] "This is R Peed Robbert, McNicoll and Don Mills
] bus-shelter."
]
] "That's nice. This is Detective Icaza de Arana-Goldberg,
] three blocks east of you on Picola. Proceed to my
] location at once, priority urgent, no sirens."
]
] "Acknowledged. It is my pleasure to do you a service,
] Detective."
]
] "Shut up," he said, and hung up the phone. The R Peed
] - Robot, Police Department - robots were the
] worst, programmed to be friendly to a fault, even as they
] surveilled and snitched out every person who walked past
] their eternally vigilant, ever-remembering electrical
] eyes and brains.
]
] The R Peeds could outrun a police car on open ground on
] highway. He'd barely had time to untwist his clenched
] hands from the steering wheel when R Peed Robbert was at
] his window, politely rapping on the smoked glass. He
] didn't want to roll down the window. Didn't want to smell
] the dry, machine-oil smell of a robot. He phoned it
] instead.

Cory Doctorow is writing short stories again, but with a vengeance. This is his latest whereby he writes of the future where patents have limited creativity and there is only one kind of robot left in the world. He also called it "I, Robot" as part of his new effort to write new stories with the same title as a famous story by another author. It's a bit of a protest of all the bitching about Michael Moore using "Fahrenheit 9/11" as a title since it is so close to "Fahrenheit 451".

Anyway, enjoy.

Dolemite

Cory Doctorow | I, Robot

Oh, how I wish I were in the Bay Area just so I could go see this... sure, it may be depressing for some, but I think that some of our San Francisco memers should post a review for us!

To the kitschy annals of dot-com nostalgia, add the endearing farce of Rentalpuppy.com, a saga that starts and ends at Starbucks, with $50 million vanishing in between. Consultants, V.C.s, investment bankers and the dot-commers themselves are chewed up and sung out in a giddy production, the kind of show where "Norton anti-virus" is earnestly invoked in a lovers' duet.

Based in a SOMA loft with all the necessary office distractions, like foosball, air hockey, cellphones ringing to the tune of "Baby Got Back," Rental Puppy, as a company, seems to be mostly about office workers IM-ing their friends all morning before going out for a high-tech burrito, while they wait to vest. "I'm vesting. I'm vesting. Just four more years, then I'll be resting."

The real villain here isn't the hapless dot-commers themselves, whose main crime is just getting caught up in it all -- and, hey, who wasn't? -- but rather a nefarious investment banker from Stevenson Roberts, whose sterling credentials include sitting on the board of Enron and WorldCom, and the V.C.s so sexist that they have to have everything a woman says repeated to them by a man so that they can hear it.

It's never too early for dot-com nostalgia

The EU constitution.

The European Convention

,----
| VANCOUVER - A top White House drug policy official is threatening
| retaliation from the U.S. if Canada relaxes its laws against marijuana
| possession.
|
| David Murray, right-hand man to U.S. "drug czar" John Walters, says he
| doesn't want to tread on another country's sovereignty, but warned
| there would be consequences if Canada proceeds with a plan to
| decriminalize the possession of marijuana.
`----

Oh, really? So now tell me, would that be a 'Shock and Awe' type
retaliation?

CBC News: U.S. warns Canada against easing pot laws

[The Justice Department won't say what Hawash is a witness to or how long they intend to keep him.]

These aren't the only things the Bush administration won't say. It won't say why it's holding individual detainees at Guantánamo Bay; it won't disclose the factual basis for its prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui; and it won't say how many immigrants it has detained or deported in INS proceedings. It won't say how many of us are having our telephones tapped, our e-mail messages monitored or our library checkout records examined by federal agents. The administration's defenders say such secrecy is an unavoidable cost of the war on terror, but it's an orientation that predated Sept. 11 and that extends beyond the terror threat. The White House won't reveal who Vice President Dick Cheney consulted in concocting the administration's energy policy; it won't disclose what Miguel Estrada wrote while working for the solicitor general; it won't even release documents related to the pardons that former President Bill Clinton granted during his last days in office.

...

Steven Aftergood, a researcher who monitors government secrecy issues for the Federation of American Scientists, calls Hatch's proposal a "direct assault" on Congress' ability to monitor the Justice Department. "If it goes through, we might as well go home," he told Salon. "The administration will have whatever authority it wants, and there won't be any separation of powers at all."

...

With the Domestic Security Act of 2003 -- the draft legislation dubbed "PATRIOT Act II" -- the administration is apparently contemplating other ways in which it might avoid the inconvenience of operating in the public eye or answering to the federal courts.

The draft legislation, prepared by the Justice Department but not yet proposed to Congress, includes provisions that would allow federal agents to keep secret the names of individuals arrested in investigations related to "international terrorism"; expand the circumstances under which agents could conduct searches and wiretaps without warrants; and allow the attorney general to deport resident aliens in certain circumstances without any possibility of judicial review.

Another good update on the scary legislation that is both in effect and being proposed in the future. Keep getting the information out there so that more people will raise their voice - while they still can.

Dolemite

The secret society

] An Oregon anti-terrorism bill would jail street-blocking
] protesters for at least 25 years in a thinly veiled
] effort to discourage anti-war demonstrations, critics
] say.

Yahoo! News - Oregon Law Would Jail War Protesters as Terrorists

] Oil has held the United States hostage for a century, but the
] nation can be energy-independent in 10 years. Here's a five-point
] plan to reshape the economy.

Wired 11.04: How Hydrogen Can Save America

] Dozens of young Iranians have been detained for "unlawful
] actions" after using a website to arrange dates,
] officials say.
]
] A militia commander said 68 men and women were arrested
] in the capital Tehran, according to a report by Iran's
] official Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna).

Yikes..

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iranians arrested for net dating

http://www.cybercrime.gov/fastlane.htm

My name is Glendon, that link above should fill you in on what happened to me back in Nov of 2000. I'm posting this to answer questions i hope you would have about this case/trial. I used to be as deep in the scene as possible until that happened. I would like to warn you people who can be rather ignorant (as i was) to what is really going on around you as you 'happily trade warez'. I'm open to any questions you have, and please ask, because you really need to know, this is no joke and by far not worth the consequences!

[iSONEWS] I have been convicted of Copyright Infringement . .and its NOT funny.

The original post on the phpnuke.org site, for reference.

quoted:
===

What a shame!

This is the worse thing I saw in many time. A web site called LawMeme which topic is the LAW, copyrights and legal stuff (hosted by the Yale Law School at Yale University) that simply removed the PHP-Nuke copyright notices. I know that some people removes the copyright notice but to see this done by a LAW related site!?!?! This is a call to the those few PHP-Nuke's users that likes to remove the copyrights to think about it and try to respect the hard work that many people did for you. Not to mention that this great system is free. Nothing more... just an advice.

PHP-Nuke - What a shame!