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When well known people move ordinary people into action, we may well be on the way to a global solution to our planetary problems.

Those are people who are enabling change.

And you?

We take action for change:

• Have a look about related information on "An Inconvenient Truth" in this site.
• Learn more about the movie and if you can: go and see it.
• Understand the movie's message and think of ways WE can be part of the solution.
• Advertise the movie in sites your frequent, and around you, in your family and community.

Yesterday, I was lauding Hau Long-bin for his willingness to work with people from opposite parties for the common good of the people. In the last 6 years, it has been obvious that most politicians have put their own parties first and the real long-term interest of the people last. It may be because their own political ambitions depends on how the party fares in elections, and they think that helping officials from another party, even if it's in the best interest of the people, will be detrimental to themselves.

This confrontational attitude exists across the political spectrum, but it has been especially acute among pan-blue supporters since they lost the highest executive post in 2000. I am very ready to admit that president Chen Shui-bian has many faults and that he has been a less than ideal president, but we must recognize that he has constantly been trying to extend olive branches both to the opposition in Taiwan and to the mainland Chinese leadership. He has made efforts to reach out to the other site, certainly because it was his interest to do so, but the Taiwanese people would have also benefited a lot if that olive branch had been accepted.

I would like to show my approval for former EPA chief Hau Long-bin for his political attitude. Recently, he has been criticized for having cooperated with people from different parties. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral hopeful Hau Long-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday denied being a "political chameleon.":

Hau, a former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) chief, has vowed to raise the integrity of the KMT's primary and had previously declined to comment on any accusations from rivals.

It seems that the majority of people, economists and policy makers still view economic growth as the holy grail of social well-being. Whatever the news may be on other fronts, first and foremost the economy must be strong; and the way to ensure economic strength is by encouraging consumerism.

Headlines like "Weak consumption hits growth" are not surprising because growth and consumption are always a concern:

Thanks to the opposition party, the Human rights committee will be disbanded:

The Human Rights Advisory Committee and the Science and Technology Advisory Committee, both chaired by Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), will stop functioning to show the Presidential Office's respect for the legislature, as well as its sincerity in maintaining a harmonious relationship with opposition parties, Chen said.

(...)The Legislative Yuan passed a resolution in January requesting that six non-institutional bodies set up under the Presidential Office be dissolved.

Sometimes I really wonder what people are thinking when they read news that run under catchy headlines like "gruesome warnings put Singaporeans off their cigarettes". Do they really think we've made some progress in understanding the human psyche?

Images of diseased gums and cancerous lungs along with anti-smoking warnings on cigarette packages have had an effect on smokers in Singapore, a survey said yesterday.

Twenty-eight percent of the 650 smokers queried said they smoked fewer cigarettes and seven in 10 said they knew more about the effects of smoking on health, according to the Health Promotion Board findings.

(...)The warnings, introduced in August 2004, carry six images: Diseased gums, a cancerous lung, a dying baby, a brain oozing blood, a patient on his deathbed and a family suffering from second-hand smoke.

(...) The average number of callers to the board's Quitline increased from 100 prior to the warnings and images to 300 a month since they were introduced.

(...) Singapore has an international reputation for social engineering, and keeps a close check on an array of public activities.

I applaud the Singapore's administration for daring actually protect their citizens' health, but really, the "findings" have found nothing new: since the 1960s, the consumers' behaviour has been known to be easily influenceable through subliminal and not so subliminal messages, also known as advertising.

What Singapore is doing with its provocative pictures on cigarettes packages is manipulating the consumers in exactly the opposite direction but using the same techniques as the highly influential advertising industry.

Peak oil and free energy?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1992629256196958115 :
I am not sure about the free energy part (but I am willing to remain open minded).
The Peak Oil has got me concerned, though...

While our world is full of problems, there as still many people who are part of the solution. While there are still many abused or neglected children, among the real unsung heroes of today's society are foster parents who open up their homes:

When foster mother Sung Kan-mei (宋甘妹) in Miaoli County took in a sexually abused junior high school girl as a foster child, she wanted to give the child what she had always lacked -- a safe, stable and happy family.

However, it was not as easy as she had thought it would be.

The ability of the media and the people to gloss over the most important news of the day can be quite unnerving.

Today an article says that Arctic winter ice cover shrinks to all-time low:

Satellite measurements show the area covered by Arctic winter sea ice reached an all-time low in March, down some 300,000km2 on last year.

Scientists say that the decline highlights an alarming new trend, with recovery of the ice in winter no longer enough to compensate for increased melting in the summer. If the cycle continues, the Arctic Ocean could lose all ice earlier than expected, possibly by 2030.

I progressively stopped watching television when I started figuring out how detrimental it was for my health.

It's obvious that corporations are cashing in on TV's captive audience.

It's obvious to anyone who dares to seriously think about it that television advertising has a profound influence on our psyche: if ads failed to brainwash us into buying some products, corporations wouldn't spend untold sums of money for a 30 second spot on television. That's why the television industry, to protect its revenue stream, is thinking about new ways to force us to watch the ads: