[Quote:]

Een voorstel van het CDA om wettelijke maatregelen te nemen tegen “telefoonterreur” is woensdag weggehoond in de Tweede Kamer.

CDA-Kamerlid Jan ten Hoopen stelde voor om bedrijven te verbieden mensen telefonisch met verkooppraatjes te benaderen tussen 17.30 en 19.30 uur, omdat het dan etenstijd is. Ook bellen op zondagen en feestdagen door bedrijven is uit den boze. Volgens Ten Hoopen wordt het “gezin” te veel lastiggevallen.

D66-Kamerlid Bert Bakker wond zich op over zoveel betutteling en vroeg zelfs om een “teiltje”. VVD-Kamerlid Charlie Aptroot vroeg Ten Hoopen “niet een karikatuur te maken van zichzelf”.

[..]

Mensen die niet gediend zijn van telefonische aanbiedingen, kunnen dit kenbaar maken als ze een telefoontje krijgen van een zogeheten telemarketeer. Als een bedrijf daar toch mee doorgaat, riskeert het een boete van de Opta, de toezichthouder in de telefonie. Bovendien houden bedrijven op vrijwillige basis een register bij van mensen die geen telefonische aanbiedingen willen.

Volgens Van Dam doet zo’n tien procent van de bedrijven daar niet aan mee en hij wil dat wettelijk verplichten.

Ik heb een beter idee – maak een opt-in register. Iedereen die wel telefonisch benaderd wil worden kan zich daar registreren, en elk ander telefoonnummer bellen levert voor de telemarketeer een boete op.

What a great URL: http://www.fixavote.com

From the small print:

Guaranteed Results
Election Consultants is so confident in our ability to secure a desirable outcome for your next election, that we guarantee complete satisfaction. If any individual precinct covered by our services fails to deliver promised results, then all service fees will be waived.

EXCLUSION: Guarantee does not include precincts that use non-electronic voting equipment. Click on Technology for a list of supported electronic voting equipment

And the 1-800 number is answered as well, see this

[Quote:]

The state attorney general’s office is investigating a letter received by some Southern California Hispanics that says it is a crime for immigrants to vote and tells them they could be jailed or deported if they go to the polls next month.

“It’s a very malicious and degrading letter. It’s to pull Latinos down and make them afraid,” said Benny Diaz, who is running for City Council in Garden Grove. He said his wife and five other people he knows had received the letter.

The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: “You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time.”

The truth is that immigrants who become naturalized citizens can legally register to vote.

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Recently, the New York Times broke a story suggesting that the U.S. Army and the Marines were about to turn the conceptual tide of war in Iraq. The two services, reported correspondent Michael R. Gordon, “were finishing work on a new counterinsurgency doctrine” that would, according to retired Lt. Gen. Jack Keane, “change [the military's] entire culture as it transitions to irregular warfare.”

Such strategic eureka moments have been fairly common since the Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003, and this one — news coverage of it died away in less than a week — will probably drop into the dustbin of history along with other times when the tactical or strategic tide of war was supposed to change. These would include the November 2004 assault on the city of Falluja, various elections, the “standing up” of the Iraqi army, and the trench that, it was briefly reported, the Iraqis were planning to dig around their vast capital, Baghdad.

But this plan had one ingenious section, derived from an article by four military experts published in the quasi-official Military Review and entitled “The Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency.” The nine paradoxes the experts lay out are eye-catching, to say the least, and so make vivid reading; but they are more than so many titillating puzzles of counterinsurgency warfare. Each of them contains an implied criticism of American strategy in Iraq. Seen in this light, they become an instructive lesson from insiders in why the American presence in that country has been such a disaster, and why this (or any other) new counterinsurgency strategy has little chance of ameliorating it.

You’ll have to click to read all nine, but it is worth the click.

[Quote:]

George W. Bush got what he wanted, ostensibly as a tool in his unfocused “war on terror”: By signing into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bush has made it legal for the C.I.A. to continue operating torture facilities in undisclosed, foreign countries, and for the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended for individuals who are designated “enemy combatants” against the U.S. (Designated by whom? That question remains unanswered.) The law also “establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion [that is, torture], but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them.” (Reuters)

The provisions of Bush’s new torture law mean that Americans have lost the key, constitutional right on which Anglo-American criminal law (and criminal-law procedures in true democracies in general) is founded; that’s the basic right of an individual to know why he or she is being apprehended and detained. Now, technically, as in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, anyone labeled an “enemy combatant” – again, by whom; by Bush? – can be whisked away and never heard from again. That kind of authority, in the hands of corrupt or untruthful politicians, may or may not be an effective tool in some kind of “war on terror,” but it certainly can be a useful tool when it comes to silencing their opponents.

If you meet a Bush-supporter, ask them if they would trust a President Hillary Clinton with this power.

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Not every day, but every once in a while, I find myself in the train on my way to work starring at a boring poster and asking myself how many people possibly already starred at that same poster the same day. Everyone heard about over-packed trains in Tokyo, but with train stations such as Shinjuku being the spot on the planet with the largest number of people per day actually rushing through, Tokyo’s train stations are a true mecca for advertisement.

Being stuck in a train for hours, what else can you do except notice that ad in front of you?

Click and read about all ten methods, and be glad public space over here isn’t that polluted yet.

[Quote:]

Is this the way we will all be ‘enjoying’ our television programmes and computer games in the future?

In this astonishing photo, a model is wearing a new gadget, from electronics manufacturer Toshiba, that enables the wearer to experience a full 360-degree view on a 40 centimetre dome-shaped screen.

But, looking more like the helmet from Neil Armstrong’s space suit than the next must-have gizmo, this three kilo full-faced helmet might make it a little tricky to relax with a drink in front of the football…

[Quote:]

We hear a lot about how China censors its news and limits Google searches and all that.

But when we look at their top news site (Xinhua) and compare it to, say, one of our top news sites (CNN) we see who really is not getting the full picture.

Let’s take a look. Here’s the Xinhua home page:

And here is the CNN home page:

Now I know you probably can’t read the stories on these teensy graphics (just go to the sites, however), so I’ve removed all of the advertising, gossip, sensational news stories, and other cruft. Let’s take a look again:

China:

USA:

So, when you think about who is being censored, consider that a market-based system really isn’t so hot for communicating important news to a population. You can substitute Xinhua with BBC and the results will be exactly the same.

So while CNN users can read about Madonna’s latest baby, or about some grisly murder, Xinhua’s are getting a far more complete picture of the world, from the Korean conflict, to Bush’s latest things, to Blair, to Israel, to Thailand’s coup.

[Quote:]

Al-Zaman, the Times of Baghdad, reports [Ar.] that press freedom may soon be a thing of the past in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament on Monday passed a resolution calling on the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, to intervene to close down the offices of the al-Sharqiyah television channel in Iraq, and to close down a newspaper, al-Zaman itself! Both are owned by a media group headed by Saad al-Bazzaz, and they have a mild secular, Arab nationalist tone. It is not a point of view welcome to the Shiite fundamentalists who dominate the Iraqi parliament.

The parliamentarians were upset about the negative coverage in the two news outlets of the vote last Wednesday by a bare majority to create the rules for the establishment of provincial confederacies. The vote was rammed through by a simple majority once a bare quorum had been established, despite the boycott of the vote by several major political blocs, including those of the Sunni Arabs. The parliamentary maneuver was contrary to the spirit of the promises made to the Sunni Arab community last year this time that if they joined the political process they would be given a voice on such matters. Al-Zaman covered the vote critically and called it a black day for Iraq.

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Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We’d like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

[..]

The complaint itself is without merit. No one disputes that Mr. Strickland lives in Ohio, or that he is registered. The only issue is which of his two homes he chose to register from, and the law gives voters with multiple homes broad discretion in choosing among them.

What is more interesting, and troubling, is the way the complaint is proceeding. The county board that heard it broke down 2 to 2, on party lines, about whether to hold a hearing. In the case of a tie vote at the county level, complaints like these get forwarded to the secretary of state’s office to be resolved. Mr. Blackwell says he has designated his assistant secretary to handle duties that could conflict with his candidacy. But passing these matters on to a subordinate who is a political ally and owes his job to the candidate hardly removes the conflict.

[Quote:]

Verklaring wethouder Tollenaar
“Afgelopen vrijdag ben ik op weg naar huis met mijn auto tegen een verkeergeleider (paaltje) gereden in ’s-Heerenhoek en daarna naar huis gereden. Naar aanleiding van het ongeval heeft de politie mij thuis bezocht. Na een blaascontrole bleek dat ik had gereden onder invloed. Het promillage was dusdanig hoog dat in afwachting van een beslissing van de officier van justitie daarom mijn rijbewijs is ingenomen.
Ik heb van het feit dat ik met teveel drank op toch naar huis gereden ben heel veel spijt en bied de bevolking van Borsele mijn oprechte excuses hiervoor aan. De gemeenteraad en het college van burgemeester en wethouders heb ik persoonlijk over dit feit geïnformeerd en tevens mijn verontschuldigingen aangeboden. De SGP/Christenunie-fractie behoudt haar vertrouwen in mij als wethouder, onder mijn strikte belofte dat dit niet meer voor zal komen.�?

Sorry agent, het water was plotseling in wijn veranderd…..

[Quote:]

So. In the latest CGW podcast, they received retail boxed copies of BF 2142.

When you open the box, a big slip of paper falls out first, preceeding any discs or manuals. The slip of paper says, essentially, that 2142 includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, and records “anonymous” information like your IP address, surfing habits (probably via cookie scans), and other “computing habits” in order to report this information back to ad companies and ad servers, which generates in-game ads.

Now, I can live with certain in-game ads (though apparently there will be Dodge truck and Neon ads in the bleak, futuristic world of 2142), but including a lengthy description – outside of even the Eula – seems to indicate even EA knows that this is some shady borderline spyware shit. I don’t support it and won’t be buying 2142 (for a host of other reasons, too).

[Quote:]

A leaked letter to the European Commission has revealed the extent of lobbying by proprietary software groups to prevent the widespread adoption of open-source software.

Sent in response to a recent report on the role of open-source software in the European economy, Microsoft-funded pressure group, the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) warned of potentially dire effects if too much encouragement was given to open source software development.

Any action by the EC would “disrupt the entire software eco-system” and the report itself looked “more like a marketing document than a serious survey”, according to the letter – written by Hugo Lueders, director of the European branch of the ISC, addressed to Mrs Francoise Le Bail, the deputy director general of the European Commission’s industry arm, and provided to Techworld.

You can view the entire letter here [pdf].

Good. They’re afraid of us.

[Quote:]

Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years’ time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said.

Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.

The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said – before a decline due to dependence on technology.

People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.

The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

To steal a joke from slashdot, it looks like half of us will be Swedish, and the other half will be British?

[Quote:]

Apple Computer warned on Tuesday that some of its latest iPods have shipped with a Windows virus.

The company said that a small number of video iPods made after Sept. 12 included the RavMonE virus. It said it has seen fewer than 25 reports of the problem, which it said does not affect other models of the media player, nor does it affect Macs.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company apologized on its Web site for the problem, but also used the opportunity to jab at Microsoft, its operating system rival.

“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it,” Apple said on its site.
Apple Vice President Greg Joswiak told CNET News.com that the virus was discovered last week and said the company has been working around the clock since then to discover the root cause of the problem. Joswiak said it was traced to a particular Windows machine in the manufacturing lines of a contract manufacturer that builds the iPods for Apple. The company declined to name the maker.

“It’s more important to say we now have processes in place to make sure this won’t happen again,” Joswiak said. “Very few units actually went through that particular station, fortunately.”

[Quote:]

THE Government is seeking to prevent an EU directive that could extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular video-sharing websites such as YouTube.

The European Commission proposal would require websites and mobile phone services that feature video images to conform to standards laid down in Brussels.

Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful sites such as YouTube but also amateur “video bloggers�? who post material on their own sites. Personal websites would have to be licensed as a “television-like service�?.

Even the Daily Irrelevant would require a broadcast license under the new regulations. I’m torn between just telling the EU to go fuck themselves, and trying to actually get a license. I’m sure the bureaucracy isn’t ready to deal with a small weblogger actually following this new stupid rule, and I’d confuse the hell out of a large number of low level functionaries..

[Quote:]

Nearly half of the faint objects in the Antennae are young clusters containing tens of thousands of stars. The orange blobs to the left and right of image centre are the two cores of the original galaxies and consist mainly of old stars criss-crossed by filaments of dark brown dust. The two galaxies are dotted with brilliant blue star-forming regions surrounded by pink hydrogen gas.

The new images from Hubble are helping astronomers sort out which bright spots are what. For instance, the brightest blobs are the biggest and most compact clusters, known as super clusters. But some of the bright spots are also solo stars.

The majority of the super clusters will eventually disperse, adding their residents to the general background of the galaxy. Some, around 100 of the very biggest, will manage to stick together, forming globular clusters, like the ones in our own Milky Way galaxy.

Speaking of the Milky Way, it is worth noting that the astronomers are also watching this collision to get a better idea of the fate that awaits our own galaxy, which is likely to collide with the (cosmically) nearish Andromeda galaxy in about six billion years time.