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I have two votes to my name on this - Greenpeace is doing a public poll to name a humpback whale. This is in effort to focus people’s attention on the humpack’s whaling. Well, it’s working. Reddit.com has twice now had the top story on the page be the voting on the name of this whale.

The Reason: Mr. Splashy Pants is a contender. Well, beyond contender, it has 76% of the vote.

Majestic? Not quite.

Regal? Hardly.

Hilarious? Very.

Vote here for Mr. Splashy Pants. - Vote Today! The Poll ends December 7th!

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PetroChina, China’s state-owned subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp., became the first company to be worth over $1 trillion USD.  On Friday, before going public, the company’s value was about $456 billion.  After their IPO on Monday, the company more than doubled in value.

For context, Exxon-Mobile is the next largest company in the world, at $488 billion.

An interesting fact:

PetroChina is more wealthy than all but 10 countries throughout the world.

Read the full article here.

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We need to change this nomenclature. The “middle east” was used to describe its location relative to Europe in the 1850’s. It describes everything from Iraq to Burma, which extends much farther than its modern day meaning. Why is it still used? Mainly it’s used because in 1957 it was included as a descriptor in US policy by the Eisenhower administration. The problem is that it is no longer a geographical distinction, but a cultural label. We are using a term that is over 150 years old to describe a general location from a Eurocentric perspective.

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