After a number of false starts Apple has finally made its iTunes music download service available in Australia
The US Navy is flouting federal law by conducting sonar training exercises like the 2003 incident in the San Juan Islands that spooked orcas and may have killed porpoises, environmentalists charged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups said they have been trying for years to get the Navy to talk about ways to decrease harm to marine mammals and other sea life, but the service has refused to deal with the issue head-on
Ryuji Sakamoto was so enraged by Takayuki Niimi’s failure to address him with an honorific that he stabbed the man to death with an umbrella. It was the second killing with an umbrella in Japan in less than a month — via Laridian
A new species of marine worm that lives off whale bones on the sea floor has been described by scientists. The creature was found on a minke carcass in relatively shallow water close to Tjarno Marine Laboratory on the Swedish coast. Such zombie worms, as they are often called, are known from the deep waters of the Pacific but their presence in the North Sea is a major surprise. The new species has been named Osedax mucofloris, which literally means bone-eating snot-flower
— via The Register
After more than a year of speculation and false starts, Apple is finally expected to announce the iTunes Australia music store on Tuesday
The remains of the world’s oldest noodles have been unearthed in China. The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood. Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old. The discovery goes a long way to settling the old argument over who first created the string-like food
The retarded monkey boy has claimed he was told by god to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden’s stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians. The President made the assertion during his first meeting with Palestinian leaders in June 2003, according to a BBC series which will be broadcast this month
Cultural monopolists desperately want us to believe that without copyright we would have no artistic creations and therefore no entertainment. That is nonsense. We would have more, and more diverse ones.
A world without copyright is easy to imagine. The level playing field of cultural production — a market accessible for everyone — would once again be restored. A world without copyright would offer the guarantee of a good income to many artists, and would protect the public domain of knowledge and creativity. And members of the public would get what they are entitled to: a surprisingly rich and varied menu of artistic alternatives
The retarded monkey boy has asked Congress to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic. He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection
The Pentagon approved more than $2 billion in possible weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, including combat vehicles, aircraft parts and battlefield communications systems. The Defence Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of three potential deals. It said the sales would help the US by contributing to the security of a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East
The International Monetary Fund is to wipe out the debt of 18 of the world’s poorest nations after rich countries bridged differences that had threatened a pact first signed in July
The final plan for managing protected grey wolves that migrate into Oregon will prohibit ranchers from killing wolves that attack livestock and will not include compensation for losses to wolf attacks — via Tidepool
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told a UN summit that fighting the war in Iraq without UN authorisation showed Washington did not respect the world body. He recommended moving UN headquarters to a country that has more regard for the organisation. He won rousing applause for his critique
Yahoo has hired veteran war correspondent Kevin Sites to single-handedly report on every armed conflict on the planet. Video, audio and daily blog entries will be combined to bring some of the world’s most important, yet under-reported
stories to a web site called Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. Yahoo says Sites will cover every armed conflict in the world within one year, reporting from every place which the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London deems to be armed conflict areas. His first reports from a war zone will be published on 26 September
There could soon be a new player in the telecommunications industry with Tasmanian energy company Aurora Energy and Mitsubishi Electric announcing a joint trial. The companies have launched the first commercial trial of broadband over power lines (BPL) in the Southern Hemisphere. The technology relies on existing power lines and connection is as easy as plugging a modem into a household power point. Aurora’s Piero Peroni says the new technology is faster than phone line and wireless services
US authorities have backed off a proposed ban by the US military on journalists and photographers documenting the recovery of bodies in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. CNN filed a suit in the US District Court in Houston to halt government efforts to exclude the media, rejecting the official argument that the television images would not respect the privacy of the dead. A judge granted CNN a temporary restraining order, prompting the Government back off the zero access
policy
Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, the world’s oldest unit dedicated to tackling political violence, is to disappear under a major reform of the way the Metropolitan Police deals with terrorism. The unit was established in 1883 to counter Irish Fenian
terrorism on mainland Britain and has remained an autonomous unit, with its own selection and promotion systems and a culture seen by some mainstream officers as high-brow and at times elitist
CNN obtained a temporary restraining order late Friday to prevent government agencies from restricting news coverage as victims are recovered in New Orleans and other areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. A hearing has been scheduled for today to determine if the order should be made permanent — via BoingBoing
Federal Emergency Management Agency — whose three top jobs went to the retarded monkey boy‘s political cronies with no apparent experience coping with catastrophes — has been spending its time blocking relief efforts instead of helping the people of New Orleans
An offer of aid from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, which included two mobile hospital units, 120 rescue and first aid experts and 50 tonnes of food, has been rejected, according to the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson
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