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The head of the US copyright office has accused Congress of making a mistake by extending the length of copyright in America, calling the term "too long," and saying that Congress made a "big mistake."

Boing Boing: Copyright office head denounces Sonny Bono Act

A Texas woman alleges on her blog that her membership of a satirical religious group with very liberal views on sexuality has led to a court forbidding her to have any form of contact with her son.

Apparently being a member of the Church of the Subgenius is enough to get your children taken away!

Bartholomew's notes on religion: Woman looses son for participating in X-Day

A few months ago, Roger Brent, a geneticist who runs a California biotech firm, sent me an unpublished paper in which he wrote that genetically engineered bioweapons developed by small teams are a bigger threat than suitcase nukes.

Brent is one of a growing number of researchers who believe that a bioterrorist wouldn’t need a team of virologists and state funding. He says advances in DNA-hacking technology have reached the point where an evil lab assistant with the right resources could do the job.

Gold Star, but I'm wondering how alarmist this is.

Paul Boutin : Biowar for Dummies

In March 1970, a California radio station received an anonymous tape in the post. On it was a recording of a woman's voice apparently declaring war on the United States. 'The lines are drawn,' intoned the mysterious speaker, coldly and deliberately. 'Revolution is touching all of our lives. Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks... within the next 14 days we will bomb a major US institution.'

The Guardian Observer on The Weather Underground

It's a fascinating picture, dark and exciting, and it will almost certainly be an enormous hit.

This Movie Will Kick Your Ass, By Kurt Loder

Believe it or not, Dr. Seuss was a political cartoonist in the early 1940s.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Pheezer the Appeaser:

m.e. nu nu wrote:
The Atlatl (or Atl-Atl, pronounced kindof like At-Lah-Tle) has been causing some controversy for the past couple months i suppose in Pennsylvania.

This is the story that i'm linking..
http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_3520369

I'm a pretty radical animal rights defender. But, I disagree again with most animal rights defenders when it comes to the ATLATL. Let it GO! Basically, this is an ages old hunting tool that takes great skill to throw. While I would never hunt, and think hunting is a little stupid and a lot cruel/dangerous (*begin shameless plug* just ask Harry Whittington */end shameless plug*) I think it's absurd to attack this one and insignificant facet of animal rights...

Irrespective of your view of the controversy, this post from m.e. led me to googling the atlatl, which was an interesting thing to learn about.

These weapons had many names in the respective cultures in which they were used. However, they were brought to prominence because they were used successfully by the Aztec of Mexico against the Spanish in the 16th century. The name atlatl, used in the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs, came to dominance in European and American literature. The Spaniards dreaded these weapons that often pierced their protective armour. The word atlatl is a combination of the Nahuatl words for "water" and "thrower" in reference to the common use of the atlatls for hunting waterfowl and fish. Technically, only the throwing board is called an atlatl, but the term is now often used to include the throwing board and the small spear it propels.

The oldest atlatls in the world date back over 25,000 years in N.W Africa. The late Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian peoples of Europe made beautifully carved specimens from antler and bone 17,000 years ago.

RE: ATLATL!

A venture capitalist's observations of the consumer internet, information security, entrepreneurship, and science.

Practicing the Art of Pitchcraft

Commenting on an earlier post of mine, Sridharan suggested that my four year old son’s simple and clear presentation of his thoughts is “a management lesson…Stick to the point and say it in a single sentence.”

I know it sounds a little crazy, but indeed I’ve come to agree that a clear, compelling elevator pitch is essential to growing a business. (And I’ve paid dearly for the evidence.) So after attending a board meeting yesterday in which the management team struggled to succinctly describe their business, I resolved to blog my agreement with Sridharan. Just in time, too, because Nivi’s been bugging me to answer the question: What makes for a good elevator pitch?

Who Has Time For This?: Practicing the Art of Pitchcraft

Aren't you glad that your parents didn't explain sex to you by really telling you about the birds and the bees? "Now, daughter, think of yourself as a bee. There's a 99.99% chance that you'll never get any, and instead of developing an extensive reproductive system, you'll get to have a stinger and a venom pouch. But there's a tiny chance that you'll be a queen bee, which means you'll be really huge, and all these male bees will have sex with you."

"Son, you have to find the queen, the one all the other boys want to mate with. Then you'll have sex with her, and your penis will fall off and stay in her body. Then you'll die. Oh, before you have sex with her, make sure you take the other guy's penis out of her first."

The Volokh Conspiracy - The Birds and the Bees: