Yummy Wakame Weblog

Robotime Transformer Robot Watch!
Ken’s was blue, mine was red. I’d stand it up on my desk at school and wear it with all its arms and legs out so people would know it had super powers beyond the high-tech digital display. No-one else I knew had one. It’s still my favourite watch of all time. I would dearly LOVE to have one again. I’d never take it off (except to shower in which case I’d put it in a specially made superpower-restoring charger pod).

Check out this original Kronoform TV Ad! (0.7MB)

Jailed for 7 years
Sentencing the pair, Judge Alan Goldsack said: “The reality is that behind the closed doors of your home your children were being slowly starved to death.”

Here is a photo of the parents David Askew and Sarah Whittaker, both 24. The children’s plight was discovered when Whittaker phoned for an ambulance in June because one of the twins was “lifeless”. When police officers entered the house, they had difficulty not being sick.

The 12-month-old twin boys were both seriously ill and were taken to hospital. One was put in ICU. Authorities said the boy was like a skeleton and “within hours of death.” He and his twin weighed less than 9 pounds. The most seriously ill twin was passing live maggots into his nappy; these were later identified as the larva of the common housefly. Experts said they had come from the baby ingesting fly-ridden food or from an infestation in the heavily soiled nappies he was found in. Andrew Hatton, prosecuting, said “One doctor said it was the worse case of malnutrition he had ever come across in the UK or outside of the developing world.”

Three other children – now aged eight, four and three – also were found malnourished and filthy in the home. I saw footage on TV last night, and there was human and dog excrament (photo) smeared on the walls and urine on the floors. A court heard how both twins might have died had it not been for the eight-year-old eldest daughter, who acted as ‘mother’ to the youngsters.

Sarah Whittaker and David Askew spent their time in a comfortable lounge with a satellite TV, DVD players, a computer, video recorder and games, while their children lived in squalor.

All five children were taken into foster care and are apparently making a good recovery.

EXPLAIN TO ME WHY it is not COMPULSORY that these people are sterilized for their crime? They will only continue to breed unwanted children that once discovered are taken away by the state to go into foster care. Sterilization in extreme cases like this should be the obvious action to take. It need not affect their sexual functioning, just their ability to breed.

Gaiagal is a National spokeswomen for women with heart disease in the US, and with good reason! She has an incredible and inspiring story to tell…

Google has released another beta search engine, this time aimed at scientists and academics around the world. Called Google Scholar, the search engine’s goal is to offer the most comprehensive list of research papers available on the Web.

“Before you’ve finished your breakfast this morning, you’ll have relied on half the world” ~ Martin Luther King

An interesting thought. And a depressing one, when you realise that those people you’ve relied on for your coffee and muesli are almost certainly being exploited and oppressed by the unfair power balance in world trade. But what can you do? Surely it’s beyond your control? Wrong. You can buy Fair Trade products. And you can add your voice to the Big Noise.

THE BIG NOISE!
“You have just joined 5,454,801 people worldwide, and 211,630 from United Kingdom – England who have signed up to the Big Noise petition”

Join the Big Noise to make trade fair!

Although I’m a Green voter myself, I thought I’d draw your attention to the Hove Labour 2005 blog – started by Bedsit Bomber and Jonathan.

“It’s local to Brighton & Hove, and rather than being handcuffed to a political party, it’s designed to reach out to like-minded people, even giving them the right to post.” ~ BB

Wow! Yummy contributer Miko has posted her photo up on Caiterwauling (scroll down), and looks totally different to what I expected. Isn’t she stunningly beautiful? You will never guess her age. She looks younger than me!

The Eden Project
It’s hard to believe I still haven’t been there. It must be an incredible experience! If you haven’t heard of it before, the Eden Project is a large botanical garden and education centre in Cornwall constructed of enormous greenhouses (biomes). Each has a sheltered micro-climate which allows large numbers of the world’s tropical and mediterranean species to be represented within the plantings.

If you live on the other end of the earth, you can still explore the biomes with their Panoramic VR 3D Tours. Amazing!

Jan Garbarek tonight at Brighton Dome!!
“Jan Garbarek is a giant of contempory jazz, and the unmistakable, haughting sound of the Norwegian-born multi-instrumentalist’s tenor saxophone is one of the most distinctive voices in today’s music. For thirty years the inspirational and influential Garbarek has taken African/ American jazz and fused it with the music of South America, India and European classism.”

Sample clip: click here to listen to Jan Garbarek

Brown writes off developing countries’ debts
“Golden opportunity to pressure G7 leaders
In September, the Chancellor took the bold step of writing off the UK’s share of debts owed by 32 of the world’s poorest countries. Now it’s time for the rest of the G7 nations. Help us persuade them to follow the UK’s lead before they meet in February. Cancelling the debt could put 100 million children into school – so click below and tell them they must try harder!”

Take action!

Africa’s Debt Crisis
“Africa’s external debt burden currently stands at more than $300 billion, in a continent where most people subsist on less than $1 per day. Africa’s debt crisis is the single biggest obstacle to the continent’s development and to the fight against HIV/AIDS. It represents a crippling load that undermines economic and social progress. It is estimated that African countries pay $1.51 in debt service for every $1 they receive in aid.” more…

Illegitimate Debt
“Most of Africa’s foreign debt is illegitimate in nature because of the circumstances under which it was incurred, as well as the harmful effects it now has on the continent’s development.” More…

U.S. Policy on Africa’s Debt
“Over the past eight years, the HIPC initiative has fundamentally failed to resolve Africa’s debt crisis. It has not reduced the debts of African countries to sustainable levels. In fact, it serves the interests of creditors by continuing to extract the maximum possible in debt repayments from the world’s poorest countries.” More…