Optimism — the expectation of a better tomorrow — is universal, according to a new worldwide Gallup poll. Around the world, 95 percent of people expect their lives in five years to be as good as or better than they were five years ago.

Notable by the pessimism of its people is Egypt. Joining Egypt are Bulgaria, Haiti and Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe and Haiti are understandable, the former having witnessed severe economic and political strife recently. The latter is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.

Stephane Corlosquet (scor) is back from the RDF in Drupal 7 code sprint.

He has kindly agreed to present to the Waterloo Region Drupal Users Group. He will tell us about the exciting things that were done in Drupal 7, and how this can change the landscape on the web.

More info at: Drupal, the Semantic Web and RDF.

As a side effect of publishing lots of fraud emails on my site, people often mistake my site for the alleged lottery winning for that company/entity

This is the first time though that I get an email mistaking my site for one of those companies, but not related to lottery winnings.

The company in question is BMW, and someone says that they have a new name for the new series from BMW.

From: Ms. L M [name withheld]
Subject: New Name for new series of BMW's

I have a name I think would be very suitable for a car of the BMW magnitude.  

Here is another fraud attempt. The scammer advertises a desirable car for much less than market value, then claiming that the car will be shipped.

The car in question in this case is the fuel efficient hybrid Toyota Prius. While it sells for $19,000 used for 2004, this scammer said he is selling a 2007 for $5,400.

Here is an email chain about this.

From: me
To: Lorraine Thompson  

Hello

I saw your ad for a Prius:

2007 TOYOTA PRIUS , 40000 kms, $5400, Pre-owned, 2007 Toyota Prius with option package 2.

Two recent articles from Al-Jazeera show the misinformation that is widespread about Swine Flu.

The first was an article lamenting how some Arab countries has imported pork meat, including Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE. The article implies a connection between consuming pork, and catching swine flu. An avalanche of equally uninformed comments from visitors as response to the article. Many of the comments are focusing on the Islamic ban on consuming pork.

The other article is about Egypt's parliament considering discontinuing pig farms, with the approval of the Coptic Orthodox Church. At issue are the jobs affected by that, including the garbage collectors and recyclers providing feed for the pigs.

The Iraqi poet Ahmad Mattar has always been a vocal critic of the Arab rulers and the silence of the Arab populace, with witty sarcasm and brilliant literary creativity. In a previous article, we gave a few examples, of his criticism of Saddam and the general downfall of Arab contemporary state of affairs.

He has a new poem on Obama, which is given below with an English translation. Even though it is titled Obama, it is really an inward looking poem lamenting the state of the Arabs.

I received the following message from Celia Male, addressed to "Dear EGC girls, where-ever you may be", and is about "English Girls' College, Alexandria - Dinner, March 2009".

The photos are on Flickr in this set: EGC Paris Dinner, March 2009.

There are many notes on the pictures. Be sure to check them.

The Economist has a fascinating article on research by Dr Mark Levine of Lancaster University in the UK.

He analyzes footage from the now famous/notorious CCTV cameras in Britain, and finds that crowds can have an effect on escalating into violence or diffusing it depending on how the first few bystanders respond to the aggressor.

Here is yet another example of Drupal being used as the basis of a custom "distro".

Ubuntu now has UbuntuDrupal which is used for the LoCo's (Local Communities).

Its original aim is to make Drupal easier to setup (which they describe as "painful") and run for these communities. They say that it has grown to be a "general development suite".

We all know that kittens get killed when you hack Drupal core.

But that is nothing? How about kitten torture?

Anyone Flash guru up for remixing that with Druplicon?