] A pair of students were blocked by a federal court from
] presenting information at a Georgia security and hackers'
] conference on how to break into and modify a university
] electronic transactions system.

] "The temporary restraining order pointed out that the
] irreparable injury to Blackboard, our intellectual
] property rights and clients far outweighed the
] commercial speech rights of the individuals in
] question," said Michael Stanton, a Blackboard spokesman.
]
] The company claims that the speech being blocked is
] commercial speech because the students were a "small
] competitor" to Blackboard. One of the students,
] Georgia Institute of Technology's Billy Hoffman, had
] threatened to give away code allowing any computer to
] emulate Blackboard's technology, the company claims.

] Although an initial cease and desist letter sent to the
] Interz0ne conference organizers hinted that the students
] may have violated the DMCA, the complaint that resulted
] in the temporary restraining order did not touch on that
] copyright law.

Slightly different versions of this article by John Borland (CNet Staff Writer) are also running on BusinessWeek Online and ZDNet AU.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/996836.htm
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/security/story/0,2000024985,20273726,00.htm

Court blocks security conference talk | CNET News.com

Instead of the scheduled discussion, several hundred conference attendees were read the cease-and-desist letter, said Scott Milliken, an attendee. Attendees said they saw the case as a clear infringement on the First Amendment rights of the two students, and they contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who specializes in copyright issues, seeking advice on what to do next.

Hey, that's me!

Decius added: "We live in a society in which we are increasingly dependent on this high-tech infrastructure which our lives are arranged around, and if we can't take these things apart and understand how they work, then I think we have a very serious threat to our freedom."

Hey, I know that guy, too!

Dolemite

The copyright cops strike again

] ACCORDING to many otherwise rational people, the moon
] landings were faked. They point to signs of a flag
] fluttering in the wind in one of the photographs. It has
] even been suggested that the space shuttle Columbia was
] deliberately destroyed to prevent the launch of a probe
] that would prove that people never landed there.

A possible explanation for conspiracy theories

] Naked Gay Burning the Flag Choke Her up With Pride
]
] From a 1998 interview in the now-folded Buzz magazine:
]
] "Our country is founded on a sham: our forefathers were
] slave-owning rich white guys who wanted it their way. So
] when I see the American flag, I go, 'Oh my God, you're
] insulting me.' That you can have a gay parade on
] Christopher Street in New York, with naked men and women
] on a float cheering, 'We're here, we're queer!' -- that's
] what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked
] man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with
] pride."

This is just sad.

Janeane Garofalo

interesting

Twins crack face recognition puzzle - Mar. 10, 2003

] An 85 year-old widow is so determined not to be
] resuscitated against her will by doctors that she has
] tattooed the words "Do Not Resuscitate" across her chest.

I heard about this on bob and tom this morning. They added a little fun in saying she should have tattooed "Do not amputate" on her appendages.

Yahoo! News - Widow Hopes Tattoo Will Keep Doctors Away

] Academics do need to pay more attention to the role of
] religious belief in American public life, not only in the
] past, but also today. Without close attention to the
] prophetic scenario embraced by millions of American
] citizens, the current political climate in the United
] States cannot be fully understood.
]
] Leaders have always invoked God's blessing on their wars,
] and, in this respect, the Bush administration is simply
] carrying on a familiar tradition. But when our born-again
] president describes the nation's foreign-policy objective
] in theological terms as a global struggle against
] "evildoers," and when, in his recent State of the Union
] address, he casts Saddam Hussein as a demonic,
] quasi-supernatural figure who could unleash "a day of
] horror like none we have ever known," he is not only
] playing upon our still-raw memories of 9/11. He is also
] invoking a powerful and ancient apocalyptic vocabulary
] that for millions of prophecy believers conveys a
] specific and thrilling message of an approaching end - not
] just of Saddam, but of human history as we know it.

Quick! Take a drug, get laied, go skydiving, drive your car real fast, write a novel, climb Mt. Everest, learn to swim, code that program, ask her out, run a marathon, get that peircing, write that song, go to that club, move to a city, move to the woods, eat sushi, do whatever the hell you gotta do, because the end times are here and George Bush is driving..

hahahaha

AlterNet: When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy

] Hazardous materials from these junked computers and
] discarded gadgets are polluting the environment in these
] developing countries and causing great health hazards to
] those who live there, environmentalists say.

Recyclers Pledge to Cut E-Waste