This evening, BBC2 are running the first of a series of two programmes about the state of dementia residential (and presumably nursing) care in the UK. Gerry Robinson, a successful businessman, who, in 2007 brought us Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? returns to focus his attention on what might be done to improve the care that is meted out to those who live in 24 hour dementia care.

Xenotropic murine leukemia virus related virus (XMRV) has been implicated in prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Because XMRV is a retrovirus, it has been suggested that it might be susceptible to some of the many drugs available for treatment of AIDS. Of ten licensed compounds evaluated for activity against XMRV, just one, AZT (azidothymidine), was found to inhibit viral replication.

With the amount of travel that we do, I have to say that my mind already rests easier knowing that I have a Reboundtag. Should my luggage ever decide to take a tiki-tour of the world without me, it should find its way back once a baggage handler locates it, realises it's travelling on its own and logs its whereabouts on the Reboundtag website. Then, wherever I am, I can find out where my bag is (New Mexico/ Indonesia/ Glasgow) and tell the baggage handlers where I want it to be sent and when.

Imagine if the rules for carbon emissions constraint by different countries were applied to wages and taxation within the community: Those who are poorest would be hardest hit, needing to return to wages of a few years ago ... and as most would be young "developing" workers, that might be before they were working, or working for a pittance as a trainee. Meanwhile, the wealthiest might well be getting more money, based on their income from boom times when they were ripping everyone else off through commissions on dodgy derivatives. There'd be a bloody revolution.

Many conservatives seem to think that the suspects we have in custody do not deserve a trial, as they are seen as Prisoners of War. POW's do not have a right to trial, and are normally interned for the duration of the particular conflict. And that might pose a problem here, as technically the war on terror will never actually be over, and these prisoners were never soldiers of a particular country. Not to mention the fact that we have already arrested, tortured, and even managed to kill some of those we believed to be our enemies, and the only problem here of course is that we managed to arrest innocent people, and even kill some of them while in custody. So, indefinite detention seems a rather imperfect solution to the problem.

I am a poster child for public health. Why do I say this? Because I live in a state where there is a low-income, public healthcare option. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was able to utilize this option for my treatment. It worked, and it worked extremely well.

Wireless broadband has become a common, useful tool for many people. Toyota has recognized this by introducing a 2010 Prius outfitted with wireless built-in broadband connection. It's like having a smart phone on wheels.

Maybe there's something in the air. After the recent news that Microsoft is going to publish the documentation of the PST file format used by Outlook, there is now an article in Wired reporting that Sequoia Voting Systems will publish the source code for their new optical-scan voting system. This is, in its own way, as noteworthy as the announcements of Microsoft's new openness; Sequoia historically has fought tooth and nail to keep its source code and other details of its systems secret.

Evegeny Morozov over at Foreign Policy recently shared this story from the Russian site InfoX.ru, which reports that Russia is considering technical filtering options. ONI research has not found technical filtering in Russia to date, so if this plan goes through it could be one of the first known instances of technical filtering in Russia.

The net neutrality fight is on, as FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposal for new rules moved on to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Now, the two sides are digging in: AT&T, telcos, and unions on one side; Google and content providers on the other. I tend to favor protecting end-to-end in the Internet context, but I'm a bit worried about what the net neutrality rules will look like in practice.

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