Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, July 16, 2013.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: I Wanna Get Next To You by Rose Royce
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Why You Should Care About the Drugs Your Doctor Prescribes
By Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein
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We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for prescribing data. After months of negotiation with officials, we were given a list of the drugs prescribed by every health professional to enrollees in Medicare’s prescription drug program, known as Part D.
What we found was disturbing. Although we didn’t have access to patient names or medical records, it was clear that hundreds of physicians across the country were prescribing large numbers of dangerous, inappropriate or unnecessary drugs. And Medicare had done little, if anything, about it.
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Among the top prescribers of the most-abused painkillers, we found many who had been charged with crimes, convicted, disciplined by their state medical boards or terminated from state Medicaid programs for the poor. But nearly all remained eligible to prescribe to Medicare patients.
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We have now taken the data and put it into an online database that allows anyone to look up a doctor's prescribing patterns and see how they compare with those of other doctors.
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For instance, why is your doctor choosing a drug that his peers seldom do? Does your doctor favor expensive brand-name drugs when cheaper generics are available? Has your doctor been paid to give promotional talks for drug makers?
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China plans a major solar spree
By John Upton
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A solar-panel manufacturing blitz by Chinese companies has left a glut in the market, driving down prices for photovoltaic systems.
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The government has announced plans to add 10 gigawatts of solar capacity each year for three years. That would take advantage of cheap prices and help the country’s manufacturers move product in a difficult market. From Reuters:
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The sector has been hit hard by the excess capacity, falling government subsidies and trade disputes. Manufacturers have been hemorrhaging cash and struggling with mounting debts as panel prices fell by two thirds over the past couple of years.
Moving stockpiled panels out of warehouses and putting them to use providing clean energy should be a win-win. And if the move helps alleviate the global panel glut that’s been plaguing the solar industry, then make that a win-win-win. |
Unitarian Church, Gun Groups Join EFF to Sue NSA Over Illegal Surveillance
By (EFF)
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Nineteen organizations including Unitarian church groups, gun ownership advocates, and a broad coalition of membership and political advocacy organizations filed suit against the National Security Agency (NSA) today for violating their First Amendment right of association by illegally collecting their call records. The coalition is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a group with years of experience fighting illegal government surveillance in the courts.
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At the heart of First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA is the bulk telephone records collection program that was confirmed by last month's publication of an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) further confirmed that this formerly secret document was legitimate, and part of a broader program to collect all major telecommunications customers' call histories. The order demands wholesale collection of every call made, the location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other "identifying information" for every phone and call for all customers of Verizon for a period of three months. Government officials further confirmed that this was just one of series of orders issued on a rolling basis since at least 2006.
"People who hold controversial views – whether it's about gun ownership policies, drug legalization, or immigration – often must express views as a group in order to act and advocate effectively," said Cohn. "But fear of individual exposure when participating in political debates over high-stakes issues can dissuade people from taking part. That's why the Supreme Court ruled in 1958 that membership lists of groups have strong First Amendment protection. Telephone records, especially complete records collected over many years, are even more invasive than membership lists, since they show casual or repeated inquiries as well as full membership."
"The First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles has a proud history of working for justice and protecting people in jeopardy for expressing their political views," said Rev. Rick Hoyt. "In the 1950s, we resisted the McCarthy hysteria and supported blacklisted Hollywood writers and actors, and we fought California's 'loyalty oaths' all the way to the Supreme Court. And in the 1980s, we gave sanctuary to refugees from civil wars in Central America. The principles of our faith often require our church to take bold stands on controversial issues. We joined this lawsuit to stop the illegal surveillance of our members and the people we serve. Our church members and our neighbors who come to us for help should not fear that their participation in the church might have consequences for themselves or their families. This spying makes people afraid to belong to our church community."
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US orders release of justification for spying
By (Al Jazeera)
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A US court has ordered the Obama administration to declassify a 2008 court decision justifying the Prism spying programme revealed last month by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The ruling, issued earlier this week, will show how the state has legally justified its covert data collection programmes under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Judge Reggie Walton of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the ruling to declassify the decision. The government is expected to decide by August 26 which parts of the 2008 decision may be published.
The scope and scale of Prism, which collects millions of private foreign communications with American citizens, was leaked to the media last month by Snowden. Its operation is overseen by the FIS Court and its appeals body, the FIS Court of Review.
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International |
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Chart of the Day: Unemployment in Europe is Catastrophically High and Still Getting Worse
By Kevin Drum
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This is from the OECD's Employment Outlook 2013, and it shows the level of unemployment in the world's rich countries. Joblessness in Greece and Spain is at about 27 percent, higher than the United States suffered even during the depths of the Great Depression. Portugal, Ireland, Slovakia, and Italy are at somewhat less catastrophic levels, but still in dire shape.
But here's the worst part. See those white diamonds above each of the blue bars? That's the OECD forecast for the end of 2014. In nearly every case, it's equal to or higher than the current unemployment rate. Think about that: It's been five years since the financial crisis hit, and in lots of countries unemployment is still sky-high and getting higher.
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Greece grinds to a halt as major public sector layoffs loom
By Katrina Bishop
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Athens ground to a halt on Tuesday as Greek workers went on strike in protest at thousands of planned public sector job cuts, just days before a high-profile visit to the country by Germany's finance minister.
Greece's international lenders last week approved the latest tranche of aid for Athens, but stipulated tough conditions in return for the assistance, including a dramatic reduction in the size of the country's civil service. Greece's two largest unions, which represent around 2.5 millions workers, responded by calling a 24-hour general strike, which saw trains, buses and flights cancelled.
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Greece's "troika" of lenders - the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - want to see 25,000 public sector workers placed in a so-called "mobility pool" by the end of the year. They will be given eight months to find work elsewhere in the civil service or face redundancy.
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UN says Syria refugee crisis worst since Rwanda
By (BBC)
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The conflict in Syria has caused the world's worst refugee crisis for 20 years, with an average of 6,000 people fleeing every day in 2013, the UN says.
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There has been deadlock at the UN Security Council over the crisis, with Russia and China refusing to back action against Mr Assad proposed by the other veto powers, the US, Britain and France.
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Mr Guterres said the impact of the refugee crisis on neighbouring countries was "crushing", but said the acceptance of Syrians by countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq was "saving hundreds of thousands of lives".
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Ms Amos said $3.1bn was still needed to provide aid in and around Syria for the rest of the year, and she accused both sides in Syria of "systematically and in many cases deliberately" failing in their obligation to protect civilians.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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House GOP Cuts Funding for Lead Removal in Half
By Kevin Drum
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Stein explains the consequences: "Exposure to lead causes permanent brain damage, and half a million American children have elevated levels of lead in their blood. Lead poisoning is linked to lower IQs, learning disabilities, and even criminal behavior. The connection between lead poisoning and crime is so strong that scholars have even linked the prevalence of leaded gasoline to the overall crime rate.....Using the most conservative estimate of $17 in benefits for every dollar invested, the $6 million that sequestration already cut from lead removal programs will cost our country at least $102 million. The House Republican cut of $64 million below sequestration would cost over $1 billion."
Of course, lead removal programs mostly benefit poor people and non-whites, and the Republican Party has made it extra clear lately that they don't care about either group. I guess the only real surprise here is that they didn't cut the program to zero.
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Barclays fined $435m in US over energy market-rigging
By (BBC)
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US regulators have fined Barclays $435m (£287m) for manipulating energy markets in California and other states from November 2006 to December 2008.
Barclays and four of its traders must also pay $34.9m to the low-income home energy assistance programs of Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington.
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In a series of electronic messages, according to the FERC complaint, the traders boasted of their ability to manipulate markets.
In an email exchange, one of Mr Connelly's colleagues asks: "You going to have fun with the index all month?" and in another, Mr Connelly responds to details of market volatility with: "Crazy - I love it."
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
. . . The group began in the early 1970s, when members of several backup bands from the Watts and Inglewood areas of Los Angeles united under the name Total Concept Unlimited. In 1973, this collective toured England and Japan behind Motown soul star Edwin Starr. Starr introduced them to Norman Whitfield, Motown's 'psychedelic shaman' who was responsible for bringing a progressive funk-rock slant to the company, via such productions as Starr's "War", The Undisputed Truth's "Smiling Faces Sometimes" and The Temptations "Papa Was A Rolling Stone".
Whitfield, after a decade at Motown wanted to start a company of his own. He took the T.C.U. octet under his wing and signed them to his label. The group, now called Magic Wand, began working with Yvonne Fair and became the studio and concert band for The Undisputed Truth. During a tour stop in Miami, Undisputed Truth leader Joe Harris stumbled upon a singer named Gwen Dickey, then a member of a local group called The Jewels. Harris informed Whitfield of his discovery and Dickey was flown to Los Angeles to audition. In Dickey, Whitfield found the ingredient he felt was missing in Magic Wand: a charismatic female singer. He gave her the stage name Rose Norwalt. The original band lineup, now complete, prepared their debut album.
During this time Whitfield was contacted by film director Michael Schultz, fresh from the success of his first feature Cooley High. Schultz offered Whitfield the opportunity to score his next picture Car Wash. Whitfield would utilize the film to launch his new group, and began composing music based on script outlines. He and the band visited the film set, soaking up the atmosphere. This was one of the rare instances in Hollywood in which the music was composed concurrently with the picture instead of after the fact. In the spirit of the soundtrack, the band's name was changed one final time to 'Rose Royce'. The name not only referenced the movie's automotive theme, but it also placed Gwen "Rose" Dickey, front and center. Further, it hinted at a touch of class the band strove to bring to 1970s soul-funk.
The movie Car Wash and the soundtrack were great successes, bringing the group national fame. Released in late 1976, the soundtrack featured three Billboard R&B Top Ten singles: "Car Wash," "I Wanna Get Next to You," and "I'm Going Down." The first of these was also a number one single on the Billboard popular music charts, and "I Wanna Get Next to You" reached number ten.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Plan to create massive Antarctic ocean sanctuaries blocked by surprise challenge from Russia and Ukraine
By Graham Readfearn
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The areas in question are considered to be one of the few remaining places on the planet which have largely escaped human impact, with unique ecosystems providing a home to iconic species including seals, whales, penguins and thousands of other species. Vast areas would be protected from fishing and act as reference points for scientists studying climate change.
But during the meeting it became clear Russia and Ukraine were challenging the legal right of CCAMLR to establish the MPAs.
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I can't read those nations' motivations. From Australia's perspective we believe – as many nations do – that CCAMLR has a mandate to create Marine Protected Areas. The fact that in 2011 by consensus CCAMLR agreed to a framework to create MPAs in the southern ocean demonstrated that CCAMLR believes it has a mandate.
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California cities want paint makers to remove lead from homes
By John Upton
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Ten California cities have a message for paint companies that sold lead-tainted products to their residents in decades past: “Get that shit out of our houses.”
Local governments filed suit again five paint manufacturers in 2000, and on Monday the trial finally began. Atlantic Richfield, NL Industries, Sherwin-Williams, and two other paint companies are defending themselves against claims that they should have pay to strip poisonous lead plaint out of an estimated 5 million homes, at a cost of about $1 billion. From the San Jose Mercury News:
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The paint industry has prevailed in similar lawsuits brought against it in Missouri, Ohio, and Rhode Island, but Californian officials are hopeful about their chances in this case.
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Science and Health |
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Bias Pervades the Scientific Reporting of Animal Studies, Research Suggests
By (ScienceDaily)
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A new study published in the open access journal PLOS Biology suggests that the scientific literature could be compromised by substantial bias in the reporting of animal studies, and may be giving a misleading picture of the chances that potential treatments could work in humans.
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The authors suggest that rather than reflecting wilful fraud on the part of the scientists who conduct the original studies, this "excess significance bias" comes from two main sources. One is that scientists conducting an animal study tend to choose the method of data analysis that appears to give them the "better" result. The second arises because scientists usually want to publish in higher profile journals; such journals tend to strongly prefer studies with positive, rather than negative, results. Many studies with negative results are not even submitted for publication or, if submitted, either cannot get published or are published belatedly in low-visibility journals, reducing their chances of inclusion in a meta-analysis.
It is likely that the types of bias reported in the new PLOS Biology paper have been responsible for the inappropriate promotion of treatments from animal studies into human clinical trials. It also seems unlikely that this phenomenon is confined to studies of neurological disorders; rather this is probably a general feature of the reporting of animal studies.
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A quarter of NYC adults ages 18-44 report hearing loss
By (UPI)
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New York City Health Department data show nearly 1-in-4 18- to 44-year-olds who frequently listen to loud headphones report hearing problems, officials say.
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A report, Hearing Problems and Headphone Use in New York City, based on data collected from the 2011 New York City Community Health Survey, found a quarter of city adults ages 18-44 who reported heavy headphone use were more than twice as likely to report hearing problems than those who report light-to-moderate use or no use of headphones.
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More than one-third of younger adults who reported listening to music with headphones listened every day. Of the younger adults who listened every day, 16 percent reported listening at more than half the maximum volume for 4 or more hours.
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Technology |
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Letting go of the camera: The action steps I took to break free from gear addiction
By Olivier Duong
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Like I stated in the previous article, the key to reforming habits is to keep the triggers and the rewards, but change the routine. Alcoholic Anonymous folks have a buddy system, when the trigger is pulled, simply call your buddy or mentor asap, changing the routine from alcohol to people. In my case, I knew my triggers, simply seeing a hot camera. My rewards was the feelings of fullfilement: I own a camera, therefore I am a photographer. Owning that large format camera made me feel in the same lineage as Ansel Adams. Owning that 35mm camera made me feel like I was just like Bresson or Kertez or something. Fulfilment was the key, I wanted to be a fulfilled photographer. I simply had to do something that gave me that fulfilment that did not involve buying more and more.
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I made it a point that upon seeing my cameras, I make a conscious effort to appreciate them. I can safely say that I didn’t appreciate most, if not all of my past purchases, so it had to change. When I look at My Ricoh GRD IV, I always say to myself how much it takes great pictures, how great it handles, how much I love having it. It makes me attached to my cameras, making me focus on what I have instead of what I do not have. When someone says online how awesome some other camera is, I immediately shift my toughts to my current gear and how awesome they are. So when someone says “XXX is amazing”, instead on dwelling on that camera and it’s looks, I dwell on my own and how amazing they are. If find it a necessity to actively be grateful for my gear because I don’t even want to entertain the idea that another camera would serve me better….it’s the classic G.A.S excuse.
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Here’s how I invested in photography: I sought to make a portfolio, forcing me to actually get the images. I feel like a million bucks being the one who shot my images, a much superior and ever lasting feeling than actually buying a piece of gear for a short euphoria. Way afterwards I made this blog, and with my super partner Don “Streetshooter” we made Street Presets and Inspired Eye. Many of my Magazine readers tell me that they just want to go out and shoot and be better. To me that confirms my theory that investing in one’s photography will remove the G.A.S. Amen!
The big gleaning from my past addiction, I think, is that photography and gear operate on the basis of the inverse square law. The more you invest in gear the less interest in photography. The more you invest in photography the less interest in gear. That’s what my experience and my research (Lurking around forums and all) taught me, if your experience differs I’m all ears. The whole point of the article series is not to make you stop being an addict, but only to channel that addiction to photography. I was a gear addict, now I am a photography addict, a huge difference.
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Microsoft pushes Eric Holder to lift block on public information sharing
By Dominic Rushe
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Microsoft has written to the US attorney general, Eric Holder, calling on him to "personally take action" to permit the software giant and others to share more information about the way they handle national security requests for customer data.
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"We believe the US constitution guarantees our freedom to share more information with the public, yet the government is stopping us," Microsoft said in a blogpost. "For example, government lawyers have yet to respond to the petition we filed in court on June 19, seeking permission to publish the volume of national security requests we have received. We hope the attorney general can step in to change this situation."
Microsoft claimed there were "significant inaccuracies in the interpretations of leaked government documents reported in the media last week." It said: "We have asked the government again for permission to discuss the issues raised by these new documents, and our request was denied by government lawyers."
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Yahoo and Microsoft join Google, Facebook, Apple and others in putting pressure on the government to be more transparent about its surveillance programmes.
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Microsoft Wants You to Let it Watch Your House in "Near-Real Time"
By Jason Mick
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Talk about ironic timing. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) was just slammed with accusations that it is collaborating with the U.S. government to promote massive spying efforts, and today the company announced the availability of its "Lab of Things", a "near real-time" effort to track your home utility usage.
First, what is Lab of Things? Lab of Things is Microsoft's latest cloud-based expansion to its cloud-connected smart meter project, which it dubs "HomeOS" (originally code-named "Hohm"). Both Microsoft and Google Inc. (GOOG) are looking to slowly build up userbases of households with internet-connected smart meters.
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In other words, Microsoft wants you to hook up your household security cameras (or your Xbox One's 1080p camera, perhaps?) to its "big cloud". As an incentive it's offering Lab of Things -- a slick SDK that gives you functions to analyze big data sets.
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How Scientology changed the internet
By Dave Lee
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What do Wikipedia, Wikileaks, Anonymous and copyright law have in common? The answer is they have all been influenced by the Church of Scientology International (CSI), as it took on ex-members and critics who took their protests onto the internet. As the Church successfully removes another website, just how big an influence has Scientology had on the internet we all use?
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"Scientology was the first organisation to be officially banned from Wikipedia," he says, referring to the landmark decision in 2009.
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With the help of local authorities, houses belonging to newsgroup users across the US were raided, with computer equipment being seized for weeks on end.
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That row was one of several which lead to the creation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a US law which gives copyright holders the power to ask for the removal of content to which they own the rights.
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Faced with the backlash, Google came to what founder Sergey Brin would later describe as the "right compromise", removing the listings, but replacing them with links to another website - chillingeffects.org - which lists the details of DMCA requests.
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Cultural |
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The First Emoticons Were Used in 1881
By Casey Chan
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The first instance of emoticons being used in print came in the March 30, 1881 issue of Puck magazine. You can see the faces of joy, melancholy, indifference (which kind of looks like a guy with thick eyebrows and a beard) and astonishment (always my favorite) in the middle of the page under 'Typographical Art'. Our emojis have come a long, long way.
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Foreign brands sought as China's food scares bite
By Celia Hatton
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As a mother of an energetic one-year-old boy nicknamed Huhu, Ms Liang is deeply suspicious of locally produced food in China. Endless food safety scandals have led her to seek the safest possible sources of food for her child.
The result? Every shelf and spare cupboard in the family's apartment is packed with imported food for Huhu, including a year's supply of milk powder shipped from Germany and organic rice cereal from the United States.
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China's leaders have vowed to tighten the country's food safety regulations, but the food crises continue. Almost every item on Chinese store shelves, from rice to candy, has been involved in some sort of food scandal.
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Others choose to arm themselves with information. A host of smart phone applications have surfaced in the past year offering daily alerts on the latest food safety scandals.
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The Zhiyunda Science and Technology Company, a private laboratory staffed by former food safety researchers, is doing brisk business.
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The plight of forgotten Somali pirate hostages
By Andrew Harding
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Picture the scene. You are being held hostage by pirates on a ship just off the coast of one of the most lawless corners of Somalia. You have been there for more than two years in the grimmest conditions.
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The owner of your ship has shown no interest in paying a ransom or negotiating your release. You and your crewmates come from impoverished families with no hope of raising any cash to buy your freedom.
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"Enough is enough. These guys have suffered terribly. It's time to let them go on humanitarian grounds," said John Steed, a British man who now appears to be the only point of contact between the pirates and the outside world.
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It is partly funded by the UN and other non-governmental organisations and tries to link all the main regional administrations inside Somalia and other outside interest in their anti-piracy efforts.
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Relative of the Albedo crew members have written an open letter to the pirates in which they speak of the emotional trauma they have suffered over the past 31 months.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |