RTFA: http://techdirt.com/articles/20071015/122114.shtml

If you follow politics outside of the tech world you’ve probably seen plenty of talk in the last week or so about the battle over SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. The details of the debate really aren’t worth getting into on a tech/business news site, but a bunch of Republican Congressmen put out what can only be considered a parody press release using characters from the TV show The Simpsons to try to highlight their side of the debate. This was so random and bizarre that a few people actually wondered if the Republican site had been hacked. That turned out not to be the case, but apparently none of the Representatives who put together the mock press release sought the approval of Twentieth Century Fox, who apparently is not at all happy that Simpsons characters are being used in this manner: “Twentieth Century Fox was unaware of the illegal use of characters from The Simpsons in this press release. Let me assure you, Fox did not authorize this use. Characters from The Simpsons may not be used in this manner…” Some would argue that parody is covered by fair use, but that may only be true if the parody is of The Simpsons itself, rather than using them for a parody of something else. Either way, while Congress has been bending over backwards to give the entertainment industry everything it wishes when it comes to keeping control over their creative works, it seems that even those same Representatives can think of cases where it made perfect sense to them to make use of characters without having to first license them. Somehow, why do I get the feeling this lesson won’t stick and these same Reps will have no problem putting in place more stringent copyright laws that eat away at fair use?

RTFA: http://lessig.org/blog/2007/10/corruption_lecture_…

As promised, here’s the first lecture on corruption. It is an alpha version. I’m eager for comments and feedback. My first written feedback came from Aaron Swartz, with whom I had conspired last winter about making this move. I’ll post his comments and some replies later today. I’ve also set up a page on the wiki where I will collect significant versions of the argument. Summary and criticism there would be helpful.

Hmm.. I haven’t watched this in its entirety, since it’s 65 minutes on Google Video. However, it’s on the list - perhaps for tonight?

RTFA: http://www.slate.com/id/2175730/entry/2175732/

So, as the FDA has licensed chemical substitutes for what were once thought to be dangerous drugs, does that mean roughly the same thing as the legalization of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin? Not exactly. Drugs prescribed are usually taken differently than recreational drugs, of course, even if at some level the chemical hit is the same. More broadly, the current program of drug legalization in the United States is closely and explicitly tied to the strange economics of the U.S. health-care industry. The consequence is that how people get their dopamine or other brain chemicals is ever more explicitly, like the rest of medicine, tied to questions of class.

Antidepressants and anxiety treatments aren’t cheap: A fancy drug like Wellbutrin can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,400 a year. These drugs also require access to a sympathetic doctor who will issue a prescription. That’s why, generally speaking, the new legalization program is for better-off Americans. As the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reports, rich people tend to abuse prescription drugs, while poorer Americans tend to self-medicate with old-fashioned illegal drugs or just get drunk.

The big picture reveals a nation that, let’s face it, likes drugs: Expert Joseph Califano estimates that the United States, representing just 4 percent of the world’s population, consumes nearly two-thirds of the world’s recreational drugs. In pursuit of that habit, the country has, in slow motion, found ways for the better-off parts of society to use drugs without getting near the scary drug laws it promulgated in the 20th century. Our parents and grandparents banned drugs, but the current generation is re-legalizing them. That’s why Rush Limbaugh, as a drug user, is in a sense a symbol of our times. He, like many celebrities, is a recovering addict. But with Limbaugh being somewhat outside of the 1960s drug culture, the medical marijuana movement was not for him. Instead, Limbaugh, the addicted culture warrior, has become the true poster child of the new drug legalization program.

Wow! Great analysis. This serious is really interesting so far.

RTFA: http://www.slate.com/id/2175730/entry/2175733/

Sometimes a law was passed by another generation with different ideas of right and wrong, but the political will necessary to repeal the law does not exist. Sometimes, as we’ll see with polygamy or obscenity, the issue is too sensitive to discuss in rational terms. And sometimes the law as written is a symbol of some behavior to which we may aspire, which nevertheless remains wholly out of touch with reality. Whatever the reason, when politics fails, institutional tolerance of lawbreaking takes over.

There will, of course, always be some lawbreaking that goes unpunished simply because law enforcement is expensive—not every shoplifter is caught, and it’s not worth expending the resources to catch every kleptomaniac. But the areas we will look at here are different: What’s going on here is that the parties all know the law is being broken, accept it, and—while almost never overtly saying so—both the “criminals” and law enforcement concede that everyone likes it better that way. The law in question thus continues to have a formal existence, and, as we shall see, it may become a kind of zoning ordinance, enforced only against very public or flagrant behavior. But few, except sometimes a vocal minority, actually think we’d be better off if the law were fully enforced.

The importance of understanding why and when we will tolerate lawbreaking cannot be overstated. Lawyers and journalists spend most of their time watching the president, Congress, and the courts as they make law. But tolerance of lawbreaking constitutes one of the nation’s other major—yet most poorly understood—ways of creating social and legal policy. Almost as much as the laws that we enact, the lawbreaking to which we shut our eyes reflects how tolerant U.S. society really is to individual or group difference. It forms a major part of our understanding of how the nation deals with what was once called “vice.” While messy, strange, hypocritical, and in a sense dishonest, widespread tolerance of lawbreaking forms a critical part of the U.S. legal system as it functions.

Interesting meditation on laws and law breaking in the US.

RTFA: http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.h…

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world’s most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.
Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

RTFA: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_7175561?ncli…

ince 2001, the Bush administration and America’s leading telecommunications carriers have been blatantly violating the law and the privacy of millions of Americans. Working together, they have engaged in a comprehensive and insidious warrantless dragnet surveillance program that ignores the careful legal safeguards set forth by Congress. Under this program, the carriers intercept and disclose to the government the telephone and Internet communications of millions of their customers, along with detailed records about customers’ communications.
Since January 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been litigating Hepting vs. AT&T, a case arising from AT&T’s participation in the illegal surveillance. The case is brought on behalf of all of AT&T’s customers to stop the ongoing conduct and to hold the company responsible in order to compensate the millions of ordinary Americans who have been affected. This should also serve to discourage the telecom giant from agreeing to such illegal schemes in the future.

But if you’ve done nothing wrong, then what do YOU have to worry about? Well, if you are still worried about people committing crimes AGAINST you, then I don’t suppose you need to be concerned by your personal activities, at all. Instead, it’s the actions of others that might concern you. We express such concerns about the behavior of others as LAW, and we extend legal authority to certain individuals in order that they might “stop” people who break the laws.

Although I’ve done nothing wrong (and therefore shouldn’t be concerned that my phone calls are monitored), I am still concerned by this monitoring activity, because such activity is illegal, and I AM concerned about the illegal actions of others. We can debate whether or not this monitoring SHOULD be illegal, but as it stands, we’re just at the point of being concerned about it.

It’s okay to be concerned that the US government is monitoring its citizens. Before this point, it wasn’t obvious that such eavesdropping took place. Prior to 2001, if you were simply AFRAID that the government might be monitoring you, then unless you had proof, you were merely PARANOID. Now it is no longer a matter of paranoia. Now that the issue has been dragged out into the public for all US citizens to consider, what is the consensus?

We must ask ourselves as a nation:

1. are we confident that we can maintain a free society without private communication?
2. when members of our government violate the law we created, can we successfuly seek justice using existing legal structures? Are we free to petition our government for redress of grievances?
3. without transparency in government, can we maintain a free and democratic society?

It’s a little unpleasant to consider, but this is the situation we have been thrust into.

RTFA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_th…

The Incoherence of the Incoherence by Andalusian Arab philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126 - 1198) is an important work of philosophy in which the author defends Aristotelian philosophy within Islamic thought.
It was written in the style of a dialogue against al-Ghazali’s claims in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa), which criticized Islamic Neoplatonic thought. Originally written in Arabic, The Incoherence of the Incoherence was subsequently translated into many other languages. The book is considered Averroes’ landmark; in it, he tries to create harmony between faith and philosophy.

RTFA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See

The Pope governs the Catholic Church through the Roman Curia. The Roman Curia consists of the Secretariat of State, nine Congregations, three Tribunals, 11 Pontifical Councils, a complex of offices that administer church affairs at the highest level. The Secretariat of State, under the Cardinal Secretary of State, directs and coordinates the Curia. The current incumbent, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, is the See’s equivalent of a prime minister. Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary of the Section for Relations With States of the Secretariat of State acts as the Holy See’s foreign minister. Bertone and Mamberti have been named in their respective roles under by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2006.
Among the most active of the major Curial institutions are the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees the Catholic Church’s doctrine; the Congregation for Bishops, which coordinates the appointment of bishops worldwide; the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees all missionary activities; and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which deals with international peace and social issues.
Three tribunals are responsible for judicial power. The Sacra Rota is responsible for normal appeals, including decrees of nullity for marriages, with the Apostolic Signatura being the administrative court of appeal and highest ecclesiastical court. The Apostolic Penitentiary is different from those two and, instead of dealing with contentious cases, issues absolutions, dispensations, and indulgences.
The Prefecture for Economic Affairs coordinates the finances of the Holy See departments and supervises the administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, an investment fund dating back to the Lateran Pacts. A committee of 15 cardinals, chaired by the Secretary of State, has final oversight authority over all financial matters of the Holy See, including those of the Institute for Works of Religion, the Vatican bank.

RTFA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca

s an Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia’s Makkah province, in the historic Hejaz region. It has a population of 1,294,167 (2004 census). The city is located 73 kilometres (45 miles) inland from Jeddah, in the narrow sandy Valley of Abraham, 277 metres (909 ft) above sea level. It is located 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Red Sea.
The city is revered by Muslims for containing the holiest site of Islam, the Masjid al-Haram. A pilgrimage to Mecca during the week of the Hajj is one of the Pillars of Islam, a sacred duty that is required of all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to go, at least once in their lifetime. People of other faiths are forbidden from entering the city.

I never knew you couldn’t enter the city if you weren’t Muslim - is this really true?

RTFA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Aramco

Saudi Aramco’s history dates back to May 29, 1933, when the Government of Saudi Arabia signed a concessionary agreement with Standard Oil of California (Socal) allowing them to explore Saudi Arabia for oil. Standard Oil of California passed this concession to a wholly-owned subsidiary called California-Arabian Standard Oil Co. (Casoc). In 1936 with the company having no success at locating oil, the Texas Oil Company purchased a 50% stake of the concession.
After a long search for oil that lasted around four years without success, the first success came with the seventh drill site in Dammam, an area located a few miles north of Dhahran in 1938, a well referred to as Dammam number 7. The discovery of this well, which immediately produced over 1,500 barrels per day, gave the company the hope to continue and flourish. The company name was changed in 1944 from California-Arabian Standard Oil Company to Arabian American Oil Company (or Aramco). In 1948 Standard Oil of California and the Texas Oil Company were joined as investors by Standard Oil of New Jersey who purchased 30% of the company, and Socony Vacuum who purchased 10% of the company, leaving Standard Oil of California and the Texas Oil Company with equal 30% shares.
In 1950, King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud threatened to nationalize his country’s oil facilities, thus pressuring Aramco to agree to share its profits on oil sales 50/50. A similar process had taken place with American oil companies in Venezuela a few years earlier. The American government granted US Aramco member companies a tax break known as the Golden gimmick equivalent to the profits lost in sharing oil profits with Ibn Saud.
In 1973 the Saudi Arabian government acquired a 25% share of Aramco, increased this to 60% by 1974 and finally acquired full control of Aramco by 1980. In November 1988 the company changed its name from Arabian American Oil Company to Saudi Arabian Oil Company (or Saudi Aramco).

Interesting company.

RTFA: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3172

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 37 million Americans�one in eight�lived below the federal poverty line in 2005, defined as an annual income of $19,971 for a family of four. Yet poverty touches a far greater share of the population over the course of their lives: A 1997 study by University of Michigan economist Rebecca Blank found that one-third of all U.S. residents will experience government-defined poverty within a 13-year period. The poorest age group is children, with more than one in six living in official poverty at any given time.

Moreover, the poverty line itself, which hasn’t been changed in almost four decades except to account for inflation, has been widely criticized as an antiquated measure of actual levels of need. Mark Greenberg, director of the Task Force on Poverty at the Center for American Progress, wrote in the American Prospect in April 2007:

Studies of a minimally decent standard of living routinely find that the typical cost is twice as high as the poverty line or higher. Ninety million Americans�nearly one-third of the nation�have household incomes below twice the poverty line, a figure far larger than the official number of 37 million in poverty.

Wage slavery. The working poor. The wealthiest nation on the planet.

RTFA: http://www.adultswim.com/shows/robotchicken/stuff/…

Okay - I’ve never seen the “real one” so I don’t know if this is what was directly aired on adult swim… but this is fucking hilarious. There are a ton of jokes that are amazingly nerdy. I can hardly believe the direction our culture is going in - it’s too good to be true, in a sense. Star Wars jokes are cool? Whatever - I’m fine with it.

Anyway, this is right from adultswim.com, and it appears to be the full thing… YMMV.

RTFA: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&si…

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — Three of the largest U.S. telephone companies declined to answer lawmakers’ questions about Bush administration efforts to spy on Americans’ phone calls and e- mails, saying the government forbade them from doing so.

Rot in hell AT&T, I wish we could give the death penalty to corporations.

RTFA: http://www.cnbc.com/id/18784033

The Writers Guild of America warned the movie studios and TV networks that they’re going to persist with demands for a bigger cut of new-media revenues.

The WGA put out its 25-item “pattern of demands,” which emphasize that writers must be compensated appropriately when their work is played on digital platforms like the internet or cell phones. That includes work created specifically for those new platforms, or content created for traditional media and repurposed for the new media world.

What’s up for grabs are “residuals,” payments that writers get when a movie they wrote is re-aired on TV, or when a TV show goes into syndication.

It’s hard for me to believe this will hurt the quality of TV.

RTFA: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3186

Saving African children is easy. We don’t need to build large aid programs or fund major health initiatives, let alone develop Third-World infrastructure or think about larger issues of fairness. No, to save African lives from malaria, we just need to put our wallets away and work to stop the evil environmentalists.

Unfortunately, it’s not so easy.

For one thing, there is no global DDT ban. DDT is indeed banned in the U.S., but malaria isn’t exactly a pressing issue here. If it ever were, the ban contains an exception for matters of public health. Meanwhile, it’s perfectly legal and indeed, used in many other countries: 10 out of the 17 African nations that currently conduct indoor spraying use DDT (New York Times, 9/16/06).

DDT use has decreased enormously, but not because of a ban. The real reason is simple, although not one conservatives are particularly fond of: evolution. Mosquito populations rapidly develop resistance to DDT, creating enzymes to detoxify it, modifying their nervous systems to avoid its effects, and avoiding areas where DDT is sprayed and recent research finds that that resistance continues to spread even after DDT spraying has stopped, lowering the effectiveness not only of DDT but also other pesticides (Current Biology, 8/9/05).

Identification of and reflection on a meme that is propagated through mainstream media: DDT could save Africa from Malaria, if not for those pesky environmentalists.

As this link points out, Michael Crichton (the author and near-doctor who addressed the US Congress on the topic of environmentalism) mentions the “DDT meme” in a recent work, but notably, Crichton’s use is not rigorous.

RTFA: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2192374,00…

Google has launched new digital “watermarking” technology on YouTube in an attempt to stop copyrighted movies and TV programmes from appearing on the popular online video service.

Called YouTube Video Identification, the new technology has been in development for months with content partners including Time Warner and Disney.

Over six hours of video are uploaded onto YouTube every minute and since it was bought by Google last year for $1.65bn, the site has increasingly been targeted by media companies who accuse it of aiding people in breaching copyright.

RTFA: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSPE…

China expressed fury on Tuesday that the United States is to honor the Dalai Lama with an award and warned that the activities of his supporters were increasing in Chinese-controlled Tibet.

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since staging a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, is to receive the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday after being hosted at the White House by President George W. Bush.

“We are furious,” Tibet’s Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, told reporters. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”

Harsh words.