] Several months ago, my husband and I received two rebate
] checks simply for having children, all part of the Jobs
] and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, an
] economy-stimulating incentive. Congress approved this
] quickie tax cut so we'd all go out and buy Pottery Barn
] lamps and Gap boot-cut trousers and then presumably the
] economy, and we, would be saved. Instead, I cashed the
] checks, paid off some bills, and then tucked my dignity
] under my arm and went to file for food stamps.

We've all read plenty of stories about how the economy sucks, but this article strikes a chord because the author has such a great command of imagery. I suggest you read it simply because of the clear picture that she is able to paint.

Falling down

] MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- Mississippi Gov. Ronnie
] Musgrove volunteered Thursday to join neighboring Alabama
] in the fight over the Ten Commandments monument by
] offering to display it in his state's capitol building
] for a week starting September 7.

Coming soon, to a town near you! The ten commandments monument!! Official tour starts September 7...

Mississippi covets neighbor's monument

] Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at
] Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he
] found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story
] on a school computer. He copied the file to another
] computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and
] then promptly got arrested.
]
] Robertson, who was 18 when he wrote the story, was
] charged with a felony count of planning to cause serious
] bodily harm or death. The story he wrote, titled
] "Evacuation Orders," (PDF) described preparations for an
] armed invasion of his school that included directions to
] unnamed fellow commandos to kill the senior class
] principal and then plant plastic explosives around the
] campus.

what the hell is going on in this country?

Write a Story, Go to Jail

] U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said the book — "Lies and the
] Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right"
] — is a parody protected by the First Amendment (search).
]
] "There are hard cases and there are easy cases," the judge said.
] "This is an easy case. This case is wholly without merit, both
] factually and legally."

Ahhh, victory! The First Amendment still wins over corporate interests. Thank you Judge Chin...

Judge Denies FOX's Injunction

] JENIN, West Bank, Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to
] the email received today from the Motion Picture
] Association of America (MPAA) to Earthstation 5 for
] copyright violations for streaming FIRST RUN movies over
] the internet for FREE, this is our official response!
] Earthstation 5 is at war with the Motion Picture
] Association of America (MPAA) and the Record Association
] of America (RIAA), and to make our point very clear that
] their governing laws and policys have absolutely no
] meaning to us here in Palestine, we will continue to add
] even more movies for FREE.

Dare I make a suicide bomber joke?

PRWire | Earthstation 5 Declares War on MPAA

] The code in question is found in
] arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c in the 2.4 tree. It carries
] an SGI copyright. It seems that SGI was not entirely
] forthcoming in documenting the source of its source; some
] of the code in question was, indisputably, not written at
] SGI. So where does it really come from?
]
] This code is from sys/sys/malloc.c in V7 Unix. It has
] been widely published; among other things, it can be
] found in Lion's Commentary on Unix (if you can get a
] copy). It featured in this 1984 Usenet posting. And,
] crucially, it has been circulated with the V7 Unix
] source, which was released by Caldera (now the SCO Group)
] under the BSD license. SCO would like the world to forget
] about that release now, but the Wayback Machine
] remembers.

LWN: Why SCO won't show the code

An oldie but a goodie: ASCII pr0n

(not safe for work!) l33t p0rn

] The game was up on 25 July, as the Las Vegas
] Review-Journal finally reported what we'd been telling
] readers all along:
]
] The Hunting for Bambi video that has been sweeping the
] media in the past week or so is a hoax, city of Las Vegas
] officials said Thursday.

well crud. I am two for two on the latest internet jokes. Oh well... time moves on.

Snopes: 'Hunting for Bambi' confirmed as hoax

] The movie industry announced a broad new anti-piracy
] public education campaign today, with commercials set to
] appear on all six broadcast television networks, more
] than two dozen cable channels and in 5,000 movie theaters
] nationwide.
]
] The ads are scheduled to launch at the same time on all
] participating channels during prime-time telecasts on
] Thursday. They also are slated to run between previews
] showing before Friday night's movies. Encompassing one
] 30-second and five 65-second spots, the campaign asks
] consumers not to digitally download unauthorized versions
] of movies they may find on the Internet.
]
] The spots feature actor Ben Affleck and "Titanic"
] director James Cameron, but they focus on
] behind-the-scenes movie employees, such as set painters,
] security guards, costumers, editors and theater
] concessionaires who make up the bulk of the industry's
] 580,000 workers. The point of the campaign is to persuade
] illegal downloaders that they are stealing paycheck money
] not just from multi-millionaire stars but from regular
] working folks -- folks like them.

Now I have seen some fairly good rips of movies on the net over the last few years. The general quality of stuff most people can download is very poor and just serves to wet my appetite. Instead of targeting the pirates how bout promoting the higher quality of the DVD to the public. The masses will pay for a good quality product.

Movie Industry Unveils Anti-Piracy Public Education Campaign (TechNews.com)

] The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to
] overturn controversial rules adopted by the Federal
] Communications Commission that would greatly increase
] the number of television stations a single company is
] allowed to own.
]
] The FCC last month voted to ease ownership restrictions,
] lifting the national broadcast "cap" -- or reach of any
] single company -- to 45 percent of the national market
] from 35 percent and letting TV, radio and newspaper
] companies buy each other more freely.
]
] But by a vote of 400 to 21 the House rejected those
] changes.

Thank GOD!!! Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Clear Channel.

US House of Representatives nixes FCC rules expanding ownership