The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.

Ahhh CALEA...

Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems

Microsoft is planning to work with the Nigerian government to help track down and prosecute criminals involved in e-mail scams and other Internet-based fraud originating from the African country.

I'm not holding my breath...

Nigeria enlists Microsoft to fight spam scammers | CNET News.com

In the United States, recording labels want a bigger slice of Apple's success in digital music by seeking higher prices on downloaded songs. Japan's music industry has a different idea: putting a fee on iPods.

If you think of this like the old UK "TV license" that was used to fund the BBC, this isn't all that outrageous. Another flavor of "flat rate, all you can eat," plus the price discrimination falls out naturally -- if your fee is 5% of the sale price of your device, for example.

Japan's Music Industry Wants Fee on Sales of Latest Digital Players

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

Lessig has remarked on this point before, as well. There is some cause for hope when the FCC in record short time made some local telco/dsl provider stop blocking Vonage earlier this year.

Overall, really good.

Al Gore tells it like it is

President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and then create a Palestinian state to bring peace to the Middle East, they recall during a documentary on Middle East peace that airs next week in Britain.

There has to be some more context to this, but still ...

Bush said God told him to invade Iraq, Arab leaders say / Palestinian officials confirm comments from documentary

As the Gulf Coast reels from two catastrophic storms in a month, and the Carolinas and Florida deal with damage and debris from hurricanes this year and last, even some supporters of coastal development are starting to ask a previously unthinkable question: is it time to consider retreat from the coast?

Some Experts Say It's Time to Evacuate the Coast (for Good)

So suppose there is a Great Intender, who mapped out the circuitry of living cells with the care an Intel engineer would bring to a new microchip. Where then did the creator come from? Was he created by another creator? Or did he evolve?

Materialism isn't easy.

For the Anti-Evolutionists, Hope in High Places

What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk - and him to Nigeria - is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both.

This is really awful. Africa is a such a mess.

Nightmare for African Women: Birthing Injury and Little Help

As the city slept, the truck and its armed escorts slipped away from the reactor, at a Czech Technical University campus on the outskirts of the city, and passed through deserted streets, stopping at last near a runway at the capital's airport. Soon a Russian cargo plane landed to carry the uranium to a more secure storage center in Russia.

The nuclear reactor at the campus, which for 15 years had stored nuclear material in a lightly guarded setting, was now free of a fuel that terrorists might covet. As the cargo plane's rear hatch locked shut, a team of American nonproliferation officials watched with approval.

Prague Ships Its Nuclear-Bomb Fuel to Russian Storage

North Korea agreed to end its nuclear weapons program this morning in return for security, economic and energy benefits, potentially easing tensions with the United States after a three-year standoff over the country's efforts to build atomic bombs.

North Korea Says It Will Drop Nuclear Efforts for Aid Program - New York Times