The RIAA uses systems to gather lists of alleged infringers,
and bulk-sues them. It has set a price that seems to be
profitable for it, while being low enough that it is not
profitable for the accused to mount a defence, as they do
not get the economies of scale involved.

If the above sentence doesn't scare you, we also have
the issue that for the big player, a few mistakes are
tolerable noise in the system. For the target of a mistake,
such as a person whose wireless network was used by
a neighbour, or a completely innocent person caught in an
ordinary error, we see no solution -- pay a settlement
of several thousands, or spend far more to fight in court.

We will need to adjust the legal system to deal with
spamigation. Mistakes in any bulk use of the law must
be punish, I suspect, with high penalties which eliminate
the economies of scale. Ie. if you threaten 100, and
1 defends and wins, penalties must exceed the settlements
of the entire 100, perhaps. And something must exist to
assure the innocent will defend themselves -- the potential
for punative damages may be insufficient.

[IP] more on who is to blame -- riaa

"What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," he said. "We have to make sure our legal system allows us to do that. It's not like the 20th century, where you had time to get warrants."

Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

Warrants are so 20th Century. Thats the meme of the year. Remember, the Constitution talks about Warrants, but it doesn't say you always have to have one. It just says that you can't perform an unreasonable search. If the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security thinks its reasonable, then obviously it must be. In the future, Warrants will only be required when you're searching the offices of a corporation or a public official. I'm not kidding. Mark my words.

The strategy here is to win the 2006 elections on an anti civil liberties platform.

We have to get away from this concept that we have to apply civil-liberties protections to terrorists," Peter King (R., N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee

What is a terrorist, Mr King? Who determines who is or is not a terrorist so that we know when to apply civil liberties and when not to apply them? What is a trial, Mr. King? What does a trial determine? How can you determine guilt without a trial? If you don't need a trial to determine guilt, then why have them? What is their purpose? Has the federal government ever prosecuted an innocent person? How many, exactly? Has the federal government ever spied on anyone for an inappropriate purpose? Has the federal government ever detained someone for an inappropriate purpose?

Meme of the Year: Warrants are so 20th Century

The appeals court said that expert testimony established that terrorists seek predictable and vulnerable targets and that the subway search program "generates uncertainty that frustrates that goal, which, in turn, deters an attack."

If you see they are searching today, you can take an alternate means of transportation, or walk to the next stop. Terrorists are unlikely to do this, because it screws up their operational plan. Frankly, if they can search everyone getting on an airplane, they can search people getting on trains. They can search people going into schools, going into malls, going into stores. They can search people everywhere. They can search them all the time. As long as its possible that a bomb might go off there, the searches will be considered reasonable.

Searches of Bags in Subway Upheld

Expanding the ‘security threat’

Competing claims about what constitutes the greatest threat to global security are an exercise in what sociologists call domain expansion. ‘Once a problem gains widespread recognition and acceptance, there is a tendency to piggyback new claims on to the old name, to expand the problem’s domain’, writes the sociologist Joel Best (9). In other words, once terrorism and security have been defined as big problems that require serious attention, other claim-makers can appropriate these concerns to serve their own interests. Various different problems are now repackaged as ‘global threats’. ‘The initial claims become a foot in the door, an opening wedge for further advocacy’, says Best. Anxieties about international terrorism are not only mobilised to promote the ‘war on terror’ – they are also activated to highlight issues that have little to do with terrorists. So when a recent report concluded that the spread of HIV is ‘as big of a threat as terrorism’, it was drawing on the cultural script of the post-9/11 era (10). Other fear entrepreneurs have presented poverty reduction as being indispensable in the broader fight against international terrorism (11).

...

In one very important sense, however, the Malthusian security agenda is even more retrograde than the traditionalist security agenda. The traditional variety was usually focused on a specific enemy; in many instances the enemy was clearly identified – the Russians, the Cubans, or some specific group of subversives. Today’s security agenda, by contrast, is uncertain about how to distinguish friend from foe and what the problem really is. According to this view, there are no friends or foes. The new security agenda adopts a fiercely misanthropic outlook and blames human behaviour in general for threatening security. They believe that our behaviour – leading to population growth, consumption of oil, environmental degradation – is the real threat. For them, threats are transnational, global, interconnected; in other words, everything is a potential threat. Infectious diseases, environmental problems, economic discontent and terrorist violence are seen as being parts of a broader, generic security problem.

In years to come, this approach, which is now institutionalised through the US Department of Homeland Security, is likely to expand into more and more spheres of human experience. It is surely only a matter of time before the assumption implicit in the Malthusian security agenda – that we do not simply need a ‘war on terror’ but a ‘war on everything’ – will be made more explicit.

Meet the Malthusians : 'War on Everything!'

Charlton explained to Discovery News that humans have an inherent attraction to physical youth, since it can be a sign of fertility, health and vitality. In the mid-20th century, however, another force kicked in, due to increasing need for individuals to change jobs, learn new skills, move to new places and make new friends.

A “child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge” is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished.”

“The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity,” he explained.

“But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility."

"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”

WHAT A POO POO HEAD! HAHAHAHAHA!

Serious Study: Immaturity Levels Rising :: Discovery Channel :: News - Human

Back in the late 1600's, the Dutch invented the two-sheet mold. The average maximum stretch of an experienced vatman's arms was 44". Many molds at that time were around 17" front to back because the laid lines and watermarks had to run from left to right. Sounds big?...well to maximize the efficiency of paper making, a sheet this big was made, and then quartered, forming four 8.5" x 11" pieces.

This was well before paper machines dominated hand made paper labor. A couple centuries later when machines dominated the trade (although many hand made paper makers still existed), and the United States decided on a standard paper size, they stuck with the same size so as to keep the hand made paper makers in business.

Oddly enough, the United States used two different sizes - the 8" x 10.5" and the 8.5" x 11". Separate committees came up with separate standards, the 8" x 10.5" for the government and the 8.5" x 11" for the rest of us. Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980's when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper.

The U.S. Standard Paper Size | AF&PA

[Q] From Marty Robinson: “Last week you quoted Sir Christopher Wren as referring to ‘The Ailes, from whence arise Bows or Flying Buttresses to the Walls of the Navis.’ I’m sorry to learn that Sir Christopher used the redundancy from whence.”

[A] This is another of those grammatical shibboleths, like avoiding a plural verb with none or not splitting one’s infinitives, that are open to linguistic debate, to put it mildly. The argument against this form is that whence already includes the idea of coming from some place, so that including from makes it tautological.

The debate is complicated by the fact that whence is not that common a word these days, being rather literary; I had trouble finding a modern example that wasn’t prefixed by from. This is from Newsday of 11 November 2004: “He is a legendary figure in his native England, whence I have just returned.” That’s a good example of the “proper” use.

Questions & Answers: From whence

In defense against the charge that he himself helped initiate the Bush Administration's revolutionary attitude to spreading democracy, Fukuyama stresses in his latest book that The End of History described a democratic capitalist version of an anti-Leninist Marxian approach--stressing slow cultural, social and economic change, not sudden revolution. He maintains that he is a Gramscian, emphasizing the intellectual and cultural hegemony of capitalist democracy, not claiming that it would inevitably work well everywhere or solve all problems. By contrast, he describes the Bush Administration as having become "Leninist" in its belief that history can be subjected to violent pushes.

Fukuyama Tukutama Fukyama Honeymama

The Two Fukuyamas | The National Interest

Today's thoroughbreds are a result of more than 300 years of selective breeding that has carried them very far from their roots on the steppes and deserts of the Middle East. Every thoroughbred is descended from one of three stallions, the Darley Arabian, Godolphin, and the Byerly Turk, brought to England toward the close of the 17th century and bred to mares initially under the patronage of King Charles II. A great-great-grandson of the Darley Arabian, bred by a son of King George II, was born during a solar eclipse in 1764 and named Eclipse. An undefeated champion on the track, he sired 344 winners, and his powerful bloodline literally eclipsed all others. In fact, 95 percent of the thoroughbreds alive today are his descendants.

Our Creation, Our Concern - New York Times

Stonewall Inn was the site of the famous Stonewall riots of 1969, which have come to symbolize the beginning of the militant gay liberation movement in the United States. It is located at 53 Christopher Street, between West 4th St. and Waverly Place, in Greenwich Village, New York City. Stonewall is regarded as the single most important event that led to the modern movement for gay and lesbian civil rights.[1]

Stonewall Inn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia