Am I the only one detecting the obvious astroturfing in a story purporting to equate some ebook generator called "24symbols" with Amazon, Sony and Google?

The bad faith isn't in losing the laptop, it's in the BP policy allowing workers to have this information on laptops that can be lost.

Why would anyone suppose it was intentional?

Because Microsoft is a huge company and they have processes that prevent random links from being removed from important pages accidentally. At least, I assume they would. Certainly you aren't suggesting that some developer fatfingered ^C (or whatever) and committed it straight to the production environment, are you?

Twitter only got it unsealed, this isn't news. What may be news is that the story submitter ("jhernik") wants us to think that Twitter did more than they did, which means they probably work for Twitter (or their PR firm), seeding the internet with stories that lie Twitter into greater regard.

Do we forget about Sanford Wallace so soon?

Damn straight I log what my kids do online, but I never admit it or tell them about it.

So do tell, what has your monitoring saved your kids from? I'm guessing nothing, since you appear to be raising them in an environment of lies and ignorance (rootkit?). I fear that one day you are really going to find out that your monitoring has some huge blindspots (and yes, I know you probably have a relationship with your child outside of network monitoring), since monitoring (whether kids or computers) typically fails in spectacular if not catastrophic ways.

Then there should be a law preventing different legal rights to different parties, shouldn't all parties be considered the same? If not, why not?

Because the GPL allows you to license and/or sell your code separately if you want.

I don't get this "too much white space" issue everyone has, some times a little breathing space is nice.

A little?

Although some other stories--like the one about him having two one-night-stands in a night--make you wonder about his priorities

Jealous much? This kind of thing is not uncommon, you know, and rarely-if-ever impinges on a person's politics. Why should Assange be treated differently?

Which is the problem. The Palestinian Authority also has the right to exist, assuming that it can do so peaceably

Oh yes, always the only conditions are those imposed on the Pals.

"Go fuck yourself" -Dick Cheney

Okay so what about airline pilots?

Getting off the topic a bit. There's no connection between a drug test for (or in the course of) a job and a DUI checkpoint.

We've got a long way to go before something as even as controversial and intentionally offensive as (oh) "Piss Christ" is banned

You may not consider it a ban, but a gallery show including "Piss Christ" was shut down after some nut tried to remove it and some others attacked it with a hammer. Tomato, tomahto, I call it a constructive ban via extremist actions. And don't forget the changes brought to the NEA after the controversy exploded in Jesse Helms' tiny brain.

He wants to have it both ways, but only when and how he sees fit.

No he doesn't. Privacy for the government isn't the same as privacy for the individual, and at any rate he's only asking for the logs to back up what Lamo has already been talking to the press about, which is conflicting to say the least.

IANAL, but I am a speaker of the English language.

You don't say.

Please do tell us what the name of this fancy "UK DMCA" law is called. What's that, you're an authoritarian who wants the world to live by the USA's laws? I couldn't quite hear you, that's all I could make out.

Oh right, you're actually referring to the "other style notification." What form would this take, exactly, in order to be legally defensible? In the UK? Maybe "state secrets," eh?