[Quote]:

Many people with Asperger’s syndrome have difficulties in the job market and workplace, but they also have special abilities that many employers crave. A Danish company has found a way to bring the two together and is exporting its successful job-placement concept to other countries.

[Quote]:

If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely

[Quote]:

Sony Music’s CEO of international business said in a recent interview that the Internet is a blessing for the music industry. Nevertheless, there are still problems that have to be overcome, such as restrictive copyright enforcement by music rights collecting agencies. The Sony boss says that YouTube revenue running into the millions is being lost because German rights group GEMA’s policies prevent artist videos from being shown online in the country.

[..]

“It’s not because of us. You must direct this question to the German collecting agency GEMA, they licensed the copyright very restrictively.”

It turns out that the price GEMA want for views is too high for YouTube, and as a result the videos of some of the world’s most famous artists are blocked.

[Quote]:

Harriet Harman, deputy leader the UK Labour Party, has explained her party’s programme for the British Internet: “implement the Digital Economy Act under a clear timetable including getting on with the notification letters.” “Notification letters?” Why yes, those would be the letters notifying you that you have been accused, without proof, of downloading copyrighted material without permission, and that everyone in your household is now at risk of being disconnected from the Internet, without a trial. If that costs you your job, if that costs your children their education, if that makes it harder to engage with politics, civics, and your community, well, tough shit. Thanks for sticking up for the little guy, Labour. And thanks for passing the Digital Economy Act without Parliamentary debate, over the howls of protests of your own veteran MPs, even after music industry lobbyists were caught rewriting portions of it to suit their corporate masters. (PS: she also wants all the worst stuff in SOPA to be taken on voluntarily by Google).

[Quote]:

A Kitchener father is upset that police arrested him at his children’s’ school Wednesday, hauled him down to the station and strip-searched him, all because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun at school.

“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, said Thursday.

“I was in shock. This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school.”

The school principal, police and child welfare officials, however, all stand by their actions. They said they had to investigate to determine whether there was a gun in Sansone’s house that children had access to.

Just proof that the cops are a bunch of pussies. My kid drew a picture of a dinosaur. Cops gonna come and arrest me? Hell no. My dinosaur would wreck their shit.

[Quote]:

“I was in the audience for the taping. Bolton was booed when taking the stage, at which point one of the show’s producers hissed at us and said something about “allowing a fair debate”. In spite of that, he was then booed overwhelmingly after giving his back-handed insult of an answer to the young vet at the microphone. You can hear a bit of her hissing and shushing again during the clip when the boos start up.”

[Quote]:

According to the Detroit Free Press, the Romney campaign spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make the stadium look full for television cameras:

It wasn’t completely empty. He filled 1% of the stadium. The other 99% don’t matter to him.

[Quote]:

Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies.

[..]

“Where else do the police come to your house after you’ve been robbed and ask you, ‘Why did you call us?’ ”

[Quote]:

Now subway announcements sound like this: “There is … an uptown … local … 1 … train … to Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street.” The voice is instantly recognizable on any numbered line but the No. 7. It is a chipper, crisp, slightly plummy tenor belonging to Bernie Wagenblast, 55, of Cranford, N.J. It may be too chipper for the morning rush, but usually it’s as welcoming as a disembodied, amplified, reverberating sound can be.

The repertoire, however, is limited. We thought straphangers and Mr. Wagenblast — at one time the voice of Shadow Traffic on WABC and WINS — might want to stretch the boundaries. We invited readers to suggest announcements they’d like Mr. Wagenblast to record. Nearly 200 responded.

(or if you live in London, try this)

[Quote]:

Whoever is in charge of branding

For the Lorax’s mula-making machine -

Have you read the book you’re hijacking?

Did you misinterpret what it means?

We’re solving the energy crisis by turning Dr. Seuss into a turbine in his grave.