Battling the Copyright Big Boys

Lobbyists for movie studios and record labels have long dominated the copyright discussion in Washington, using their power and influence to help craft law favorable to their interests.

Now, a group of citizens in favor of a more consumer-friendly copyright policy have formed a political action committee in hopes that the interests of the public can be served, too.

"Copyright is supposed to be a balance in the Constitution," said David Alpert, president of IPac, which launched about a month before the 2004 election. "The government should not be in the business of preventing technology changes just because some companies are afraid it might hurt their existing business models."

IPac pledges to support candidates and elected officials who fight for a balance in copyright law: The group will support those who advocate for laws that will pay creators without limiting political expression, innovation or research and education, and back laws that foster new creativity. The group says it believes that intellectual property laws should be clear so technologists can innovate without being sued.

This past election, the nonpartisan group supported six candidates: Reps. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia), Zoe Lofgren (D-California), Joe Barton (R-Texas), Christopher Cox (R-California), John Doolittle (R-California) and newcomer Oklahoma Democrat Brad Carson for the Senate. All five representatives won re-election; Carson lost.

While the $7,000 the group raised is a drop in the bucket compared with the entertainment industry's hefty coffers, IPac is encouraged by the interest it has generated in a short period of time. Over 500 people have signed on to support its mission.

"This was sort of a trial run to see if people will actually support candidates based on their intellectual-property policies, and they did," said Jason Schultz, an IPac volunteer. "We really felt there was a community out there that we could engage specifically on IP."

Alpert said IPac will research the records of legislators in Congress, provide people with information on how their legislators have voted, identify worthy candidates and help them with money and volunteers.

"I strongly support the effort IPac is making. It is important that a greater focus be brought to the need to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of the users," said Boucher, co-sponsor of the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (HR107), which would permit circumvention of digital locks on copyright content for non-infringing uses.

"The 1998 (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) makes it possible for creators of digital content to completely abolish fair-use rights with respect to that media," Boucher said. "The bill that I introduced ... would confirm fair-use rights for the digital era."

Boucher and his co-sponsor, Doolittle, are still in the process of collecting support to move the bill forward.

Boucher said that even though Hollywood and the record labels still have a lot of influence in Washington, consumers have gained ground since 1998. Now that the technology companies -- which believe tighter copy controls can chill innovation -- are aligned with consumer groups, there is a stronger presence for the public interest.

Earlier this year, the electronics companies, internet service providers and digital-rights groups successfully stalled the Induce Act, a bill cheered by the entertainment industry because it would effectively outlaw peer-to-peer networks. The music and film companies blame P2P for their piracy problems.

The Induce Act is only one example, Alpert said, of how content companies have tried to increase their power at the public's expense. Earlier this year, a small animation company was threatened with legal action when its This Land video, which lampooned both presidential contenders, used the tune to Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."

"It's important for our democracy to be free to create videos like that," Alpert said.

Alpert also noted the entertainment industry's history of trying to stop the sale of VCRs, for fear of piracy. The device and the home video market turned into a boon for both consumers and the entertainment industry.

"We still have a long way to go," Boucher said. "The equation is still unbalanced."

Ontario law will force video gamers to show ID

Ontario law will force video gamers to show ID


Broadcast News


Friday, November 26, 2004


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Fans of violent video games will need to show photo ID to buy or rent their favourite titles because of a new Ontario law.
The requirement is part of an omnibus bill passed Thursday by the McGuinty government.

Earlier this year, the government took the unusual step of slapping an R rating on the video game Manhunt.

In the game, players control a murderous death-row inmate who earns points for killing guards and other prisoners.

Normally, only feature films would carry an R rating in Ontario.

But Consumer Minister Jim Watson says it's time game retailers played by the same rules.

They'll face penalties for letting kids access adult games.

Ontario is not alone in its crackdown.

Manitoba and Nova Scotia have also taken steps to make it harder for minors to access violent video games.

< This topic isn't particularly interesting or newsworthy but this thought came to mine... When's the last time you heard about government making things Easier for people?! >

Teen shot with stun gun - as he wouldn't stop playing video game

Teen shot with stun gun - as he wouldn't stop playing video game
TALK about being addicted to video games, a teen in the US had to be shocked by a stun gun twice to make him let go of his Game Boy.

The incident happened last Thursday at about 9am when the 14-year-old boy was playing his Nintendo Game Boy during class.

His class teacher asked him to put away the game several times, but he refused.

Then, the teacher sent the student to see the assistant principal, Mr Larry Phillips.


Mr Phillips told the boy he could have the game back at the end of the day. But the teen, a student at Lincoln Park High School in North Carolina, still refused to give it up, reported the News-Herald.

Police officer Paul Cochran, who works in the building as the school liaison officer, was called in to help.

Once the police officer began a pat-down search, the teen began kicking and punching him. The officer then tackled him.

He and Mr Phillips held the teen down while a secretary called the police.

When they arrived, they handcuffed the teen, but he continued to fight, the police told the paper.

That's when one officer pulled out a Taser gun and shocked the boy.

The gun's electric current, which officials said is non-lethal, makes suspects lose control of their muscles.

Being shocked 'stopped him for a moment and then he started fighting again,' the police report said.

The officer warned the boy again to stop fighting and to give up the Game Boy.

The boy said no, resumed fighting and was shocked again.

Only then did the police manage to take the video game out of the student's coat pocket and detain him.

The boy was not injured but suffered a couple of scrapes when he rolled around on the floor during the scuffle.

The teen was taken to the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility, where he is being held on a US$2,000 ($3,280) bond.

He was charged with resisting and obstructing a police officer.

Mr Cochran, who said he was scratched and bitten during the scuffle, was given a tetanus shot and antibiotic prescription at the Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital.

The boy's mother apologised to the police and informed them that her son has been in counselling since fourth grade.

STUN GUN REVIEW

In Miami, the police are reviewing the use of stun guns after they were used on a 6-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl.

Miami-Dade County Police Director Bobby Parker defended the use of the stun gun on the boy in a school office, saying the child had cut himself twice with a piece of glass and was threatening to harm himself further. But he said the use of the stun gun on the girl who was fleeing officers because she was drunk and apparently skipping school, was questionable.

Supreme Court declines Massachusetts same-sex marriage fight

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over same-sex marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.

Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage. They declined, without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should "protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power."

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right "to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. "Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury," she said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly told justices that voters can overrule the Supreme Court by adopting a constitutional amendment.

The lawsuit was filed by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers.

The conservative law group had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high profile issue, the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.

State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006. Voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in November elections. President Bush has promised to make a federal anti-gay marriage amendment a priority of his second term.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

The nation's high court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. Last May, justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.

The case is Largess v. Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, case no. 04-420.

Lawmakers OK anti-piracy czar

WASHINGTON -- Buried inside the massive $388 billion spending bill Congress approved during the weekend is a program that creates a federal copyright enforcement czar.

Under the program, the president can appoint a copyright law enforcement officer whose job is to coordinate law enforcement efforts aimed at stopping international copyright infringement and to oversee a federal umbrella agency responsible for administering intellectual property law.

Intellectual property law enforcement is divided among a range of agencies including the Library of Congress, the Justice and State departments and the U.S. Trade Representative.

It is hoped that designating a single overseer to coordinate copyright law enforcement will put some cohesion into the federal effort, said one Senate Appropriations Committee aide.


"You need a head. You need someone who has to answer," the aide said. "If staffed out and funded by a number of different agencies, it never does anything. Agencies don't want to give up good people. When you don't have an agency responsible, their attitude gets to be, 'I don't have to do anything about it.' "

The legislation, part of the bill funding Justice Department operations, also for the first time funds the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council.

NIPLAC is charged with establishing policies, objectives and priorities designed to protect American intellectual property overseas and to coordinate and oversee implementation of intellectual property law enforcement throughout the government. While NIPLAC has been around since the early 1990s, it has never done anything, and appropriators hope that giving the organization $2 million and a new charter will make the office effective.

"This is an effort to get some air under the wings of that interagency effort," the aide said. "NIPLAC is a good idea, but it hadn't taken off. You really couldn't point to anything they'd ever done."

Congressional aides say Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate subcommittee that doles out funding for the Commerce, Justice and State departments, and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the full Senate Appropriations Committee, took a personal interest in ensuring that NIPLAC was kept in the omnibus spending bill.

But their ambitions for a more robustly funded program were scaled back. Originally the subcommittee had designated $20 million for the program, but fiscal reality forced lawmakers to agree to one-tenth of that.

The legislative effort coincides with the administration's new emphasis on intellectual property protection. Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Justice Department has cracked down on intellectual property crimes, and the White House has set up the Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy program, which is designed to curb the production and importation of items ranging from fake purses to pirated CDs and DVDs.

"We welcome Congress' recognition of the challenges the U.S. intellectual property industries face and their efforts to better arm the U.S. government to respond to these challenges," an MPAA official said. "We're gratified to see the high priority they've placed on tackling international enforcement problems."

While congressional aides said there was a lot of support for the program, its inclusion still raised some eyebrows as there have been questions about the government's involvement in protecting a private, for-profit enterprise.

A recent congressional attempt to approve legislation known as the "Pirate Act," which would allow the Justice Department to file civil lawsuits, was turned back over complaints that it would advance Hollywood's interest at taxpayer expense.

"This isn't the Pirate Act, but I think the taxpayers would be surprised that there's money being spent for copyright enforcement when terrorists and criminals still roam the streets," said Gigi Sohn, president of the nonprofit fair-use advocacy group Public Knowledge. "When every dollar is being counted for education, health care and homeland security, it seems like a strange priority."

New High-Tech Passports Raise Snooping Concerns

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - The State Department will soon begin issuing passports that carry information about the traveler in a computer chip embedded in the cardboard cover as well as on its printed pages.

Privacy advocates say the new format - developed in response to security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks - will be vulnerable to electronic snooping by anyone within several feet, a practice called skimming. Internal State Department documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, show that Canada, Germany and Britain have raised the same concern.

"This is like putting an invisible bull's-eye on Americans that can be seen only by the terrorists," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the A.C.L.U. Technology and Liberty Program. "If there's any nation in the world at the moment that could do without such a device, it is the United States."

The organization wants the State Department to take security precautions like encrypting the data, so that even if it is downloaded by unauthorized people, it cannot be understood.

In a telephone interview, Frank E. Moss, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services, said the skimming problem "can be dealt with."

"We are certainly still working hard on the question of whether additional security measures should be taken," he said.

The technology is familiar to the public in applications like highway toll-collection systems and "smart cards" for entering buildings or subway turnstiles. In passports, the technology would be more sophisticated, with a computer having the ability to query the chip selectively for particular information. The chip, expected to cost about $8, would hold 64 kilobytes of data, the same as early personal computers.

Last month the Government Printing Office awarded $373,000 in contracts to four manufacturers to design the passports, which would contain chips that stored all the printed data on the passport, as well as digitized data on the traveler's face.

At an airport immigration checkpoint, an antenna could read a passport waved a few inches away. A digital camera could look at the traveler's face and compare it with the data from the passport chip.

The problem, though, is that the passport might be read by others, too. According to one document obtained by the A.C.L.U., a State Department memo from September detailing negotiations on the subject, the American position is that the data "should be able to be read by anyone who chooses to invest in the infrastructure to do so."

Mr. Steinhardt of the A.C.L.U. described a test in which a chip was read from 30 feet away, but Mr. Moss of the State Department said that was in a laboratory and would be hard to duplicate in the field.

Government officials from the United States, Canada and western European countries, and chip manufacturing experts, have been discussing standards for chips in passports for more than two years under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is affiliated with the United Nations and promulgates a variety of standards for aviation. Mr. Steinhardt complained that the organization had ignored the civil liberties group's request to participate in sessions when standards were discussed.

The State Department, which issues about seven million passports a year, hopes to begin issuing a limited number with chips early next year, initially to government employees.

To combat passport fraud and theft, the government will soon require all visitors who do not need visas to enter the United States - those who are deemed low security risks because of the countries they come from - to carry passports that are machine-readable and contain "biometric" information like fingerprints or facial measurements.

Australia is already issuing passports with chips, and others will follow soon, Mr. Moss said. And since passport requirements are usually reciprocal, the United States anticipates that those countries will demand similar features on American passports.

Neville G. Pattinson, the director of business development, technology and government affairs at Axalto, one of the vendors, said the problem with encryption was that the chip had to be readable by governments all over the world. But, he said, "there is a considerable concern over skimming."

The chips raise the possibility of someone "brushing against you with the equipment, in a briefcase or another disguise, and hoping they can read it out of your pocket or purse," Mr. Pattinson said. Another possibility is someone embedding a reader in a doorway, he said.

But he said low-cost fixes were available. One would incorporate a layer of metal foil into the cover of the passport so it could be read only when opened.

Another would put a password into the printed information in the passport. A reader would optically scan for the password, which would be visible only when the passport was open, and then use it to obtain data from the chip.

Another possibility would be to keep the passport in a foil pouch, like those issued with highway toll-collection devices so they can be carried through a toll booth without being read. In multilateral discussions, though, some experts said they feared that terrorists would use the pouches to smuggle weapons.

The A.C.L.U. is seeking to portray the new passports as part of a continuing loss of privacy.

In March, the A.C.L.U. and 12 other organizations from North America, Europe and Asia signed a letter to the aviation organization saying they were "increasingly concerned that the biometric travel document initiative is part and parcel of a larger surveillance infrastructure monitoring the movement of individuals globally."

< What's interesting here is the topic itself, For it to "raise" concerns, that means someone didn't already see this being an issue when it was first announced. >

U.S. Throws Away Half Its Food

While America has been long badged the "throw-away society", it's only recently that researchers from the University of Arizona have quantified what gets thrown aways as a percentage of what is produced. Astonishingly, a new study has found that forty to fifty percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.

Timothy W. Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, has spent the last 10 years measuring food loss, examining farms and orchards, warehouses, retail outlets, dining rooms and landfills. What he found was that not only is edible food discarded that could feed people who need it, but the rate of loss, even partially corrected, could save U.S. consumers and corporations tens of billions of dollars each year.

Jones' research evolved from earlier work done by University of Arizona archaeologists who began measuring garbage in the 1970s to see what was being thrown away and discovered that people were not fully aware of what they were using and discarding. Today's research seeks to understand not only the path food travels from farms and orchards to landfills, but also the culture and psychology behind the process.

Jones' research shows that by measuring how much food is actually being brought into households, a clearer picture of that end of the food stream is beginning to emerge. On average, households waste 14 percent of their food purchases. Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products. Nationwide, he says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem. Cutting food waste would also go a long way toward reducing serious environmental problems. Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.

Claims Over Tasers' Safety Are Challenged

Taser International, whose electrical guns are used by thousands of police departments nationwide, says that a federal study endorses the safety of its guns, but the laboratory that conducted the research disagrees.

Taser said last month that the government study, whose full results have not yet been released, found that its guns were safe. Since that statement, the company's stock has soared and its executives and directors have sold $68 million in shares, about 5 percent of Taser's stock and nearly half their holdings.

But the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study now says that it actually found that the guns could be dangerous and that more data was needed to evaluate their risks. The guns "may cause several unintended effects, albeit with low probabilities of occurrence," the laboratory said last week in a statement released after a symposium on Tasers, as the company's guns are known, and other weapons intended to incapacitate people without killing them.

Taser said Wednesday that it stood behind its October statement.

Other data presented at the symposium raised questions about one of Taser's key claims about the effectiveness of its newest and most expensive weapon.

Tasers are pistol-shaped weapons that fire electrified darts up to 21 feet, shocking suspects with a painful charge. More than 5,500 police departments and prisons now use Tasers, compared with only a handful five years ago.

Many police officers say that Tasers give them a way to restrain dangerous suspects without using firearms or fighting with them. But civil liberties groups say police often use Tasers on people who are merely unruly or disobedient, not dangerous. Recently, police officers in Miami shocked a 6-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl in separate incidents, prompting widespread criticism.

"The evidence suggests that far from being used to avoid lethal force, many police forces are using Tasers as a routine force option," said Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International. "The way these weapons are being used in some circumstances could constitute torture or ill treatment."

Amnesty has called for police departments to stop using the guns pending an independent inquiry into their safety. The group will release a report next week documenting police abuse of Tasers, Mr. Goering said.

The growing use of Tasers is disconcerting because their risks have not been properly studied, biomedical engineers say. More than 70 people have died since 2001 after being shocked with Tasers, mainly from heart or respiratory failure.

Taser International says the deaths resulted from drug overdoses or other factors and would have occurred anyway. But coroners have linked several deaths to the weapons, and independent scientists who are authorities on electricity and the heart say that the company may be significantly underestimating the weapon's risks, especially in people who have used drugs or have heart disease.

Taser has performed only minimal research on the health effects of its weapons. Its primary safety studies on the M26, its most powerful gun, consist of tests on a single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999. The company has resisted calls for more tests, saying that it is comfortable with the research it has conducted.

Tasers are largely unregulated and have never been studied for their safety or effectiveness by the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But for two years the Defense Department has studied Tasers as part of military research into weapons designed to be effective without being deadly.

In a press release on Oct. 18, Taser said that the military study had found its guns "generally effective without significant risk of unintended consequences."

Rick Smith, the chief executive of Taser, called the study "the latest chapter in a series of comprehensive medical and scientific studies which conclude that Taser technology is safe and effective."

Taser's stock, which closed at $37.47 on Oct. 15, the last trading day before the study was released, rose 60 percent over the next month and peaked at $60.85 on Nov. 15. During the week ended Nov. 12, Taser executives and directors sold 1.28 million shares for $68 million. The company's stock closed Wednesday at $50.51, down 89 cents.

But neither Taser nor the military released the full study, only an excerpt. The full study remains confidential, military officials say. But last week, after the symposium on less-deadly weapons in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study said that it had not found Tasers were safe.

The guns "may cause several unintended effects, albeit with estimated low probabilities of occurrence," the laboratory said. "Available laboratory data are too limited to adequately quantify possible risks of ventricular fibrillation or seizures, particularly in susceptible populations."

Ventricular fibrillation is a disturbance of the electrical circuitry of the heart that causes cardiac arrest in seconds and death in minutes. Taser says that its weapons do not produce enough current to cause ventricular fibrillation, but scientists who are authoritative on fibrillation say that the company has not done enough research to know whether that contention is accurate.

Taser said Wednesday that the military had reviewed and approved its October statement before the company released it.

An Air Force scientist presented data at the symposium last week showing that repeated Taser shocks caused pigs to become acidotic - a dangerous condition in which the pH of the blood drops. A 1999 study by the Justice Department suggested that "deaths following Tasers' use may be due to acidosis."

People who have been hit repeatedly by Tasers should receive medical monitoring, said Dr. James Jauchem, the Air Force scientist.

A spokeswoman for the Air Force said Wednesday that Dr. Jauchem was on vacation for Thanksgiving and not available for additional comments.

Dr. Jauchem also presented data calling into question the company's assertion that the Taser X26, its newest gun, is especially effective even though it fires a smaller charge than the company's older weapon, the M26. Taser has said that the X26 fires a special kind of electric pulse that works better than traditional stun guns.

But Dr. Jauchem said the shape of the X26's electric pulse had only a minor effect on the amount of muscle contraction it produced.

< People have been dying, this is how the question got raised. It doesn't take much to look at people dying and say it's dangerous... >

Man Uses Faux Police Car to Slow Drivers

ALBANY, Ore. - Rick Pyburn was sick and tired of lead-footed motorists speeding past his home. Already, he had lost five chickens to hit-and-run drivers passing by at speeds well above posted limits.

Pyburn tried calling the police about his troubles ? but with a strapped budget, the Benton County Sheriff's Office couldn't do much to help him out.

"They're so busy patrolling, they don't have the time to sit there," he said.

Then, one day, as he watched a sheriff's car cruise by his house, Pyburn got an idea.

With the help of a local sign company, he built the front half of a two-dimensional plywood Benton County sheriff's car, and set up the decoy in some bushes near the road, in plain view of oncoming drivers.

"Once I placed that on the highway, it was amazing," he said. "The traffic immediately slowed down."

Pyburn knows that some motorists may have figured out that the car is a fake, but swears they still slow down when they see the car, which is complete with a cut-out of Pyburn's face in the "window," warning them to slow down.

"I didn't want it to be exactly like a police car, so there's a little humor there" he said. "But it's enough like a police car that it puts a little bit of doubt in people's minds."

Pyburn and his neighbors have appreciated the effect of the cut-out car so much that a newer, better faux sheriff's car is in the works.

This time he's shooting for more realism in size and shape, Pyburn said, and the updated model will be made of a weatherproof composite material. He plans to market copies of the car for residents in both city neighborhoods and rural areas.

The Benton County Sheriff's Office doesn't mind the imposter, though they would like to have more deputies on duty so that residents did not have to resort to such ingenuity, said Benton County Undersheriff Diana Simpson.

Benihana Chef's Playful Food Toss Blamed for Diner's Death

A piece of grilled shrimp flung playfully by a Japanese hibachi chef toward a tableside diner is being blamed for causing the man's death.
Making a proximate-cause argument, the lawyer for the deceased man's estate has alleged that the man's reflexive response -- to duck away from the flying food -- caused a neck injury that required surgery.

Complications from that first operation necessitated a second procedure. Five months later, Jerry Colaitis of Old Brookville, N.Y., was dead of an illness that his family claims was proximately caused by the injury.

But for the food-flinging incident at the Benihana restaurant in Munsey Park, N.Y., Colaitis would still be alive, attorney Andre Ferenzo asserts.

"They set in motion a sequence of events," he said.

Alleging wrongful death, Colaitis' estate is seeking $10 million in damages. The complaint includes claims for pain and suffering and loss of consortium.

Benihana has denied all of the complaint's material allegations. In other papers filed with the court, defense attorney Andrew B. Kaufman also questioned whether Colaitis was trying to avoid the flying shrimp or catch it in his mouth.

Last week, Nassau Supreme Court Justice Roy Mahon denied a defense motion for partial summary judgment, clearing the way for trial. Estate of Colaitis v. Benihana Inc., 015439-2002.

Kaufman, a partner in the New York City firm Gordon Silber, declined to discuss the case, saying only that he was reviewing the judge's Nov. 16 decision for appealable issues.

Ferenzo, a Roslyn, N.Y., solo practitioner, maintains there is no issue as to liability.

FAMILY GATHERING

According to Ferenzo, Colaitis, a furrier in his early 40s, had gathered with his wife, two sons and four stepdaughters to celebrate one of the boys' birthdays.

Tableside cooking and chefs' showmanship have been a trademark of the Benihana chain since it opened its first U.S. steak house in 1964. Seated around one of Benihana's trademark hibachi dinner tables, the family watched as a chef diced the food as he cooked it.

Ferenzo said that the chef began flipping pieces of hot food toward the diners, once burning one of Colaitis' sons. Asked to stop, the attorney said, the chef responded only with a smile and allegedly continued tossing morsels at his patrons.

When the chef flipped a piece of shrimp at Colaitis, he allegedly ducked away, injuring two vertebra in his neck. Doctors reportedly told Colaitis that if he did not have corrective surgery, another injury to the same disks might leave him paralyzed.

The first operation was in June 2001, six months after the Benihana dinner. A second procedure was performed two weeks later.

In succeeding months Colaitis developed a high fever and problems with his breathing and memory. He died in a hospital five months after the second surgery, on Nov. 22, 2001.

A contributing cause of his death, Ferenzo said, was a blood-borne infection. Justice Mahon's decision also listed respiratory failure and renal failure as causes of death.

Neither side has sought to add the doctors or hospital where the surgery occurred, New York University Medical Center, to the case. Colaitis died at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn.

Arguing for partial summary judgment, defendant's attorney Kaufman challenged the plaintiff's ability to prove proximate cause. In court papers, he said that Benihana cannot be liable for Colaitis' death because of a break in the chain of causation between the first or second procedures and his death five months later.

"Essentially, as the plaintiff's decedent died of an unidentifiable medical condition, the plaintiff will be unable to establish that any alleged negligence by Benihana proximately caused his demise," Kaufman wrote.

In denying defendant's motion, Justice Mahon held that whether the tableside events caused Colaitis' death would best be resolved at trial.

DVD fast forwarding to be banned

THE US CONGRESS is considering making fast forwarding through video advertisements a crime.

Lawmakers in the land of the free have decided that it is costing their chums in the movie industry far too much money and want video fast-forwarders placed in the same league as pirates.

According to NBC news the new law allows families to use new DVD technology self censor explicit scenes of sex and violence but forbids them to edit out advertisements.

Consumer advocacy group, Public Knowledge is fighting the bill saying that it is ever American's right not to watch advertisements if they don't want. It claims that the movie industry is leaning on its tame senators to prevent the loss of revenue.

However the Motion Picture Association has been fighting hard to prevent people using the latest DVD technology to allow users to skip the advertisements.

It added that it supports other parts of the act, "particularly those provisions that will help combat the theft of motion pictures". If you can see how the two things are connected we would love to know how.

Lesbian school bathroom scare in Oklahoma

Lesbians of America, pack your bags! It?s time to head to the new lesbian capitol of the world: Oklahoma!

The state?s new nickname will be Oklahomo! Woo-hoo! Just think of those cowgirls on the range. The classic Rogers & Hammerstein musical will take on a whole new meaning.

It may at first be hard to believe that this modest midwestern state is a breeding ground as a lesbian Sodom and Gomorrah, but we have it from a good source that the state is in fact cultivating lesbian debauchery.

None other than former ultra-conservative Republican Congressman and the current Republican Senate candidate Tom Coburn says so.

In a tape recently released by Brad Carson, Coburn?s Democratic candidate for the Senate race there, Coburn is heard warning the good clean citizens of Oklahoma of the great lesbian threat to their state.

On the tape, Coburn tells how a campaign worker form Coalgate, Oklahoma, told him that ?lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they?ll only let one girl go to the bathroom.?

Well, I think he really meant to say they?ll only let one girl at a time go to the bathroom. It?d kind of be a mess if they really only ever let that one girl in the school go to the bathroom.

But I?m digressing. Back to lesbian debauchery.

This is, of course, a matter of grave concern and alarm for the good citizens of Oklahoma. Imagine, girls pretending they have to relieve themselves, then going to the bathroom to? relieve themselves.

?Now think about it,? Coburn warns his fellow Oklahomans on the tape as he continues tackling the serious issues that confront the state as well as the nation. ?Think about that issue. How is it that that?s happened to us??

When contacted by the Associated Press for follow-up, Coburn?s spokesperson, John Hart, naturally had the answer for how this has happened to us. It?s been allowed to happen, Hart said, in a society ?where our kids are getting mixed messages about sexuality.?

As if it isn?t bad enough that young Oklahoma girls are performing cunnilingus in the little girls? rooms at schools all over southeast Oklahoma, Coburn is also facing denial from educators.

That?s right. They?re denying this wave of lesbian depravity is of much concern. Girls all over the state, and especially in the southeast of the state, are wearing butch short haircuts and listening to k.d. lang, and apparently school officials could care less.

You know what Joe McCulley, the superintendent of schools in Coalgate, did when he was asked about Coburn?s remarks and concerns?

McCulley just chuckled.

But this really isn?t a laughing matter.

Because Tom Coburn is a reason for lesbians and gay men, wherever they live, to be concerned.

Coburn has been identified by the national Republican Party as one of the key candidates who could help them hold onto their slim majority in the U.S. Senate in the November elections.

The seat is being vacated by Republican Senator Don Nickles, who has held the position for 24 years.

Coburn was previously a Congressman from Oklahoma, who got swept in with the right-wing conservatism of the 1994 Congress. He quit Congress after three terms (as he said he would), but he didn?t fade from the national spotlight, or from national controversy. In 2001, President Bush named him to co-chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, a position he still holds.

Early on, the former doctor made a national reputation for himself as a die-hard right-winger.

And he has long battled what he sees as the threat to America from the ?gay agenda.?

While in Congress, Coburn was one of the leaders in the fight to keep the District of Columbia from implementing its domestic partnership program, by refusing to fund it. And he fought to keep gays and lesbians in the District from being allowed to adopt children.

His staunch opposition to and constant harping against same-sex marriage have been credited by some as a pivotal reason for President George Bush?s endorsement of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Coburn is known as much for his dramatic antics as for his ultra-conservative viewpoints. When he was first elected to Congress, he lured young interns to his office with free pizza and sodas for lectures on abstinence and sexually transmitted diseases. His presentations were complete with slides of people and body parts infected with the various ailments he was railing against.

He has been equally controversial on AIDS policy and AIDS education and prevention efforts. In 1997, he proposed a bill that would have required states to have named, rather than anonymous, HIV reporting as a condition for receiving federal Medicaid money. He also authored a bill encouraging mandatory testing of infants for HIV.

He?s a staunch supporter of abstinence as the primary form of HIV/AIDS prevention, and has used his training as a doctor to undermine condom use. When he was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, he told Reuters his mission would be ?to really talk about the science that?s out there? on HIV.

Yet despite the mountains of scientific evidence that prove condoms help prevent the spread of HIV and save lives, Coburn promptly pooh-poohed them.

?A condom will work for you and for me if we use it perfectly and use it every time,? he said. ?The problem is that the majority of people just don?t use them like that.?

Just this last spring, Coburn wrote to cancel his subscription to Poz magazine, the premiere magazine on HIV and AIDS issues. His beef with the magazine literally was with beef.

For its 10th anniversary edition, Poz gathered more than 80 people with HIV and AIDS to pose in a naked group shot for the magazine?s cover. Coburn was somehow so offended by the photo that he wrote the magazine and asked he be removed immediately from the mailing list.

And according to the online magazine Salon.com, at a political meeting held just last spring, Coburn warned his fellow Republicans that ?the gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power. (The gay) agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today.?

And what could be better proof of our power and reach than the great lesbian bathroom scare in schools all across the state of Oklahoma?

Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?

Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday.

Witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee's Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee spared no superlative in their description of the negative effects of pornography.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."

"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."

Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.

Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."

The internet is dangerous because it removes the inefficiency in the delivery of pornography, making porn much more ubiquitous than in the days when guys in trench coats would sell nudie postcards, Satinover said.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommitee's chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and "some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time."

The hearing came just days after a controversy over a sexually suggestive Monday Night Football ad that has many foreseeing a crackdown on indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.

It is unclear what the consequences of Thursday's hearing will be since it was not connected to any pending or proposed legislation.

Brownback, a conservative Christian, is also scheduled to be rotated off the sub-committee in the next session.

When Brownback asked the panelists for suggestions about what should be done, the responses were mild, considering their earlier indictment of pornography. Several suggested that federal money be allocated to fund brain-mapping studies into the physical effects of pornography.

Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association suggested that more study of "erototoxins" could show how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment.

The panelists all agreed that the government should fund health campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of pornography. The campaign should combat the messages of pornography by putting signs on buses saying sex with children is not OK, said Layden.

However, as the panelists themselves acknowledged, there is no consensus among mental health professionals about the dangers of porn or the use of the term "pornography addiction."

Many psychologists and most sexologists find the concepts of sex and pornography addiction problematic, said Carol Queen, staff sexologist for the San Francisco-based, woman-owned Good Vibrations.

Queen questioned the validity of the panel for not including anyone who thinks "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

Queen acknowledges she can name people who have compulsive and destructive behavior centered on pornography, but argues that can happen with other activities, such as gambling and shopping.

Queen also criticized the methodology behind research showing that pornography stimulates the brain like drugs do, saying the research needs to take into account how sex itself stimulates the brain.

"There's no doubt the brain lights up when sexually aroused," Queen said.

Queen too would like to see more money devoted to research on sex, but thinks it is unlikely that researchers on either side of the divide are likely to receive large grants any time soon.

Studies intended to show the harmful effects of pornography must contend with ethical rules prohibiting harm to human subjects, while sex researchers have a hard time getting any funding, unless their study is specifically HIV-related, according to Queen.

Of Mice, Men and In-Between

In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins.

In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.

In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls.

These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to developing animal fetuses.

Chimeras are allowing scientists to watch, for the first time, how nascent human cells and organs mature and interact -- not in the cold isolation of laboratory dishes but inside the bodies of living creatures. Some are already revealing deep secrets of human biology and pointing the way toward new medical treatments.

But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers above the work: How human must a chimera be before more stringent research rules should kick in?

The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the federal government, has been studying the issue and hopes to make recommendations by February. Yet the range of opinions it has received so far suggests that reaching consensus may be difficult.

During one recent meeting, scientists disagreed on such basic issues as whether it would be unethical for a human embryo to begin its development in an animal's womb, and whether a mouse would be better or worse off with a brain made of human neurons.

"This is an area where we really need to come to a reasonable consensus," said James Battey, chairman of the National Institutes of Health's Stem Cell Task Force. "We need to establish some kind of guidelines as to what the scientific community ought to do and ought not to do."

Beyond Twins and Moms

Chimeras (ki-MER-ahs) -- meaning mixtures of two or more individuals in a single body -- are not inherently unnatural. Most twins carry at least a few cells from the sibling with whom they shared a womb, and most mothers carry in their blood at least a few cells from each child they have born.

Recipients of organ transplants are also chimeras, as are the many people whose defective heart valves have been replaced with those from pigs or cows. And scientists for years have added human genes to bacteria and even to farm animals -- feats of genetic engineering that allow those critters to make human proteins such as insulin for use as medicines.

"Chimeras are not as strange and alien as at first blush they seem," said Henry Greely, a law professor and ethicist at Stanford University who has reviewed proposals to create human-mouse chimeras there.

But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing entire human organs inside animals. And it becomes especially sensitive when it deals in brain cells, the building blocks of the organ credited with making humans human.

In experiments like those, Greely told the academy last month, "there is a nontrivial risk of conferring some significant aspects of humanity" on the animal.

Greely and his colleagues did not conclude that such experiments should never be done. Indeed, he and many other philosophers have been wrestling with the question of why so many people believe it is wrong to breach the species barrier.

Does the repugnance reflect an understanding of an important natural law? Or is it just another cultural bias, like the once widespread rejection of interracial marriage?

Many turn to the Bible's repeated invocation that animals should multiply "after their kind" as evidence that such experiments are wrong. Others, however, have concluded that the core problem is not necessarily the creation of chimeras but rather the way they are likely to be treated.

Imagine, said Robert Streiffer, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, a human-chimpanzee chimera endowed with speech and an enhanced potential to learn -- what some have called a "humanzee."

"There's a knee-jerk reaction that enhancing the moral status of an animal is bad," Streiffer said. "But if you did it, and you gave it the protections it deserves, how could the animal complain?"

Unfortunately, said Harvard political philosopher Michael J. Sandel, speaking last fall at a meeting of the President's Council on Bioethics, such protections are unlikely.

"Chances are we would make them perform menial jobs or dangerous jobs," Sandel said. "That would be an objection."

A Research Breakthrough

The potential power of chimeras as research tools became clear about a decade ago in a series of dramatic experiments by Evan Balaban, now at McGill University in Montreal. Balaban took small sections of brain from developing quails and transplanted them into the developing brains of chickens.

The resulting chickens exhibited vocal trills and head bobs unique to quails, proving that the transplanted parts of the brain contained the neural circuitry for quail calls. It also offered astonishing proof that complex behaviors could be transferred across species.

No one has proposed similar experiments between, say, humans and apes. But the discovery of human embryonic stem cells in 1998 allowed researchers to envision related experiments that might reveal a lot about how embryos grow.

The cells, found in 5-day-old human embryos, multiply prolifically and -- unlike adult cells -- have the potential to turn into any of the body's 200 or so cell types.

Scientists hope to cultivate them in laboratory dishes and grow replacement tissues for patients. But with those applications years away, the cells are gaining in popularity for basic research.

The most radical experiment, still not conducted, would be to inject human stem cells into an animal embryo and then transfer that chimeric embryo into an animal's womb. Scientists suspect the proliferating human cells would spread throughout the animal embryo as it matured into a fetus and integrate themselves into every organ.

Such "humanized" animals could have countless uses. They would almost certainly provide better ways to test a new drug's efficacy and toxicity, for example, than the ordinary mice typically used today.

But few scientists are eager to do that experiment. The risk, they say, is that some human cells will find their way to the developing testes or ovaries, where they might grow into human sperm and eggs. If two such chimeras -- say, mice -- were to mate, a human embryo might form, trapped in a mouse.

Not everyone agrees that this would be a terrible result.

"What would be so dreadful?" asked Ann McLaren, a renowned developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge in England. After all, she said, no human embryo could develop successfully in a mouse womb. It would simply die, she told the academy. No harm done.

But others disagree -- if only out of fear of a public backlash.

"Certainly you'd get a negative response from people to have a human embryo trying to grow in the wrong place," said Cynthia B. Cohen, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics and a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which supported a ban on such experiments there.

How Human?

But what about experiments in which scientists add human stem cells not to an animal embryo but to an animal fetus, which has already made its eggs and sperm? Then the only question is how human a creature one dares to make.

In one ongoing set of experiments, Jeffrey L. Platt at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., has created human-pig chimeras by adding human-blood-forming stem cells to pig fetuses. The resulting pigs have both pig and human blood in their vessels. And it's not just pig blood cells being swept along with human blood cells; some of the cells themselves have merged, creating hybrids.

It is important to have learned that human and pig cells can fuse, Platt said, because he and others have been considering transplanting modified pig organs into people and have been wondering if that might pose a risk of pig viruses getting into patient's cells. Now scientists know the risk is real, he said, because the viruses may gain access when the two cells fuse.

In other experiments led by Esmail Zanjani, chairman of animal biotechnology at the University of Nevada at Reno, scientists have been adding human stem cells to sheep fetuses. The team now has sheep whose livers are up to 80 percent human -- and make all the compounds human livers make.

Zanjani's goal is to make the humanized livers available to people who need transplants. The sheep portions will be rejected by the immune system, he predicted, while the human part will take root.

"I don't see why anyone would raise objections to our work," Zanjani said in an interview.

Immunity Advantages

Perhaps the most ambitious efforts to make use of chimeras come from Irving Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. Weissman helped make the first mouse with a nearly complete human immune system -- an animal that has proved invaluable for tests of new drugs against the AIDS virus, which does not infect conventional mice.

More recently his team injected human neural stem cells into mouse fetuses, creating mice whose brains are about 1 percent human. By dissecting the mice at various stages, the researchers were able to see how the added brain cells moved about as they multiplied and made connections with mouse cells.

Already, he said, they have learned things they "never would have learned had there been a bioethical ban."

Now he wants to add human brain stem cells that have the defects that cause Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease and other brain ailments -- and study how those cells make connections.

Scientists suspect that these diseases, though they manifest themselves in adulthood, begin when something goes wrong early in development. If those errors can be found, researchers would have a much better chance of designing useful drugs, Weissman said. And those drugs could be tested in the chimeras in ways not possible in patients.

Now Weissman says he is thinking about making chimeric mice whose brains are 100 percent human. He proposes keeping tabs on the mice as they develop. If the brains look as if they are taking on a distinctly human architecture -- a development that could hint at a glimmer of humanness -- they could be killed, he said. If they look as if they are organizing themselves in a mouse brain architecture, they could be used for research.

So far this is just a "thought experiment," Weissman said, but he asked the university's ethics group for an opinion anyway.

"Everyone said the mice would be useful," he said. "But no one was sure if it should be done."

EBay outlines policy on racial language

WASHINGTON Nov 17, 2004 ? Following complaints, eBay has announced a new policy regarding use of racially offensive terms in its listings.

Racially offensive terms may not appear in descriptions of items, as some sellers apparently have done in the Web site's Black Americana categories.

The terms are allowed on the site only when used in titles of books, movies or other products. The giant online marketplace noted that racially derogatory terms are used in the titles of a number of books, including some by African-American writers.

Users who attempt to use the offending terms will see a pop-up notice informing them of the new policy.

< It's derogatory for them to read books by themselves with particular words that they use in the title... >

FCC clarifies that they do, in fact, control everything

The Broadcast Flag mandated by the FCC was the result of content owners and broadcasters coming together and pushing the FCC to support technologies that put control of Over-The-Air (OTA) HDTV broadcasts in the hands of the large corporations. Their fears are simple to understand: all digital content is easily copied without a degradation in quality, and so, it was argued, that HDTV sent over the air would lead to rampant piracy and broadcast rights violations

As we reported earlier, the FCC sided heavily with the view that HDTV adoption rates would remain stiffled so long as the FCC didn't provide protection for the content industry and the broadcasters. So, they passed rules that permit a broadcaster, at its discretion, to embed the broadcast flag into any Digital TV transmissions. This flag will not break existing equipment, but equipment manufactured by the middle of 2005 will need to support the flag's operations if said devices feature an over-the-air Digital TV tuner.

In March of this year challenges were brought against the FCC's authority in this matter when the Electronic Frontier Foundation and eight other public interest groups filed a lawsuit over the matter. The brief was updated with further challenges last October, which merit repeating.

...the FCC has no authority to regulate digital TV sets and other digital devices unless specifically instructed to do so by Congress. While the FCC does have jurisdiction over TV transmissions, transmissions are not at issue here. The broadcast flag limits the way digital material can be used after the broadcast has already been received.

The heart of the matter is rather simple: does the FCC have the legal status necessary to regulate digital TV or not? Susan Crawford has been following this, and posted the brief (PDF) that was filed by the FCC in response to this question, along with her thoughts on the implications of the FCC's increased bravado:

The FCC's brief, filed in response to PK's challenge to FCC's jurisdiction in the flag matter, is breathtaking. FCC's position is that its Act gives it regulatory power over all instrumentalities, facilities, and apparatus "associated with the overall circuit of messages sent and received" via all interstate radio and wire communication. That's quite a claim.

The scope of such a claim is immense, reaching people's PCs and any other conceivable digital television consumption device. Unfortunately, it's evident that much of the FCC's latest legislation (and hubris) comes at the behest of the larger players in the content production industry, which doesn't bode well for consumers. The trifecta of increasingly draconian copyright restriction, combined with the new ability (via the DMCA) of private entities to effectively set their own copyright rules outside scope of the law, and an FCC that thinks it controls as much as it does, create a harsh environment for smaller companies and consumers. Indeed, the FCC's dismissal of 70 years of procedures reflects the potential problems we could face in near future:

[The] FCC can't deny that every single time it has made a rule affecting consumer electronics devices it has had explicit authority from Congress to do so. But its brief argues that none of these statutes "demonstrate[] a congressional understanding that the FCC lacks general rulemaking authority over television receiving equipment." ("Congress didn't tell us we couldn't act.")"

It's clear that there's a desperate need for more legislative oversight in these matters. The FCC should be seeking the will of the people, through elected representatives, before making industy-centric decisions aimed at commercial markets. The irony is, it won't be possible to circumvent the broadcast flag without facing legal repercussions, while at the same time I'm still not able benefit from one of the few pro-consumer rulings the FCC has handed down in the recent past, due to the FCC's apparent disinterest in enforcing rulings for "the little guy"?.

Stoplight to punish suburban speeders

An electronic sign warns drivers if they are exceeding th... Bob Hudson, a Pleasanton city employee, uses his laptop c...

Pleasanton is about to turn the fast into the furious.

In a move unprecedented in the Bay Area, the city's traffic engineers have created a traffic signal with attitude. It senses when a speeder is approaching and metes out swift punishment.

It doesn't write a ticket. It immediately turns from green to yellow to red.

Residents and commute-jockeys said Tuesday that the light, which the city plans to unveil today on Vineyard Avenue at the intersection of Montevino Drive, is either an inspired leap into the future or a blatant example of government overzealousness.

"It's kind of big-brotherish, but sometimes it's the price we pay for safety," said JoAnne Brewer, 49, who walked her golden retriever past the new signal Tuesday morning and predicted it would be a success.

"I'm not much of a speeder myself," Brewer added. "It's my husband that it will catch."

Drivers on the two-lane Vineyard, as they approach Montevino, will see an electronic sign that gives the speed limit -- 40 mph heading west and 35 mph going east -- then flashes their actual speed.

A camera about 350 feet from the intersection measures speed and tells the light whether to do its business. Traffic engineers plan to give drivers a few miles per hour of wiggle room. But once speeding is detected, the red light will turn on for at least 10 seconds -- or 30 seconds-plus if cross traffic is waiting.

It's all a little too much for Ken Pattee, a 52-year-old construction inspector from Livermore who sometimes rides his Harley-Davidson down Vineyard Avenue. He said he doesn't feel good about the electronic eye.

"It's depriving you of another one of your liberties -- going fast," Pattee said. "If they implement it everywhere, there will be nothing but red lights. Nobody does the speed limit."

Except Pattee, that is.

"I do the speed limit," he said. "That's my story, and I'm sticking with it."

The signal is a sign of the times. The Bay Area is increasingly consumed with its traffic woes, as seen in a recent fight over neighborhood traffic barriers that divided Palo Alto residents.

Top political issue

Pleasanton has become a capital of traffic hand-wringing, with a spot between Interstates 580 and 680 that invites cutting commuters. Traffic is easily the No. 1 political issue in the city, informing nearly every decision. The Police Department even allows citizens to borrow radar guns to document speeders near their homes and send out warning letters to offenders.

The punitive nature of the signal on Vineyard appears to have the united support of neighbors and the Police Department, which hasn't seen an unusual number of accidents on the route but envisions a low-cost way to make people feel safe.

The intersection sits near large stucco and brick homes with manicured landscaping. The route, connecting downtown Pleasanton to the Ruby Hill gated community and Highway 84 in Livermore, is not the country road it used to be, and it attracts a healthy stream of regional commuters.

Many neighbors are so peeved with the popularity of the road that they didn't want a traffic signal at all at Montevino because it would allow traffic to flow better than the stop sign it replaced. At least the stop signs made speeding impossible and persuaded some commuters to steer clear, neighbors said.

Pleasanton public works director Rob Wilson said the city has no plans to build more of the signals. But police Lt. Mark Senkle, who heads traffic enforcement, said, "If it works, I'd like to see it done in a few other areas in town. I don't anticipate problems, but the truth is, we just don't know. No one's done this."

Thousand Oaks light

At least one other place in California has put together a traffic signal that is deputized against speeders. The Ventura County city of Thousand Oaks installed one in 2000 that Pleasanton traffic chief Jeff Knowles, who used to work in Thousand Oaks, has been watching closely.

"The people who were concerned about speed are pleased with it, but you'll hear a different story from some of the users of the road," said Thousand Oaks senior civil engineer Jim Mashiko.

Thousand Oaks has discovered a few hiccups, Mashiko said. Pedestrians, for example, must be given the green on all four crosswalks in the intersection at the same time, so they are not confused by a sudden yellow and red aimed at a speeder.

In addition, red rage could become an issue as drivers can be guilty by association if a speeder is just in front of them, just behind them or moving simultaneously in the opposite direction.

Pleasanton plans to address at least one of those issues: the opposite- direction speeder. The Pleasanton signal will allow a red light to shine in just one direction, letting the light stay green for the nonspeeding driver in the opposite direction. In such cases, any cross traffic will continue receiving the red light.

Some worry evolution dispute hurts image

ATLANTA (AP) -- First, Georgia's education chief tried to take the word "evolution" out of the state's science curriculum. Now a suburban Atlanta county is in federal court over textbook stickers that call evolution "a theory, not a fact."

Some here worry that Georgia is making itself look like a bunch of rubes or, worse, discrediting its own students.

"People want to project the image that Georgia is a modern state, that we're in the 21st century. Then something like this happens," said Emory University molecular biologist Carlos Moreno.

The federal lawsuit being heard this week in Atlanta concerns whether the constitutional separation of church and state was violated when suburban Cobb County school officials placed the disclaimer stickers in high school biology texts in 2002. The stickers say evolution should be "critically considered."

Earlier this year, science teachers howled when state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox proposed a new science curriculum that dropped the word "evolution" in favor of "changes over time."

That plan was quickly dropped, but comic Jimmy Fallon still cracked wise on "Saturday Night Live": "As a compromise, dinosaurs are now called 'Jesus Horses'."

Those who support the Cobb County stickers testified this week that they are aiming for a more open-minded education for students.

"I think the (evolution) theory is atheistic. And it's all that's presented. It's an insult to their intelligence that they're only taught evolution," said Marjorie Rogers, the parent who first complained about the biology texts.

Some scientists say they are frustrated the issue is still around nearly 80 years since the Scopes Monkey Trial -- the historic case heard in neighboring Tennessee over the teaching of evolution instead of the biblical story of creation.

"We're really busy. We have a lot to do. And here we are, having to go through this 19th century argument over and over again," said Sarah Pallas, who teaches biology and neuroscience at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Moreno and dozens of other science instructors, along with the county superintendent, argued that the stickers only make the state look backward. And high school teacher Wes McCoy worried the issue could tarnish his students.


The sticker is affixed to high school biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia.
"I didn't want college admission counselors thinking less of their science educations, thinking they hadn't been taught evolution or something," McCoy testified.

Moreno recalled how, after graduating from Georgia public schools, he headed north to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, only to find that people were less than kind about his educational roots.

"They felt Southerners were not only less well educated, but less intelligent," Moreno said.

Doughnut shop worker Maria Jordan, 48, said her Atlanta customers were shaking their heads over the latest dispute. "Lord, don't we have more important things to worry about?" she asked. "It's just a flat-out embarrassment."

As for what they are saying elsewhere around the country, she said: "Whatever Georgia's getting up north, we're putting it on ourselves."

Boy sues mom who refuses to buy him a PC

We used a lot of ploys to try and get our parents to buy us stuff when we were younger (you don?t even want to know what we did to score an original Nintendo Entertainment System), but an 11-year-old in central China has raised the bar for gadget-hungry kids everywhere by suing his mother after she backed out of an agreement to buy him a computer if he got good enough grades. It actually got as far as a courtroom, but the judge hearing the case was able to work things out between them, though there?s no mention of whether or not the kid ever got his computer.

Read a Book, Get Oral Sex?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York officials were red-faced on Friday after they discovered that clothing ads on city buses that appeared to promote reading suggested a love of books could be rewarded with oral sex.

The advertisements that ran on about 200 buses across the city in recent months carried posters displaying a suggestively posed woman in hot pants kneeling among a pile of books beside the snappy slogan "Read Books, Get Brain."

What unhip, unsuspecting local transportation officials did not know was that "get brain" is street slang for oral sex.

The ads -- from hip-hop clothing maker Akademiks, which intended the double-entendre -- was stripped off New York buses on Friday after transportation officials discovered the street slang meaning.

Metropolitan Transit Authority spokesman Tom Kelly condemned the "vulgar street phrases" in the racy ads he said were "demeaning women."

"To me and I believe to everyone else, while it was done by a clothing line, it would give the impression that it was also promoting reading and literacy," Kelly told Reuters.

"It's easy enough to understand how that would get by based upon someone not knowing the expression."

A spokesman for the New York-based clothing maker noted the ad campaign had run since September and "we hadn't had any complaints at all."

New York officials may not be the only ones caught out.

Akademiks also placed the ads on buses and bus shelters in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco and Philadelphia, the company spokesman said.

Kelly, who said he was his 60s, said that after he was tipped to the hidden meaning of the phrase on Thursday he ran a test among some young MTA workers.

"I went downstairs to the mailroom and showed some of the young guys a copy of the ad," he said. "I was watching their faces and they all start smirking.

"Apparently it's on all the music, in music that's how they refer to it," Kelly said. "I didn't know anything about it and I'm sure the people that approved the ad didn't."

Kelly said it was sad that "you can't take things at face value any longer," adding, "We'll have to learn from experience before we accept ads."

Americans Flock to Canada's Immigration Web Site

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President Bush's election win this week.

"When we looked at the first day after the election, Nov. 3, our Web site hit a new high, almost double the previous record high," immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said on Friday.

On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm.

Bush's victory sparked speculation that disconsolate Democrats and others might decide to start a new life in Canada, a land that tilts more to the left than the United States.

Would-be immigrants to Canada can apply to become permanent resident, a process that often takes a year. The other main way to move north on a long-term basis is to find a job, which requires a work permit.

But please spare the sob stories.

Asked whether an applicant would be looked upon more sympathetically if they claimed to be a sad Democrat seeking to escape four more years of Bush, Iadinardi replied: "There would be no weight given to statements of feelings."

Canada is one of the few major nations with an large-scale immigration policy. Ottawa is seeking to attract between 220,000 and 240,000 newcomers next year.

"Let's face it, we have a population of a little over 32 million and we definitely need permanent residents to come to Canada," said Iadinardi. "If we could meet (the 2005) target and go above it, the more the merrier."

But right now it is too early to say whether the increased interest will result in more applications.

"There is no unusual activity occurring at our visa missions (in the United States). Having someone who intends to come to Canada is not the same as someone actually putting in an application," said Iadinardi.

"We'll only find out whether there has been an increase in applications in six months."
The waiting time to become a citizen is shorter for people married to Canadians, which prompted the birth of a satirical Web site called www.marryanamerican.ca.

The idea of increased immigration by unhappy Americans is triggering some amusement in Canada. Commentator Thane Burnett of the Ottawa Sun newspaper wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide to would-be new citizens on Friday.

"As Canadians, you'll have to learn to embrace and use all the products and culture of Americans, while bad-mouthing their way of life," he said.

Queen sell pirate music to fans

Queen sell pirate music to fans


Queen are one of the most pirated bands in the world
Queen have decided to tackle musical piracy by offering fans the chance to legally download up to 100 pirate recordings currently in circulation.
Using expert advice, the band has selected the best illegal Queen recordings and will make them available to download on their official website.

The downloads will be available at the rate of three tracks each month, at a fixed cost of £5 per recording.

All proceeds will be donated to the Mercury Phoenix Trust, to combat Aids.

Pirate music has increased tenfold since Freddie Mercury's death in 1991.

Expert advice

As one of the most pirated bands in the world there is a mass of illegal Queen material now available on the web.

Only a tiny fraction of these are worth being sought out by fans and collectors and Queen have sought expert advice regarding the best of the material.

Queen bootleg experts Frank Hazenberg, Andreas Voigts, Frank Palstra singled out what they consider the most interesting and significant material, judged on quality of sound and range of material.

"Playing the bootleggers at their own game seems an appealing prospect for most of us," says Queen guitarist Brian May.

"Here we hope to do just that, hoping in the end it will lead to a sense of satisfaction all round."

EMI Music's Tony Wadsworth welcomed the band's stance against music piracy.

"This latest idea harnesses the power of digital delivery to enable queen fans to get the best of the many unofficial live recordings of the band - inexpensively and legally," he said.