Free Republic

The husband of brain-disabled Terri Schindler-Schiavo ? whose continued existence is at the heart of a highly charged legal battle ? has barred a revered Roman Catholic priest from visiting his wife. As WorldNetDaily reported, Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have been locked in a decade-long legal struggle with their son-in-law over care and custody of their daughter, who suffered brain damage when she collapsed at her home 13 years ago under unexplained circumstances. A contentious dispute over Terri's lack of care became a major euthanasia battle five years ago when Michael Schiavo, 39, obtained permission from a court...

THE NATIONAL SECURITY Agency, the government's security arm, along with help from Network Associates, last week announced it has made a security-enhanced version of Linux available for download. The NSA said it realizes that operating system security is necessary and that mainstream operating systems often lack critical security features that could enforce the confidentiality and integrity of network communications. Dubbed Security-Enhanced (SE) Linux, the NSA's version allows programs to have only the slimmest security permissions to run. SE Linux has a strong, yet flexible, access control architecture incorporated into the kernel to foil tampering and bypassing of security mechanisms. The...

The Blaster worm, which continues to create chaos by crashing numerous vulnerable Windows machines across the Net, has changed the rules on malicious code attacks. Unlike Slammer or Nimda, home users have borne the brunt of the attack - although businesses of all sizes have also suffered. Blaster shatters the partially reassuring notion that email-borne nasties are the most significant threat for Harry Homeowner. Now updating patches and using perimeter security, always good ideas, have become prerequisites for Windows users. With the appearance of new variants of Blaster already appearing on the Net, its worth reviewing the nature of Blaster,...

"This would be a joke if your lies weren't so blatantly false. (Christian Group Blasts 'Orgy of Depravity' at Disney's Gay Days, August 7) I can't tell you how many times I've had to complain about breeders doing their trick in public and nobody bats an eyelid, but the minute the vicious Right Wing Hate Machine begins spewing its lies, people fall all over themselves in phony indignation. They're probably gay too, but just lack the courage to out themselves. You should be ashamed of yourselves, but people who lie have no conscience- they do go to Hell." Melinda C....

Missing RIAA figures shoot down "piracy" canard By Andrew Orlowski in San FranciscoPosted: 16/12/2002 at 20:15 GMT Research by George Zieman gives the true reason for falling CD sales: the major labels have slashed production by 25 per cent in the past two years, he argues. After keeping the figure rather quiet for two years, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says the industry released around 27,000 titles in 2001, down from a peak of 38,900 in 1999. Since year-on-year unit sales have dropped a mere 10.3 per cent, it's clear that demand has held up extremely well: despite...

Not content with class action lawsuits, some California trial lawyers specialize in demanding cash settlements from thousands of businesses in exchange for not suing them. These shakedown suits don't require allegations of injury -- or even the inconvenience of clients: just the threat of a lawyer armed with California's bizarre consumer protection laws.