Hornets VS Bees; Synthetic life forms? Wal Mart Sux0rs

Ah, pretty damn amazing. National Geo video (WMP): 30 Japanese hornets take on 30,000 European honeybees. But how do the Japanese bees defend against the onslaught?

Scientists in Canada are working on a fully synthetic life form (more here and here).

Microsoft Confirms They are Censoring Their Blogs in China.

Awesome. From Corey Anderson at CityPages (via AmericaBlog).

MNPublius offers a list of MN blogs of the year, copied from MNspeak's author Rex. Publius gets a nod... Hongpong continues 100% under the radar, where all the kool kids really hang out.

Oh those Russians: MOSNews: West Should Not Be Scared of Russian Spies, says Russian Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergei Lebedev. Nice.

What is this bullshit? Students pressed F5 (reload) too much and that's a felony? Student accused of trying to crash school's computer system!

Thinking about Wal-Mart? Need to convince conservatives they suck? Try the Neighborhood Retail Alliance: Conservative Case Against Wal-Mart in NYC . Subsidies for private corporations should be a conservative's enemy. Also ProfessorBainbridge.com: The Conservative Case Against Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart screws up health care. Costs taxpayers a lot. How can the Party of Nixon Reagan support such welfare mommas sucking at the Capitol's teats?

News from the Wilderness: Former LAPD cop Michael Ruppert is an enigmatic, larger than life character among the various conspiratorial journalists and 9/11 researchers that tell exciting tales of intrigue and Peak Oil suspense. He claims to have stumbled into CIA-backed drug trafficking in Los Angeles as a narcotics officer.

His confrontation with former CIA director John Deutsch in a room full of angry Angelenos (as C-SPAN recorded) is an absolute classic para-political moment - the room erupts when he names the CIA programs involved in supporting drug operations (Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower, according to Ruppert). This is featured in Guerrilla News Network's video Crack the CIA, an excellent look at the Central Intelligence Agency and its storied associations with Central American traffickers, featuring Ruppert (Iran-Contra didn't pay for itself, hon).

He sort of went on a deep & weird geopolitical tangent from there — Crossing the Rubicon is one of the oddest political books of our times — and certainly one that the mainstream media doesn't want to review or promote. Nonetheless, his view of how peak oil may propel psychotic and reckless behavior in the U.S. leadership is certainly worth considering. His site, From The Wilderness, also carries a lot of energy stories from other sources (with remarks), so it is useful for finding the odd Chinese pipeline story and all that. The Agency That Could Be Big Brother by NSA whiz James Bamford, Nuclear Clouds Gather Over Asia from IPS, and China lays down gauntlet in energy war from Asia Times are all useful.