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Given that Iraqi insurgent snipers are smart enough to aim for the gaps in Americans' body armour - article - flexable armour, even if's only used to cover joints, would be a very good thing.

I may have gotten this link from /. originally but it's apropos here - Ten unmissable examples of New Games Journalism

These articles are written in a chronological, personal style that you might call Gonzo, though I'm not sure I'd call it all "journalism". My favourite is the insanely long but utterly fascinating account of an enormous heist in Eve Online, The Great Scam by Nightfreeze, which will be a hit with the Slashdotters. Any roaming Diggers will want to skip directly to the also well written Sex in Games: Rez + Vibrator.

But in the end, is this the correct journalistic voice for technology? Gonzo journalism is a very human format and that may not be interesting to read when describing technology (unless the gadget works very well or very poorly).

You might want to add wake up and realise that if you're in the US you're living inside a propaganda bubble. It's not so much that you are fed dis-information, it's what you don't hear in the popular media, but what you do discover with just a little digging. The article mentioned in Johnathon Cook's very inciteful article can be found here see "Gaza Strip arrests".

I believe the AP dispatch you point to is wrong.

Every other story I've been able to find on it says the soldiers were captured in northern Israel. For example, this, from the generally pro-palestinian UK Guardian:

"The crisis began on June 25 when Hamas-linked militants in the Gaza Strip carried out a cross-border attack on a military outpost in Israel, killing two soldiers and capturing one. Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas joined the fray in July, attacking a military patrol on the border in northern Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have said the two attacks were not related."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-59 58249,00.html

Or this, from CBS News:

"The fighting began when Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers in a cross-border raid."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/17/ap/world /mainD8ITT2L02.shtml

The New York Times:

"The president was referring to the Hezbollah militants who on Wednesday took two Israeli soldiers hostage and killed eight others in a cross-border attack from Lebanon."

I note that the AP dispatch was the first reporting the capture, when things were still obviously a little confused. The Israelis hadn't even confirmed the abduction at the time it was written. Also, note that the dispatch's first and second paragraphs are somewhat contradictory.

    - AJ

Reading the comments on Slashdot gives me great insight as to how the USA could possibly support the GENOCIDE that is occuring in Lebannon today. This bullocks gets rated informative.....

Here's real information...

This all started because on the 25th of June (right in the middle of the World cup) ISRAEL invaded sovereign palestinian territory and seized two member of hamas, this little fact has not been broadly publicised by an extremely Israeli biased media. Then on 26th of June Hamas retaliated by launching a similiar raid into Israel capturing Corporal Shalit, this was of course very well publicised, most think this was an unprovoked act of agression on behalf of Hamas in actual fact it was not.

Israel then proceeded to bomb everything the palestinian state had of value as well as arresting most of the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. This pissed off many people, most noteably Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, they then launched another raid on Israel, in which two more soldiers were captured. Israel took this as an excuse to acheive political goals in lebanon, through sheer brute, murderous force. Israel is currently attempting to create a "buffer zone" for itself in lebannon... in other words they're going to drive out or kill everyone in southern lebannon within some arbitary distance from the Israeli border (we're not talking 2 or 3 km here... try 100-200km). International law classifies this sort of act as an act of genoicide.

Slashdot prides itself on having the inside scoop, being one step ahead of big brother... but in actuality it's been totally silent, not one single article has been published in Slashdot's political section on Palestine or Lebannon. Slashdot is suppose to report stuff that matters, how can whats going on in terms of such blatant media bias and misrepresentation of what's actually going on in the middle east be of no importance ?

"Israel has taken pains to inform civilians (and thereby tip off Hezbollah too) before attacks by dropping leaflets that basically say "We know there is a Hezbollah ammo dump here, flee now because we will attack soon"."

Well thats one way to look at it. Another way would be that isreal is doing this to terrorize civilians into leaving their homes and encouraging them to live in a constant state of fear (btw this is what terrorism means). This article talks about isreali commanders basically panicing people to move out, and then calling back an hour later saying "be safe".

Personally im glad that white people are starting to say this shit. Even if its just some obscure PHP developer. Isreal has had carte blanche by basically everyone for way too long. Their treatment of palestine and their use of chemical weapons is highly documented. Even if the only chemical they are using out there is white phosphorus, thats still mighty disgusting. ( i know the USA and british use it as well but thats another topic ).

"No state, including Israel, can tolerate either unprovoked attacks on its military or any attack at all on its civilian population. Hezbollah is not a state. It has no sovereign right to maintain an army or make war. Those are rights restricted to states."

Im sorry but just because your bigger and more "official" doesnt give you the right to slaughter an entire country. One persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter. Im sure the first americans would have been regarded the same way by england as isreal regards the people of palestine, lebanon, syria, iran and hezbola.
Who the hell cares if hezbollah isnt a state in and of itself? Hamas was democratically elected but isreal didnt care about them either. If hezbollah got 90% of the vote in lebanon, would you then recognize their desire to defend themselves? or would you still consider them not a state sanctioned organization.

What this all comes down to is a new isreali president/prime minster flexing his muscle at the expense of civilian lives and with a cost to us all (unless you thought that airlifting and cruise shipping civilians out was free). Will isreal reimburse the governments of the states that had to spend tax payers money evacuating citizens? Or will the USA give more money and arms to isreal so that they can continue the slaughter.
Fuck isreal indeed.

The United States has been doing an overall good job of running things.

There is a very good article in today's Guardian that details at length why this is not the case.

A number of companies - and even countries - that are frustrated by years of delays have started offering the internet in their own languages by working outside the existing domain name system (DNS).

Icann was first approached in the year it was created - 1998 - with the aim of introducing "internationalised domain names" into its system. But it has yet to introduce a single one. Many members of the global internet community have cried foul at the endless delays from a company based in the least linguistically diverse area of the world (the US has speakers of 170 different languages, compared to 364 in Europe and 2,390 in Africa).

These accusations have only been strengthened by the fact it is American companies that own and run the existing global domains and so have the most to lose from new foreign-language additions. These companies not only have disproportionate influence over Icann but have also been insisting on being given automatic ownership rights to any foreign versions of their domains - an argument of such corrupt logic that the very fact it is even discussed is a major cause of concern.

I seem to remember a site called "Whitehouse.com" (not .gov) that was a porn site whose name was designed to get hits from those who were not looking for porn, especially children.

Maybe. However, Whitehouse is the name of a bestselling porn magazine in the UK. It's named after Mary Whitehouse, and has been sold for decades. It would be perfectly legitimate for them to have their online presence at whitehouse.com, yes?

I wonder how many computers you could buy with $2 trillion dollars. Heck, you could buy a PC for everyone in the world with that kind of money.

I think I'd want a PC that can do more than what $333.33 would buy.

But then again, cynism is IMHO even lower than sarcasm.

Some people are known as "tetrachromats" All examples I've heard about have been the mothers of red-green colorblind men. Essentially they have an extra receptor between R & G.

Actually, it's more interesting than that. There are variant genes for the red & green cones that result in the cones absorbing a slightly different spectrum of light. The genes for this are on the X chromosome. A tetrachromat is a woman who has differing genes on her two differing X chromosomes that are somehow both active, leading to either her red cones or her green cones being split between the two variant alleles and allowing for finer detail in distinguishing shades of red or green.

Why I say it's more interesting is that this shows us that beyond the perceptual, cognitive differences between perception of color that we grow up with within our cultures, humans actually have differing physical hardware for perceiving color. We really don't see the world with the same eyes.

Apparently we may also have a 4th (or 5th, depending on pt 2) receptor in the ultraviolet range. However, most of the light in this range is blocked by the alchohol in our eye fluids, so this receptor is mostly pretty useless.

Actually, it's just that our blue cones and our rods have sensitivity in the near UV range. It's the lens of the eye that blocks UV; there's no alcohol in the vitreous humour. People who have cataract surgery that replaces their lens can sometimes see UV in a very limited fashion.

You can read more about aphakia and UV sensitivity here.

I am just the messenger here. I am only speaking on behalf of a lot of inside journalist and key-note speakers. Here are a few different sites speaking about the "intel has killed gaming" idea. 1. http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/12/epics-mark-rein- intel-is-killing-pc-gaming/ 2. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/20 06/07/12/is_intel_killing_pc_gaming.html 3. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060712-7247 .html

Three British bankers have been extradited from the UK to Texas, using legislation that was originally
intended to combat terrorism, but has now apparently been extended to include financial trading.
At present the legislation has only been ratified in the UK, but not in the USA (there are a good few
Irish nationalists the UK police would like to interview). They had the misfortune of ending
up being tangled up the Enron collapse.

BUSINESS NEWS: CIMA protests over 'NatWest Three' extradition

And one witness has already committed suicide

National security must be protected at all costs now that WWIII has kicked off and apparently everybody except the US leadership and those with real WMD are the enemy.
Christ on a stick how much more hysterical bullshit, civilian deaths and money grubbing do we have to put up with from these maniacs.

Here is a story with a little more background on Earth Simulator's modeling prowess. Near the end, it states that it can predict and track typhoons with very high accuracy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1 517946,00.html

They still have judges in the UK who have some idea of fundementals. Recently, one such judge ruled unlawful control orders against terrorist suspects, saying that they were contrary to EU human rights laws. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0 ,,1808325,00.html

Here are the essential things about ASBOs.

1) What is complained of does not have to be unlawful. It just has to cause complaints.

2) The remedy does not have to prohibit the behaviour which causes the complaints. It can prohibit almost anything that has the effect of making the behaviour difficult or impossible.

3) The prohibition has the effect of making things unlawful for an individual which are not unlawful for anyone else.

From the Guardian : "A teenager has become the first youth in Britain to receive an anti-social behaviour order that bans him from going to school. The two-year Asbo on Gary Addy, 16, stops him from going within 50 metres of any educational premises in the east London borough of Newham unless he has prior permission from the headteacher."

He seems not to have broken the law in school. He is prohibited from going within 50 meters of one, which is not whatever was complained of, and is not otherwise illegal. He is the only one to whom this prohibition applies.

You have to see this in connection with a number of other proposals, laws and institutions in the UK. Proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act would enable people with the wrong personalities to be locked up as a crime prevention measure. There have also been proposals to allow compulsory medication. There is a proposal for SCPOs (serious crime prevention orders) which will be a sort of super ASBO for gangsters. There have been proposals to track and intervene in dysfunctional families, to prevent future crime by children at risk. We already have Family Courts with wide ranging powers to break up families and put children into care and regulate access. They meet in secret, their decisions are not subject to appeal, and to reveal the name of anyone who has been before them is an offence. The proposed ID card scheme and DNA database will make almost all data any agency has on an individual, including health, available to any government agency. The various Terrorism laws permit confinement without trial of foreign nationals, and have started to be used to permit lengthier detention of citizens. Nor should we forget the recent proposals on the Civil Contingencies Act, which would allow any government to declare a state of emergency and rule by decree or the Regulatory Reform Bill, which would allow rule by decree without an emergency.

Henry Porter has written well on the subject. Have a look at his exchange with Tony Blair at

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1759 344,00.html

or his piece on ID cards at

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1 129827.ece

We do not have a police state in Britain. That is sometimes argued, but its quite mistaken. The laws are still administered by an independent judiciary with a strong tradition of individual liberties, and abuse seems uncommon and is remarked on and sometimes overturned. What we have is two things.

First, we have the most far reaching and thorough assault on the legal basis of individual liberties and parliamentary democracy since Charles I.

Second, we have now the basis for any future authoritarian regime to implement the basic structure of the former Soviet Union. It could implement preventive detention, classification of dissidents as mentally ill, compulsory medication, internal exile, separation of families, withdrawal of passports, suppression of freedom of association, prohibitions on publication or public speaking.

We don't have a Police State. However, the only thing standing between Britain and a Police State at this point is tradition and the goodwill of its government. Its not law or constitution. This is a lot, don't underestimate it. The question is whether it will prove enough.

Windows Genuine Advantage mistakes 20% of genuine XP operating systems as counterfeit. If you install the update, you have a 1 in 5 chance of kissing your operating system goodbye. The summary for installation says it will then "help you obtain a licensed copy of Windows."

You will be required to attend an enrolment centre with some form of identifying material - bank statements, credit cards, driving licence or birth certificate, who knows what. Then you will be fingerprinted, photographed and the iris in your eye will be measured. You will give the authorities 49 pieces of information about yourself. If you don't, you may be fined up to £2,500. Additional fines of up to £2,500 may be levied every time you fail to comply.

If you fail to inform the police or Home Office when you lose your card, or if it becomes defective, you face a fine of up to £1,000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years, or a fine, or both. And you will be fined £1,000 if you fail to inform the NIR of any change of address. You will also be expected to tell the authorities your previous addresses. Truly the government will be able to say with all the menace of the underworld enforcer: "We know where you live."

If you don't inform the register of significant changes to your personal life, or any errors they have made, you will face a fine of up to £1,000. Astonishingly, you may also face a fine if you fail to submit to being reinterviewed, rephotographed, refingerprinted and rescanned.

.. or watch out MS.Astroturfers on board ..

"The reason the fine is less than what had been threatened in the press"

Can you provide any citation from the commision to a reduction in fine for good behavour. There is a December reference to a $2m per day from the Commision. Which if my arithmetic is correct, is one million less then the current fine.

"Microsoft met with the EU Trustee Neil Barrett, who "clarified the requirements for the documents"."

Microsoft were compelled to 'meet' Barrett as they failed to comply with its ruling. What he actually said was the documents were "totally unfit for its intended purpose".

You put that as if MS was the concerned party somehow trying to play honest broker to the nasty Commision. In fact MS were compelled to 'meet' Neil Barrett after they first tried to have him removed. You see the Commision is a legally conviened body in judgement of Microsofts' misconduct. It's not as if the guilty party gets to 'meet' the Judge and 'clarify' things for him.

"Barrett also provided Microsoft with "aggressive series of deadlines" for providing the documentation in accordance with the clarified requirements."

So its the Commision who's at fault for not clarifying requirments. Instead of what is really happening, MS wilfully ignoring the instruction to open the protocols to third party developers.

"Since that time, Microsoft has been working overtime to provide the documentation,"

If they are complient why are they being fined $357m and a further $3m euros per day?

"Microsoft has met all milestones in the "series of deadlines" laid down by Barret"

If they are complient why are they being fined $357m and a further $3m euros per day?

"the EU knows that Microsoft provided the new documentation in good faith, and they'll just work with Microsoft to address any further deficiencies."

If Microsoft provided the new documentation in good faith why are they being fined $3 million per day.

Why does the Commision need to 'work with Microsoft'? Did Leona Helmsley get to 'work' with the Judge when she was caught cheeting on taxes?

In real life, are you a PR hack for Microsoft?

Is slashdot becoming totally overrun with MS.Astroturfers?

The confusion between "Die for Allah, get virgins" and "Die for Allah, get raisins" is actually a serious theological debate within Islam. See this Guardian story among a couple hundred other places. If Robbin Williams has Yodafied the joke before my apologies to him, but I haven't heard a word from the man since Mrs. Doubtfire and given that that was pre-September 11th I'm guessing I've never heard his take on Islam. Or Star Wars, for that matter.

Not that anybody is going to notice this or care, but the author of the original BLOG entry that was referenced in this Slashdot story has retracted his original point associating the JAPANESE company Sony running an ad campaign in Europe as having some connection to racial attitudes in the United States:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/07 /07/psp_ad_post_a_quick_explanation.html

"The previous closing paragraph of my post on the PSP ads - where I mentioned the sensitivity of racial themes in the US - has attracted a lot of criticism from readers. I of course, didn't mean to imply that there are no problems with racial tension in Europe - that would be lunacy. However, in the very short space I can lend to such issues in a videogame blog, I was trying to hint at cultural differences in the way such matters are handled.

I realise, however, that the paragraph caused offense for which I apologise - especially to our American readers. It has now been changed."

Is there any country in the world that is more monoracial and lacking in diversity than Japan?

You guys know exactly where we're headed, right?

I hope you've been reading your Vinge. This is equivalent to homework, if you're a technologist (programmers, that means you.)

Our destination is the Secure Hardware Environment (SHE).

That is, every computing device will have to have a section for the government built in, and the government will require access to just a small part of network traffic.

Further: All manufacturing will be observed. (see: Don't Try This at Home, and Remote Biology Labs -- how could it be allowed to work out any other way?) The US government (not sure which parts) is already rejecting chips for computers where the manufacturing process is unknown or unwatched (link lost; sorry.)

This will be done for your safety.

See also: Big Brother Takes a Controlling Interest in Chips. Rainbows End.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/07 /05/sony_ad_casues_white_riot.html

And after that it CAUSED an illiteracy riot!

The US, in its case for extradition, said Mr McKinnon caused more than $700,000 £375,235 worth of damage.

US prosecutors claim he caused $700,000 £375,000 worth of damage.

Gary McKinnon, 40, is accused of causing damage to 97 US government computers estimated at £370,000. - Feb 2006

How about telling me which other group as a whole has suffered more because of the US? The US supports numerous dictators amongst the muslim world (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, most of the oil-rich small sheikhdoms in the Middle East, Pakistan, until 1990 Iraq so on and so forth). Not to mention the countless CIA managed coup's against democracies instilling dictators (Iraq used to be a democracy way back in the day). People tend to have long memories and rarely forget atrocities committed against them.

Yes violence especially violence against innocent civilians is wrong in every way possible (and is condemned / forbidden by Islam) but there will always by a certain percentage of nuts out of every population. By rapidly ramping up the percentage of people that hate America the percentage of nuts correspondingly also increases. Not to mention people like Bin Laden are largely impotent without a large replenishable supply of foot soldiers which we conveniently provide Iraq creating new breed of jihadists, says CIA

Most of the current generation of foot soldiers have been trained and bred by the CIA during their operations for the Afghan war in the 70's and 80's, cue Iraq war and we're creating a whole new generation...

To summarize
1) To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
2) An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind - Mahatma Gandhi

"Is it just me or does the report actually fail to mention to mention Linux even once?"

That is correct, the article quotes Graham Cluley as saying that Macs will be safer for 'computer' users.

MS going into the AV business threatening their revenue stream and despite this Sophos depend on Microsoft for business. Linux on the other hand is considered a greater threat than the Mac, both to Sophos and MS. The Mac is seen as a niche player so talking it up is not such a big deal. Previous utterances from Sophos:

a Mac has no more inherent security when it comes to malware than a PC

"Linux has a better history for security than Microsoft, and hackers are more focused on Microsoft.

These are not attacking any kind of vulnerability in the computer They are attacking the vulnerability of people's brains.

http://www.distrowatch.com/

We shot a man for carrying a table leg. I think we're about even.

Today's prime rate is 8.25%

And 10-year municipal bonds are currently 5.125% - which is the rate this would actually be financed at. http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html

Monthly payments over 10 years of $16/month on initial capital of $1,500. http://money.guardian.co.uk/calculator/form/0,1456 ,603156,00.html

The problem, to Bob's way of thinking, isn't the Internet per se, but the direction powerful political and business forces are attempting to take it. Part of this can be seen in last week's column on Net Neutrality, but Bob takes it further - a LOT further - to a point where it becomes logically clear that making almost any regulation specifically to hinder OR HELP the Internet can only make things worse. And by making it worse I mean inhibit in a severe way the growth of human knowledge, culture, and economic development. It's just a choice between freedom and totalitarianism, simple as that. To Bob the issues surrounding Net Neutrality come down to billability and infrastructure. While saying they are doing us favors, ISPs are really offering us services they can bill for. Nothing is aimed at helping us, while everything is aimed at creating a billable event.

Vinge makes two opening assumptions: no grand physical disaster occurs, and today's computing and communications trends continue. He added a third trend: "The great conspiracy against human freedom." As novelist Doris Lessing has observed, barons on opposite sides of the river don't need to be in cahoots if their interests coincide. In our case, defence, homeland security, financial crime enforcement, police, tax collectors and intellectual property rights holders offer reasons to want to control the hardware we use.

Yes, three-wheeeled cars are the future http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,36 04,1202187,00.html http://www.3wheelers.com/enter.html AGRW

FWIW Chinese people don't refer to the events in Tianenmen Square in 1989 by the name "Tianenmen Square." They call it "6-4", as in June 4, 1989. Also, Tianenmen was hardly the "last organized opposition protest." Every year there are literally tens of thousands of protests in China. Last Fall in Beijing I watched a small one against the military, which pretty much completely ignored the protest. The Chinese may not be completely free, but they are freeer than even ten years ago, and complaining about the government is a very popular pasttime.

Would you happen to have the name of a reputable scientist that claims solar output variation is responsible for global warming, by any chance?

"Second, EMP? Haha haaHahaHAAHA! Do you have any idea how EMPs are generated, aside from using a nuclear weapon? You have a coil wrapped around a high explosive, you charge the coil with a lot of current, generating a strong magnetic field, and then you detonate the explosive."
I do (considering that the acronym is a very loose term and covers far more than just explosion-generated pulses), and apparently I'm not the only one who thinks that way...

This patent hasn't been built yet, and the link I just pointed to up there is capable of overriding automobile electronics from a respectable distance during a high-speed chase. Over time, the capacitors required for such a pulse are liable to shrink to a more portable size, as even Slashdot has reported.

OTOH, HERF devices I agree on very readily. ;)

/P

So were you joking with the Bill Parish article? Was that a joke. I'm just not getting it. (If it was, Huzzah, deliciously ironic.)

A lesson on intelectual integrity from someone who has learnt the meaning of irony from Alanis Morissette? Now, this is hilarious.

In the UK Apple have as good as told people not to buy iPods because they only last one year (despite UK consumer legislation protecting purchases for up to 6 years).

http://money.guardian.co.uk/consumernews/story/0,, 1783814,00.html
http://money.guardian.co.uk/howtocomplain/story/0, ,1738830,00.html

Now it's apparantly not just iPod batteries causing problems! Very amusing.

In the UK Apple have as good as told people not to buy iPods because they only last one year (despite UK consumer legislation protecting purchases for up to 6 years).

http://money.guardian.co.uk/consumernews/story/0,, 1783814,00.html
http://money.guardian.co.uk/howtocomplain/story/0, ,1738830,00.html

Now it's apparantly not just iPod batteries causing problems! Very amusing.

Stuff like this makes me think hh is a valid hypothesis.

Despite the other replies, Italy is one of the few that has Italian players...
http://football.guardian.co.uk/theknowledge/story/ 0,,1785937,00.html
Playing with foreign players can cause some distrust when they do not perform at away games...
http://worldcup.reuters.com/spain/news/usnL2772974 4.html
An interesting blogg about the last World Cup's national mix...
http://usasoccer.blogspot.com/2006/05/world-cup-20 02-roster-breakdowns.html
A Time article about the French team for the 2002 World Cup noted that they only had one French player...
http://www.time.com/time/worldcup2002/020128/index .html

I could go on but I think you should get my point by now.

The of NASA Administrator puts it this way:

Michael Griffin, the Nasa administrator, overruled colleagues who wanted the mission postponed for safety improvements, arguing that there was no danger.

"We have elected to take the risk," he said. But he admitted that a "major incident" would lead to the closure of the 26-year-old shuttle programme and the likely scrapping of the half-built International Space Station. "If we were to lose another vehicle, I would be moving to figure out a way to shut the programme down," he said. "I think at that point we're done."

I don't know how he can possibly believe that he would be looking to shut down the NASA Space Program in the event of a disaster. He should be looking either for another job, or good counsel to help him keep out of jail when the investigation follows.
Unless of course, he is simply following orders...

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/stor y/0,,1791356,00.html

This article doesn't mention the 500 years limit - although I'm not sure how reprocessing really works (I'm no expert). Also note the thorium problem.

If it's got a 250,000 year half life, then who cares? It's barely radioactive.

I suppose that's true but would you really want to be near it? Many tonnes are still going to make for a good amount of radiation.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/stor y/0,,1791356,00.html

Oh. It's worse than I thought. Read that and comment.

A good example of the priorities of a pharmaceutical company is today's story in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,179977 2,00.html about a drug developed by Genentech, Avastin, which is effective against colon cancer. Genentech has a winner and will make a good profit on it. Then ophthalmologists realised that minimal doses of the same drug can also prevent blindness caused by macular degeneration, a disease of old age for which there was no effective treatment. But Genentech does not want to license the drug for this use as it is. No sir, they will only sell a 'repackaged' version for 100X the original price. A real 'eye opener'.

In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

you must be in Amsterdam smoking some weed to say something as incredibly daft as "Europe... where ideas are exchanged freely"

In Europe, you can exchange ideas so long as they're everyone else's ideas. Jeremy Clarkson would beg to differ that ideas can be freely exchanged.

you can't even bring up actual real history without getting into trouble. You can't sell WWII memorabilia in France if it is German in nature.

and those are only two off the top of my head.

I'm a big fan of On The Media - a weekly NPR radio show which I probably wouldn't hear if it wasn't for their graciously provided RSS feed. The show covers print and broadcast media from an ethical perspective, in contrast from MediaGuardian's obsession with CEOs and ratings. Its not all US centred and they do a lot on Iraq and even the UK. Worth a listen.

Who's to say we won't try to get the weapons up before the people? :-p

The same goes for EVERY smoker out there. Yes, that's right, FUCK YOU SMOKERS for using our public money for crap you do to yourselves.

"To whom is a TIME reporter going to talk to about games?"

They could try the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2207229.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5040188.stm
The BBC even does events in Second Life, they are ridiculously online-savvy.

Or the Guardian (one of the most serious UK papers):
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/

p.s. the dedicated games press does all the rampant speculation stuff because it's what their readers want! I was interested in all the articles about how Nintendo's Revolution (before the Wii name and controller details came out) was going to have a VR interface with your brainstem and be capable of showing love.

When the war is held to be illegal people are talking about a supposed violation of international, not domestic, law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,108915 8,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/36611 34.stm

You know - illegal in a greater global sense. After all, no country is an island...
No wait.. ...well you get the picture.

Isn't that the $130 laptop? Or did they manage to bring the cost back down?