held the 18-year-old out to be an employee of the CIA; the second, with McKenzie-Gude’s picture on it, identified him as a man named Michael K. Landry, purportedly a U.S. government contractor protected by the Geneva conventions.

A few things sound a bit odd. First, the President usually flies to Camp David, and when they do drive they kind of vary things from time to time. Second, I’m not entirely sure what sort of government ID would allow Geneva conventions protection.

But in this hate-filled political world (just go read the comments at Digg) is it possible some slightly off individual decided to plot some attack? Oh hell yeah.

I think the psychological testing will be coming soon.

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Aafia Siddiqui turns up in Afghanistan and will soon be extradited to the US

Aafia Siddiqui, FBI Terrorist, MIT Grad, or matronly mother of three extraordinarily ‘renditioned’ to some remote place deep and forgotten, has now been found apparently, wandering about in Afghanistan and taking a shot some US officials (who shot back, wounding her). She’s now going to be extradited to the US on a slew of terrorism charges and basically a resisting arrest charge.

Is she a terrorist or a victim? Hopefully that will now come out, unless they send her to Gitmo where she’ll enter a legal maze that would make any lawyer’s head start to spin. Because the extradition is rather public, she may actually end up in court with a proper defense team.

Now I promise some tech stories…no more military stuff.

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