Having more cooks in the kitchen isn't going to make dinner cook any faster, we are on top of the approvals, very few sit for very long, and if they do, it is due to the seeder, not the staff. We are looking for staff to cover the Asian time zone. and as of now, I think we are covering it very well. We are spread over 3/4 of the planet and have weird hours, there is almost always a live mod in chat, that can check approvals. I do not see why the users are so against this system?

Neither, it just hasn't been approved yet… but will be in a few minutes...

YngMstr

We could always go back to the old way, give out warnings, instead, not verify content, and be shut down.

If you can't read half a page of rules for new torrents, there is a serious problem here.

The reason the amount of new torrents is less, is because we are nipping it in the bud. Users that constantly seed tons of new torrents at a time, at 5kb total, are no longer able to. The list might be shorter but it is a lot cleaner.

A recently published article by The Register claims that an increase in encrypted BitTorrent traffic is due to the fact that people want to hide or scramble the files they are sharing. Apparently some tech journalists, and in particular the anti-piracy organizations, have no clue what BitTorrent encryption actually does.

Encrypted BitTorrent traffic now accounts for 40% of all BitTorrent traffic in the UK according to the article. The Register claims that filesharers use encryption to scramble their data so they can protect themselves from being caught, and the comments from a music industry representative make it seem like people can indeed hide what they are sharing. Unfortunately, none of it is true

This is what Matt Phillips, of the record industry trade association the British Phonographic Institute told the Register: ?Our internet investigations team, internet service providers and the police are well aware of encryption technology: it?s been around for a long time and is commonplace in other areas of internet crime. It should come as no surprise that if people think they can hide illegal activity they will attempt to.?

So if it?s not hiding anything, why do people use BitTorrent encryption then?

I?ll try to explain it once more to the BPI, IFPI and RIAA and some tech journalists, just so they don?t embarrass themselves again in the future. BitTorrent encryption has nothing to do with hiding the data you?re sharing, it only hides the fact that you?re using BitTorrent to do so.

Encryption was designed to prevent ISPs from throttling BitTorrent traffic, which they started doing approximately 2 years ago. ISPs use so called traffic shaping devices to identify and slow down BitTorrent traffic because it takes up a lot of bandwidth (read: costs a lot of money). BitTorrent encryption, which is now supported by all the popular BitTorrent clients, hides the protocol header. As a result, these devices can?t detect that someone is using BitTorrent and you can download at full speed.

So, encryption does not hide the actual data people are sharing, everyone can still connect to a BitTorrent swarm, record your IP-address, and send you an infringement notice.

Now back to the claim that 40% of the BitTorrent traffic is encrypted in the UK. My first question would be, how do they know that it?s BitTorrent traffic if it?s encrypted? Apart from that I think 40% is a little too high, unless the ISP that reported the data is throttling BitTorrent traffic of course. We?ve been tracking the number of people who actually use encryption and it is currently slightly below 10%. It could be of course that these people are responsible for 40% of the traffic, but I seriously doubt that.

Bottom line is, anti-piracy organizations should take some time to read up on what filesharing actually is before they are going to accuse people of something, but I guess that?s wishful thinking.

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

The federal jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.

The church and three of its leaders - Fred Phelps and his two daughters, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Rebekah Phelps-Davis, 46 - were found liable for invasion of privacy and intent to inflict emotional distress.

Of course, the Phelps clan plans to appeal and are confident the verdict will be overturned.

@derektheking:

any idea when this will be available…TV? DVD?

www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/screening.htm

The Boy Scouts' anti-gay policy is turning out to be a pricey proposition for its Philadelphia chapter ? one that will cost about $200,000 a year, to be exact.

The city has ordered the organization to pay a fair-market rent of $200,000 ? $199,999 more than its current $1 annual rate ? to maintain its longtime offices in a landmark Philadelphia building because of its refusal to allow openly gay Scouts and Scout leaders.

City Solicitor says Romulo L. Diaz Jr. contends that Mayor John Street, City Council and the Fairmount Park Commission (which oversees historic properties) have been asking the Scouts for the past year to submit a clear-cut anti-discrimination policy, and they haven't done so. In order to comply with Philadelphia laws, he said, he has given the Scouts a choice: agree definitively in writing to stop discriminating, or pay a new rent at market value.

"They had been put on notice over the last year by the mayor, the City Council and the Fairmount Park Commission that they had a choice to make," Diaz said in a phone interview. "They need to provide evidence that they would not engage in discriminatory practices against gays as either Scout masters or Boy Scouts. …. They have either not responded or essentially played the victim."

The Boy Scouts' Philadelphia branch, called the Cradle of Liberty Council, argues that its hands are tied because of the national chapter's refusal to reverse its anti-gay policy ? even though, it says, it tried to fight it a few years ago.

The city Scouts say they agreed on a compromise with the prior solicitor ? which involved the adoption of a promise not to engage in "unlawful discrimination" similar to one the New York chapter has ? and claims the current solicitor has an ulterior motive because he himself is openly gay.

"We adopted a non-discrimination policy in 2005 with the city's help, which is ironic now," said Cradle of Liberty spokesman Jeff Jubelirer. "Since that time, there's been no one challenging the policy, no reports of discrimination. Nothing has come to the public's attention. And yet the current solicitor thinks this language is not clear enough.

"It's been reported that the solicitor is openly homosexual ? and who cares ? but I wonder if it's something that he and members of the activist gay community want: to kick the Boy Scouts out of their building."

Diaz declined to answer questions about his sexual orientation, but said it was irrelevant because his job was to enforce what the city has voted and agreed on.

"I'm doing my job," he said. "I'm taking it on because I was directed by the mayor, City Council and the Fairmount Park Commission."

The Beaux Arts 1928-era building stands on land owned by the city, and Philadelphia officials say they can't legally rent taxpayer-owned property for such a low sum to a private group known to discriminate. The Boy Scouts have use of the entire historic building and its parking lot, according to Diaz.

"Wouldn't you expect the Cradle of Liberty Council to really set the example for what in 2007 we would expect in a modern civil society, to be inclusive and welcome everyone to their ranks?" the solicitor said.

The Cradle of Liberty Council has until Dec. 3 of this year to either accept the new $200,000 rent or vacate the building. They will have to start paying the spiked rent in order to avoid being evicted from Beaux Arts, located at 22nd and Winter streets, after May 31, 2008.

Jubelirer said that though the Boy Scouts of America won't allow openly gay members or leaders, there is something of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy within the organization.

"We know there are gay Scouts," he said. "Of course there are. We don't care. Nobody cares. We tried to change the policy. National wouldn't allow us. We're trying to do the right thing as all parties are concerned."

Diaz said such a philosophy is contradictory, and is still flat-out discrimination.

"You cannot welcome people when you say to them publicly, you're not welcome if you're gay, but privately you can come in," he said. "No one is going to feel welcome or want to apply. It's like (posting a job and saying), if you're a homosexual, don't apply here. That should enrage people."

The Girl Scouts of America ? including the Philadelphia chapter ? has no such anti-gay policy.

"The Girl Scouts of America do not discriminate," Diaz said. "They pay for the use of city facilities. Why wouldn't you expect the Boy Scouts of America to meet the standards of the Girl Scouts? There is no major non-profit that I'm aware of in Philadelphia that allows that kind of discrimination."

Scouting officials will ask the city solicitor for details on the appraisals that yielded the $200,000 figure, which Jubelirer called "shocking."

The higher rent money "would have to come from programs. That's 30 new Cub Scout packs, or 800 needy kids going to our summer camp," he said.

The city and the Scouts have been disputing the matter for years, but haven't been able to reach an agreement. Diaz contends that his office has sent numerous letters since the summer of 2006 informing the Scouts of the city's stance, but to no avail.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Scouts, as a private group, have a First Amendment right to bar gays from membership.

The Philadelphia branch adopted a nondiscrimination policy in 2003, but was ordered to revoke it by the National Council, which said local chapters cannot deviate from national rules barring participation by anyone who is openly gay.

Jubelirer said he isn't sure why the national Boy Scouts refuse to change the anti-homosexual policy.

"There's a long history, whether it be morals or what have you," he said. "It's just something they feel very strongly about."

The Cradle of Liberty Council serves about 64,000 scouts in Philadelphia and its suburbs in two nearby counties.

They've been at the Beaux Arts building since it went up in 1928.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Gays and Scripture. The two words sometimes seem unbridgeable, particularly to the millions of Americans who live by the latter. Let's avoid the word "Christianity" on purpose, for now, because to so many Christians who live by the literal Bible a gay Christian would be, at best, unreal.

Filmmaker Daniel Karslake sets out to bridge that gap. His new documentary, "For the Bible Tells Me So," aims to give gays tools to fight religious discrimination. He profiles five sets of deeply believing parents who came to accept their gay children.

And he makes clear that fighting religious discrimination is everyone's business, even to people to whom the church is not worth bothering with, because almost every social persecution that has plagued America in the last 400 years – slavery, Jim Crow, anti-Semitism and anti-Islam, transphobia, the suppression of women -- has been bolstered by Scriptural argument.

"The Bible is being used, misused, to condemn gay people -- it's an old trick. And they're doing it again," says the Rev. Mel White, one of many heavy hitters in this ambitious film.

Rather, says Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Bible "is the word of God through human beings, speaking in the idiom of their time."

Do you eat shrimp? Eat rabbit? Do you mix cotton and wool? Sow two kinds of seeds in the same hole? If so, you're guilty of abominations on a level and every bit as vile as that set out in Leviticus 20:13, which famously says that a man who lies with a man as with a woman has done what is detestable, and shall be put to death.

"A guy called me on a talk show and cited Leviticus, and said I should be killed, and I asked, 'OK, who should do it? You or the civil authorities?'" White says in the film. "And he said, 'That's why it's important to elect Bible-believing men to every office in the land.'"

Few in this film are as mischievous as White, the former Falwell speechwriter who went on to found the civil-disobedience group Soulforce. Almost all the talking heads here have their game faces on, and the film suffers a bit for the earnestness.

Better time's spent on the salt-of-the-earth families, whose acceptance is mostly hard-won.

Chrissy Gephardt, lesbian daughter of the former House leader, is effervescent on screen as she recalls a youth spent needing "to find the right guy."

"If someone in your family is running for president, being gay is not an option," Gephardt says. "If it's not an option, you don't consider it."

It was a relief to the whole family when Chrissy finally gave up her secret.

"We knew we would have to dig in harder," Richard Gephardt says, "knowing what Chrissy was going to go through."

But Chrissy had married a man in a big Baptist ceremony. Telling him "broke his heart."

The Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, also married and tried to live straight. His parents are a revelation -- rural Kentuckians, as low-church as it gets. Hard-working but charming, they clearly gave Gene more than their twang.

He describes his own drive home to come out to them as "the longest of my life.

"I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to stay in the house that night," Robinson remembers. But his parents kept their love for their child foremost.

"We wanted to learn all we could about gay people," Victor Robinson says. "We got some books."

Today, Victor says, having given Gene his ceremonial vestments during his consecration in 2003, "I guess you can see we're pretty proud."

Karslake's families come across as smart people, careful not just with the Word but with words, by no means sheep, toiling when faced with a gay child to parse a new and more accepting creed.

"I asked, 'Is this really what You want me to think?'" says Mary Lou Wallner, whose lesbian daughter Anna committed suicide at 30 after Wallner's rejection. "I read and read the Bible."

Wallner lets us see the hateful letters that she clearly believes were an instrument of her daughter's death. Now an activist with Soulforce, she takes tearful comfort in the young gay and lesbian Christians that surround her, as she says, like "hundreds of little Annas."

I don't know, if I were a fundamentalist Christian, that Karslake's parade of liberal theologians would convince me. But I would fear Wallner's pain. I would respect, and might achieve, the acquiescence of rural black minister Brenda Poteat, dismayed when her brilliant daughter, Tonia, returns from Yale an out lesbian:

"I realized that what I was embarrassed about was that I was thinking totally of how she was having sex and not about her as a person," Brenda says.

"I still do not approve of that lifestyle. If you ask me, 'Do I accept that they're lovers?' I'm not there yet.

"If you say, 'Am I glad that her friend makes her happy,' then that's where I am."

We check for more than just duplicates, and if you had been seeding your new torrent it would have been approved.

YngMstr

I have tried it, but in chatrooms not on any of the services mentioned. I had pretty good luck with it…

YngMstr