Some More Stuff

Fight Night on the Hill.


Be there.



It is also Human Achievement Hour, one hour a year when we remember how awesome it is to have electricity, running water, medicines and the Internet.



A very good example of why Human Achievement Hour matters.

It's always Earth Hour in North Korea.

Speaking of the Koreas....

South Koreans aged under 18 have been banned from attending an upcoming concert by US pop diva Lady Gaga after it was rated unsuitable for younger audiences, according to organisers.

Lady Gaga will begin her third concert tour, "The Born This Way Ball", on April 27 at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul.

The show had an initial age rating of 12 and older but the Korea Media Rating Board, a state watchdog, has adjusted it upwards, said event organiser Hyundai Card.

"Our company will respect the board's decision and refund all ticketholders younger than 18," a Hyundai Card official told AFP, declining to be named.

Some religious groups in South Korea have opposed the concert, saying Lady Gaga has advocated homosexuality and performed in an explicitly sexual manner.

"Our Christian community needs concerted action to stop young people from being infected with homosexuality and pornography," the Korean Association of Church Communication said in a statement.

I think people should be banned from seeing Lady Gaga because she embodies everything that is wrong about the current music scene- the kind of manufactured, vulgar, pop kitsch that is as exciting and as original as sliced white bread.



(Sidebar: I would like to apologise to white bread. It didn't deserve to be compared to the sucktastic Lady Gaga. It has proven its delicious worth. Lady Gaga could never do that.)



But imagine for a moment a white American Christian group complaining about Lady Gaga's intentional vulgarity.



We trade with China. Discuss:

The Chinese workers who often spend more than 60 hours per week assembling iPhones and iPads will have their overtime curbed and their hourly wages raised after a labour auditor hired by Apple Inc. inspected their factories.

The Washington-based Fair Labor Association says Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the Taiwanese company that runs the factories, is committing to reducing weekly work time to the legal Chinese maximum of 49 hours.

That limit is routinely ignored in factories throughout China. Auret van Heerden, the CEO of the FLA, said Hon Hai is the first company to commit to following the legal standard.

Apple's and FLA's own guidelines call for work weeks of 60 hours or less.

The FLA found that many workers at the Hon Hai factories want to work even more overtime, so they can make more money. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, told the FLA that it will raise hourly salaries to compensate workers for the reduced hours.

Heerden said that it's common to find workers in developing countries looking for more overtime, rather than less.

"They're often single, they're young, and there's not much to do, so frankly they'd just rather work and save," he said.

The FLA auditors visited three Foxconn complexes in February and March: Guanlan and Longhua near the coastal manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, and Chengdu in the inland province of Sichuan. They employ a total of 178,000 workers, with an average age of 23.

Average monthly salaries at the factories ranged from $360 to $455. Foxconn recently raised salaries by up to 25 per cent in the second major salary hike in less than two years.

Foxconn employs 1.2 million workers in China to assemble products not just for Apple, but for Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other pillars of the U.S. technology industry.

I'll believe it when I see it.



And let's not forget the potential North Korean labour market to tap into.



Ontario parents: mad as hell, not going to take it anymore:

An estimated up to 2000 concerned parents from a wide range of ethnic and faith communities demonstrated outside Ontario’s legislature Thursday demanding the defeat of the Liberal government’s anti-bullying Bill 13. The speakers and boisterous, chanting crowd, many with homemade signs, expressed fears of a dangerous loss of freedoms from the government bill and its imposition on all Ontario schools of a sex education culture radically opposed to their own beliefs.

Also, see here. He knows what to say!



And now, some really chunky animals.