A man with a loose shoelace fell down a flight of stairs in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England on Monday and shattered three 17th/18th century Qing dynasty vases.

tard.

Boing Boing: Museum shoelace trip shatters three Qing vases

Nettwerk Music Group has agreed to pay the total expense of all legal fees
as well as any fines should the family lose the case against the RIAA.

"Litigation is not 'artist development.' Litigation is a deterrent to
creativity and passion and it is hurting the business I love," insists
McBride. "The current actions of the RIAA are not in my artists' best
interests."

Excellent. A label finally steps up.

PRESS RELEASE Nettwerk Music Group Takes on the RIAA

Here's something I never would have imagined as possible just a few years ago: Apple now has a larger market capitalization than Dell -- 72.13B versus 71.97B. Neither company is cheap -- Apple's P/E is 55, while Dell's is 24.

Probably transitory, but important in the general sense that Apple has made remarkable strides in the past decade, and looks to be positioned to continue.

I still have my copy of Wired Issue 5.06 (June 1997), the cover of which features a rainbow Apple logo wearing a crown of thorns atop a bold admonition : "Pray." One of these days I'd like to blow it up and frame it.

Also, I enjoy re-reading the "101 Ways to save Apple" article from the issue. Many things are absurd, and some were exactly the opposite of what apple did, and some ended up hitting very close to reality. I know some fellow mac heads out there might get a kick out of that.

The Big Picture: Apple now bigger than Dell

Bush, whose aides said they consider the issue a clear political winner, is resurrecting tactics from the last campaign to make the NSA spying program a referendum on which party will keep the United States safe from terrorists. He has dispatched top White House officials almost daily to defend the program and has sent a message to party activists that he considers fighting terrorism with tools such as NSA eavesdropping the defining issue of the November elections

Worth reading. Troublesome.

The story here is not whether or not it ought to be authorized but whether or not is was authorized. Almost no one understands this distinction. The Republican talking points are:
1. Its legal.
2. Its needed to defend America.
3. People raising questions about its legality are partisan hacks who don't care about the safety of the American people.

[ Most troublesome because the Democrats are doing *NOTHING* to take the offensive on this issue. Every single poll I've seen indicates that the american public *doesn't want to be spied on* without warrants, but the dems won't take it up. It's fucking absurd. They're starting to hedge on Alito now too, talking like it's already over and how no matter what the outcome, they said some things that needed saying. But dammit, quit saying things and start DOING things. The democrats aren't marginal because the public isn't behind them.

They're marginal because they won't sack up and take some stands. -k]

Rift Between Parties Over NSA Wiretapping Grows

Hear hear, Jennifer.

Wired News: Mass Spying Means Gross Errors

The Rev. Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life, saw the movement's success as "a response to Jesus Christ, and it is confirmation that He, alone, is Lord." Pavone continued: "We don't have the Ark of the Covenant in 2006. We are the Ark of the Covenant."

How humble. I recall how Jesus was all self-aggrandizing. Don't you recall in Matthew : "I'm the fucking LORD, bitches! Worship this! You just *KNOW* the Kingdom of Heaven awaits all who bow down before me." Yeah, Christ was all about self glorification... Pavone's got it right.

Peroutka, too, saw victory at hand. "We're no longer the right-wing Christian nuts," the religious broadcaster observed.

What's that? Oh, no, you're still a right-wing "Christian" nut... the fact that you might actually get your way and demolish womens rights, not to mention add a great burden of babies no one can care for to an already struggling society doesn't change being crazy.

I submit the following to the record as well :

"It has been told by the prophets in the land that there is a president coming out of Texas, a Burning Bush," Nesbit prayed. "He will deal with abortion in the land. We ask you to give him an executive order and mantle him and give him a mandate with the fear of the Lord."

What!? What prophets fortold that? Were they on Fox News sometime around, oh, September a few years back? Because those weren't prophets... they were "pollsters". I know, 'p' words, huh. Confusing. Also, rev, *great* reference there. I don't think anyone's yet compared our president to the burning BUSH from the bible. You are one smart cookie. I mean, the bush claimed to be the voice of God, and Bush acts like he wants to be the voice of God, so, gee, I just don't know why no one thought of that sooner. Bush/bush. Genius. Now that I think about it though the burning part could be construed... nah, I'd rather not get disappeared by some spooks.

For the record, the above should also put to rest anyone who still thinks Bush isn't all about the religious right. They see him as an instrument of God, and he's all too happy to fill that role.

For anyone who still believes Alito wouldn't vote to overturn Roe, wake the fuck up.

And for anyone who actually thinks that these same crusaders will vote in favor of any kind of social programs to take care of all the babies that will result from an overturning of roe, get a clue. The right in this country has an "every man for himself" doctrine that isn't gonna change.

I can't believe the complacency of the democrats in office lately. Somebody, SOMEBODY, find a fucking voice. -k]

Anti-abortion marchers think its their last march

I visited technorati this morning to see if any of you had updated your links to direct people to the new site. You haven’t. But I also discovered that the most frequently blogged about story in the news was a BBC piece about a mouse setting a house on fire. And the second most blogged about story in the news? A CNN piece about a mouse setting a house on fire. It is good to know that with the war in Iraq, the opening of the Samuel Alito Senate confirmation hearings, illegal wire-tapping from the White House, and a shrinking economy, people still know what is important. I urge you to join me in saluting our men and women in uniform for protecting our right to be interested in really stupid shit.

Worker #3116 is great.

corporate-casual » Blog Archive » News You Can’t Use

At the end of the day, Google's Davidson says that his biggest worry is not for Google but for the prospect of bringing fresh innovation to the Internet. After all, if worse comes to worst, Google can pay AT&T or BellSouth to maintain its role as the Internet's dominant search engine. But the bright young start-up with the next big innovative idea won't have that option.

This is exactly my concern.

[ I second that. Or, uh, third, I guess. -k]

Who really gets hurt by 'prioritization' of the Internet

Acidus wrote:

The points you raise are good ones but completely secondary to what I thought I made clear. There is nothing "trival" or "innocuous" about this. Frankly I don't care that the search data isn't associated with an IP. The government wants the intellectual property (ie the search strings) of a privately held company and is suing them for not turning it over. Unless there is some kind of "contempt of congress" thing going on I am disgusted by this.

On a side note Kerry, last time I checked I don't dismiss your opinions with a simple "whatever" or accusations of being a drama queen.

[ Apologies if i was overly glib. The "whatever" in response to your post on cringley was in reference to your "gold star" ranking, which I think was undeserved, and which I tried to go on and explain. I didn't mean it as an indictment of your intellect, and I don't think it was exceedingly dismissive when followed by a relatively long post. Still, I apologize and will try to avoid that offence in future replies.

As for this post, I truly wasn't targeting the "histrionics" comment individually... everyone on the whole internet has been all worked up about this, on both sides of the political spectrum, and I think everyone is being somewhat excessive about it. Again, perhaps I ought to have been clear about that, but I honestly didn't consider it to be a personal attack.

Now as far as my reply expressing "secondary" issues, the post i replied to didn't say anything about intellectual property, but discussed the privacy implications... Here are your specific words from the top of the thread :

They did what now! How many of you want anything you have ever typed into Google to be in the government's hands? How many of you are pissed that other search engines just said "Here!"

...

Now for the really scary part of this. I have read the above paragraph countless times before. The only difference is back then it said China instead of the government and people instead of minors. Why don't you congressional ass clowns try to "understand the behavior" of my right to privacy or the term of illegal search and seizure!

My response was meant to indicate that I don't believe this case shows a massive violation of privacy, but has the potential to set bad precedent for future violations, and then continued to discuss what I see as the wider context, which is of greater concern to me. Granted, the discussion of the broader anti-porn crusade was not "on topic" in regards to your post, but I don't think it negates what it says above.

As it happens, I find the intellectual property discussion (e.g. the searches entered by users being treated as a proprietary data by Google) interesting too. Google is a giant corporation which, as part and parcel of it's business maintains vast stores of data regarding the activities and dispositions of tens of millions of inter... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: DoJ sues Google for failing to turn over records!

Who is listening-in on your phone calls? Probably nobody. Right now, there is huge interest in phone tapping in the United States because the Bush Administration (through the National Security Agency) was caught listening in without appropriate court orders. What I have noticed is that, for all the talking and writing on this subject, there seems to be very little real information being presented. So this column is my attempt to share what I've learned about the topic. It might surprise you.

Gold star

[ Whatever. Cringley has never impressed me overmuch, and he hasn't changed my mind with this. He equivocates on the legality issue by arguing that these warrantless taps would have been disapproved by the FISA process, so Bush did it anyway.

That sounds a little bit like arguing that a glaucoma sufferer knew they weren't gonna get approved for medical marijuana, so they bought some on the street, and when caught, said "But it's medical!" The substantial error in my analogy is that the Administration isn't suffering from some crippling ailment, other than it's egomaniacal passion for centralized power.

I'm as fond of life as the next guy and I don't want it vaporized by a terrorist, but I'm completely unwilling to accept that this permanent war we've gotten ourselves into gives the Executive free reign to do whatever occurs to him. -k]

Cringley on phone tapping