Coloring Books For Children

I was at the book store and found some interesting coloring book for children. It's not a classic coloring books where to color Donald Duck, Garfield or many other cartoons characters. Take a look if you have time, it's very interesting.

Peter F. Copeland's masterpiece of coloring bliss, Uniforms of the American Revolution. You never forget your first, and this was mine. I didn't get it because a couple pages had been defiled by a scribbler, but it sure brought back memories.

My own kids love character-based coloring books, like Rainbow Brite and Elmo. I've tried once or twice to get them into a Dover book, but they just aren't their thing.

So I went looking for other coloring books, and I found some cool ones. Check some of these out:

10 The George W. Bush Coloring Book.

Ha. Ha-ha. The artwork isn't all that skilled, but what the artist lacks in talent, she makes up for in hilarity.

9 The Cthulhu Coloring Book

I came across this one pretty randomly, and it's by a dude named Marc A Damicis.It appears to be self-published, but for Lovecraft fans, this might be a good addition to your wacky Cthulhu collection. ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! In other words, he also has a rainy-day activity book.

8 Militia Movements and Guerrilla Warfare Coloring Book.

The cover and description alone make me want to buy this:

This little zine-style coloring book provides images, info, and ideas about militias and guerilla movements through history. Bits on the Minutemen, Al-Qaeda, the Zapatistas, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panther Party, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Knights Templar, and more. Includes coloring instructions for each. Actual info in an entertaining format.

Art by Bwana Spoons.

7 The Law and Order Coloring Book

The show ain't what it used to be, but you can relive its glory days with this limited-edition masterwork by artist Brandon Bird. Link.

6 The Pat Robertson (and Friends) Coloring Book.

Everyone's favorite Evangelical from the 700 Club has his own book. There are two versions available. A traditional coloring book and one where 46 artists have already colored it in for you.

5 The #&@*! Coloring Book.

By Krystine Kryttre. Uh, I don't know wtf this book is about. But some of the sample pages freak me out.

Awesome.

4 The Gangsta Rap Coloring Book.

Contains images of famous and underground gangsta rappers.

The media has been trembling in their shoes over this one lately. Here is an article where they go off on how the world will explode of this book continues to be sold.

3 Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Coloring Book.

Unfortunately this one is no longer in print. But as a half Jew that has no problem with firearms, I'm all for it and I fully support the mission of Brasco The Liberty Bear and his quest to make patriots of all children.

2 Girls are Not Chicks! Coloring Book

Put together by a pair of broads who probably haven't ironed my shirt yet.

They also have another coloring book showing men doing girly jobs and girls doing manly jobs.

1 The C#nt Coloring Book.

Speaking of feminists.

I'm tempted to buy this one, but for my own amusement. (NSFW)

Microsoft Copy Protection Cracked Again

The latest version of the FairUse4M program, which can crack Microsoft’s digital rights management system for Windows Media audio and video files, was published online late Friday. In the past year, Microsoft plugged holes exploited by two earlier versions of the program and filed a federal lawsuit against its anonymous authors. Microsoft dropped the lawsuit after failing to identify them.

The third version of FairUse4M has a simple drag-and-drop interface. PC users can turn the protected music files they bought online _ either a la carte or as part of a subscription service like Napster _ and turn them into DRM-free tunes that can be copied and shared at will, or turned into MP3 files that can play on any type of digital music player.

"We knew at the start that no digital rights management technology is going to be impervious to circumvention," said Jonathan Usher, a director in Microsoft’s consumer media technology group, in a phone interview.

Usher said Microsoft employs a full-time team to combat such breaches, and that the Windows Media DRM system was designed to be quickly modified to shut down this type of attack.

He did not say how many songs have been stripped of copy protection, or how long it will take for Microsoft to combat the hack again. But the music industry is aware of the nature of Microsoft’s technology, he said, and added that he does not expect record labels to lose patience with the process.

The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group, declined to comment.

While Usher said Microsoft will remain committed to copy protection, attitudes around the industry are starting to shift.

Apple Inc. has modified its own online store, iTunes, to block similar efforts to break its FairPlay copy protection scheme. But Apple’s chief, Steve Jobs, started calling for an end to digital music-locking earlier this year.

"There are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music," Jobs wrote in an online essay in February. "They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game."

Apple’s iTunes store started selling DRM-free music from EMI Group PLC’s catalog in May. The same month, Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. said its much-anticipated digital music store will sell tracks in the unprotected MP3 format.

Josh Bernoff, an industry analyst at research group Gartner Inc., said he expects music DRM to fade out in the next couple of years as record companies begin to realize selling unprotected tracks online won’t hurt sales. After all, Bernoff said, the same tracks are already circulating unprotected, copied from CDs and on file-sharing networks.

New richest man?

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has overtaken Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the richest person on the planet, the Mexican financial website Sentido Comun reported.
Sentido Comun said the Mexican billionaire's wealth had rocketed past Gates following the red-hot performance of his telecommunications firm, America Movil.

US-based Forbes magazine, renowned for its rankings of the world's wealthiest individuals, updated its listings in April to rank Slim as the second richest individual in the world, as he bested the legendary US investor Warren Buffett.

The Mexican financial website said Slim's lead over Gates amounted to billions of dollars.

"Thanks to a 26.5-percent rise in the shares of America Movil during the second quarter, Slim, who controls a 33-percent interest in Latin America's largest mobile phone company, is substantially richer than Gates," Sentido Comun said.

"The difference between their two fortunes is around nine billion dollars in favor of Slim," the financial website claimed.

It said it had based its calculations largely on the share price movements of companies controlled by Slim.

The website said soaring performances from Slim's other business interests had also helped propel him past Gates.

Aside from America Movil, Slim controls the INBURSA financial group and the Grupo Carso industrial firm with interests spanning retail stores, coffee shops and restaurants.

One reason for Slim's meteoric rise might be because he is also still working.

Gates stepped aside as Microsoft chief in 2000 to devote his energies to the philanthropic foundation he runs with his wife, Melinda.

Forbes in April had pegged Slim's wealth at a staggering 53.1 billion dollars, and said Gates was sitting on a 56-billion-dollar fortune.

Slim, the son of Lebanese immigrants, has had business in his blood from his early days when he helped out in his father's shop, "The Star of the Orient."

The 67-year-old started out in real estate and was already affluent enough when he graduated from university with an engineering degree to buy stakes in a stock brokerage and a bottling firm.

During the crippling Latin American economic crisis of the early 1980s, Slim snapped up and reformed a number of distressed businesses, banking massive profits for Grupo Carso.

Carso gained its name from the first three letters of Slim's name and the first two of his late wife's, Soumaya Gemayel.

Analysts say one of Slim's smartest and most lucrative deals occurred when he took control of Telefonos de Mexico (Telemex) in 1990 as the then government moved to privatize the sprawling monopoly.

Slim oversaw a 1.8-billion-dollar investment to take over Telemex, but he then overhauled the company and expanded its service as the telecom firm became the star of the Mexican stock exchange and more than returned Slim's initial investment.

The Mexican billionaire has also made some savvy stock picks.

In 1997, he bought about three percent of Apple Computer at 17 dollars a share shortly before the company launched its hit iMac computer. Twelve months later, Apple's shares topped 100 dollars.

Despite his vast riches, Slim reportedly shuns corporate jets and flashy offices and sported a plastic watch during the 1990s.

Widowed in 1999, Slim has boosted his philanthropic presence and overseen his three sons' careers within his business empire.

Like Gates, he has developed a strong profile on the philanthropic front.

Earlier this month he allied himself with the foundation of former US president Bill Clinton and with Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra to launch an anti-poverty campaign in Latin America.

Fifty-three percent of Mexico's population of 104 million live in poverty, which is defined as living on less than two dollars a day, World Bank data show.

Russia Says To Respond If U.S Snubs Missile Offer

Russia will take steps to ensure its security if Washington rebuffs its offer of cooperation on missile defense, local media quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying on Wednesday.

"If our proposals are not accepted -- and I cannot rule that out -- Russia will continue to persistently and patiently explain its position on this issue," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Ivanov as saying.

"But at the same time, we will take adequate measures to ensure security, we are already taking these measures, an asymmetrical and effective response has been found." Ivanov did not say what that response involved.

At a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed an expanded plan for missile defense cooperation that would involve Russia and NATO sharing data about missile launches from "rogue states."

Putin said his proposal would remove the need for the United States to proceed with its plan to locate elements of a planned missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Washington says the shield is needed to protect from possible missile attacks from states such as North Korea and Iran. Moscow has argued the shield is a threat to its own national security.

Bush said he would study the Russian proposals, calling them "very innovative." But he insisted the anti-missile system must still be based in eastern Europe.

Ivanov is in overall charge of Russia's defense sector and many analysts believe he one of the leading candidates to become the country's next president.

War Fugitive Ratko Mladic Is In Serbia: U.N. Prosecutor

Fugitive former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is in Serbia and should be arrested by the end of the year, chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said on Tuesday.

She said Mladic, wanted on genocide charges over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of about 8,000 Muslims, was probably moving around more than in the past because the recently appointed Serbian government is seriously trying to arrest him.

"Mladic is in Serbia because all the indications we have from the authorities, also in Serbia, are that he's there," she told a news conference at the European Policy Centre after talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.

Mladic was avoiding using mobile or fixed telephones after fugitive former Croatian general Ante Gotovina was located in the Canary Islands in 2005 after a cell phone call with his wife was intercepted by Croatian security services, she said.

That evidence, presented to her by Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, enabled the prosecutor to give the European Union the green light to open membership talks with Croatia.

Del Ponte repeated her plea to the EU not to sign an agreement on close relations with Serbia, currently under negotiation, before Mladic was handed over to the Hague International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

She confirmed that she had agreed to stay on an extra three months until the end of this year, partly in the hopes of bringing the four remaining indicted fugitives to justice before her term expires.

She said she had no current information on the whereabouts of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and was concentrating for the moment on bringing in Mladic.

"I don't know where Karadzic is. Since months we have received no information. Last year we received some information that he was in a monastery in Montenegro," she said.

"We will get him because we are not forgetting him."

Former Bosnian Serb General Zdravko Tolimir refused to enter a plea at the Hague tribunal on genocide charges on Tuesday and demanded an inquiry into the circumstances of his arrest, saying he had been illegally kidnapped and transferred from Serbia to Bosnia.

U.K. Plots May Be Blueprint

Some of the eight people held over last week's failed terror plots in England and Scotland had previously come to the attention of British security agencies, according to media reports.

The MI5 intelligence material failed to alert authorities to the planned attacks in London and Glasgow but helped police arrest suspects quickly, the Press Association said Wednesday, quoting unidentified government sources.

"It appears that there are some linkages which refer to some of the individuals that have been detained," PA quoted one source as saying.

"As a result of these linkages we have been able to assist the police in their investigations and to help speed up some of the investigations."

There was no indication why any of the suspects were on the intelligence agency's database, which is said to contain 2,000 names.

The Daily Telegraph also reported that at least one suspect was on a Home Office watch list, so his or her travel in and out of Britain would have been monitored. Six people were still being questioned on Wednesday at a London police station. A seventh man remains critically ill with severe burns in a Glasgow hospital and an eighth, Dr. Mohammed Haneef, 27, is being questioned in Brisbane, Australia.

Most those held are reported to be linked to Britain's National Health Service as doctors or trainee doctors while the only woman arrested is a trained laboratory technician. Two men who sparked a terrorism alert in Blackburn were discounted from the inquiry after evidence of a cannabis factory was allegedly found.

U.S. officials said at least some of the suspects were recruited by al Qaeda while they were living in the Middle East.

Al Qaeda has been trying to recruit people who can travel easily to the United States and Europe and assimilate into society without causing suspicion, according to law enforcement officials.

Counterterrorism officials told CNN they believe the plots in Britain may be a blueprint for al Qaeda attacks on the United States. But, the officials say, the degree of what might be in the works and timing of any potential attack remain unknown.

"Some wonder why they just don't do vehicle bombs here. It would certainly cause panic and terror, and soft targets do exist here in abundance. But I continue to think they don't want to waste their shot here on something that isn't fairly spectacular," one counterterrorism official said.

"There's a strong conviction we are vulnerable here," another official said. "They are planning and trying to put something together, and given that these are people who play by no rules, are willing to die -- it doesn't matter how much we harden targets, they will still find some way to get through."

"The next attack here is likely to focus on some sort of infrastructure," a third counterterrorism official said. It was unclear if those two were in police custody.

Counterterrorism officials note doctors' expertise in biology and chemistry and have access to radiological material such as medical isotopes, could be used in terrorist acts.

According to officials, there has been long-standing concern that Iraq is a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists who have been testing tactics of urban warfare, which can then be used in Western nations. Terrorism analyst Marco Vicenzino, the director of the Global Strategy Project, says the world could be seeing a shift in jihadist tactics.

Confident after wounding the United States and its allies in Iraq, jihadists "are determined to take their combat experience directly to the superpower and its allies at home and around the world," Vicenzino said.

Kidnapped BBC Reporter Freed In Gaza

British Broadcasting Corp. reporter Alan Johnston was freed Wednesday after being held in solitary confinement by Palestinian gunmen for four months in the Gaza Strip, an experience he said was "like being buried alive."

Gaza's Hamas rulers said Johnston's release marked the beginning of a new era of law and order in the lawless coastal strip, but also acknowledged they would not disarm Johnston's al-Qaida-inspired kidnappers, who call themselves the Army of Islam and have close ties to one of Gaza's most powerful clans.

Hamas also said Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas-allied militants last year, could be freed next, provided Israel frees hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israel, however, has balked at such demands.

At a news conference with Hamas officials, Johnston — who was held in captivity far longer than any other foreigner kidnapped in Gaza — described his experience as "occasionally terrifying."

"The last 16 weeks, of course, were just the very worst you can imagine of my life, like being buried alive, really, removed from the world," he said.

Headed by a man known as Abu Khaled, he said, his kidnappers were "often rude and unpleasant." They kept him chained and in solitary confinement for 16 weeks and "did threaten my life a number of times in various ways," Johnston said.

Johnston described his captors as a small "jihadi" group focused less on the Palestinian conflict with Israel than on "getting a knife into Britain in some way," he said. In exchange for Johnston, the Army of Islam had originally demanded that Britain free a radical Islamic cleric with ties to al-Qaida.

A native of Scotland who covered Gaza for three years, Johnston was snatched from a Gaza City street by gunmen on March 12.

Hamas had demanded Johnston's freedom since it violently seized control of Gaza last month, apparently hoping to curry favor with Western countries that have unanimously condemned the takeover.

After his release, Johnston was surrounded by armed Hamas security men and hustled to a press conference with Ismail Haniyeh, the former Palestinian prime minister who now heads the Hamas regime in Gaza. Haniyeh draped a Palestinian flag around Johnston's shoulders — which he quickly removed — and pinned a Palestinian flag pin on his blue blazer.

Haniyeh would not disclose details of the deal that led to the reporter's release.

But on Monday, Hamas snatched the Army of Islam's spokesman, possibly as a bargaining chip, and then released him on Tuesday. Hamas also said Tuesday there would be no crackdown on the group, which is dominated by the powerful, heavily armed Doghmush clan.

Shortly after his release, Johnston told the BBC in a telephone interview that it was "indescribably good to be out."

"It is just the most fantastic thing to be free," he said. He said he had feared hours before his release that his captors would kill him if Hamas stormed their hideout.

"I thought there was a chance that they might really kill me, that they might not let Hamas get what they came for," Johnston told the BBC.

After a breakfast of beans and falafel with Haniyeh, Johnston set out for Jerusalem in the company of British diplomats, arriving at Britain's Jerusalem consulate later in the morning and waving to a crowd of reporters waiting outside. The BBC's Jerusalem bureau was decorated with colorful balloons, and bottles of champagne were open on the newsdesk.

At the consulate, Simon Wilson, the BBC's Jerusalem bureau chief, said Johnston was "in extraordinarily good shape, but we mustn't underestimate what may happen in the next few days," adding that the reporter had been through a "very stressful situation."

Johnston had no plans to leave for Britain on Wednesday, Wilson said. A press conference was planned later in the day.

After his release in Gaza, Johnston recounted for reporters how he was chained up for 24 hours at one point, moved twice during his captivity and beaten "a bit" in the last half hour before he was released.

After getting sick because of the food early in his captivity, he said, he was given a simple diet of bread, cheese and eggs. After the first month, he was confined to an apartment where the shutters were always drawn.

"It's been basically three months since I saw the sun," he told BBC TV.

Johnston praised Hamas for winning his freedom. "If it hadn't been for that real serious Hamas pressure, that commitment to tidying up Gaza's many, many security problems, then I might have been in that room for a lot longer," he told the news conference.

Asked if he would return to Gaza, Johnston told Al-Jazeera satellite news, "After many months of kidnapping, I think I need a break."

Last week, the Army of Islam posted a video message from Johnston on an Islamic militant web site wearing an explosives belt that he said would be detonated if there were an attempt to free him. That was the second sign of life from Johnston during his captivity, the first being a brief videotape in early June.

In a statement Wednesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Johnston's release "will come as a great relief to his family and friends and all those who have worked to see him freed."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hailed Johnston's release, calling him "the Palestinian people's friend." Abbas said militias like the Army of Islam "destroy the authority of law and create a chaotic situation" and must be dismantled.

An Abbas aide, Yasser Abed Rabbo, alleged Wednesday that Hamas and the Army of Islam were allies who coordinated the reporter's kidnapping and release. "I think that this was staged by Hamas to appear as if it respects international law," Abed Rabbo said.

Abbas disbanded Haniyeh's government after Hamas' Gaza takeover and set up an emergency Cabinet in the West Bank. Hamas has not recognized that government's authority, and parallel Palestinian governments have in effect been operating in the West Bank and Gaza since mid-June.

The Abbas government has been backed by the West, while Hamas — sworn to Israel's destruction and considered a terror group by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union — remains internationally isolated.

Following Johnston's release, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad called for renewed dialogue with Abbas "so that we can return to a normal situation."

Ahmed Yousef, an aide to Haniyeh, told Sky News that Johnston's release proved Hamas can establish law and order. "Gaza is safe, Gaza is clean, Gaza is green," Yousef said, the color a reference to Hamas' flag.

The Army of Islam, whose formerly close relations with Hamas soured earlier this year, was one of three Hamas-allied groups that captured Shalit, the Israelis soldier, more than a year ago.

At the news conference with Johnston, Haniyeh said Hamas was interested in ending Shalit's captivity through an "honorable" prisoner exchange deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert congratulated Johnston on his release, saying in a statement that Israel "joins in the happiness of his family and all of Britain." Olmert also demanded Shalit's immediate release.