[via politiken.dk]
LEGOLAND in Britain let Clegg and Cameron chuck Brown out of 10 Downing Street.
LEGO has apologised for a somewhat premature staging of Prime Minister Gordon Brown being evicted from 10 Downing Street by Messrs. Cameron and Clegg.
Irrespective of the outcome of tomorrow’s UK election, the company, which privately staged the ‘event’ at LEGOLAND Windsor for a Press Association photographer, says it should not have done so.
[via boingboing.net]
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says:
[via bbc.co.uk]
Americans voicing their anger at the healthcare proposals at a "town hall meeting"
The Republicans’ shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.
Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why there is often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters.
Last year, in a series of “town-hall meetings” across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms.
[via wisebread.com]
The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) rolled out last year currently has over 700,000 people in trial modifications and a little over 30,000 in “permanent” modifications. The program has been plagued with consumer complaints of lost paperwork and denials. Here are some reasons why many consumers are better off skipping this program all together.
1. The “permanent” modification is not so permanent.
[via Wired.com, originally written by Kim Zetter]
In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used.
Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served with a subpoena by two TSA agents on Tuesday, told Threat Level that he received a phone call Thursday evening from John Drennan, deputy chief counsel for enforcement at TSA, telling him the administration was withdrawing its subpoena.
[via newsweek.com, originally written by Jessica Bennett]
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comment from FEMA head Craig Fugate.
Lisa Bedford is what you’d imagine of a stereotypical soccer mom. She drives a white Tahoe SUV. An American flag flies outside her suburban Phoenix home. She sells Pampered Chef kitchen tools and likes to bake. Bedford and her husband have two young children, four dogs, and go to church on Sunday.
The Rapidshare Christmas logo. How utterly Christmassy of them.
[via arstechnica.com]
The popular Germany-based file hosting service RapidShare has allegedly begun handing over user information to record labels looking to pursue illegal file-sharers. The labels appear to be making use of paragraph 101 of German copyright law, which allows content owners to seek a court order to force ISPs to identify users behind specific IP addresses. Though RapidShare does not make IP information public, the company appears to have given the information to at least one label, which took it to an ISP to have the user identified.