SCENARIO: JACK PULLS INTO SCHOOL PARKING LOT WITH RIFLE IN GUN RACK.
1963 – Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack’s rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.
2006 – School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

SCENARIO: JOHNNY AND MARK GET INTO A FIST FIGHT AFTER SCHOOL.
1963 – Crowd gathers. Mark wins Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.
2006 – Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

SCENARIO: LITTLE JEFFREY WON’T BE STILL IN CLASS, DISRUPTS OTHER STUDENTS.
1963 – Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.
2006 – Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

SCENARIO: BILLY BREAKS A WINDOW IN HIS FATHER’S CAR AND HIS DAD GIVES HIM A WHIPPING.
1963 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2006 – Billy’s Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy’s sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

SCENARIO: MARK GETS A HEADACHE AND TAKES SOME HEADACHE MEDICINE TO SCHOOL.
1963 – Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2006 – Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

SCENARIO: JOHNNY TAKES APART LEFTOVER FIRECRACKERS FROM THE 4TH OF JULY, PUTS THEM IN A MODEL AIRPLANE PAINT BOTTLE, BLOWS UP A RED ANT BED.
1963 – Ants die.
2006 – ATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

SCENARIO: JOHNNY FALLS WHILE RUNNING DURING RECESS AND SCRAPES HIS KNEE. HE IS FOUND CRYING BY HIS TEACHER, MARY, WHO HUGS JOHNNY TO COMFORT HIM.
1963 – In a short time Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2006 – Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison.

And this is what they call progress?

[Quote:]

The orthodox justification for intellectual property is utilitarian. Advocates for strong IP rights argue that absent such rights copyists will free-ride on the efforts of creators and stifle innovation. This orthodox justification is logically straightforward and well reflected in the law. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: the global fashion industry, which produces a huge variety of creative goods without strong IP protection. Copying is rampant as the orthodox account would predict. Yet innovation and investment remain vibrant. Few commentators have considered the status of fashion design in IP law. Those who have almost uniformly criticize the current legal regime for failing to protect apparel designs. But the fashion industry itself is surprisingly quiescent about copying. Firms take steps to protect the value of trademarks, but appear to accept appropriation of designs as a fact of life. This diffidence about copying stands in striking contrast to the heated condemnation of piracy and associated legislative and litigation campaigns in other creative industries.

[..]

innovation and may actually promote it. We call this the piracy paradox. This paper offers a model explaining how the fashion industry’s piracy paradox works, and how copying functions as an important element of and perhaps even a necessary predicate to the industry’s swift cycle of innovation.

[Quote:]

A federal agency is set to recommend significant changes to specifications for electronic-voting machines next week, internetnews.com has learned.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is recommending that the 2007 version of the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) decertify direct record electronic (DRE) machines.

DREs are currently used by more than 30 percent of jurisdictions across the U.S. and are the exclusive voting technology in Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina.

According to an NIST paper to be discussed at a meeting of election regulators at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., on Dec. 4 and 5, DRE vote totals cannot be audited because the machines are not software independent.

In other words, there is no means of verifying vote tallies other than by relying on the software that tabulated the results to begin with.

[Quote:]

Gisteren bleek al uit de adviezen die CDA, PvdA en SP aan formateur Hoekstra gaven dat zij vinden, dat ze in elk geval met elkaar om de tafel moeten.

Premier Balkenende spraak over ‘nieuw elan’ dat volgens hem nodig is in Nederland.

[Quote:]

Consumenten hoeven voorlopig geen kopieerheffing te betalen op mp3-spelers en videorecorders met een harde schijf, maar de Stichting Onderhandelingen Thuiskopievergoeding (SONT) heeft woensdag wel besloten dat er later mogelijk toch een heffing komt.

De introductie daarvan hangt af van de Europese invoering van maatregelen om artiesten te compenseren voor de vele illegale kopieën van hun muziek. In februari zal de stichting zich opnieuw over het onderwerp buigen. SONT-voorzitter Henk Vonhoff stelt dat een “behoedzame benadering” niet betekent dat de apparaten worden uitgesloten van een heffing. “Wel menen wij dat er redenen zijn om althans op dit moment pas op de plaats te maken.”

En tegelijkertijd heeft de Stichting een draai om de oren gehad van de rechter:

[Quote:]

Stichting de Thuiskopie heeft vandaag voor de rechtbank in Den Haag een forse nederlaag geleden. De stichting moet sowieso een hoge schadevergoeding betalen.

In een proces dat de stichting zelf had aangespannen tegen het bedrijf Imation, is ze in het ongelijk gesteld. Om te beginnen moet ze onmiddellijk een schadevergoeding van ruim 800.000 euro aan Imation betalen.

De rechtszaak draait om het gegeven dat Stichting de Thuiskopie 20 procent van thuiskopievergoeding, die producenten van beschrijfbare media betalen, onmiddellijk weer terugstort aan producenten die lid zijn van de Stichting Overlegorgaan Blanco Informatiedragers (STOBI), een overkoepelende organisatie die namens een aantal producenten zitting heeft in de Stichting Onderhandelingen Nationale Thuiskopievergoeding (SONT). Deze laatste is door het Ministerie van Justitie in het leven geroepen om rechthebbenden schadeloos te stellen voor inkomstenderving als gevolg van legaal thuiskopiëren.

Tot de betreffende korting was in het kader van de SONT onder geheimhouding besloten. Dat had tot gevolg dat niet-leden van de STOBI, waaronder Imation, er niet van op de hoogte waren. Toen Imation in 2004 toetrad tot de STOBI en op de hoogte kwam van het bestaan van de kortingsregeling, stelde het bedrijf zich op het standpunt dat er sprake was van concurrentievervalsing. Het bedrijf eiste de misgelopen kortingen terug en weigerde als stok achter de deur de nieuwe thuiskopievergoedingen af te dragen. Stichting de Thuiskopie dagvaardde Imation hierom en in deze zaak is vandaag uitspraak gedaan.

[..]

De rechtbank meende dat de onvolledigheid van de informatie in strijd is met de redelijkheid en billijkheid die Stichting de Thuiskopie en Imation als contractpartijen tegenover elkaar in acht behoren te nemen en in elk geval in strijd is met de maatschappelijke zorgvuldigheid. Omdat Stichting de Thuiskopie op dit punt onrechtmatig heeft gehandeld, veroordeelde de rechtbank Stichting de Thuiskopie tot het vergoeden van de door Imation misgelopen kortingen ten belope van 747.000 euro. Inclusief de wettelijke rente moet Stichting de Thuiskopie onmiddellijk 840.000 euro aan Imation betalen.

Het vonnis is uitvoerbaar bij voorraad: zelfs als Stichting de Thuiskopie tegen dit vonnis in hoger beroep gaat, moet er intussen betaald worden.

Het vonnis heeft nog verder strekkende gevolgen. Ook andere marktpartijen die door de gang van zaken benadeeld zijn — in de praktijk dus alle marktpartijen die zich niet bij de STOBI hebben aangesloten omdat ze onbekend waren met het financiële voordeel van zo’n lidmaatschap — kunnen nu bij Stichting de Thuiskopie aankloppen om de misgelopen kortingen vergoed te krijgen. In de praktijk zal de schadepost voor Stichting de Thuiskopie dus nog veel verder oplopen.

Het wordt nu echt tijd dat deze oplichtersstichting gewoon opgeheven wordt.

[Quote:]

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a “different set of rules” may be needed to reduce terrorists’ ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

“Oh America, what basic tenets of your own constitution won’t you hilariously misinterpret?�?

Dear Americans, you’re living in a situation comedy.
If only you had a wacky theme song. The Star Spangled Banner needs more slide trombone.

[Quote:]

Saudi Arabia is so concerned about the damage that the conflict in Iraq is doing across the region that it basically summoned Vice President Cheney for talks over the weekend, according to U.S. officials and foreign diplomats. The visit was originally portrayed as U.S. outreach to its oil-rich Arab ally.

Just so we’re clear on this:

Congress answers to Bush
Bush answers to Cheney
Cheney answers to the Saudis.

[Quote:]

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,�? Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

[Quote:]

Beginning next month, Verizon Wireless subscribers will be able to watch the top YouTube clips on their cell phones, the two companies are expected to announce today.

[..]

“Our customers are going to gravitate to this quickly,” said John Harrobin, vice president of digital media for Verizon Wireless.

Unless they read the service description first, that is.

Ten YouTube clips at a time will be available through Verizon’s V Cast subscription service, which costs $15 a month or $3 per day.

Ten clips. $15.

Congratulations Verizon for completely totally and utterly missing the point.

“You would like ze tall stack of buttermilk pancakes und a side of bacon, yah? Papiere, bitte!“

[Quote:]

“We believe in a politics…dominated by evidence and argument. There is a big difference between a philosophy and an ideology on the right or the left. If you have a philosophy, it generally pushes you in a certain direction or another. But like all philosophers, you want to engage in discussion and argument. You are open to evidence, to new learning. And you are certainly open to debate the practical applications of your philosophy.”

“The problem with ideology is if you got an ideology, you already got your mind made up, you know all the answers, and that makes evidence irrelevant and argument a waste of time, so you tend to govern by assertion and attack. The problem with that is that discourages thinking and gives you bad results.”

— Bill Clinton

[Quote:]

Universal Music Group Chief Executive Doug Morris said on Tuesday he may try to fashion an iPod royalty fee with Apple Computer Inc. in the next round of negotiations in early 2007.

Universal, the world’s largest music company, owned by French media giant Vivendi, was the first major record label to strike an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to receive a fee for every Zune digital media player sold.

“It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do that… but maybe not in the same way,” he told the Reuters Media Summit, when asked if Universal would negotiate a royalty fee for the iPod that would be similar to Microsoft’s Zune.

I really hope Apple just tosses them off the music store instead.

[Quote:]

Police have charged an Ohio woman in the death, by microwave oven, of her one-month-old daughter, the Associated Press reports.

Mom China Arnold, 26, stands accused of aggravated murder after bringing her dead infant daughter, Paris, to a hospital, with a “high body temperature”. The woman was arrested, and later released.

“We have reason to believe, and scientific evidence to support, that a microwave oven might have been involved in the death of this child,” Montgomery County Coroner’s Office Director Ken Betz is quoted as saying.

It has taken authorities over a year to develop their case. “There is not a lot of scientific research and data on the effect of microwaves on human beings,” Betz explained. (An observation for which we can all be thankful. The Nazis missed out on that opportunity by mere months.)

[Quote:]

Those men among you who indulge in the woman-enraging provocation of not putting the loo seat back down after taking a leak should count yourselves lucky you’re not in Fort Worth, Texas, where some people take the matter of good toilet habits very seriously indeed.

Just ask 25-year-old Morgan Jackson, who was with two drinking buddies in the car park of the Tumbleweeds Sports Bar last Thursday evening when an infuriated toilet user charged them with a knife “because he apparently grew angry that one of the men didn’t wash his hands in the bathroom”, as the Houston Chronicle explains.

Indeed, so pissed off was 27-year-old Eric Jennings Kisiah that he stabbed Jackson three times in his left torso and once in his back with an eight-inch knife which was subsequently recovered close to the scene of the incident.

[Quote:]

He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign – an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library.

Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until he was elected governor of Texas in 1995.

[..]

The half-billion target is double what Bush raised for his 2004 reelection and dwarfs the funding of other presidential libraries.

How many editions of “My Pet Goat” are there, anyway?

[Quote:]

At hundreds of screenings this year of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.

The producers of former vice president Al Gore’s film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.

The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.

In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer “political” endorsement of the film; and they saw “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” in accepting the free DVDs.

Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film’s theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.

Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.” One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.

That’s the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.

[..]

And Exxon Mobil isn’t the only one getting in on the action. Through textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, the oil industry, the coal industry and other corporate interests are exploiting shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of their record profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox.

NSTA’s list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA’s Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called “Running on Oil” and read a page that touts the industry’s environmental track record — citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way — but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called “You Can’t Be Cool Without Fuel,” a shameless pitch for oil dependence.

[Quote:]

I mean, go look at some of their sites. Tell me that’s not an infomercial. C’mon, just try. It’s embarrassing even to look at the thing.

Yeah. Well, they make money hand over fist, because of P.T. Barnum’s Law, just like Scientology does. Can’t really fault ‘em. Some people are just dying to be parted with their cash. And their dignity.

The rest of us have all known that Agile Methodologies are stupid, by application of any of the following well-known laws of marketing:

– anything that calls itself a “Methodology” is stupid, on general principle.
– anything that requires “evangelists” and offers seminars, exists soley for the purpose of making money.
– anything that never mentions any competition or alternatives is dubiously self-serving.
– anything that does diagrams with hand-wavy math is stupid, on general principle.

And by “stupid”, I mean it’s “incredibly brilliant marketing targeted at stupid people.”

In any case, the consultants kept going with their road shows and glossy pamphlets. Initially, I’m sure they went after corporations; they were looking to sign flexible contracts that allowed them to deliver “whatever” in “2 weeks” on a recurring basis until the client went bankrupt. But I’m equally sure they couldn’t find many clients dumb enough to sign such a contract.

That’s when the consultants decided to take their road show to YOU. Why not take it inside the companies and sell it there, to the developers? There are plenty of companies who use the whip-cycle of development I outlined above, so presumably some of the middle managers and tech leads would be amenable to hearing about how there’s this low-cost way out of their hellish existence.

And that, friends, was exactly, precisely the point at which they went from “harmless buffoons” to “potentially dangerous”, because before they were just bilking fat companies too stupid to develop their own software, but now the manager down the hall from me might get infected. And most places don’t have a very good quarantine mechanism for this rather awkard situation: i.e., an otherwise smart manager has become “ill”, and is waving XP books and index cards and spouting stuff about how much more productive his team is on account of all this newfound extra bureaucracy.

[Quote:]

More from that lovely bunch of people who we like to think of as creationists-with-a-website. Yes, the Intelligent Designers are back. Having had their bottoms soundly birched in the US, they are now determined to “educate” England’s schoolkids about their utterly unscientific counter “theory” to evolution.

For those who have missed all the fun, Intelligent Design holds that life on earth is too complex to have evolved on its own, without an intelligent entity guiding its path. This intelligent entity is not specified as being God, largely because of the US insistence on the separation of church and state, but it is hard to think of another candidate for the job.

The Guardian reports that the group Truth in Science has sent out “information packs” to all the heads of science at secondary schools in the country. Almost 90 sent feedback to the organisation, with 59 responding positively, saying they thought the pack, which includes a DVD and printed teaching materials, would be a useful teaching aid.

[Quote:]

I’m sure there’s a whole team of UI designers, programmers, and testers who worked very hard on the OFF button in Windows Vista, but seriously, is this the best you could come up with?

Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I’m guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I’m not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to.

[Quote:]

I worked at Microsoft for about 7 years total, from 1994 to 1998, and from 2002 to 2006.

The most frustrating year of those seven was the year I spent working on Windows Vista, which was called Longhorn at the time. I spent a full year working on a feature which should’ve been designed, implemented and tested in a week.

I’ve worked in large companies, so I’m not too surprised… Read and weep…

Here is a transcript of Richard Stallman’s presentation made at the fifth international GPLv3 conference, organised by FSIJ and AIST in Tokyo, Japan.

Excellent reading…

[Quote:]

From the Orwell classic, 2006*:

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of web pages had been identified, that number would be edited and republished, the original html code destroyed, and the corrected pages placed on the web site in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to the web site, but also to official photographs, video, documents, reports, transcripts, films, audio files, graphics, — to every kind of data or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All official history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of reports, fact sheets, press releases and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of electronic files which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Our Leader, have been rewritten a dozen times still existed in protected files bearing their original date, and no other copies existed to contradict them. Reports, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the emails which Winston received, and which he deleted as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.

But actually, he thought as he reframed the video of Our Leader’s speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, it was not even forgery. It was merely the omission of another piece of nonsense. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie.

Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Army’s recruitment forecast had estimated it needed 8,050 recruits for the month of May. The actual figure came in at a little over 5000. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the projected figure down to 6,700, so as to lesson the Pentagon’s embarrassment. In any case, 8,050 was no nearer the truth about what was needed than 6,700, or 10,000 for that matter. Very likely no number of recruits would save the Army from being destroyed by incompetent leadership. Likelier still, nobody cared. All one knew was that every month astronomical recruitment numbers were produced on paper, while soldiers were deployed for their third or fourth tours in the battle zone. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.

* The title of George Orwell’s novel is 2006. It has always been called 2006.

[Quote:]

The U.S. Supreme Court often hears disputes over how much authority the federal government has to stop businesses from polluting.

But rarely, if ever, in nearly four decades of environmental regulation has the government argued that it has no power over an entire category of potential pollutants — or that if it had the power, it wouldn’t use it.

That’s the position, though, that the Bush administration is taking in a lawsuit seeking federal limits on vehicles’ emissions of greenhouse gases. The Supreme Court is to hear arguments Wednesday in the case, which was filed by California, 11 other states and most of the nation’s major environmental organizations.

The court’s ruling, due by next summer, also will resolve a similar lawsuit over the government’s power to regulate greenhouse gases emitted by factories and other industrial sources. And it may decide a challenge by automakers of a California law requiring them to limit tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases starting in 2009. That law has inspired similar statutes in 10 other states.

An overwhelming majority of scientists agree carbon dioxide and other common substances known as greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and are causing worldwide temperature increases that threaten to become catastrophic in coming decades.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency argues in the case before the Supreme Court that greenhouse gases are not air pollutants, and therefore are not subject to government regulation. Even if the common gases are pollutants, the EPA says, nationwide regulation would be premature at best and might cause more harm than good.

On the bright side, this ship should have no problem going under bridges in the future. Since it’s about 20 feet shorter now.

[Quote:]

With the exception of remaining idle in 1993, the Windoc had been an active member of Paterson’s bulk carrier fleet with few reportable incidents until August 11, 2001. On that date; while passing downbound underneath the Welland Canal’s Bridge #11 at Allanburg, ON, the lift bridge structure descended prematurely on top of the Windoc before the vessel could clear. This voyage had seen the Windoc depart Thunder Bay, ON with 26,023.9 tonnes of wheat on August 8, 2001 bound for Montreal, QC. The Windoc’s wheelhouse from the forward facing windows on up was sheared off tearing the stack from her deck. The heavily damaged vessel became a deadship drifting a short way down the canal before grounding and blocking the waterway. A serious fire erupted in the stern by the main engine casing spreading to the accommodations area. The crew valiantly worked the ship and fought the fire in an attempt to save her until shore-based assistance arrived. There were no reported injuries and her cargo (worth $6 – $8 million) was undamaged. The Windoc, in addition to serious damage aft, also received eight hull fractures.

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

[Quote:]

The copyright on sound recordings will not be extended after an independent review commissioned by the Treasury.

Sir Cliff Richard and Jethro Tull had been among artists lobbying for copyright to last 95 years, rather than the present 50.

The decision means that from 2008 Sir Cliff’s earliest recordings will start to come out of copyright.

[..]
Music journalist Neil McCormack told BBC Radio Five Live it was a blow to the industry.

“This was set before the advent, the big boom of rock and roll. The boom in popular culture which has led to a whole vast number of people making their living from these royalties.

“You can make a record in 1955 and have been getting royalties… been living on that and suddenly they’re gone.”

Yeah, and if you haven’t done anything in the intervening 50 years you really do deserve to start living under a bridge. Deal with it.

I received an e-mail:

I can’t bring myself to describe this one, so I thought I’d kick it your way to see if you could do anything with it.
It’s some animated business to business campaign for Windows Vista, and it leaves you wondering “What in the name of Jesus H. Particular Christ on a pogo stick were they thinking of?”

http://www.windowsvistaretail.com

Indeed. If this thing is for real, and I can’t find any indication that it isn’t, and if I’m correct that that the target audience is retail personnel, and if I were in the target audience, I’d be pissed off that Microsoft apparently operates under the assumption that I’ve got a room-temperature IQ.

I can only imagine… marketing at Microsoft is so fed up with having to explain again and again and again and again what the multiple versions of Vista are for, that they sigh “look… I’ll tell you once again…” and came up with this.

And if this is how they feel about the people selling their product, how must they feel about the people buying it?