Archive for June, 2005

June 29th, 2005

AMD takes antitrust case to the masses

AMD launched an anti-trust lawsuit against Intel for strong-arming major customers to accept exclusive deals. AMD is taking the unusual step of using a public campaign asking consumers to “demand innovation.”

Well, congratulations AMD - your campaign is working. After using four generations of AMD processors, I bought my first Intel chips – [...]

June 28th, 2005

The Lost Liberty Hotel

I was pleased to find this press release floating around the blogosphere:
Weare, New Hampshire – Developer Logan Darrow Clements filed papers with the Weare, New Hampshire code enforcement officer to get the ball rolling on a hotel project on property owned by Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court.

Souter voted in favor of [...]

June 24th, 2005

EU-crippled XP not a hit

Gee, you mean that forcing a company to release a crippled product isnt going to be a big seller?
PC makers and distributors are holding back from buying the new alternative version of Windows XP that Europe’s competition commissioner ordered Microsoft Corp. to offer as part of the punishment in the software maker’s long [...]

June 24th, 2005

World’s first bionic man gets mind-controlled limbs.

June 23rd, 2005

(From Cox and Forkum)

June 23rd, 2005

U.S. votes for socialism and censorship

Freedom-loving Americans suffered a major defeat today, and they face another blow to liberty next week. In Kelo vs. New London, the Supreme Court voted that local governments can seize private property for private uses, so long as it serves the public benefit. The ruling legitimizes the already common practice of coercively redistributing [...]

June 21st, 2005

crimethink

ThoughtCrime in Australia:
A Christian pastor found guilty of vilifying muslims says he is prepared to go to jail in protest over Victoria’s racial tolerance laws.

Two pastors involved with the Catch the Fire Ministries were last year found to have vilified Muslims at a Christian conference, and on a website, by suggesting the Koran promotes violence [...]

June 20th, 2005

A Nagasaki Report

Interesting read:
American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9, 1945. Weller wrote a series of stories about what he saw in the city, but censors at the Occupation’s General Headquarters refused to allow the material to be printed. Weller’s [...]

June 17th, 2005

PETA charged with animal cruelty

I kid you not:
Two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping center garbage bin, police said.
Police found 18 dead animals in the bin and 13 more in a van registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters [...]

June 17th, 2005

Great article on mises.org: The Myth of the Cell-Phone Addiction.

June 17th, 2005

porn in America, part 2

Following up on my previous post, a man was sentenced to 20 years last week for looking at child porn on the Internet. The man did not save any porn to his computer, but rather had it in the cache of his Internet browser. As the defense unsuccessfully argued, a computer user [...]

June 16th, 2005

The DOJ goes after porn

This story begins in 1983, when a 15 year old with used a fake California Driver’s License and birth certificate to get a state identification card that identified her as Kristie Elizabeth Nussman, age 21. In the next three years, she became the adult industry’s first superstar, making about 107 porn films and winning [...]

June 14th, 2005

Microsoft censors Chinese blogs

Chinese bloggers posting their thoughts via Microsoft’s net service face restrictions on what they can write.
Weblog entries on some parts of Microsoft’s MSN site in China using words such as “freedom”, “democracy” and “demonstration” are being blocked.
Microsoft said the company abided by the laws, regulations and norms of each country in which it operates.
...The [...]

June 10th, 2005

Spray on mud

There has been a trend in the UK to outlaw driving, and ridiculously low speed limits combined with speed cameras are one of the main weapons of the environmentalists. To avoid the cameras, UK drivers are resorting to tricks like spray-on mud to obscure license plates and GPS devices which warn drivers when [...]

June 7th, 2005

China Censorship #81

The Chinese government has ordered individual owners of websites and bloggers to register with the government or face being shut down…

The decree requires owners of websites, whether commercial or non-commercial, to comply with the edict by the 30th of June and give the name of the person or persons responsible for the sites.

Bloggers in China [...]

June 4th, 2005

India censors tobacco

From Division of Labor: India is censoring tobacco products in cinema and television, including any new or past films and television shows. The Indian government has enaged in official censorship since 1952, so this is nothing new, but I wouldn’t be surpised if “voluntary” restrictions of the same sort came to the U.S.

June 4th, 2005

New Shop

I have a new CafePress shop dedicated to PETA: http://www.cafepress.com/animalsarefood

June 3rd, 2005

SPCA guilty of cruelty to humans

There are SPCAs, or Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in many cities in America. They are charged by city governments to stop animal abuse and have the right to confiscate and sell all the animals of any owner with a judges warrant. In states like Texas, the SPCA can seize [...]