Why why and why?

Why is it illegal to pay someone to have sex with you, but not illegal to pay someone to have sex with someone else and then photograph it?

Petition for M$ to support ODF

Hey there, do you like being able to exchange documents with people all over the world? Do you like to be able to read these documents 5, 10, 50 or even 100 years down the line? Then, sign the petition to Microsoft to support the OpenDocument Format:

http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism

I would like to introduce you all to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, to which I am now a subscriber. The head of the church has written to the Kansas City School Board (apparently controlled by a six-member Majority of Stupidity [think "Axis of Evil" only less likely to invade France, South Korea or Iran]), informing them that, if they are going to teach the so-called "theory" of intelligent design alongside evolution, they should also teach the theory that the universe and everything in it was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Because, after all, if it's better for students to hear two ideas about the Origins of Species, three would be even better. And we wouldn't want the students to not get a well-rounded education, would we?

Of course, if they used these 'theories' to teach critical thinking skills (they won't), then it might have some justification.

We've got another Nobel Lauraete!

Well, John Hall, who works here at the University (in JILA) and in NIST, has won the nobel prize. Hooray for CU/NIST!

RIAA Countersuit

Recording Industry vs the People has an article about a woman, Tonya Anderson, who is countersuing the RIAA. Not that I expect it to have much good come of it, but...

Oh, dunno whether anyone's coined this yet, but seeing as the RIAA and such are working so hard to dampen inovation and creativity and such, I shall now refer to it as the Recording Undustry.