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EFF states the blindingly obvious to everyone except the Administration. Profiling isn't allowed elsewhere, but it seems ok when we're talking about aviation.
"We're concerned that the Homeland Security Department's CAPPS II plan sacrifices the privacy and civil liberties of travelers without a logical connection to safety and security," said EFF Attorney Kevin Bankston. [EFF: Press]
In a rare showing of seeming compassion, which is actually a ploy to say "you don't need to regulate us," the telemarketing industry attempts to prove to consumers that it's not quite so bad. As usual, we know better :-)
The nation's largest telemarketing association yesterday said its members would comply with the government's do-not-call list on Wednesday, even though a federal judge has ruled that the registry is unconstitutional. [Washington Post: Front Page]
Apparently, our T1 cable has been deteriorating over time, causing a complete failure yesterday. A temporary fix is installed. Apparently the big guns will come "real soon now" and give us a new cable. Due to the tenacity of the RS, Verizon did indeed show up on Sunday and did indeed trace down the problem and fix it. For this, we are pleased.
Gee, what is wrong with this picture?
A federal judge in Denver ruled late yesterday that the government's effort to curb unsolicited telemarketing calls was unconstitutional, another blow to plans to implement a national do-not-call list next week. [Washington Post: Front Page]
I can just imagine people flying around sidewalks everywhere. Beware flying people
The company behind the Segway Human Transporter has agreed to recall the motorized scooters because riders have been injured falling off when its batteries are low... [MacMinute]
To our fabulous and fantastic fans, we hate to tell you this, but there was a big ole database meltdown of some sort that caused serious problems with the blog, necessitating its movement to another machine until we can try to restore things on the other machine. We are unhappy. However, we will prevail. We will make it work. It will be better. Film at 11.
We have POWER!!!!!! 139 hours later, but we have power. WOO HOO.
It's about time that people stand up for what is right and hold companies responsible for their breaches of trust - ed.
Passengers are filing a class-action lawsuit against JetBlue Airways for fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of contract and invasion of privacy. Meanwhile, the FTC reviews a privacy group's formal complaint against the airline. [Wired News]
Well, the latest recording on the Dominion Virginia Power site says that we will be out of power until TOMORROW NIGHT AT 11 PM. That would be power going down on Thursday, 9/18/03 at 7PM and up Wednesday, 9/24/03 at 11PM. In a suburb of Washington, DC, the Nation's Capital of the supposedly most powerful country in the world. Meantime, Ocracoke Island, ground zero for Hurricane Isabel's landfall, has been enjoying power for days.
So what's wrong with this picture? I'll tell you what's wrong. Two trucks were sitting in the yard of someone up the street from us, for HOURS getting THEIR power on. Those two trucks could have done something about the whole area, perhaps. They say they allocate help depending on what will bring the largest number of people up at once, but somehow I have to wonder.
Psycho Sensei must speak at an International Trademark Association luncheon today. Thank the gods that a friend has power and has offered his shower :-). Otherwise, there could be a health concern for the spectators.
After attempting to ram his god down the throats of the citizens of Alabama, now our favorite "judicial icon" is trying to ram it down the throats of the ENTIRE population. It will be amusing to see how this political hot potato goes.
To the dismay of the many millions of Dark Rantings fans, our site has been up and down quite a bit over the past four days, and it has not been fun. Hurricane Isabel has pounded our little area of Northern Virginia, causing significant damage to the ABOVE GROUND lines that they were too cheap to bury.
A pole a block away went down, the transformers all over the road, and a pole two blocks to the other side went down. When we saw many crews there last night, we hoped that our power would be up soon. Alas, 8 loud explosions later, we surmised that we did not have the "A" team. When they sped away in a short yellow school bus, our worst fears were realized. Another night without power.
This lovely outage has wreaked havoc with our servers, our hygiene and just about everything else. We have a small generator running some things, but it can't handle the hot water heater, and can't run continuously because it spits fire out it's exhaust. Try pouring more gasoline into a flaming wreck like that why don't cha?
So we are physically fine, but emotionally frazzled.
It's about time SOMEBODY got some balls! Go UK!
The UK has made spam a criminal offence to try to stop the flood of unsolicited messages. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]
Trust has been destroyed completely in JetBlue and it's the company's own fault. Ridiculous. Anyone who has any semblance of a brain whatsoever should never, EVER fly an airline that would sell out its passengers so completely.
The airline admits it gave 5 million itineraries to a defense contractor last year without passengers' consent. The contractor bought more personal information on the passengers, including Social Security numbers -- for what purpose? By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
We Internet users, who either own domain names or have an interest in the domain name system, wish to object to the VeriSign's Site Finder system. We believe that the system: 1) Breaks technical standards, by rewriting the expected error codes to instead point to VeriSign's pay-per-click web directory, and threatens the security and stability of the Internet; 2) Breaks technical standards affecting email services, and other Internet systems... [CircleID]
Saudi Arabia: Barbie dolls are already illegal there, but Saudi Arabia's religious police have now decided the toy is a threat to morality, and causes little girls to want jeans, rather than a burka. Oh, and they're Jewish, too, apparently. The organisation's website reproduces a poster they have placed in schools and around the streets:
Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful.
Barbie is not the only thing causing offence:
Other items listed as violations on the site included Valentine's Day gifts, perfume bottles in the shape of women's bodies, clothing with logos that include a cross, and decorative copies of religious items -- offensive because they could be damaged and thus insult Islam.
Despite this kind of thing:
The muttawa patrol the streets of the kingdom, preventing men from mingling with women, enforcing strict Islamic dress for women, chasing worshippers late for prayers, and punishing shop keepers who stay open during prayer hours. They sometimes work with a police officer who can enforce legal punishments on people deemed violators.
...the United States has resisited declaring Saudi Arabia a 'country of particular concern' under the International Religious Freedom Act , and against the advice of its own Commission on International Religious Freedom. Saudi police say Barbie dolls a threat to morality - CNN , 10th September 2003; United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Report on Saudi Arabia, May 2003.
[The Pagan Prattle Online]
Egypt: An Egyptian acadmic has announced plans to sue all the Jews of the world
for the return of everything they stole from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless
.
If we assume that the weight of what was stolen was one ton, [its worth] doubled every 20 years, even if the annual interest is only 5%. In one ton of gold is 700 kg of pure gold -- and we must remember that what was stolen was jewelry, that is, alloyed with copper. Hence, after 1,000 years, it would be worth 1,125,898,240 million tons, which equals 1,125,898 billion tons for 1,000 years. In other words, 1,125 trillion tons of gold, that is, a million multiplied by a million tons of gold. This is for one stolen ton. The stolen gold is estimated at 300 tons, and it was not stolen for 1,000 years, but for 5,758 years, by the Jewish reckoning. Therefore, the debt is very large…
Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq, assures the Jews that The debt can be rescheduled over 1,000 years, with the addition of the cumulative interest during that period
. Dr. Hilmi quotes the Torah as evidence of Jewish ill-deeds - a book which also says that the Jews were being kept against their will as slaves. I wonder how much the reparations for that will be (with interest, of course)? Egyptian Jurists to Sue 'The Jews' for Compensation for 'Trillions' of Tons of Gold Allegedly Stolen During Exodus from Egypt - memri.org (usual caveats apply), 22nd August 2003.
[The Pagan Prattle Online]
WHY does it take the court to tell us things that should be common sense? Why do we allow ridiculous lawsuits like this to even be heard?
In a rare blow for sense in the DMCA muddle, an Illinois district court ruled that replacement garage door openers were not "circumvention" devices under the DMCA's anticircumvention provision. Chamberlain, a maker of garage door opener devices, claimed that Skylink's interoperable replacements circumvented its access controls, but couldn't manage to show the court how accessing one's own car was the kind of harm Congress envisioned when passing the DMCA. Maybe if they'd called it a boat garage ...
[Wendy: The Blog]"Trust us. We're from ICANN and we're here to help you." Yeah, right. They must think we're as stupid as Ashcroft does. Once again, in a blinding display of openness and transparency, ICANN decides to overrun users and possibly even national interests (we don't know because they haven't told us....) in a secret plan to redelegate dot MD. Nobody knows either, whether or not the users will keep their domain names.
The company that won't do a damn thing about registrars who screw consumers have no problem redelegating an entire country code TLD. Ain't life fair?
Bankrupt .MD Operator Protests ICANN Action on .MD Redelegation [ICANNWatch]