Month: October 2004

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security harasses a toy store owner over an issue of patent infringement.

The next day, two men arrived at the store and showed Cox their badges. The lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube. She said yes. The Magic Cube, he said, was an illegal copy of the Rubik’s Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time. He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.

The whole thing took about 10 minutes.

After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that the Homeland Security agents had it wrong. The Rubik’s Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on rival toy’s trademark.

Tags: security, copyright

He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, ‘Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said.’
Winston Churchill

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry,
Winston Churchill

Tags: politics

The discovery of the corpse of a bizarre hairless canine creature dubbed the Lufkin beast has caused speculation that it may be the mythical Chupacabra or Goatsucker.

However all bizarre looking the creature is unlikely to be a new species. A more probable explanantion would be that it is a coyote from a particularly inbred pack that has caught some mange-like disease.

Never mind though as the hobbit-like new species of human is a true scientific discovery that eclipses the importance of the Lufkin beast.

Tags: science

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mahatma Gandhi

Tags: politics

A wrong decision isn’t forever; it can always be reversed.
The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved.
J.K. Galbraith

Tags: politics

ABC News: Cuba Moves to Stop Trade in U.S. Dollars

Moving to wean its communist economic system from the U.S. currency, Cuba said that dollars will no longer be accepted at island businesses and stores in a dramatic change in how commercial transactions have been done here in more than a decade.

The Cuban move is in response to the US sanctions which the US government is trying to strengthen in order to starve the small communist island of dollars. This move is designed to undermine Fidel Castro’s government.

I really cannot understand why the US is continuing with this dogmatic approach to Cuba, are the few Cubano votes in Florida really worth the bother of maintaining sanctions. With the collapse of the Soviet Union over a decade ago surely even the most paranoid neoconservative cannot believe that Cuba still poses a threat.

Perhaps the best solution would be a hands off approach and through allowing American tourists and businesses to go to Cuba they can destabilise the communist regime via the backdoor so to speak. A similar effect to this is actually occurring in Vietnam, by doing nothing the US government is unintentionally being more successful in their goal of defeating communism than they were in the Vietnam War.

Tags: politics

Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman gets namechecked in the latest issue of Warren Ellis’s comic Planetary. If it’s possible to have eccentric physicists as idols then Feynman is one of mine.

Fifty years ago, Mr. Snow the physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.”

His thesis was that, in a period concerned with megaengineering and macroscale physics we were not directing the correct attention to the microscale.

We contain universes. There are vastnesses in every grade of sand.

Tags: science

There has been a hell of a furore in the blogosphere concerning an initiative launched by The Guardian newspaper titled Operation Clark County. The Guardian has identified Clark County in Ohio as being a crucial battleground in the upcoming US presidential election as it almost evenly split between the two candidates. The newspaper is encouraging its readers to write a letter to a registered voter in Clark County in order to influence their vote.

They never say that letterwriters should endorse Senator Kerry for President but as a left-wing newspaper it is probably true that the majority of readers will be in favour of Kerry winning the election. As you would expect the right-wing blogs are aghast at the thought of the election being swung away from their candidate and that foreigners are seeking to have an influence in US politics.

It strikes me as ironic that this should happen considering that since the end of World War II that the US government has itself exerted their own influence over foreign elections even going so far as to support coups and the overthrow of democratically elected governments.

I was initially tempted by the idea of writing to an American voter but I wonder if I could truly have any influence over their choice of candidate. How would I react to receiving a letter from overseas urging me to vote one way or another? With my contrary nature I would probably vote in a different direction to the way in which I was being urged to, unless I was very much in favour of a particular candidate such that I was unlikely to be swayed any way.

What strikes me as odd is the split between the US and the rest of the world over their preference in this election, this is the first time that I’m aware of that this has been the case. Typically you would find a fairly even split down the middle with left-wing individuals preferring the Democrat candidate and the right-wing the Republican. But even in countries where they have a right-wing government such as Italy or Australia where you could assume that the majority of individuals would favour the Republican candidate the majority of the population don’t.

Are Americans that different to people from other countries and yet how can they be as they are virtually all descended from immigrants. But the again when you have a court judgement that asserts that FOX News has a constitutional right under the First Amendment to present lies as news how can you expect people to make an informed decision about their choice of president.

Tags: politics