Canadian Court rejects CRIA Suit

March 31, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Sci-Tech

In what analysts are calling a "stunning" decision, the Federal Court has ruled against a motion which would have allowed the music industry to begin suing individuals who make music available online. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled today that the Canadian Recording Industry Association did not prove there was copyright infringement by 29 so-called music uploaders. He said that downloading a song or making files available in shared directories, like those on Kazaa, does not constitute copyright infringement under the current Canadian law. "No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings," von Finckenstein wrote in his 28-page ruling. "They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer users via a P2P service."
He compared the action to a photocopy machine in a library. "I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked to a P2P service," he said. The ruling sent shock waves through the industry and surprised copyright analysts. "It raises questions of the viability of suing individual users in Canada under current Canadian copyright law," said Michael Geist, a professor at the University of Ottawa specializing in Internet and e-commerce law and technology counsel with the law firm Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt. Geist, who called the decision "stunning," anticipates it will push the industry to increase its lobbying efforts for copyright reform in Canada.

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U.S. Violated Mexicans’ Rights

March 31, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled that the United States violated the rights of 51 Mexicans on death row and ordered their cases be reviewed.
The United Nations' highest judiciary, also known as the world court, was considering a suit filed by Mexico claiming 52 convicted murderers weren't given their right to assistance from their government.
"The U.S. should provide by means of its own choosing meaningful review of the conviction and sentence" of the Mexicans, presiding judge Shi Jiuyong said.
Shi said the review, in all but three cases, could be carried out under the normal appeals process in the United States.
But for three men whose have already exhausted all other appeals, the court said the United States should make an exception and review their cases one last time.
The court found that in the remaining case, the convict had received his rights and his case didn't need to be reviewed.
At the heart of the Mexico-U.S. case is the 1963 Vienna Convention, which guarantees people accused of a serious crime while in a foreign country the right to contact their own government for help and that they be informed of that right by arresting authorities.
The world court is charged with resolving disputes between nations and has jurisdiction over the treaty. It found that U.S. authorities hadn't properly informed the 51 men of their rights when they realized they were foreigners.

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The psychology of terrorism: Fanatical Identities

March 31, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

This paper deals with some of the same questions that Parvez asked his son. How and why do people become fanatics and terrorists, and what characterizes those who do? Are they influenced by particular events? Do they have common personality-traits or sociological attributes? Are they mentally unbalanced? Are there typical trajectories leading to membership of a terror organization?

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Bush according to Streisand

March 31, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

"The Myth of Bush as Hero" by Barbra Streisand
Finally ... finally we can talk about what's really going on. Rather than accept the myth that 9/11 turned President Bush into a "hero" ... former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke has bravely spoken out to tell us the real story - that Bush did not treat terrorism as an urgent issue. And that going to war in Iraq, in addition to tragically costing us so many lives, has diverted money and resources away from where they should have been focused - on dismantling al Qaeda and strengthening our homeland security.
We now know that the Bush White House never made counterterrorism a priority leading up to September 11th. In fact, on April 30, 2001, the new administration released the government's annual report on terrorism, with a noted change: extensive mention of bin Laden, which previous terrorism reports contained, had been left out. A Bush State Department Official reportedly told CNN at that time that the U.S. government under Clinton had made a mistake in focusing so much energy on bin Laden.
In fact, Bush never even held a cabinet level meeting devoted to terrorism until the week before the attack. While FBI agents were fielding concerns about non-citizens in flight school uninterested in learning how to land planes, and the CIA was aware that potential terrorists had entered the United States, because terrorism was not a priority in the high levels of the federal government these discussions were never elevated to a place where the information could be shared across departments, where the appropriate people would have an opportunity to connect the dots...
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Who is Osama Bin Laden?

March 31, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

Osama Bin Laden is top of US President Bush's most wanted list, but to many young people in the Muslim world, he is a hero.
He is wanted in connection with a number of atrocities, including the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in East Africa and - most notoriously - the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.
Since then, his al-Qaeda organisation has been linked indirectly with bombings on the island of Bali in Indonesia and its capital Jakarta, as well as with devastating suicide attacks in Casablanca, Riyadh and Istanbul.

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A Student’s Primer on Terrorism

March 31, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Politics

Exactly one month after the following lesson plan was first posted on the Internet, we have received many comments from...

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Wine and Pizza

March 30, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Food

Wine and pizza tonight. This is the first time I’ve made a crust which didn’t suck. It was really easy,...

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Terabyte drive platters by 2010

March 30, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Sci-Tech

Scotts Valley (CA) - Seagate will use a new technology to create the foundation for future harddrives. The company believes that its Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording will allow area densities of up to 50 terabit or more than 700 times the density of today's harddrive platters. Seagate plans to debut HAMR in 2010 with a density of about 1 terabit.

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Why You Should Choose Microsoft Word Over vi

March 30, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Humour

In a major new case study sure to grab the attention of Pointy Haired Bosses everywhere, Microsoft announced today that the Total Cost of Ownership of Microsoft Word is 94% lower than that of the open-source equivalant, vi.
"There's simply no comparison," said a Microsoft researcher. "We cannot believe that anybody would seriously use something so primitive as vi in this day and age. The same can be said about all Linux distributions, which universally bundle vi."

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Woman faked daughter’s sickness

March 30, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Weird

MARYSVILLE, Ohio (AP) - A woman imprisoned for faking her daughter's leukemia to gain thousands of dollars in donations said she concocted the scheme to keep her husband from leaving.
Teresa Milbrandt told the Columbus Dispatch for a story in Sunday's editions that she regrets what she did, which included shaving her daughter Hannah's head and giving her sleeping pills to make it look like she was undergoing chemotherapy. She also made Hannah wear a protective mask and put her in counselling to prepare for death.

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