] The law was drawn up to target professional pirates,
] criminals and counterfeiters who make copies of goods
] such as football shirts or CDs.
]
]
] During the debates, the directive was widened to cover
] any infringement of intellectual property.
]
]
] The directive allows companies to raid homes, seize
] property and ask courts to freeze bank accounts to
] protect trademarks or intellectual property they believe
] are being abused or stolen.

[ new hardcore EU IP laws... ouch. -k]

BBC NEWS | Technology | EU backs tighter rules on piracy

] So, Mr. Dawson said, he was stunned this week to find
] that his name had been added to a little-known Internet
] database for doctors attacking "litigious behavior." His
] offense: filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a
] Fort Worth hospital and doctor over the death of his
] 39-year-old wife, whose brain tumor was missed, and
] winning an undisclosed settlement.

[ Some interesting issues brought up here... On the one hand, minimizing the frivolous or excessive lawsuits is a good thing, and benefits everyone, but it seems unethical not to distinguish the cases based on the details and merit of the actions. A balance needs to be struck between maintaining people's ability to punish bad doctors and limiting their ability to make boatloads of money on lesser claims. thoughts from the community? -k]

In Texas, Hire a Lawyer, Forget About a Doctor?

] Chameleon Network, in Concord, Massachusetts, plans to
] replace the stacks of credit, bank and customer-loyalty
] cards burdening modern consumers with a single,
] rewritable Chameleon Card, which works just like an
] ordinary card with a magnetic strip.

[ Huh. Interesting concept. -k]

Wired News: Chameleon Card Changes Stripes

] I travel a lot and one of my favorite destination lead
] through poisoned with radiation, so called Chernobyl
] "dead zone" It is 130kms from my home. Why favourite?
] because one can ride there for hours and not meet any
] single car and not to see any single soul. People left
] and nature is blooming, there are beautiful places,
] woods, lakes. There is no newly built roads, but those
] which left from 80th in fairly good condition

Ryan -- this is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. It is a photoblog of a daughter of a nuclear engineer who tours around Chernobyl on her motorcycle.

[yeah, pretty fucking rad... -k]

Photoblogging Chernobyl

[ damn this is fun... i got to level 30, but i've gotta drag myself away so's not to be too worthless. -k]

Warthog Launch

] Martha Stewart's fate was sealed by of the testimony of
] her personal assistant and traveling companion, two close
] friends of the domestic entrepreneur whose stories
] convinced the jury she held herself above the law, a
] juror in the trial said Friday.
]
] The juror, Chappell Hartridge, a computer programmer from
] the Bronx, said the verdict is a "victory for the little
] guys who lose money in the markets for these kinds of
] transgressions. It's also a message to the bigwigs that
] nobody is above the law."

[ Holy shit! Perhaps those "Cell block decor" cracks weren't so off base after all. Daaaammmnnn. -k]

In the End, Stewart's Friends Were Her Undoing

] In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had
] revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up
] a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing
] deadly ricin and cyanide.
]
] The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp
] with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the
] White House, where, according to U.S. government sources,
] the plan was debated to death in the National Security
] Council.
]
] "Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a
] country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties
] after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael
] O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings
] Institution.
]
] Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was
] planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.
]
] The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White
] House again killed it. By then the administration had
] set its course for war with Iraq.
]
] "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition
] to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's
] policy of preemption against terrorists," according to
] terrorism expert and former National Security Council
] member Roger Cressey.

[ Shenanigans. -k]

Daily Kos || Bush gave terrorist a pass

] The Bush reelection campaign yesterday unveiled its first
] three campaign commercials showcasing Ground Zero images,
] angering some 9/11 families who accused President Bush of
] exploiting the tragedy for political advantage.

[ I would add that Cheney promised just last month that they wouldn't use 9/11 as a political tool. I understand that 9/11 was a major, world altering event, but showing imagery of a casket being pulled from the wreckage is the lowest sort of emotion grabbing politics i can imagine. Despicable -k]

Daily Kos || The price of politicizing 9-11

] By the way, today in Fulton Co., there was a glitch in
] the voting machines -- people were given the wrong ballot
] -- instead of getting a Dem. ballot they got the ballot
] to vote for our flag, and after they voted and realized
] what was wrong, there was no way to go back and vote for
] a candidate. Insane.

[ From an Atlantan poster on DKos... anyone seen reports on this in the actual media? Or will they gloss over these sorts of things like usual? -k]

Daily Kos || Don't Let Them Steal The Election

] A security issue also arose in Georgia.
]
]
] Georgia Tech student Peter Sahlstrom said he found 10
] Diebold terminals sitting unprotected in the lobby of the
] school's student center Monday. Sahlstrom, 22,
] photographed the machines in their unlocked cases.
]
]
] "Frankly, this makes me nervous and ... it validates a
] lot of the concerns I already had," Sahlstrom said in a
] phone interview.

[ Yeah... this is from *today*. Still no accountability. Still no audit trail. Still no concern for security of eVoting systems. If there's a compromise in november, the country's gonna go nuts. Sweet jesus help Kathy Cox if that shit goes down, because there are some people that're gonna wanna have a word with her, and every other moron whose given carte blanche to Diebold. -k]

Salon.com Technology | Technical problems reported in e-voting