[Quote:]

EFF’s Danny O’Brien sez, “Klaus-Heiner Lehne, the Euro MP proposing that Europe turn *all* infringement (including copyright, patent and trademarks) into criminal offenses – investigated by national police forces, and punishable with long prison sentences – turns out to have used copyrighted Apple graphics on his own ego site. If his amendment to IPRED2 had passed, would he turn himself in, or merely rat on his webmaster?”

[Quote:]

Nowhere in advertising is the gap between natural beauty and manufactured perfection more apparent than on subway posters. As we wait for transportation, we are unwillingly assaulted by larger-than-life representations of supposedly beautiful salespeople. The large scale of these ads and their extremely close proximity to the viewer offer up more than perceived intimacy, however… they give us the chance to see the mechanical flaws designed to correct their physical flaws.

Why don’t we just see them for what they are? They are regular people just like us, they just have a team of retouchers waiting at the ready.

Printable cold sores allow us to take action! Bring these people back down to our level, and tell advertisers that you don’t agree with their message. How can you help? It’s easy…

[Quote:]

Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan has refreshingly asked fans not to buy an “awful” re-released album of the band live at Birmingham’s NEC, the BBC reports.

The sub-standard 1993 offering – thrillingly entitled “NEC 1993″ – was, Gillan lamented, “an unfortunate reminder of one of their worst ever concerts”. The singer fingered tensions within the band for the performance. He said that “he and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore were barely on speaking terms at the time of the concert”, and admitted: “It was one of the lowest points of my life – all of our lives, actually.”

Gillan continued: “In fact, it lasted five or six shows after that Birmingham show. Then Ritchie left the band. And we’ve had 13 years of stability ever since then.”

Deep Purple are currently planning a new tour, and Gillan described Sony BMG’s decision to inflict NEC 1993 on an unsuspecting world as “opportunistic”.

Civilisation has been spared further exposure to NEC 1993, since Sony BMG this afternoon decided to recall the album and will “investigate why Gillan was not told about its plans”, as the BBC puts it.

A spokesman for the company offered: “Sony BMG is not in the business of releasing albums without the knowledge of the artists. It is in our interests to work with artists, so they can promote their records and continue to work with us.”

Yeah, right. And if you believe that, I’ve got some prime Florida real estate for sale…

Pfc. Ekenberg prepares for the flight to Kandahar.

[Quote:]

In an effort to display his administration’s willingness to fight on all fronts in the War on Terror, President Bush said at a press conference Monday that American ground forces in Afghanistan will be aided by the immediate deployment of Marine Pfc. Tim Ekenberg of Camp Lejeune, NC.

“I want the American people to know that I have not forgotten that our battle for freedom began in Afghanistan, rooting out the extremists of al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” Bush said. “Today, I am ordering the deployment of the 325th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Private Tim Ekenberg, to the embattled Kandahar region.”

“We will take whatever measures necessary to win,” Bush added. “Isn’t that right, Tim?”

Ekenberg is scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan on Friday. His duties include providing full military support for the still-tenuous democratic government, resolving potential conflicts between rival warlords, gathering intelligence for his superiors, delivering humanitarian relief to millions of Afghan citizens displaced by factional warfare, and maintaining a high level of personal physical fitness.

Ekenberg’s most vital assignment, however, will be to patrol approximately 1,200 square miles of volatile territory on the Afghan–Pakistani border and conduct search-and-destroy missions on the estimated 40,000 caves where U.S. intelligence sources believe Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda operatives could be hiding.

[Quote:]

Germany’s police and secret services are pushing for a legal basis for “online house searches” – carried out without the knowledge of suspects, using spyware similar to a Trojan.

The German public learned of the practice in November last year, when a magistrate of the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal High Court) ruled that there is no legal basis for such measures as part of police inquiries.

Magistrate Ulrich Hebenstreit argued that house searches could only be carried out openly, with the knowledge of the suspect. In his view, and legal parlance, secretly searching a hard drive, whether in private or for commercial use, constituted “a major interference with the right to informational self-determination”.

Moreover, because all data can be viewed and analysed by the authorities – from private photos to email correspondence – the suspect’s right to refuse to give evidence was violated by the measure.

Hebenstreit’s decision received mixed response.

While the Home Office stressed that it immediately stopped online searches, spokesman Christian Sachs says: “One organisational unit at the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Office) is currently working on the technological basis for such online house searches. For obvious reasons, we cannot comment on the technicalities.”

Okay, let me comment instead. Wanna bet this is Windows-only?

[Quote:]

Democrats argue that taxes on the rich should be raised because others need the money. This wins votes from the legions of voters who aren’t rich.

Republicans argue, with great piety, that high taxes crush incentives and should be reduced, and that only then will the American way see a new dawn.

Politicians talk this way because they generally talk about only one tax: the federal income tax, which offers graduated rates from 10% to 35%.

Politicians rarely talk about what real people experience: the true maze of taxes and government benefits. If someone put them all together, we could see what our actual tax burden was. We could see who pays at the highest or lowest rates. Discussions of tax policy wouldn’t be a waste of time.

Well, two researchers did it.

In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Boston University economists Laurence J. Kotlikoff and David Rapson have found that our all-in marginal tax rate is 40%, give or take a bit. Yes, you read that right: 40%.

This just in: The supreme court has ordered a recount in the Oscar voting for best documentary.

[Quote:]

Earlier this month it was widely reported that EMI was indeed ready to cast DRM into the dark abyss and earn the company the honorable status of being the first major music label to realize that DRM alienates honest customers. As it turns out, the company is indeed open to the possibility of ditching DRM, but they expect to be paid well for it, and the online music retailers aren’t ready to meet their demands.

EMI is the only major record label to seriously consider abandoning the disaster that is DRM, but earlier reports that focused on the company’s reformist attitude apparently missed the mark: EMI is willing to lose the DRM, but they demand a considerable advance payment to make it happen.

According to Bloomberg, EMI has backed out of talks for now because no one will pay what they’re asking. No dollar amounts are known at this time.

So EMI only wants to sell via companies that pay them a lot of money for the privilege? I guess we’ll wait a few years for this dinosaur to die. We’ve all been shafted for so long a few extra years won’t matter, especially if the end result will be that the large record companies no longer exist.

[Quote:]

America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.

In a move that reflects Washington’s growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran’s border regions.

The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.

In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.

Wasn’t there a major claim of “them bad!” based on Iran doing the same funding thing with groups in Iraq? Fucking hypocrites.