On July 19, 2011, Aaron Swartz, a computer programmer and activist, was arrested for downloading 4.8 million academic articles. The articles constituted nearly the entire catalogue of JSTOR, a scholarly research database. Universities that want to use JSTOR are charged as much as $50,000 in annual subscription fees.

Infrastructure NSW has suggested a system of distance-based tolling with a cap of about $7 on the WestConnex, as is the case with the M7. But it has also recommended cheaper construction methods than previously proposed for an M4 extension for the inner west.

The Greeks invented democracy, but did they invent sex for pleasure?....

is Sex for pleasure democratic?

Sexual activity has long been a divider in our societies... 

As a new bar for female masturbation opens in Japan, may be it's time to re-value our democratic relationship with sex...

from Antony Loewenstein ….

Interesting initiative that I discovered via The Yes Men.

The nation’s atheists went to Capitol Hill on Monday to launch an effort that they hope will someday give them the lobbying clout of the Christian conservative movement.

They don’t have a prayer.

But that obvious fact won’t stop them from exercising their God-given right to petition their government for a redress of grievances. And their grievances are many, including:

Alan Jone's ill-chosen comments about the Prime Minister's father have erupted into a commercial, political and broadcasting disaster for the talkback radio king.

Sponsors started lining up to withdraw advertising as more than 36,000 people signed an online campaign targeting companies such as Harvey Norman, Big W and Mercedes-Benz, urging them to boycott Jones and his employer, 2GB.

Alan Jones has been recorded at a Sydney University Liberals’ Club nosh up saying that Julia Gillard’s dad died of shame about his lying daughter. Here is what The AGE reports he said:

Kabul is the beating heart of Afghanistan. It is the centre of politics and commerce and culture, the place to which all roads here lead. This is why the Mujahedeen battled the Soviets so hard here in the 1980's and why the Taliban fought so desperately to capture it during the brutal civil war that followed.