Blogger Fights for Free Speech in New Jersey

"Bloggers, as well as everyone else, have a First Amendment right to speak anonymously," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Litigants don't get a blank check to pry into the private lives of critics when they say things the litigants don't like. The fact that it is the government trying to abuse the discovery process makes this attempted invasion of privacy all the more repugnant."

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My instant boob job from 36A to 36DD - and the effect it had on men (and women)

But what had inspired this frankly odd behaviour from complete strangers? Quite simply, it was my pair of perfectly perky 36DD breasts.

What they didn't know of course was that they were in fact made of silicone and had been 'added' to my chest the previous day.

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I realised that a whole lifetime of being checked out, and commented on, like some prize heifer, would drive me quite mad.

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Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA).

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Guliani : "You're all a bunch of morons"

Do you have any idea who last looked at your data?

Yahoo and Google's troubles are probably just the start of what will be another long battle in the war over corporations as agents of control. Left to their own devices, such companies are driven to store as much data as possible for as long as is practical.

We cannot expect that having large warehouses of data on individuals will be free from unintended consequences, especially when there are incentives to try to build highly detailed models of everyone's lives. The price of total personalisation is total surveillance.

Thanks to Luis for the article.

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For toddlers, toy of choice is tech device

Cell phones, laptops, digital cameras and MP3 music players are among the hottest gift items this year. For preschoolers.

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Ron Paul The CandidateMost Hated By Most Jews

So it appears we are faced with Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, though these Alice-in-Wonderland characters are far from harmless. No one else has the blessing of the media and the other behind-the-scene controllers of American life (OK, AIPAC). The only two contenders who call for immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and foreswear any attack on Iran - Republican Congressman Ron Paul and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich - are dismissed as fringe candidates if not nutcases. Paul is a self-proclaimed Libertarian, and Kucinich, who introduced a motion to impeach Vice-President Richard Cheney earlier this month, is regularly ridiculed as a believer in UFOs, especially by his stab-in-the-back fellow Democrats. The implication is that it would be dangerous to entrust the reins of government to either of these wackos. This, despite Bush's belief that he has a hotline directly to God himself.

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A New Way to Control Weight?

Scientists have found intriguing evidence that one major reason so many people are overweight these days may be as close as the seat of their pants. Literally. According to the researchers, most of us sit too much.

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Feds Cancel Amazon Customer ID Request

Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), newly unsealed court records show.

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.

Just the fact that the feds actually tried to get this information should concern you.

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High-Tech Drones Joining Miami Police Force

The Miami-Dade police department will begin experimenting with high-tech drones as law enforcement tools beginning next year.

Although the military has been using unmanned aircraft systems for years, this will be the first time they are used in law enforcement.

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College offers medical plan to employees' pets, denies it to their human companions

A Florida college, after denying employees' domestic partners access to medical insurance, has in turn offered a medical plan for employees' household pets, the Palm Beach Post reports.

In August, medical benefits for human domestic partners of employees were denied due to a tie vote among Palm Beach Community College trustees. While the increase in benefits would not have changed the cost to the college, there was concern about future increases due to higher membership in the group plan.

This is the world we have created.

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Study: Sleep deficit may be impossible to make up

New research suggests an added risk to losing sleep day after day: Humans and animals that have chronic sleep deprivation might reach a point at which the very ability to catch up on lost sleep is damaged, says Fred Turek, a sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

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Montclair State Unveils Mandatory 'School Phone'

It includes just 50 peak voice minutes a month, but unlimited text messaging to any carrier, unlimited campus-based data usage, and student activated emergency GPS tracking.

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Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.

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We are set on a course of 'planet saving' madness

The scare over global warming, and our politicians' response to it, is becoming ever more bizarre. On the one hand we have the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up with yet another of its notoriously politicised reports, hyping up the scare by claiming that world surface temperatures have been higher in 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) than ever previously recorded.

This carefully ignores the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

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Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study

More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming.

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Fox's Lie Detector Game Show

“This is going to be the talk of the town and knocked out of the park. You’re either going to love it, or think it’s the end of Western civilization. And that’s the stuff that works.”

Fox’s president of alternative entertainment is referring to “The Moment of Truth,” the network’s sure-to-be controversial game show in which contestants are asked a series of highly personal questions while connected to a polygraph machine.

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Fox’s version works like this: Before the show is taped, a contestant is given a polygraph test and asked 75 questions. Samples include: “Do you really care about the starving children in Africa?” “Are you sexually attracted to one of your wife’s friends?” “Do fat people repulse you?” and “Do you think you’ll still be with your husband five years from now?” Unlike the Colombian version, the show avoids asking about felony-level activities and sticks to revealing family secrets and unearthing private opinions.

The contestant’s responses are determined to be truthful or untruthful by a certified polygraph examiner, but the contestant is not told the results. Within a couple of days after the test, the contestant appears on the show, where he is again asked 21 of their previous questions before a live audience, including family and friends.

Yep. Sure looks like more of the end of civilization to me.

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Should fireplace fires be banned?

The Chronicle reported that "government studies" indicate that 33 percent of all "particulate matter" comes from your fireplace and mine. With all the industry and all the cars in the Bay Area, does anyone actually believe that?

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Forecast: U.S. dollar could plunge 90 pct

A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said.

"We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008."

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Unfair seizure of coins

The company has been in business for 10 years and they have not been targeted by the U.S. government until now. In fact, both the United States Mint and the Federal Reserve have admitted that what the company was doing was perfectly legal.

What is the reason for the raid by the FBI if the company had been operating lawfully for nearly 10 years?

Earlier this year the company began minting two new coins, the 2008 "Peace Dollar" with the words "STOP THE WAR" on the reverse side and the 2008 coin commemorating the presidential campaign of Ron Paul. The Feds just have to stop Representative Ron Paul somehow, since he is the only presidential candidate who is pro-liberty.

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