Scabies The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are at the centre of a health scare following an outbreak of scabies at the Elysée palace in Paris. Three members of the palace guard were diagnosed with the highly contagious skin disease, which doctors said they had contracted due to the “dilapidated state” of what is considered one of France's most illustrious palaces. Scabies is an illness more commonly linked to the squalid living conditions of the very poor, especially homeless people. There was a large scale outbreak over the summer among migrants hoping to cross into Britain who lived in a makeshift camp outside Calais known as the “jungle”, which has now been razed. While the Elysée's exterior is regally impressive, visitors are regularly shocked by the moth-eaten interiors. A source at the Association for the Defence of Military Rights - which represents palace staff - said that much of the palace was in urgent need of a makeover, particularly the staff quarters. – arbroath.blogspot.com 3D maps Some of us here at Google spend almost all of our time thinking about one thing: How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it's accurate, that it stays current and that it's useful to everyone who might want to use it? One of the best ways to get a big project done – and done well – is to open it up to the world. As such, today we're announcing the launch of Google Building Maker, a fun and simple (and crazy addictive, it turns out) tool for creating buildings for Google Earth. We like to think of Building Maker as a cross between Google Maps and a gigantic bin of building blocks. Basically, you pick a building and construct a model of it using aerial photos and simple 3D shapes – both of which we provide. When you're done, we take a look at your model. If it looks right, and if a better model doesn't already exist, we add it to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. You can make a whole building in a few minutes. – google-latlong.blogspot.com Absurd prize “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures that have been honored by this prize,” said US President Barak Obama. And so the opinions and debate raged between the various sides and agendas of US and world politics. While entertaining, the dialogue was sorely missing constructive suggestions on how to best move forward. Of course blaming Obama for being awarded the prize is absurd. Nobel keeps its selection process a secret for 50 years and Nobel reported that its five person committee was unanimous, so speculation here is of no use. I found myself having a sympathetic ear for a very unlikely source, Bill O'Reilly who sidestepped the opportunity to sling political mud and presented the award as “good for America”. However, I can't accept this stance (the idea that it is good that the world is “hearing” America and Peace in the same sentence) as the realities on the ground show that every major hotspot (Afghanistan/Pakistan, Iraq and Palestine) have further degenerated since Obama's term began. Along with the famous sense of hope, human suffering has also increased and because of the pivotal role of American policy in the major conflicts occurring in Muslims lands, the number of my brothers and sisters in faith who are perishing continues to rise. Not exactly a change toward peace.
