community property library books are

Boingboing has:

Judge orders woman to return two library books or go to jail

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, August 28, 2008 8:24 AM | permalink

A judge has ordered JoAn Karkos of Lewiston, Maine to return two copies of It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health, which she checked out the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries last year.

In September, Karkos sent letters to the libraries, including checks to pay for the cost of the books. The letters said, in part, “I have been sufficiently horrified of the illustrations and sexually graphic, amoral, abnormal contents. I will not be returning the books.”

The judge has ordered Karkos, who is being held in contempt of court, to return the books and pay a $100 fine by Friday at 4pm. If she doesn't comply, she'll be arrested.

In 2007, NPR reported on the incident, providing several links, including a link to a letter Karkos wrote to the Sun Journal.

Lewiston Woman Facing Jail Over Book

Discuss ( 82 )

Favorite this! ( 2 )

Buzz up!

Send this to a Friend

country feedback: audio homunculi

Text analysis of body parts mentioned in popular music lyrics, by genre. Above, see 'country'. Check out all the booty in hip-hop, too: http://www.fleshmap.com/listen/index.html

webhead, i got the

I've been online in what feels like a heavy way for about 10 years now. In the last 3 years or so, I've spent an enormous amount of time using the web to learn and to share info. I've composed a book online, with a web-based word processor. So. It's time for a break.

I'm sure I'll post to my blogs now and then, especially to the anonymous ones, and I'll keep using e-mail and engaging with the web world somewhat. But I do hope to diminish my time on the web significantly now, to go analog for a while. Mostly analog. Mostly pencil and page. See what that does to my neurons... then allow myself the treat of surprise when I move back online heavily again a few years out. The borders will be blurry, but I've just got to get away from it for a while.

If you hear a bit less from me, don't take it personal-like. But I'm writing a Western, and writing it online just hasn't felt right. I'll still take work through my website, do research, I'll still hunt in databases, and still help in what quarters I can with those I'm pitched in with on the web. But fewer hours-per-day, now, until it's minutes per day.

Let's see what happens.

kevin kelly on the one machine

The next 5,000 days of the Internet: we makeout with the web; heavy-petting; particularity and specificity for info-objects describing regular objects; web overlays reality; internet of things; other excellent points:

ufostalker: mufon live map database

Using a google maps api, MUFON has created a live feed and archive-search database for UFO sightings. Very cool for aerial anomaly buffs and serious investigators alike.

from a senator from Texas

Dear Mr. Evans:

Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). As you know, FISA passed the Senate on July 9, 2008, and I appreciate having the benefit of your comments.

Gathering communications intelligence is one of America’s front lines of defense in the war on terror. As you may know, Congress passed the Protect America Act in August 2007, modernizing FISA to give intelligence professionals the tools they urgently need to gather information, while still protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Senator John Rockefeller introduced the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 (S. 2248) on October 26, 2007, to continue this vital work. S. 2248 creates an expanded role for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, empowering the court to have more scrutiny over surveillance procedures and acquisitions. Additionally, this legislation increases congressional oversight by strengthening reporting and auditing requirements by the Inspector General.

The changes to FISA under S. 2248 also provide civil immunity for communications carriers that assisted the government with surveillance in the past, as well as creating civil immunity for future assistance. Communications carriers are currently facing billions of dollars in lawsuits for their role in assisting the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program instituted after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This program worked to thwart future terrorist attacks by intercepting communications between suspected terrorists overseas and potential operatives within the United States. Though acting without a court warrant, the program was conducted under the President’s broad authority to protect and defend the nation. Communications carriers provided invaluable assistance, relying on official assurances about legality. While the process of litigation is integral to our system of laws, I believe it is unfair to punish the communications companies for patriotic compliance with the government’s war on terror.

Providing prospective civil immunity for communications carriers that assist government surveillance in the future is important to ensuring effective collection of intelligence. Communications technology has become so complex that our country needs the voluntary cooperation of carriers. Without it, our intelligence efforts will be severely debilitated. Providing immunity guarantees the needed cooperation of communications carriers who can rely on official assurances about necessity and legality. It is important to note that S. 2248 does not grant immunity to government officials.

S. 2248 overwhelmingly passed in the Senate Intelligence Committee, by a bipartisan vote of 13–2, and was passed by the Senate on February 12, 2008, by a bipartisan vote of 68–29. Unfortunately, this bipartisan Senate compromise was rejected by the House of Representatives, allowing FISA to expire on February 16, 2008, and leaving our nation’s intelligence community in the dark for a critical period of time.

In June 2008, the House of Representatives passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 6304), and on July 9, 2008, the Senate approved H.R. 6304 by a bipartisan vote of 69–28. I was pleased to see that members of Congress can work together in a bipartisan manner to improve our national security. H.R. 6304 currently awaits further consideration by President George W. Bush.

As a member of both the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, I am committed to ensuring that we appropriately balance our national security needs and the protection of our civil liberties. I believe that the amended FISA bill, including the immunity provision for communications carriers, strikes this much needed balance. I appreciate the opportunity to represent the interests of Texans in the United States Senate, and am thankful for your comments about this important legislation.

Sincerely,

(Senator X, we'll call him)

Appropedia Discussion Group

Appropedia community @ google groups:
http://groups.google.com/group/appropedia-community

Appropedia is the open encyclopedia of sustainable and appropriate technology at:
http://www.appropedia.org/

If sustainable technology interests you, see above links and join in the talk. Info sci and library folks have a lot to lend this movement.

u.s. defense tech docs, declassified

Enter DTIC Public STINET

Coverage: 1965-present (Research Summaries); full text: 1924-present (selected documents)

Description: U.S. Defense Technical Information Center's technical reports and specifications (including DODISS), mostly in fields related to aerospace engineering and aerodynamics. STINET MultiSearch allows simultaneous searching of up to 34 databases including NASA, NIH, DOE, EPA, FDA, and USDA.

---
via UTA.

--

Reading: the Hiram Key; Shane Claiborne, Spook Country
Listening: I'm Afraid of Americans; The Man Comes Around
Weather: the zombie of Eduard

nra of the 4th amendment

...that Heston line abt taking away his 2nd amendment rights to bear arms "from his cold dead hands"... makes me think about a sort of "NRA of the 4th Amendment" -- may be budding with groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ALA, the ACLU. This has, increasingly, to do more with information than with objects, and that plants it firmly in library land.

How to "de-ACLU" it (such a hypothetical org), "de-geek it", de-liberal it in such a way that it became a popular movement in city and in country? How to make such an organization, standing up for 4th Amendment rights, smell less Ikea and more ProBass?

Maybe take a lesson from the NRA and use the org's lobby to do financial good for the likes of info-management and info-tools money makers. Lobby for the 4th amendment in such a way that Apple and MS and HP and NewsCorp and GE bolster the org with money to continue the lobby. Pragmatics, folks.

This won't happen over tea-time at the local library's book talk, sadly. This is going to take cash and ruthlessness -- all for the greater good, we would hope.

seizing information without warrant

Thanks to the bizness folks and to the ACLU for making the DHS out this (the federales can seize your papers, your info storage devices, without warrant, without explanation. surprised?).

Seemed to me like we had an amendment in our constitution about that...

Check out Article IV, see if it jars any memories:




Now I'm getting fed up. You hear that ECHELON? The executive leg of this three legged stool is too long now, and the whole thing is about to topple over. Who is that good for? Who stands to gain?

patron granulation

granulated abilities with variations in patron account types.
has it been done yet?

Welcome to Library X, which type of account would you like? your options are:
. The Buzz Plan: you can check out up to 100 items at once, but they're all due back within 48 hours. Stiff late fines go with this one, and a deposit of $x is required.
. The Daily: standard item numbers and return times. normal fines, no deposits.
. The Milquetoast: you can only have out 5 items at a time, but the items check out for a month. normal late fines after due date. For the slow, meandering, distracted reader. Low pressure, no pressure, no hassle!!!
. The Homebrew Plan: drop by to talk with our Circulation Librarian (meetings by appointment are best), to work out a customized account that meets your specific needs. Only interested in reading one genre? Can you make the case for a lower fine rate, or longer checkout periods? Maybe you're just into graphic novels, and you read really fast. We can take your particulars into account on a case-by-case basis. Signing up for a customized plan requires a mandatory deposit of $x.

you know, something like that. the social catalog seems to have opened the way for this kind of thing. holler if you're working on it already. maybe some of this has been hashed out in the debates of the corporate guys...

ubuntu stuff

I was raising cane about Ubuntu, telling folks "my laptop is Microsoft FREE!", but you know, it's a like the man says about web browsers -- you can't get by with just one anymore. So if running multiple scripts in multiple sites is a hassle, or if Ubuntu has a bad day and won't load right, I have found myself using Vista. Tsk tsk. All that said, I'm a much mo happy man using Ubuntu 80% of the time than I was using Windows 100%.

cheap solar

Finally, this pulls the rug even out from under the Pickens Plan:
http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-age-of-cheap-solar-energy-now-to-be-precise-738

'The implication is clear: the global power economy is in the early stages of a shift as profound as the shift when gasoline began to be widely used. With new battery technology expected in the near future the issues around powering systems at night and handling spikes in demand my begin to be solved, resulting in a complete green power revolution.'

info/ethno ning thing

http://informethno.ning.com/

Information Science \ Social Science > socio-info literacy solutions

ubuntu in yr library

Good old Ms West puts Ubuntu on some donated computers:

By the way, I guess you noticed I got my dates wrong on that FISA bill thing. But what the hell. Once you tell yr representatives that yr vote for their re-election is on the line, you've played the last hand. No ace card left, is there?

fisa vote tomorrow, 8 july

Today is the day to speak up. Tomorrow they vote.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/07/daniel-ellsberg-on-w.html

"Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel posts this video in which Tim Ferriss interviews Daniel "Pentagon Papers" Ellsberg about tomorrow's vote on warrantless wiretapping in the USA. If Congress passes this bill (the "FISA bill"), it will become legal for intelligence agencies to bulk-wiretap American citizens without a warrant, using data-mining to listen in on millions of Internet and phone connections. Ellsberg, a heroic former intelligence officer, is eloquent and uncompromising in his condemnation of this -- and he makes a good case that any Congressperson who votes for it is violating her/his oath to uphold the Constitution."

also:
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=389&pg=makeACall

Action Alert: Tell Your Senators: "Don't Shred the Constitution this July 4th -- Reject Telecom Immunity!"

After the Fourth of July holiday, the Senate will vote on the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a bill that would betray the spirit of 1776 by radically expanding the president’s spying powers and granting immunity to the companies that colluded in his illegal program. Now that the House has passed the FAA, the Senate is the last front left in the battle against immunity, and every vote -- from cloture, to the amendments, to final passage -- counts.

Therefore EFF urges all patriots to celebrate the Fourth of July this year by demanding that their senators uphold the rule of law and stand up for civil liberties, by voting against the FAA and for the amendments to the bill that would eliminate or weaken its telecom immunity provisions.

or email them:

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=391

verbiage like:

I'm a constituent and I urge you to oppose telecom immunity and the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). As a constituent, I am very troubled that during this patriotic holiday season, the Senate appears ready to toss civil liberties and the rule of law out the window, and so I urge you oppose telecom immunity with every vote that you have when the FISA bill comes to the Senate floor on Tuesday, July 8th:

Vote "YES" on the Dodd-Feingold amendment, which would strip telecom immunity from the bill entirely.

Vote "YES" on the Bingaman amendment, which would delay implementation of telecom immunity until after Congress has received the Inspectors General report on the president's warrantless surveillance program.

Vote "NO" on the cloture motion to end debate on the FAA,

And finally, vote "NO" on the FISA Amendments Act, an unconstitutional and dangerous bill that would radically expand the president's spying powers and immunize the companies that helped him break the law.

with an emphasis on "YOUR RE-ELECTION DEPENDS on you FIGHTING FOR THE 4th AMENDMENT."

http://www.votesmart.org/

xkcd webliometrics

on del.icio.us: swampfunk

wordle

bidi books, bidibooks, bidimensional books

QR Code in print, [Kaywa reports]. Bidibooks, bi-dimensional (here it means 2d as in quick code) books, they're called in Madrid. But they are also bidi because they're both eye-readable, and phone-linkable to otro resources. An online appendix. Hell yes, people.



Or, as they say in Spain, "La hipertextualidad del papel es posible."

second life library quick note

In the last year I've heard folks speak on behalf of Second Life Library twice at conferences, and I've been in touch w/ SLL (infoisland.org) staff through this blog. I've yet to hear a good answer to the simple question how does Second Life help my patrons at my reference desk tonight?

The answers usually float around Mars, then veer toward institutional marketing, sweep back into a low-earth orbit around how cool it is to run around texting goth-dinosaur-bunnies.

Somebody, please, give me a better answer.