Spotting video piracy A new way to scan digital videos for copyright infringement ONLINE video piracy is a big deal. Google’s YouTube, for example, is being sued for more than $1 billion by Viacom, a media company. But it is extremely hard to tell if a video clip is copyrighted, particularly since 24 hours of [...]
Archive for May, 2010
A New Standard of Decency
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law, Supreme Court decisions on May 18, 2010 | Comments Off
Monday’s welcome Supreme Court decision, banning sentences of life without parole for juvenile criminals who do not commit murder, recognizes that children mature and should not be irrevocably punished for a childhood act short of killing. But it also recognizes that nations mature — that standards of justice and constitutional principles change over the centuries [...]
Tread softly because you tread on a lawsuit
Posted in Weird cases on May 15, 2010 | Comments Off
Some civil negligence cases are easier to prove than others. A lawyer doesn’t always have to work very hard to win: Counsel: Immediately after you hit [my client's] trailer with your car, what did you do? Defendant: I woke up. One case that looks like it will produce considerable challenges to be overcome is that [...]
Modernizing Miranda: A new consensus
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law, Politics on May 15, 2010 | Comments Off
It’s not often that I agree with Attorney General Eric Holder. But, then again, it’s not often that Holder publicly embraces an anti-terrorism measure I proposed 48 hours earlier. In last week’s column, I suggested that the 1984 “public safety” exception to issuing Miranda warnings be significantly modified for terrorists such as confessed Times Square [...]
The Goldilocks recovery
Posted in Economy and business, tagged Canada on May 15, 2010 | Comments Off
Strict financial regulation and a new commodity boom have turned “boring” Canada into an economic star THEIR economy is so intertwined with their neighbour’s that when the United States plunged into recession, Canadians assumed they would be dragged along for the ride. Newspapers took to illustrating their economic stories with pictures of Depression-era bread lines. [...]
The We’re-Not-Europe Party
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion, Politics on May 13, 2010 | Comments Off
The bill comes due for a life of fairness at the expense of growth. One of the constant criticisms of Barack Obama’s first year is that he’s making us “more like Europe.” But that’s hard to define and lacks broad political appeal. Until now. Any U.S. politician purporting to run the presidency of the United [...]
How Badly Will the Democrats Do?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on May 13, 2010 | Comments Off
A few trends to watch ahead of November. The 2010 midterm elections will be bad for Democrats. But the question is, will their losses be worse than the post-World War II average of 24 House and four Senate seats lost by the party that holds the White House? The answer isn’t locked in yet—and will [...]
The Science of a Happy Marriage
Posted in Living on May 13, 2010 | Comments Off
Why do some men and women cheat on their partners while others resist the temptation? To find the answer, a growing body of research is focusing on the science of commitment. Scientists are studying everything from the biological factors that seem to influence marital stability to a person’s psychological response after flirting with a stranger. [...]
Modern men in the throes of a midlife crisis have been known to overhaul their careers, their relationships—even their bodies. Few, though, intentionally induce hallucinations in order to commune with demons and deities and end up creating a text transforming—at least indirectly—the entire field of psychology. Carl Gustav Jung was 37 when by most accounts [...]
Many wives’ tales
Posted in Law on May 13, 2010 | Comments Off
A surprisingly prevalent phenomenon WHEN police stopped a woman driving with a full face-covering Islamic veil, little did they know what they would uncover. It turned out that her husband, a halal butcher, practised polygamy, which is illegal in France—or, rather, he was living with four women, one of whom he was married to. Brice [...]
France contemplates banning burqas HOW likely are French parliamentarians to approve the proposed “burqa ban”? Deputies get their first chance to debate the idea in parliament on Tuesday May 11th. As a first step, the National Assembly will examine a resolution, which carries symbolic value, but not legal force. Yet it will be a good [...]
Edge of the world
Posted in Animals, Literature on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
A historical tale of a Dutchman and a Japanese midwife The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. By David Mitchell. Sceptre; 469 pages; £18.99. To be published in America by Random House in June; $26. DAVID MITCHELL, a British novelist, has a reputation for courage and panache as a writer. A devoted post-modernist, who plays [...]
Lena Horne Gave Her All To Her Songs
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
Like her colleague Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, who died Sunday night at the age of 92, had a tendency for premature autobiography: In 1965, when Sinatra turned 50, he recorded an album announcing that he had entered the September of his years; that same year, Horne, who was only 48, published her second autobiography, “Lena.” [...]
Insomniac City
Posted in Living on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
I moved to New York a year ago and felt at once at home. In the haggard buildings and bloodshot skies, in trains that never stopped running, like my racing mind at night, I recognized my insomniac self. If New York were a patient, it would be diagnosed with agrypnia excitata, a rare genetic condition [...]
David Cameron and friends
Posted in Politics on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
Gordon Brown quits Downing Street, and David Cameron and his new-found Liberal Democrat allies take over GORDON BROWN emerged from the famous front door of Number 10 to address the country again on May 11th. The day before, his message had been that the Labour Party was still in Britain’s unfamiliar political dogfight, though he [...]
A Police Officer Reports In
Posted in Literature on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
In the homes of the newly dead, the signs of drug or alcohol abuse, of disease, of loneliness and finally of despair. On Martin Preib’s second day out of the Chicago Police Academy, a sergeant handed him a large, heavy plastic bag, the purpose for which was a mystery to the novice officer. “This will [...]
The mystery of Elena Kagan
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
From the supporters of Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court, we have learned that as Harvard Law School’s dean she provided free bagels and coffee to students, improved the gymnasium and added a multipurpose ice rink. Her detractors have reported on liberal columns she wrote — as a college student in the Daily Princetonian. [...]
Elena Kagan is miles away from mainstream America
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
The magnificent author and son of the Great Santini, Pat Conroy, began “The Prince of Tides” with these words: “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.” Those 13 words imprinted on my brain when I first read them years ago and have stuck with me. Somewhat oddly, they came [...]
What It Takes
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
About a decade ago, one began to notice a profusion of Organization Kids at elite college campuses. These were bright students who had been formed by the meritocratic system placed in front of them. They had great grades, perfect teacher recommendations, broad extracurricular interests, admirable self-confidence and winning personalities. If they had any flaw, it [...]
What Is Happening to Turkey?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Turkey on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
As the country has become wealthier, it paradoxically has also shed some of its Western trappings. Last week I asked Bernard Lewis where he thought Turkey might be going. The dean of Middle East historians speculated that in a decade the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk might more closely resemble the Islamic Republic [...]
The World’s Dollar Drug
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
Expect the greenback to remain the world’s reserve currency, but that won’t be a sign of U.S. strength. For all the talk about the problems of Greece and their implications for the euro zone, there is another currency that presents equally profound problems: the U.S. dollar. The dollar is, as everyone knows, the world’s reserve [...]
The Real Euro Crisis
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on May 12, 2010 | Comments Off
The EU’s bailout postpones the day of fiscal reckoning. A trillion dollars is a lot of money, even these days, and the European Union has demonstrated that a check for €750 billion ($972 billion) can produce a rally in European debt markets and global equities. Too bad the larger price for Sunday night’s “shock and [...]
Progressive views of judging are difficult to defend. That’s why no recent nominee has tried. Yesterday President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to fill the fourth Supreme Court vacancy in less than six years. This nomination presents an opportunity for a teaching moment about what the court does, how it affects the lives of ordinary citizens, [...]
Another reliable liberal who could transform the Supreme Court. In selecting Elena Kagan to be the country’s next Supreme Court Justice, President Obama has tapped the legal world’s version of himself: a skillful politician whose cautious public persona belies a desire to transform the court and shape a new Constitutional liberalism. In announcing her appointment [...]
As dean, she upheld a policy already in place. With the announcement of Elena Kagan as nominee for the open seat on the Supreme Court, comments both sound and foolish are sure to flood the media. In the prior category is the observation that Ms. Kagan is a brilliant legal scholar with a superb record [...]
The almost-winning addiction
Posted in Other on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Gambling Near misses could heighten gambling addiction Almost got the jackpot there IT IS not the thrill of winning, but the thrill of almost winning that sets a problem gambler apart from those who just fancy a flutter. A strong reaction in the brain in response to “near misses” is correlated with a greater tendency [...]
Crooked in Calabria
Posted in Law on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
The Italian mafia The toughest and nastiest gangs in Italy Tegano, not a man of peace WITH a more easily pronounceable name, the ’Ndrangheta, the mafia of Calabria, Italy’s toe, might have achieved greater notoriety. Police and prosecutors began warning as far back as the 1990s that it had become the country’s richest, most dangerous [...]
Uncommon Knowledge
Posted in Uncommon knowledge, tagged May 9 2010 on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Men are from hunt, women are from gather The conventional wisdom is that men have better spatial skills, while women have better verbal skills, but a new study offers a more nuanced view. Researchers tracked men and women from a rural village in Mexico as they foraged for mushrooms. Using GPS and activity monitors, the [...]
Heaven and Hell
Posted in Photo galleries on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
The sun sets against ash from the Eyjafjällajökull volcano in Iceland this week. The volcano has been sending up new plumes of ash, disrupting air traffic in Ireland and forcing some trans-Atlantic flights to detour. The new cloud is currently tracking towards the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Last month, ash from Eyjafjällajökull was [...]
The Beijing consensus is to keep quiet
Posted in Economy and business, Politics, tagged China on May 10, 2010 | Comments Off
The China model In the West people worry that developing countries want to copy “the China model”. Such talk makes people in China uncomfortable CHINESE officials said the opening of the World Expo in Shanghai on April 30th would be simple and frugal. It wasn’t. The display of fireworks, laser beams, fountains and dancers rivalled [...]
