The fierce punk rock band Drive A has been turning heads with their new album Loss of Desire. They’ve recently released a 3-disc set that features covers of The Clash’s "White Riot" and The Buzzcocks "What Do I Get" as well as a live version of their own album track "Are You Blind?" The band just wrapped a national tour where they were touring with The Used and have embarked on a six-week spring tour with the Finnish rock band, HIM.

Blast reporter Josh Couillard got a chance to chat with lead singer of the band, Bruno Mascolo, and talk about their upcoming show in Boston. Enjoy the quick preview podcast above, and be sure to check Drive A out this Sunday night at the House of Blues.

Check back here Monday for our full interview with the band.

Yesterday was World Aids Day. A day we set aside to remember those who have perished as a result of the disease, and a day we use to honor those who battle it bravely.

This year has been a progressive one, in terms of treatment and accessibility to treatments. Though many have died as a result of HIV/AIDS, the overall number of those infected has no risen in the last two years.

With major efforts by the NIH and other nations planned for the upcoming year, the goal, on this World AIDS Day, is to decrease that number in the upcoming years.

Listen to find out what country is making waves with its new announcement on AIDS treatment, and what the U.S. is doing, and should do, to be a leader in the field.

(Link I speak of in the podcast: http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86936)

On November 20 we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child. Every year countless parades are held to celebrate the violations that have been overcome.

But often we fail to recognize those violations that still occur, not only in developing nations, but right here in the developed and modernized nations. The United States and Canada are not exempt because of their standing on the world stage, however violations in these two countries are often overlooked because of their reputations.

In addition, the horrible conditions in which kids live in developing nations can no longer be overlooked, especially 20 years after the document was drafted.

Listen here for some issues that affect children that you may not have known about.

It’s definitely time for action.

Blast takes time to remember Veteran’s Day — or Remembrance Day as it’s called in Sachin Seth’s home country Canada.

The Terra Blog reporter remembers the Christmas Eve truce during WWI. It’s a story that should be told as often as possible.

Happy freaking Halloween. Now listen to three of our hungover editors talk about what’s in Blast this month.

TORONTO — Here is the third edition of the Terra Podcast, where Blast’s world news reporter Sachin Seth visits a food bank and learns about the people who work and are served there.

Many Food Banks around North America are in dire straits. Since the recession set in, many are finding it harder and harder to secure donations from those hit hard by the global economic downturn.

In major cities like Toronto, food banks have seen close to a 30 per cent increase in clients, but no major increase in donations. Those in need of food are turned away near closing time because supplies run out.

William Shane, a board member at Fort York Food Bank, one of the largest in Toronto, says he’s seen an almost 200 per cent increase in food hampers requested in just five years. The majority of that increase has come since 2007 – the beginning of the recession.

Fort York is by no means a spacious food bank. It’s one of the largest in Toronto in terms of population served, however not in terms of space. Still, Shane tells me it costs more than $90,000 just to keep the lights and heat running. That money comes primarily from donations, save for a small stipend from their mother company that amounts to just a few thousand per year.

Almost one third of Toronto’s entire population visits a food bank every year, an astonishingly large number for a developed North American metropolis. But if you look around, numbers in other major cities across Canada and the U.S. aren’t far off.

I went to Fort York with many questions in an effort to find out how the food bank copes with such large demand. But instead of coming away with answers, I quickly fell in love with the men and women who work there. Their pasts, in some cases heartbreaking, and their ambition, in some cases inspiring.

This is the story of three of the selfless women I met who turned their lives around to give back to the community.

This is the story of Trudy, Janice and Liz.

Today Blast’s Sachin Seth talks about Israel denying water to Palestinians.

Your thoughts? Share them with us in the comments section below!

In October, Blast started podcasting.

We’re even on iTunes.

In this podcast, Blast editors John Guilfoil, Brooklynne Peters and Erica Marcus talk about what’s happening in October and what you can expect going forward!

With its customary flair for sexing up the art of gizmo glorification, Macworld 2009 didn’t disappoint with some big reveals today.

Topping all the charts was Apple’s latest update to its iLife suite, touting major retrofits of iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand. The changes range from a better system for organizing photos in iPhoto to more powerful video editing functions in iMovie to a series of learning tutorials for various instruments in GarageBand.

“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “With iLife ’09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”

Right after the big iLife news hit, Sling Media introduced a real stunner: HD streaming for Macs and iPhones via Sling.com. Sling Media expects to have an iPhone app out soon. Expected release date for SlingPlayer, a downloadable application that will interface with Sling.com to deliver HD content, is sometime in the first fiscal quarter of this year.

“SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media.

Following up, a new 17-inch MacBook Pro with unibody construction and a non-removable 8-hour life battery and an optional anti-glare coating on the screen was announced. The computer comes packed with a 2.66ghz Intel Core Duo chip, a 320 GB Hard Drive, and 4 GB of RAM, to name a few updates.

“We’ve developed new battery technology that is better for the user and better for the environment,” said Jobs. “Apple’s advanced chemistry and innovative technology deliver up to eight hours of use on a full charge cycle and up to 1,000 recharges.”

The final move of the day set social networking sites buzzing. Apple announced a new DRM free iTunes with a three tier pricing structure — $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29.

Both moves on the iTunes front were widely regarded as a necessity in order for iTunes to remain competitive with other online music stores, with the DRM removals hailed as long overdue.

Podcasts cover a range of topics all the way from plumbing to aviation, but a niche listening audience is attracted to a slightly more personal subject – one that features titles like “Open Source Sex” and “Kinky Sex Radio“. One woman, calling herself “Cunning Minx,” decided to take advantage of this trend, taking the actual sex out of her podcast, but keeping in its raw, real-life lessons – that more often than not have to do with sex.

Minx started her podcast, Polyamory Weekly, in March 2005. She said it has been about “a cautionary tale; [a] tell-the-next-guy-what-killed-you kind of thing,” where she can be less preachy and more verbal exhibitionist, providing explanatory and narrative content on her show using previous experiences she has had as a basis to answer her listeners’ questions.

One of Minx’s main rules about hosting the show is that she doesn’t “want to give anyone advice.” She clearly states that over and over again, show after show. What she does instead, is provide a personal experience about how she dealt with a particular issue.

Polyamory is a term used to describe nonmonogamy, or having more than one life partner. Polyamory Weekly, now with over 170 episodes, has come up for new and different definitions for “polyamory” almost every week – whether it represents the standing of a relationship at a time or describes a lifestyle.

Minx had to learn the basics of syndicated podcasting as quickly as she was putting out episodes. With things like show notes, provided on the “Polyamory Weekly: LiveJournal” and on-air apologies for late episodes or technical errors, Minx tries to make the production of her podcast as open to the public as she can.

While she has managed to weed out these types of problems now, Minx said there were more than a few times she wanted to call it quits.

“About every other week [I was ready to quit],” she said. “Or every time I look at my email inbox in despair. I suppose it’s more that I wish I could do PolyWeekly full-time and really give it the time and energy it deserves. I never feel like the show is good enough.”

Armed with, “Many voices are more powerful than one,” a quote from the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto, Polyamory Weekly has become less about Cunning Minx and more about the Poly community that listens to her show. Some listeners aren’t even Poly themselves, or even pan/bisexual either.

One of the appeals of the show is its all-inclusive factor: love, which is honored in the PW tagline, “It’s not all about the sex.” With such a blatant exclusion on its own genre, Polyamory Weekly survives, not on the smut, but on the truth.

“A good percentage of my life and relationships, both mono and poly, have been about sex. About wonderful, kinky, sweaty, mind-blowing sex. And the other 80 percent of the time, they were about communication, laundry, text messages, lunch plans and Google calendar,” Minx said.

Already on episode 170, Polyamory Weekly is gaining momentum with the honest, brutal truth about loving more than one person at the same time.

Getting the word out about the show is the community of listeners themselves. In fact, Polyamory Weekly listeners are keeping the show running as much as Minx herself.

“Without [them] the show simply couldn’t have gone on this long,” Minx said,

With not one life-threatening email to date, Cunning Minx continues to interview notable Poly people like, Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, the authors of the polyamory bible, “The Ethical Slut,” as well as, the always well-spoken Michelle Bellanger, and high profile Tristan Taormino, author of “Opening Up”, all the while maintaining grounded in everyday poly relationships by adding a new segment dedicated just to her listeners to provide feedback on the previous week’s episodes.

While emails are always welcome, audio-mail is much preferred, and encouraged, Minx is always giving a voice to her listeners. Without focusing on sex, Polyamory Weekly is more than a public airing of dirty laundry and tasty tidbits of self-help polyamory.

Minx has expressed that the show is less a flashy audio one-night-stand, and more “a personal instrument of public change.”