Friday, September 09, 2005

SGA candidate profiles available online. The Student Government Association will hold elections for nine open positions Sept. 12 through 15. Profiles of the candidates, including what they are running for, their qualifications and goals are available on The SGA website. [The Journal] 8:54:40 PM    comment []

Hi. You've got anthrax. By John Dudley Miller, in The Scientist (on anthrax hoaxes). 8:51:32 PM    comment []

From Kevin, news that An untiring team has installed a low power FM micro-radio transmitter in the Houston Astrodome, where thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees are living. On Sunday, the FCC approved a temporary license for the facility. Austin Airwaves provided the transmitter, the Prometheus Radio Project provided the antenna and about 10,000 handheld radios were provided from various sources. Installation was held up by a Harris County official, who feared violence if evacuees listened to gangsta rap, said Media Access Project Senior VP Harold Feld. The official eventually relented and the facility was in place Wednesday. [SOURCE: Communications Daily] (Not available online) A story that is available online: LIVE FROM THE ASTRODOME, A RADIO STATION FOR EVACUEES Federal regulators have authorized an unusual radio station to serve the estimated 10,000 evacuees living in the Houston Astrodome, part of an effort to fill the information void left by Hurricane Katrina's disruption of communications services along the Gulf Coast. The Federal Communications Commission over the weekend granted Houston relief volunteers and media organizers permission to build a 30-watt radio station inside the Astrodome. Government and industry officials said it was the first time they could recall that a domestic radio station had been set up primarily to keep victims of a U.S. disaster informed. They predicted that the station would improve communications for residents, who rely mostly on bulletin board postings and word of mouth for news about jobs, missing relatives, housing and child care. [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jube Shiver Jr] 11:50:44 AM    comment []

Two from BNA News: REALTORS DROP PLAN TO RESTRICT ACCESS TO LISTINGS In response to antitrust concerns, the National Association of Realtors will drop a plan to permit real estate agents to restrict access to home sales listings on the Internet. Instead it will set rules ensuring that all real estate agents have access to the same information. Association officials had previously insisted on maintaining policies that allowed agents to control listings. [Washington Post] MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL SUES KATRINA PHISHER Missouri's attorney general has filed suit seeking to shut down at least 10 hurricane relief websites that he said are quietly run by a man with ties to a racist group - and that may not benefit storm victims at all. On Wednesday afternoon, St. Louis Circuit Judge Julian Bush issued a temporary restraining order requiring the man and his recently formed company, Internet Donations Inc., to stop seeking contributions. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] 9:50:27 AM    comment []

Snopes.com responds. As during war, in the fog of cataclysmic disasters, the first casualty is truth. Therefore it's good to have a snopes.com Katrina page to help sort out fact from urban instalegend. tags: katrina urban legends, katrina facts, katrina myths [rexblog: Rex Hammock's Weblog] 6:57:31 AM    comment []

Lenghty, forward-looking, thoughtful post by Nicole-Anne Boyer: Refugees in America.  [WorldChanging: Another World Is Here] 6:56:56 AM    comment []

Cites & Insights July/August 2005 - Guns 'n iPods. Walt Crawford's publication Cites & Insights 5:9, July/August 2005 was released a while back, and I kept putting off writing about it. It covers the Grokster case extensively, DVD-bowlderizers, conference commentary, etc. All worth reading. I get mentioned a few times, which warms my heart. There's matters about which I'd want to clarify or expand my views - but on the other hand, it's not worth typing pages about it, especially during the middle of summer. There's one portion where I can add particular value. The Guns-vs-iPods issue has in fact been in the news, in terms of the various standards of liability for different types of products (remember Andrew Orlowski's joke: "It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod." - we aren't quite there yet, but that definitely sums up one potential future). Walt writes: I believe a handgun company that advertises its products as "Perfect for taking out your old lady" and bases its business model on an increased rate of homicide should be liable, regardless of the Second Amendment. (That's a hypothetical case!) Interestingly, that's not such a hypothetical case. For example, there's a discussion of "Merrill v. Navegar": "The TEC-9/DC9 was designed to be fired from the shooter's hip; the barrel of the gun was threaded to accommodate silencers and flash suppressors; and Navegar advertised the assault weapon as having excellent resistance to fingerprints. Navegar's director of national sales and marketing testified that he welcomed negative news stories about the TEC-9/DC9s because "whenever anything negative has happened, sales have gone tremendously high." It turns out the debate corresponds very deeply, with inferences from design, proposed technology mandates, making inducement arguments, and so on. It's surprisingly similar. I'm not going to say anymore. But the analogy turns out to be provocative on many levels. [Infothought] 6:52:25 AM    comment []

Buddhist monk develops "dhamma doctrine", or morality ringtones. According to News24.com, a Thai Buddhist monk has developed "dhamma doctrine", or morality, ringtones for cellphones that will be available on all domestic cellphone networks next week. [via Engadget] The ringtones, developed by popular monk Phra Phayom Kalayano, will consist of Buddhist mantras such as: "Anger is stupidity; fury is madness"; "Compose yourself before answering this call"; "Don't let mobile phone conversations lead to premature sex and pregnancy." The dhamma ringtones can be downloaded from the internet, with all profits going to the Wat Suan Kaew Foundation, which provides charity for the poor. [Smart Mobs] 6:52:10 AM    comment []

Bioethics Council Head to Step Down [Washington Post: Top News] 6:51:34 AM    comment []

Brain May Still Be Evolving, Studies Hint. Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say. By NICHOLAS WADE. [NYT > Science] 6:51:29 AM    comment []

Hey, Brownie, what happened to Pat Robertson?. FEMA touted Robertson's Operation Blessing as a place to send Katrina donations. Now it has removed Robertson's group from its list of suggested charities -- sort of. [Salon.com] 6:46:16 AM    comment []

RIAA in Santangelo Case: Umm...Can We Do Over? (Donna Wentworth). As my EFF colleague Danny O'Brien dryly observes, it looks like the RIAA isn't very happy with its performance in court in the Patricia Santangelo case. It's asking for a second try up at bat. Specifically, it has requested a second oral argument and permission to serve a surreply. What does this mean? Writes Ray Beckerman, Santangelo's lawyer: The surreply request is unusual because the normal rule is that the party bearing the affirmative burden of persuasion (in this instance Ms. Santangelo) gets to have the last word. The party making the motion bears the burden of persuading the court, and serves its motion papers. The opposing party serves its opposition papers. And then the movant gets the last word -- its reply papers. I would say that asking for a second oral argument is unusual, because (a) in almost 31 years of working in litigation I've never heard of anyone doing it, and (b) the very asking for it is an admission that the first oral argument was lost. One can only guess as to why plaintiff's lawyers are doing it. Apparently something happened after August 15th to convince the plaintiff's lawyers that (a) they are losing, and/or (b) the case is more important than they initially thought it was. Or perhaps they are doing it because they are hired guns and their client just ordered them to do it. What do you think? Previous relevant Copyfight coverage: Do It Right or Not at All (also be sure to check out Mike Godwin's commentary @ Runaround Suits). [Copyfight] 6:46:06 AM    comment []