[Quote:]

My dear friend Al Gore has teamed up with Google to create some Google Earth videos intended to bore people to death scare the shit out of people.

Naturally the U.S. press is totally ignoring the story, but luckily some paper in Austria has taken the brave step of sharing this terrifying information with the world. And Google has set up a special landing page where you can see what will happen to the planet as the temperatures keep going up.

[Quote:]

You’ve often heard that the Internet is a dangerous place and you’ve probably read about threats such as botnets, keystroke loggers and drive-by installations of malware through rigged Web sites. But what is malware really? How do cybercriminals launch their malicious attacks? McAfee is offering you the chance to find out with the unique and exclusive McAfee Malware Experience.

Join experts from McAfee Avert Labs and have a chance to create a Trojan horse, commandeer a botnet, install a rootkit and experience first hand how easy it is to modify websites to serve up malware. Of course this will all be done in the safe and closed environment, ensuring that what you create doesn’t actually go out onto the Internet.

At McAfee they probably call this the “job security seminar”..

[Quote:]

Germany’s elections have seen one small special-interest party notch up an impressive performance. The Pirate Party proved popular with first-time male voters — to the tune of 13 percent — and won 2 percent of the overall vote. Party members are already dreaming of a bigger, brighter future.

[..]

Granted, it’s not enough for the party to enter the German government, since a political party has to get 5 percent of the vote to do that. But for political newcomers like the Pirates, this can be interpreted as a success worth paying attention to. In many large German cities, they even got as much as 3 percent of the vote. And they were particularly popular among first-time male voters, from whom they might have won as much as 13 percent of the vote.

[Quote:]

So who’s behind “CO2 is green” and this advert? One of its founders is H Leighton Steward who, until his retirement in 2000, was the vice chairman of Burlington Resources, a Houston-based oil and gas company bought by ConocoPhillips in 2006. Steward received the American Petroleum Institute’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 2001 and remains an honorary director of the oil industry lobby group. In other words, we can conclude that this man boasts a particular pedigree within the oil industry.

The Washington Post (which admits it has taken a half-page advert from the “CO2 is green” group) is reporting that Steward, along with some associates, is now trying to establish the group as a charity.

[..]

For extra merriment, visit the “CO2 is green” website and read the “Why do people believe these myths?” section: “They have been misinformed by people that benefit financially from propagating the myth.” Oh, the irony.

[Quote:]

Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum captured the nation’s attention when they were defendants in the RIAA’s first two trials against accused online infringers. But here’s the mind-warping reality: both defendants would have been far better off monetarily if they had simply ignored the complaint altogether and failed to show up in court.

That counterintuitive logic played out again this week in Massachusetts, where federal judge Nancy Gertner issued four default judgments against accused P2P file-swappers who never bothered to respond to the charges against them. Their failure to appear meant an automatic loss, and though the judge does have some discretion in setting penalties, judges often pick the minimum awards in such cases.

That was true in all four cases, where Gertner accepted the record labels’ claims and awarded them the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song. The defendants were accused of downloading an average of ten songs, putting total awards in the $7,500 range, in addition to a few hundred more for court costs.

Having $7,500 in damages assessed against you by a federal court is no picnic, but it pales in comparison to the two twenty-somethings who actually showed up to court, got attorneys, went through a multiyear process and a nationally covered trial, and came out the other side owing far more money.

[Quote:]

A brewery has launched a low alcohol beer called Nanny State after being branded irresponsible for creating the UK’s “strongest beer”.

Scottish brewer BrewDog, of Fraserburgh, was criticised for Tokyo* which has an alcohol content of 18.2%.

Campaigners welcomed the 1.1% alcohol Nanny State but said the name showed a lack of appreciation of the problem

Their next beer will be “Fuck off, you cunts!,” and have 25% alcohol.

barkeep: what'll you have?
patron:  fuck off, you cunt!

I don’t think this means what she thinks it means, and wikipedia agrees