"Written for ages 8 and up, 'The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming' is the comprehensive resource young readers can look to for understanding why global warming happens and how we can work together to stop it," Scholastic said.

Just let me remind you all.  Global Warming and human impact is just a theory and has not been proven.  It's the same thing as the Theory of Evolution.  It's a THEORY folks!  There's been no empirical proof that human activities are the cause of global warming.  Heck, it hasn't even been proven that the earth is warming beyond any kind of cyclical process that the earth or any other planet goes through.

The thing that really ticks me off is that people are touting this thing as if it were truth instead of theory.  I don't mind if people teach it as a theory as long as they make it clear what a theory is and not laws.  Teaching kids theories as laws is being dishonest and manipulative.

UPDATE (1:23 PM): According to DrudgeReport, there are 2 books which state that it's likely that global warming is due to solar activities, not human activities.  Again, stating theory as fact.  But it's a valid theory none-the-less.  It also shows that there are differing opinions as to what is causing global warming and that so far, nothing has been proven.  Here's the quote below (since Drudge often replaces it's flash pages): 

Two New Books Confirm Global Warming is Natural; Not Caused By Human Activity
Tue Jan 30 2007 10:02:32 ET

Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.

Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.

Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth’s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can’t accurately register cloud effects.

The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark’s team mimicked the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets—cloud seeds—started floating through the chamber.

“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” says Svensmark.

The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.

Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.

If there's one thing that I hate is unscrupuolus people trying to steal our money.  Well, while looking around the web for different things Zune, I ran into this site. 

 

"The purchase of a membership is not a license to upload or download copyrighted material.  We urge you to respect copyright laws and share responsible."

So, you've no doubt read my Sour Apples post, right?  Well, Apple is at it again. 

"The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products"

Let me make one thing clear here.  The laptop already came with the feature of Pre-Ratified 802.11n hardware in it.  What they are saying is that they want to charge customers all they can for the software that makes the features active.  How do I know.  Well, those laptops also have the capability of having Windows XP installed on it.  Users should be able to install Windows XP and go to HP and get the drivers needed to make use of their 802.11n network capabilities for free.  That's because in the PC world, it's generally looked down to charge users for the drivers needed to make their hardware that they already purchased work.

Now, bring in the fact that Apple is charging $599 for their new phone and is getting nearly a 50% margin on their phones (oh, and they claim that they get a 45% margin on their iPods), do they really need to charge $2 for the software that activates features already included in the hardware that their customers purchased?  Um, not really.

In any case, you can expect to see the software on every P2P software out there.  I'm sure that I'm not the only one who thinks this is chincy of Apple.

Now, why not an iPod you ask?  Well, I asked that same question on Live Q&A and got some interesting responses but nothing that really stands out.  The funniest response was basically telling me that I should get it because everyone else does...

it's the latest fad. remeber when Sony invented walkman everyone wanted to get one for themselves. ipod is light, sleek, easy to operate (like a walkman very few buttons), and hundreds of songs. voice quality is also good and it comes along with built-in equalizer.

it's not something every1 need. it's something every1 want.

First, the iPod uses a concrete format for it's music.  Both MP3 and AAC formats are essentially dead formats.  The format was decided on and will never change.  The only improvement that can be done to the formats is through improving the encoding of the format.  If Apple wants to change the format then the iPods have to change meaning the older iPods won't work with the new format.