Napster

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Napster changed the world. Millions of people rediscovered their love of music through Napster, and created a whole new way to enjoy it. We made mistakes, but we learned valuable business lessons. The business lesson of the Internet is that you can attract a much larger audience, and generate more revenue, with a “try it for free, and buy it if you like it” approach. Seven years later, the music industry is still struggling.

Hypocrites!

1995 GOP Memo!

A bit of fortuitous surfing just led me to this September 28, 1995 U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee memo [PDF]. The memo pertains to the Clinton Administration plan to deploy troops to Bosnia.



It states that:



Regarding Bosnia, during consideration of that same bill, the Senate passed a sense of Congress amendment that no funds should be made available to deploy U.S. armed forces to participate in the implementation of a peace settlement in Bosnia unless previously authorized by Congress.

Another provision on the same bill opposed U.S. participation in any peacekeeping or peace-enforcing operations unless "the President initiates consultations with the bipartisan leadership of Congress" [Senator Robert Dole, Congressional Record, 9/26/95, p. S14271].



and



The decision to send U.S. troops to any region warrants Congressional scrutiny.

The GOP demands hearings on the matter - "EXTENSIVE" hearings.

Quotable

"Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”

-Charles Bukowski

Stay the Course

Amy Winehouse -You Know I'm No Good

wow x two

Amy Winehouse Back to Black

wow!

Someone Tell This Mother Fucker...

... To go fuck himself--once ech day and twice on Sundays...er.... Saturdays?

Bolton: Iranian regime must be toppled

Former US ambassador to UN John Bolton tells Ynet world has waited too long and has done too little to restrain Iran, deal with its nuclear program. Bolton does not advocate military action, but says current diplomatic efforts have proved futile



Read More (if you must)

Sold out

Alternative Tentacles - Jello News

From Jello Biafra:
East Bay Ray and Co. have gone ahead and cleared a cover version of Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck" for a brutal scene in Grindhouse, a 'double-feature' directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. This is their lowest point since Levi's. I Like some of Tarnatino's work, another place in the film might have been fine. But this goes against everything the Dead Kennedys stands for in spades. The scene is actually in the "Planet Terror" film directed by Rodriguez. Tarantino himself is pointing a gun at a disabled amputee woman's head yelling "Dance, Bitch!" as the Nouvelle Vague cover of "Too Drunk to Fuck" plays from a boombox. The terrified woman later "wins" by killing Tarantino, but that excuse does not rescue this at all. I wrote every note of that song and this is not what it was meant for.



Some people will do anything for money. I can't help but think back to how prudish Klaus Flouride was when he objected to H.R. Giger's painting on the "Frankenstien" poster, saying he couldn't bear to show it to his parents. I'd sure love to be a fly on the wall when he tries to explain putting a song in a rape scene for money to his teenage daughter.



The deal was pushed through by a new business manager the other three hired, Kevin Raleigh of Associated Talent Management in Hollywood.




- Jello Biafra

I Did It... Really, I Did It.

The Confession Backfired - by Paul Craig Roberts

Reading responses of BBC listeners to Mohammed's confession reveals that the rest of the world is either laughing at the US government for being so stupid as to think that anyone anywhere would believe the confession or damning the Bush regime for being like the Gestapo and KGB.

Humorists are having a field day with the confession: "'I'm a very dangerous mastermind,' said Mohammed, who confessed to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, the Brink's robbery, St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and the Lincoln and McKinley assassinations. Mohammed also accepted responsibility for spreading hay fever and cold sores around the world and for rained out picnics."

If there was anything remaining of the Bush regime not already discredited, Mohammed's confession removed any reputation left.

Obamarama

The Problem with Barack Obama's Israel Pose - by Joshua Frank

If Obama is truly interested in invoking U.N. Resolutions to prop up his case for a military assault on Iran, we may as well note the some 65 Resolutions the senator has blatantly ignored that condemn Israel's actions – past and present – including Resolution 242 which calls for the withdraw of "Israeli armed forces from territories occupied" during the Six-Day War of 1967.



Sen. Obama, despite his acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering, has little to offer those who recognize that lasting peace in the Middle East will only begin when the U.S. radically alters its relationship with Israel. Continued funding of Israel's illegal occupation won't end the violence – it'll only continue it.

Question of Priorities

There's Always Money For War

For those of us unhappy with this state of affairs, who believe that these are the wrong priorities, the big—giant, really—question is what has to change?



The answer, I think, comes from a meeting of top-down and bottom-up. Today’s priorities are the result of politicians’ perceptions that their constituents, at least the ones they care about, want government to wage war and cut taxes, not to provide child and health care. Thus, the first step in turning this around is to tap and nurture demand among the electorate for the best solutions to the problems we face. I’ve stressed child care for low-income workers because it’s so important to their ability to escape poverty, but think of national health care in this light, along with retirement security and the inequalities associated with globalization.



Progressive policy advocates need to shape and promote an agenda that reaches people on these issues and is at the scale of the challenges they face. If such an agenda is articulated by a 2008 candidate, it may well start to resonate and reverberate in precisely the way that’s needed to reshape the priorities of those who hold the purse strings. Then I can go back to being a hard-boiled wonk instead of a naïve ingénue who wants to trade guns for butter.

Lift This!

Fairness Accuracy In Reporting

New York Times: Answering Latin Left, Bush Pledges to Help Poor (3/13/07) by Jim Rutenberg Larry Rohter

In a report on the tour in which George W. Bush "has made a case that free trade with the United States will lift all boats and alleviate poverty if given a chance," Rutenberg and Rohter summarize "the question Latin American analysts" ask as:



"whether the effort will be large enough, or sustained enough, to make a difference as the frustration of the poor continues to grow as they watch their wealthier neighbors, who benefit from free trade, buy fancy new homes."



But the real question many ask is not whether "free trade" will "lift all boats," but whether it raises the water at all. The "Latin American analysts" at the Center for Economic and Policy Research recently noted that in the 25 years the U.S. "government has pushed a series of reforms throughout the region... Latin America's economic growth... has been a disaster–the worst long-term growth failure in more than a hundred years."

Rove Rove Rove the Boat...

White House Mulled Firing All Prosecutors

The chief White House lawyer floated the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys at the start of President Bush's second term, but the Justice Department objected and eventually recommended the eight dismissals that have generated a political firestorm two years later.



White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers raised with an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the prospect of asking all chief federal district prosecutors to resign in 2004 as a logical way to start a new term with a new slate of U.S. attorneys.

It's That Time Again

The Daylight Savings Time Issue- For Winblows

(Macs don't need it!!)


How to tell if you are on a patched machine

1. Click the Start button.
2. Select the Programs Menu (or All Programs).
3. Select the Accessories menu.
4. Select Command Prompt from the menu.
5. Type w32tm /tz in the Command Prompt window, and press enter.
6. If your machine shows (M:3 D:2 DoW:0), then your machine is patched. Otherwise, your machine is NOT patched.

News According to Oz

The Real News:

Libby Guilty on 4 of the 5 Counts in C.I.A. Leak Case. The jury convicted Libby of four felony counts, obstruction of justice, giving false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and committing perjury twice before the grand jury. The jury acquitted Mr. Libby on an additional count of making false statements to the F.B.I.

The Fox News:

Organize

Calmness In Our Lives

I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace. Dr Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished."

So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a bottle of Vodka, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how freaking good I feel.

Kucinich

Media Views Permalink
The first acknowledgement of Dennis Kucinich beyond passing mention to appear in the newsweekly in years comes from an entertainment writer who "makes fun of" the presidential candidate as an "aging, 5-ft. 7-in. vegan." Candidates who are older than Kucinich but not characterized by Time as "aging" include John McCain (by fully 10 years) and Rudy Giuliani. More importantly, Stein's conclusion that as an idealist Kucinich "will always fail" the "test of power" fails to mention that his positions—"he's for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, ratifying Kyoto, universal health care"—are solidly supported by the polled U.S. public. In essentially calling Kucinich a fool for being "convinced there's a moment coming...when voters will suddenly realize he's not a joke," Klein appears ignorant of the fact that it is exactly "reporting" like his that keeps voters from such realizations by focusing on candidates' personalities instead of their political platforms.

Interesting

Transfer big large files easy free

:)

Running Numbers

Current Work by Chris Jordan

This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics tend to feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or $12.5 million spent every hour on the Iraq war. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

There is Something...

... To be said about a country where a person can work any job full time and be able to live a dignified life. And there is something else to be said about a country where a person can work a job full time and not be able to pay for his or her basic life's necessities.



Vive La Freedom!