Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 if the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has his way.

Remember when Democrats were fearmongering that Bush would enstate a draft if reelected... Um...

Someone please smack Rangel...

Top Democrat: Bring back the draft - CNN.com

You could provide universal health care but you'd have to radically re-align the system so that stakeholders compete based upon outcomes (ie results) instead of treating based upon episode and billing fee for service. This would not provide a system where every citizen would get the same "level" of health care service, but it would provide that every citizen would get quality affordable service based upon a tiering of cost per outcome. So the poor would get results, but the rich would get them faster, with more bells and whistles, and more conveniently at a higher price. Much like any other product or service you procure today.

Flynn23 provides some interesting insight into tackling the problems with our health care system.

Universal Health Care: Realign the shareholder interests

Ballmer: "Linux Users Owe Me Money"

Finally Microsoft pulled the expected rabbit called 'FUD' all the way out of the hat. Redmond had been hinting for a few years that the rabbit was hiding in there, but VOILA here it is! Ballmer now boldly claims that Linux "uses our intellectual property". It had been widely suspected in the open-source community that Redmond would pull the "Linux infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property" caper one day, and they were right.

It happened in a Q&A session after Ballmer's keynote at a Seattle SQL Server conference. He said he thought it was a good idea to sign a deal with Novell (which distributes SUSE Linux) because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and he wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation."

So the deal with Novell makes Windows and SUSE play nice together. Redmond will pay Novell $440 million for coupons that provide one year SUSE support and maintenance, with MS pushing SUSE. But the other bit was Novell paying MS 40 Mil 'protection money', so they will not get sued for infringement. Pretty much everyone using and contributing to SUSE is free from prosecution. Makes Redmond look pretty good in court if they try to sue other Linux distros.

FUD ALERT: "Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered," Ballmer said. This "is important to us, because [otherwise] we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability."

Interesting perspective came from Pamela Jones, editor of the Groklaw site. "My reaction is that so far, what he [Ballmer] said is just more FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," "Let him sue if he thinks he has a valid claim, and we'll see how well his customers like it." Obviously open-source advocates want Redmond to show exactly which lines of Linux kernel code are the culprits and rip them out, or work around them.

Ballmer continued with the following pretty clear message: "Only customers that use SUSE have paid properly for intellectual property from Microsoft," he said. "We are willing to do a deal with Red Hat and other Linux distributors." The deal with SUSE Linux "is not exclusive,"

However, a potential deal between those two companies will have to wait until the end of 2009, as Novell and Microsoft signed an exclusivity agreement barring MS from establishing similar agreements with other Linux vendors for the next three years. Imagine that, all Linux open-source users paying Redmond for using that code. I thought the whole open-source idea was trying to get away from that. Echoes of SCO anyone? I'm sure the last word has not been spoken about this issue.

More can be found in ComputerWorld.

Ballmer: 'Linux Users Owe Me Money'

The MemeStreams user interface has gotten a much needed makeover. The navigation of the site has been greatly simplified. The posting process has been made more intuitive. The site logo has been updated. A box on pages showing site activity has been enabled.

More changes are on the way...

Big New Feature

You'll notice a new box on the topic pages that shows you "popular topics." These topics are shown in order on a weekly basis. This is a minor thing but I think it will make the site a lot more usable for people who don't have accounts and may have trouble finding the content by drilling around in the topic higharchy...

More to come...

Small New Feature

"Its definition of freedom -- one utterly divorced from civic responsibility -- is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people."

Apparently asking the executive to comply with acts of Congress is "utterly divorced from civic responsibility."

Gonzales attacks ruling against domestic spying - CNN.com

A discussion of recent threats to judges’ safety, at a bar association conference in suburban Dallas last week, became startlingly specific when Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Supreme Court justice, recounted that each justice had received in the mail “a wonderful package of home-baked cookies” that contained “enough poison to kill the entire membership of the court.”

The sender, Barbara Joan March of Bridgeport, Conn., pleaded guilty to 14 counts of “mailing injurious articles.” The 14 recipients included the nine justices; the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and the director and deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The packages, containing either candy or baked goods, were laced with rat poison.

All mail received at the Supreme Court is screened, and the tainted packages never reached the justices, said Kathleen Arberg, the court’s public information officer. The danger posed by the packages was immediately apparent. Each contained a typewritten letter stating either, “I am going to kill you,” or, “We are going to kill you,” and adding, “This is poisoned.”

Justice Recalls Treats Laced With Poison - New York Times

UK security experts have cracked the sooper sekure new UK biometric passports. It took 48 hours. With 174 worth of sniffer hardware, attackers can read all the personal information off of any of the three million new UK passports in circulation

Boing Boing: UK RFID passports cracked

Never have so few companies controlled so much of the music played on the radio and for sale at retail stores. At the same time, there are more bands and more ways to discover their music than ever. Music seems to have split in two - the homogenous corporate product that is spoonfed to consumers and the diverse independent music that finds devoted fans online and at clubs across the country.

BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES tells the story of American music at this precarious moment. Filmmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. The answers they found on this journey–ultimately, the promise that the future holds–are what makes BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES both riveting and exhilarating.

At the heart of BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES are interviews with musicians, industry insiders, music critics, and fans that reveal how music has reached this moment of truth. Featured performances from a truly diverse group of artists, ranging from The Dave Matthews Band and Erykah Badu to Seattle street performers and Mississippi gospel singers show us that great music is always out there… as long as you know where to look. BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES will renew your passion for great music, and inspire you to play an active part in its future.

Check out the trailer. I just got back from a showing of this for music industry students. It was well received..

Before the Music Dies

ChoicePoint, the massive data broker made infamous for selling 163,000 customer records to identity theft fraudsters, is on a comeback tour. On Sunday, the New York Times ran a 3,400 word piece extolling the company's new found embrace of privacy practices and its courting of longtime critics of its data practices. It's the best press the company's gotten since the Federal Trade Commission fined the company $10 million and required it to set aside an additional $5 million for victims of its negligence.

Just this week, ChoicePoint president Douglas Curling presented ChoicePoint's new image to law students at Stanford and Berkeley and met with lawyers at the online civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

More on what's changed and the long history that ChoicePoint wants you to forgive after the jump...

Read this entire post..

Update: Read this too.

27B Stroke 6 | ChoicePoint's Comeback Tour