] So maybe we can stop having the tiresome argument over
] Big Government vs. Small Government. The Republicans have
] shown themselves to be no different from the Democrats on
] that score.
]
] The argument was always a little off-point anyway. The
] size of the government matters, but not as much as
] something else - whose side the government is on. Does it
] work for the general public or the favored few?

DesMoinesRegister.com | Opinion: Editorial: A short history of government

] It is now beyond dispute that retiring Rep. Nick Smith,
] R-Mich., was offered a $100,000 bribe to vote for the
] Medicare pharmaceutical bill. Smith turned down the
] bribe—a promise of campaign funds for Smith's son Brad,
] who is seeking the GOP nomination to succeed his father.
] Smith then described the offer, angrily but somewhat
] enigmatically, to various media outlets. After Chatterbox
] pointed out that an offer of $100,000 in exchange for a
] House vote met the statutory definition of bribery (the
] recipient can be a third-party "entity"), Smith clammed
] up. Then, late last week, just as the Justice Department
] was promising to review the case (the House ethics
] committee is also poised to investigate), Smith recanted:
]
]
] I want to make clear that no member of Congress made
] an offer of financial assistance for my son's campaign in
] exchange for my vote on the Medicare bill. I was told
] that my vote could result in interested groups giving
] substantial and aggressive campaign "support" and
] "endorsements." No specific reference was made to money
] [italics Chatterbox's].

A Drug-Company Bribe? - The Medicare vote scandal, continued. By Timothy Noah

] He believed car salesmen were part of a conspiracy to
] enslave the Southerner to Yankee interests: auto
] manufacturers, loaning institutions, and oil companies.

very interesting article... i'm sure there is more balance than he gives light to, but nonetheless, it's an intriguing line of thought...

The Old North

The Cato Institute takes conservatives to task for their devotion to the Pledge of Allegiance and gives some interesting information about the Pledge's author (the part about the ritual is particularly good):

] It's probably too much to ask politicians to reflect a
] little before they lunge for a political hot-button
] issue. But any conservatives so inclined should think
] about what they're defending. What's so conservative
] about the Pledge?
]
] Very little, as it turns out. From its inception, in
] 1892, the Pledge has been a slavish ritual of devotion to
] the state, wholly inappropriate for a free people. It was
] written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist pushed
] out of his post as a Baptist minister for delivering
] pulpit-pounding sermons on such topics as "Jesus the
] Socialist."

What's Conservative about the Pledge of Allegiance?

wow.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Inboxer Rebellion (Master/Slave)

] Cabello is a "silbador," until recently a dying breed on
] tiny, mountainous La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary
] Islands off West Africa. Like his father and grandfather
] before him, Cabello, 50, knows "Silbo Gomero," a language
] that's whistled, not spoken, and can be heard more than
] two miles away.

kick ass!

CNN.com - Nearly extinct whistling language revived - Nov. 18, 2003

Decius wrote:
] ] RIAA agents, backed up by police, have started to raid
] ] Midwestern record stores that carry DJ mixes. On
] ] September 23, Berry's Music in Indianapolis, Indiana, was
] ] raided; according to proprietor Alan Berry, police
] ] confiscated $10,000 worth of mix discs by the likes of DJ
] ] World and DJ Paul Bunyan. "The record labels want the
] ] independent record stores out of the business," Berry
] ] says.

This is why you should buy your music from labels not affiliated with the RIAA cartel. There are plenty of great labels out there.

Sorry, but if a mix CD is sold and has unlicensed usage of an RIAA cartel copyrighted song, it's fair game for them to bust the store. There are rules related to sample clearance, licensing, etc. Selling mix CDs is not covered by fair use. Even if you get the mix CD from the artist, if the artist has inked the deal with the RIAA, they are almost always forfeiting their hold on the copyright. This article is not very clear on whether the $10000 worth of mix discs were actually licensed or not. If they weren't, that $10000 was probably inflated out of nowhere for dramatic effect, sort of like the bogus figures you hear from the RIAA about lost sales. I'm imagining they just tallied up what the asking price was for them, rather than the cost of physical media and packaging.

This article also seems to be missing another big point. Downloading copyrighted songs without permission from the copyright holder is illegal. It really is THAT simple. Want to avoid getting sued by the RIAA? Don't illegally download music, forget the first two bullet points.

I don't understand the whole derision towards actually purchasing recorded music. Check out this quote from the article:

"Alternately, you can be a good little consumer and pay for everything you listen to."

When did buying music become a bad thing? Personally, I believe music can still be a commodity in this day and age. There is plenty of free music out there as well though. But if you want RIAA music but you don't want to pay for it? Boo hoo. Yes, the RIAA sucks and they are fighting change rather than adapting. Yes, the DMCA sucks and should be repealed. It will take time to undo these bad things. But getting into a pissing match with them is only making their case stronger.

With regard to the economics of "independent" record stores not being able to get the bulk discounts like the big chains do, sorry, them's the breaks. If the RIAA people are satan incarnate, don't deal with them. If your store can't keep the lights on by selling independent music, it's the symptom of a changing world. I've seen really great indie stores come and go in Nashville. With the internet, I can order direct with so many labels now that I don't need to visit a physical store. And when you are in direct contact with the label or it's authorized distributor, they are usually MUCH cooler about giving you bigger samples of the music to hear before you buy. The writing is on the wall for independent music stores. Time to evolve or die.

[Updated]

Oh, and if you want to check out what exactly is in question:

http://www.djregency.freeservers.com/photo4.html

These do not look like legitimately licensed compilations to me. And they are charging $14.00 for them. They must have inflated that $10000 claim. I don't feel sorry for these people at all.

RE: RIAA raiding small music stores for selling DJ mix CDs

] Clear Channel is a product of the deregulation of radio
] in the United States through the Telecommunication Act of
] 1996, which overturned the rule limiting to forty the
] number of radio stations around the country that a single
] company could own.
]
] Today Clear Channel owns over 1,200 stations, or roughly
] one in every ten in the country, over 776,000 outdoor
] advertising displays, such as billboards and street
] benches, as well as 200 major concert halls across the
] nation. The company represents the biggest and most
] profitable bands and stars in the business, ranging from
] N'Sync, Tina Turner and Pearl Jam to sports legends like
] Michael Jordan and Andre Agassi.

If you aren't very familiar with the corporate machine that Clear Channel Communications is, please read. Many of our local stations in this area have banded together to keep Clear Channel's presence in this market to a minimum. Clear Channel needs to have their level of power cut back severely.

CorpWatch.org - Issues - Utility Deregulation - Articles - Clear Channel Rewrites Rules of Radio Broadcasting

An interesting article about France's relation to the current international scene...

in particular, this :

] France's policy is not determined by a desire to counter the
] Americans, but by a deep-seated mistrust, inspired by French
] history, of any excessive concentration of international power.

I don't know enough about French history and politics to *know* that this is true, but it seems right, and sounds reasonable to me...

IHT: Americans are wrong to vilify the French

mandrake wrote:
] I would be interested in knowing how many people are "lifting"
] this material and how many people are quoting this material as
] sources and citing the source... because I know I've done
] this quite often, particularly when it comes to research
] papers that are available online, etc. I would assume that a
] considerable amount of people use similar tactics.

I don't think they are concerned about quotations. The internet is certainly a valuable research tool and I think schools try to reinforce that by training kids to use it. The thing is that its really easy to take something and just cut and paste it directly into your paper. People did this back in the old days with their library, but it wasn't as easy. You had to type everything in. Today its click, click, print... I've seen people do it.

Ultimately, having a lot of student papers online is a good thing, as long as you've got a way to filter the correct ones from the poor ones. Its an information resource, and as the papers are usually short it fits with the typical net attention span. Maybe we ought to turn the coin over here and consider that maybe paper writing is obsolete...

Paper writing is basically about teaching people to express themselves effectively. Maybe an email discussion board related to the topics of the course would be just as effective...

The reason that profs need papers to assess student knowledge on a subject is because they are still running everything on a very simple, old fashioned, mass lecture and assess system. Its been demonstrated that people learn much more effectively when they are personally engaged in the process. For example, instead of having all of the students write a paper on the same topic, why not have them go out and research a subject, assemble a coherent understanding, and report back to the rest of the class. Have discussion and debate. Force people to defend their positions in public. In such a case it doesn't really matter if they cut/pasted the paper. They still have to understand what it means to be able to talk about it intelligently... Furthermore, if they are forced to have an opinion, then they will be driven to understand that opinion well.

Ultimately, in this age, thinking is better then knowing. Information is easily available to you if you need it, so having it in your head for easy regurgitation isn't as important as being able to apply it in a meaningful way. Stop measuring what students know and start measuring how students think.

RE: Beyond File-Sharing, a Nation of Copiers