The Belgian legislature has voted to change the controversial human rights prosecution law such the court now only has jurisdiction when Belgian citizens or property are involved. According to this article from BBC News, the only thing standing in the way of this bill becoming law is the formal signature …

A story from the Scotsman tells that Harvard Law School is in the process of readying over one million pages of documentation from the Nuremberg war crimes trials online. 6,700 pages of documents on the "Doctor's Trial" (about medical experiments carried out by 23 doctors in the Third Reich …

Despite recent news of layoffs and accelerated retirements in the Metro design and construction group, it appears that Northern Virginia is still planning to phase in Metro from DC to Dulles Airport, albeit in phases. This according to an article from the Washington Post. The project is supposed to be …

According to a press release by NASA, the ozone layer is still being depleted, but the rate at which it is occurring is on the decrease. Although not yet to the point where we'll be getting back to the pre-CFC state, it does show progress in reversing man-made pollution. There …

When I read the article from the Washington Post relaying that a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson had indicated that Al Qaeda was preparing for more commercial hijackings, I was puzzled... why was this being announced? It may well have been a move to cut off panic if it was …

An odd story in the New York Times tells the sad tale of a suicide in Belle Glade, Florida and the racial tensions that surrounded it. The man in question was a 32-year-old black man who was unemployed and having trouble with his family. However, after the man was found …

In a follow-up to a story posted here a couple of months ago, an article from BBC News states that the Edinburgh woman accused of trying to kill her daughter by overdosing her with salt has been sentenced to four years in jail.

Because of unfortunate timing (dying within 24 hours of Bob Hope, who will be sorely missed), Matt Jeffries, a set designer and art designer for Star Trek, is likely to have passed without most people noticing. An obituary in Inside Ventura County gives a little insight into the man's work …

An article from Wired this week describes the recent adoption of instant messaging by people in areas of Iraq fortunate enough to have power and Internet service. However, the addition of broadband features such as voice chat are bringing cheap communications, and bandwidth problems, to the country. The basis of …

They may not like President Bush, but it appears from this article in the International Herald Tribune that the French have warmed up to Lance Armstrong, winner of the last five Tours de France. But, for Lance, it hasn't always been this way. The French press, which had awarded him …

An article from the Scotsman describes a German law that prevents gardeners from killing ants, "especially by using poison." It appears that German environmental laws, and the forest industry in Germany, hold ants in such high regard that gardeners could be fined if they are caught destroying an ant hill …

I was reading an article this morning about a cleric in Iraq who is preparing a force to control the city of Najaf (a holy site in the country) and was struck by a particular phrase that should give warning to those who think that it is a waste of …

You may not have seen the original story about a man in Las Vegas who was selling the opportunity to hunt naked women with paintball guns, but plenty of women's groups did and were outraged. However, it turns out now that the "hunt" was just a ploy to sell videos …

Robert Cringely of PBS has a proposal that he wants people to look at for creating a commercial music service that keeps the simplicity of Napster without the legal problems. I'm not so certain that it would be successful in court, but it's a nice exercise in thinking outside of …

OK, I'll admit, I wasn't surprised to read the article from the New York Times yesterday about computerized voting machines and the ease with which they could be subverted. Software is the basic problem, and the experts who looked at it say that it is not to be trusted. In …

Well, it's official, Doom III is now a 2004 release. According to an article from Wired, the publisher (Activision) has stated that "for planning purposes, we're assuming Doom III will come out in the fourth quarter." Hey, Carmack, stop playing with your X-Prize toys and do some work, dude!

Remember the 45? No, not the .45 caliber, the 45 RPM record. They were small, came sheathed in an uninteresting piece of white paper, and contained only two songs. Often in the 1950s,1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, you could find them in record stores (you remember, the places that used …

I'm not a big fan of reading the obituaries, but this one was forwarded to me this morning from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Jane Barbe, the voice that people associate with Ma Bell, died Friday of cancer at the age of 74.

Pearl Jam has announced a contest to find the favorite versions of each of a dozen or so tunes that they have posted to iTunes after each concert on their current tour. Pearl Jam has taken the novel approach of posting an "album" after each concert so that attendees (or …

According to an article from the Washington Post, AOL lost 846,000 subscribers in the last quarter. Not all of this is attrition, though. It appears from statements by the company that some of it was caused by "previously miscounted" customers being removed as well. They still stand at a …