Representative Zoe Lofgren, the Democrat congresswoman from San Jose, has introduced a bill that counters Hollywood's increasingly insistent efforts to prevent consumers from manipulating digital data. Up to now, it's been a one-sided fight with computer makers rolling over to get their tummies scratched by the movie studios but Lofgren's legislation seeks to ensure that if you bought that CD/DVD/MP3 recording that you maintain your right to copy it for archiving or sharing with a friend.

"All Americans enjoying digital media today should join us in recognizing Rep. Lofgren for her pro-consumer legislation," said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association. "Somewhere along the line, Hollywood's spin campaign managed to obscure the fact that sharing and stealing are not one in the same."

Ig-Nobel Winners

Just as the Golden Raspberry Awards salute the year's worst films, the annual Ig Nobel Awards recognize the bizarre and weird in scientific research. Shown at right with his award in the Safety Engineering category is 1998 winner Troy Hurtubise (he developed and personally tested "a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears").

This year's winners include such luminaries as:

• Literature Prize: Vicki Sanders and David Kreiner, who discovered that "students who buy used college textbooks don't score as well on tests if the book's previous owner highlighted the wrong passages."
  
• Physics Prize: A University of Munich scientist, who showed that the Law of Exponential Decay can be used to predict how long beer foam will last.
  
• Medicine Prize: Chris McManus, for his scholarly article on "Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture," which led to the astonishing discovery that the artists of antiquity knew which one hangs lower, but mistook the one that tends to be larger.
  
• Peace Prize: The Japanese toy company researchers, who invented "Bow-Lingual," a dog-to-human language translation device.
  
• Mathematics Prize: A pair of scientists from India, who determined the formula for estimating the total surface area of elephants.
  
• Biology Prize: Four British scientists, for their study of "Courtship Behavior of Ostriches Toward Humans Under Farming Conditions in Britain," which was sponsored in part by the North American Man-Bird Love Association.
  

12:56:28 PM       

Something bothers the Raven this morning about a story from the British tabloid The Guardian. Seems that David Tovey of Oxfordshire is one of those "race war" idjits who thinks Britain's immigration woes would be less severe if there were fewer immigrants. After arming himself to the teeth, he launched a PR campaign that involved spray-painting anti-white graffiti in local public restrooms.

Slogans included: "All whites are shit" and "Black Powa" (sic). References were also made to the attacks on America. One said: "Die white trade centre scum" and another: "4,000 plus white pigs died (a good start)".

It is becoming much more difficult to go about our daily lives without being recorded on CCTV. The Wired article on dodging public cameras seems eerily prescient in this respect, especially when institutions are beginning to demand that we provide them with good images for their taped logs.

Bumfight

According to this breaking story, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan is suggesting that George Bush and Saddam Hussein settle their dispute by fighting it out mano-a-mano. As a bonus, Taha says he's willing to take on Dick Cheney. He appears to be serious, and is requesting that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan serve as referee for this Battle of the Titans.

"Both groups should use the same weapons, a president against a president, a vice president against a vice president, and a duel takes place," Ramadan said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

9:00:55 AM