Yeah, used to be Rock and Roll stars had to crash cars into swimming pools to be noticed. Nowadays all they have to do is smoke during a concert. Way to live!

Now police in the UK can invoke the 2006 Violent Crime Reduction Act to issue directions to leave, basically banishing a person (or group of people) from an area for up to 48 hours if they look like they might cause alcohol related disorder, no matter if they’ve actually had anything to drink. This is Read more about Thought Crime UK[…]

Techdirt has two articles running pertaining to how music could use the new digital paradigm to improve there sales and services. The article on Prince and how he exploits the new media show an interesting business model: He also seems to realize a key point in understanding the difference between music that hasn’t yet been Read more about Why the RIAA is wrong and music is turning more and more to file sharing[…]

The US not only wants to extend the amount of time it keeps EU citizen data travelling to the US from 3 to 15 years, it not also only wants to keep information on race, sex lives, credit card numbers and purchases, religion and other incredibly personal biographical data, it also wants to reserve the Read more about UK gives US access to incredibly personal information[…]

In an apparent mistake, Stoke-on-Trent has managed to evade the blanket smoke ban in public places in the UK, by not approving the enforcement powers on time in the city council. Everyone there is overjoyed. Was it really a mistake though? 🙂

Estonia is accusing Russia at NATO summits of attacking the IT infrastructure of the country – newspapers, TV stations, government websites, et al are being brought down. Russia is denying.

Simple: Ask Peru to turn your building into a consulate. It’s legal to smoke in Peru, so no problem in the pub! DIE, evil anti-smoking nazi’s, we will find a way to prevail!!!

In all, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed off on 2,176 warrants targeting people in the United States believed to be linked to international terror organizations or spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Welcome Read more about US Spying on own citizens at record levels[…]

This guy has built a 90 seat pub extension to his house, where his mates and family can come in, drink a pint and not worry about those anal retentive anti-smokers. Despite a ban on pub smoking in Wales, he gets away with it because it’s not really a pub. Everything in his place is Read more about Anti Anti Smoking Activism continues[…]

The smoke Nazi’s are being thwarted much like the anti-tobacco czars during the prohibition in Philadelpia. Smoke easies refuse to enforce the anti-smoking laws in effect and allow people to act like people with free choice: they can smoke, drink and eat as they like inside. Let’s hope the rest of the free world follows Read more about Philadelphia Smoke-easies[…]

Zathur thought this one out for us: People will have to do their own research. I just googled to get some topics out. Not saying that I support any of the topics discussed, I’m PRO making people think about society and issues around them and not to take stuff for granted. IRS is illegal in Read more about Is the US IRS illegal?[…]

There we go. Australia implements a compulsory ID Card Scheme, whilst promising that the data wouldn’t be stored in a central database or be easily accessible and as soon as it’s implemented… WHACK! The police are allowed to search the central database without a warrant! Who’d have thought you couldn’t trust the politicians?

Didn’t we win the cold war for our Freedoms? Didn’t we win WWII for our Freedoms? Then why is the UK implementing a measure that sees all children aged 11 and less to be compulsorily fingerprinted from 2010? Are they all guilty of crimes they haven’t committed? When will people understand the dangers of centralised Read more about Soviet Britain[…]

Maine has rejected the US Federal Real ID act – a digital, machine readable ID card that will be required to do just about anything in the US despite the usual fearmongering about terrorists and protection. It seems Maine is citing cost as an issue, but also lack of interest. Have they realised that it’s Read more about Paper doesn’t prove who you are, you do.[…]

A man wins $102,000 in a slot machine, the casino scratches it’s head, calls it a computer malfunction (as the slot machine wasn’t set to pay out!) and instead gives the man two dinner tickets. Isn’t gambling supposed to be a game of chance? In other words, give the Philadelphia Park Casino a miss.

Illegal bars – in sheds, houses, etc. where people come to drink and smoke… This unlicenced drinking leads to more drink driving and more drinking under minors.

Novell claims that SCO is going down, and seeing as all of SCO’s intellectual property is actually licenced from Novell, they want all the money SCO owes them before SCO goes bust as a result of frivolous lawsuits.

Yet again a big database has been compromised – the US Secure Flight Database was accedentally opened up to an organisation that wasn’t supposed to have acces. Why do people insist that this won’t happen or that it’s somehow safe to have huge amounts of personal data in one place?

That PC has come to this: Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) is pissed off with how if academic research stirs controversy for some reason and challenges conventional wisdom, disciplinary action (eg. firing) is being taken against the academic who voiced the research. I thought the whole point of research was to challenge accepted wisdom, otherwise Read more about Academics want to be able to state science[…]

They own a fair chunk of YouTube – and got that chunk just scant hours before the sale with Google was signed!

This is the in depth story of how plane spotters found out about the secret CIA flights / torture taxis to detainee prisons based in Europe.

Yes, the USA will have all your passenger data. Untill June 2007, when they’ll “renegotiate”. Well done on the crumpling front, Europe.

Yet again there will be a bill in the EU parliament for software patents, but there has been some sort of compromise which means it’s likely to be ratified this time. Just what the compromise is, I can’t really find out, except that it seems to make lawsuits on patent infringements more expensive, meaning IMHO Read more about European Software Patents Up For Bat Again[…]

IBM sees flaws in the patent system, which is remarkable considering it’s the largest patent holder in the world. They will post their applications on the web before acceptance, considering that technological advance is preferable to stagnancy and they will oppose any non technological advancing patent. Good stuff IBM!

Limewire is slamming the RIAA with antitrust, consumer violations and other misconduct lawsuits. Good luck boys!