PC426 IDEAS FACTORY :
Eat Brown Rice ! was the law

- I don't understand why anyone eats white rice - it has no taste and it's not healthy, but I find it very difficult to get anywhere in Asia every foodstall, every restaurant it's whie rice, white rice, white rice ! Then I found this story in the Heritage Asia magazine : 1908 1000s of Chinese Tin miners died from eating white rice, cos it lacks B1 so they got beri beri
- Then the government banned polished white rice

- Yes the government banned white rice to keep people healthy .... yet people went back to the unhealthy ways.

- some interesting uses of SMS have come up

- Singapore can sms to find when next bus,

- Some other place can SMS to pay for and open toilets Norway ? what a good idea not coins needed and no vandalism

Stupid UK Libel law exposed when Quack closes down critic

- An example of the law becoming an ass- UK bad internet law means you can never criticize anyone selling a product

- Quackometer.net did a story quite rightly exposing struck off doctor and fake professor Obi's business. Obi got his mate to write to the ISP Netecetera saying he owned the trademarks mentioned and he would sue them for $1m/day the site stayed up. Netcetera told quackometer to reach an agreement with Obi, and when that was not done gave a few hours notice before pulling the site.

- Absolutely outrageous an ISP shouldn't just pull the plug on someone just cos of a threat from a crook ! But when you follow the trail you can see it's the result of a bad precedent set in UK law, where in a previous case an ISP has been judged not to be like a mere printer, but a joint publisher and so responsible for financial losses of the libelled. So for example if you made a successful anti-cigarette site saying smoking kills people the ISP could get sued by the cigarette companies for $500m in lost sales. Now the site may well have saved 5 million lives, but this counts for nothing in legal financial terms. If it came to court and the cigarette company lost the ISP would lose nothing ie their choice is side with the cigarette company - maximum loss zero, side with the website maximum loss $500m.

- In this case quackometer makes no money so it could not sue the ISP for millions of dollars in lost sales.

- It can clearly be argued that ISPs who take the correct moral stance are putting their shareholders money at unnecessary risk.

- the net result is a world where you can't criticize anyone's products ... or is it ?

- Actually he net result in this particular case is a lot of good publicity for Quackometer including dozens of people copying and reposting the Obi article - so amplifying the bad publicity for him and motivate people to do some research exposing numerous legal breaches by him, as his company is illegally registered and vastly underdeclaring earnings so is guilty of tax fraud. Netcetera the ISP who saved money, by not checking the story themselves will lose sales.

- So we can see in the case of the cigarette companies the real outcome would be similar- they couldn't stop the story. The practical net result is if your story is peer judged to be true, then business cannot win the story will be exposed and the public interest served.

- The stupid UK law actually makes no difference in practice except to cause UK ISP's additional expense in checking complained about stories so creating a competitive advantage for offshore ISPS

- goodbye Netecetera ? - who would host with them now ?

- Ah I guess they worked out there are more quack sites than anti-quack sites and they don't mind taking the dishonest money.

- Maybe they will do something to redeem themselves.

- They can write all the small print they want, but when they take money from a client to provide a service and the client is going about his business in a normal and legal way they are certainly in breach of the spirit of the law in withdrawing this service without a reasonable notice period. It would be different if there was any proper evidence, but in this case it's hearsay.

- If I took money from you to provide a service say flood insurance, then when it starts to rain heavily would it be OK for me to say "from today I decided not to provide this service to you anymore" ?

Bin Ladin - a US stooge surely ?
- he gives them everything they want - a reason to be in Iraq, drags all potential terrorists into one place etc, gives Islam a bad name

- Osama Bin Ladin has just ordered terrorism against Europe cos it portrayed Muslims as terrorists in cartoons. Reinterating the bizarre message : "call me a terrorist and I will bomb you". Surely he can only make such stupid statements if he is really working for the Americans.

- And today "the best way of supporting Palestinians is by making jihad in Iraq.", Well since 90 + % of the victims of terrorism in Iraq are Muslims, that's such a stupid statement as well; help Palestinians by killing Muslims and delaying peace and American pullout ? A common attack in Iraq is like the young manipulated Palestinian boy blowing himself up in a caf?: result 1 dead Palestinian, 20 dead Iraqi Muslims and no dead Americans cos they are all hiding in the bases. By perpetuating war instead of seeking peace OBL is harming Palestinians and abusing their cause in his own political game. .. be a man and call for peace.

- I'm thinking Maybe US policy is based on "take the action to terrorists, don't wait till they bring terrorism to you, go to them" ??

IDEAS FACTORY
Some new ideas I come up with

- Idea - Get out from in front of the television !

- video shows maybe on bus TV
- 1.Explore KL - I drag a fat Chinese guy to interesting places in city
- 2. Get out & Live - featuring this weeks art and partipant sport activities, sports,
- 3. Maybe Chinese guy drags me to restaurant Durian etc

- the bus videos adverts/promotions are made of local businesses we pass

Idea 2 - Post nightclub cafe at LRT station

- Clubs close at 3am, so someone needs to provide a safe place for people before public transport begins. An LRT station has controlled entrances and cameras so how about there. Turn it into a chillout cafe before the trains begin.

IDEAS FACTORY
- The student workforce co-operative

Some Comedy - Sunni and Shia
- news about a dramatic Peace Initiative in Iraq We are joined by a spokeman from the Sunni Community and a spokeswoman from the Shia Community can you tell us about the new initiative ?- "Yes, In the interests of living together peacefully we have rereleased our old song" - cut to music - Yes, Sunni and Shia have released again their 1963 hit I Got you babe (Sonny and Cher)
- (of course George Bush is delighted he loves their songs)

- I've got you to bomb and kill,
- I've got you to blow up right !
- .........
- They say that it's not true,
- but I can tell it us .. not you
- we are from the prophet's true descent ! Babe,

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NOT FINISHED 3/3/2008 a Stew Green Opinion
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