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August 3, 2004 - 5:56pm -- jim
News
Mainstream Media

Tape of Kennedy's Killing Is Getting Digital Analysis

Michael Janofsky, New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — About a year from now, one of the most
vexing mysteries in American history may finally be solved:
Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?


Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
have begun work on a digital scanning apparatus that they
believe will be able to reproduce sound from the only known
audio recording of the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.

July 31, 2004 - 4:14pm -- nolympics
News
Mainstream Media

Iraqi Witness Tells of Torture
Test Case on Deaths May Curb British Army Abroad
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian

Families of Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by British troops yesterday began a legal battle which has serious implications for future military operations in foreign countries.

In an important test case, lawyers for the families argued that the soldiers' actions in Iraq are covered by the Human Rights Act and that an independent inquiry must be set up to decide whether the killings were unlawful.

Rabinder Singh QC, counsel for the families, yesterday referred the high court to six, out of a total of more than 30, deaths of Iraqi civilians following the end of the war in May last year.

July 30, 2004 - 10:45am -- jim
News
In the Streets

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Demo in Sofia Demands Immediate Bulgarian Withdrawal

A demonstration of many hundreds gathered in Sofia 29 July 2004 to protest the presence of 470 “allied” Bulgarian troops at Karbala in Occupied Iraq and demand their immediate withdrawal. The protest, called by Revolutionary Youth Movement Che Guevara (http://www.che-sofia.hit.bg/ ) and other groups, included a number of activists from the Bulgarian Anti-Authoritarian Group “Anarhosuprotiva” (Anarcho-Opposition). This followed a similar smaller demonstration on July 16.

July 29, 2004 - 1:14pm -- jim
News
Sex

US Court Upholds Alabama Sex Toy Ban

Jay Reeves, Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a 1998 state law banning the sale of sex toys in Alabama, ruling the Constitution doesn't include a right to sexual privacy.


In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state has a right to police the sale of devices including electronic vibrators and other products meant to stimulate the sex organs.

July 28, 2004 - 1:46pm -- jim
News
Culture

American Book Review Founder Ron Sukenick, 1932–2004

Dear Friends of American Book Review:

I'm writing to inform you that Ron Sukenick died in the early morning of July 22.  For the past several years, Ron suffered from Inclusion Body Myositis.  A muscular disease for which there is no known cure and only experimental treatment, it is a progressive and degenerative illness. By the turn of the century, Ron could walk only with the help of a cane, and he was wheelchair-bound for the last three years.

July 28, 2004 - 12:50pm -- jim
News
Prisons & Prisoners

Critical Art Ensemble Defense Arraignment Update


Indicted Pittsburgh geneticist Robert Ferrell was unable to attend his arraignment in Buffalo, New York this morning for health reasons. His lawyer, Efrem M. Grail,
appeared in his stead. The Ferrell arraignment will continue until the hospitalized Mr. Farrel can attend an indictment.

Nonetheless, the defense and prosecution for indicted Critical Arts Ensemble member Steve Kurtz are moving ahead with motions. The magistrate issued a scheduling order as follows:

October 15, 2004 — Filing date for all pre-trial motions
(Voluntary discovery will happen during this period, and two search warrants will be unsealed and provided to the defendant)


October 29, 2004 — Deadline for the government to respond to discovery

December 20, 2004 — Oral arguments on pre-trial evidentiary hearing begin at 10 AM


The dates for the Kurtz trial, likely to be sometime in Spring, 2005, will be set on October 18, 2004.

July 28, 2004 - 12:20pm -- jim
News
Work

"Federal Reserve Bank Says 'Belief in Hell' Boosts Economic Growth"

Alister Bull, Reuters News Service

WASHINGTON — Economists searching for reasons why some nations are
richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell
are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

July 27, 2004 - 11:01pm -- nolympics
News
The State

Vulcho Bulgaria writes


Persecution of young anarchist in Bulgaria


The political elite in Bulgaria, under uncrowned King Simeon II as Prime Minister, is closely allied to Washington and NATO. Specially beholden to the Bush administration and engineering its own new forms of Homeland Security, the political class in Sofia is now engaged in new efforts to suppress and silence dissent, branding anarchists as a threat to “national security.”

The most flagrant example of this new wave of repression against alternative expression in the country is the arrest of Elitsa, a 20-year-old anarchist in mid-July, in the city of Dobrich in far northeastern Bulgaria.

July 24, 2004 - 8:44pm -- nolympics
News
Technology

Eric Goldhagen writes

Germany: Bavaria Claims To Have Better Terrorism Database Than CIA, FBI

Report by Christoph Elflein and Tanja Treser.


[Source: Munich Focus in German -- centrist weekly news magazine]
[FBIS Translated Text]

The hunters with their high-tech equipment are based in a barracks from the last century: plain white walls and gray stone floors everywhere. The windows are secured by iron rods as thick as a finger. Behind a laptop sits Gerald Eder, 45, leading chief inspector of the Bavarian Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA). There is a great number of tiny black dots
linked by thin lines on the screen. This is a data cluster of the investigation and analysis system (Easy). It is the holy of holies of the protectors of state security: 12 million data sets of organized criminals and terrorism suspects, including violent radicals such as Islamist preacher Yahaya Youssef from Neu-Ulm.

July 24, 2004 - 7:00pm -- jim
News
Technology

bin Laden 'Suicide' Virus Pitched to Online Newsgroups

Message Designed To Lure Readers Into Trojan Horses

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) — A virus purporting to show images of Osama bin Laden's suicide popped up on the Internet Friday, designed to entice recipients to open a file that unleashes malicious software code, security experts said.


The virus was attached to a message that was posted on over 30,000 usenet newsgroups and is not being spread via e-mail, said Web security vendor Sophos.


The U.S. government has been hunting for bin Laden since 2001, holding him responsible for masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, but he has not yet been found.


Chris Kraft, senior security analyst at Sophos, said the message and virus was designed to lure unsuspecting readers into opening a file, similar to the Anna Kournikova virus that enticed readers to open a file that unleashed malicious software code.


"If you don't know the person or the origin of a message, you shouldn't be opening it," Kraft said.


The fake bin Laden suicide file, when opened, unleashes a program called a Trojan horse that makes it possible for attackers to take over infected personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.


Kraft said the virus itself had already appeared on the Internet before, but the virus writer had apparently repackaged it by saying it contained bin Laden's suicide photos.

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