"Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA), George Nethercutt (R-WA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) have stepped up to protect small businesses from being unfairly forced out of business by the performance copyright royalties recently affirmed by the Librarian of Congress. They have introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives (HR 5285) that would SAVE INTERNET RADIO."

HR 5285 will save Internet Radio

"it's my personal knowledge management system, annotated and augmented by my readers. "

Another interesting comment on blogs as knowledge management...

O'Reilly Network: My Blog, My Outboard Brain [May. 31, 2002]

"As with free speech itself, what we say isn't as important as the system that enables us to say it. "

Kind of interesting article on the structure of blogging...

O'Reilly Network: What We're Doing When We Blog [Jun. 13, 2002]

In 1980, however, the crisis was almost over. It turned out that home taping had not killed music. Instead, the central problem was the collapsing popularity of dance-pop—lively, sexy, but personality-free music whose appeal was broad but thin. They called it disco... "

A ray of light stands out today against the ignorance flowing out of the PFF conference. Its nice to see this in a conservative publication like Slate.

Hit Charade - The music industry's self-inflicted wounds. By Mark Jenkins

"Most parents would be horrified if they walked into a child's room and found 100 stolen CDs...However, these same parents think nothing of having their children spend time online downloading hundreds of songs without paying a dime."

John Malcolm, deputy assistant attorney general, is yet another government official who lacks the mental dexterity needed to understand the difference between the theft of a physical object and the copying of information. As long as the legal analogies bear no relationship to the physical realities, consumers and the media interests will continue to talk past eachother on matters like this.

Information is not a scarce resource. Stealing a CD is NOT the same as copying a file. If you have a CD and I take it from you, you no longer have that CD. Your wealth is diminished. I have HURT you. If you have a file and I copy that file, you still have the file. Your wealth is NOT diminished. I have not hurt you. You might argue that I should have paid you for it, and therefore I have reduced your POTENTIAL wealth, but to equate the two is to over-simplify things in a way that is not constructive to understanding. It is a typical move by those who wish to impose the value system of the industrial age upon the information age with no consideration for the new realities the information age presents.

DOJ to swappers: Law's not on your side - Tech News - CNET.com

"Have you ever dreamed of being an astronaut? If you found this auction, then probably so. But, if you're like me and the other 99.999% of the population, your chances of flying in the space shuttle are probably zero"

eBay item 2131428812 (Ends Aug-24-02 17:22:43 PDT ) - Full-size space shuttle flight deck simulator

"If dividends were a deductible expense, firms would be strongly motivated to pay out all their profits as dividends, since retained earnings would be subject to the corporate tax. Firms that did not pay dividends would be viewed unfavorably by investors who feared that the earnings are inflated and that the cash does not exist. The payment of cash dividends would therefore add significant credibility to management's earnings reports.

Allowing dividend deductibility would also eliminate the incentive for management to take on large amounts of debt and risk bankruptcy just to gain the deduction for interest costs. Furthermore stock options would become much less valuable under our proposal since most of the stock return would be paid in dividends and not through capital gains. This will lead management to grant shares instead of options to employees, which will lead to more accurate income statements and a better alignment of management with shareholders interests."

I don't really know enough about this to endorse it, but it sounds like a good idea. I think investment would be a lot healthier if it was about profits and not capital gains. Look for MS and Buffet to oppose this.

Knowledge@Wharton - Allow corporations to expense dividend payments.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first national trial of a drug to treat West Nile virus, which is quickly spreading west and has infected more than 250 people in a dozen states.
Sold by Schering-Plough as Intron A, the drug is a hepatitis treatment which has been shown by lab tests to be effective against West Nile virus.
West Nile first appeared in the United States in 1999, when seven people infected with it in New York died. Nationwide, the CDC has reported 12 U.S. deaths this year from West Nile, eight of them in Louisiana. As of Tuesday, 253 human cases of the virus had been reported to the CDC this year in 11 states and the District of Columbia.

FDA OKs West Nile therapy trial

"1. It didn't have Lo Pan in it.

That's right. I'm talking about the perpetuator of ass kicking himself, Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China: one of the best movies ever made."

Lo Pan kicks ass!

Five things that sucked about Lord of the Rings.

Oh good grief guys. As this rubbish has already been recommended twice, let me play "Captain Obvious" for you. (Honestly, is this supposed to be a troll???)

1. Propaganda? The comment about "the US sinking to new lows trying to manufacture support for a war nobody but the oil companies wants (SIC)" obviously reveals a left wing political bias on the part of the poster. I assure you that many of the people who lost loved ones on September 11th want a war with Al Qaeda and they aren't oil companies.

2. There are people commenting here who think that the film was supposed to be of Iraq. Please actually read the articles before you accuse them of being propaganda.

3. The fact that your interpretation of Islamic law prohibits animal testing does not mean the videos are fake. Why do I have to explain things like this?

4. The interesting thing about the video is not the fact that "cute puppies" were gassed. The interesting thing about the video is the fact that the organization was attempting to develop chemical weapons. Any arguements about how many puppies the U.S. has killed completely miss the mark. Again, please read the articles in question before arguing that they are propaganda.

5. The fact that you didn't see any dogs like that when you visited a different Arab country thousands of miles away does not mean the videos are fake. Why do I have to explain things like this?

6. The fact that government psy-ops people work at CNN does not mean that the videos are fake. Why do I have to explain things like this?

7. CNN and other news organizations are motivated by money. Sensationalistic footage of cute doggies getting gassed by bad guys is the sort of thing lots of people will pay to see. The motivation here is not propaganda. The motivation is profit. You are seeing this video because you like to see this kind of stuff.

8. CNN refused to show footage of Daniel Pearl getting his head chopped off. This is because even CNN has standards of behavior. If they were "soley motivated by greed" or "soley motivated by the manufacture of consent for a war" I assure you that you would have seen this footage. Left wing absolutisms are stupid.

9. Propaganda often distorts, but it rarely lies. The propaganda is in what facts are shown and what facts are not shown, rather than in what is true and what is false. Read Chomsky, the left's own ring leader, who I presume is held in high esteem by the people who built this website.

It used to be the case that any amount of idiocy on the internet was taken as real and true fact as long as it was right wing in orientation or it had to do with aliens from outer space. Now it is the case that any amount of idiocy on the internet is taken as real and true fact as long as it is left wing in perspective. I'm really getting sick of it. I hope this is just another phase.

WAG THE GASSED DOG