Decius wrote:
] A society that can face these challenges effectively must
] believe in freedom at it's core. Americans do not believe in
] freedom. (I'll bet I just offended you. GOOD!) Americans
] believe that it ought to be illegal to buy beer after 10:30
] and everyone who rides a bicycle should be forced to wear a
] helmet and you should be fined for practicing golf in a public
] park and 17 year olds should be prohibited from watching
] movies about robots from the future.
]
] The American idea of "freedom" is synonymous with national
] pride. By freedom, Americans really mean American, not free.
] The rubber doesn't really meet the road when it comes to
] practical questions about what government should and should
] not regulate. Americans regulate everything their constitution
] doesn't explicitly prevent them from regulating. No one stands
] up and says we shouldn't have this law because people ought to
] be free to make their own choices and be responsible for
] themselves. No one but the group getting trampled. And such
] arguments are never persuasive when weighed against the
] statistical "good" that regulations achieve.
]
] If people all wear helmets, deaths go down. If childern don't
] see violence, they are less violent. Saving lives is obviously
] more important then some whiney jerk who doesn't want to wear
] a helmet. How trite! Tell him to stuff it! Pass the law!

] A society that truly believes in freedom takes the cost of
] regulation seriously and weighs the necessity of regulation
] gravely. We do not. A society that truly believes in freedom
] regulates as an absolute last resort. We regulate as a first
] resort, and a second resort, and a fifth resort, and a
] fiftieth resort.
]
] And that's what really bothers me about all of this... You're
] going to live in a society where every behavior is controlled
] and enforcement is absolute. It will be legal to hold any
] opinion you want about it, and express that on the internet,
] but it won't matter. No one will listen to you, and there will
] be absolutely nothing that you can do about it, and if you
] really piss people off they'll come for you, as your name,
] address, and phone number will be publically displayed in the
] whois database. But at least you'll know you're free. And
] you'll have a big, fat grin on your face about it. You already
] do.

"Liberty is responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw

Freedom, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Secure Travel Papers

] Believe it or not, it's real. But it's not near done.
] Details have leaked out about a prototype Numark DJ mixer
] that can mix two iPods. I know what you're thinking: Wow,
] what a scoop! Where are the lawyers? Is it a fake?
]
] In fact, in a gesture of spectacularly poor industrial
] secrecy, it seems Numark showed off an early prototype at
] the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt. (see the discussion at
] skratchworx that was the source of the 'rumor'; via
] engadget) Later in the show, head honchos asked that
] visitors not take photos, but not earlier in the show;
] hence we have a couple of images from German hip hop site
] WebBeatz.

Neat! It would be a damn expensive rig, but a very cool one..

Analysis: Prototype Numark iPod DJ Mixer - createdigitalmusic.com

] "We were able to identify the situation right away,"
] Russo said. "We are working with the (hardware) vendor to
] make sure it doesn't happen again."
]
] Russo on Wednesday said Tuesday night's outage was the
] result of an issue involving its domain name servers. She
] declined to identify Comcast's hardware vendor.

Of all things, DNS is something you'd expect Comcast to have a grip on. It is the single most important service your ISP offers you after actual IP transit..

Its always a good idea to keep a few DNS server IP addresses on hand for when these situations come up. Or a pre-configured copy of BIND installed.

New round of outages peeves some Comcast users | CNET News.com

] Thousands of people rioted this week in a village in
] southeastern China, overturning police cars and driving
] away officers who had tried to stop elderly villagers
] protesting against pollution from nearby factories.
]
] By this afternoon, three days after the riot, witnesses
] say crowds had convened in Huaxi Village in Zhejiang
] Province to gawk at a tableau of destroyed police cars
] and shattered windows. Police officers outside the
] village were reportedly blocking reporters from entering
] the scene but local people, reached by telephone, said
] villagers controlled the riot area.

] "The air stinks from the factories," said a villager, Wang
] Yuehe. She said the local river was filled with pollutants
] that had contaminated surrounding farmland.

] "We can't grow our crops. The factories had promised to
] do a good environmental job, but they have done
] almost nothing."

NYT | Thousands of Chinese Villagers Protest Factory Pollution

] Rupert Murdoch gave an important speech -- and warning --
] to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in
] Washington today, telling them that papers are whistling
] in their own graveyard and recommending some solutions,
] including even blogs:

Jeff Jarvis on a recent speech by Murdoch.

BuzzMachine | Rupert's Warning

] The World Health Organization urged laboratories Tuesday
] to destroy samples of a flu virus sent out for testing
] purposes after a Canadian lab identified the virus as a
] strain that triggered the 1957 Asian flu pandemic.

] That strain of the virus has not been included in flu
] vaccines since 1968, however, so the WHO warned
] laboratories in the United States, Canada and 16 other
] locations to destroy their samples immediately.

] The College of American Pathologists obtained the
] samples from Meridian Bioscience, a Cincinnati,
] Ohio-based vendor. The strain became known as the
] Asian flu after killing more than 1 million people,
] including about 70,000 in the United States, in a
] 1957 pandemic.

"Oops! Didn't mean to send out that one.. Um, be careful folks!"

CNN.com - Labs told to destroy killer flu virus - Apr 13, 2005

] Not content with creating a continent-spanning
] lawsuit-sharing network using special P2P (person to
] perpetrator) technology, the record companies'
] consortium, the International Federation of Phonographic
] Industries (IFPI) now wants your ISP to sign up to a new
] "code of conduct" that it has helpfully drafted with the
] help of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). A warning,
] though: you probably won't like it.
]
] Here's a sampler. Under the new code, ISPs would put in
] place filtering technology to block services and/or sites
] that "are substantially dedicated to illegal file sharing
] or download services". They would retain data beyond what
] law enforcement agencies require, with the aim of helping
] track down copyright infringement. They'd hand that data,
] plus your identity, over to the IFPI or MPA if there was
] even a complaint - not a court order - against you for,
] you guessed it, copyright infringement. (And you'd have
] signed or clicked something agreeing to allow that.)

The heat of the Atlantic is starting to rise. Remember the example of the frog in the pot of water. If you toss a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. If you put the frog in the pot, and then start to raise the heat, it will sit there and cook. Lets hope the ISPs over there realize they are sitting in a pot of water. Don't give the IFPI/MPA an inch, we don't have a mile..

The losers if such agreements are accepted will be new new technologies. VoIP, IM video conferencing, etc..

IFPI drafts 'code of conduct' for ISPs | The Register

] Yale University researchers say their study that used
] lasers to create remote-controlled fruit flies could lead
] to a better understanding of overeating and violence in
] humans.
]
] Using the lasers to stimulate specific brain cells,
] researchers say they were able to make the flies jump,
] walk, flap their wings and fly.

Coming soon: Orbital Mind-Control Lasers

Scientists Create Remote-Controlled Flies

Maps google news top stories geographically.

buzztracker

] Police tackled and forcibly dragged away a man dressed in
] black and carrying two suitcases Monday after he
] stationed himself in front of the west side of the U.S.
] Capitol.

] CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports that the man
] was Asian and did not appear to understand the security
] guards when they questioned him. There was never any
] actual threat.

Visit The District of Columbia! Take the opportunity to stand and reflect! Have your luggage blown up by Capitol Police!

There seems to be some dispute on what this guy said to the police, if anything. Some reports say that he did not talk to the police. This article says they approached him, but he was unable to understand them. CNN is reporting that he said he wanted to talk to the President.

I am sure that this Chinese national fellow could have handled himself in a less suspicious manor, but this is still amusing as hell. It might have been a good idea to stow his luggage somewhere else. He might not have had his socks blown up.

I feel a Johnny Cash moment coming on:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

CBS News | 'Man in Black' Nabbed In Capitol Bomb Scare | April 11, 2005