From Scientific American…

Compassionate Coding:

Students Compete in Microsoft Competition to Write Humanitarian Apps

With the understanding that emergency, health care and other services’ reliance on software will only grow over time, Microsoft has for the past eight years hosted a global competition that challenges high school and college students to develop applications that address some of the planet’s most urgent needs.

The event’s popularity has expanded rapidly–about 325,000 students from more than 100 countries registered to compete this year. The company’s Eighth Annual Imagine Cup finals wrapped up Thursday in Warsaw, Poland, with 400 students vying for $240,000 in prize money.

As one might suspect, a prerequisite is that all competitors develop their programs using Microsoft products, including software writing tools, databases and the Windows operating system.

325,000 high-school geeks hard at work for Microsoft, for an average “wage” of $0.75.

The relatively good news appeared later…

Increasingly, students designed their software to be hosted at Microsoft’s data centers rather than on their school’s local computers. This so-called “cloud” model meant the teams did not have to worry about whether their schools had enough servers, storage devices and networking capacity to meet their needs.

This was especially important in third-world countries like Brazil, where no less than 80,000 students competed for Microsoft’s meager prize, thanks to a vast (and relatively cheap) expansion of broadband by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s leftist regime, and their program includes a robust public option!

The Brazilian government’s plan to provide cheap broadband Internet across the country will shake up the big five providers, forcing them to offer a more competitive service, said Rogerio Santanna, the president of Telecomunicacoes Brasileiras SA (TBH), or Telebras, Friday.

Cloud computing means that users like you manipulate distant computers over the internet, and it’s typically compared to the paradigm shift in electric power, when backyard generators were replaced by the familiar grid that connects you to your favorite utility.

The downside of this marvelous transformation is catastrophic systemic risk, as brilliantly illustrated by the virtual absence of electric power all over Iraq, where insurgents knock down power-lines as fast or faster than anyone can set them up, and the loudest sound in Baghdad (except for bombs) is the maniacal bap-bap-bap of tens of thousands of tiny two-stroke diesel generators, each of them belching forth its own tiny cloud of fumes.

From Glenn Greenwald…

The U.S. today charged Bradley Manning with a variety of crimes relating to his alleged leaks of classified material to WikiLeaks, most prominently including the Apache attack video that spawned worldwide debate over the American occupation.

The only “weapon” visible in this video is a camera carried by Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, who was 22 years old when he was murdered by the American occupation of Iraq.

Namir Noor-Eldeen

Greenwald also provides a handy summary of the “rule of law” in America today.

If you torture people or eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by the criminal law, you receive Look-Forward Imperial Immunity.

* If you shoot and kill unarmed rescuers of the wounded while occupying their country and severely wound their unarmed children sitting in a van – or if you authorize that conduct — your actions are commended.

* If you help wreck the world economy with fraud and cause hundreds of millions of people untold suffering, you collect tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.

* If you disclose to the world evidence of war crimes, government lawbreaking, or serious corruption, or otherwise embarrass the U.S., you will be swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and face decades in prison.

Namir Noor-Eldeen worked very close to the reality of our genocidal occupation of Iraq, and maybe the video-game idiot who killed him wasn’t entirely wrong when he “identified” Namir’s camera as a weapon…

But it was only a weapon against murder and endless war.

Two photos by Namir Noor-Eldeen

Lake Kivu, between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda

Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the south shore of Lake Kivu

The village of Sange is located just north of Bukavu on a crumbling highway (N2) which carries all northbound traffic into the DRC from Tanzania and Burundi.

At least 230 people have been killed and nearly 200 others injured after a fuel tanker truck overturned and burst into flames in a blast. The flames engulfed dozens of residences and several crowded makeshift cinemas in a village (Sange) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), officials said Saturday.

The accident took place late Friday in the village of Sange, on the border with Burundi, when the tanker truck from Tanzania burst into fire shortly after it overturned and began to leak oil.

Flames spread to dozens of earthen and straw houses and several flimsy roadside shacks, where scores of villagers were watching World Cup TV coverage. “People tried to escape but were caught by the fire and reduced to ashes,” said Tondo Sahizira, a local teacher.

Bodies in Sange

Sange, Bukavu, and South Kivu Province are located in one focus of the ongoing multi-national war in Central Africa, which has killed about 5,000,000 people in the last twelve years.

In eastern Congo, the prevalence and intensity of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. In October 2004 the human rights group Amnesty International reported that 40,000 cases of rape had been reported over the previous six years, the majority occurring in South Kivu.

This is already a nightmare, but it gets unimaginably worse.

In July 2007, United Nations human rights expert Yakin Erturk called the situation in South Kivu the worst she has ever seen in four years as the global body’s special investigator for violence against women. Sexual violence throughout Congo is “rampant,” she said, blaming rebel groups, the armed forces and national police. Her statement included that…

“Frequently women are shot or stabbed in their genital organs, after they are raped. Women, who survived months of enslavement, told me that their tormentors had forced them to eat excrement or the human flesh of murdered relatives.”

The top political story today at the New York Times was adorned with a promising headline…

“Harsh Words for G.O.P. From Obama”

Okay! Tell it like it is, Barry! Sock it to those torture-pigs and perverts!

Liars! Cowards! Whores!

Satanic ministers of violence and greed!

What is their foreign policy?

Violence!

What is their domestic policy?

Greed!

Who is their master?

Satan!

But instead of an accurate identification of “conservatism” with the Satanic agenda of greed and violence…

And a radical re-alignment of the Democratic Party in accord with the defining Christian principles of peace and charity…

What kind of “harsh words” did Barack Obama apply the the Republicans?

“I just want everyone to remember — we’ve tried the other side’s theories,” he said at a town-hall-style meeting. “We know what their ideas are. We know where they led us. So now we’ve got a choice: We can return to what we know did not work, or we can build a stronger future. We can go backwards or we can go forward. And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward in this country.”

But to be fair, the other party’s opposition has also been rooted in their sincere beliefs about how the economy works.

Now, I’ve never believed that government has all the answers. Government cannot and should not replace businesses as the true engine of growth and job creation in this country. Government should live within its means, and we should root out waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars wherever we can. And too much regulation can stifle competition and hurt businesses.

Too much regulation can stifle competition and hurt businesses! Has anyone actually ever provided an example of this neo-conservative bullshit?

So in spite of a few polite disagreements, Republicans and Democrats fundamentally agree, and the bipartisan foundation of American politics for the last 30 years was already described almost 2000 years ago in the Gospel According to St. Matthew…

To those who have, more will be given, and from those who have not, everything will be taken, even the little that they have.