] The baby, it turned out in the first such documented case
] in a human, had a double dose of a genetic mutation that
] causes immense strength in mice and cattle. Drugs are
] under development that, investigators hope, will use the
] same principle to help people whose muscles are wasting
] from muscular dystrophy or other illnesses. Experts say
] the little boy, now 4½ and still very strong, offers
] human evidence for the theory behind such drugs.

[ Huh. As always, potential problems loom... but this could be pretty important. -k]

A Very Muscular Baby Offers Hope Against Diseases

] A new book by the senior Central Intelligence Agency
] officer who headed a special office to track Osama bin
] Laden and his followers warns that the United States is
] losing the war against radical Islam and that the
] invasion of Iraq has only played into the enemy's hands.

The New York Times - Intelligence Insider: Book by C.I.A. Officer Says U.S. Is Losing Fight Against Terror

] Computer trade show Comdex, once the biggest event on the
] tech calendar, has been canceled this year, a victim of
] the growing interest in shows emphasizing consumer
] electronics and specialist IT gear.

[ Wow. -k]

Organizer cancels Comdex 2004 | CNET News.com

] In apparent defiance of color theory -- that dark
] surfaces absorb light and white surfaces reflect it --
] Sony Corp. has unveiled a black screen that allows a
] regular digital projector to vividly display TV images
] and business presentations in a brightly lit room.

[ Very very cool -k]

WSJ.com - Sony's Black Screens May Brighten Business

] Apple® today announced that music fans in the UK, France
] and Germany have purchased and downloaded more than
] 800,000 songs from the iTunes® Music Store since its
] launch one week ago, with more than 450,000 sold in the
] UK alone.

[ Werd. -k]

iTunes Music Store in Europe Sells 800,000 Songs in First Week

] Delta, Continental, America West, JetBlue and Frontier
] Airlines secretly turned over sensitive passenger data to
] Transportation Security Administration contractors in the
] spring and summer of 2002, according to the sworn
] statement of acting TSA chief David Stone. In addition,
] two of the four largest airline reservation centers,
] Galileo International and Sabre, also gave sensitive
] passenger information, including home phone numbers,
] credit card numbers and health data, without disclosing
] the transfers to travelers or asking their permission.

[ Privacy, what's that? -k]

Wired News: More False Information From TSA

To whom it may concern,
I was reading your paper "Is Open Source Software a threat to Future Intellectual Property Rights," and was quite shocked to find the following error. In the paper you claim:

"As unlikely as this might seem to the skeptic, the National Security Agency (NSA), that coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information, made the folly of developing GPL-licensed code to improve the Linux operating system. After reading the terms of the Linux GPL, the NSA realized they needed to post this enhancement to the Internet in source code form for the world to see."

First of all there no such thing as the "Linux GPL." There is the GNU GPL, which many distributions of Linux are published under. This seems a rather large mistake for a PAC specializing in IP to make. Furthermore, the claim that the GPL in some way requires you to post publicly any modifications to GPL-code is completely false. In fact, a specific section of the Frequently Asked Questions of the GPL addresses this issue. From the GNU GPL FAQ: (available at:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html)

"The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization. But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL. Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you."

How could you make such a a blatant mistake? How do you conduct research at your organization? Even a cursory glance at the license would have shown this. Do you have such little faith in our Government agencies to imagine that they wouldn't have a horde of lawyers examine a license before using it? And yet, you, a organization who claims to protect my property rights didn't a) already know this, or b) do the trivial amount of research to learn it?

I utterly offended by your complete lack of fundamental research in this paper. To make the baseless claim that the GPL or Linux are some kind of evil things that have weakened National Security and manipulated our government is completely absurd. I am extremely interested how this gross mistake was missed by your editors and fact-finders, and made it into publication. I eagerly await your reply.

[ Damn. Right on, brother... -k]

Email to mail@yourpropertyrights.org

Scientists have performed successful teleportation on atoms for the first time, the journal Nature reports.

[ Hot damn... -k]

Teleportation breakthrough made

The technologies, if approved by the Food and Drug Administration, would not only find cancers in their earliest stages before they can do damage or spread, but also deliver a small amount of a drug targeted directly at tumors, which would cause little or no side effects.

Pretty neat.

Wired News: Nano Killers Aim at Mini Tumors

] There's no place where Bush has been more dishonest than
] with this issue. He opposes the Texas Patients' Bill of
] Rights, but it is passed by a veto-proof majority in the
] Texas legislature, so Bush lets it pass into law without
] a signature. Yet in a debate with Gore, Bush blatantly
] lies claiming he signed it. (The media was too busy
] calling Gore a liar to write about Bush's REAL lies.)
]
]
] Then, after Bush gets into office, he orders his Justice
] Department to fight the Texas law. Yesterday, Bush won.
] The Supreme Court has invalidated all state Patients'
] Bill of Right laws saying federal law supercedes it.

This is the more important story from the Supreme Court rulings yesterday.

[ Yeah, this is some shit from all i've been reading. Nothing like eliminating modes of recourse... -k]

Bush lies on Patients' Bill of Rights