Some Web users handle online privacy themselves, study says (Nando Times). The nation's Internet users want stronger online privacy protections and many use fake names, dummy e-mail accounts and data scrambling software to preserve their anonymity, a new study has found.

Web pioneer supports surfing licenses, global laws on cyberspace (Nando Times). A co-creator of the World Wide Web [no, not Al Snore] says it is time for cyberspace, so far unfettered by laws and government intervention, to be regulated by a user's license and a global legal framework.

Italian invents new chastity guard (UPI). An Italian psychologist reportedly has used computer microprocessors to produce a modern form of the chastity belt, according to the British newspaper, The Guardian. (You've got to be effin' kidding)

NASA's X-34 Experimental Rocket Plane Begins New Pre-Flight Test Series (Science Daily). NASA?s X-34 experimental rocket plane program has kicked off a new phase of tests to prepare it for flight. (At this rate, NASA should have the X-34 ready to fly sometime in '09... 4009, that is)

Personal flying machine (EurekAlert). It is every driver's dream. Stuck in a traffic jam? No problem. Simply strap on your personal helicopter and fly away from the cares and woes of everyday life. Now a Californian company hopes to turn this escapist vision into reality-and even NASA is taking the project seriously.

Tech Giants Weigh in on Napster Controversy (Reuters). Trade groups representing some technology giants filed briefs on Monday to a federal appeals court expressing concerns about an injunction issued last month by a U.S. District court against song-swap company Napster Inc.

Threat looms of new massive Internet attack (MSNBC). Six months after devastating attacks took down the Web's biggest sites, MSNBC has learned of new evidence that indicates it could easily happen again: a security researcher has found 125,000 networks with the same flaw that allowed the attacks. In addition, MSNBC has learned that the White House, insurance companies and the security industry are considering quasi-government regulation to try to compel Internet firms to take basic security steps.

Gore Would Spend More Than Surplus (NCPA). A plurality of Americans favor debt reduction over either a tax cut or increased government spending. Al Gore is appealing to this constituency, while at the same time keeping his liberal base happy with promises of dozens of new federal spending programs.

Oregon INS Director Under Fire (Yahoo/AP). Federal immigration inspectors in Oregon lost some of their authority Monday in the wake of a furor over the strip-search and jailing of a Chinese businesswoman.

California Senate Passes Handgun License Bill (ABC). The California Senate narrowly voted to require hundreds of thousands of handgun buyers to obtain licenses, setting the stage for a potential collision with Gov. Gray Davis on gun control, Tuesday's Los Angeles Times reported.

Massachusetts seeks custody of Christian sect member's fetus (Nando Times). A prosecutor has petitioned a court to jail a pregnant member of a religious sect in order to protect the fetus. The woman is suspected of covering up the death of a previous baby who was allegedly stillborn.

City's licensing law for adult clubs is unconstitutional, federal appeals panel says (Freedom Forum). A Georgia city's adult business ordinance violates the First Amendment because it does not contain adequate procedural safeguards, a federal appeals court panel has ruled. (Personal Note - been there, done that - : Warner Robins has been trying to close down Teasers for 15-20 years, starting with annexing the existing business, then passing a law against it, a tactic they also tried against Cafe Erotica; so far, the courts have been remarkably rational in quashing the city's attempts.)

LAPD Can Be Sued As Racketeering Operation (Channel2000). A federal judge ruled that people who claim that their civil rights were violated by Rampart officers could sue the LAPD under the Racketeer influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. The federal act has previously been used against organized crime. Legal experts call Judge William J. Rea's ruling unprecedented. "This makes it possible that we can demonstrate what I have always claimed: The LAPD is a criminal enterprise," attorney Stephen Yagman said.

Medical Marijuana Barred in California (ABC). The Supreme Court today barred distribution of marijuana to people in California whose doctors recommend it for medicinal purposes.

Restrictions on arcade violence on hold in Indianapolis (Nando Times). Catherine Burton has been in the child-care business for 20 years now, and she's never seen small children so aggressive with each other. They'll kick, punch and wrestle on her day-care center's playground, much like they see in movies, television and in video games.

Nader condemns Oregon's assisted suicide law (Nando Times). While counting on the state's voters to give a big boost to his third-party bid for the presidency, Ralph Nader on Friday strongly condemned Oregon's first-in-the-nation assisted suicide law. Hours before appearing at a rally that backers hoped would be his biggest campaign event of the year, the Green Party candidate told reporters he thinks Oregon voters made a mistake by twice endorsing a law that allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to the terminally ill.

Female workers targeted by Pakistani sect (UPI). A religious party in Pakistan has asked women working for Western agencies either to quit their jobs or be ready for forced marriages.

Fears voiced over single EU currency (UPI). Leading European retailers are reportedly worried that the cash economy of the participating single currency nations will "crash" hours after "euro" notes and coins are initially introduced Jan. 1, 2002, The Financial Times reported Monday.

Word Docs With Ears? (Wired). A privacy group warned Wednesday that so-called "Web bugs" could track Microsoft Word documents as they are distributed among Internet users. The Privacy Foundation, which was co-founded by the University of Denver, discovered it was possible to place privacy-sensitive document-tracking code in Word documents, email messages, and other HTML-aware applications.

MS Fixes FrontPage Hole, QuietlyM (Wired). Microsoft has quietly plugged a security hole in FrontPage Server Extensions. The hole made Web servers vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks similar to the ones that crippled Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon.com in February. But was fixing the problem enough? Some security specialists and Web administrators say no, and believe that Microsoft was hoping to slip the solution to its latest problem silently onto servers.

Pretty Good Bug Found in PGP (Wired). A bug in newer versions of Network Associates' popular PGP software exposes purportedly scrambled communications to prying eyes.

Trojan horse kicks the Palm (MSNBC). The carefree days for the Palm handheld are over. A Trojan horse - a program that poses as a beneficial application, yet does something completely different - is making its way through the underground circles of Palm users.

The tattoos are coming... in the form of implantable tracking chips. Notice they mention using them to monitor cattle...

Carnivore becomes (new name) -- watch this space.

Who are the Carnivore review team? They're not as unbiased as they should be, to put it mildly.

Secession movements today.

More on the secession option. A second article on secession, and not from the "Right Wing Nut" press. We may have a meme sprouting here.

Everything you need to know about the U.N.

Ohio's Concealed Carry law goes to court.

Why homeschool?

The National Education Association don lik no homeskoolers. Surprise, surprise.

Any one of us is 6 people away from Kevin Bacon. How exactly does that work?

One of The Men Who Would Be King: Al Gore and his shady "associates".

The Layman's Guide to Black Market Firearms.

Behind Enemy Lines: the Million Moms Meeting in Denver, infiltrated by Tyranny Response Team. "The main point that they both stressed from their two day experience, was that the MMM is much better funded, organized, motivated and connected, than any of us had imagined."

The FBI's school violence warning signs. No, this is not profiling. Right.

The RSA Patent Expiration Party. (RSA is the encryption technology used in the original release of Pretty Good Privacy.)

Meme alert: they've found a new way to dis gun owners by claiming there never was a "gun culture" before the Civil War. Arming America, the book. Scholar Clayton Cramer says the book's a crock (70K Acrobat file).

Machine Guns in Alaska.

Waco: Yet more on the FLIR Imagery.

Gun Show Denizens are basically decent people. I could have told you that. "but the overwhelming majority of participants were my neighbors and yours -- working- and middle-class Americans who cherish their rights and want to defend them. A surprising number were women, and a surprising number of these were beautiful. P.J. O'Rourke has argued that you know you're involved in a significant social phenomenon when you find yourself among lots of good-looking women."

Medicine: The Government Wants You Dead. What happens to Medicaid, Social Security, etc., if we get real life extension?

Wait long enough and all your vices will be vindicated: nicotine is good for you. Well, maybe not you in particular, but it has significant positive medical effects.

Space Shuttle v 2.0 is in trouble. That may not matter. Somebody wants to make kit-built spaceships (suborbital, alas).

"Black Helicopters Are Real!", not just a Right Wing Nut paranoid urban legend. At least some of them are part of the War On Drugs.

Ritalin Nation: pressure on parents to dope.

It just keeps getting worse: the land-grabbers are after even more. Wheah's mah rope?