Eideard

Keith Burel [K B] and I correspond pretty much daily about anything and everything under the sun. Along with chuckling together over Dilbert – as does pretty much anyone with a brain – we also share the enjoyment of insight from the pen of Mike Luckovich.

As noted above…

A Japanese toy maker will soon sell a portable, personal karaoke machine so you can belt out your favorite tunes anywhere, and without having to wait for the microphone. The “Hi-kara” karaoke machine, by Takara Tomy, is a 7-cm (nearly 3-inch) cube which weighs less than a pound and works like a real machine.

Once the singer selects a song, which can be downloaded off the Internet or from special music cartridges, the lyrics come up on a 2.4-inch display. The machine also has headphones and speakers attached.

“Hi-kara” will go on sale in October for about $100, with song cartridges costing about $40 each.

Runaway! Runaway!

A US military spokeswoman has dismissed suggestions that a new prison planned for Afghanistan is intended to receive prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, the detention centre in Cuba that is facing increasing criticism in America.

“This is not going to be Guantanamo Two,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green, based at Bagram Airfield. “That is absolutely false.”

Nielsen-Green also rejected reports by Afghan and US human rights groups that children as young as nine were being held at the existing detention facility. “That is absolutely false. We have no children at Bagram,” she said.

According to Nielson-Green, the new prison will receive only “unlawful enemy combatants”, approximately 16 or older…

Last month, a report by the US government to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child also claimed juveniles were being held. But the US military has repeatedly denied that this is the case.

Of course, the US military denials only mean the name won’t be “Guantanamo Two”.

Welcome to a new kind of space race, where the earthly guest will be a machine and the goal is as much exploration as seeking out new business ventures.

The quest is part of the Google Lunar X Prize, which will put $20 million into the hands of the first privately funded team that can land a rover on the moon; have it travel on the surface for 500 meters or more; send back data, photos and video; and do it all by December 31, 2012…

One of the main requirements is to have as little government involvement in the project as possible…

Google, which is paying the main prize purse — $30 million total, including bonus prizes — hopes the competition will result in education, “interesting new content” and inspiration, she added…

Celestis, a company that launches cremated human remains into Earth’s orbit, recently announced that it has reached an agreement with two of the teams, Astrobotic and Odyssey Moon, to carry human ashes to the moon.

Hey, it’s only been 37 years since the first Lunar Rover was switched on – on the moon. Consistent pace for modernism in this neck of the gene pool.

Thanks, K B

It is towards the end of my first 24 hours as a vegan, at the point when I discover I have already failed, that I begin to despair. How was I supposed to know there would be dairy products in a bag of nuts? Who the hell decided that putting dried milk powder in with the lemon and coriander flavoured cashews and macadamias was a good idea? Sainsbury’s, as it happens. Or bloody, sodding Sainsbury’s as I now like to call them…

There was also a bottle of maple syrup, ‘which you can use as a replacement for honey’. Until that moment it hadn’t occurred to me that honey was forbidden in the vegan diet. After all, honey doesn’t come pouring out of the tiddly bee’s honey duct, does it? It is manufactured outside their delightful stripy bodies. But it belongs to the bee so it can’t be used. After all we like the bee. We do not steal from the bee. I make a note to use maple syrup from now on. Like a quarter of a million other Britons, like Oprah Winfrey recently, I am going to be a vegan. I feel fellowship with the bee.

The early bits of a long, funny, insightful essay.

No, I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by telling you he doesn’t make the full week.

Police in Macedonia have arrested a journalist on suspicion that he is behind three murders he reported on.

The journalist, Vlado Taneski, is accused of raping, torturing and killing three elderly women in the south-western town of Kicevo. Macedonian police began to suspect him after he included details in his reports that they had not made public.

Other men have reportedly already been convicted of the first two murders. The third was committed last month.

All the women apparently had similarities to the suspect’s late mother, with whom he reportedly had a poor relationship.

The obligatory quote from a colleague about what a exceptional, quiet guy he is – caps off the article. You have to wonder if there ever was an axe murderer who spent time looking publicly disturbed?