It’s not clear in the article if this really was a lawyer working for the Air Force or who authorized him to do it. The disturbing part of this is YouTube won’t even check if a video impinges on a copyright. If they get a DMCA notice, they pull it. Next up: politician A sends a phony DMCA notice to take down a negative campaign video from politician B.

Wired put up the video on the article’s page. And here’s an article about the Cyber Command.

Air Force Cyber Command’s New Weapon: DMCA Notices

It’s cyber war! Lawyers representing the Air Force’s elite electronic warriors have sent YouTube a DMCA takedown notice demanding the removal of the 30-second spot the Air Force created to promote its nascent Cyber Command. We’d uploaded the video to share with THREAT LEVEL readers.

How quickly alliances shift in the murky new world of Cyberarmageddon. It was just last month that the Air Force sent us the ad, and thanked THREAT LEVEL for agreeing to run it. The spot shows earnest airmen deftly thwarting a hacker attack on the Pentagon using Minority Report-type touch-and-drag screens. I’m certain hundreds, if not thousands, of geeks have already enlisted as a result of our patriotic shilling for the Air Force.
[…]
But Air Force marketing chief Keith Lebling, who sent us the spot in the first place, says any intellectual property claim should have gone through his office, and none did.

U.S. Government works aren’t even copyrightable. YouTube doesn’t know that — presumably because it has no lawyers — and it’s taken down the video.

At least 10,000 food distributors sold recalled meat from the shuttered Hallmark slaughterhouse in Chino, CA including ConAgra, General Foods, Nestle and H.J. Heinz and it could still be on store shelves. But Richard Raymond, USDA undersecretary for food safety, told an incredulous House Appropriation’s agriculture panel this week the information is “proprietary” and would not be released.

Naming names could drive customers away and just “confuse” people say trade groups like the American Meat Institute, Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers Association.

The Bush Administration also opposes publicizing retailers’ names in meat recalls…

Everything important to a government crony is a “secret” – doesn’t matter who’s at risk.

Thanks, Mister Justin.

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Photo courtesy of Vinceneux Benoit.   (English version).

Thanks Pedro.

This is a demonstration of the stereo effect. Listening to it, you feel as though you are in a barber’s chair, with the barber moving around you, clipping away at your hair. As the barber “moves” to your right, the volume increases slightly in the right channel and decreases in the left. Similarly, increases in the volume of sound from the clippers give the impression that he is bringing them closer and closer to each ear. The illusion demonstrates our ability to locate sounds in space; by comparing the inputs to the two ears, we can work out where a sound is coming from.

Use headphones for the effect, listen to the others here.

What makes you suddenly dart into the bakery when you spy chocolate- frosted donuts in the window, though you certainly hadn’t planned on indulging? As you lick the frosting off your fingers, don’t blame a lack of self-control…

New research from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine reveals how hunger works in the brain and the way neurons pull your strings to lunge for the sweet fried dough.

Krispy Kremes, in perhaps their first starring role in neurological research, helped lead to the discovery. In the study, subjects were tested twice — once after gorging on up to eight Krispy Kreme donuts until they couldn’t eat anymore, and on another day after fasting for eight hours…

Mesulam noted the research demonstrates how our brain decides what to pay attention to in a world full of stimuli — not just sweets. “If you are in a forest and you hear rustling, the context urges you to pay full attention since this could be a sign of danger,” he said. “If you are in your office, the context makes the identical sound less relevant. A major job of the brain is to match response to context.”

Matching response to context – or not – probably defines a multiplicity of decisions.

And let Ernie – the drummer – remove your appendix

Industry observers use the term “consumerization” to describe the phenomenon whereby office workers are less likely to wait for the IT folks to equip them.

Analyst Rebecca Wettemann of software research firm Nucleus Research says her company’s surveys of corporate technology users frequently turn up the question: “Why can’t I do what I want without getting an OK from IT?”

“Individual people, not IT organizations, are driving the next wave of (technology) adoption,” Forrester Research said in a recent report.

Forrester refers to the movement toward user control and individual empowerment as “Technology Populism,” others refer to it as “Office 2.0.” Less sympathetically, consulting firm Yankee Group, in a 2007 report entitled “Zen and the Art of Rogue Employee Management,” sees it as a threat for IT managers…

“IT managers have served as corporate gatekeepers. With software on demand, average people are able to explore and access and do much more than they have in the past,” Wettemann says. “That power is going away,” she said of central control…

“Established software companies like Microsoft have less ability to promise a product in the future and have customers wait for it,” Wettemann says. “When something I can find on the Web does 70 percent of what I want, today, why should I wait?”

Of course, questions of security, interoperability, quality results might trump populist creativity.

tampabays10.com

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — PGA tour golfer Tripp Isenhour is charged in Orlando with killing a bird on purpose with a golf shot.

The incident happened in December when Isenhour was filming a video segment for his television show “Shoot Like A Pro.”

Prosecutors say a red-shouldered hawk was making noise, forcing a video crew to film another take. The hawk moved closer, and the golfer hit several balls at it.

A witness says the bird fell to the ground, bleeding from both its nostrils. The species is protected as a migratory bird.
[…]
The charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.

Gee, maybe I’ll try this the next time I have to chase kids out of my yard. What an idiot.

The gov and Mrs. gov

I think it’s safe to say that Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana doesn’t like Real ID, a backdoor way for the government to impose and create a national ID card (with RFID chip which an unauthorized, knowledgeable techie can read) by requiring extensive documentation before you can get a drivers license. Here’s an interesting site devoted to the anti-side of the issue. And here’s what security expert Bruce Schneier thinks of the idea.

LISTEN to the governor explain why he thinks the Feds can shove their Real ID where… Well, you know where. I like this guy’s style!

Homeland Security, on the other hand, considers Real ID to be “pro-consumer.”

An Iowa Republican congressman said Friday that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency.

Rep. Steve King based his prediction on Obama’s pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein.

“The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror,” King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.

Just in case you wondered what the Republican Party means by the “Southern Strategy”.