Belle de Jour became infamous for recording her doings with clients on her Weblog, but now the British call girl has signed off the blogosphere. "The time will never be right to finish the diary – so I am ending it now," she wrote in the final entry on the blog, which became a smash because of its immediacy as much as its sometimes explicit details of her client encounters and even how she prepared for them. There had been speculation about who she really was and even whether the blog was a hoax, but the blog earned a newspaper award and got Belle a book deal based on her experiences – actual or alleged.
A Michigan high school student got himself into a heap of trouble after police got a tip he was making online threats against his school, fellow students, and a law enforcement officer. Andrew Osantowski was searched bodily with nothing found, but authorities are said to have found weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making paraphernalia in his home. The 17-year-old student's father and a man suspected of giving him bomb-making instructions were arrested as well.
India's government is preparing to crack down on child porn and prostitution, with its cabinet approving the signing and ratification of the Two Optional Protocols on the Convention on the Rights of the Children September 17. Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy announced the approval, saying the signing and ratification would make stronger implementation of various provisions to protect Indian children.
The peer-to-peer file swapping community has a sort-of ally among the Washington think tank world: the Heritage Foundation. A research fellow at the conservative think tank, Norbert J. Michel, has argued in a brief position paper that, while copyright owners should be able to protect their intellectual property against theft, lawmakers should target only those who actually misappropriate the works in question and not the peer-to-peer networks in general, not Internet service providers, and not those "engaged in 'fair use' of the works. Regulation of devices and software should also be rejected – while technology mandates might reduce unauthorized copying, such rules could stifle innovation," Michel wrote. "Ultimately, the solution may be a private one, with copyright owners using new technologies to make unauthorized copying of works more difficult."
British music fans would like Apple to take a bite out of iTunes Music Store prices. A British consumer group, the U.K. Consumers' Association wants a probe into Apple's apparent practice of charging different song download prices to different European countries, saying that practice is unfair and might violate European regulations. British Netizens pay $1.40 a download from iTunes, while French and German Netizens pay $1.20.
Californians worried that cell-phone yakking bus drivers might get distracted enough to wreak road havoc have a friend in Sacramento. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a law banning school bus and public transit bus drivers alike from talking on the cell phone while driving. Taking effect January 1, the law makes an exemption for calls made for emergency or work-related purposes. It will make California the third state in the U.S. to aim such a law at bus drivers, with Arizona and Massachusetts having such laws on the books now.
