CBC News: Iraq bars non-Iraqi Arabs from the country

There are two interesting tid-bits in this article. The first:

It's believed most enter illegally through Iraq's thinly-guarded desert borders.

and the second:

An Associated Press correspondent of Egyptian nationality was also barred from boarding a plane Friday for Baghdad. Iraqi officials say there will be no exceptions to the new rule.

The two taken together with this comment

An Interior Ministry official said it was "part of security procedures" reportedly implemented Nov. 29, with no formal announcement. No date for lifting the restriction has been set.

shows that they aren't serious about security and they are serious about reducing the chances of a free and fair election. I wonder if the Bush-Wants-To-Bomb-Al-Jazeera memo prompted any of this. Probably not, but it does make for a lovely paranoid fantasy doesn't it.

French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software

I believe the title says it all. Article here.

Bad Reporter: Kansas votes 4-1 to allow intelligent design

Included are details of how they will change the lyrics to their famous song Dust In The Wind. I like this comic, I must pay closer attention to it. I wonder if there is an RSS feed. There is, at least, an archive.

Lawyers, Guns and Money: John Derbyshire: One Hell of a Creepy Guy

Luckily, I am not this creepy. The good thing is that quite often these days prospective mates are googling each other. Stuff like that should have helped to insure he stayed out of the gene pool, but apparently we are too late. I do find the poses his wife makes in the photographs intstructional. I wonder what someone trained in the field of relationships would make of the fact that they are never holding hands, in fact she is most often seen clutching her own. As a wild stab in the dark I would say mail-order bride or arranged marriage. Poor woman.

Will Ferrell: Earth to America

On the issue of the so-called global warmings.

Googlemaps

ad. Funny. Oh, and here is one for the X-Box 360

World's 10 Tallest Buildings - SkyscraperPage.com

No politics, no IP, just height.
World's 10 Tallest Buildings - SkyscraperPage.com

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Potential Taste Receptor for Fat Identified

So all I need to do is cut off my tongue? Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Potential Taste Receptor for Fat Identified

Shyamalan: Day-and-date 'life or death to me'

Oh well, I guess M. Night can kill himslef.

Patent Baristas: USPTO Issues Double-Patenting Rejection on Genentech's 29-Year Patent

Patent Baristas: USPTO Issues Double-Patenting Rejection on Genentech's 29-Year Patent

Here is some background on the patent.

Mindless Link Propagation

Several things have recently caught my eye:
Copyfight: the politics of IP USC/Berkeley Report: over 30% of DMCA take-down notices are improper.
Bruce Schneier on Security: Australian Minister's Sensible Comments on Airline Security Sparks Outcry
More on habeus corpus Balkinization: Padilla and Hamdi
Boing Boing: Anti-game lawyer loses right to practice law in Alabama - all together now, "poor Jack Thompson!"
MercuryNews.com | 11/29/2005 | Supreme Court to hear eBay patent case plea
Cracking safes with thermal imaging
Well, they have asked. Think Progress » Bush Said He Would Withdraw U.S. Forces If The Iraqis Asked
Another one from Bruce Schneier on attempts by EU media corps to use anti-terrorism data retention to mine for IP infringement (which they want to make a criminal offence)
The Washington Post reports on US domestic military surveillance.
And finally, a little levity. Perhaps Case 3 (Wendy) could use Panexa^™ to help her get over her accident.

Macleans.ca | Canada | You are exposed

Ooops. Turns out it is really easy to get other people's phone records. Even when that other person is the privacy commissioner of Canada.

SBC: ain't no way VoIP uses mah pipes!

A couple more links on the original net neutrality comment. On Ars Technica and Dave Farber's IP List

Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed, Shoot Self In Foot

Do you remember last month when the CEO of SBC AT&T was showing his bulging manhood to anyone who would look? Well it seems that one of his lackies is continuing to test these waters and word on the street is Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed. The money quote for me is:

his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.

Which is just asking for trouble. I can see Larry and Eric and Sergey sitting around the table, reviewing AT&T Satan's latest proposal:

Larry: "Says here that they think we should pay them 10 cents for every page."
Eric: "Interesting. I wonder what sort of results we should return ..."
Sergey: "First 10 links for your search for AT&Rape? AT&Nazi-abortion-paedophilia?"

ISPs are so cute when they think that we care who provides our bandwidth.

As an aside, I thought this quote from the article was interesting:

Legislating otherwise "would be the same thing as saying to Google, 'I think we ought to have regulation on Google that says when I enter a search term, the top search result is always a random event,' " Smith said, claiming that Google allows clients to pay to influence the ranking of search results. In fact, Google does not allow payments to influence general search results, although advertisers pay for top billing on the lists that run on the right side of Google's pages.

I don't remember seeing the memo about journalists having some backbone and actually pointing out lies, do you?

This, I believe...

(Just in case - my views are my own, and don’t blame Chris (or anyone else) for them, please).

Thank you Mr. Penn Jillette , for this near perfect elucidation of my own views on the subject of God (and religion, and All That Sort Of Thing), from his NPR “This I believe” contribution.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.