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Telemarketers could be fined for pestering householders under a federal government proposal to introduce a national Do Not Call register.

The government has released a discussion paper canvassing options for a register that gives consumers the right to opt out of receiving telemarketing calls on their mobile or land line.

Companies that call a household on the register could face fines of up to $220,000 under the plan, which could be legislated early next year.

Market research companies, pollsters, charities and religious organisations are likely to be exempted.

Market research companies are exempted? WTF? How’s that for a loophole?

“Sir, I’m doing a market survey. What do you think of the Product X‘s new layout and extensive sports coverage?”

“Those who don’t understand UNIX are doomed to reinvent it, poorly.”

–Henry Spencer

Vista – 1980′s technology todaysometime next year.

they better hurry up and patent it before those unix hippies copy it.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Sophocles (496 BC – 406 BC)

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Is God real? Or is he imaginary? It is one of the most important questions in America today.

Here is why it is so important: This question lies at the heart of the American culture wars. If God is real, then we should certainly post the Ten Commandments in our courthouses and shopping centers, pray in our schools and eliminate the theory of evolution from every curriculum. We should focus our society on God.

On the other hand, if God is imaginary, then religion is an illusion. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are pointless. We can eliminate God from our society because God is meaningless.

Knowing whether God is real or imaginary is important. Here is an example of why: In Leviticus 20:13 the Bible says that we should kill all homosexuals. If God exists and if God wrote the Bible, then we should do that. Our creator has commanded it and we should obey. On the other hand, if God is imaginary, we should discard the Bible because a book that promotes murder has no place in our society.

How can we know whether God is real or imaginary? The only way to know is to ask honest questions. That is the purpose of this Web site. Here are several different ways for you to get started:

• If you have time to read just one page today, try this one.
• If you would like to start at the beginning with a gentle introduction, click here.
• If you would like to explore the central question of this book – Why does God hate amputees? – start here.
• If you would like to skip straight to the climax of the book, jump to Chapter 26.
• If you are looking for several quick bites, try Understanding God’s Plan, There Are No “Atheists”,Why Do People Invent Religion? and A Time for Change.
• Did God really inspire the Bible, or is the Bible a collection of fictional stories? Start here.
• Was Jesus God, or just a man? Start here.
• Are you a religious leader? Take the Challenge.
• If you would like to browse the table of contents, start here.

I doubt the site is going to convince many people…

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Back in July, Perrspectives took a look at the Top 10 GOP sound bites. What a difference a hurricane and two indictments make.

Catapulting to #1 in the charts after the Scooter Libby indictment is Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s smash hit, “No Underlying Crime (Perjury Technicality).” “Ongoing Investigation“, the previous chart-topper from Scott McClellan and George W. Bush, dropped to #2. Moving to #5 is “Criminalization of Politics“, as performed by Tom Delay, Ken Mehlman, Bill Kriston and Robert Novak.

Here’s the complete Top 10 GOP Post-Indictment Sound Bites:

I’m surprised the recent hit single “Goin’ Back to Houston. (A Tribute to the Supremes).” by Harriet Miers didn’t make the top 10.

Coming up next week: “I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)” by Dick Cheney.

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“I end up not buying a lot of things, because I find them ridiculous.”

–Steve Jobs

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Hurricane victims who wanted water had some difficulty finding it at a relief station in Clewiston Friday. The volunteer group running a supply center doesn’t like the company that donated the water, so they decided not to give it to those in line for help.

Twenty-two pallets of the canned water, distributed free by beer company Anheuser-Busch, bears the company’s label – and members of the Southern Baptist Convention refused to hand it out to those in need.

Resident lined up for miles to receive food and water at the distribution point. But the water was left on the sidelines by the Alabama-based group.

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Just in time for Halloween, the usual yearly ritual of terror by headline is now playing itself out in medical offices everywhere. Last year it revolved around flu shots; a few years ago it was anthrax and smallpox; a few years before that it was the “flesh-eating bacteria”; and before that it was Ebola virus, and Lyme disease and so on back into the distant past. This year it’s the avian flu.

“I was crossing Third Avenue yesterday and I was coughing so hard I had to stop and barely made it across,” a patient told me last week. “I’m really scared I’m getting the avian flu.”

I just looked at him. What could I say? He has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for the last 50 years. He has coughed and wheezed and gasped his way across Third Avenue now for the last 10 years. His emphysema is not going to get any better, but it might stop getting worse if he were to stop smoking.

This draft legislation was not supposed to be public yet, but the Australian Chief Minister of the ACT revealed it on his website last week in defiance of a federal government request not to do so.

It includes such things as:

* 14-day secret detention without arrest by security services
* Shoot-to-kill “on suspicion” powers for police
* Imprisonment and fines for revealing an individual has been the subject of an investigation

The press coverage is vicious:

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Nobel prize-winning author J. M. Coetzee, a South African now resident in Australia, said at the weekend: “I used to think that the people who created (South Africa’s) laws that effectively suspended the rule of law were moral barbarians. Now I know they were just pioneers ahead of their time.”

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A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems “with ethical wrongdoing” in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an “isolated incident.” And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.

In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush’s overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans — 34 percent — think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton’s standing on this issue when he left office.

The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Americans consider the charges against Libby to be serious. A majority — 55 percent — said the decision of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to bring charges against Libby was based on the facts of the case, while 30 percent said he was motivated by partisan politics.

SNL’s “Weekend Update” just said those 34% who think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government are the people who believe that Adam & Eve rode dinosaurs to church.

Joking aside (wait, one more: there’s now a larger percentage of Americans that believe in ghosts!), I said, joking aside, those 34% are the ones who still believe Bush is upholding the ethics side of things. They believe Wilson is the leaker. They believe Fitzgerald is a runaway prosecutor. They believe Saddam was a bad man who helped to plan 9/11. They believe Osama bin Laden worked with Saddam Hussein. They believe the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath are working out great, and the media is twisting the story. They believe Syria now has Saddam’s weapons. These beliefs are based upon the idea that Bush is an ethical man. If Bush is not an ethical man, their entire world crashes. So, Bush therefore must be an ethical man.

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Als het aan het kabinet ligt, komen er gedragscodes voor de sport, het openbaar vervoer, in de wijk en bij vrijetijdsbesteding. Ook komt er een manifest dat de juiste omgangsvormen tegen overheidsdienaren omschrijft en welk gedrag onacceptabel is. De maatregelen moeten fysiek geweld of de dreiging daarmee voorkomen. De codes en het manifest komen er in 2006.

De voorstellen maken deel uit van het actieplan tegen geweld van minister Donner van Justitie waarmee het kabinet vrijdag heeft ingestemd. Het actieplan bevat twintig projecten met 125 maatregelen die door zeven ministeries worden uitgevoerd tussen 2005 en 2008. Ze richten zich op het publieke domein en het semi-publieke domein (werk en school).

Ik hoor het ze nog zo zeggen… “we willen minder regels”. Ik heb net m’n tong uitgestoken naar een foto van Balkenende. Valt dat nog binnen de gedragscodes?

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Q Did the President read the indictment?

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry?

Q Did the President read the indictment?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I don’t believe so. I can double-check that, but I don’t believe he did.

Perhaps, dear Scott, you give it to him with a cover: “My Pet Indictment”.

Don’t forget to set the clock back this weekend, folks!

(Pat Robertson has been reported to say “it’s only an hour, but it’s a start!”)

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A French company has failed in its attempt to trademark the smell of fresh strawberries.

Paris-based Eden Sarl wanted to use the smell in soaps, face cream, stationery, leather goods and clothing.

An initial attempt to get trademark protection was dismissed by the European Union’s trademark agency, and Eden took its case to the region’s second highest court.

The company argued that while strawberries may look and taste different, they all smell the same, and as a result could be trademarked.

The court took a different view, and smell experts found that instead of just one aroma, strawberries can in fact have up to five different, distinct scents.

[..]

The smell was registered by a Dutch perfume company that uses it to give tennis balls their aroma.

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This contest askes a simple question: If the renaissance took place in more recent times, and the models were famous movie monsters/aliens, what would the artwork have looked like?

via

You may remember that the NO2ID, a British group fighting the UK national ID card, has previously raised the promise of 10,000 Britons to refuse to register for the cards, and a further promise of �1,000,000 from 20,000 Britons to fund their legal defense, all using the Pledgebank service.

Now they’re looking for prmises of another 10,000 Britons to refuse to register for the card, at a critical junction for the debate over national ID cards here in the UK:

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Following the dramatic success of NO2ID’s original pledge (we asked for 10,000 and got over 11,300 refuseniks), Simon Davies – Chairman of NO2ID and veteran of successful ID card campaigns across the globe – has just launched another ‘refuse to comply’ pledge to demonstrate the sustained and growing opposition to the UK ID card scheme. Recent events in Parliament revealed that, far from being ‘voluntary’, registration will be compulsory for 80% of UK citizens from the point the Bill becomes law, and – despite a transparent attempt to distract MPs from the spiralling cost of the scheme – the Government’s majority was slashed to its lowest level since the election at the vote which sent the Bill to the House of Lords. The pledge can be signed online or by mobile phone, and it closes just after Christmas.

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The five count indictment issued by the Grand Jury today is an important step in the criminal justice process that began more than two years ago. I commend Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald for his professionalism, for his diligence, and for his courage.
There will be many opportunities in the future to comment on the events that led to today’s indictment. And, it appears that there will be further developments before the grand jury. Whatever the final outcome of the investigation and the prosecution, I continue to believe that revealing my wife Valerie’s secret CIA identity was very wrong and harmful to our nation, and I feel that my family was attacked for my speaking the truth about the events that led our country to war. I look forward to exercising my rights as a citizen to speak about these matters in the future.

Today, however, is not the time to analyze or to debate. And it is certainly not a day to celebrate. Today is a sad day for America. When an indictment is delivered at the front door of the White House, the Office of the President is defiled. No citizen can take pleasure from that.
As this case proceeds, Valerie and I are confident that justice will be done. In the meantime, I have a request. While I may engage in public discourse, my wife and my family are private people. They did not choose to be brought into the public square, and they do not wish to be under the glare of camera. They are entitled to their privacy. This case is not about me or my family, no matter how others might try to make it so.
This case is about serious criminal charges that go to the heart of our democracy.
We, like all citizens, await the judgment of the jury in a court of law.
Thank you.

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In one of the boldest moves yet in the 22-month investigation into the outing of a covert CIA agent to a handful of top reporters covering the White House, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is extending his probe and pursuing much more serious charges against senior White House officials, specifically President Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, lawyers directly involved in the case told RAW STORY Friday.

While many people were left confused by news reports that said Rove wouldn’t be indicted Friday, the lawyers said that Rove remains under intense scrutiny and added that Fitzgerald is betting on the fact that he can secure an indictment against Rove on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, the misuse of classified information, and possibly other charges, as early as next week.

“This investigation is not yet over,” one of the lawyers in the case said. “You must keep in mind that people like Mr. Rove are still under investigation. Rather than securing an indictment on perjury charges against Mr. Rove Mr. Fitzgerald strongly believes he can convince the grand jury that he broke other laws.”

The lawyers said that in the past month Fitzgerald has obtained explosive information in the case that has enabled him to pursue broader charges such as conspiracy, and civil rights violations against targets like Rove. Specifically, the lawyers said Fitzgerald is focusing on phony intelligence documents that led to the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity: the documents that claimed Iraq was attempting to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Niger.

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Go to page 5 of the indictment. Top of the page, item #9.

On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.

This is a crucial piece of information. the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, i.e., not Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where ‘analysts’ come from, but where the spies come from.

Libby’s a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It’s right there in the indictment.

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Microsoft Corp. has threatened to withdraw its Windows software from South Korea if the country’s antitrust agency orders it to unbundle its Instant Messenger and Media Player from the operating system.

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has been investigating allegations that the world’s top software maker breached antitrust laws by incorporating the services into Windows.

“If the KFTC enters an order requiring Microsoft to remove code or redesign Windows uniquely for the Korean market, it might be necessary to withdraw Windows from the Korean market or delay offering new versions in Korea,” Microsoft said in a U.S. regulatory filing on Thursday.

Deep Thought said it best:

“And whom will that inconvenience?”

Popular science lists the 10 worst jobs in science. Here’s number 10 for a taste:

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10. Orangutan-Pee Collector
Their work is noninvasive – for the apes, that is . . .

“Have I been pissed on? Yes,” says anthropologist Cheryl Knott of Harvard University. Knott is a pioneer of “noninvasive monitoring of steroids through urine sampling.” Translation: Look out below! For the past 11 years, Knott and her colleagues have trekked into Gunung Palung National Park in Borneo, Indonesia, in search of the endangered primates. Once a subject is spotted, they deploy plastic sheets like a firemen’s rescue trampoline and wait for the tree-swinging apes to go see a man about a mule. For more pee-catching precision, they attach bags to poles and follow beneath the animals. “It’s kind of gross when you get hit, but this is the best way to figure out what’s going on in their bodies,” Knott says.

Knott analyzes fertility through estrogen and progesterone levels, and weight gain or loss through ketone measurements. DNA is extracted from the orangu-dookie, and stress levels can be measured by cortisol in the urine. The goal is to understand great-ape reproduction, and because of her unique urine-collection method, Knott isn’t limited to visual observations, as previous researchers have been. She has documented, for example, that female orangutans’ reproductive-hormone levels surge during periods when they are eating more. That timing is critical for the apes, which reproduce only around every eight years. It’s also highlighted how vulnerable the animals are to extinction, and that’s why, when she’s not sampling urine, Knott is working to conserve the rain forest.

Rampant illegal logging – even in the park – has led to an 80 percent decrease in the orangs’ habitat, making it all the easier for hunters to prey on the animals. By some estimates, 50 percent of orangutans have been wiped out in the past decade.

(even “wearing a hat” can be, eh, interesting)

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ViaNed Sublette, snapshots of Hurricane Wilma’s impact on Havana, Cuba. Sorry I don’t have better metadata, but some of the filenames describe location coordinates. Most appear to be from the city’s malecón area.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

A short Guide to Iraq published in 1942 by the US government. The handbook was written for American soldiers who were stationed in Iraq to prevent Nazis from seizing the country�s oil.

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A Manhattan jury said yesterday that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was negligent in safeguarding the World Trade Center before the first terror attack on the twin towers, the 1993 bombing that killed six people and injured 1,000.

In a verdict that could prove costly for the Port Authority, the six-member jury in State Supreme Court unanimously found that the agency did not heed warnings that the underground garage was vulnerable to terrorist attack and should be closed to public parking. This failure, the jury said, was “a substantial factor” in allowing the bombing to occur.

I eagerly await the Port Authority being sued because they had erected an obstacle to unencumbered airplane travel. Those bastards shoulda known that a 110-story building would be in airspace!

Mud huts, man, we gotta go back to mud huts.

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Iraqis have passed their country’s new constitution, according to official results from a referendum dismissed by the opposition but commended by the UN.

Sunni “No” campaigners had hoped to block it by taking two-thirds of the vote in at least three provinces, in line with electoral rules.

But they won in only two, with the swing province of Nineveh returning 44% “Yes” votes, the official count shows.

How’s that for a “divided” country?

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Abu Theeb is the leader of a band of Sunni insurgents that preys on US targets north of Baghdad. Last week he openly defied al-Qaida in Iraq by actively supporting the referendum. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spent five days with him – and uncovered evidence of a growing split in the insurgency

An Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) is seen arriving to lay eggs, as a baby turtle crawls toward the sea, along the shore at Ostional Beach in Santa Cruz, 350 miles north of the capital San Jose, in this November 4, 2003 file photo. Armed guards posted at beaches to protect hatchling turles have lead to about 13 million new born Olive Ridley turtles making it to the sea this year environmentalists say. Biologists say the numbers are on a par with 2004 and prove that they are winning the battle in Mexico against poachers. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate/File