DallasMay writes "This article describes an experiment that demonstrates that people don't put as much weight on facts as they do their own belief about how the world is supposed to work. From the article: 'In one experiment, Braman queried subjects about something unfamiliar to them: nanotechnology — new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products. "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms," Braman says. The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information. "It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.'"

garg0yle writes to tell us that Cryptome appears to have stepped in it again with a recent leaked document concerning Microsoft's "Global Criminal Compliance Handbook." "Microsoft has demanded that Cryptome take down the guide — on the grounds that it constitutes a 'copyrighted [work] published by Microsoft.' Yesterday, at 5pm, Cryptome editor John Young received a notice from his site’s host, Network Solutions, bearing a stiff ultimatum: citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Network Solutions told him that unless he takes the 'copyrighted material' down, they will 'disable [his] website' on Thursday, February 25, 2010. So far, Young refuses to budge." In a gesture of goodwill, Wikileaks has offered to host Cryptome via their twitter feed.