Microsoft Freebies Espression 3 - decent drawing package Visual Studio 2005 beta - complete programming suite more inside

Chidren Abused At Abu Ghraib The political blog Sadly No has a video of a German television report of abuse of children at Abu Ghraib. For those that dont understand German there is a translation here. There is also an update to the story here.

Michael Moore doesn't care if you download free copies of Fahrenheit 911...just don't sell it. Not everyone is please, though.

Spiny Things! more inside

Electronic fireflies. Really. Now you can buy teensy-weensy robotic light-up insects for your yard. Cool or creepy? And BTW, are monkeys around the world familiar with glowy lightning bugs, or are they a North American thingie?

People are tiring of ads in all their forms. "A recent study by Yankelovich Partners, an American marketing-services consultancy, says that consumer resistance to the growing intrusiveness of marketing and advertising has been pushed to an all-time high." more inside

PowerPizza - Made from genuine Italian-style pizza box. I do appreciate good craftsmanship in a laptop case. [via Cult of Mac]

Collect them all.
Trade your Recreational Water Illness to somebody else's Ebola [PDFs]. Or to any of the other 29 infectious disease trading cards.

The BBC's Internet site competes with commercial sites too much, says a Government report. The BBC has already agreed to close down a number of its offerings. more inside

Curious, George: I've been H@x0red! Two of my websites were hacked last week. As far as I can tell, the hackers just changed the index.html file; they didn't alter any other file in my directory. How did they get access to my index file? Should I be worried? How can I prevent this in the future? more inside

The Creatures In My Head. A new funny, scary, sad, sweet creature every day.

Morning glory. The desolate Gulf of Carpenteria area of Australia is an empty region full of marshy salt flats, and it's prime crocodile country. It's also home to one of the most exotic cloud patterns on the planet, the morning glory. The town of Burkshire invites tourists to see them, scientists document and study them, and glider pilots are drawn to them (excellent trip logs!) Morning glories may also be occurring in the western Atlantic, most notably on Canada's Sable Island.

Angelina Jolie won a reprieve for a forest near her home in Cambodia from a planned hydroelectricity project. Jolie, who is a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador as well as an actress, pledged $1.3 million to protect Cambodia's forests last year. more inside

Curious George: Buh-Bye They say that breaking up is hard to do. And they're right, dammit. Honesty or feelings? In person or by post? more inside

"The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life." Is it really a brave new world? We're not talking about just drugs anymore. ("As a rule of thumb, it is profoundly unwise to take crack-cocaine.")
So, do you really want to be happy for the rest of your life?