By Nellie Andreeva
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - No longer will American TV audiences be asking doctor who?

Popular British actor David Tennant, best known for playing the title role in the BBC's long-running sci-fi series "Doctor Who," is set to make his American television debut as the title character in NBC's hour-long pilot "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer."

The comedic legal drama centers on a top Chicago litigator (Tennant) who begins suffering panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court.

Source: Reuters

Read first: nathanr|ca » Review of LiveJournal

My name is Nathan and until about 2002 I enjoyed using the internet with no worries. I had even run my own internet chat site (talker), had made improvements to its code, had played about with various games, used ICQ and got to know a wide range of people and had a great time getting to know them. The internet is a great thing to use. For 7 or 8 years I had used it peacefully, happily, with a few ups and downs but generally pretty happy with the whole thing. Then things were turned upside down.

When I first joined social networking site LiveJournal, my experiences were quite pleasant. I wrote blogs, had many friends, and enjoyed it so much that I paid for a permanent account, something which was supposed to mean that I would be with Live Journal forever. I also worked on their support desk, helping people deal with any problems. I should have been a trusted person.

The problems began when trolling site LiveJournal Drama (LJ Drama) found out about some people harassing me about an incident that had happened in my real life a few years earlier related to a mental illness that I have, which had resulted in my physically assaulting an ex girlfriend, not out of malice but due to this illness that I suffer from. First I had to suffer from incredible levels of harassment from people who found out about it from her, who were ignorant to the facts of my mental illness, and then so many strangers came along. It went to extremes when LJ Drama got involved.

I had hoped that LiveJournal staff would be supportive of me. After all, I was a trusted member of their community. I had bought a permanent account and had helped with their help desk. I even helped to create this community (now I don't even want credit for doing it). I did not have a record of abuse or any trouble at all. This incident, invented by a few trouble makers and brought out of all proportion by LJ Drama, was the one and only incident involving me.

Live Journal staff knew full well what the situation was. The facts were explained to them. Yet they went with what the majority said. Since the majority, at least the majority that they heard of, were all trolls from LJ Drama, they went with that, even though what they were doing was criminal and illegal.

Since that time, I have had these same trolls attack me on other social networking sites, including uJournal, DeadJournal and a variety of others. I have had to take great precautions in protecting my internet identity. I often receive abusive e-mails to this day in relation to this, and in all forms of chatting I am often attacked by these random trolls. Through LJ Drama's trolling "encyclopedia", Encyclopaedia Dramatica, my name is permanently smeared and, at least so long as Live Journal refuse to help, I cannot do a thing about it.

I do not know why Live Journal staff decided to side with the LJ Drama trolls. If it was because of the majority, then why did they continue to side with them after various legal actions against them, in several cases because of their attacks against me? Why did they care about going after new accounts that I had created?

Live Journal staff have refused to refund the money that I paid for my permanent account, in spite of a legal contract requiring them to do so. I have taken them to the Better Business Bureau several times in relation to this and they have lied about their obligations, claiming that they can take the money and not refund it at their own discretion. The truth, though, is that regardless of what their statement says, if I have paid for a permanent account, then I get a permanent account, and if they want to suspend me then they are required by law to refund it. Further, to this day it still does not say anywhere in their terms of service that they have the right to suspend a permanent account for any reason without giving a refund. I certainly did not do anything wrong to deserve a suspension. I was the victim of the whole thing.

LiveJournal knows full well that I was the victim of attacks. They pretend that I simply claim to be the victim while secretly harassing a lot of people - all at the same time! Obviously, this is not possible. I don't have a machine that I can program to randomly attack various people. Even if we didn't know who these supposed victims were - trolls and LJ Drama associates - we would know that they were lying, because it isn't theoretically possible. Yet LiveJournal continues to tell this lie. I don't believe for a moment that they honestly believe that I was anything other than the victim.

Some of Live Journal's statements include "rampant harassment of users" (without supplying the necessary proof) and "Every interaction we have had with this individual, he has been represented himself as being very hostile, and consistently represents himself both to us and any third party he can get to listen that he is an innocent victim despite all evidence available clearly establishing him to be a constant source of threats and harassment rather than a victim" (What evidence? Show me. I don't buy that and that was a deliberate trap to upset me..I asked for help, that should count for something).

These statements are intended to just make me angry, as they would make anyone angry in this situation. Then they will tell everyone "See? See how he reacts? He is deserving of our ban!". They then feel that they do not need to provide any proof to justify it. This is because, of course, they don't have any proof to justify the ban.

The bottom line for LiveJournal in this situation is profit. They get to keep all of the money that I gave them whilst still keeping the money paid to them by the various trolls, who create accounts in order to harass others. They just keep on getting profit all the way while doing this.

LiveJournal shouldn't be able to get away with this. Nobody should. But they do because the majority of people are too afraid of these big trolling organisations like LJ Drama and Encyclopaedia Dramatica to actually take a stand and stop them. LiveJournal then take the minority's side, going against what people want.

There will be times in your life, for everyone out there, when you will see someone who is being attacked like this. By all means, you could walk on by and say nothing. But if you must judge, use some common sense. Don't go with the funny option. Don't go with what the trolls say. If one person is against hundreds, the likelihood is that that one person is the victim, especially if we are talking about harassment, bullying and stalking. One against one, maybe it could be either one, but one against hundreds, it is always the one. Take their side. Do what you can to help them out.

If we all just cared a little then we could pressure our governments to put in place laws that governed this kind of behaviour that would require places like LiveJournal to stop groups of trolls like LJ Drama and stop their behaviour. Indeed, current laws don't even ban LJ Drama from setting up trolling web sites! It is illegal to have an organised crime gang but it is not illegal to have an internet crime gang! How ridiculous is that?

We all need to take a bit of personal responsibility. When you use social networking sites and you see someone getting harassed, do something about it, and make absolutely sure that you are doing the right thing. And, whatever you do, don't ever go with a large group of people poking fun of someone, for any reason - especially if that person can find out about it themselves. Brian Peppers didn't deserve the abuse that he suffered just because he looked different and neither does anyone else.

UPDATE: CBN has removed the blog. The original text is available here.

Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network posted a blog by Kimberly Daniels recently that warns Christians to forgo celebrating Halloween because of its evilness. Daniels specifically calls out candy as a source of soul-molestation:

"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches."

Source: Huffington Post

Last Updated: Saturday, October 24, 2009 | 12:39 PM CT
CBC News

A Winnipeg-based bus line says it can run routes to various rural and northern parts of Manitoba if the provincial government can cover start-up costs of about $8 million a year for three years.

Greyhound says it will shut down routes in Northern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan if it does not receive $15 million annually in financial assistance. The company said it will not operate past Nov. 1 without the government aid.

The alternate service plan, led by Gerry Boutin of Boutin Bus lines, would offer passenger and freight service provided by his company together with other lines.

"We have a lot of experienced people to do this, we're not going in blindly," Gerry Boutin told CBC News on Friday. "Our cost would be around $8 million a year to operate. And within three years we believe we can turn around this company and make it profitable so it could stand on its own."

Source: CBC News
See also: nathanr|ca » Greyhound cuts rile some, alarm others

Police are finding weapons being carried by young girls for gang members

Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent

Teenage girls wanting to join violent male gangs are being forced into having sex and ferrying guns, knives and drugs, police and charities have found.

The girls, some as young as 13, want to join gangs to raise their own profile or to seek protection. Often they are swayed by the status given to the senior members of the gang.

When they first join they are told they must have sex with one member of the gang — and then find several of the gang waiting for them.

What has shocked welfare workers is that the girls accept the situation as normal and do not appreciate that they are being violated.

The girls are also being asked to store and transport guns, knives and drugs for the male members of the gang and police have evidence that girls are taking guns direct to killers and then disposing of the weapons once someone has been shot.

Source: Times Online

If you’ve been following the Pirate Bay drama, you know that this site will never be what it used to be. However, amidst all that hubbub and even after the (so far) unsuccessful sale of the site, the actual site remained operational.

Thus, many users who were there just for the torrents perhaps didn’t even notice that something is wrong. This is about to change. TorrentFreak reports that the Amsterdam court ruled that The Pirate Bay must remove all copyrighted torrents from the site within three months.

The Dutch court initially ruled that Pirate Bay must block access to Dutch citizens; a decision which the site’s founders decided to appeal. It worked to some extent, as that judgment has now been nullified, but the Court now decided that The Pirate Bay – while not guilty of copyright infringement – is guilty of assisting copyright infringement, a phrase we hear a lot in cases such as this one.

Source: Mashable

A study released this week by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School this week, which compared broadband service across thirty OECD countries has concluded that Canada’s is lagging most developed countries in critical broadband measures.

Despite high penetration rates, researchers found Canada to rank low on critical measures such as download speeds, 3G mobile Next Generation Connectivity and most importantly, pricing.

The study found Canada to be a second quintile performer in penetration, down from the first quintile in 2003 and only a fourth quintile performer on speeds and prices.

Source: Digital Home

PopSci's Adam Weiner did some calculations to see if young Kirk could survive the car jump in the new Star Trek trailer. Adam's wrong. We have the real answer in our own video.

According to Adam, he would have needed to apply a force of 3,900 Newtons with his fingers to stop from falling. His calculations, however, don't take into account the friction of his body, as some of the comments in his article point out. But then again, he gave Kirk a 4m/s liftoff speed on his jump—which is quite high.

Source: Gizmodo

Last Updated: Thursday, October 22, 2009 | 1:38 PM ET
CBC News

Canada's top court has declared a Quebec law barring certain students from going to public English-language schools unconstitutional, a decision that has "angered" the province's government.

The Supreme Court of Canada released its unanimous ruling on Bill 104 on Thursday morning, effectively throwing out two Quebec government appeals to preserve the legislation.

The court called Bill 104 "excessive" and lacking nuance, and is giving Quebec one year to replace it with an appropriate compromise.

Source: CBC News