rafe needleman / webware.com:
a proposal for twitter: shut it down  —  as i write this, amazon.com, like twitter, is offline.  amazon's outage is the g news friday morning.  but what of twitter?  —  i used to love twitter.  but the site's pogo status—it's up! it's down! it's up again!—is driving me away.

you can chat with us during the show via aim by pinging username ?crunchtips? or call into the show at (646) 200-4163 should the mood strike you.

here?s the link for today?s show?

http://myspace.com/karyngarciaofficial "i hate loving you" is one my fav songs! i wrote it originally in portuguese, than my friend leduc translated it and here it is the english version. i hate loving you lyrics: karyn garcia/leduc - music: karyn garcia/cuca i see no light in the dark of my world these days are so gray and my prayers have no meaning so hard to explain understand, what is love? i mix all my senses my body and my soul i just can't explain all these nights i've been dreaming your skin and your eyes make my cry make me fly all night and day i can feel you are here telling me things, words i don't wanna hear chorus: oh baby who can say what i can do everytime you look at me i'll try to pretend that i'm all aright i promise myself i'll try please tell me lies walk away make me crazy make everything that you fell that you should but something bad, make me sad make me blue at least to forget to stop loving you it's not enough if you don't wanna love me i can't control what i wish what i feel there are thousand reasons but i don't change my heart my sin, my love, how i hate loving you chorus

author: karyngarcia
keywords: hate loving you karyn garcia io making of that ballad me odeio por te amar
added: december 11, 2007

although the most ysts clearly understand there is nothing new in the "idea of microsoft",

• to integrate the functions of mole phones and email into a single system that enables people to contact to one another based on name rather than email or phone number.

and fiercevoip.com states it clearly today-

• there are other solutions that already have this sort of functionality going, so microsoft isn't bringing anything new to the party other than tying in microsoft products.

however we know microsoft is a mad power (read evil) in brain-programming, even if it's not able delivering free of bugs software, so try to imagine the that's coming if this will be realized by m$-

echoes is supposedly a services platform for telecom carriers that comnes microsoft live messenger along with syncing of people's address books and presence.  the first phase roll out this summer would be a platform to sync contacts from messenger with a user's mole phone address book. users would basically get an overlay/map of messenger users to phone numbers and be able to sms text or voice call to synched contacts without having to type a number or email address.

oh my god! i'll immediatelly change my telco if it's selecting m$  as magic platform supplier ;)

microsoft buzz: 'echoes' unified communications platform for telecom carriers coming this summer

book your airline tickets to mexico and save. low fares on flights to mexico.

save even more when you book your mexico flight + el together. 

so i walked in to wal-mart tonight to get a father's day card with my fiance', and walked out with this! i pre-ordered the limited edition mgs4 at gamestop, so i don't know if i'm even gonna open this copy of the game, but at least now i have the 80 gig ps3 i've been waiting for, and a week early at that! my college graduation ceremony is tomorrow morning. happy graduation to me!

aaaand our winners!

congratulations to the following people who won from last week’s contest.

our grand prize winner is mice rosborough! congratulations mice, you won yourself a mophie juice pack.

for our four bodyguardz skins, we are still confirming the reception of the emails so hopefully i’ll have them listed soon. check back here for updates!

thank you all for participating. i will be contacting each one of you individually to get your details for prize delivery.

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third world poverty: the real solution

aid to africa

we all weld the campaign to address poverty in africa and tony blair's committ to it. when it was launched, the emphasis was on reducing debt and increasing aid from the rich western nations. the priorities stated were to tackle disease, especially aids, and to generate economic activity.

at the time blair retired, after 10 years as prime minister, progress in terms of contributions from the west had been extremely disappointing. the debt issue has been addressed in only 25% of the countries where relief is needed, and the aid contribution (separate from debt relief) from the rich western nations to african countries has actually fallen.

today, much more is being done by china, while india is becoming increasingly involved. a key factor is that, unlike western finance, the aid from china s without strings. because the chinese are happy enough with the trade which flows from their involvet, they make little effort to impose their culture on the recipient countries.

self-defeating conditions

apart from its inadequate volume, aid from the europe and the usa has limited impact because of the conditions imposed with grants; notable by the usa and the uk. an obvious absurdity is the 'no abortion' condition imposed by the bush administration on grants to tackle aids. (fortunately, this condition is not applied to some of the grants from the usa non governt sector - for example, the gates foundation.)

a second restriction, more generally applied - especially by the uk - is the insistence on privatisation. the failure, in terms of value for money for the public, of thatcher, major and blair governts' private finance initiatives (pfis) does not appear to have dampened the enthusiasm for applying them to other countries.

in some african countries this has resulted in people becoming worse off than before the aid was granted. an obvious example is an increase in the cost of water as a result of privatisation. as with most privatisation, what appeared to be a short-term benefit has been more than wiped out by longer-term disadvantage.

what must change?

so the first change must be to remove the privatisation requiret. it is recognised, of course, that private firms which have succeeded in developing countries have valuable expertise. however, this should be used in the context of public control; control on behalf of indigenous people by leaders democratically elected to represent them. although it has to be accepted that private firms exist to act in their own interests, as their obligations to shareholders require, they must recognise that their interests are not the priority with grant-aided projects. the most they should expect is a reasonable, commercially calculated, return.

second, steps must be taken to ensure that a much smaller proportion of aid is devoured by consultants in the donor countries. these consultants are often involved in negotiating the grants: some are paid more for a week's work than an african's annual in. and, too often, the focus is on the trade benefits to the donor nations, rather than on the needs of the recipients.

unless radical, and urgent, changes are made, the west will continue to lose influence in africa. europe and the usa will not be able to compete with china and india, or other emerging powers such as venezuela, if they persists with trading agreets and arrangets which favour the rich nations.

a new strategy

in terms of strategy, the most urgent change is to shift the emphasis to job creation; integrated with education and training. for the longer-term, literacy and social and political education is as necessary as training in the skills required by the jobs directly related to the projects. too often the requiret (in the conditions imposed with the grants) to complete projects in a specified period ignores the issue of permanent benefit.

the key to bringing about real improvet for the poor is to ensure that investt is used to release the resources that the countries already have. the most important resource is the expertise that people have acquired from their life experiences. millions of africans have to be entrepreneurs to make enough money merely to survive: many who fail in this respect are no longer of this world.

those who are still with us have gained valuable knowledge about the obstacles to success in their environts - and have devised strategies to over them. it is the hat of the west to seek to impose its own structures, rather than support the recipient countries' own organisations. a typical example was when blair set up his african commission, instead of supporting an african initiative: the recently formed new partnership for africa's developt.

another valuable resource is, of course, the fund of knowledge aculated by businesses which have figured out how to succeed in difficult trading cirstances. in being able to turn a profit, such enterprises have acquired valuable insights into the varying operation of markets in different countries.

although private companies are enled to a reasonable return for their contributions to projects, they must recognise that the projects are not run for their benefit. thee needs of the recipients are paramount but, as the chinese have recognised, benefits flow without the imposition of strict conditions.

in other words the focus must be on the longer-term benefits which can occur only with the involvet, on an equal basis, of the people themselves. providing the approach is to integrate education and training with economic developt, this can lead to the evolution of processes for democratic participation.

ending waste and corruption

these changes would make a major contribution to ending waste and corruption. although these are usually highlighted as problems in developing countries, they apply at least as much to agents operating on behalf of the donors. in how many cases have individuals and businesses from the donor countries be more prosperous as a result of their involvet, but have left the recipient countries poorer?

paul wolfowitz, the leader of the world bank who is no longer with us, identified tackling corruption as his priority. his demise resulted from focusing on corruption in the developing world, while ignoring it closer, much closer, to home. from his words and actions, it could be concluded that he believed that the same standards should not be applied to the rich in the west as to the poor in developing countries.

the umption in the west that the main, or in some circles entire, problem is with the developing countries is not sustainable. this is not to argue that they do not have problems of corruption, but to quote john christenson (the guardian 30/5/07): 'for each dollar of aid that goes into africa, at least five dollars flows out under the table.'

keith wymer

june 2007

about the author

40 years experience in further education

manager of international projects in many countries, including usa, russia,denmark, south africa.

campaigner for equality and democracy and against racism