Nestle has announced a curry-flavored Kit-Kat. Somebody alert Eric.

The Feds are stepping up their pursuit of the porn business. Oh boy.

Why is it that the “small government” and “personal responsibility” party is all about LIMITING rights — such as whom we can marry, what we can put in our bodies, and what we can watch, read, or surf on the Internet? This porn crusade couldn’t be about election-year politics, could it?

On the other hand, I’m more than supportive of some kinds of porn regulation, assuming said regulation is limited to “while the vehicle is moving.”

This Administration’s ongoing attempt to have ideology trump science is having a bit of trouble this week, since the Union of Concerned Scientists (a group of 60 influential researchers, including 20 Nobel laureates) issued a statement today condemning the practice of distorting science to serve policy goals. (NYT story; nogators/nogators works). More coverage at Wired news, pleasantly registration-free and chock full of background links.

The US Dept. of Education has declared about 200 TV programs ineligable for grant-funded captioning as a result of a sudden and drastic narrowing of what they term “acceptable.”

The Department of Education is refusing to reveal the names of the panel members whose opinions determined the caption grants and also won’t disclose the new guidelines. By every appearance, the government has changed its definition of what constitutes a caption-worthy program. But it’s keeping the new rules secret. Palm Beach Post Op-Ed

There rest of that op-ed is online, and the National Association of the Deaf weighs in here. The list of approved and disapproved programs makes for interesting reading, too.

Madge is dead.

The rest of the world — mostly, countries poorer than us — needs help with information technology. Of course, they have no money to buy software, so you’d think the UN’s logical point would be “hey! How about this Open Source stuff? Can’t we use that?”

Not if the US has anything to do with it. Advocating the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) might get in the way of somebody making a profit at some point, you see, so we can’t be suggesting people actually use what they can afford right now. Jesus.

On March 22, Dudley Hiibel will find out.

Possible captions include:

• “Paris Hilton practices with her new Courtney Love Realdoll Ventriloquism Kit™.
• “Embattled Courtney Love, the 90’s own Yoko Ono, seeks career advice from similarly talented Paris Hilton.”
• “No, Edgar, the cropped portion contains no hoo-hah action.”
• “Paris Hilton finally finds someone who looks more stoned than she does.”
• “You see, Paris, you take hold of the elbow and twist a little, and the vein just pops right out — oh, shit, is that a camera?”

A Native American group is having a hissy fit over Andre 3000’s performance at the Grammys, and have gone so far as to suggest their Image Award nominations be revoked. They’ve also filed a complaint with the FCC. It’s apparently the “most disgusting set of racial stereotypes aimed at American Indians…ever seen,” a statement which presumably lets the Washington Redskins off the hook entirely.

CBS has, of course, already apologized in accordance with their new all-apology, all-the-time policy. Still left for CBS to apologize for: “CSI: Miami” and the whole idea of “Survivor.”

This summer markes the 100th anniverary of Bloomsday, which you have to be pretty damn geeky to even understand. You see, James Joyce’s Ulysses takes place on a single day. The day in question is June 16, 1904, making this summer a wonderful opportunity for literary celebration, or at least an excuse to swill an awful lot of Guiness at highbrow events.

But never mind that, at least in Dublin. The Joyce estate is preparing to sue over any public readings from his work, however, thanks to (you guessed it!) copyright extensions brought on by EU legislation. Under the original copyright, Joyce’s book passed into the public domain 50 years after his death in 1941 (i.e., in 1991). The EU-mandated extension put it back in the bottle in 1995, and the estate intends to keep it there (EU copyrights are death-plus-75, not 50). So much for shared literary history. You’d think they’d see this as free marketing.

Florida’s excellent sunshine laws ensure essentially any document created by government is available for anonymous public review unless specifically exempted by statute. Unfortunately, an audit conducted by 30 Floriday newspapers discovered that nearly half the agencies surveyed were unwilling to comply when requests are made by “ordinary citizens” (i.e., made by people who did not identify themselves as journalists or attorneys). Stonewalling and intimidation ruled the day in 43% of the case. In a particularly egregious example, Broward county administrator Roger Desjarlais told a volunteer “I can make your life very difficult,” and then used the Internet to obtain the volunteer’s cell phone number to enable additional harrassment.

Desjarlais defended his actions, saying that the volunteer raised suspicion when he declined to explain who he was. Officials across the state had similar misgivings about volunteers who came into their offices. They cited a number of arbitrary reasons for their suspicions, including the volunteers’ hair length, casual dress and, in one case, “the look in his eyes.”

This next bit is priceless:

Mary Kay Cariseo, executive director of the Florida Association of Counties, said people need to understand that making a public records request can be threatening to public officials. “You’re not looking at e-mails to do something good,” she said. “You’re trying to find something. You’re trying to dig something up when we’re trying to be good public servants and run our governments.” That’s a key reason why the public records law exists, said Sandra Chance, executive director of the University of Florida’s Brechner Center, a nonprofit organization that studies and serves as a resource on public records law. The ability to inspect government records lets the public police the officials they bankroll with tax dollars.

Bingo.

Of course, “security” had to raise its head in the litany of bullshit excuses for not following Florida law; it’s the catch-all reason for fuzzy-headed beaurocrats everywhere:

In a post-audit interview, Taylor County Superintendent Oscar Howard said his district was hesitant to produce his cell phone bill because the volunteer wouldn’t give his name. “He could have been a terrorist,” Howard said. “We have to ensure the safety of children.” Howard couldn’t explain how a terrorist might use his cell phone bill to harm children.

Neither, of course, did Howard explain how giving a name — or even showing identification — would deter or prevent terrorists from obtaining his oh-so-sensitive cell phone bill. The rest of the nation would do well to adopt sunshine laws like Florida’s — especially if we do so on the Federal level, and hold our elected servants to the same standard. Of course, THEN where would Cheney hide his cronyism?

Greedy car dealer duped by teen. Sure, it’s all over the web, but damn, this is hi-larious. “You’re the banker? Sure. Deliver it to a high school? Absolutely!”

My job may be sort of underperforming right now, but at least my coworkers cannot feed me to the lions.

Aside to M: Do not view this as a challenge.

For years now, I’ve been ranting here about the gradual erosion of our civil liberties in the name of “security.” Now, though, it’s finally gone FAR TOO FAR.

As any fool can see, James Brown was clearly denied his right to ‘Do Process last month when he was arrested for spousal battery. If it can happen to JB, it can happen to YOU.

Thanks, I’m here all week. Try the veal.

Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com covers a story (UPI, but still) noting that indictments are coming in the Plame Affair — indictments apparently meant to shake loose folks further up the food chain.

And in an election year, even.

Pentagon Cancels Internet Voting Plan

Wired News has a story on the steps the OMB is taking to eliminate top scientists from its pseudo-peer-review process in favor of those hand-picked to support the administration’s position, and science be damned.

Marvel and DC are asserting that they and they alone have the right to use the term superhero; they’ve already bullied a small publisher into changing the title of one of their books.

I said basically the same thing yesterday, but Whiskey Bar has a great rant on the bizarre reactions to the boob flashed ’round the world.

Slacktivist once again nails it, this time on the bizarre claims the administration is now making about how it was mislead on the Iraqi WMD issue by the CIA and the intelligence community. It’s been amply documented that in the rush to war, the White House disregarded any intelligence that suggested their cassus belli of choice was inaccurate; they cannot not credibly claim that the CIA is to blame for their own cherrypicking of only the most damning (and unverifiable) data.

Agent Mohney points us to the libertarian publication Reason for this discussion of the efficacy and competency of the Transportation Safety Administration. Hint: it’s a sick joke, and we’re no safer for our loss of privacy and liberty when flying.