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So with this posting Sony thinks I’m ‘violating’ some license. Yeah, right.

And people wonder why I’m refusing to buy anything with the Sony label on it.

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Go right ahead, fuckwits. See if I care.

Today I received this e-mail message:

Subject: ARTICLE ON LT. BRANDON TURNER, USMC

Dear Sir,

���� I don’t know from the photograph whether or not the Marines are in the mosque that sheltered 34 Iraqi terrorists who were arrested, followed by a search of the basement that disclosed a major arms cache, nor I suspect does the writer of the article about an “insane” Lt. Brandon Turner.�

���� Neither your writer nor I was there, but the article in the LA Times does not reflect anything like what he wrote in relation to the situation.� I am familiar enough with combat situations, though, to know that in a firefight it is unlikely that soldiers on either side will take time to remove their shoes before entering a mosque or church.�

���� As for the desecration or destruction of holy places, I invite your writer’s attention to the bombings of Coventry Cathedral, St. Paul’s, or the destruction of synagogues on Kristallnacht as examples of really unnecessary entries into holy places [no weapons or ammunition found in any of them, and even the Nazis didn't claim that there were].

���� Certainly your writer is entitled to his opinion, and rest assured that I am not in total agreement with all of the decisions made by my government in this context, but I think that his letter reveals that he has never been shot at and is, therefore, somewhat lacking in credentials to say what is “insane” and what is not “insane” in a combat situation.

���� Thank you for your attention.

���� ���� ���� John McClellan Marshall
���� ���� ���� COL,
���� ���� ���� Inspector General, Texas State Guard (Ret.)

I replied kindly, with an invitation to post on this weblog. Unfortunately, the e-mail bounced. So, I went to google. John McClellan Marshall is real, and a former Judge in Texas with a impressive record. Somebody I would definately listen to and who would get room on the weblog to comment. However, Google cannot find any military record, even for the Guards, nor does it appear former Judge Marshall was ever Inspector General. Also, the “from” address bounces, and the only occurrence of the email address for the Judge is in an Alumnu listing in reference to a course the Judge gave in Poland.

It sounds fishy – it looks like somebody is abusing the Judges name, but for the life of me I cannot image why. For the moment I’m assuming it’s all a forgery, but if I’m wrong, I’d love to see a message from the Judge from an e-mail address that accepts replies. Preferable non-AOL.

This story reminded me of what happened to me this morning on the way to…. ah, never mind.

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But I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking. If all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed and why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.

–Sister Joan Chittister, former head of the Benedictine nuns

(more reading)

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The World Sunlight Map provides a computer-generated approximation of what the earth currently looks like. While less impressive than actually being into orbit, this is much more accessible to most of us.

I start with cloudless images of the earth during the day (from a pair of NASA satellites) and night (from a DoD program to map city lights). Every 3 hours, I download a composite cloud image based on data from weather satellites all over the world. And every half hour, these images are composited and mapped onto a sphere by xplanet according to the relative position of the sun. The flat maps are post-processed by ImageMagick to cut off the 15 degrees nearest the north and south poles where cloud data is unavailable

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The computer model developed by Davis shows that, if all vehicles on a highway had adaptive cruise control, perturbations due to changes in the lead vehicle’s velocity would not translate into propagating pockets of traffic congestion. Traffic would flow smoothly.

Intriguingly, at an average speed of 67 miles per hour, if only one in five vehicles used adaptive cruise control, no traffic jams would form and traffic would generally flow freely. At lower concentrations, however, intermittent episodes of traffic congestion would still be an issue.

Goed nieuws voor de A4?

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A group of former pupils at a London comprehensive school are poised to win thousands of pounds in unpaid royalties for singing on Pink Floyd’s classic Another Brick In The Wall 25 years ago.

The pupils from the 1979 fourthform music class at Islington Green School secretly recorded vocals after their teacher was approached by the band’s management.

Now the 23 ex-pupils are suing for overdue session musician royalties, taking advantage of the Copyright Act 1997 to claim a percentage of the money from broadcasts.

Music teacher Alun Renshaw took the 13- to 14-year-old pupils out of lessons by to the nearby Britannia Recording Studios in Islington to record – without the head’s permission.

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A Sydney software company painted itself as a defender of the interests of millions of music fans when in fact it was the world’s biggest music pirate, a court was told yesterday.

Sharman Networks is the developer of Kazaa file-sharing software, which allows users to swap digital material – primarily music, but also movies – over the internet.

On the first day of a massive legal battle between the record industry and the company behind the software, the court was told Sharman had broadcast “a call to arms to stop paying for music”.

Hmm… with the way they’re treating customers, the record industry is doing a fine job all by itself…

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When it comes to limiting work hours, ensuring fair pay and improving health and safety standards, “Mattel is one of the best,” said Chan Ka Wai, associate director of the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, which has done extensive investigations into working conditions in the Chinese toy industry.

Yet for all of that, tens of thousands of workers who make Mattel products still suffer.

One big reason is that half of the toys displaying Mattel’s familiar red logo are made in facilities, such as the one here in an industrial area of Shenzhen, that the company doesn’t own.

“Mattel has no way to know the truth about what really goes on here,” said a 24-year-old worker at the Shenzhen factory. “Every time there is an inspection, the bosses tell us what lies to say.”

Labor advocates agree that the situation is difficult. Mattel might be doing a lot to turn its own factories into showplaces, Chan said. “But their vendors look very different,” he added.

(thanks, Maarten)

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– VVD-Tweede-Kamerlid Hirsi Ali werkt aan een vervolg op Submission, de film over de mishandeling van moslimvrouwen die ze eerder met de vermoorde cineast Theo van Gogh maakte. Het ondergedoken Kamerlid zegt dat maandag in een interview met NRC/Handelsblad. Het is het eerste interview met het zwaar bedreigde Kamerlid sinds de moord op Van Gogh.

Het thema van het tweede deel van Submission is volgens Hirsi Ali de manier waarop volgens haar de islam het individu onderdrukt. “Met als uitgangspunt de positie van de vrouw. En daarnaast wil ik nog steeds het islamitisch onderwijs afschaffen. Niet afbranden dus! Dat is iets heel anders.”

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Een foto van Mohammed B., verdachte van de moord op Theo van Gogh, is zonder zwart balkje geplaatst in het Algemeen Dagblad. De krant loopt hiermee vast vooruit op de uitzending van Opsporing Verzocht van maandagavond.

Het is in Nederland ongebruikelijk dat verdachten van misdaden herkenbaar in beeld worden gebracht. Volgens de Telegraaf is het zelfs de eerste keer dat een foto wordt getoond van iemand wiens identiteit al bekend is, en die bovendien ook al in de cel zit. De Amsterdamse politie heeft voor de vertoning speciale toestemming van justitie gekregen.

In het opsporingsprogramma zal de Amsterdamse politie het publiek enkele vragen voorleggen over B. De politie hoopt informatie binnen te krijgen over activiteiten van B., voorafgaand aan de moord.

(overigens, iedereen die wel ‘s van google heeft gehoord weet dat het om Mohamed Bouyeri gaat)

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Angel Raich tried dozens of prescription medicines to ease the pain of a brain tumor and other illnesses before she took up another drug: pot.

The mother of two has the support of her doctor and a California medical marijuana law when she lights her pot pipe every few hours.

The Supreme Court hears arguments Monday whether that’s enough to protect Raich from the federal government, which makes no exceptions for the seriously ill in its war on drugs.

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South Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is walking again after scientists say they repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood.

Last week her eyes glistened with tears as she walked again with the help of a walking frame at a press conference where South Korea researchers went public for the first time with the results of their stem-cell therapy.

They said it was the world’s first published case in which a patient with spinal cord injuries had been successfully treated with stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

A Pygmy Marmoset (R), the world’s smallest monkey (120-150 gram), shares his lunch with a Golden Lion Tamarin who is one of the most endangered monkeys in the world, at the Skansen aquarium in Stockholm. (AFP/Sven Nackstrand)

A U.S. Army soldier checks for possible booby-traps and explosives after the bodies of four murdered men were found in a cemetery in Mosul, Iraq, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2004. Ten bodies were recovered Sunday in Mosul, where at least 50 people have been murdered in the past 10 days. Most of the victims are believed to have been supporters of Iraq’s interim government or members of its fledgeling security forces.(AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)

The carcasses of dead dolphins and pilot whales are strewn on a beach on Australia’s King Island, off Tasmania state Sunday, Nov. 28, 2004. About 100 whales and dolphins died after swimming onto a beach on the southern Australian island where rescue teams Monday were desperately trying to prevent others becoming stranded, a government official said. (AP Photo/Mavis Burgess)

A diver dressed as Santa Claus feeds fish to dolphins at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, November 24, 2004. REUTERS/Kimimasa Mayam