If you’re like me, you have concerns about U.S. intellectual property law. Maybe you just have some questions. In that case, I direct you to the U.S. Copyright Office’s Frequently Asked Question list. In fact, I strongly suggest that you investigate question #58.

My friends and I, well, we’re concerned about our Republic. Consequently, we sought out our local chapter of the ACLU, since supporting 9 out of 10 Amendments ain’t bad. It seems, at least according to the local pseudo-alt paper, that they meet at La Mexicana for happy hours on the first Thursday of each month, so in early January, there we were.

Completely alone. Yup, nobody there. Well, we thought, perhaps they’ve taken a bye on January; it was very soon after the holidays. We’ll try again in February.

And so we did. This time, we check both the Press and their local web site. Enter problem the first: they disagree. The Press says they’ll meet at La Mexicana, as expected, but the site says Cafe Noche. Fortunately, they’re across the street from each other, so once again we set out to support our civil liberties.

There was, of course, no one at Noche. Nor was there anyone at Mexicana, and at neither place did any employees know of such a gathering.

Frustrated, I called the number supplied in the Press. I reached Annette Lamoreaux, or at least her voice mail. I left her a message including the following points:

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Some folks at Harvard are doing groundbreaking work in the new field of Squirrel Fishing.

For years in the mid-nineties, I enjoyed a band called Morphine. It was a minimalist, laconic, jazzy three-piece made up of Mark Sandman (vocals, 2-String Slide Bass), Dana Colley (baritone, tenor, and double saxophones) and Billy Conway (drums). The odd mix of instruments coupled with Sandman’s voice made for a very distinctive sound, even without considering their songwriting talent. Here’s a sample from Cure for Pain).

On July 3, 1999, Morphine were playing a show just outside Rome. During the second song of the set, Mark Sandman had a massive heart attack. He collapsed, and died en route to the hospital. He was 46 years old. (Obits from Boston Phoenix and Salon.) Posthumously, the band released what many think of as their strongest record, The Night.

If you enjoyed Morphine, or just enjoyed the track I supplied above, you might look into Twinemen. Conway and Colley, joined by Laurie Sargent, are still making music. They don’t have Mark anymore, but the samples from the site were enough to convince me to order the record.

The Bush Administration failed to request any aid monies to help rebuild Afghanistan. Congress has stepped in. What the hell were they thinking? If we’d done right by those folks 20 years ago, I suspect we’d be in better shape now.

(The link is now correct. NoGators thanks sharp-eyed Senior Jackson Legal Correspondent Triple-F for catching the error.)

Here’s some of that stuff you’ll need.

Masturbate for Peace.

I’m posting this with a Danger “HipTop” device at a T-Mobile store while I wait for my phone to get fixed. According to BoingBoing, you can get these for free (as in beer, Mike) at Amazon. Tempting.

Congress grows a spine. The Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness meets legislative roadblock in the form of a Senate provision prohibiting its use to monitor Americans’ email, or do further research on the program without Congressional oversight.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., senior Democrat on the subcommittee, said of the program, “Jerry’s [Lewis, R-CA, head of the defense appropriation subcommittee] against it, and I’m against it, so we kept the Senate amendment.” Of the Pentagon, he said, “They’ve got some crazy people over there.”

Slightly different than it ever was.

This is clearly something we should do at my next party. When we’re drunk.

Flyguy.

Here is a mouse accelerator for OS X. I’ve been grousing for one for weeks.

If I said to you “pencil carving,” I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have this in mind. Don’t miss the gallery. There’s one with actual ball-and-socket joints.

Which of you can figure out how this works?

I realized that a similar trick has been passed around before. It may be a little easier to figure out, but it’s also cool.

These two sort of define a genre of “web based slight-of-hand.” It’s sort of neat to think there’s room for such a thing.

Salon has coverage today.

Grover is Bitter.

This is my favorite picture ever of two basketball players and a pop star. Really.

The Bush administration is now claiming that marijuana poses a greater health risk than any other drug. Whew! I guess we can stop worrying about heroin and crack now, huh?

This about covers it.

The General Accounting Office has decided not to appeal in its quest for access to Cheney’s energy task force information. Damn.

Ashcroft, et. al., are busy drafting a sequal to the civil liberties disaster passed in the hysteria following 9/11, the USA PATRIOT act. This sweeping new “ domestic security” law set to ride roughshod over our already endangered Bill of Rights.

Dr. David Cole, Georgetown University Law professor and author of Terrorism and the Constitution, reviewed the draft legislation at the request of the Center, and said that the legislation “raises a lot of serious concerns. It’s troubling that they have gotten this far along and they’ve been telling people there is nothing in the works.” This proposed law, he added, “would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.”

The link is slow; please give it time. (Via BoingBoing.net)

I’m sorry I keep harping on this, but damn, it’s so amazingly wrong I don’t know what else to do.

Thank goodness someone’s explained the Theory of Relativity in words of 4 letters or less.

France is no longer considered an ally, according to the Pentagon.

Rep. Howard Coble (R, NC) stated on Tuesday that he supported the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, suggesting that he might support similar actions toward Arab-Americans today.

They’ve configured their MSN site to render poorly in Opera, a competing and excellent browser. They’re doing this by checking the user agent and deliberately giving Opera a broken stylesheet. If you change the user-agent string to something else — that is, if you tell Opera to lie and say it’s not Opera — the MSN page magically works just fine. Opera software did a little investigation, which has a bit more technical detail.

If you’re annoyed by creepy big-brother-ism at airports, you’ll love this.

Lexmark has filed suit against a small company who had the temerity to reverse-engineer its printer refills and offer them at a lower price. Before the DMCA, this was known as “business competition.”

New York Times coverage of the case. I’m stunned this thing isn’t getting more coverage.

Many years ago, when God was a freshman, printers were big noisy things, not sleek desktop devices. They were also pretty fast, since they had to service lots of people. By combining noise and speed and the distinctive sound certain patterns made, certain hardcore geeks were able to make the IBM 1403 play music. ||||

You see, it’s very easy to win elections if you own the voting machines.

It appears North Dakota may be harboring nuclear weapons.

Extremely low-res renderings of “adult” images. They look like they might inappropriate as thumbnails, but you can scarcely tell they’re anything at all once you see the larger image.

The Iron Maidens are the world’s only all-female Iron Maiden tribute band.

We hope.

How about Flash-based Atari Adventure?|*|

William Gibson has a blog.

This Page Intentionally Left Blank.

Legendary producer Phil Spector has been charged with murder. [ MTV] [ CNN] (The MTV coverage is a bit more interesting, as it notes that Spector had a habit of rather odd behavior, including waving guns about.)

Here’s a list of a whole bunch of good ones.

Salon is running an interview with Hunter S. Thompson that’s well worth a read.

Transmetropolitan author Warren Ellis has a weblog.

I’m all for subtitles — they’re certainly better than overdubbing — but only if they’re actually accurate. In cases such as this one, it’s important to remember the lessons of Engrish.com.

Two teenagers stole a skeleton in order to dress it as Darth Vader and take it to a party.

In the conclusion of the Kafkaesque trial I noted earlier, Ed Rosenthal has been found guilty under Federal law of cultivating marijuana despite the fact that he had permits and permission from his city and state under local statues for medical use. He was not allowed to mention the purpose of the pot in question, nor could his attorneys mention the fact that what he was doing was legal under state law. So much for state’s rights. Rosenthal faces he possibility of life in prison for growing medical pot, something his state deems acceptable. On the other hand, Ken Lay walks free.

This week, another Internet worm did its best to crash countless Microsoft servers on the Internet. Microsoft, whose usual position is “just keep up with the patches and you’ll be fine,” was among those hit, as they can’t seem to follow their own advice.

Why do people keep using Microsoft server software? I understand having trouble abandoning Office, but if you skip the servers, omit Outlook, and ditch IE for Mozilla, your safety level rises dramatically even if you stick with Windows. Moving to a Mac or Linux makes you even safer. Food for thought.

According to David Icke, it’s reptiles all the way down. I’m glad that’s settled.

Here’s a piece on the “pot-gets-you-pregnant” ad from the Super Bowl. These new spots would be hilarious if they weren’t so clearly intended to stifle debate.

Warren Zevon (NYT, use nogators/nogators) was interviewed in the January 26 NYT Magazine. It’s a fine piece.

Now, within our grasp! I heard it on the Internets! It’s gotta be true! Order your zapper today and be rid of all disease-causing parasites through the miracle of, well, some principle they’re not exactly clear on. But you should definitely get one. It’s got magnets in it, and we all know how magic magnets are.

On the other hand, they might well be kooks.