] After 35 years in the business of titillating and
] offending, pornographer Al Goldstein says his magazine
] can't compete anymore. The audience is just as large, he
] says, but the Internet has transformed the product and
] its delivery.

On the other hand, Maxim sure has taken off in the last few years. Porn has become a commodity. Good articles have not. What does this tell you about news?

My Way News: Porno has moved to the net.

Clearly, nothing like an elevator into space will ever work.

This is an editorial from the LA Times. No, not an op-ed from a humorist. It is an unsigned editorial, right after one about Governor Schwarzenegger and before one about traffic safety.

The tone of it strikes me as very odd. That, and jabs at "Raymond" seem to be popping up everywhere.

Punch Troposphere for Me

With the multidimensional twists that bind his music to his narrative, he's stitched the novel into a whole new set of clothes.

I must confess that I'm not a big Neil Young fan, but this does sound interesting...

Have You Heard the New Neil Young Novel?

] Musician/producer/artist BRIAN ENO
]
] will be giving a rare free public lecture next week at
] Fort Mason in San Francisco on Friday, Nov. 14, in the
] Herbst Pavillion. Coffee bar opens at 7pm, lecture at 8pm.

If you live in SF and you miss this, you are incorrect.

On Lisa Rein's Radar: Brian Eno Lecture For Long Now On Friday November 14 In San Francisco

] Each musical subscriber is supplied with a special
] directory giving names and numbers of records, and the
] call number of the music department. When it is desired
] to entertain a party of friends, the user calls the music
] department and requests that a certain number be played.
] He releases and proceeds to fix the megaphone in
] position. At the same time the music operator plugs up a
] free phonograph to his line, slips on the record and
] starts the machine. At the conclusion of the piece the
] connection is pulled down, unless more performances have
] been requested.

Turn of the century online music on demand.

Distributing Music Over Telephone Lines (1909)

] The AFV would allow each individual to contribute a
] refundable tax credit of approximately $100 to a creative
] worker of their choice, or to an intermediary who passes
] funds along to creative workers. Recipients of the AFV
] (creative workers and intermediaries) would be required
] to register with the government in the same way that
] religious or charitable organizations must now register
] for tax-exempt status. This registration is only for the
] purpose of preventing fraud - it does not involve any
] evaluation of the quality of the work being produced.

This idea has come up before, but this is the most serious proposal I've seen. Replace copyright with a federal voucher system. I don't think its fair to say that this is less "capitalist" then the existing system. In one case the government forces you to pay for art by making it illegal to copy it. In the other case the government forces you to pay for art more directly. In either case the government is creating an unnatural economy.

The best criticism I've heard of this is that it might put the government in a position to claim that they can regulate who is allowed to participate on a content basis. That cannot be allowed. I think that problem can be resolved by placing very strong first amendment based restrictions on the government's acceptance of artists into the system, but this will remain a risk with such an enterprise into the future. There will probably need to be watchdog organizations that sue when legislatures attempt to deny access.

The real question is, how will the artists people choose to fund differ from the artists people choose to buy CDs from, and what is the significance of any difference. The best way to figure that out is to do a long term study implementing this system in a college campus. Of course, you'll have to get the recording industry's permission to do it, and there is no way in hell that they would allow it.

Another troublesome question is that by tying support for the arts to tax payers, the mean age of art consumers moves from about 20 to about 40. That will probably have bad results. Young people simply won't have the power in the system that they need to support the arts they enjoy.

Center for Economic and Policy Research: Artistic Freedom Voucher

"At times, the price of truth is so high that a democratic society is not prepared to pay it."

I recommend this speech because I like it. I'll opine that there is often a very fine line between the Department of Justice and his Department of Federal Prosecutors. That Israeli decision was discussed in a way too wordy article in the October Atlantic Monthly. When coercion was authorized by the courts, it was envisioned that it would only be employed in limited situations. 12 years later it was employed in 2/3rds of the cases involving Palestinians. Rarely does one see a better example of a slippery slope in action.

I don't really see this as simply a matter of having to give up the truth. These kinds of methods easily cross the line from investigation to punishment. When investigation becomes punitive there can be no justice.

Terrorism and the U.S. Criminal Justice System

] Last week a joint study committee of the Tennessee
] legislature held a formal hearing and formally asked for
] alternatives to the MPAA's legislation which prompted
] CERC and CEA to take the wraps off an alternative model
] bill.

Actual testimony is provided at this link. Is this the same hearing Flynn was telling us about?

I like this alternative proposal because:

1. Its simple.
2. It focuses on actual theft of communications services that the service provider charges money for instead of more vague ideas about the letter of service contracts.
3. It eliminates all of the free speech concerns. You can talk all you want. You simply cannot sell devices.
4. Its probably redundant, but in that sense it makes a point.

Some comments:
I would add the word "knowingly" to the assistance paragraph (A2)
I think the "staple of commerce" standard should be defined.

Alternative to SDMCA

] TiVo is the cellular telephone of television. TiVo does
] to time what mobile telephony does to space. To argue
] against the inevitability of TiVo is to deny the proven
] successes of Nokia, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, and the
] rest. The broadcast flag is but a finger against the dam
] that is the Internet.

JLM on the mic.

[[ MemeStreams ]] CBS Cancels 'The Reagans'

] If someone like Karl Rove had wanted to
] neutralize the most creative, intelligent, and
] passionate members of his opposition, he'd have a
] hard time coming up with a better tool than
] Burning Man. Exile them to the wilderness, give
] them a culture in which alpha status requires
] months of focus and resource-consumptive
] preparation, provide them with metric tons of
] psychotropic confusicants, and then... ignore
] them. It's a pretty safe bet that they won't be
] out registering voters, or doing anything that
] might actually threaten electoral change, when
] they have an art car to build.

No one has ever expressed my thoughts on burning man more accurately.

[BarlowFriendz] 9.8: Spectacles in the Desert