davidagillespie
U.S. Judge Seeks To Ban Internet News Linking
Those who wish to keep the internet free and open had best dust off their legal arguments. One of America’s most influential conservative judges, Richard Posner, has proposed a ban on linking to online content without permission. The idea, he said in a blog post last week, is to prevent aggregators and bloggers from linking to newspaper websites without paying:
Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.
A Guide To ’80s Sax Solos
I realized about 5 years ago that at some point in the ’80s, lots of the popular music started incorporating saxophone solos into their songs. Some of them are fine, but most of them are ridiculous to have in the songs. Below, I have attempted to separate the quality and appropriateness of the solos from what I think of the song as a whole (I still really like most of these songs, even the ones with low grades).
Crop Circles, Poppies — And Tripping Wallabies
Wallabies snacking in opium poppy fields are getting “high as a kite” and hopping around creating crop circles.Tasmania is the world’s largest producer of legally-grown opium for the pharmaceutical market.
Tasmania attorney-general Lara Giddings told a budget hearing yesterday that she recently read about the wallabies in a brief on the state’s large poppy industry.
She said: “We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles.”Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.
Death Video Girl ‘Targeted By Militia’
Amateur video apparently showing a young Iranian woman dying in Tehran after she was allegedly shot by pro-government militia on Saturday has caused outrage in Iran and abroad.
Eyewitnesses and video footage of the shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her. Eyewitnesses said they clearly targeted her and she was shot in the chest.
The Bomb Iran Contingent’s Newfound Concern For The Iranian People
I’m going to leave the debate about whether Iran’s election was “stolen” and the domestic implications within Iran to people who actually know what they’re talking about (which is a very small subset of the class purporting to possess such knowledge). But there is one point I want to make about the vocal and dramatic expressions of solidarity with Iranians issuing from some quarters in the U.S.
During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz entitled “The Case for Bombing Iran,” and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he “hopes and prays” that the U.S. “bombs the Iranians”.
Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way — just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of…
The Taliban Will ‘Never Be Defeated’
THE Pakistani intelligence agent who trained Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, to fight has warned that Nato forces will never overpower their enemies in Afghanistan and should talk to them rather than sacrifice more lives.
A tall, bearded figure, whose real name is Amir Sultan Tarar, he trained at Fort Bragg, the US army base where America’s special forces are stationed. During the late 1970s and 1980s he controlled CIA-funded training camps for 95,000 Afghans and often accompanied his students on missions.
After the Soviet defeat and the collapse of communism, he was invited to the White House by the first President George Bush and was given a piece of the Berlin Wall with a brass plaque inscribed: “To the one who dealt the first blow.”
Scientologists Had Me Fired, Claims Fox Journalist
In a conspiracy as contorted as the plot of one of their action movies, Tom Cruise and John Travolta have been accused of persuading Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to sack an influential entertainment journalist who had a history of criticising the Church of Scientology.
Roger Friedman, who was dismissed in April after a decade covering the TV channel’s Hollywood beat, announced yesterday that he intended to sue his former employer for wrongful termination, claiming that they fired him so that Cruise and Travolta would sign on to future Fox movie projects.
All Violent Video Games To Be Banned In Germany
German ministers have today agreed to ban the production and distribution of all violent video games, with the law only having to go through parliament in the next few weeks.
The country has been infamously hard on violent video games before now, but an outright ban would result in a huge loss for the video games industry in one of its most successful European countries.
The law would result in no Call of Duty, no God of War, no Crysis, no World of Warcraft, no BioShock, no Uncharted and no Grand Theft Auto.
Two Shot At Holocaust Museum
Two men were injured in a shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington today.The attack took place at a security check point just inside the museum, and early indications were that a security guard and the gunman, who wielded a shotgun, were injured. A Washington fire department official said a third man was injured by broken glass. The gunman is in critical condition and the guard is in grave condition at local hospitals. Security officials quickly evacuated the building after the shooting.
London’s Metropolitan Police Accused Of Waterboarding Suspects
Metropolitan Police officers subjected suspects to waterboarding, according to allegations at the centre of a major anti-corruption inquiry, The Times has learnt.The torture claims are part of a wide-ranging investigation which also includes accusations that officers fabricated evidence and stole suspects’ property. It has already led to the abandonment of a drug trial and the suspension of several police officers.
Inflatable Tower Could Reach The Edge Of Space
A GIANT inflatable tower could carry people to the edge of space without the need for a rocket, and could be completed much sooner than a cable-based space elevator, its proponents claim.
Inflatable pneumatic modules already used in some spacecraft could be assembled into a 15-kilometre-high tower, say Brendan Quine, Raj Seth and George Zhu at York University in Toronto, Canada, writing in Acta Astronautica (DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.02.018). If built from a suitable mountain top it could reach an altitude of around 20 kilometres, where it could be used for atmospheric research, tourism, telecoms or launching spacecraft.
Spy Bugs May Be Deployed For 2012 Olympics
BRITISH police are studying Chinese-style surveillance tactics as they prepare security for the 2012 London Olympics, a leaked Scotland Yard report has revealed. The report, marked “restricted”, reveals that among the “Big Brother” tactics deployed at last summer’s Beijing Games was the installation of miniature microphones in thousands of taxis.The bugs transmitted passengers’ conversations to a police control room. There, officers could activate disabling devices to stop the cabs if they suspected criminal activity.
Watergate Burglar Dies In Florida
Former CIA agent Bernard Leon Barker, who took part in the Watergate burglary in Washington more than 30 years ago, has died in Miami at the age of 92.
A quick run through the CV of the Cuban-born CIA operative is like taking a ride through some of the most controversial covert operations in late-20th century American history, says the BBC’s Emilio San Pedro.
Barack Obama Admits U.S. Role in 1953 Iran Coup
US President Barack Obama has admitted US involvement in the 1953 coup in Iran which overthrew the democratically elected government of premier Mohammad Mossadegh.
“In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said during his keynote speech to the Muslim world from Cairo University in the Egyptian capital.
The CIA, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry, run until then by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
In Israel, Obama Is Accused Of ‘Anti-Semitism’
Knesset (parliament) member Yaakov Katz, head of the National Union party, said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama’s repeated calls for halting the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is “nothing less than anti-Semitism,” Israel’s Arutz Sheva reported.
He also accused the White House of following the path of his predecessors in stunting the growth of the population of Jewish people in the West Bank.
Katz says calling on Tel Aviv to freeze settlement activities means denying the Jewish people the right to give birth.
Chinese Curbs Before Tiananmen Anniversary
China has blocked several websites ahead of the 20th anniversary of the suppression of the Tiananmen protests. Chinese internet users were unable to connect to the social networking service Twitter, their Hotmail accounts and the photo-sharing service Flickr.
The BBC’s James Reynolds in Beijing says that as the anniversary of what China calls the “4 June incident” gets closer, the Communist Party appears to be in a particularly vigilant mood — it wants to make sure that there is no mention of the subject whatsoever.
Obama Gives Pledge On U.S. ‘Values’
US President Barack Obama has told the BBC that the US cannot impose its values on other countries. But, in his first interview with a UK broadcaster, he said the rule of law, democracy and freedoms of speech and religion were “universal values”.
Speaking ahead of a trip to the Middle East and Europe, Mr Obama said closing the Guantanamo Bay prison was a way that America could set a good example.
U.S. Abortion Doctor Is Shot Dead
A prominent US abortion doctor has been shot dead at a church in Wichita, in his home state of Kansas.Police say the attacker, a white man, then fled in a car. Local media report that a suspect is now in custody.
Dr Tiller, one of the few US doctors who performed so-called late-term abortions, had been vilified by some anti-abortionists.
U.S. Denies Involvement in Zahedan Blast
The US State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly says that the US was not involved in the bombing of a mosque in southeastern Iran.”The US strongly condemns all forms of terrorism. We do not sponsor any form of terrorism in Iran,” Kelly added.
At least 25 people were killed and 125 others were injured on Thursday after bombers targeted a religious ceremony in the Shia Amir al-Mumineen Mosque.
Creation Of ‘GM’ Monkey Heralds Health Revolution
Scientists yesterday announced a breakthrough that could transform research into a range of incurable diseases but spark a dramatic increase in the number of monkeys used in experiments.
Researchers have developed a technique to create genetically modified monkeys that suffer from human illnesses.
Experimenting on these monkeys, they believe, will advance our understanding and treatment of incurable conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
However, the scientific breakthrough has caused consternation among groups opposed to animal experiments because the development will almost certainly lead to a sudden increase in the number of primates used in medical research at a time when there are calls for fewer monkeys to be used in experiments.
