A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.
Ray Beckerman, a lawyer representing clients in cases against the RIAA, recently took part in a conference call organized by Defect... (more)
ONE OF THE lawyers involved in defending cases bought against people by the RIAA claims that if the music industry wins a crucial case, the Internet will have to be switched off.
Speaking on the DefectiveByDesign anti-DRM campaign site, Ray Beckerman said the case of Electro vs. Barker has become very important for the web's future.
Barker was being defended by Beckerman who made a motion to dismiss the case because the RIAA had forgot to... (more)
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.
Noble Americans,
Were we not faced with the activities of the US administration in this part of the world and the negative ramifications of those activities on the daily lives of our peoples, coupled with the many wars and calamities caused by the US administration as well as ... (more)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today granted marketing approval of a genetically-engineered (GE) rice variety following its illegal contamination of the food supply and rice exports, first announced three months ago. The controversial decision was taken despite the insistence of its developer, Bayer CropScience, that it dropped plans to commercialize the variety, known as LibertyLink601 (LL601), five years ago.
"With this decision, USDA is telling agricultural biotechno... (more)
Adalah: The Water Tribunal Supported the Government's Policy of Seeking to Move Arab Bedouin Citizens of Israel from their Land in the Naqab by Upholding Decisions of the Water Commissioner not to Supply them with Drinking Water
On 18 November 2006, Adalah submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court of Israel against a ruling delivered by the Haifa District Court (sitting as a Water Tribunal) on 13 September 2006 that upheld prior decisions of the Water Commissioner not to provide wa... (more)
* 11½ stone labrador was unable to walk
* Owners allegedly ignored vet's advice
Obesity has become such an issue of political incorrectness that two brothers appeared in court yesterday charged with allowing a dog to get too fat.
Rusty, a nine-year-old labrador, may only have been doing what labradors do, which is to eat everything in sight. But he ballooned to more than 11½ stone (161lb, 73kg), the ideal weight for a large-boned 6ft (1.82m) wom... (more)
Details have emerged concerning Newt Gingrich’s attack on the Bill of Rights. It is not simply the First Amendment the American Enterprise Institute and Council on Foreign Relations neocon wants to “supervise,” but the Fourth Amendment as well, using Britain’s recently imposed detention rule as a template. “The former speaker also pointed approvingly to England, where suspects in terrorism cases can be detained for several weeks without charge,” reports t... (more)
It really is quite amazing. Newt Gingrich slanders the Constitution, arrogantly suggests the First Amendment be sent to the deep freeze, and few complain, few even comment, except bloggers at Huffington, a bastion of so-called liberalism.
“Speaking in Manchester last night, Gingrich said the country may need a different set of rules to reduce terrorists’ ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message,” the Boston Globe... (more)
The leader of Britain's Liberal Democrat party is considering recommendations to discipline and perhaps expel Baroness Jenny Tonge from the party's membership in the House of Lords following comments she made last week on the power of the "pro-Israel lobby."
Speaking at Edinburgh University at a meeting attended by representatives of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tonge defended comments she made at September's party conference that "The pro-Israeli lobby has got its gri... (more)
The dollar came under pressure for the fifth day in row yesterday as further evidence of weakness in the world's largest economy emerged and as a key international body warned that the US economy was running out of steam.
Henry "Hank" Paulson, the US treasury secretary, reiterated on a visit to London that the Bush administration remained wedded to a "strong dollar" but this failed to stem the tide as dealers bet that the long-expected slump in the green... (more)
The dollar tumbled to a near 15-year low against sterling yesterday on fresh signs of economic trouble in the United States.
An 8.3pc crash in US industrial orders and an admission by the Federal Reserve chairman that Washington does not know how bad housing really is set off another day of wild gyrations on the currency markets.
US house prices fell 3.5pc to an average $221,000, the third month of declines. Stocks of unsold homes rose to 7.4 mon... (more)
The Iraq Study Group (ISG) is a “bipartisan task force” created by the US Congress in response to the failure of the Bush administration to better manage the occupation of Iraq. Mainstream media reporting and official statements from Washington have characterized the ISG as proof of a “shift towards diplomacy” in the Middle East. These same reports cite the sponsorship of the so-called US Institute for Peace as evidence tha... (more)
The Bush administration pleased farmers and frustrated environmentalists Monday by declaring that pesticides can be sprayed into and over waters without first obtaining special permits.
The heavily lobbied decision is supposed to settle a dispute that's roiled federal courts and divided state regulators. It's popular among those who spray pesticides for a living, but it worries those who fear poisoned waters will result.
"We need to act fast to stop mosquitoes when ... (more)
Under the guise of combating the stigma of mental illness, the U.S. government will soon begin a massive campaign of psychiatric indoctrination, designed to increase the acceptance of psychiatric chemical imbalance theories and labeling, and to pave the way for national psychiatric screening, driving more Americans into seeking psychiatric drug treatment.
Regional meetings in support of the National Anti-Stigma Campaign (NASC), a nationwide television, radio and print public servi... (more)
It is said Karl Rove once told Michael Ledeen to fax his “ideas” to him and these so-called ideas often became “official policy or rhetoric,” according to the Washington Post.
Back in June, 2003, a few months into the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Jim Lobe, writing for the Inter Press Service, said Rove regularly consulted with Ledeen, to the horror of foreign pol... (more)
Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoned former Russian agent, told the Italian academic he met on the day he fell ill that he had organised the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia for his security service employers.
Mario Scaramella, who flew into London yesterday to be interviewed by Scotland Yard officers investigating Mr Litvinenko's death, said Mr Litvinenko told him about the operation for the FSB security service, the successor to the KGB. ... (more)
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing an emergency spending proposal that could be larger and broader than any since the Sept. 11 attacks, covering not only the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but extending to other military operations connected to the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
The spending plans may push the Defense Department into conflict with Democrats as they take control of Capitol Hill in January. Democrats had been planning to limit the emergency "supplem... (more)
A Halliburton subsidiary agreed to pay the government $8 million to resolve accusations of overbilling related to the firm's work for the Army in the Balkans, the Justice Department said yesterday.
The allegations against KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, stemmed from orders placed with 10 foreign subcontractors that were working for KBR on military logistics support in 1999 and 2000. The accusations, made under the federal False Claims Act, included double-billing, inf... (more)
He's seemingly still sticking to the patsy plotline, but getting more bold, flirting with a LIHOP position. Sen. Albert Gore, Jr. as interviewed by Gentleman's Quarterly:
"Okay, on to 9-11. What were you really feeling? Was there a part of you that felt a sense of relief that you weren’t in charge that day? You mean a sense of relief that I didn’t have to deal with it?
