superglaze writes “Against the backdrop of governments and courts around the world ordering ISPs to block file-sharing sites, European commissioner Neelie Kroes has said people have started to see copyright as ‘a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward. … Citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it,’ the EU’s digital chief said, adding that the copyright system also wasn’t rewarding (more…)

U.S. military doctors at Guantanamo Bay ignored signs of torture at the military prison and failed to investigate physical and psychological injuries they observed there, according to a study in the medical journal PLoS Medicine.

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It doesn’t take a psychic to know that marijuana legalization is on the way. A new book showing that it never should have been outlawed in the first place will be soon be available online, according to its publisher. Author Hoam Rogh’s new twist on his cult classic marijuana novel, Satan’s Smoke, retitled The Case of U.S. v. Yerbas, shows the history and constitutional implications of cannabis law, exposing marijuana prohibition as unconstitutional.

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cgriffin21 writes “Microsoft expected Internet Explorer 9 to be popular, but after more than two million people downloaded the IE9 beta in the first two days after its release, the software giant is having a hard time choosing which eye-popping statistics to cite. Microsoft says its “Beauty of the Web” site, which illustrates the aesthetic advantages of IE9′s support for HTML5 and hardware acceleration, has had more the 9 million visits and 26 million (more…)

John Salley recalls a trip to a nasty East St. Louis strip club with the Torry brothers.

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Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti ends speculation that Ashley Cole will join Real Madrid by reiterating that his left-back is not for sale at any price.

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Barack Obama has said although he is concerned about the leak of documents on the war in Afghanistan, they proved he was right to overhaul a failed US strategy.

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Zenna Atkins, the chairman of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), has raised some eyebrows by saying that, “every school should have a useless teacher.” She stresses that schools shouldn’t seek out or tolerate bad teaching, but thinks bad teachers provide a valuable life-lesson. From the article: “… on Sunday Ms Atkins told the BBC that schools needed to reflect society, especially at primary level. ‘In society there are people you don’t (more…)

eldavojohn writes “This week MIT released a comprehensive, hundred-page report entitled ‘The Future of Natural Gas’ that outlined the many scenarios the United States faces when aiming to reduce carbon emissions. From the NY Times recap: ‘The scenario goes like this, according to MIT: Nuclear power, renewable energy and carbon capture and sequestration are relatively expensive next to gas. Conventional coal is no longer a major source of power generation (more…)

Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer apologises for his negative comments about the England team.

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