‘Such advertising deals may be the future, but the company’s bread and butter continues to be P2P disruption of movies and music downloads. MediaDefender is quite good at this, as it should be after five years of antipiracy work. Unlike DRM providers that focus on protecting the product, MediaDefender tries to protect the distribution channel—and only for a limited time. Recognizing that it is impossible to shut down the sharing of copyrighted works, the company focuses instead on mitigation. Record labels and movie companies can pay between $5,000 and $15,000 per title for differing levels of protection that extend over different time periods.’
‘A man says it wasn’t the 10 beers and a double cocktail that caused his car to weave before being pulled over by police.
Kristopher Lind says his attention wasn’t fully on his driving because his wife had a sex toy bought that day at a sex show in Vancouver.
At his impaired driving trial in B.C., Lind testified he and his wife were driving in Vancouver when they decided to check out the sex toy.
The package proved difficult for his wife to unwrap, so she handed it to him while he was driving.
He said he opened the package with one hand, using his knee to help steer the car, and did the same again to insert batteries.
Once the device was working, he said, his wife took it.’
‘Sydney radio broadcaster Alan Jones is facing a possible jail term after he was found to have broken the law that prohibits the naming of juvenile witnesses in court cases.
In July 2005, the 2GB talkback host named a boy who had given evidence at a murder trial.
The boy was allegedly aged 14 when he witnessed the fatal attack, in 2004.
Although prosecutors could not prove the exact age of the minor, NSW Deputy Chief Magistrate Helen Syme said yesterday evidence showed he had been born between 1988 and 1992, and she accepted that he was younger than 18 at the relevant time. [..]
The companies each face a penalty of $5500, while Jones could be imprisoned for up to 12 months.’
‘Sydney suburb Mosman is set to become the first officially smoke-free municipality in Australia – if not the world – after banning smoking in every council-controlled public space.
The blanket prohibition, passed unanimously by council last week, cements Mosman’s reputation as Australia’s most zealous anti-smoking neighbourhood, taking its war on cigarettes even further than advocated by the NSW Cancer Council.
Residents themselves will help enforce it, according to councillor Andrew Brown, who said Mosmanites had taken on a vigilante-style role in the campaign against nicotine.
“Members of the public will approach people who they see smoking on the beach or in parks and tell them it is not allowed and they risk a fine of $110,” Mr Brown said.’
‘Authorities confiscated more than $200 million in U.S. currency from methamphetamine producers in one of this city’s ritziest neighborhoods, they said Friday, calling it the largest drug cash seizure in history.
The seizure reflected the vast scope of an illegal drug trade linking Asia, Mexico and the United States, officials said. Two of the seven people arrested Thursday at a faux Mediterranean villa in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood were Chinese nationals.’
(11.8meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘A man who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit was convicted Sunday of murdering a photographer, whose charred bones were found in a burn pit outside his home.
Steven Avery, 44, shook his head when the verdict was read. He faces a mandatory life prison term for killing Teresa Halbach, 25, on Halloween 2005 near his family’s salvage yard.
Halbach disappeared Oct. 31, 2005, after going to the yard in rural Manitowoc County to photograph a minivan that Avery’s sister had for sale through Auto Trader Magazine. Avery had called that morning to request the photo, testimony showed.’
‘A Houston mother told police that the family Dachshund bit off her 5-week-old son’s genitals while she was sleeping, but investigators said they are skeptical of the mother’s claims. [..]
“She said she woke up to hear the baby’s cries and found the family pet standing over the boy,” Estella Olguin, Child Protective Services, told KPRC. “She said the dog had been the one to bite the child’s genitals off.”
“The injury that the child has is really not consistent with that of a dog bite or mauling,” Olguin said. “We’ve never seen a case like this, when an animal is being blamed for mutilating a child’s genitals.”‘
‘A man stabbed his 11-month-old son in the back, threw the boy out the car window with the kitchen knife stuck in his back and then drove away, police said Thursday.
“He was conscious, but the knife was buried all the way to the handle,” said Speedway Detective Jim Thiele. The boy, Devon Chandler, was in stable condition at a hospital Thursday.
“To the amazement of the doctors and everyone else involved, (the knife) somehow managed to just miss the vital organs,” Thiele said.’
‘A mentally troubled woman accused of drowning her 6-year-old daughter, cutting off her head and throwing the remains off a bridge has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. [..]
Spann told investigators she was using drugs heavily at the time of the killing, officials have said.
Spann’s father, Gary Spann, told The Sacramento Bee in 2005 his daughter routinely called the girl a “devil child,” and she belonged to a cult that worshipped the late rapper Tupac Shakur as the reincarnation of the 16th century political philosopher Machiavelli.’
‘Soothing rose or tangy lemon? If all goes according to plan, people in the western Indian city of Ahmadabad should find themselves confronted by those two scents by the end of the year when they are stopped by police.
The city’s police department is working with a team of designers to provide 8,000 officers with new uniforms that will be made with specially scented, lightweight fabric designed to keep the police officers sweet smelling and sweat free.
“We think that by end of the year, you will notice a new fresh look when you are intercepted by one of our men,” said J. Mahapatra, the city’s police commissioner.’
‘Malaysian police detained an eight-member gang of small-sized robbers dubbed the “midget gang,” who allegedly confessed to committing 14 break-ins over the past three months, a news report said Thursday.
All the gang members, aged between 14 and 23 years, were diminutive, The Star newspaper said without saying whether they were dwarfs or just small.
Some of them who were less than 5 feet tall would be picked to squeeze through small openings into the houses they robbed in central Malaysia, The Star said.
Gang members confessed to their crimes when they were detained, according to the report.’
‘There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is John Doe. And he may be in the cubicle next to you.
Under a newly amended rule from the Internal Revenue Service, ordinary citizens can help the tax man cometh, or at least collect. The new Whistleblower Office is the IRS’s attempt to give incentives for you to rat out the tax cheats you know.
That’s right. If your employer, co-worker, landlord, neighbor or father-in-law is raking in fistfuls of cash and bypassing Uncle Sam, you can anonymously report the abuse to the IRS and snag a windfall from their dishonesty.
As long as the total amount of tax fraud comes out to at least $2 million (including penalties, interest, and whatever else the government ultimately collects based on your report), you can get a 15 to 30 percent cut.’
‘Public health advocates are turning to a new medium to combat statutory rape among Hispanics in Virginia: A comic book warning that sex between teenage girls and older men risks pregnancy or arrest.
The effort grew out of a 2004 rape-prevention campaign that emblazoned the question “Isn’t she a little young?” on everything from billboards to napkins.
To adapt that message for Hispanics, officials created a fotonovela, a type of Latino comic book featuring themes of love and betrayal.
“Getting males to challenge their peers about having sex with teens is hard in any culture,” said Robert Franklin, an outreach coordinator with the state health department. He said a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t work. “I can’t just translate ‘Isn’t she a little young?’ into Spanish.”‘
‘Ricky Lackey has six children on the way.
Don’t call them sextuplets – they’re each with different women.
When Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Melba Marsh asked Lackey during sentencing Friday on a charge of attempted theft how many children he had, the 25-year-old said, “None, but I have six on the way.”
A stunned Marsh tried to clarify. “Are you marrying a woman with six children?” she asked.
“No, I be concubining,” he said. [..]
Marsh said she wasn’t sure how to respond, so she let the issue drop since it wasn’t relevant to the proceedings.’
‘A 17-year-old girl who spent weeks looking for her missing dog unwrapped a box left on her doorstep and found the pet’s severed head inside, authorities said.
Homicide investigators were looking into the case because of the “implied” terroristic threat, St. Paul Police Sgt. Jim Gray said. The Humane Society of the United States said Wednesday it was offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
“This was extraordinarily heinous,” said Dale Bartlett, the Humane Society’s deputy manager for animal cruelty issues. “I deal with hundreds and hundreds of cruelty cases each year. When I read about this case, it took my breath away. It’s horrible.”‘
‘Prosecutors have demanded a judge impose a harsh two-year prison sentence for the editor-in-chief of the Indonesian version of Playboy. Erwin Arnada was charged in June with distributing indecent pictures and profiting from their sale.
More than 100 Muslim protesters attending the hearing thought the prosecution’s demands were too lax. The raucous group chanted “Hang him, hang him” in the courtroom.
In April, the launch of Playboy’s first Indonesian edition, which contained no nude photos, sparked widespread public debate over morality and decency in the largely Muslim nation.’
‘The Christian Democrat leader, Fred Nile, wants random drug testing for all NSW MPs.
He will be first to volunteer, and wants the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon to be second.
Unaccountably, in 2004 Mr Nile voted for an amendment watering down Rhiannon’s motion to breath-test MPs for alcohol while in Parliament.
Yesterday Mr Nile was tough on drugs in Macquarie Street: “The voting public deserve to know whether the people they elect are capable of making rational decisions and are prepared to devote themselves to the job. There is no room for illegal drug taking in a House of Parliament.”‘
This woman smears herself with boric acid to prove her point that her neighbour is a liar.
It doesn’t prove a thing. :)
(11.9meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘A woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive can face federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling was the latest legal defeat for Angel Raich, a mother of two from Oakland suffering from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments who sued the federal government pre-emptively to avoid being arrested for using the drug. On her doctor’s advice, Raich eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster her appetite. [..]
Raich, 41, began sobbing when she was told of the decision that she was not immune to prosecution and said she would continue using the drug.
“I’m sure not going to let them kill me,” she said. “Oh, my God.”‘
‘ Timothy Michael Seibert was in the midst of raping a 49-year-old woman, according to police, when he answered a cell phone call from his wife.
The woman was so close to the phone she could hear Seibert’s wife yelling at him, asking him where he was and what he was doing, according to arrest documents filed by Silver Spring Twp. police. [..]
The woman, who knew Seibert, also told police that Seibert had raped her once before on May 5, according to arrest documents. That incident was not reported until Sept. 3.’
‘Sussex County prosecutors are investigating whether there’s any fact to the fiction written by four boys.
“The War of the Boys and the Girls; One Winning Team, Many Losses, Tons of Deaths,” describes the violent deaths of a dozen girls and a female teacher.
The fifth-graders used characters with the same names as actual students at McKeown Elementary School in Hampton.
The students were suspended and psychiatric evaluations are scheduled.
Superintendent Everett Burns has told parents that law enforcement has determined the book does not pose a threat.’
‘Six graves were disturbed by vandals who toppled headstones and placed candles, an animal heart, a gourd and a picture of a man among them, police said. [..]
The items left among the headstones included more than a dozen unlit black candles, black handkerchiefs and a photograph of an unidentified man wearing a suit and smiling. The animal heart had pins in it.
Nearby, police found a partially buried statue of a rooster, wrapped in a bandanna with a pair of underwear around its neck.’
‘It all started when a 45-year-old man chased desperately after a Route 33 SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia shortly before 5 p.m., hoping to catch his ride.
Watching the running man intently from inside the bus, police say, was a man in his late 50s or early 60s. The younger man must have thought he was in luck – the Route 33 bus stopped, allowing him to hop on board. Police say he paid his fare and was immediately confronted by the man who’d been watching him.
The older man “began grabbing or shaking him, and asked him, ‘Where’s my money?’ Then he shot him twice in the head,” said Lt. Rich Brown of Central Detectives.’
‘The multitude of charges filed recently against a Nelsonville teen has astonished prosecutors, some of whom have practiced law since before he was born.
Andrew Riley, 13, is charged with 128 felonies, in Athens County Juvenile Court. They include burglary, theft, vandalism and witness intimidation. The delinquency charges stem from a crime spree that has lasted more than a year, authorities said.
“In my 30 years of doing this, I’ve never had a juvenile that young with so many charges,” Athens County Prosecutor C. David Warren said last night.’
‘A man told police not to blame him for crashing his truck into a light post it was that unicorn behind the wheel. Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.
Holliday, 42, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to felony charges of criminal endangerment and drunken driving.’
‘A Philadelphia police officer forced two women to put on a sex show in a jail cell, ordering them to expose their breasts, kiss and touch each other until they broke down in tears, an internal investigation has found.
Internal Affairs also found that police engaged in a coverup and says the women – who were not charged with any crime – should never have been locked up at all.
The report identifies Police Officer Norberto Cappas as the officer who told the women to perform “indecent sexual acts” as a price of release.
It also faults four other officers involved in the detention and jailing of the women, singling out one for being “evasive” and suffering from a suspicious “memory loss.”‘
‘Sometime Sunday evening, someone broke into five recreational vehicles and two buildings behind the Troutdale Outlet Mall owned by the City of Troutdale’s parks and recreation department.
Tools, generators, sanders, welders and six Motorola two-way radios worth about $6,000 were taken, said Sgt. Steve Bevens of the Troutdale Police Department. The crooks left behind plenty of evidence: blood, footprints and fingerprints.
Not too smart, right? It gets better.
At around 9:30 p.m., police officers listening to the city’s radio network were astonished to hear two men laughing and joking about the “trailer” they had just broken into. Hee-hee, they said, let’s meet at the Plaid Pantry and get some beer.’
‘A Department of Justice report made public Friday highlights numerous problems with FBI’s use of national security letters (NSL), a controversial legal device whose use was greatly expanded by the 2001 Patriot Act. NSLs allow the FBI to demand customer records from credit bureaus, banks, phone companies, ISPs, and other organizations without judicial review.
The report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), led by Glenn Fine, found that due to inadequate tracking and reporting systems, the FBI had significantly understated its use of NSLs in previous reports to Congress. After auditing a small fraction of the NSLs issued, Fine’s staff found 22 irregularities, some of them quite serious. That suggests that hundreds of NSLs have been issued in violation of the law. Perhaps worst of all, the report finds that the FBI sent over 700 “exigent letters” to three unidentified telephone companies requesting them to expedite the process by voluntarily handing over customer data without waiting for a formal subpoena or NSL.’
‘Scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.
They say the debate on global warming has been “hijacked” by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.’
‘The actor Sylvester Stallone has been charged with importing a banned human growth hormone into Australia.
He was stopped by customs officials at Sydney airport last month after the banned substance was allegedly found in his luggage.
Stallone, 60, flew into Australia to promote his latest film, Rocky Balboa.
Customs officials said they found 48 small bottles of the hormone after searching the star’s luggage, and later carrying out a raid on his hotel room.
Human growth hormone is considered a performance enhancing drug and cannot be imported into Australia without a special permit.’
Followup to Customs raid on action man Stallone.
