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At the renewable fuels conference I was at on Monday at the Aspen Institute, Alfred Szwarc spoke on Barazillian ethanol. He was at great pains to point out that cane agriculture does not impact the rain forest areas there. But, latter, at the environmental break out session, he conceded that there could be and issue with oil palm cultivation after Barbara Bramble from the International Wildlife Federation presented on this. He also said that Brazil in interested in supporting sustainability standards for biofuels. I would note that rooted plants do produce oxygen even if they are also used as a biofuel feedstock.
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Solar! It's were it all comes from: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

I was at a renewable fuels conference at the Aspen Institute on Monday. I'll be blogging on it before too long. The first talk was given by Paulo de Sousa Coutinho of Brazil Ecodiesel. The guy knows biofuels. Amazing talk.

Here is his take on Energy Balance for enthanol and biodiesel from various feed stocks:
Ethanol:
Corn (US) 1.3
Beet (EU) 1.9
Cane (Brazil) 8.3
Biodiesel:
Soy (US) 1.9
Rapeseed (EU) 3.0
Sunflower (EU) 3.2
Castor (Brazil) 10.5

So, what is energy balance? The ratio of renewable energy out to fossil energy in. How you do on GHG will depend on your fossil energy choice. Why is Brazil so high? Partly, they are bootstrapped: much of their energy in is renewable.

Now, here is something I also learned: Brazil flex fuel cars are different from US flex fuel cars. In Brazil, they burn E25 through hydrous ethanol while we do straight gas through E85. Since I've never gotton a bottle of really strong stuff to actually freeze, I'm kind of thinking they are in better shape with the way they do flex fuel.
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Electrons can be a renewable fuel: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

heroin and its derivatives (like oxycontin) are amongst the most addictive substances known to man

Funny, then, that alcohol and nicotine are also among the most addictive substances, and we don't seem to have problems with them. Heck, alcohol results in extremely anti-social, often violent behaviour. Yet, heroin is more dangerous?

But you go right ahead rationalizing to yourself about why you're qualified to judge what I can and can not put in my body.

While you posted with a sarcastic tone, that a very real argument that some artists make, and there are laws in some countries that implement some version of this. From my understanding, they basically say that if you resell a piece of art for far greater than you purchased it, the artist gets a (usually small) cut. In France, the rule is known as Droit de Suite, though that's not the only country with such a law in place.

It's not something I support, though it's interesting to see how different cultures feel about the same problem. It's also occasionally disturbing to see how "content creators," or any group, will support a law just because it benefits them without thinking of the greater ramifications.

I found out about the law on this post of The Online Photographer blog. There are some links you can follow from there to learn more about it, and I'm sure a bunch of information can be found elsewhere.

While you posted with a sarcastic tone, that a very real argument that some artists make, and there are laws in some countries that implement some version of this. From my understanding, they basically say that if you resell a piece of art for far greater than you purchased it, the artist gets a (usually small) cut. In France, the rule is known as Droit de Suite, though that's not the only country with such a law in place.

It's not something I support, though it's interesting to see how different cultures feel about the same problem. It's also occasionally disturbing to see how "content creators," or any group, will support a law just because it benefits them without thinking of the greater ramifications.

I found out about the law on this post of The Online Photographer blog. There are some links you can follow from there to learn more about it, and I'm sure a bunch of information can be found elsewhere.

So, your WIFI is 1 meter away and the cell tower is 1 kilometer away, which delivers more power where you are at. Take the cell tower number and divide by a million (1000^2) and you'll see that WIFI yields greater exposure. Doesn't mean there is a problem, but it is not just power level at the antenna that is important.
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Fusion power from your roof: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

I just installed Debian Etch on my new Thinkpad. Debian is one of the most free distros around.
mp3 mpg avi divix all worked out of the box. I had to install 1 package and DVD is now working.

No. Intel and Microsoft are interested in replacing the OLPC (small, light, huge battery life, open, safe) with little shrunken down normal laptops. With the OLPC you get the great battery life, all the programs (and programming languages) designed to encourage learning. With the Classmate you get... Windows. And Windows software.

No. Intel and Microsoft are interested in replacing the OLPC (small, light, huge battery life, open, safe) with little shrunken down normal laptops. With the OLPC you get the great battery life, all the programs (and programming languages) designed to encourage learning. With the Classmate you get... Windows. And Windows software.

RE: An altnernative to looting the New York City Taxpayer

The Hydra Project could be funded from the slush funds of Rudy Giuliani.

Sincerely,
Philboyd Studge

Or you could just ask for change for that paper dollar and ship it to India where it can be meilted down for more than 10% profit. Of course the government made that illegal back in December: From Mish Shedlock's globaleconomicanalysis blog: People who melt pennies or nickels to profit from the jump in metals prices could face jail time and pay thousands of dollars in fines, according to new rules out Thursday. Soaring metals prices mean that the value of the metal in pennies and nickels exceeds the face value of the coins. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel is now 6.99 cents, while the penny's metal is worth 1.12 cents, according to the U.S. Mint. "The nation needs its coinage for commerce," U.S. Mint director Ed Moy said in a statement. "We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer. Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers." Under the new rules, it is illegal to melt pennies and nickels. It is also illegal to export the coins for melting. Travelers may legally carry up to $5 in 1- and 5-cent coins out of the USA or ship $100 of the coins abroad "for legitimate coinage and numismatic purposes."

Ah the joy of fiat money! Wasn't it only a few years ago when nearly 100% of the copper in pennies was replaced with cheaper zinc so its face value wouldn't drop below its scrap value? Now zinc is worth 12% more than the penny. Is anyone here old enough to remember when dimes were nearly pure silver (1964) and Nickels had Nickel as a primary ingredient? What will be next? Will the value of ink and paper in paper money exceed the face value? I know, let's mint money out of that nuclear waste everyone has been trying to figure out how to get rid of. That way, those economy-wrecking money savers will have every incentive to spend it, and spend it now!

Uncle Ben Benranke, fire up those currency printing presses! Wouldn't you like to have a Beowulf cluster of those?

Somewhat related and nice:

http://dustrunners.blogspot.com/2006/07/pig-and-bo x.html

The owner, keenly aware of both the monetary value and the environmental hazards of the work, was sympathetic to the workers but made it clear that despite the nature of the work and the few dollars per day they earned, his employees would have no work whatsoever [if this job was not available]

  Yeah, that's the usual platitude in defense of sweatshops. That it's the "best alternative of a bad lot."

  Thing is, the people who use this line usually don't mention why the other choices are so few and so bad. It's due to economic policy and the pressure of foreign multinationals to "modernize" the economy of third world nations, and it's nothing new.
  Back in England there was a thing called 'The Enclosure of the Commons.' This was a period when the people of England had their self-subsistence systematically taken away from them by force of law. New rules took away rights to previously public land and put restrictions on personal gardening on small plots, so people who previously grew their own food or traded with their neighbors were suddenly forced to buy at the markets, which required money, which meant getting a job, probably at a factory. It was frequently justified at the time by letters written by wealthy industrialists (who, in a completely unrelated fact, were having a hard time getting a self-sufficient people of artisans, craftsmen, and farmers to come in and apply for jobs in factories for pennies a week) claiming that leisure-time was bad for people and would lead the commoners to crime and wickedness and perhaps even revolutionary politics. (Gasp!)
  Similar things have happened and are happening all over the world. People have their traditional way of life destroyed, their self-sufficiency ripped away from them, and in the end, are given the 'free choice' of hard labor in a sweatshop or dying of starvation. ...and we're supposed to applaud that?

  There's a good post on Kevin Carson's Mutualist blog on the whole 'Sweatshops Ain't So Bad!' argument over here. No, I'm not affiliated, actually I'm more of a red anarchist sort than a mutualist, but damned if he isn't one of the smartest people writing on the internet.

Here's the document the excerpt came from:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ira q/2004/02/administrators_weekly_economic_report_fe bruary_15_2004.doc

It's no big deal. Everyone has their panties in a wad over nothing.

Here's the whole debunking:

http://lamplighternews.blogspot.com/2007/05/poor-r esearch-often-results-in-poor.html

http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/05/aluminum- instead-of-gasoline-to-power.htmlFor 800 million cars driving 350 miles per week, you would need to moving 140 million tons of aluminum per week in and out of cars to the recharging centers. The fuel cells are still expensive. over $3000 per KW. http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/02/storage-s ystem-breakthrough-for.htmlThere was a breakthough in gas storage using corn cob brickets Plug in hybrids as a route to all electric cars seems to be the best option and path forward. Toyota is going all hybrid for new cars by 2020. 3-6 years for mass market plug in hybrids.

http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/05/aluminum- instead-of-gasoline-to-power.htmlFor 800 million cars driving 350 miles per week, you would need to moving 140 million tons of aluminum per week in and out of cars to the recharging centers. The fuel cells are still expensive. over $3000 per KW. http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/02/storage-s ystem-breakthrough-for.htmlThere was a breakthough in gas storage using corn cob brickets Plug in hybrids as a route to all electric cars seems to be the best option and path forward. Toyota is going all hybrid for new cars by 2020. 3-6 years for mass market plug in hybrids.

Direct electrolysis would be simpler if you had a power source that you could carry around in a car to do it. Or, if you has a hydrogen storage method that worked well in a car. This is kind of the point here. The volume needed to go 300 miles is the same as for gas.
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Think of the Sun as Mr. Electron: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

This is basically a "better" battery because the energy density is fairly high. You don't need much more volume than a gas tank. The mass is higher, but that is probably OK because you still want traction even if you replace the engine with a fuel cell. However, recharging the battery does not look to be all that efficient. I wonder if you could get a current rather than heat if you ran this on a diode?
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Get solar power at a grid competitive price: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Engineer-Poet addressed this for "A company called Engineuity... is promoting a roundabout way of making hydrogen on-board vehicles, using the chemical reaction of either of the light metals magnesium or aluminum with water." at the Ergosphere http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2005/10/from-bad-to -worse.html

The problem is that when AL burns so spectacularly it does not just create Hydrogen- it creates heat which must be used to get anywhere near the efficiency you need. So what, you have a steam engine to capture the energy of the reaction and a fuel cell to use the hydrogen?

This is just not an efficent way to move energy around.

I'm so sorry that he feels he doesn't owe society anything for his "great" works. That without a stable society with culture and intelligence, people wouldn't be buying books or listening to music. Does he gather inspiration for his works of the "spirit and mind" from nothingness? What role does society play in the creative arts? If you can't stand the thought of society getting something after you are dead, after you so clearly benefited from society. then you are simply an arrogant spoiled human being. Being selfish and having an obsession with ownership are not exactly redeeming qualities. Profit from your toil while you are alive, then pass that profit on to your children if you wish. But a baker cannot make a loaf of bread and sell it many times over on into many generations. But she can certainly create wealth around baking and establish a business that can sustain her children into old age as long as her children can be smart enough and work hard enough to maintain this means of production.

I'm reminded of the statement from Fogerty v. Fantasy, recently quoted at page 4 of the April 23, 2007, decision of Judge West in Capitol v. Foster:

copyright law ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works

In Fogerty it was held:

The primary objective of the Copyright Act is to encourage the production of original literary, artistic, and musical expression for the good of the public.... In the copyright context, it has been noted that "[e]ntities which sue for copyright infringement as plaintiffs can run the gamut from corporate behemoths to starving artists; the same is true of prospective copyright infringement defendants." Cohen, supra, at 622-623.

The Fogerty court went on to say:

While it is true that one of the goals of the Copyright Act is to discourage infringement, it is by no means the only goal of that Act. In the first place, it is by no means always the case that the plaintiff in an infringement action is the only holder of a copyright; often times, defendants hold copyrights too.....

More importantly, the policies served by the Copyright Act are more complex, more measured, than simply maximizing the number of meritorious suits for copyright infringement. The Constitution grants to Congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." U. S. Const., Art. I, 8, cl. 8. We have often recognized the monopoly privileges that Congress has authorized, while "intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward," are limited in nature and must ultimately serve the public good. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 429 (1984). For example, in Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975), we discussed the policies underlying the 1909 Copyright Act as follows:

"The limited scope of the copyright holder's statutory monopoly . . . reflects a balance of competing claims upon the public interest: Creative work is to be encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts. The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an `author's' creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good." .....

We reiterated this theme in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 349-350 (1991), where we said:

"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but `[t]o promote the Progress of Scienc

Try this link. Google without any ads ? Ok we could configure our machines to bloack ads but I use different machines a lot, if that "backdoor" link becomes popular Google would be in trouble ! I picked up on this "bug" from here.

Yes strictly it isn't a bug in the sense that it harms the user but it is the same as a bug that allows you use a program for free.

Actually, I was taking this into account. The main number I'm thinking of is how long, given a suitable replacement, it takes to convert our transportation fleet to using renewable energy. This could go very quickly if we found a way to synthesize gasoline at below $30/barrel equivalent without also impacting, say food prices, because we could just use the same fleet. Owing to limits on the efficiency of plants in converting solar energy to hydrocarbons, this does not look all that feasible http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html.

So, I'm assuming we need a different kind of engine and the fleet has to be converted. This, period of time exhausts most of the really cheap to extract oil so far as I can tell and the remaining oil needs more desperate measures.

I think you can operate as a loss in a portion of your production, but you can't do it in all of your production.

The thing is, supply is already manipulated to affect price in the oil sector, it is much much smarter to change the demand side to our benefit especially since we know we need to stop using the stuff before it actually runs out. The way to get people to cap productive wells is to make oil too cheap to meet payroll.

And you didn't even multiply with 2 :o) Ok, I admit that would be rather insane --- though you'd admit it would sort of work! :o) So let's be generous, and say $5000 for downloading one movie illegally, and then progressing to maybe $30000 for the bad cases (many, many downloads?). Of course, the entire *point* with a fine is that the copyright holder doesn't get a dime. The entire fine goes to whatever the local democracy.

If someone won't or can't pay, there is always litter to be collected at the local wood/street/beach/subway :o)

Not that it really matters, because I can't really see a way to prove that person X did the downloading. Wish there was a way, but we really can't.

Emacs 22 is vaporware

Not so much: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/06/shiny-and- new-emacs-22.html

yp.

So RIAA estimated in 2002 that 2.6 billion files were illegally downloaded a month. They've sued less than 20,000 people, but were sueing about 750/month at the peak. 750/2.6billion = 1/3466666. Guessing roughly $10 for the price of the infringing material, that would be $69,333,320 in fines. That's even worse than the statutory damages we have now.

http://fulldecent.blogspot.com/2007/05/vista-speec h-recognition-demonstration.html

From Anton Chuvakin's Blog:
...most scary cyber-criminal of the future is not a spammer, a scammer, a phisher or a pharmer, and not even a good ole "cracker" - it is an unethical software engineer, who changes the code slightly to introduce a weakness (or a full-blown backdoor or a logic bomb) and later uses or sells this knowledge

"Regardless of the merits of the DMCA itself ... [felching redacted] ... the DMCA is still the law; why should a university be expected to shield individuals engaged in illegal behavior?"

Because in the United States, people are innocent until proven guilty.

Moreover, the RIAA's investigative methodologies are proven to finger people who are not involved in illegal activity; and even when confronted with this, they continue to bully their victims with expensive and vexatious litigation. Many instances are well documented here and on sites such as Recording Industry vs People.

Stanford's unwillingness to protect its students from frivolous litigation is shameful and indefensible. I think any alumnus who is considering giving to Stanford should think twice.

January 2017, according to my Windows Vienna Development Timeline. However, this all-64-bit announcement was not something I anticipated. The next thing my timeline was looking for at this point was an announcement about the filesystem, and not until fourth quarter this year. It remains to be seen what significance this announcement will have, and whether it will place Vienna development ahead of schedule (versus my timeline projections) or simply turn out to be a detail I did not forsee.

? http://newlinks.blogspot.com/2004/10/f4-phantom-je t-hits-concrete-wall-at.html Toodles.

I would recommend the following resources:

1. Technical Writing Textbook, free online, which covers the basics.

2. Writing Technical Papers, also free online, a good introduction to the process.

3. Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, not free but very good on the details. Even if you hate Microsoft... they did a good job on this one. Maybe they did steal it from Apple. I don't know. I like this book.

4. IBM Style Guideliness, free on the web, see disclaimer above if AIX raped your dog.

5. Sun Style Guide, not free, but worthy. See disclaimer above if you call Solaris "Slowlaris."

I also maintain a blog called User Advocacy: Technical Writing and Technical Communications in which I detail links and other useful information for people wanting to get into technical writing.

For developers and others who want to explain things to people of varying technical ability, the skills of technical communications (the "new" name for technical writing) are invaluable. If you have any questions, please contact me through the profile link above.

There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.
Marissa Meyer, 2005

Well we don't have anything to announce on that today. I do think this opens the door for the introduction of richer media into the search results page. We are now going to understand how users interact with that. And as Alan always likes to say search is about finding the best answer, not just the best URL or the best textual snippet.

For us ads are answers as well. Searching ads is just as hard as searching the Web, as searching images. And so I was hoping that we could bring some of these same advances in terms of the richness of media to ads.
Marissa Meyer, 2007

Bush can't count that high.

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Censored by Technorati

"Correct. They don't need the expense of genociding the Sunnis, who would fight back with Saudi backing. Thanks for pointing this out."

  >So all of the killings by Shia death squads NOW is just an illusion, and is not really happening?

"Nope, non sequitur"

Nope, it's simply evidence that disputes your 'they'll get along' theory. Since this ethnic cleansing has been going on for a year, show us your evidence that Saudi Arabia is involved finacially or militarily to protect the Sunnis in Iraq.

"You don't offer any sources but merely repeat Bush Administration... (snip)"
I prefer to listen to Iraqis that have and are currently living thru it, and not parrot what some Washington Post reporters have written in books.

A perfect example is the SUNNI Iraqi Dentist http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
who has lived thru the war and left. He pointed out this article detailing what he knows to be the facts: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13refug ees-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Contrary to your belief, Iraqi Sunnis are and have been getting out of Iraq because they are afraid.

A fake Apple email? Sounds like the work of Fake Steve Jobs...

Gotta love the Escort Wagon, but it wasn't where Ford made money, so you can't get it now and they are having a hard time moving their previous money makers.

I think we are in agreement that trimming does not help much when one is starting from zero. And, it is this much less than population changes that contribute most to your very large number. This is why shifting off of fossil fuels is so important. Market forces may do a portion of this: you say insurance is at the root of the big 3's problems. It could be that the US will move to a less complex system for health care that will relieve this, and we can then look again at the foresight of putting development efforts towards fuel efficiency. Similarly, really large scale renewables may prove less complex than mining and delivering coal in China, or with a carbon tax imposed on chinese exports, a portion of their power supply will switch over because they'll want to hang onto their labor advantage. These are not easy problems. The industrialized countries are in a better position to move on this now than elsewhere.

Roasting and brewing certainly have a large effect on the flavor (and texture) of coffee, but no-one has yet mentioned the water they use. Too much chlorine ruins a good cup, while flat, filtered water without minerals (especially a little salt!) can turn the coffee insipid. Good tasting tap water works, but even better is good tasting spring water. See this article on Emperor Qianlong and tea water.

Your mouth to God's ear.... But, I would say that the article has a use. For those not yet exposed to (what is a more polite word for?) deniers, their arguments are disarmed ahead of time, which saves a step or two. There are two problems, 1) the small number of folks who are religious about denial, and 2) the huge amount of money available to promote their views. This helps a little in making the money less useful.
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Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

We do have solar on very afordable terms: what you are paying now for electricity, but as a startup, the insurance issues are still up in the air. Some agents are saying that our rental systems are fully covered by the homeowner's policy while others are not. It actually takes a pretty big hail storm, the kind that breaks windshields, to damage a solar power system, but it will be a relief when we have some systems installed and the insurance companies are getting more consistent. Right now State Farm says yes in some places and no in others. In cases where the insurance company won't cover the system, their will be another option, just like with a rental car. You can find out more by following the links at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The US may start to cut emissions rather soon. There are market forces: rising energy costs, that make efficiency look more and more attractive. One CFL saves about $60 over seven years (pays for itself in 6 weeks), and insulation pays for itself pretty quickly too. The big 3 are having lots of trouble these days with their product lines because companies that have concentrated on efficiency are starting to see the payoff in their investment. It is not too hard to get a 20% reduction in per capita energy use over 15 years much less 30. Rising fossil energy costs are also making room for more renewable energy leading to scale in this sector and lower prices for these. One interesting development is an improved method for refining solar grade silicon http://pesn.com/2007/05/02/9500469_RSI_Silicon_win s_MIT_contest/ that should lower material costs for panel fabrication down quite a bit in a short time. Getting 30% energy conversion in thirty years is pretty simple.

It seems likely to me that the most industrialized countries are going to go this route, may are already on track to meet Kyoto. The question is, will developing countries have the ability to make these conversions? There, efficiency does not have such a large impact because energy using technology is still being adopted. The reliance on coal is pretty natural as well since they can cookie cutter their new plants. But, owing to the structure of Kyoto, there is little incentive to jump past coal even if it would cost less in the long run. China set itself back with its policies in the past and is only beginning to find something that seems to work. They may be open to further improvement, or they may dig in fearing to mess with success. This is really the coming issue with emissions reducing or not.

Reducing concentrations does not happen without our active intervention. Some folks are thinking about this: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/CO2hoover/ .
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Rent solar power; utility competitive rates: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Yes! My plan to get rich is still good!

There is no discrepancy. Senator Inhofe assembles a list of crackpots with PhD's. It proves nothing. Have any of these scientists published a paper on climate change? One can find denialists of the theory of gravity, or quantum mechanics. Science is not an opinion poll. There is no controversy in the published literature on climate science. Oreskes surveyed the climate change literature here. She found that out of 928 peer-reviewed papers on climate change, not one disagreed with the consensus position.

What standard of proof would convince you? How much evidence do you want? There are mountains of evidence to support the consensus view that the earth is warming, and humans are the cause.

Would you be willing to accept a $1000 wager that GISTEMP will keep increasing? I would gladly wager this sum.

Look at the list of scientific societies on this page. That represents the consensus of tens of thousands of scientists around the globe.

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts- on-copyright-offensive.html

If so, please leave a comment over there. We might get a brainstorm going...

all the best,

drew

Even though a number of courts ruled in Inslaw's favor that the Justice Department had stolen the software, to this day Inslaw hasn't been paid anything as compensation for the theft.

That the Justice Department is threatening software pirates with life-terms in prison, when the department itself has been engaged in the greatest single incident of illegally using software, is the epitome of chutzpah.

Here's my blog post about it from earlier today [blogspot.com].

Even though a number of courts ruled in Inslaw's favor that the Justice Department had stolen the software, to this day Inslaw hasn't been paid anything as compensation for the theft.

That the Justice Department is threatening software pirates with life-terms in prison, when the department itself has been engaged in the greatest single incident of illegally using software, is the epitome of chutzpah.

Here's my blog post about it from earlier today.

"I'm just surprised Gonzales choose copyright to try to change the subject"

Im sure they are getting big money from the struggling recording/software companies to pass this kind of legislation...

Maybe just like they sandbagged the Duke Cunningham scandal in order to protect the White Houses "friends" in the Defense Industry.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam was fired while investigating the case, when all those attorneys were let go a few months ago. A California Republican responded in the news by saying something along the lines of "she should have been focused more on border control issues and less on white collar crime".

We are pwned by the $$$ and the IMC...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/carol-lam-whit e-house/
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2007/01/cia-and-white- house-block-cunningham.html