… Cops staked out a bar in the hope of finding a journalist drunk. The journalist in question, Edmonton newspaper columnist Kerry Diotte, wasn’t suspected of involvement in any crime. But Diotte had written a column criticizing the police force’s radar and camera technology as being more of a cash cow for the force than an effective measure against road fatalities, and the story enraged the local constabulary.

from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/22/traffic_cops_bar_stakeout/

and

The police broke the law when they used a restricted database to obtain information on the journalist (who, much to the dismay of the police, had a clean record). The police were also unsuccessful in their attempt to bust the journalist.

from: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/21/creepy_cops_violate_.html

Original on the politech mailing list “photo radar corruption scandal”:

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200509/msg00344.html

Safari comes with a Macromedia Flash player built-in. Unfortunately, it isn’t nearly as fast as Macromedia’s Flash Player 8.

Try this 3 step process with Safari:

1. Find a heavy Flash-based website. Reload it a few times with Safari.
2. Download the new Flash player from the Macromedia site, and install it.
3. Go back to the Flash-based website. See the difference?

If crude costs are really 42 % of the cost of gas prices, why does a 24 % increase in crude costs cause an 85 % increase in retail gas prices?

Graph of oil prices in the last three months:

Graph of gas prices in the last three months:

Market forces have nothing to do with retail gas prices — if they did, then all the gas stations in town wouldn’t have the exact same price.

Follow the discussion on HTMF.

Last week, when gas prices jumped 8 cents a litre in Prince Rupert, 3 out of 4 gas stations in town raised their prices. Despite no deliveries of new expensive gas, Chevron, Esso, and Petro-Canada stations all raised their prices.

The Mohawk station kept the old price, at least for half a day. Driving around town, absolutely nobody was buying gas at the 3 expensive stations. There was a huge lineup at the Mohawk station. Business was good — people were going into the store and buying lots of stuff, and the other stations and stores were largely deserted.

Guess what? By the end of the day, Mohawk raised its price too (even though Mohawk’s costs hadn’t increased — there hadn’t been any fuel deliveries). Business dropped again.

Is there an understanding between the gas retailers that they all have to sell at the exact same price? There are no market forces at work here, no supply and demand, no small business practices or anything like that. It just doesn’t make sense.

Apple is really pushing iTunes, and using Quicktime to do it. Use this link to download Standalone Quicktime without iTunes.

Download Standalone Quicktime

Download Quicktime without iTunes

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

Mayor Ray Nagin uncensored.

BBC’s Matt Wells: New Orleans crisis shames Americans