The head of the Cartoon Network resigned Friday following a marketing stunt that caused a terrorism scare in Boston and led police to shut down bridges and send in the bomb squad.

He said he regretted what had happened and felt ''compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch.''

This seems a little drastic for the situation

Cartoon Network Chief Quits Over Marketing Stunt - New York Times

Via jwz:

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The new Congress has barely begun, but the major record labels are already up to their old tricks.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, a backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio. Satellite and digital radio stations as well as Internet webcasters would have to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions or lose the statutory license for broadcasting music. Letters from constituents like you helped beat this dangerous proposal last year -- take action now to block it again.

This bill aims to hobble TiVo-like devices for satellite and digital radio. Such devices would be allowed to include "reasonable recording" features, but that excludes choosing and playing back selections based on song title, artist, or genre. Want to freely move recordings around your home network or copy them to the portable player of your choice? You'll be out of luck if PERFORM passes.

This bill would also mess with Internet radio. Today, Live365, Shoutcast, streaming radio stations included in iTunes, and myriad other smaller webcasters rely on MP3 streaming. PERFORM would in effect force them to use DRM-laden, proprietary formats, so you can say goodbye to software tools like Streamripper that let you record programming to listen to it later.

Tell your representatives to oppose the PERFORM Act now.

Don't Let Congress Shackle Digital Music

Gov. Rick Perry ordered Friday that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots.

The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.

First, this is not about hangups this is about forcing a population to get vacinated against something that is not a threat to society. It can not be transmitted through daily interaction. Even if this is an epidemic this is not the way to address the situation. On top of that even if this vaccine had been tested for years and years we are talking about 11 year olds. Even though some 11 year old are acting like they are grown ups they aren't and there bodies are different/ Drug effects are different.

Jello:Schools already make kids get vaccinated for a variety of diseases. I don't think you can attend public school without being vaccinated for Mumps, Measles, Rubella or Polio, for instance. The reason for this is that children interact in manners that would allow for transmission: they touch each other, they sit near each other, they cough.

HPV is an epidemic. Most young people have it. Once you accept that children have sex with one another, and therefore act in a way that routinely transmits this disease... it follows that they should be vaccinated, and its no more Orwellian than vaccinating children against Measles, because they cough on one another.

Secondly, It is the first step in making laws taking away people's right to make decisions about their own bodies. I have two children that sit next to each other in my class. Kaitlyn and Dylan. Kaitlyn does not have a choice in the fact that Dylan often coughs on her or touches her or her stuff. Kaitlyn does have a choice on whether she lets Dylan have sex with her. If not that is rape and that is where the requirement belongs. Freedom of choice is the issue. I have two nieces who I love like they were my own. I help raise them it remains one of the two hardest things I have ever done. You don't mess with peoples right to make their own decision much less a parent's right to make decisions about their children. If we were there are much better places to start. If this flies they are one step closer to requiring all kinds of procedures and vaccinations because they know what's best for you and making things like abortion illegal.

Texas Requires Cancer Vaccine for Girls

Frank Warren, creator of the PostSecret project, will be speaking about the project and signing books in Atlanta tonight at 7pm at the Barnes and Noble on Peachtree St.

Hopefully I will see other Memestreamers there tonight.

I was there

Frank Warren in Atlanta tonight

If the holidays have made you forget how screwed up everything is right now, this photo essay should remind you.

TIME: The Best Photos of the Year 2006

There is a right way and a wrong way to make a New Year's resolution. Here are a few expert tips to see that your resolution actually makes a difference...

If you are going to make a resolution here is the way :)

New Year's Resolution Tips

School headmaster Chamnong Chupatpong and Mano Sonkaew were driving a pickup truck on their way to Ban Baedo school in Yala province when they were shot, dragged out of the vehicle and burned to death, according to a witness, Lt. Tatsapol Suwannabul said.

And here we're worried about textbook stickers.

Muslim rebels in southern Thailand target school teachers

This link is to a letter my Superintendent sent to Johnny Isakson in reference to No Child Left Behind. It makes several good points. I figured I would share

Congressional NCLB Letter

I was driving home and heard an advertisement for puting education first while voting. With education in mind, GAE (georgia association of educators)did background research, candidate interviews, and polled it's members to put together a list of recommended candidates. They give justifications for the top 3 choices (Governor, Lt. Governor, State School Superintendent)and give idividual recommendations for each county/area. This is not the list for everyone and doesn't give info on the other candidate choices but atleast it is a starting point for people to start thinking about the choices and doing their own research.

GAE 2006 Candidate Recommendations

Republican Sen. John McCain's standoff with the White House over treatment of detainees — an issue the former POW knows intimately well — threatens to exacerbate his already contentious relationship with conservatives.

The Arizona senator has been a staunch supporter of
President Bush on the Iraq war. He has alienated conservatives, however, for opposing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and supporting federal expansion of embryonic stem-cell research.

Social conservatives also have taken issue with his effort to overhaul the immigration system, in part, by granting millions of illegal immigrants a path to eventual citizenship, and his work with a rogue group of senators to avert a Senate fight over Bush's judicial nominations.

As the clash escalated, McCain shrugged off suggestions that the dust-up could hurt him politically, telling reporters last week that his "credibility with the American people is that I do what I think is right."

Long known as a maverick, McCain's latest tussle with the White House is over the president's insistence that Congress allow the
CIA to use aggressive methods against terrorism suspects.

McCain and a growing group of Senate Republicans contend the United States must adhere strictly to the Geneva Conventions international standards.

Bush wants Congress to quickly pass his own proposed legislation authorizing military tribunals for detainees and harsh interrogations of terror suspects. Last week, he singled out McCain, a rival for the presidential nomination in 2000, making clear whom he blamed for standing in the way.

A year ago, McCain led a high-profile charge in Congress to clarify a law against torture by extending it to also ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners. The White House issued a veto threat.

But McCain, a former Navy pilot tortured during nearly six years of imprisonment in Vietnam, attracted enough support in the House and Senate to override a veto. After a very public spat, the White House and McCain reached an agreement that essentially resulted in the senator getting what he wanted. Bush signed the bill in December.

Traveling in politically pivotal New Hampshire over the weekend, McCain again was the target of conservatives' ire — this time because of his interrogation position.

The editorial page of the Manchester Union-Leader accused McCain of "blocking our ability to gain from terrorist captives the vital information we need to fight a war in which the enemy strikes us here at home from multiple locations around the world."

Sixteen months from presidential primary season, some Republicans believe McCain's latest haggling with the White House won't have lasting negative implications.

McCain may alienate some conservatives