Who did MPAA rip off "You can click but you can't hide" from?

The MPAA's new catchphrase "You can click, but you can't hide" is a remix of the famous phrase "You can run, but you can't hide," which was popularized by intellectual property abolishionist and EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow in a song he wrote for the Grateful Dead. He might have gotten it from The Road Warrior. The original phrase seems to have come from the boxer Joe Louis.

So there you have it: the MPAA has ripped, mixed and burned a phrase out of the cultural commons -- they appropriated it, reversed the meaning it had been imbued with by its copyfighting popularizer, and put it out there, not even bothering to credit Lewis or Barlow. Sly old MPAA. Link

We can run,
But we can't hide from it.
Of all possible worlds,
We only got one:
We gotta to ride on it.
Whatever we've done,
We'll never get far from what we leave behind,
Baby, we can run, run, run, but we can't hide.
Oh no, we can't hide.

Voting Documents For Sale on eBay

One resident of Nebraska's Cass County was so frustrated after his absentee ballot wasn't counted in the Nov. 2004 election, he decided to do something about it. After writing letters to a variety of media outlets and none expressed interest, he put the original letters he received from his elections officials explaining up for bidding on eBay. The documents are currently going for $28.13 , with 6 days of bidding remaining. The bidder explains:
I posted these documents on eBay because everyone in the media seems to get so excited when someone sells their family online, or advertising space on their head. No one gets excited when they get these very documents sent to them in the mail or in eMail. I thought this would give my voting problems a little more exposure, since other media outlets I have sent copies to have not responded. Ashland Gazette where are you? All profit form this sale will go to the Nebraska Green Party. They were the first ones to respond to my requests for help. Out of all the letters I sent, they were the ones who cared and showed it. They need help getting signatures on their petition in order to keep the Green Party an official political party in Nebraska with ballot access.

ARMY CHIEF: ALL IRAQ VEHICLES ARMORED

It took long enough. But "in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday [here's the prepared version], the Army’s civilian chief pledged that by next week, no soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan would drive outside the base perimeter in an unprotected vehicle," Defense Daily reports.

Fast-Food Documentary Heading to Schools

What happens when a man eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days? It's a lesson that schoolchildren across the country are about to find out.
Morgan Spurlock, director and star of "Super Size Me: A film of epic proportions," is releasing an edited version of the film for classrooms. The school version of the Academy-Award nominated film is scheduled to be released after the Feb. 27 Oscars ceremony.

Missing Halliburton Radioactive Package Found

A shipment of radioactive material ordered by Halliburton Co. that went missing in New Jersey was found in Boston on Wednesday, the company said in a filing to federal regulators this week.The shipment of americium came from Russia via Amsterdam and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, but disappeared sometime after it cleared U.S. Customs on October 9, according to a Halliburton filing made to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday.

Teach Evolution: Leave No Child Behind

Teaching the age and history of our planet takes us back about 4.6 billion years; it is included in only 55% of our 50 State’s science education standards.
...Evolution is fundamental to modern biology, geology and astronomy. Ignoring or discarding fundamental scientific understandings of the natural world does not prepare our children well for the future. As America strives to "leave no child behind," it’s time that evolution is not left behind in our science classrooms.

Happy Darwin Day!

At this juncture in history, the world has become so small and interdependent that we need a Global Celebration to promote a common bond between all people. The Darwin Day Celebration was founded on the premise that science, like music, is an international language that speaks to all people in very similar ways. While music is both intellectual and entertaining, science is our most reliable knowledge system, and it has been and continues to be acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity. Moreover, evolution, introduced by Charles Darwin, has become the central organizing principle for all basic scientific research; particularly in biology but also in physics and cosmology. In addition, Darwin himself has become an internationally acclaimed figure, whose influence on progressive modern thought continues to be both profound and pervasive (Ernst Mayr, Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought, Scientific American, July 2000).
Current research in the field of genetics, including that on the human genome, has conclusively shown that all humans are essentially identical and that we are genetically related to all other living things on this planet. Thus an enlightened view of genetics is one of unity and equality among all humans and also one that fosters a deeper sense of respect and appreciation for all life. Today the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection rests in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of genetics. Therefore, we conclude that Charles Darwin is a worthy symbol on which to focus, in order to build a Global Celebration of Science and Humanity that is intended to promote a common bond between all people of the earth.

Al Franken calls on Brit Hume to resign

On the February 9 edition of Air America Radio's The Al Franken Show, Franken called on FOX News Washington managing editor Brit Hume to resign for falsely claiming that former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt expressed support for Social Security privatization. Listen here.

Multicast Ruling Muddies Digital TV Changeover

The FCC won't require cable operators to carry multicast streams from broadcast stations, and that may slow the switch to digital TV.

Arthur Miller, Playwrite and Mich Houser, Dies at 89

"Death of a Salesman," which took Miller only six weeks to write, earned rave reviews when it opened on Broadway in February 1949, directed by Elia Kazan.
The story of Willy Loman, a man destroyed by his own stubborn belief in the glory of American capitalism and the redemptive power of success, was made into a movie and staged all over the world.
"I couldn't have predicted that a work like `Death of a Salesman' would take on the proportions it has," Miller said in 1988. "Originally, it was a literal play about a literal salesman, but it has become a bit of a myth, not only here but in many other parts of the world."

Beautiful Scientific Photography

Paul Krugman: Bush's Class-War Budget

First, the facts: the budget proposal really does take food from the mouths of babes. One of the proposed spending cuts would make it harder for working families with children to receive food stamps, terminating aid for about 300,000 people. Another would deny child care assistance to about 300,000 children, again in low-income working families.
And the budget really does shower largesse on millionaires even as it punishes the needy. For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities informs us that even as the administration demands spending cuts, it will proceed with the phaseout of two little-known tax provisions - originally put in place under the first President George Bush - that limit deductions and exemptions for high-income households.
More than half of the benefits from this backdoor tax cut would go to people with incomes of more than a million dollars; 97 percent would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000.

White House Queried on Media Policy after Pseudonymous "Gannon" Revealed

n a letter to President Bush yesterday, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., called for an explanation of how a Talon News reporter who used the pseudonym "Jeff Gannon" was admitted to White House briefings.
Gannon resigned late Tuesday amid a flurry of accusations about his professional credentials and links to the Republican Party and could not be reached for comment.
"It appears that 'Mr. Gannon's' presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your administration," wrote Slaughter, a senior member of the House Rules Committee who has been active in media fairness and ownership issues.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he had not seen the letter from Slaughter, but dismissed her suggestion that Gannon was allowed into White House news briefings to help promote Bush's political agenda.

Bush Team Tried to Suppress Pre-9/11 Report Into al-Qaeda

Federal officials were repeatedly warned in the months before the 11 September 2001 terror attacks that Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida were planning aircraft hijackings and suicide attacks, according to a new report that the Bush administration has been suppressing.

A newly-released memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The memo dated Jan. 25, 2001 was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site at http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm on Feb. 10, 2005. Page one of the three-page memo is shown. Click on the image to open the 3-page memo as a .pdf file.

Critics say the new information undermines the government's claim that intelligence about al-Qa'ida's ambitions was "historical" in nature.
The independent commission investigating the attacks on New York and Washington concluded that while officials at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) did receive warnings, they were "lulled into a false sense of security". As a result, "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures".
The report, withheld from the public for months, says the FAA was primarily focused on the likelihood of an incident overseas. However, in spring 2001, it warned US airports that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable".

Google Offers to Host Wikipedia

Google Inc. has made a proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects.
The terms of the offer are currently being discussed by the board. The developer committee has been informed of some of the details via email. A private IRC meeting with Google is planned for March, 2005.
Please note that this agreement does not mean there is any requirement for us to include advertising on the site.
More details will be put here when the offer is allowed to be made public.

PUBLIC INTEREST DECLASSIFICATION BOARD MAY GO UNFUNDED

The Public Interest Declassification Board, an advisory body created in the FY 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act to help set declassification priorities and mediate conflicts, suffered the ignominy of not having
its members named for four years.
But now that six of its nine members have been named (SN, 02/02/05), the Board faces the further insult of being denied the budget it needs to commence its work.
No money was appropriated for the Board in the current fiscal year, and no money has been requested for the Board in the next fiscal year. That adds up to no money at all.
The link is to the legislation that established the board. [from SecrecyNews]

U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told To Alter Findings

Source: Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2005

Scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been told to change their research findings concerning the protection of plants and animals. A survey of USFWS biologists, ecologists, botanists and other science professionals sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility finds:
"Nearly half of all respondents whose work is related to endangered species scientific findings (44 percent) reported that they 'have been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making jeopardy or other findings that are protective of species.' One in five agency scientists revealed they have been instructed to compromise their scientific integrity—reporting that they have been 'directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from a USFWS scientific document,' such as a biological opinion;
"More than half of all respondents (56 percent) knew of cases where "commercial interests have inappropriately induced the reversal or withdrawal of scientific conclusions or decisions through political intervention."

House approves electronic ID cards

The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Thursday a sweeping set of rules aimed at forcing states to issue all adults federally approved electronic ID cards, including driver's licenses.
Under the rules, federal employees would reject licenses or identity cards that don't comply, which could curb Americans' access to airplanes, trains, national parks, federal courthouses and other areas controlled by the federal government. The bill was approved by a 261-161 vote.
The measure, called the Real ID Act, says that driver's licenses and other ID cards must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined "machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements" that could include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with drafting the details of the regulation.

Scientists Asked About the Future of Life

The leading candidates for the next revolution are enthralling, depressing and mind-boggling. Seth Shostak, of the alien-hunting Seti organisation in California, believes that we will become the first species to invent our successor, intentionally demoting ourselves to intellectual second fiddle. Others say we will finally understand the workings of the mind, and with it grasp fully the nature of self. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City University of New York, believes that we will discover parallel universes, perhaps floating just inches away from our own. Elvis Presley might even be alive and well in one of them, he says. The Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield sees a bleak future. We will see a melding of man and machine, she says, leading to the demise of the individual.

Space Debris Crowds the Not-So-Friendly Skies

Here’s the heavenly clutter count as of December 29, 2004.
There were 9,233 objects large enough to be tracked and catalogued by the USSTRATCOM Space Surveillance Network. Of this total there were 2,927 payloads, along with 6,306 object classed as rocket bodies and debris.
That’s the stats as listed in the January issue of The Orbital Debris Quarterly News, issued by the NASA Johnson Space Center Orbital Debris Program Office in Houston, Texas.