PlayStation consoles have controls to counter game piracy

Sony has lost a legal battle in Australia over the modifying of its PlayStation games console.

The High Court has ruled that chipping the console so that it can play imported games does not breach copyright law.

The ruling ends a four-year legal battle between Sony and a supplier of so-called mod chips, which bypass regional controls on the machine.

Under that directive, it is illegal to circumvent copy protection systems.[...]

Is that the same EU who work tirelessly to protect consumers from restrictive practises, price-fixing and restriction of trade?

Taubenberger's team sequenced genome information recovered from a female flu victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost in 1918. Then, they shared the data with researchers at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Using a technique called reverse genetics, the Mount Sinai researchers used the genetic coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids.

The plasmids then were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction.

"Almost" doesn't cut it. And if you think the former Soviet Union (and former United States) really eliminated their last reserves of the virus, you're seriously deluded.

> Now they are reviving an old virus that was completely eradicated. This does not make sense, other than for the nobel-prize signs in the scientists eyes (which they should not get).

The 1918 pandemic strain killed off the most vulnerable portion of the population three or four generations ago. Subsequently, mutations to that strain that were less virulent than the original appeared. These less-virulent strains didn't kill their hosts as quickly (and often, didn't kill the host at all!), and turned out to be better-adapted to their environment than the original. These less-virulent strains worked their way throughout the rest of the population. The world ended up with a not-so-bad version of the flu, and a relatively high resistance in the surviving population. All in all, a lousy environment for the original or the less-virulent strains to propagate.

Don't worry about the 1918 flu getting out. First, it almost certainly won't. Second, if it does, it won't be nearly as bad as it was in 1918, largely due to the fact that anyone who was highly vulnerable to it had been ejected from the gene pool by 1920.

> I could name hundreds of things that could go wrong, and will not even start wildly speculating what would happen if 5HN1 somehow mutates with this virus.

Don't worry about an H5N1 recombination (or reassortment) with the 1918 flu. You'd need someone to be simultaneously infected with both viruses. The probability of that is vanishingly small. (As is the probability of the 1918 flu escaping and setting up a reservoir population in birds or pigs.)

Worry about a human-to-human transmissible evolution of H5N1. If the strain currently fiddling around Jakarta [recombinomics.com] is reproducing by means of human to human transmission, and if that strain is doing so via casual contact (to date, it appears that most cases from this cluster involve zoo visitors, their immediate families, and health care workers -- so we don't yet have confirmation of h2h transmission, let alone via casual contact), then worry.

If a human-to-human transmissible of H5N1 shows up, and if it's as lethal to humans as the version currently floating around Asia, you're looking at somewhere between 100M and 300M dead before a weaker variant evolves.

Bush Cites Military Takeover In Case Of Flu Outbreak

Paul Joseph Watson | October 4 2005

During this afternoon's White House press conference President Bush confirmed that he would attempt to impose military curfews and quarantines in case of a flu pandemic occurring in the United States.

The comes on the heels of a majority of the nation's governors rejecting the Bush administration's proposal to use active-duty military assets in providing disaster relief. Understanding this in the context of Hurricane Katrina, this means total gun confiscation and enforced evacuation at gunpoint.

Bush stated, "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When -- it's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move."

CLICK HERE FOR THE AUDIO CLIP

This is the same justification that Bush used throughout the Hurricane Katrina debacle. The crisis was made worse by intentional federal sabotage of the relief efforts that were being conducted by the local government in New Orleans. FEMA were cutting communication lines and denying food, water and oil shipments to the critically affected areas. This led local Sheriffs to set up armed patrols to keep FEMA out of their county zones.

The elimination of Posse Comitatus via natural disasters which are then intentionally sabotaged by government, is one of the Bush administration's major goals. Bush has openly announced his plan to have the Pentagon usurp power over State's rights.

Posse Comitatus allows for the use of the military for relief efforts only, not for law enforcement. This is why Bush is trying to eliminate the 1878 law, because his ideal of military involvement in crises is one of quarantines, checkpoints, mandatory vaccinations, curfews and evacuations, and not of providing relief or infrastructure protection.

We have been warning for years that natural disasters would be used as a means of placing active duty military on the streets of America. People are not buying into the scam that we need a police state to fight Al-CIAda terrorists so this is the next step. Today it's hurricanes, in five to ten years it will be the threat of asteroids and meteors.

The message is the same, you have no right to protect yourself and we will confiscate your firearms if you even try. The truth is that throughout history government has never been able to adequately protect the people and to forcefully take that mantle only makes matters worse.

Is the threat of a bird flu pandemic a red flag or is it simply a means of creating a false scarcity so that everyone runs out and buys the antidote fearing an imminent outbreak?

We should be wise to remember that the revelation that the Bush cabinet was on Cipro, the anthrax fighting antibiotic, only emerged in the media after the anthrax attack was in process, not before.

Therefore it seems more likely that this is a ruse to line the pockets of the government affiliated pharmaceutical companies.

One thing is clear, if this outbreak did occur then the justification to suspend Constitutional rights will be flaunted to its maximum exposure. Back in April President Bush added pandemic influenza to the list of diseases for which quarantine is authorized.

China's zealous martial law tactics in dealing with SARS, home detention, curfews, mandatory vaccinations, restriction of travel, are the model for what could unfold in the US.

The federal blueprint for the exact same scenario was released and picked up by the Associated Press a year ago.

This will make ID cards and airport security checks look like a tea party.

And when this flu pandemic happens who will we blame? Surely not US scientists playing around with the deadly 1918 Spanish flu virus at "less than the maximum level of containment" according to the New Scientist magazine.

Bush's comments are clearly intended to acclimatize people to accept martial law in times of crisis caused by natural disasters or health pandemics.

With two more major hurricanes predicted to hit in October we should all remain vigilant and speak out against the government hijacking crises in order to implement their jack-booted police state agenda. [...]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/041005militarytakeover.htm

FIPR Press Release

For Immediate Release: Tuesday 3rd October 2005

Ministers Pushing EU Directive that will Harm Industry
------------------------------------------------------

The government is using the UK's presidency of the European Union to
push an intellectual property enforcement directive (IPRED) which will
harm British industry and undermine basic freedoms, according to
Internet think-tank the Foundation for Information Policy Research
(FIPR).

The directive will force the UK to make patent infringement a crime,
and will also criminalise incitement to infringe patents or copyrights.
It is being promoted by the big drug companies and the music industry.

If passed, the police will have more powers against copyright infringers
than they have against terrorists. At present, the EU cannot freeze
assets if a suspected terrorist financier is a European citizen. Yet the
Government wants to empower IP lawyers to seize the assets of EU
citizens accused of aiding and abetting infringement -- such as the
parents of children who might have downloaded music files.

Innovation will also lose out. A technology entrepreneur today has to
take risks with patents, as it's impossible to tell what patents might
be in the pipeline. If her business succeeds, she can afford to fight
legal cases and pay royalties if she loses. But if patent infringement
becomes a crime, then the risks involved in starting a technology firm
will be much greater. Britain will be at a particular disadvantage to
the USA, where patent infringement will remain a civil matter. It will
be very tempting for entrepreneurs to just start their businesses in
America instead.

The FIPR response to these proposals may be found at

  http://www.fipr.org/copyright/ipred2.html

******
  This issue is particularly topical because tomorrow (Wednesday) the
  Right Hon. Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
  Sport, is launching the Creative Economy Conference in London. for
  details see   http://www.creativeeconomyconference.org
******


QUOTES

Said Ross Anderson, Chair of FIPR and Professor of Security Engineering
at Cambridge University

  "Whitehall spin-doctors are telling us that the Government will
  foster the creative industries, but the IPR Enforcement Directive
  will have exactly the opposite effect. It will interfere with
  enterprise and choke off competition. It will push up prices for
  consumers at a time of rising global inflation, and do particular
  harm to the software and communications industries. It will also harm
  universities, libraries and the disabled."

Said Terri Dowty, Director of Action on Rights for Children and member
of FIPR's Advisory Council:

  "We have already seen the kind of pressure that companies are
  prepared to exert on the parents of children who download music
  without due thought. We fear that they would not baulk at mounting
  criminal prosecutions of children.

  "It is monstrous that a ten-year old (or an eight-year old in
  Scotland) could be criminalised by the careless download of files.
  Children often assume that if something is available it must also be
  legitimate, and it is unreasonable to expect parents to monitor their
  every action -- and most will not have the specialist knowledge to
  understand whether or not a particular download will be a crime."

Said Nicholas Bohm, FIPR's General Counsel:

  "Criminalising patent and other IPR infringement could expose a range
  of business advisers (accountants, lawyers, bankers) to threats of
  prosecution as accessories if a company involved in a deal they were
  arranging or implementing was subject to an infringement complaint."

These are the results for your search of (1) part postcode = 'YO1' within England.

When a slogan equals terrorism