] This Act may be cited as the `Controlling the
] Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of
] 2003', or the `CAN-SPAM Act of 2003'.

I'm not sure if this was blogged here before. In addition
to prohibiting sending SPAM, it also expressly (sec 6) prohibits
you from promoting your business via spam, i.e. if you hire
spammers, you're also in violation of the act. This seems like
it could be a more fruitful avenue of enforcement -- prosecute
the end-users of the "spam service" rather than the spammers
themselves.

CAN-SPAM Act Text

] REGULATORS FROM the UK, US and Australia have formed a
] mutual defence pact to battle spam.

Australia, US, Britain declare war on spammers

Mike the Usurper wrote:
] That's when Cheney unloaded with the "F-bomb,"

NPR dutifully reported it on All Things Considered
this afternoon :P

RE: Way to go, dick.

] The Supreme Court today placed more limits on the power
] of judges to decide sentences for criminals, voting 5 to
] 4 to set aside a prison term in a Washington State
] kidnapping. The four dissenters predicted that the
] decision would wreak havoc on sentencing procedures in
] many states, and perhaps in the federal penal system as
] well.

This doesn't seem to directly speak to minimum-sentence laws but I'm
not really familiar enough with the case-law to say...

Justices Tighten Limits on Judges in Sentencing

] This article argues that since domestic drilling is ultimately
] ineffectual, it's probably not worth the trouble.

My understanding was that it wasn't crude prices so much as
refinery undercapacity and further supply problems created by
the 100+ fuel formulations in effect in different parts of the
country.

RE: Would More Drilling in America Make a Difference?

] This Friday, Professor Turow and other experts will meet
] at a conference sponsored by the Annenberg School to
] debate how digital media fits into the concept of "fair
] use" - a murky safe harbor in copyright law that allows
] scholars and researchers limited use of protected
] materials for educational or commentary purposes.
]
] The conference title itself is a lament: "Knowledge Held
] Hostage: Scholarly Versus Corporate Rights in the Digital
] Age." Many scholars, librarians and legal experts see
] rich promise for the use of multimedia materials in
] research and education. But the possibility of litigation
] over file-sharing and confusion over digital copyright
] protections have scholars feeling threatened about
] venturing beyond the more familiar world of printed
] texts, Professor Turow said.

Permissions on Digital Media Drive Scholars to Lawbooks

] The Patent Office has issued an order granting their
] request for reexamination of MS's patent on the FAT file
] system on the grounds that they had raised "a substantial
] new question of patentability" regarding that patent
] claim. Naturally, PubPat is pleased. "This is the first
] step towards ending the harm being caused to the public
] by this patent that should have never been issued," said
] Dan Ravicher in the press release. Here it is in full:

... given that M$ filed the FAT patent purely to extort money
from flash media vendors. Yay.

US PTO to Reexamine M$ FAT Patent

] First Lady Laura Bush says she admires Nancy Reagan's
] devotion to her husband, but cannot back her call for
] lifting restrictions on stem cell research.

Its going to go like this: Republicans are going to be lying in
hospital beds and given the alternative of stem-cell treatments
or losing their minds to Alzheimer's over an extended period.
I doubt many pro-lifers are willing to die for this idea.

Laura Bush 'Cannot Back' Nancy Reagan's Call to Lift Stem Cell Research Restrictions

] A New York man convicted of using the network of Internet
] service provider EarthLink to send out hundreds of
] millions of unsolicited commercial (spam) e-mail was
] sentenced to between three-and-a -half and seven years in
] prison Thursday, according to Brad Maione, a spokesman
] for New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Buffalo spammer gets 3.5 to 7 years

] Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make
] their way through the United States patent examination
] process without adequate review. The problem is
] particularly acute in the software and Internet fields
] where the history of prior inventions (often called

EFF's Patent Busting Project