Yummy Wakame Weblog

I found this article in the B2B showguide:

Be very afraid

If mankind has just four emotions – happiness, sadness anger and fear – serial entrepreneur and burgeoning TV star Simon Woodroffe knows which one inhibits and engenders success. Fear.

Not that Simon is afraid of much. Charming, confident, polite, sensitive to the feelings of others, the founder of the YO! brand of companies is a happy proponent of the power of fear. While most of us go to any lengths to avoid anything painful or frightening, successful people, by contrast, embrace fear to create their own destiny. If you want to be a success, you’d be advised to set up a business that’s outside your comfort zone and stay there for a while. Simon says: “It’s like dropping a pebble in water. Your comfort zone gets bigger.” (more…)

Google, the other Supreme Being who’s name begins with “Go”, is making the Internet even more free.

I’ve recently created this glossy brochure site for Worldwide Sales & Marketing!
It sports an interactive Flash world map which is incredibly easy to use, but it nearly made my brain bleed.

“Adopt a wild animal for yourself or a friend, and help the WWF safeguard the future of these species and tackle some of the biggest conservation challenges facing our world today.

Our six animals are all real wild animals – located in a project area funded or run by WWF, not a sanctuary or zoo.

Adopt any of these animals from as little as £2.50 a month and we’ll send you a Welcome Pack, containing: a certificate, a print of your animal, facts about the species, a greetings card, tips on a ‘greener’ lifestyle, WWF screensavers, and a soft toy. You’ll also receive quarterly updates.”

Thanks pp!

News24: Nobel Prize-winning author JM Coetzee has likened controversial new anti-terrorism laws proposed by Australia’s government to apartheid-era human rights abuses in his native South Africa, The Australian newspaper reported on Monday.

Coetzee, who moved to Australia in 2002, “launched a thinly veiled attack” on the legislation due to go to parliament next week during a public reading at the National Library in Canberra on Sunday, the newspaper said.

Preparing to read from his 1980 anti-apartheid novel Waiting for the Barbarians, Coetzee said South African security police in the 1970s could arrest and detain people without explanation “and do what they wanted” with them “because special provisions of the legislation indemnified them in advance. All of this, and much more during apartheid in South Africa, was done in the name of the fight against terror,” said the 2003 Nobel laureate.

While Coetzee was not quoted specifically referring to Australia, his description of apartheid-era laws echoed details of the new anti-terrorism legislation being put forward by Prime Minister John Howard. The draft laws would expand police powers to arrest and hold suspects preventively and in secret, imposing penalties on reporters or members of the suspects’ families who publicise their situation. If the suspect was aged between 16 and 18, only one parent would be informed of the reason for his detention and they could be jailed for up to five years if they tell the other parent why the minor had been arrested. (more…)

“A spectacular 10 cm (4″) long male G. goliatus (wild collected in Cameroon). This beetle weighs 42 grams, and is a perfect example of what makes this species so sought after by beetle breeding hobbyists!”

via enschede a/zee

National Geographic: (photo) Live and dead dogs and cats are being used as shark bait by amateur fishers on the French-controlled island of Réunion, according to animal-welfare organizations and local authorities.

The small volcanic island off Africa’s east coast is bursting with stray dogs – upward of 150,000, says Reha Hutin, president of the Paris-based Fondation 30 Millions d’Amis. The foundation plans to finance a sterilization program on the island to reduce the stray overpopulation. But the job won’t be easy. Hutin said many locals view the strays as vermin. “There’s no value to the life of a dog there,” she said.

Fabienne Jouve of GRAAL said, “Lately, almost every week, one dog has been found with hooks on the island, not counting the cats found on the beaches partially eaten by the sharks. Once fishers capture the animals, the dogs and cats are hooked the day before, so they can bleed sufficiently.” Some escape before being tossed into the ocean. Others aren’t so lucky. After hooks are plunged into their paws and/or snouts, the animals are attached to inflatable tubes with fishing line and dumped into the ocean, Clicanoo, the newspaper, reports. To avoid detection fishers place their bait in the middle of the night, according to the newspaper account. In the morning the men return to see if a shark has been caught.

:@(

After spending at least an hour choosing the right one for me, I bought my first Tarot card deck today – the beautifully illustrated “TAROT of the Old Path”, absolutely packed with symbolic imagery. and I’ve just found a wonderful online course to learn how to properly use and read them:

LearnTarot.com – its a free online course, and you can use any deck, although its recommended you start out with the Rider-Waite Tarot, probably the most popular tarot, and it’s easy for beginners.

I desperately wanted the Buckland Romani Tarot but they have been out of print for two years.

Maybe somebody knows where I can find it second-hand for not too much?