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[Newsfilter]: Fighting a recording industry lawsuit for file sharing saying "it wasn't me!" is probably a really, really bad idea. Jury awards recording companies $222,000 for willfully infringing the copyright on 24 songs in first-to-trial file sharing lawsuit.
comment posted at 5:01 PM on Oct-4-07
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comment posted at 9:16 AM on Oct-7-07

Secret U. S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations. The New York Times has a 4000-word report today on secret Justice Department opinions--never previously disclosed--authorizing severe interrogation methods. Congress has outlawed cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; in response, Justice declared that the CIA's most extreme interrogation methods are not cruel, inhuman, and degrading. These secret opinions, issued in 2005, are still in effect. Most lawmakers did not know they existed. White House response: "This country does not torture."
comment posted at 5:30 PM on Oct-4-07
comment posted at 6:19 PM on Oct-4-07

An interesting article by Simon Baron-Cohen on honesty, deception, and autism.
comment posted at 2:19 PM on Oct-4-07
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comment posted at 1:54 PM on Oct-7-07

It's the first Monday in October and time for Supreme Court Justices to compare liberals, unfavorably, to the Ku Klux Klan. In his new memoir, released on the first day of the Supreme Court's 2007 term, Justice Clarence Thomas writes that he grew up fearing the KKK, but now knows he had "been afraid of the wrong white people all along. My worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony. " No small man, he also comments on Anita Hill's bad breath. Slate's spectacular legal columnist, Dahlia Lithwick, notes that "in the few hundred pages of his new book, Thomas has managed to undo years of effort by his colleagues to depoliticize the judicial branch." As usual, only Jon Stewart can make us laugh through the tears.
comment posted at 4:34 PM on Oct-4-07
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Darling it's better down where it's wetter. For $2.5 million, this beautiful home can be yours: Jelly-fish 45, designed by Giancarlo Zema is a floating dwelling unit for up to six persons. It's spacious dimensions are 10 metres high with a diameter of over 15 metres. The Jelly-fish 45 would be ideally situated in sea parks, atolls, bays and seas rich in flora and fauna. The Jelly-fish 45 allows the sea dwelling owners to live either above or below sea level in perfect harmony with the ocean environment.
comment posted at 12:18 PM on Oct-3-07
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comment posted at 4:13 PM on Oct-4-07

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.
comment posted at 9:30 AM on Oct-2-07
comment posted at 3:17 PM on Oct-2-07

This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants... Now the emphasis is on 'surgical' strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism... The former intelligence official added...'Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, 'You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.' But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.'

Shifting Targets by Seymour Hersh
See also 'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
comment posted at 8:22 PM on Oct-1-07
comment posted at 8:26 PM on Oct-1-07

You can print a line on a Epson Printer located in Brugg, Switzerland. There is a live video stream to see what you're printing as well as a light switch so you're not printing in the dark (snapshot).
comment posted at 1:20 PM on Oct-1-07
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comment posted at 2:48 PM on Oct-1-07
comment posted at 2:50 PM on Oct-1-07

Beatrice Coron is a paper cutting artist, who has a wonderful collection of paper cutting links, including images of her own work, the extraordinary cut paper art of Hina Aoyama, Kako Ueda, Masaaki Tatsumi, Virginia Rose Kane, Drew King, Rick Jones, Andrea Dezsö, Bette Burgoyne, Justine Smith and papercutting art from around the world.
comment posted at 1:58 PM on Oct-1-07

Before there were videogames, growing up in England in the late 1960s though the 70's we had Action Transfers. The Letraset company branched off its division of hand set rub-on transfer fonts into full blown action scenes, with Cowboys & Indians, famous historical battles, Vikings, natural disasters & more. This collector has dozens of sets, scanned in high resolution & never used.
comment posted at 1:08 PM on Sep-30-07

“War Made Easy" is a documentary with Sean Penn narrating, and is based on a book by Norman Solomon . This is an award winning expose on how the American Public has been led into a 50-year pattern of government deception and spin, dragging the United States from one war into another. Remarkably this film exhumes archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations. Brutally persuasive this film presents disturbing examples of propaganda from those we want to believe in.
comment posted at 1:42 PM on Sep-29-07
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comment posted at 2:02 PM on Oct-1-07

Without participating in peacekeeping missions overseas, it is unlikely that Fiji's army would ever have become strong enough to seize power. So says the Economist: "When the British left Fiji in 1970, there were only around 200 serving military personnel. UN peacekeeping operations in Lebanon and Sinai generated a tenfold increase by 1986. The next year, Fiji witnessed its first military coup." The series of coups since then haven't stopped Fiji from continuing to participate in UN missions.
comment posted at 1:45 PM on Sep-29-07
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Sep-29-07

38 versions of Kurt Weill's hauntingly beautiful September Song.
comment posted at 7:52 PM on Sep-28-07
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comment posted at 8:49 PM on Sep-28-07

McHenry and his "roommates" -- GOP Rep Patrick McHenry (NC), co-owner of a DC home with Scott G. Stewart, former chair of the College Republican Nat'l Cttee (and bilker of many senior citizens), received a DC home-ownership reduction improperly. McHenry's actual home in North Carolina was apparently also home to quite a collection of young men: (convicted fraudulent voter) Michael Aaron Lay, Neil Everett Capano, Matthew Allen Hamilton, and (multiple violations, including "death by vehicle") Jason Jent Deans. Also, McHenry's 04 consultant Ralph Gonzales was one of the men involved in a recent FL murder/suicide, and links to Robert Drake, the killer (political work in NC and escort service connections), are still being documented. Stay tuned!
comment posted at 2:22 PM on Sep-28-07
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comment posted at 2:01 PM on Sep-29-07