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I have however thought for a long time that I would like to see a phone designed by Apple. So I'll give it a look as this is atleast influenced by Apple. I like the elegant interface of the iPod, I hate the interface of all cell phones I've had in the last 5 years.

Here is one guy's opinion on Google and China and "local law". His point is they have a lot of choices -- not just to bend over for the dictators.

I really wonder what local law means in Burma and Somalia -- is it "do what the local mafia running stuff says?"

that's one heck of a good point...

http://thearbitcouncil.blogspot.com/

Check out the commentary from Kim Weatherall (expert in Australian IP law and lecturer at Melbourne University).

The KaZaA operators were held to have authorised copyright infringement. If you don't market your FTP client as "zomg download free music here!!1" and ship it with a list of anonymous music servers, you'll probably be right.

This is his summary from the ruling:

i) despite the fact that the Kazaa website contains warnings against the sharing of copyright files, and an end user licence agreement under which users are made to agree not to infringe copyright, it has long been obvious that those measures are ineffective to prevent, or even substantially to curtail, copyright infringements by users. The respondents have long known that the Kazaa system is widely used for the sharing of copyright files;

(ii) there are technical measures (keyword filtering and gold file flood filtering) that would enable the respondents to curtail - although probably not totally to prevent - the sharing of copyright files. The respondents have not taken any action to implement those measures. It would be against their financial interest to do so. It is in the respondents' financial interest to maximise, not to minimise, music file-sharing. Advertising provides the bulk of the revenue earned by the Kazaa system, which revenue is shared between Sharman Networks and Altnet.

(iii) far from taking steps that are likely effectively to curtail copyright file-sharing, Sharman Networks and Altnet have included on the Kazaa website exhortations to users to increase their file-sharing and a webpage headed 'Join the Revolution' that criticises record companies for opposing peer-to-peer file-sharing. They also sponsored a 'Kazaa Revolution' campaign attacking the record companies. The revolutionary material does not expressly advocate the sharing of copyright files. However, to a young audience, and it seems that Kazaa users are predominantly young people, the effect of this webpage would be to encourage visitors to think it 'cool' to defy the record companies by ignoring copyright constraints.

As for the billions and billions in damages, Weatherall notes that: "Australia does not have statutory damages (unlike the US) - the copyright owners can't argue that they should just get a fixed amount 'per infringement'." With any luck they'll get called out on their "a download is a lost sale" bull.

Most interesting to me was that the judge ordered that the record companies provide a list of items to be filtered, because -- from memory -- they'd previously refused to provide one.

According to the Google Blog you can get Google Earth overlays related to the hurricane here.

Before you too readily sneer at my assertion that I'm an addict, consider this:

• I used to surf porn at work ~ when I knew there was a zero tolerance policy and I would well lose my job. I _wanted_ to stop. It wasn't _doing_ anything for me. But I _couldn't_. (and don't give me any shit about "if you wanted to you could." Know any alcoholics? Ask them just how easy it is to "just say no"...)
• I'm in fucking IT (heh), so I know there is no such thing as "anonymous" access.
• Yes, I've pulled the NIC from my system after one binge out of fear that I'd be traced.
• Porn does kill intimacy. It objectifies the opposite sex. It conveniently numbs pretty much everything emotion-related. (as a survival mechanism for dealing with life not being happy, it works well)
• Porn is NOT a problem for everyone ~ just as alcohol and illegal narcotics had zero appeal to me not everyone will get "hooked" on porn.
• That said, it is a very, very powerful draw. Seemingly anonymous and free, (ha! tell that to the men and women in my SAA group that have spent hours and hours and hours and lost marriages/families/self respect!) it seems like a perfect "clean", and harmless addiction.
• like any good drug addiction, it does need to have the ante upped. I started with soft core stuff, but with the availability via the internet I was able to progress...rapidly.

• Does this make "the internet" bad? Of course not. I'm just saying that's how I got to it.

Does this remove responsibility for action? Absolutly not. I decided to do what I did. There were reasons for it, but ultimately I am responsible for my actions.

Those who haven't experienced the insanity of an addiction cannot empathize, and really cannot understand. And I accept that. But for those of you out there who are struggling with this you're not alone. It is real. And no, you can't stop on your own. You've tried ~ remember? You've promised yourself never again (after being picked up/jailed/publically humiliated).

All that to say, porn isn't really the core issue. As with drugs/alcohol/workaholism/etc, it was my way of dealing with life/stress/pain.

Patrick Cairns: Out of the Shadows is an excellent book dealing with both sex addiction as well as underlying issues.

Need to get help? Sex Addicts Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous are both based on the 12 steps of AA and work well. It's hard work, but recovery is possible.

I'm (trying) to blog bits and pieces of mine at http://cluelessrealist.blogspot.com/

My .02.

Peace.
-adb

Oh, and forgot one of the other appeals of building with ICFs -- it's a lot like building with Lego!

Actually, something that holds up quite well to hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes: reinforced concrete. I'm in the process of building an addition to my stick-framed house (circa 1948) that's within a couple of miles of the Hayward Fault (a major fault east of the San Andreas that runs through San Francisco). I used Quad-Lock insulated concrete forms (ICFs) for the foundation forms, and if I were building a house from scratch, I'd build the whole thing that way.

Besides reinforced concrete being resistant to hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and fires, it's also termite-proof. And as an added bonus, ICFs make for very well insulated buildings for both heat and cold (you can use thicker ICFs and make an effective R-50 wall, as compared with R-13 or less for most walls built these days).

(But wait! There's more! You may not be able to do anything about the roof and the windows, but the walls are bulletproof!)

But none of that will help you in the event of a flood. There are some design things you can do to help for that (like putting the garage and non-essential storage on the ground floor), but the main thing to help with that is not building in places prone to flooding. Most places below sea level and in the floodplain of major rivers tend to be prone to flooding. I can't cast too many stones as I live near a major fault...

Yes, I also read that past Presidents have been making budget cuts, etc.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/featur e5/

http://eurota.blogspot.com/2005/09/us-left-all-str aws-clutched-every.html

Check out this post from musicthing.

"The app installer itself is only 16 MB, ReBirth uses a copy protection scheme which involves a 128 MB data file on the CD. It's actually a nonsense file that contains just random data, but ReBirth won't boot without it. The rest of the CD isn't really necessary, but includes a Mac partition (which has roughly the same files including another instance of the 128 MB data file), and lastly there are 3 audio tracks that showcase ReBirth if you put it in a CD player."

Propellerhead made it free without having the sense to remove the copy protection. That's why you have to download a huge 500MB ISO instead of a 16MB application. The music gear website MusicThing has all the info on this.

"I worked with a major oil company for 2 years trying to develop a way to commercialize oil shale. Trust me on this, it ain't going to happen. Most oil companies know this. The few (one??) that don't are totally deluded.

Oil shale is not oil. Oil shale is rock that has a relatively high concentration of organic carbon compounds in it. Geologists call this a source rock. If you heat this shale to 700 degrees F you will turn this organic carbon (kerogen) into the nastiest, stinkiest, gooiest, pile of oil-like crap that you can imagine. Then if you send it through the gnarliest oil refinery on the planet you can make this shit into transportation fuel. In the mean time you have created all kinds of nasty by products, have polluted the air and groundwater of where ever you have extracted it. You have also created an enormous pile of superheated rock that will take hundreds to thousands of years to cool off."

This author seems to have posted some of his images here... found the link under his /. journal

Read about this topic on the The OilDrum a few days back. Seriously, oil shale is not really a solution at all. Why? The cost of extracting this stuff is phenomenal. You use up 1 barrel for every 3 that you extract(30 %).

First misconception " Oil Shale Will Save Us"

I worked with a major oil company for 2 years trying to develop a way to commercialize oil shale. Trust me on this, it ain't going to happen. Most oil companies know this. The few (one??) that don't are totally deluded.
Oil shale is not oil. Oil shale is rock that has a relatively high concentration of organic carbon compounds in it. Geologists call this a source rock. If you heat this shale to 700 degrees F you will turn this organic carbon (kerogen) into the nastiest, stinkiest, gooiest, pile of oil-like crap that you can imagine. Then if you send it through the gnarliest oil refinery on the planet you can make this shit into transportation fuel. In the mean time you have created all kinds of nasty by products, have polluted the air and groundwater of where ever you have extracted it. You have also created an enormous pile of superheated rock that will take hundreds to thousands of years to cool off.

The biggest deposits of oil shale in the world are in northwestern Colorado. No other deposit anywhere else in the world (China, Jordan, Australia, etc.) even comes close in terms of size and richness. There are approximately 1.3 trillion barrels of POTENTIAL oil in this deposit of oil shale. However, even those in their wildest hallucinations have never proposed that more than about 300 billion of these barrels were POSSIBLY extractable.

Of course 300 billion barrels is a very large number. Assuming $50/bbl, these $300 billion would be worth $15 trillion. Quite an enticement to go after. HOWEVER, - I still haven't seen a good analysis that shows you end up with more energy at the end of the cycle than what you put in. Moreover, it takes about 3-5 barrels of water for about every barrel of oil you get. Last time anyone seriously looked at where all this water would come from was Exxon back in the late 70's and early '80's. Their solution was to RE-ROUTE THE MISSOURI RIVER to bring water to this very arid area. I am not shitting you.
Lastly, you will be leaving the biggest superfund site you could ever imagine.

Will we eventually extract oil from oil shale - maybe, but it has always been a last resort, and for good reason. In the meantime, DON'T EVEN THINK about investing in this, even if the offer seems really good. You can't imagine how much money has been poured into trying to commercialize this resource without any success.

There was a experimental oil shale extraction project running in Australia but it shut down a while ago(don't have exact links atm). If it were me, I would be thinking about conserving oil than messing with oil shale.

Anonymous Coward, you are an insane freak who worships Bush, even when he destroys a major American city. Even though I'm obviously the first adult you've spewed your nonsense at all week, I'm not going to school you in why people stayed behind in New Orleans. Or how Bush cut off funding, while his people are lying about it to cover tax cuts for the rich and a catastrophic optional Iraq War.

No, I'm just going to cite the fact that LA Governor Blanco accepted NM Governor Richards' National Guard help offer Sunday (before the storm), but the "necessary paperwork" didn't arrive until Thursday. So the governor acted before the storm even hit, depending on National Guard troops which BUSH'S WASHINGTON DC Homeland Security Department stalled while thousands died and the city was destroyed. I'll throw in the fact that Bush faked levee repair for a photo-op while he dropped into town after it was safe enough for his yellow ass.

Anonymous Coward, we don't have English words to describe your evil. If I could reach through this screen, I'd rip you by the neck over here, and drown you in an alligator tank. I just wish we had microhurricanes to send up into your family's house to devastate you out of our misery. You bloody sick monster.

Basically, a parasite in cats passes to humans and a research study revealed that...
"...women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. "We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked," he said. "However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men." "By contrast, the infected men appeared to suffer from the "alley cat" effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. "They tended to dislike following rules," Flegr said."
Here's the first link I could find that refers to the story I first read in the UK Times a while back (the link to the Times in the blog is broken but the best bit of the Times story was some suggestion that this parasite might explain the behaviour of the cat-loving French): http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/06/have-cats-aff ected-your-brain-yet.html
and another to the Guardian (UK) on a similar vein: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12 977,1048642,00.html
CATS MUST BE STOPPED!

Earth may be long dead, and the sun may be reduced to a nebula by the Secret Math, but Solar life will stick around, unless the human executives are unsuccessful.

Source:

This is funny. See where the Fuddruckers visitors are going after they get to Google:
http://www.usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/

If you liked this, I suggest you take a look at the incredible
http://midnightmarsbrowser.blogspot.com/
This cross-platform donationware gem fully automatically downloads the raw imagery, auto-stitches, false-colorizes,makes slideshows... And best of all: creates "virtual-reality" pannable and zoomable panorama's...

Everyone into these rovers should really check it out.

At the risk of swerving off-topic from discussions about fertile flood plains and partisian politics:

Technology for All is installing a 40 computer 'Computer Technology Center' (CTC) in the Astrodome for Hurricane Katrina victims.

If you'd like to read their blog discussing their efforts, show up and volunteer: http://texasctcs.blogspot.com/

If you just want to donate hardware or money:
http://www.techforall.org/

Back to your regularly scheduled squabbling... carry on.

And without further adue, for you peoples such as I working on the west coast, i give you

http://libelousclaimsaboutlargecorporations.blogsp ot.com/

some funny link i found today! (tm)

(see theres never any REAL content on friday nights between abour 2pm PST till i leave work at 5 here so i have decided to just post random shit i find on the internets. ENJOY)

will i be modded down for being horribly off topic? will i get a +5 funny because everyones as bored as me? only time will know

• "June 1, 1999: Though Congress authorized West Jefferson to complete its levee projects in 1996, the state hasn't made matching money a priority the past three years because the weather "really didn't show us the potential dangers we had until the storms last year ... showed the seriousness of it," said Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego."

• "February 17, 1995: An Army Corps of Engineers "hit list" of recommended budget cuts would eliminate new flood-control programs in some of the nation's most flood-prone spots - where recent disasters have left thousands homeless and cost the federal government millions in emergency aid. Clinton administration officials argue that the flood-control efforts are local projects, not national, and should be paid for by local taxes. Nationwide, the administration proposes cutting 98 new projects in 35 states and Puerto Rico, for an estimated savings of $29 million in 1996."

Crow T. Trollbot

This project will also be tapped (likely) to do the reverse: Improve machine translation.

Recently Google's machine translation program performed significantly better than attempts made by other MT expert organizations.

By having high quality texts in their database they can improve their machine translation. By having the same work in different languages they can significantly improve their MT.

-Adam

Well, oghc just finished God of War today. Though perhaps that's not the kind of gamer grandma they're targeting. :)

http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2005/09/logistics-of-d isaster-relief.html

The logistics of disaster relief operations
I didn't think that Ann Althouse would panic, but she did, in a way that would make MoDo proud.

There's something called "logistics." Check it out.

You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military suddenly appear somewhere.

Nor can you legally send federal troops willy-nilly to shoot looters, courtesy of the Posse Comitatus act. You should know this, Ann. You're a lawyer by profession. You shouldn't need a dumb grunt to explain it to you.

But watch for much of our news commentary and public debate to predicate itself around a vast ignorance of logistical capacity and principals.

For instance: Suppose you got a brigade worth of troops (5,000 or so) available,. How are you going to support them? How will you transport them? Think organic trans is sufficient? Think again. Even at 100% operational readiness, a typical infantry battalion can only self transport perhaps a company at a time. And if every soldier is bringing a rucksack and a dufflebag, you're really talking about maybe two platoons. And unless you expect the unit to become a drain on local resources, every company is going to take a half truck or more of MREs and a half truck or more of bottled water, along with its own water trailers. I've seen it happen. I've done it. I've been a battalion S4 in combat, an HHC XO for dozens of major moves of a hundred miles or more, and an HHC company commander for six hurricane mobilizations.

Now, you can use busses. But only if you take busses away from the immediate mission of transporting people out of the most severely affected areas of New Orleans. Well, suppose a 44 passenger bus has a round trip of a half day between a National Guard armory in Texas. That bus can not even transport a platoon of soldiers in a single day (and will have to refuel somewhere.) But that same bus, if you keep it in New Orleans, can make as many as 8 or 10 trips back and forth, and evacuate maybe 600 to 800 people, assuming an hour round trip between an affected area and a safe area.

So which do you choose? My money's on the evac.

But suppose you stripped the evac effort dry and got enough busses to support a 5,000 man move. Well, a few hundred of them would show up driving the brigade's vehicles (armed with fuel cards to use at pumps that don't work, so the army would also have to transport in its own bulk fuel).

Well, in order to move 4,400 soldiers by bus in 48 hours, with a 1-day turnaround time, you would need 100 busses. Which is most of the FEMA effort right there. The available truck transportation would be hauling food, water, tents, portable kitchens, and other gear -- not troops.

Well, I think FEMA came up with 140 busses. You want to strip 70 percent of the FEMA effort to bring in National Guard? I didn't think so.

And then when the Brigade got there, it would take them nearly a day to set up. Where are you going to put them? You'd need an entire park or fairground, and you'd need to clear vagrants out of there. That's doable, but it takes time. And meanwhile, you've got 5,000 soldiers on the ground. Where are they going to crap, Ann? Did you consider that question?

No.

So you'd have to contract with portalet providers -- competing for the vendors with bidders from the city, county, churches, and neighboring cities and counties. Portable shower and latrine facilities can be trucked in from all over the country. But that takes time as well. Oh, and you might have to contract with Brown and Root. I can imagine the screeching and howling already.

Trust me. Brown and Root is good at this. If we're not contracting with Brown and Root, we're fools. They're even better if they can hire all Palestinians, Bosnians, and Philippinas.

Well, suppose you've overcome all these hurdles. Congratulations. You've only

Check should indicate it is for Patricia Santangelo defense costs.

It will be applied as Ms. Santangelo directs.

Another way to help is to view pay-per-click ads on our blog, http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ all revenues will be applied to help defray legal costs of RIAA victims being represented by our firm.

Thanks for your interest.

The second conference actually took place on August 5th.

I appeared for Ms. Santangelo.

The RIAA plaintiffs were represented by MaryAnn Penny of the Cowan Leibowitz firm in New York City and by Timothy Congrove, a partner in Shook Hardy & Bacon, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Mr. Congrove participated by telephone, rather than in person, and he spoke for the plaintiffs.

The judge concentrated on the dismissal motion and asked Mr. Congrove to justify his position. Mr. Congrove said he would be citing cases in his brief on August 8th, but the judge wanted him to cite his cases then and there.

The first case he cited was a case we had ourselves cited as a reason for dismissing the complaint.

He made his arguments, and I made mine, and the judge had many piercing questions.

She indicated that she would decide the motion after all the papers had been submitted.

I am attempting to obtain a transcript of the proceedings, and when I do will post it at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com./

Thanks for your interest.

Best regards,

Ray Beckerman

I am the author of the blog "Recording Industry vs. The People", and one of the lawyers representing Patti Santangelo and other victims of the RIAA lawsuits in the New York City metropolitan area.

There is, rightly, a lot of concern on how regular people can handle the economic imbalance in these lawsuits.

And there are in existence certain tools: (a) the copyright law's fee-shifting provisions, (b) Federal Rule 11, which bars lawyers from signing frivolous litigation documents, and (c) the willingness of some lawyers to take reduced fees, or to do some work without a fee at all.

My reading on the internet over the last several weeks, and especially of this thread on slashdot last night and this morning, gave me an idea for another possible tool.

I decided to try something a little innovative this morning, and added 'pay-per-click' advertising to our blog, http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com, and to its companion site hosting the litigation documents, http://info.riaalawsuits.us , with all proceeds from the ads to be used to help defray legal fees and disbursements of our clients defending the RIAA litigations.

I've never seen or done anything like this before, so I don't know how it will work out, but just thought you guys -- who have been fabulous in your passionate, thoughtful, and sometimes even scholarly exegesis of the Elektra v. Santangelo litigation documents -- would like to know.

Best regards,

Ray Beckerman

Amen... Point and Click and even text adventures are such a step above the mind numbing experience of "most" of todays games. I don't care about the graphics I want to truly get "immersed" in the storyline! Storyline? is what some of you are probably thinking right now. Yeah back in the dark ages games actually had Plots and purposes other than slicing, dicing and mowing bloody swathes through hordes of undead hookers! Not that I'm knocking that.. killing a few undead hookers in disgustingly perverse ways is fun for up to an hour but after that I simply lose interest for some odd reason. I said it when the game came out and by my comment here it will be easy for most of you to age date me but "Doom spelled Doom for the computer game industry" long ago! Look at the games up to the point that Doom came out and look at what's came out since and you'll see a steady decline in quality right through to today. Till something gives as far as more Indi development houses getting published and/or self publishing/distribution of their games I don't see the situation getting any better. The same can be said for the movie/music industries as well. I mean has there been a good band come out since "Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction"? *snickers* Just an old hoosierbillies opinion as usual. http://www.hoosierbilly.blogspot.com/

Not exactly ... technical professionals may be familiar with the phrase "data talks and bullshit walks." Here is some data contradicting your claim that "not even the most strident liberal has accused Bush of directly causing Katrina"

Hurricane exploitation - the quotes

Katrina and Disgusting Exploitation

Threads galore over at the "KosKiddie" website

BTW, here's a neat book about the last USA Regional Disaster Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it changed America

Not content with exploiting suffering to push your global warming religion, you leftist asses now blame chaos on libertarianism. I tell you, it's the libertarian types who are defending property with guns, or putting their own earned money on the line in emergency donations, that are doing the most good.

Why don't you fucks crawl to N.O. and apologise directly to the people you've insulted and to all the graves you've spat upon?

There are no words for how deeply you disgust me.

We are lawyers in New York City. We practice law at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.

Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation we and our firm have undertaken to represent people in our area who have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for having computers whose internet accounts were used to open up peer-to-peer file sharing accounts.

We find these cases to be oppressive and unfair, as large law firms financed by the recording industry sue ordinary working people for thousands of dollars.

Sounds to me like she's got the right folk on the job...

The president take time off of vacation to play guitar in a jovial mood while the nation faces the worst natural disaster in history? Congress talks about ending their recess early? Glad that the feds are looking out for the thousands dead and dying in the big easy!

Check out some sad reports I've read today.

--

FROM CNN:

FEMA chief: Victims bear some responsibility
Brown pleased with effort: 'Things are going relatively well'

Friday, September 2, 2005 Posted: 0341 GMT (1141 HKT)

(CNN) -- The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday those New Orleans residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility for their fates.

Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.

"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.

"And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because, you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there.

"So, we've got to figure out some way to convince people that whenever warnings go out it's for their own good," Brown said. "Now, I don't want to second guess why they did that. My job now is to get relief to them."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin have both predicted the death toll could be in the thousands.

Nagin issued a "desperate SOS" Thursday as violence disrupted efforts to rescue people still trapped in the flooded city and evacuate thousands of displaced residents living amid corpses and human waste. (Full story)

Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of relief efforts. (See video on the desperate conditions -- 4:36 )

Sniper fire prevented Charity Hospital from evacuating its patients Thursday. The hospital has no electricity or water, food consists of a few cans of vegetables, and the patients had to be moved to upper floors because of looters. (Full story) (See video of a city sinking in chaos -- 2:54)

Brown was upbeat in his assessment of the relief effort so far, ticking off a list of accomplishments: more than 30,000 National Guard troops will be in the city within three days, the hospitals are being evacuated and search and rescue missions are continuing. (See video of National Guard efforts to rein in violence -- 3:14)

"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans -- virtually a city that has been destroyed -- that things are going relatively well," Brown said.

Nevertheless, he said he could "empathize with those in miserable conditions."

Asked later on CNN how he could blame the victims, many of whom could not flee the storm because they had no transportation or were too frail to evacuate on their own, Brown said he was not blaming anyone.

"Now is not the time to be blaming," Brown said. "Now is the time to recognize that whether they chose to evacuate or chose not to evacuate, we have to help them."

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, whose father was a longtime New Orleans mayor, said there was "plenty of blame to go around," citing underinvestement by federal authorities over many years "despite pleas and warnings by officials."

Earlier on CNN, Brown was asked why authorities had not prepared for just such a catastrophe -- given that the levees were designed to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane and Katrina was stronger than that.

"Government officials and engineers will debate that and figure that out," he replied. "Right now, I'm trying to focus on saving lives. I think we should have that debate

Some historical background - "everyone" knew the hurricane with New Orleans written on it was coming:

October 2004 National Geographic Article about New Orleans getting whacked ... btw this site has been Drudged as opposed to Slashdot'd

October 2001 Scientific American article about New Orleans getting whacked

Informed discussion over at Belmont Club Blog

An obscure blog describes the hurricane's impact on YOU in Anywhere USA before the hurrican ever made landfall:

Most people have never heard of Port Fourchon, but it is the nation's premiere oil and gas support services facility--and right now it lies within 12 miles of Hurricane Katrina's CAT-3 or CAT-4 bullseye. Over 600 platforms and 75% of the Gulf's deepwater projects lie within a 40-mile radius of Port Fourchon. Unfortunately, Port Fourchon is a Louisiana island. An island that is connected to the mainland by a single two lane bridge...an old, single two lane bridge. This bridge is the only means of getting cargo and supplies to the Port. More than 1,000 cargo trucks go across this bridge each day, delivering materials to the Port for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) drilling rigs. If there's no bridge, there're no drilling parts and supplies.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/gu itar-710427.jpg

Pictures of bodies floating by are currently on the front page of the New York Times.

I posted the following quote on the previous article, with no conclusions, but it was modded down by people who dislike facts they disagree with. Additionally there's more information now and I am posting a link to the original article from editor and publisher:

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, in the Times-Picayune

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313 The above article also details what cuts were done by Bush to the SELA grants (for levees in New Orleans), which, by the way, were started and funded in 1995.

Additionally it appears that Louisiana should have been "high on the list of FEMA's biggest disaster mitigation grant program" but received nothing. Here's the article that states this: http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-2 8/cover_story2.html Now, as before, mod this post into oblivion so that you don't have to see Bush smiling and playing the guitar yesterday while bodies float around. I'm not sure what disgusts me more -- him doing that, or people closing their eyes to truth.

Last time, IIRC, it was Larry Lessig arguing against the DMCA. Instead of just fighting the DMCA, Lessig had to try to fight the whole goddamn copyright reform war in one go

Totally wrong. Lessig was never fighting the DMCA at all. His lawsuit was about extensions and only extensions. They are blatantly unconstitutional, but he failed to prove it (for which he is rightly ashamed).

Lessig punched a hole in the bottom of his boat, killed the battle against the DMCA.

Even though Lessig wasn't trying to hurt the DMCA, he accidently did. It looks like the Eldred opinion undermines the DMCA's constitutionality.

Lessig had to try to fight the whole goddamn copyright reform war in one go,

Wrong. He didn't cover all the bases on the copyright war- and in retrospect, that was a big mistake. Reading the decision, several of the judges were partially favorable to him, and others would've been favorable to arguments he didn't make. Tossing out more rationalizations would've actually made it more likely that 5 judges would've each found one willing to convince him/her.

It would cause *chaos* in the business world. There are *vast* pragmatic issues.

Wrong and wrong. It would do hardly anything to the business world. A couple of big companies would lose a $20 million dollars of anticipated revenue, and a hundred other corporations would pick up $1 million each in quick reprints, but that isn't nearly "chaos".

sure as hell not going to pass muster before a bunch of crochety Justices.

Read their actual opinions. See how some of them were disappointed he didn't strike harder at the point that today's long copyright does not encourage the progress of art, which is as strongly unconstituional as you can get.

See her lawyer's site, which has their responses. It looks like the evidence is so thin it will be thrown out.

... Then they throw you in prison for 40 years. Than communism collapses and you starve to death on the streets.

Meanwhile, there is a Comprehensive collection of links on this case (Elektra v. Santangelo). Tells you much more than in the summary link, including her lawyer's rebuttals of the RIAA's claims.

The case isn't THAT obviously open-and-shut, is it?

Actually, it almost looks like it is. The music industry guys seem to have dropped the ball big time with this one.

A little digging turns up a load of links to the various litigation documents, courtesy of defence lawyer Ray Beckerman's blog. If you read the defence's revised reply memorandum of law, they make a convincing (to me as a non-lawyer) argument for what appear to be two open-and-shut claims, which basically mean the plaintiffs have failed to make a case for the defendant to answer. If the court accepts that argument, presumably any of the the other stuff doesn't matter, because the music industry didn't file it at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way.

Interestingly, just before the conclusion, that defence memorandum reads

The Court should therefore dismiss the Complaint with prejudice for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Cuoco v. Moritsugu, 222 F.3d 99, 112 (2d Cir. 2000) (dismissing without leave to replead because nothing in the complaint "suggests that the plaintiff has a claim that she has inadequately or inartfully pleaded and that she should therefore be given a chance to reframe").

That sounds to me like not only are they trying to get this initial case dismissed, but also they're trying to block any attempt to bring any directly related case in future. I don't know how the appeal rules work if the court finds for the defence in this case, but given the defence's argument and the judge's apparent contempt for actions that don't give the defendant a fair chance to defend herself, it sounds as though this one's going to stop as dead as any music industry case ever can.

This lawywer blogged about this case yesterday at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005 /08/more-news-coverage-of-elektra-v.html

Here you go.

Apparently she's gotten herself a lawyer

Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP
99 Park Avenue, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10016

I checked out their website and found this gem

In addition to their representation of commercial and corporate clients, multinational organizations and creative artists, the firm's lawyers are encouraged to devote a substantial portion of their time to representing individuals subjected to governmental abuse, discrimination and other infringements upon constitutional or statutory rights.

What I have found are the
Litigation Documents in Elektra v. Santangelo

Yeah, I had that idea too. Read this. I was surprised that noone had thought of it. I recently read "Applied Cryptography" (an excellent book) and it had the exact same thing as an authentication protocol, and below it it said "It is foolish to encrypt arbitrary stringsnot only those sent by untrusted third parties, but under any circumstances at all". So much for my bright idea.

The solution he proposes is that "Alice makes some computation based on the random numbers (both the ones she generated and the one she received from the host) and her private key, and sends the result to the host. The host does some computation on the various numbers received from Alice and her public key to verify that she knows her private key".

There you have it, my brilliant idea foiled by chosen plaintext attacks.

He's actually right about the tendency of games to go for the more 'shiny' super-realistic, state-of-the-art graphics and gizmo's...instead of compelling gameplay.

I mean, c'mon, there used to be great games, even in the 90ies. Yes, they were very basic, graphically (compared with the techniques today, it's almost pathetic)...but at least they were great fun! They are often still fondly remembered!

Indeed, those oldies are not as pleasant to look at, but they had other things going for it. (I wonder why they don't make such games with modern graphics?) As an example, I would urge anyone to try out UQM, based on Starcontrol 2. you can read an analysis on my blog about it: http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2005/06/game-of-fun.h tml

this was written a while ago, so its slightly outdatted, but still relevant http://thedeathofgaming.blogspot.com/

That lawyer is Ray Beckerman of Bedlock Levine & Hoffman LLP. He started a blog recently posting information about the trail. Some of the documents are great reads, the judge is pretty much disgusted by the RIAA's actions.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

Here's the link at Google's blog.

Oh, and by the way, not wanting to start a political issue or anything, but is this story true? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/08/bush-took- new-orleans-disaster-funds.html

Well, Editor and Publisher is a pretty reputable news organization, so I would say that story is at least as true as any story you would see on any other news site. That might not be saying much, given the track-record of the news organizations, but it certainly seems like a reasonable story.

As someone who has personally corresponded with the whole family before as one of the organizers of the ill-fated Jarrar Family Tour of the United States, and met people who met them personally, I can assure you that they are quite real. Raed, Khalid's brother, is the Raed of "Dear Raed" fame (infamous "Salam Pax"'s blog, the owner of which later ended up becoming a journalist, and who earlier was the interpreter of Slate reporter Peter Maass). He's also a friend of Ghaith ("G in Baghdad"), a reporter for "The Guardian", who has published some amazing articles in the paper. Raed was also one of the heads of CIVIC in Iraq, which is anything but a fictional organization. Here's a Democracy Now interview with Raed, in case you want to hear his voice.

Also, my nick is Rei, not REI (an outdoor gear store).

If you want great English, read Raed's blog. His brother Khalid doesn't speak as well as he does (although is quite readable), and his mother Faiza often has to rely on a translator.