Eideard

The U.S. military ordered its navy ships away from the coast of Myanmar on Wednesday, after the country’s ruling junta refused to give them permission to help survivors of the cyclone that devastated the country more than a month ago.

Admiral Timothy Keating, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, ordered the Essex and its accompanying vessels to leave the Myanmar area after what he said were 15 separate attempts to obtain authorization to help relief efforts.

State media in Myanmar reported that the country feared an invasion by U.S. forces interested in seizing its oil deposits.

There’s paranoid. And then there’s really paranoid!

An Indian man, frustrated at failing to find employment, ordered the murder of his father to get his government job, a day before the victim was to retire, police said on Tuesday.

The man, arrested from a village in the impoverished eastern Bihar state, had planned to claim his father’s job on the grounds that he died while still at work, police officer Naresh Singh said.

The son had paid a relative about $2,500 to carry out the crime which was committed at the weekend but reported on Tuesday.

“He told us he would have got a government job on compassionate grounds had this murder remained a mystery,” Singh said.

I wonder if he was going to try to collect his father’s pension, as well?

Can the environment make for entertaining TV? Discovery Communications is about to find out.

Today, in the United States, Discovery introduces Planet Green, a new cable brand promoted as the first 24-hour channel dedicated to eco-friendly living. It is the highest-profile cable channel introduction of the year, and an equally risky one. By wrapping itself in the planet, Discovery is betting that “eco-tainment” will appeal to viewers.

Planet Green will replace the Discovery Home Channel in more than 50 million homes. Focusing on the public’s increased interest in environmental issues, Discovery says it is confident that it can attract more viewers with green-themed programming…

Discovery’s research, conducted last year, identified 40 percent to 50 percent of Americans as “armchair environmentalists.” Carr calls the channel’s target audience “bright greens,” people who are motivated by the idea that they can help the planet.

I wish them well. They’re out to communicate to a market that has as many Know-Nothings as Do-Nothings.

Don’t blame the fridge for your steep power bills — an Australian consumer agency study has found that videogame consoles and plasma flat-screen TVs are major electricity guzzlers, even when left on stand-by.

The recent study by Choice said Sony Corp’s Playstation 3, closely followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and plasma television sets, consumed the most power out of a list of 16 electronic devices tested, including laptops, stereo systems and DVD players.

“Our tests found that leaving a Playstation 3 on while not in use would cost almost…five times more than it would take to run a refrigerator for the same yearly period,” said the study which was published on Choice’s website.

“The plasma TV set was also a power hungry device, consuming over four times more power than a traditional analogue set. The average desktop computer was third on the list.”

Do the darkness test before you go to bed. Walk around your home with the lights off. Any LED you see glowing – probably is on a device that’s wasting power. Of all the gadgets in our geek household, the only one we leave on overnight is the DirecTV DVR – it’s often recording in the middle of the night. Ain’t a need for anything else to be on.

And “standby” counts.

We’re watching you

Four Algerian Christians have been given suspended jail terms and fines for worshipping illegally…

The state-appointed Higher Islamic Council said Protestant evangelicals are secretly trying to divide Algerians to colonise the country…

The four men admitted they had converted to Christianity but rejected the charge against them – that they were holding an illegal religious ceremony when they were arrested.

Some reports also suggest the men were accused of attempting to convert other Algerians to Christianity…

One of our more advanced allies in the Great War on Terror.