for those interested in mapping, mashups, and all things geo-oriented, you may want to subscribe to the GeoWanking list. The name's not the greatest, but the list is quite lively and talks about things like GeoDRM, data sharing, geo-mashups and all things where the geospacial intersects the Web. There's also a site called Slashgeo which looks to be like /. for geo-geeks.

I checked out the world human rights map. It was interesting that North Korea got a zero. Myanmar had a 1, China a 2. I was quite surprised that Saudia Arabia "fared" worse than both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although I was not surprised that the Middle Eastern and Saharan and Sub-Saharan African countries "dominated" the upper echelons on the human rights abusing countries.

What surprised me also is the fact that Malaysia had a worse ranking than Philippines and even Bosnia and Herzogovina.

I wasn't even surprised than Nordic countries and as well as Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the rest of Western Europe have very low scores on human rights violation.

Perhaps Australia should have got a worse score for human right violations. This is a country which imprisons refugees illegally, has a government which publically vilifiies minority ethnic groups such as the Sudanese, claims to oppose the death penalty when it suits it but supports it on other occasions. The conditions in which Australian aboriginals live are appaling and are a shameful blight on Australia's human rights record. As an Australian, I am ashamed that the current government (they call themselves the Liberal Party of Australia but they are the moral equivalent of Nazis) has been elected into power for four terms.