A battle in the war against RFID beacons in US passports has been won. The State Department now admits that their previous RFID proposal would put Americans at risk and is now considering other options. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the State Department continues to blindly cling to the false promise of planting RFID chips in passports — via BoingBoing
An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq. According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as crazy
by his intelligence handlers and a congenital liar
by his friends. I have to wonder how this guy missed a career in politics — via Warren Ellis
Belgian trainers helping police to understand body language have caused a controversy by likening the retarded monkey boy‘s facial expressions to a chimpanzee’s. I’m guessing the chimps complained
While Jon Johansen ported PyMusique to C#, now called SharpMusique, a head of IFPI Norway says they don’t care about PyMusique and that all the blame is on Apple and its proprietary DRM — via CoCo
In the aftermath of India being forced/coerced to adopt patent law that quite literally kills people as a condition for joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), US representatives at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) are moving to counter efforts by developing countries and numerous non-government organisations (NGOs) to bring public-interest considerations — like protecting human health — to its decision-making. Specifically, representatives have reportedly been circulating a draft paper that attempts to reframe the problem, arguing that WIPO is already addressing development issues and proposing merely a WIPO Partnership Program
— an Internet-based database to bring together donors and recipients of IP development assistance
— via BoingBoing
Greek prison guards will go on strike next week demanding a change of their American-made weapons that date back to the US wars in central America almost a century ago. While antique shops would be eager to get their hands on them, prison guards just want to get rid of their obsolete 1911 US Cavalry revolvers. The guns do not scare inmates any more as safety experts have advised guards not to fire them — via Neil Gaiman
News agency Agence France Presse has sued Google, alleging the Web search leader includes AFP’s photos, news headlines and stories on its news site without permission. The French news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads, according to the suit filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Google is in the process of removing French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP) from its Google News service, which aggregates links to online articles and accompanying photos from about 4500 news outlets
MIT has recommended Brazil install open source software instead of proprietary software offered by Microsoft on thousands of computers that will be sold to the poor
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that California could no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman. The ruling came after litigation stemming from the city’s decision last year to allow gays to marry. Those marriages were ruled invalid by the state‚Äôs Supreme Court but it then referred the issue to a lower court — via Warren Ellis
A french appeal court has ruled in favour of a filesharer who downloaded 500 odd movies, on the grounds that they were private copies, that he didn’t redistributed them and that a tax was payed on blank media
A Pentagon report into the interrogation of detained prisoners found senior officials and US military policy hasn’t led to abuse, despite failing to interview any of the detainees who claim they were abused. They vehemently deny the report is a whitewash and I have a bridge I’d like to sell them
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has been freed by her captors in Iraq but US forces mistakenly opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety, wounding her and killing an Italian secret service agent. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he had immediately summoned the US ambassador, declaring someone had to take responsibility for US soldiers opening fire. The US military has confirmed its forces fired on and wounded Ms Sgrena and killed a fellow passenger when their car sped up near a checkpoint on the road to Baghdad airport
If legend is to be believed, the future of the British monarchy lies in the hands of a sharp-shooting warder at the Tower of London. For the six ravens who roam one of Britain’s landmark fortresses are under threat from up to 200 crows who have invaded their royal domain, spreading disease and stealing food. So every Sunday at dawn, before the daily tourist invasion begins, Yeoman Warder Derrick Coyle roams The Tower with his .22 air rifle to cull the crows. For the beefeater, it is a weighty responsibility securing a haven for the ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens leave, The Tower of London will fall and so will the monarchy
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is suspending a red wolf breeding programme on Bull Island designed to help spare the species from extinction. The service says the program is no longer as important to wolf recovery as it was in 1987 when the government first brought breeding pairs to Bull Island, near Charleston. Pups born there would grow and learn to survive in the wild before being moved to North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge on a vast, undeveloped barrier island
John Howard has caved in to his bestest buddy in the whole, wide world and has agreed to send more Australian troops off to be slaughtered in
the retarded monkey boy‘s illegal occupation of Iraq. This from a men who swore he’d never, ever increase troop numbers. Liar
You’ve got to love the Japanese sense of humour. This train warning sign, done in Lego, features girls in sailor uniforms and a drunk businessmen. They don’t beat around the bush with polite mind the gap
warnings either, the sign translates as:
Don’t cross the yellow line! Or you become food for the shinkansen.
The Shinkansen is the Bullet Train, apparently it likes to dine on unwary schoolgirls and plastered salary men. Tasty! — via boingboing
It has been called everything from a crying shame
to environmental vandalism as the debate over climate change management heats up in Australia. The Australian Medical Association, state governments and environmentalists protested Little Johhny Coward‘s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol when the treaty, known officially as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, came into effect Wednesday
A federal judge has struck down a Bush administration rule that lowered Endangered Species Act protection for wolves that are migrating out of strongholds in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes into neighbouring states. In a ruling released yesterday, US District Judge Robert Jones in Portland rescinded the April 2003 decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service which had divided wolf range into three areas and had reclassified the Eastern and Western populations as threatened instead of endangered. The agency had left wolves in the Southwest in the endangered category
Two key witnesses appearing before a Senate inquiry in Canberra have backed bribery claims made by federal independent MP Tony Windsor. Mr Windsor says he was offered an overseas posting to quit politics, a claim he has repeated under oath at the inquiry. He says that businessman Greg McGuire made the offer on behalf of Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson and Nationals Senator Sandy Macdonald. John Howard‘s cronies are still trying to weasel out of the charge
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a statement to the State Duma, or lower house of parliament, attacking part of an anti-terror bill that would restrict media coverage of terrorist attacks and calling it unconstitutional. You’ve got to laugh when it’s Russia who are more progressive than the so-called free west
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