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Ancient life thrives in the deep is a BBC science article about the discovery of life in the ocean sediments.

Scientists suggest between 60 to 70% of all bacteria live deep beneath the surface of the Earth, far from the Sun’s life-giving rays.

Some of the new bacteria identified are about 16 million years old, surviving 400 metres below the sea bed.

This hostile habitat might be where life first evolved more than 3.8 billion years ago, researchers believe.

Note that it says that they have discovered bacteria that has been alive for the last 16 million years, not that existed that long ago. These things are still alive.

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Len at Dark Bilious Vapors riffs on the war against individuals by RIAA, and others, in their copyrights crusade and then Steve at The Modulator posts on Choicepoint.

With that in mind, why do businesses have the right to total control of their property and to take control of the property of individuals?

If the powers-that-be believe that people need to pay separate fees for the same song on tape, CD, DVD, MP3, etc., how do they justify business gathering the personal information of individuals and selling it.

What is the difference between going into a concert with a recorder and making a tape of the concert to sell to others without the knowledge or permission of the performers, and a business gathering financial and personal information without the explicit permission of the individuals and selling it.

Choicepoint is an information bootlegger. If you don’t own the copyright to your life, there is no meaning to copyright. Agreeing to provide a business with information by filling out a form doesn’t automatically give that business the copyright to your life. They aren’t sending a copy to a friend; they are selling your information. This isn’t “sharing”; this is “piracy”.

I don’t want to hear about “opt in” versus “opt out”. The assumption is that if you aren’t explicitly given permission to tape a concert, it is illegal to do it. The same assumption should be applied to your personal information. If your information is sold, at a minimum you are due a royalty.

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On a related note, this BBC article: Courts question anti-piracy rule, would seem to indicate that the courts feel that the FCC is over-reaching in its attempts to push the “rights” of business, requiring hardware manufacturers to build equipment to the specifications of some copyright owners.

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A country deeply in debt due to a series of wars and financial mismanagement ; lavish expenditures on the head of state who fails to understand the problems; a tax system that exempts the wealthy and puts the burden on the middle class and poor; a business environment plagued by frauds and bankruptcies; a vast standard of living gap between those at the top and the vast majority at the bottom.

Sound familiar? Of course, it’s 18^th century France and it resulted in the series of events that are grouped as the French Revolution. Gee, what did you think?

Oh, by the way, no one said: “Let them eat cake.” “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” would be closer to “Let them eat cheese blintzes.” Marie Antoinette was about 10 years old when Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote it in Confessions, published after his death. The Swiss philosopher attributed it to an unnamed princess, but the appearance of the book in 1782 may be why people assumed the reference was to her.

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