San Juan County*s insurance pool settles for $75k in unlawful arrest claim

Audio: Liberal Claims That Ritalin May Turn Children Into Conservatives
By now, many have already heard that being a conservative is a brain disorder: Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain. Larger fear center as in primate, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior c...

US pushed for ISP data retention in Sweden, leaked cable reveals
Another cable, dated November 2009, detailed how Swedish authorities complained that the US-inspired rules did more harm than good. "Swedish Police Enforcement officials are complaining that implementation of the [Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive] IPRED has made it more difficult to solve crimes. Swedish Internet Service Providers are saving user information related to IP-numbers for a shorter period of time following the IPRED Legislation," the cable said. The document also ex...

The Rise of Intellectual Property, as Told in References in Books
In a comment on Chander.com, the brilliant artist and filmmaker Nina Paley (see more on her Sita Sings the Blues here) suggests that the following chart is more devastatingly clear than the earlier chart--just showing the rise of the term "Intellectual Property" in books-- from Shubha Ghosh dissecting the rise of Copyright, Trademark, and Patent separately.  Her interpretation: "The phrase 'Intellectual Property' has practically ZERO usage before 1976 (the beloved Co...

Manning chat logs contain no smoking gun, Wired editors claim
Wired editors claim"> Stumble This! Editors with Wired Magazine have finally come forward to say that the chat logs in their possession contain no further evidence of a Conspiracy between Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the soldier accused of leaking 250,000 US State Department cables. In his Monday column, Salon's Glenn Greenwald suggested that Wired Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen committed "one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year" by withholding the majority of chat logs that co...

Saudi courts punish "envy"
Different places have different laws. For example, according to Dumblaws.com, in Alaska you can't push a live moose out of a moving plane. In Baltimore, it's illegal to take a lion to the movies. New Jersey forbids frowning at a Police Officer. A South Korean law requires police officers to report any bribes they take from drivers. And in Australia, Children may smoke--they're just not allowed to buy Cigarettes. (I don't make these up, though I don't vouch for their accuracy.) But in Saudi ...

Torture 'the norm' in Indonesia: report
Law enforcement officials from police to Prison wardens routinely Torture Indonesian suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information, a new report claims. Beatings, intimidation, burnings and Rape are so commonplace that they are considered the norm, with few Victims ever bothering to lodge complaints, said Restaria Hutabarat of the Jakarta-based Legal Aid Foundation. The Torture findings, published this week, were based on yearlong interviews with 1154 suspects and Prison inm...

Report: Torturing suspects 'the norm' in Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Law Enforcement officials from police to Prison wardens routinely Torture Indonesian suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information, a new report asserted Friday. Beatings, intimidation, burnings and Rape are so commonplace that they are considered the norm, with few Victims ever bothering to lodge complaints, said Restaria Hutabarat of the Jakarta-based Legal Aid Foundation. The Torture findings, published this week, were based on yearlong intervie...

Pakistan Releases Top al-Qaeda Commander
They even labeled him as absconded or jumped bail before he was released.Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the Al-Qaeda-linked ameer of the Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI), has been freed by Pakistan's Punjab government under Mysterious Circumstances despite the fact that he is still wanted in several high-profile cases of Terrorism, including Conspiracy to target Pakistan nukes. Saifullah's most significant target was to blow up the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant at Kundian by using a group of five American...

Introducing Guest Blogger Sonia Katyal
It is my great pleasure to introduce Professor Sonia Katyal, a Professor of Law at the Fordham School of Law, who will be guest blogging with us this month.  Professor Katyal specializes in Intellectual Property and Civil Rights.  She is a true wunderkind-one of the few young Law Professors in the country to claim more than four national awards for her work including a Warhol Grant, a Yale Cybercrime Award, a Dukeminier award for her writing on Sexual Orientation, and an honorabl...

Judge rules former officer can be released on bond
(12-30) 17:28 PST San Jose, Calif. (AP) -- A federal judge has ordered a former Santa Clara Police Officer to be released on bond as he awaits trial on Fraud and Conspiracy charges. Clay Rojas is accused of supplying criminal and motor vehicle records and other confidential information to a Hells Angels member to settle a Debt. The San Jose Mercury News reports that U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Bommer on Wednesday agreed to release Rojas on $100,000 bond if he forfeits his passport. Despite t...

Hearing set for former officer charged in murder plot
Henderson Chief Justice of the Peace Rodney Burr on Thursday set a Jan. 11 preliminary hearing for a former Las Vegas Police Officer charged in a plot to kill his girlfriend, attorney Nancy Quon. But the hearing, which determines whether William Ronald Webb will stand trial, may not take place. Prosecutors plan to ask a Grand Jury to indict Webb prior to the hearing to move the case directly to District Court for trial. Webb, 42, is facing a three-count Criminal Complaint charging him with consp...

Showing Their True Colors
“Everything looks worse in black and white.” - a lyric from “Kodachrome” by singer Paul Simon The last picture ever to be developed with Kodachrome film was slated to be processed today at the lone processing lab still handling this film — Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kan. A year after Kodak announced that it was retiring Kodachrome film, after nearly 75 years of production (making it the oldest and longest-running film in production of all time), the last shipment

Law in the Empathetic Society
Must an increase in empathy signal a decrease in law? Let us consider, for a moment, that someone has wronged you by stealing your car. When the person is caught by police, you have the option to press charges, but then discover that your neighbor -- whose wife is dying from Cancer, after they both lost their jobs -- stole your car out of desperation to rush to meet her in the Hospital, since he thought she was about to die. Begging your forgiveness with tears in his eyes, the man sinks to his k...

Seattle Police Gun Down Innocent Man
This news piece will not likely be seen by many, but it should be seen by all. This is what a Police State looks like. We incarcerate more people than any other nation, mostly for non-violent 'Crimes'. There are no Victims for most of the 'Crimes' those behind bars today are charged with. Stories come in from all over the country about these rouge cops acting like authoritative hard-asses with little respect for upholding the security and freedom of the people they are sworn to serve and prot...

Astronaut sues over use of historic photo
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is suing a Trading Card company for using a photograph of him on his historic moonwalk as part of a recent card series. Aldrin, 80, the second man to walk on The Moon, filed the suit against Topps in a Los Angeles federal court on Monday, saying the Trading Card company was unjustly profiting from his historic achievement by including a photograph of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission in an "American Heroes" series of trading cards, the Los A...

Gov. Deval Patrick to attend funeral of slain Woburn officer
WILMINGTON - Gov. Deval Patrick is among the thousands expected to attend the Funeral for a Veteran Woburn Police Officer who was fatally shot during a Department Store Robbery. Patrick will join Friday around 2,000 of Law Enforcement officials from around New England who are expected to pay their last respects for 60-year-old John Maguire. The Funeral is scheduled at Aleppo Shrine Auditorium in Wilmington. Authorities say career criminal Dominic Cinelli killed Maguire on Sunday during a Kohl&r...;

Anonymous topples, defaces Zimbabwe government websites
Stumble This! The Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu-PF) website, Zimbabwean government website and Zimbabwean Finance Ministry website were the target of cyber attacks on Thursday by a loose-knit group of online hacktivists known as "Anonymous." The websites were hit with distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks after Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's wife, Grace Mugabe, sued a newspaper for publishing a Wikileaks cable that alleged she was connected with illicit diamond trade. All t...

Texas Police Chief Sues after Arrest
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former Texas Police Chief is seeking $1.5 million from the small town of Combine over what he contends were baseless allegations that he posed as a woman to solicit Nude Photos from a 17-year-old boy. Michael Meissner told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he's owed compensation from the city of Combine for pursuing the sensational accusations. Meissner was arrested in Arlington in 2009 on charges that included promotion of Child Pornography. The charges later were dropped. A la...

London racing to advance green technology
LONDON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The United Kingdom is set to become a world leader in green energy technology by fast-tracking Patent applications, the Intellectual Property minister said. More than 300 Patent applications are being fast-tracked through London's so-called green channel. Judith Wilcox, the Intellectual Property minister for the British Government, said the global race to advance green energy technology made London one of the premier places for new developments. "The demand for low-carbo...

Second Life Debt Collection
By John Ballard The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones... Thus spoke Mark Anthony in the famous encomium to the lateJulius Caesar. It applies to women as well as men, I suppose. This delightful story is part of how the Wall Street Journal chronicles the last day of 2010, a fitting note to some of this year's developments. Martha Kunkle has come back to life. She died in 1995. Yet her signature later appeared on thousands of affidavits submitted ...

Haiti suffers year of crisis with nobody in charge
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The silhouetted bodies moved in waves through the night, climbing out of crumbled homes and across mounds of rubble. Hundreds of thousands of people made their way to the center of the shattered city by the thin light of a waning crescent moon. There was hardly a sound. It took a few moments to recognize the great white dome bowing forward into the night. Another had fallen onto itself, its peak barely visible over the iron gate. The white walls of the 90-year-...

Haiti suffers year of crisis with nobody in charge
FILE - In this Nov. 12, 2010 file photo, a girl suffering Cholera symptoms... Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AP) - The silhouetted bodies moved in waves through the night, climbing out of crumbled homes and across mounds of rubble. Hundreds of thousands of people made their way to the center of the shattered city by the thin light of a waning crescent moon. There was hardly a sound. It took a few moments to recognize the great white dome bowing forward into the night. Another had fallen onto itself, it...

Headline men
Some of the men who have made the headlines in 2010, left to right: Kiki, Wayne Bridge, Carlos Slim Helu, Tony Hayward (top), Danny Alexander, Nicholas Mahut, Julian Assange, Gareth Williams (middle), Walter Kasper, Luis Urzua, Edward Woollard, Eddie Afekafe (bottom). JANUARY An eight-year-old boy name Kiki provided one of those heart-rending moments that so often give relief from the misery of Natural Disasters. He was pulled from the ruins of a two-storey building that had been flattened in t...

More Assange
Nick Davies of The Guardian: Jagger also insists that she has a right to know who leaked the file to the Guardian and says that the leak was part of “an obvious effort to conduct a smear campaign” against Assange. Setting aside for a moment the head-splitting hypocrisy that a supporter of Wikileaks wants to hunt down the source of a leak, there are two similar problems with this claim. First, Jagger has no idea who leaked that file (and made no attempt to find out). Second, if she ...

Julian Assange Case Is Being Driven by a Tangled Web in Sweden
* The Accusers--The women who have alleged that Assange committed sexual crimes, under Swedish law, are Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen. Our source says Ardin has a background in the Foreign Service and has spent time at the U.S. Embassy in Washington, D.C., and worked as a spy in Cuba. She has ties to the Swedish media and apparently has left the country for the Palestinian West Bank. Little is known about Wilen, other than that she is an aspiring photographer. Numerous Web sites have reported tha...