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Victor Frederick, 63, was arrested and strip-searched just yards from his home, just moments after his partner Andrea Heath and their daughter had infra-red sights trained at them and were told they would be shot if they moved.

No charges were ever brought against Mr Frederick.

Yesterday, in a press conference at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood said South Wales Police had serious questions to answer about what she believes could easily have become a Welsh version of the Jean Charles de Menezes tragedy.

Feel safer yet?

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Surfing the net at work for pleasure actually increases our concentration levels and helps make a more productive workforce, according to a new University of Melbourne study.

Dr Brent Coker, from the Department of Management and Marketing, says that workers who engage in ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’ (WILB) are more productive than those who don’t.

“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work – within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office – are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” he says.

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Following Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s expenses claim for pornographic films watched by her husband, which came hot on the heels of an investigation into expenses claims for MPs’ second homes, the Guardian has published data on each MPs’ claims.

Now, it’s been combined with data from They Work For You to create a map showing MPs’ expenses claims, revealing interesting anomalies.

An investigation into MPs’ expenses is forthcoming.

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The gap of confidence between small companies and big ones is growing. We used to rely on the security of big companies. That’s why we worked for them. And hired them. And put our money in them.

But with the virtual collapse of AIG, Lehman, Citibank, GM, Chrysler, and many more — now even GE is in trouble — all that’s changed. Now it’s a risk to do business with the big ones.

We simply don’t trust companies anymore. We trust people. And in big companies, it’s hard to even find a person to trust as we scream “operator” into our telephones only to get transferred to another menu whose options have changed.

That gives small companies a huge advantage.

via

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First, let’s imagine that the President (or his staff) bought the 40 show tunes from the iTunes music store. Do you “own” the music that you buy from iTunes? The nearly 9,000 words of legalese to which you agree before buying don’t answer that question (an oversight? I doubt it). Copyright owners have consistently argued in court that many digital products (even physical “promo” CDs!) are “licensed,” not “owned,” and therefore you’re not entitled to resell them or give them away. (And the Amazon MP3 Store terms of service are even worse for consumers than iTunes — those terms specifically purport to strip you of “ownership” and forbid any “redistribution.”)

Second, even if the first sale doctrine applies to iTunes downloads, what about the additional copies made on the iPod? iTunes does not download directly to an iPod. So President Obama’s staff made an additional copy onto the Queen’s intended iPod. How are those copies excused? The iTunes terms of service say that downloads are “only for personal, noncommercial use.” Is giving a copy to a head of state a “personal” use? Seems more like a “diplomatic use,” doesn’t it? So copyright owners could argue that the copy on the iPod was not authorized, because it was beyond the scope of the iTunes “license.” And according to the typical rightsholder argument, any use beyond the scope of the “license” is a copyright infringement.

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Of course, no one thinks that copyright owners are going to send lawyers after either President Obama or the Queen over this. But none of us should want a world where even our leaders–much less the rest of us–can’t figure out how copyright law operates in their daily lives.

DNA Evidence Frees Black Man Convicted Of Bear Attack

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Claiming he has judicial immunity, former Luzerne County judge Mark Ciavarella on Tuesday filed a motion seeking to dismiss one of the federal lawsuits filed against him by juveniles who allege they were unjustly incarcerated.

The motion, which Ciavarella authored and filed himself, argues he is immune from civil suits related to actions he took on the bench, even if those actions were done “maliciously or corruptly.”

The disgraced judge filed the motion in connection with a class-action lawsuit filed by the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia, which represents dozens of juveniles who allege Ciavarella wrongly detained them in order to financially benefit himself and others.

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A federal court in Ohio has ruled that dairies cannot legally label their milk “hormone free” “rBST-free” or otherwise clearly tell consumers that they aren’t pumping up their cows with synthetic hormones.

It’s a blow to truth-in-labeling advocates, a blow to consumers and a blow to organic farmers. It’s a win for Monsanto, the agrichemical giant that prompted the lawsuit, and a win for Eli Lilly, which bought Monsanto’s synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormones (known as rBST or rBGH) business a couple months ago. The use of these hormones is banned throughout most other first world nations. The labeling issue is moot in the 27-nation European Union, along with Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, since they don’t allow the use of synthetic hormones in the first place.

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The release date is still a mystery, price is unknown, but we do have some great news about the Pre from CTIA: apps are coming and they’re looking good.

Amazing how the iPhone has shaken up the smart-phone market, and what excellent competition we’re about to see….