This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

YouTube - Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop

To help determine whether the United States is growing more or less safe, FOREIGN POLICY and the Center for American Progress teamed up once again to survey more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts—Republicans and Democrats alike—in the second FOREIGN POLICY/Center for American Progress Terrorism Index. First launched last June, the Terrorism Index is the only comprehensive, nonpartisan effort to mine the highest echelons of the nation’s foreign-policy establishment for its assessment of how the United States is fighting the Global War on Terror. Its participants include people who have served as secretary of state and national security advisor, senior White House aides, top commanders in the U.S. military, seasoned intelligence officers, and distinguished academics and journalists. Eighty percent of the experts have served in the U.S. government—more than half in the executive branch, 26 percent in the military, and 18 percent in the intelligence community.

The full report is available in PDF format. There is also video of discussion on YouTube:

Center for American Progress | The Terrorism Index

"We will disrupt their workday with a mildly offensive blinking neon light!"

"Death to America!!!!"

"Death to America!!!!"

Dude, say whatever you want. That meeting was intense. You were not there. Infidel...

Osama Team Hunger Force

Because of this, Jack Cafferty is cool.

After over two and a half hours of talking about nothing but the death of Anna Nicole Smith, when there really wasn't any news other than "she's dead", CNN cuts over to Cafferty, who actually reports on something other than Anna Nicole. When Caffery cuts back to Wolf, he drops this...

I was watching CNN when this happened, and had been commenting on how lame it was that CNN had not broken from this story for over two hours. I laughed _so_ hard.

YouTube - Jack Cafferty- Is Anna Nicole Still dead?

Con artists and swindlers in China who try to use fake ID will have a tougher time trying to pass themselves off as someone else now that the public has access to the Ministry of Public Security's population database.

Anyone can now send a text message or visit the country's population information center's website, to check if the name and the ID number of a person's identity card match. If they do match the ID cardholder's picture also appears, said the Ministry, adding that no other
information is available to ensure a citizen's privacy is protected.

This is a novel approach.

Xinhua - China has an open ID database.

(270 minutes) In a four-and-a-half-hour special, News War, FRONTLINE examines the political, cultural, legal, and economic forces challenging the news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Through interviews with key figures in the print and electronic media over the past four decades -- and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to the new challenges presented by the war on terror and other global forces now changing -- and challenging -- the role of the press in our society.

I expect this to be excellent. Frontline is great.

Check out the episode breakdown:

NEWS WAR: SECRETS, SOURCES & SPIN (Part I)

Feb. 13, 2007, 9pm (check local listings)

In part one of News War, FRONTLINE examines the political and legal forces challenging the mainstream news media today and. how the press has reacted in turn. Correspondent Lowell Bergman talks to the major players in the debates over the role of journalism in 2007, examining the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources in reporting from Watergate to the present; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation -- a confusing and at times ugly affair that ultimately damaged both reporters' reputations and the legal protections they thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment.

NEWS WAR: SECRETS, SOURCES & SPIN (Part II)

Feb. 20, 2007, 9 pm (check local listings)

Part two continues with the legal jeopardy faced by a number of reporters across the country, and the additional complications generated by the war on terror. Correspondent Lowell Bergman interviews reporters facing jail for refusing to reveal their sources in the context of leak investigations and asks questions on tough issues that now confront the editors of the nation's leading newspapers, including: how much can the press reveal about secret government programs in the war on terror without jeopardizing national security? FRONTLINE looks past the heated, partisan rhetoric to determine how much of this battle is politics and whether such reporting actually harms national security.

NEWS WAR: WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE NEWS

Feb. 27, 2007, 9 pm (check local listings)

(90 min.) The third part of News War puts viewers on the front lines of an epic battle over the future of news. America's major network news divisions and daily... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

FRONTLINE: News War

The judge in the murder trial of music impresario Phil Spector said Wednesday he's leaning toward allowing the trial to be televised and will make a decision after hearing from lawyers later this month.

The 67-year-old music producer -- famed for creating the "wall of sound" recording technique that revolutionized rock music -- is charged with killing actress Lana Clarkson in his suburban mansion on February 3, 2003.

"This is a trial of public interest," said Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler. "I always have a problem with commentators telling people what is going on rather than letting the public see the trial for themselves. I'm a firm believer in having the public see it."

"We do not oppose cameras in the courtroom," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney.

Great.. Just what daytime TV needed.. Another big trial to fill the channels with crap. The OJ Trial ratings were amazingly high. There were some people that spent more time watching OJ in the court on TV, than OJ actually spent in the court.

I hope this just gets largely ignored. A movie about it two years from now, that would be different...

Here is a some background on Spector via Wikipedia:

Spector has had many conflicts, sometimes bizarre, with the artists, songwriters and promoters he worked with. His domineering attitude toward Ronnie Spector led to the dissolution of their marriage. Ronnie Spector has claimed that Spector showed her a gold coffin with a glass top in his basement, promising to kill and display her should she ever choose to leave him; he had earlier forbid her from speaking to the Rolling Stones or touring with the Beatles for fear of infidelity. During Spector's reclusive period in the late 1960s, he reportedly kept his wife locked inside their mansion. She claimed he also hid her shoes to dissuade her from walking outside. Spector's son later claimed that he was kept locked inside his room, with a pot in the corner to be used as a toilet. Ronnie Spector did leave the producer and filed for divorce in 1972. She wrote a book about her experiences, and said years later, "I can only say that when I left in the early '70s, I knew that if I didn't leave at that time, I was going to die there." In 1998, Spector and her fellow Ronettes sued Spector for allegedly cheating them of royalties and licensing fees, winning a $3 million judgement; however, an appeals court later reversed the decision, upholding the terms of the group's binding 1963 contract.

Stories of Spector's gunplay mounted over the years, including his discharging a firearm while in the studio with John Lennon during the recording of his cover album Rock 'n' Roll, placing a loaded pistol at Leonard Cohen's head during the sessions for Death of a Ladies' Man, and forcing Dee Dee Ramone to play bass guitar to Spector's specifications at gunpoint. The band reportedly had to play the opening chord to the song "Rock and Roll High School" for eight hour straight; Johnny Ramone later described the session philosophically: "It was a positive learning experience. And that chord does sound really good." Marky Ramone said, "A lot of these things were overblown, and a lot of these things were alcohol-induced."

Phil Spector trial might be televised, judge says - CNN.com

The best conference presenters have a story to tell, and this morning, Billy Hoffman -- the lead researcher at Web application security company SPI Dynamics, had a great story to tell Wednesday morning at the RSA security conference about how all your favorite new Web 2.0 applications are a boon to criminals.

27B Stroke 6 covered Billy's talk at the RSA security conference.

Billy rocks.

Wired: 27B Stroke 6- Billy Hoffman on Ajax Security at RSA

Austrian police have uncovered a massive child-pornography ring on the Internet, tracking downloads of sexually violent material to more than 2,300 people in 77 countries, a government official said.

"This is the biggest case of child-porn distribution ever discovered in Austria," Interior Minister Guenther Platter told reporters on Wednesday. "This is a very important crackdown, and it is dealing with the most disgusting criminal acts against the most helpless members of society."

"It is amazing that within 24 hours, more than 8,000 hits were recorded from 2,361 suspects from 77 countries," he said.

The BBC has more information:

They were believed to have been shot in Eastern Europe and uploaded to the web in Britain, posted on a Russian website hosted by an Austrian company.

Some of the material was free but the Russian site was charging $89 (68 euros, £45) for access for a "members' only" section.

"A large proportion of policing successes in this area is intelligence led. It usually comes from a tip off from a parent or child," he says.

The codename was "Operation Flo".

Global child-porn ring uncovered - CNN.com

Steve Jobs' open letter about DRM and music yesterday definitely got a lot of tongues wagging, but there's one group that might want to re-read what he wrote. Bit Player (you gotta scroll down to the bottom of the post) reports that our old friends at the RIAA issued a response today lauding Apple's offer to license FairPlay as a "welcome breakthrough" that would be a "real victory for fans, artists and labels." There's only one problem: Jobs didn't offer to license FairPlay at all. In fact, he makes it pretty clear that he thinks that switching to an open model for DRM wouldn't work ("Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies.") and that the best option is to eliminate DRM altogether. We already knew that the majors are totally in denial about this stuff, but to pretend that his letter (however motivated) was anything other than a broadside against DRM is silly.

Um.. It's not April yet, is it?

Here is some more coverage from ABC News:

A recording industry group fired back Wednesday at Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, suggesting his company should open up its anti-piracy technology to its rivals instead of urging major record labels to strip copying restrictions from music sold online.

Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the move would eliminate technology hurdles that now prevent fans from playing songs bought at Apple's iTunes Music Store on devices other than the company's iPod.

"We have no doubt that a technology company as sophisticated and smart as Apple could work with the music community to make that happen," Bainwol said in a prepared statement.

Several analysts suggested the record companies should follow Jobs' suggestion.

"Clearly, DRM is not working," said Ted Schadler, an analyst at Forrester Research. "It sends a message to the customer that 'we don't trust you.'"

Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, suggested that removing copy restraints would give the labels' music more exposure.

"Digital music has entered the mainstream," Leigh said. "The restrictions (the labels) require Apple and others to carry are preventing the market from developing to its full potential it's retarding the growth."

RIAA misreads Jobs' open letter on DRM, thinks he's offering to license FairPlay - Engadget