Subterranean Homepage News

Fair and balanced, too!

December 19, 2003 6:o0 p.m. -- (Last week's weblog)

Blog takes a break: I'll be off next week. Peace on earth, goodwill to all...

Appeals court rules record industry may not subpoena downloaders' names from online providers: NYT and everywhere else.

The recording industry cannot compel an Internet service provider to give up the names of customers who trade music online without judicial review, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled today.

The sharply worded ruling, which dismissed one industry argument by saying that it "borders on the silly," is a blow to the music companies in the online music wars. It overturns a decision in federal district court that favored the industry and ordered Verizon Communications to disclose the identity of a subscriber based on simple subpoenas submitted to a court clerk.

"It's a huge victory for all Internet users," said Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel for Verizon, which brought the suit against the Recording Industry Association of America over the music group's attempts to stamp out online copyright infringement. "The court today has knocked down a very dangerous procedure that threatens Americans' traditional legal guarantees and violates their constitutional rights."

A music industry official said the case "is inconsistent with both the views of Congress and the findings of the district court."

"Regardless of this decision, we will continue to defend our rights online on behalf of artists, songwriters and countless others involved in bringing music to the public." Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, said in a statement. "We can and will continue to file copyright infringement lawsuits against file sharers who engage in illegal activity." ...

AND Court rules in favour of Kazaa

THE Dutch Supreme Court ruled today that a major internet file-sharing service - allowing millions to swap computer files such as music or films for free - was a legal operation not in violation of copyright.

In a landmark decision that could have impact on intellectual property, the panel ruled in favour of Kazaa, one of the world's most used file-sharing services, rejecting a suit by a Dutch copyright protection agency claiming copyright violation.

It is the first time a country's supreme court has ruled on the legitimacy of so-called peer-to-peer computer software.

The ruling said the Dutch-founded file-swapping network was legal because Kazaa was not responsible for possible illegal activities by its users.

Wired adds,

Kazaa said the ruling, the first by a national court dealing with the legality of file-sharing websites, affirms not just the legality of its software, but all file-sharing programs.

"This victory sets the precedent about the legality of peer-to-peer technology across the European Union, and around the world," Kazaa founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis said in a statement distributed on the Internet. They called the ruling a "historic victory for the evolution of the Internet and for consumers."

In the United States, a federal judge already has dismissed the entertainment industry's lawsuits against two rival file-sharing services, Grokster and StreamCast Networks, saying they could not be held liable for what their users do with the software. That ruling has been appealed, with a decision expected in February.

A parallel case against Kazaa's parent company, Sharman Networks, remains pending in the lower U.S. court, before U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson in Los Angeles.

Sharman also has filed a countersuit accusing entertainment companies of violating antitrust laws by stopping Sharman and its partner from distributing authorized copies of music and movies through Kazaa. A ruling on the countersuit is expected in early January.

Link to this item | Comment

Widespread uncertified software in California elections: JD Lasica blogs a report he recieved from a member of the California Voter Foundation:

...The Secretary of State's auditors discovered that of the 17 counties using Diebold equipment (both optical scan and touchscreen), all 17 had some software or firmware version in use that was not certified by the Secretary of State.

It was an astonishing piece of information -- no one knew how widespread the problem was of Diebold installing uncertified software in voting systems as was discovered in Alameda County. It turns out all of Diebold's California clients are using some version of Diebold software or firmware that is not certified by the state. ...

Link to this item | Comment

Volvo teams up to build what women want: USA Today reports,

GOTHENBURG, Sweden — About 100 women at Volvo are doing something no one in the auto industry has ever done. They are designing a car for affluent, independent women. And it's definitely not pink.

The concept car, which will make its debut at the Geneva Auto Show in March, is a silver, sporty coupe with gull-wing doors, a 225-horsepower engine and tons of storage space. It's easy to park and easy to maintain.

...The Volvo women surveyed about 400 of their female colleagues about what was missing from their cars and found that three-quarters of the answers were the same.

What do women want? Storage, parking, ergonomics and maintenance. Their design solutions led to some surprising features:

•No hood. The front end is designed as one large section, meant to be lifted only by the mechanic. The reasoning is women don't want to be bothered with maintenance, and the car is designed to be virtually maintenance free (oil change every 50,000 kilometers, or about 31,000 miles). When the car needs servicing, it sends a wireless message to a local service station, which will contact the owner and schedule an appointment.

•Storage space. The car has wide, gull-wing doors that allow easy access to the space behind the driver's seat. The rear seats are fold-up, theater-style, which allows more storage space. The emergency brake is electric, freeing storage space between the front seats.

•No gas cap. The car has a race-car-style fueling system in which the gas nozzle goes in through an opening with a roller-ball valve to prevent gas and fumes from escaping. Window-washer fluid is poured into a reservoir next to the gas tank.

•Easy to clean. The car has dirt-repellent paint and glass, as well as machine-washable seat covers. The seat covers and carpets come in a variety of styles for a customized interior.

•Easy to park. The car has a sensor to tell the driver if the car will fit in a parking space. It also can take over the steering to parallel park.

Link to this item | Comment

A Look Back at 2003, and What's on the Horizon for the Online News Universe: Mark Glaser at OJR peers...
Link to this item | Comment

Santa's Blog: Busy elves.
Link to this item | Comment

December 18, 2003 7:42 p.m. -- (Last week's weblog)

Chong Family Values, at LA Weekly, catches up with the tale and times of Tommy Chong, whose on Month 3 of a nine-month sentence at a Wackenhut-owned prison in California for investing in a company that makes glass bongs. His son actually started the company:

Suddenly, at the age of 65, Tommy Chong, who had never been arrested in his life, faced a felony conviction and jail time. Stranger still, Tommy Chong was not the owner of Chong Glass and its Nice Dreams line of smoking pipes....

...Chong Glass was the idea of Tommy’s 29-year-old son, Paris, who describes himself as an entrepreneur who plans on becoming a lawyer someday.

“In ’99 I’d just come back from Canada and was living with my parents,” he says. “A lot of glass blowers were approaching my family to use their names to start a company. I thought, Why not do this myself?, and so I started Nice Dreams with one glass blower working out of an apartment, and my father investing the money.”

...The word most used by Paris and Precious Chong to describe their father’s ordeal is “surreal.” “They couldn’t have picked a kinder, more generous person to throw in jail than my father,” Paris says. Today the family remains afraid of what the Justice Department might yet do to their father, and it is plain from speaking to them that they fear being quoted as saying anything that might antagonize it. “I don’t want to say anything against the government because I don’t want anything to happen to my children,” says Shelby. In a strange twist of fate, the Chongs have become an example for every American family in this new age of conformity.

So how's Tommy doing? “He felt like Moses going into prison,” says daughter Precious Chong, “but the reality sank in and made him sad. He’s got a good outlook, though — it’s like a spiritual retreat for him, and he goes on walks.”

Related: Limbaugh: Keep my med records private

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Embattled radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is asking a Palm Beach County, Florida, court to keep his medical records sealed from prosecutors investigating whether he illegally purchased prescription painkillers.

The records were seized from two of his doctors' offices last month. The search warrants itemizing what was seized was filed in court December 4.

Two more search warrants were obtained but not executed, two law enforcement sources said.

Limbaugh's move came as prosecutors were getting ready to file a motion of their own to examine the records, as required by Florida law, prosecutors said.

Link to this item | Comment

Pro Bowl: AFC roster • NFC roster. Ty Law, Richard Seymour. No Tom Brady.
Link to this item | Comment

Do you know the origin of this photo?
It's all over the web, but where did it start?
Link to this item | Comment

Rate some of the 1,000+ anti-Bush ads: Remember Bush in 30 Seconds, the contest dreamt up by Moby? Here's how he describes it:

the contest is called 'bushin30seconds', and for the contest anyone can make & submit a 30 second tv ad that is somehow based around 'the truth about george bush'.

the ads will be put up on our website (bushin30seconds.org) and will be voted on by moveon's 2 million subscribers and the general public.

Until Dec. 30, you can sign up to rate a selection of ads assigned to you. The top 15 will go to a panel of celebrity judges, and the winner will be aired during the week that includes the President's Jan. 20 State of the Union address.
Link to this item | Comment

"What a Crappy Present" -- CD Gift Advice, Parents and Kids: P2P fights back, with humor, urging parents not to disappoint kids at Christmas with CDs they've already downloaded.
Link to this item | Comment

Poets for Peace: " Poetry for Peace is powerful and diverse work performed by award-winning New Mexico poets, studio recorded in classic style," says the blurb. You may order Volume One or Volume Two at CD Baby (which usually sells CDs by independent musicians), and hear clips of each track, which sometimes end in mid-sentence, abruptly, just as music clips do.
Link to this item | Comment

The revolution should not be eulogised: Blogger Rebecca Blood in the Guardian (U.K) of all places.
Link to this item | Comment

December 17, 2003 7:00 p.m. -- (Last week's weblog)

Monsanto, Maine dairy battle over hormone-free milk label: The Portland (Maine) Press Herald reports,

As Oakhurst Dairy and Monsanto Co. head back into settlement talks today, businesses from disparate Maine industries will be watching and waiting to gauge the ramifications.

Organic farmers said they expect little good to come out of the settlement because they expect the Portland dairy to water down its marketing slogan, "Our Farmers' Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones," which Monsanto has called misleading.

Monsanto lawyers have indicated in the past that they would accept labels that are in line with Food and Drug Administration recommendations - any claim that a product is free of artificial hormones should also say that no scientific difference exists between milk produced with the growth hormones and those produced organically.

Meanwhile, biotechnology executives say they welcome any agreement that provides consumers more information about the safety of bioengineered foods.

The basic elements of a settlement have been reached in the lawsuit, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. Officials for both sides decline to discuss the settlement proposal. ...

At the end of the story, the local angle:

A final group that could be affected would be other milk processors, such as Garelick Farms and Hood HP Inc. Both dairies label their milk as free of artificial hormones. Neither dairy returned calls for comment.

Related: Monsanto's vision of biotech
Link to this item | Comment

Ted Koppel's turn on the hot seat: Last week I asked, "How do we know who to vote for if the reporting is all about the horse race?" in reference to ABC's Ted Koppel's moderation of the presidential debate in Durham, N.H.

Now NPR's On the Media corrals Koppel and asks him the same question. Koppel dances around the attempts to rephrase the question just like a candidate might. Here's a transcript, and an excerpt:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: One of the moments in the debate that has been played over and over in the last few days is Dennis Kucinich reprimanding you after you asked if he and Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely Braun were running vanity campaigns.

DENNIS KUCINICH: Well I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country. [SHOUTS, APPLAUSE, CHEERS] You start with endorsements-- You start, you start talking, you start talking about endorsements; now we're talking about polls, and then we're talking about money. Well, you know, when you do that you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:It seems that the public agreed with Kucinich that people don't care as much about the horse race as reporters do, and to coin a phrase that I think you may have put to Michael Dukakis some years ago, is it possible that you still don't get it?

TED KOPPEL: Maybe it is. Maybe it's possible that I still don't get it, but they have had ample opportunity during the debates to deal with subject matter, to deal with any number of issues, and what they do is they tend to repeat the same pat little phrases over and over and over again.

via Romenesko
Link to this item | Comment

Wanted: Gift guides that surprise, from Wired,

...Who wants to read another recommendation for a digital camera, a portable DVD player or, God forbid, an iPod?

With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for online gift guides that are notable for being either authoritative or quirky. Admittedly, it's a weird mix, but like lists of the best films or pop tunes, gift guides can make for interesting reading. ...

Followed by lots of links.

Also PC Magazine's 2003 Holiday Gift Guide

And, perhaps most useful of all, The "Best of 2003" lists: A list of such lists, compiled by fimoculous.com. Tech, media, music, movies, games, autos, and much more.
Link to this item | Comment

Direct Line To Santa: If your computer has a microphone, you can send a voice message to Santa online. It's a holiday gift from Ze Frank. You can read a year-old interview with him at GoodExperience.com that begins,

Recently I interviewed Ze Frank, online performance artist and humorist. Zefrank.com won the 2002 Webby for the best personal website (People's Voice award). It is perhaps the single best entertainment website I've ever seen; the sheer variety of videos, toys, essays, and other projects - all created by Ze Frank - show him to be a kind of genius in creating online experiences. ...

Link to this item | Comment

Not about oil: Blood feud ends in the spider hole in the Guardian (UK):

... But the Saddam episode proves that international relations is still a pretty elemental business: tribes do battle and the battle cannot end until the opposing chief is brought low. This is how we remember wars - the Battle of Hastings was over when, we're told, Harold took an arrow in the eye - and probably how they have always worked. Look at Saddam's wild eyes and scraggy beard and realise: it is still true.

Related: Enter Saddam's lair by Robert Fisk. Strong detail from a master writer.

...There was a tube of skin cream on the top, a tub of moisturising cream, a sewing kit in a cellophane bag and - how Saddam must have been plagued by mosquitoes unimpressed by Ba'ath party punishments - a can of "Pif-paf". There were two old beds and some filthy blankets.

In the little kitchen next door, there were sausages hanging to dry, bananas, oranges and - near a washing-up bowl - tins of Jordanian chicken and beef luncheon meat, heaps of "Happy Tuna".

Flies swarmed beneath the roof of corrugated iron and I wasn't surprised to discover the bottles of vegetable and fruit steriliser liquid in the cupboard.

Only the Mars Bars looked fresh. ...

Link to this item | Comment

Eagles, Patriots will meet again: That's Boomer Esiason's prediction at NFL.com:

The Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots are on a collision course for Houston. That's a pretty big assumption on my part, but after watching these teams week after week, there isn't a better example of destiny. Here is a look at the hottest teams in their respective conferences...

He's not talking about the teams lifting off into space. The Super Bowl is in Houston Feb. 1.

Related: Brooks Barnard grabbed by Bears: Wonder what happened to the one-week Patriot, punter Brooks Barnard, who kicked 10 punts in the game against Miami? The Chicago Sun-Times knows:

ROSTERING: In a move forecast last week, tight end Dustin Lyman was placed on injured reserve because of a bruised spleen and a broken rib above the spleen. To replace him, the Bears claimed punter Brooks Barnard off waivers from the New England Patriots.

Barnard was with the Bears in training camp and had tryouts with Detroit and Green Bay earlier in the season. He played in one game for the Pats, kicking 10 times in their win in the snow over the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 7 with an average of 36.5 yards and four inside the 20-yard line.

The addition of the former Maryland Terrapin comes on the heels of what Brad Maynard described as one of the best games of his career. The Bears hope to send Barnard to NFL Europe to hone his skills and showcase him. Maynard has two years remaining on his contract and is scheduled to make $1 million next season and $1.1 million in 2005.

Link to this item | Comment

Cost of the 12 Days of Christmas rises 16 percent to $16, 885: PNC Advisors reports.

While stiff import competition is driving deeper discounts on merchandise sold in the United States, skilled labor cost is on the rise, resulting in a 16 percent increase in this year’s PNC Advisors Christmas Price Index – the biggest jump the Index has seen in its 19-year history.

Each year since 1984, PNC Advisors has provided a tongue-in-cheek economic analysis, based on the cost of the goods and services purchased by the True Love in the holiday classic, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Indeed, the cost of the five gold rings dropped by 5.6 percent, and the pear tree is down a full 28.6 percent from last year. However, these discounts were offset by the dancers, pipers and drummers who have seen significant increases in the cost of their services over 2002.

The swans really put it over the top, though....

There's a Flash explanation.
Link to this item | Comment

IBM to export 4700 salaries: This is the most succinct headline on an AP story that's everywhere:

IBM Corp. plans to move as many as several thousand skilled software jobs from the United States to India, China and other countries, which could amount to one of the biggest such actions yet in the technology industry.

IBM documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal said about 4,700 programming jobs could be shifted overseas to save costs, a growing high-tech industry trend known as "offshoring." ...

With this news, a reminder: Lost a tech job in Mass.? Sen. Kennedy needs to hear about it. Milford resident Gina Minks' meeting with the senator's aide is Monday, so you need to get your story to her soon. Click on the link for more details.

(I actually heard global analyst Esther Dyson suggest that we might be happy that Indians are finally getting middle-class wages, but such generosity would be easier if we had replacement jobs lined up. What can't be exported -- waitressing, lawn care, retailing, street-cleaning and other service jobs -- isn't going to pay the rent for long. If good jobs go to low-rent countries, Americans will have less money to spend. That spiral should be evident to those who study economies for a living.)
Link to this item | Comment

After the darkness: Wood s lot quotes Dark Night by Margaret Wheatley

I experience this as a dark time for America, where we have lost our way. I search to find the means for us to see clearly through the darkness. I want us to be able to see both the destruction, and the stars. I felt this even before we chose war, for more fundamental reasons. In the past several years, America has embraced values that cannot create a sustainable society and world. Presently, we organize our activities around beliefs that are inherently life-destroying. We believe that growth can be endless, that competition creates healthy relationships, that consumption need have no limits, that meaning is found in things, that aggression brings peace. Societies that use these values end up, as do all voracious predators in nature, dead.

I know that most Americans would be shocked at this list of national values, but I see them clearly in our behaviors and the choices we make. I also know that this is not who we want to be, so how did we get here? What happened to our ideals about life, liberty, democracy, independence, imagination?...

...I want to see Americans, and those who care about America, in conversation about the values and behaviors that would restore America to her intended character and original founding principles. I regard the recent spate of books about the Founding Fathers, John Adams, the Constitutional Congress and the American Revolution, as evidence that America wants to be in this exploration. Even as I've been writing this, PBS is airing "Freedom: A History of US," while also advertising Walter Cronkite's upcoming series "Avoiding Armageddon." How much longer will we wait to talk about these deep and troubling issues?

I've begun to invite the people I meet into conversation by asking: "What is it that you love about America? What things must be protected at all costs?" This question leads to wonderful explorations. People are energized to talk about what they love, what it means to live here as an immigrant, what they've learned about freedom, imagination, the human spirit, creativity, democracy. Even if these ideals are receding from our day-to-day experience, we realize how important it is to claim them as our own. ...

Link to this item | Comment

Copyright Doesn't Cover This Site: Wired reports,

As courts continue to review the fine ethical line between sharing and stealing over file-swapping networks, some universities are adding anti-plagiarism software to their budgets and putting limits on the amount of data students can download.

But one new media program is trying to send students a very different message. At the University of Maine, Orono, "cheaters can prosper," according to professor Jon Ippolito.

To prove that open sourcing any and all information can help students swim instead of sink, the University of Maine's Still Water new media lab has produced the Pool, a collaborative online environment for creating and sharing images, music, videos, programming code and texts.

"We are training revolutionaries -- not by indoctrinating them with dogma but by exposing them to a process in which sharing culture rather than hoarding it is the norm," said Joline Blais, a professor of new media at the University of Maine and Still Water co-director.

"It's all about imagining a society where sharing is productive rather than destructive, where cooperation becomes more powerful than competition," Blais said. ...

Experiments like this are the opposite of A Net of Control: Unthinkable: How the Internet could become a tool of corporate and government power, based on updates now in the works by Steven Levy in Newsweek.

Blogger Ross Mayfield, CEO of Socialtext Inc., comments,

Fears of a Net of Control are well founded. I was truely aghast at the comments by Verisign CEO Stratton Sclavos at the Red Herring conference.

... this was the line that cut my ear:

We have to move the complexity back into the center of the network and remove it from the edge.

This is a genuine threat to the very decentralized nature of the Internet. Its a stupid network, and those who try to make it smart do it for greed. Druming up fears may lead us to the scenario of the Imprimatur where freedom is curbed for sake of unjustified security. There is only one company positioned to serve certificates for every session, and I cannot help but assume that's the direction we are headed. And on that note, its the 35 Anniversary of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Background: From World of Ends: What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else by Doc Searls and David Weinberger,

We can end the tragedy of Repetitive Mistake Syndrome in our lifetimes — and save a few trillion dollars’ worth of dumb decisions — if we can just remember one simple fact: the Net is a world of ends. You're at one end, and everybody and everything else are at the other ends.

.... The Internet’s three virtues:
a. No one owns it
b. Everyone can use it
c. Anyone can improve it

Link to this item | Comment

December 16, 2003 5:30 p.m.

Battle to control Internet threatens open access: FCC commissioner Michael Copps writes in the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News,

The Internet was designed to defeat government or business control and to thwart discrimination against users, ideas or technologies. Intelligence and control were consciously placed at the ends of a non-discriminatory network. Anyone could access the Internet, with any kind of computer, for any type of application, and read or say pretty much what they wanted.

This Internet may be dying. At the behest of powerful interests, the FCC is buying into a warped vision that open networks should be replaced by closed networks and that the FCC should excuse broadband providers from longstanding non-discrimination requirements. ...

Think about what could happen if your broadband provider could discriminate. It could decide which news sources or political sites you could view. It could prevent you from using children's Internet filtering technology that it didn't sell or that filtered out its own Web sites. It could prevent you from using spam-jamming programs to block its spam. It could impose restrictions on the use of virtual private networks by telecommuters and small businesses to keep them as paying customers of the public network. It could limit access to streaming video to protect its core content business. Sound far-fetched? It's already beginning to happen....

...The FCC is rushing toward breathtaking change in regulatory policy. Whether it's the giant media companies or telecom's gatekeepers, we are closing networks, undermining competition, stifling entrepreneurship and threatening consumer choice. At this rate, it won't be long until we look back, shake our heads and wonder whatever happened to that open and dynamic high speed Internet that might have been. ``What promise it held,'' we'll say. If that happens, history won't forgive us. Nor should it.
Link to this item | Comment

Wesley Clark wins Best Rock the Vote Video poll: Rock the Vote asked candidates to come up with 30-second video spots aimed at youth; youth were then asked to vote on the best video. And the winner -- 46.33 percent to Howard Dean's 26.48 percent -- is Wesley Clark. Kucinich, Kerry, Edwards, Braun and Sharpton follow, with Lieberman pulling up the rear.

If you haven't watched the videos, that may surprise you. If you have, you know that this is what did it:

Clark is sitting around a table with college students. he's just said he's pro-choice, believes in affirmative action, and, in the same no-nonsense voice, continues, "I don't care what the other candidates think, I don't think Outkast is really breaking up. Big Boi and Andre 3000 just cut solo records, that's all" followed by a high-five to one student.

You can see the results and watch all the videos at the link on the headline. And, by the way, Rock the Vote has a blog.
Link to this item | Comment

Getting open source into public libraries: Newsforge has the story. Here's the background:

After many letters and some meetings I am pleased to announce that we
have a standard for Open source software in the libraries of Edinburgh. ...

I have recently managed to get an article in Library and Information
Update. A magazine that goes out to all the Librarians in the UK explaining
that I will be personally donating 550 CDs containing OpenOffice 1.1. I will
be donating these CD's so that every Library in Scotland can have a copy of
the software to lend out like a book. ...

Link to this item | Comment

Get up to speed on Wi-Fi: Liz Donovan writes,

CNN and Time have a special report, Wireless Society, that explains what it all means. Especially useful: this chart that lists the differences between the different types. Wi-Fi, GSM, 802.11b....a little clearer now? More on Time's site.

Know all this already? You might want to follow Wi-Fi Networking News for the latest developments.
Link to this item | Comment

Follow the Money: Why the Best Voting Technology May Be No Technology at All is Part 2 of Robert X. Cringely's look at e-voting at PBS.org. (Part 1: Why the Current Touch Screen Voting Fiasco Was Pretty Much Inevitable:)
Link to this item | Comment

Wooing the single woman vote: With fewer married women available to vote, single women could decide next year’s presidential election, by Lakshmi Chaudhry at the Reno News & Review:

Meet the single woman, breadwinner, cultural icon and the star of every liberal's dream of regime change. Whether she is a divorced waitress in Harlem, a welfare mom in Iowa, or that thirty-something singleton sipping a Cosmopolitan at your local bar, the unmarried woman may hold the fate of the 2004 elections in the palm of her hand.

"Unmarried women, given what they think and feel, are the group with the greatest potential to be agents of progressive change in this country because of their size, their desire for change and their record of under-voting," says Page Gardner, manager of the "Women's Voices Women's Vote" project.

Never-married, divorced or widowed women constitute a whopping 20 percent of the electorate and 42 percent of all registered women voters. In the 2000 elections, they represented the same percentage of the electorate as Jews, blacks and Latinos combined. In terms of voting muscle, few can compete with the girl power of this constituency.

Link to this item | Comment

4096 Color Wheel: Beautiful way to select colors for your site."Hover over the wheel to view colors. Click to choose a web-smart color. Reload to clear."

If you'd rather see all the colors at once, with their hex values, start here at "500 Orangish Colors." The bars to the left and right of those words will take you to 500 greenish colors, 500 more bluish colors, 500 Pinkish Colors -- although there's overlap, as you might expect.
Link to this item | Comment

Iraqi Pop Stars Plot Comeback After Saddam Years. From Reuters.
Link to this item | Comment

Shoe company gives workers big Christmas bonuses: $1,000 for every year of employment: From the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News:

Workers at one San Antonio-based company are feeling a little extra Christmas cheer after their employer handed out bonuses of $1,000 for each year they've been with the company, resulting in five-figure checks for some.

When employees at SAS Shoemakers learned of the special bonuses, "we were in shock," said Irene Ortiz, 42, a 19-year SAS veteran who is richer by $19,000. "We started crying. People were jumping up and down."

SAS, which owns and operates retail stores, a shoe factory, warehouse and corporate office in San Antonio, acknowledged the unusual example of employer largesse, saying it was a "one-time gift" to employees, but company officials declined to elaborate Monday.

"SAS is a private company," spokeswoman Colleen Hale said. "And we do not seek publicity. We prefer that our actions speak for themselves."

SAS has about 700 employees at its San Antonio factory and at least as many at five other plants around the country. Many of the employees have 10 or more years of service; one worker said 13 employees have been with the company since its inception, 28 years ago. ...

... Cindy Taylor, president of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said the bonuses are unusual, but if ever there was a company that would do something like that at Christmastime, it's SAS.

"I have never seen anything like what SAS does, has done forever, the whole month of December," Taylor said. "They do something different every single day."

"It's the most incredible place," Taylor said, but she added that the family-owned business is very private. "They don't like their philanthropic efforts to be widely known."

In years past, the company has held "Wheel of Fortune" style contests in which a key to a new vehicle was given away, along with a cash prize of $5,000, Taylor said.

Bill Boettge, president of the National Shoe Retailers Association, agreed that the bonuses are rare in an industry that's paying its U.S. employees an average wage of $10.25 an hour.

SAS workers are thought to earn about $9 per hour.

Only about 5 percent of shoes sold in the United States are made in the nation. Chinese shoe factories pay about 75 cents an hour, "but SAS survives because they make a superior quality shoe," Boettge said. "It happens to be a very well-respected name with the American consumer. It happens to be one of the few brands to draw enough customers to have just the one line in a retail store."

Here's the same story from the Maine division.
Link to this item | Comment

December 15, 2003 6:05 p.m. -- (Last week's weblog)

Second thoughts on Saddam's capture: Why is the capture of Saddam Hussein by the U.S. Army considered good news for Republicans?

The Iraqi people deserve to cheer the end of fear: Saddam was a butcher, and deserves to face his fate, but anyone who thinks his capture is a political bonus for any American party has been inside the beltway too long.

Yesterday morning, TV "news" people were framing what little we knew as a political triumph for George Bush, sucking air from the meaning of the story. Who was Saddam Hussein? Why did we want him? Are we going to prosecute him for 9/11, since so many -- thanks to Fox News -- think he was involved?

Nope, NBC's Tim Russert was asking a long cheerleader's question about whether David Green at the White House has picked up any sense that the WH sees this as a political turning point, da da da da da da. Please, just tell us what is happening before you hijack, abstract and trivialize the end of a despot into what it means to an American horse race.

The news gods of yesteryear would have said, "There'll be time for the pundits to analyze all this later. Today, all we know is that Saddam Hussein has been captured, and we'll have a look back at his bloody rule in a few minutes. But now to our reporter in Iraq, with the story of his capture today in Tikrit, where the former dictator was found in a hole under a house...."

Strange take: Debkafile, out of Israel, analyzed the evidence and concludes: Indications Saddam Was Not in Hiding But a Captive (for American $25m reward)

Even stranger: The Tu Quoque Trap: - An early analysis of Saddam Hussein’s capture at Uncommon Thought Journal (Also published at Online Journal under the headline, "Will Saddam's capture prove to be a trap for Bush?"):

...This is indeed good news for the Iraqis and bad news for the Americans. Thus far, he has served the raison d’etre for the war, a tenuous one, it can be argued. Now what? The propaganda value of a shadowy Saddam, capable of wreaking havoc was inestimable. Much of that locus standi has now vanished. The Iraqis can now rise up to say, “The dictator is gone. Thank you, now please leave…” Is this going to happen? No! The US wasn’t there for Saddam, and I don’t think it was there for the oil either. Sabotaged oil pipelines do create a literal smokescreen and a justification for continued occupation. Now, we shall see the true face of Iraqi guerrillas – a combination of nationalists and Islamists that the American media conveniently blamed on mastermind Saddam....

...What can Saddam do? He just needs to open his big mouth. After a shave, a good brush and gurgles of Listerine, he will recount all those scummy collusions with the US, which, went right through the Kuwaiti occupation. Why were those Shi’ites betrayed? Who talked to whom? What was the deal? What about the other deals? Clips of exhumed bodies from that bloody crackdown more than a decade back were shown alongside Saddam’s ignominious capture on BBC. Another pictorial blunder for the coalition! Was the BBC acting sneaky again? Those bodies incriminate Saddam and the Anglo-American alliance. In fact, the incriminating evidence will be immeasurable. Civilian deaths, supply of arms, the semi-proxy war on Iran, will all come out of the horse’s mouth. For every allegation, Saddam can retort Tu quoque – You too!...

...If Bush needs to win that election, he needs to silence Saddam, Guantanamo-style, in seclusion. That will raise suspicions. Any medical mishap or anomaly will also raise suspicions. Not a very good situation, is it?

...How are they going to answer their former ally, when every meeting with Donald Rumsfeld alone is going to be recounted in detail? Bribe and intimidate all those who can corroborate those shady minutiae? One possibility but a lot of it is already out in the public domain. If the dictator was ever that good in understanding power, he would have prepared for this day long back, with stashes of documents secreted away for his eventual defense. ...

via wood s lot

Dear Raed: Salam Pax, the original Baghdad blogger, reacts:

He looked like a tramp getting a physical and for some reason you expected him to bite that soldier's finger a la Hanibal Lecter. But he just sat there. There was another moment when the GC members were describing their meeting with Saddam and told the journalists about the deriding remarks he made when they asked him about the Sadir's assasination and the mass graves, he sounded like he has totally lost it.
I want a fully functioning Saddam who will sit on a chair in front of a TV camera for 10 hours everyday and tells us what exactly happened the last 30 years. I do not care about the fair trial thing Amnesty Int. is worried about and I don'r really care much about the fact that the Iraqi judges might not be fullt qualified, we all know he should rot in hell. but what I do care about is that he gets a public trial because I want to hear all the untold stories

Doc Searls links to the rest of the Iraqi bloggers.

My Iraq: Inform Yourself links from the spring are freshened.

Heard on the street in Providence: "Don't try him here -- he'll get off! I can hear the Dream Team now..."
Link to this item | Comment

The Steve Jobs interview at Rolling Stone: Sound bite: " The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful."

Here, the obvious next question (see below) was not asked:

I want to ask you about your own interest in music. I know you're a big Bob Dylan fan. What does Dylan mean to you?

He was a very clear thinker, and he was a poet. I think he wrote about what he saw and thought. The early stuff is very precise. But, as he matured, you know, you had to unravel it a little bit. But once you did, it was just as clear as a bell. I was listening the other day to "Only a Pawn in Their Game." You know, when Medgar Evers was shot there were all these folk songs written about it. Dylan thought it through so carefully, and wrote this brilliant song about it. And that stuff's as good today as when he penned it.

When did you discover Dylan?

Steve Wozniak turned me on to him. I was probably ... oh ... maybe 13, 14. We ended up meeting this guy who had every bootleg tape in the world. He was a guy that actually put out a newsletter on Bob Dylan. He was really into it -- his whole life was about Bob Dylan. But he had the best bootlegs -- even better stuff than you can get today that's been released. He had amazing stuff. And so we had our room full of tapes of Bob Dylan that we copied.

And would he have paid a buck a song for them?
Link to this item | Comment

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A 133-pound tome about the Asian country of Bhutan that uses enough paper to cover a football field and a gallon of ink has been declared the world's largest published book.

Author Michael Hawley, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it's not a book to curl up with at bedtime — "unless you plan to sleep on it."

Each copy of "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Kingdom," is 5 b 7 feet, 112 pages and costs about $2,000 to produce. Hawley is charging $10,000 to be donated to a charity he founded, Friendly Planet, which has built schools in Cambodia and Bhutan.

... He said he did not set out to make the world's largest book. But playing around in his office at MIT's Media Lab with a state-of-the art digital printer, Hawley discovered just how spectacular large, digital images can look — especially of Bhutan, a country flush with colorful scenery and dress where even the rice is red.

"What I really wanted was a 5-by-7-foot chunk of wall that would let me change the picture every day," he said. "And I thought there was an old-fashioned mechanism that might work. It's called the book."

Hawley said he's received about two dozen orders for the book, which includes an easel-like stand. ...

The Times' take on it: For a Small Kingdom, a Visual History in a Big Book
Link to this item | Comment

All Your Yatta Are Belong To Us: Also from MIT, animated pop culture images: Frenetic and curiously empty, the medium without a message.
Link to this item | Comment

Games: Sober Santa (not!) and Sober Santa 2. Not for disillusionable kiddies.
Link to this item | Comment

Mistletunes bills itself as "The ho-ho home of a rock'n'roll Christmas":

Eras: The Beginning, The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties, The 21st Century

Genres: Reggae, Soul/R&B, Rap, Blues, Punk, Surfin' Xmas, Tropical

Link to this item | Comment

Tom Mangan reviews a Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks concert. Advancing it, he offers a link to an overview of the band.
Link to this item | Comment

Snowsuit Sounds: 100 Canadian pop songs you oughta know, compiled by weddings, parties, everything:

VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS (PRE-EXPO)

1. "I'm Movin' On," Hank Snow (1950)
The Original Snow scores big on both sides of the border and sets the tone for much to follow with a song about picking up and heading south. Leaving his home town of Liverpool (!), Nova Scotia, because his woman "done [her] daddy wrong," Hank doesn't seem too upset about the ordeal; to the contrary, it sounds like it was just the excuse he was looking for to leave. The music, animated and carefree, implies a different kind of travel as well: country music moving forward into rock 'n' roll. Listen to that guitar solo; now imagine the exact same thing amplified. (#1 on Billboard's Country chart for 21 weeks.)

2. "Little Darlin'," the Diamonds (1957)
A song that has weirded me out ever since seeing a puppet spastically lip-synch to it on TV (one of those hazy childhood memories I can't connect to a fact: which TV show? which Puppet?!). #2 on Billboard's Pop chart; all that prevented it from becoming the first Canadian recording of the rock era to hit #1 was Perry Como's "Round and Round." (A few months later, Paul Anka would nab the honours with the rather soppy "Diana.") More significantly, it might also be the first pop record to make prominent use of a cowbell--funk archaeologists, take note.

3. "Goodbye Baby," Jack Scott (1958)
Modest but menacing rockabilly from Windsor, Ontario. Scott's pleasure in saying goodbye is precisely that: in saying the words, repeating them, dangling them in front of the poor woman's face. Sans Sam Phillips at the control board, he twists the knife even further in a later chorus by throwing in his own haunting echo on the word "baby." ...

via wood s lot

Link to this item | Comment

A note on the vote: Many news outlets are now covering e-voting, but a paper trail alone won't solve the problem: Just because you have a receipt doesn't mean the vote totals can't be changed.

Open-source software, rather than proprietary software that can be kept secret for fear of the code being stolen, would help.

Also, from PCWorld,

Ted Selker, an associate professor at MIT's Media Lab, professes to be "as worried as the next guy about security." But he maintains that verification can be provided without paper, and he has developed what he claims is a secure voting architecture that uses multiple redundant software components. Selker says IT professionals need to get involved locally, but he wants to broaden the conversation to include how technology can improve other parts of the electoral process, such as voter registration.

"In 2000, between 1 and 3 million votes were lost in registration database problems," he says. "It's the top place votes get lost, and we're not focused on this."

Link to this item | Comment

Live From Chapel Perilous: We’re living in Robert Anton Wilson’s world. At Reason, from Jesse Walker,

Robert Anton Wilson is the unacknowledged elephant in our cultural living room: a direct and indirect influence on popular books, movies, TV shows, music, games, comics, and commentary. (His late co-author has left less of a mark: Many of Wilson’s books have cult followings, while the only Shea effort to make a big splash was the trilogy he wrote with Wilson.) Allusions to Wilson’s work appear in places both classy and trashy: There’s a Wilsonian stamp on films as diverse as Magnolia, The Mothman Prophecies, and Sex and Lucia, and it’s because of Wilson and Shea that the Illuminati, a secret society that once lurked only in right-wing conspiracy tracts, became the villains of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Now Wilson’s the star of a lively documentary, Maybe Logic, that’s being screened at film festivals and distributed on DVD.

Wilson is a primary source for the ironic style of conspiracism, a sensibility that treats alleged cabals not as intrigues to be exposed or lies to be debunked but as a bizarre mutant mythos to be mined for laughs, metaphors, and social insights. If you were an amused aficionado of conspiracy folklore in 1963, you were a lone hobbyist or specialist. By 1983, you could turn to a number of fanzines, comics, and weirdo institutions such as the Church of the SubGenius, a satiric cult founded by some Illuminatus! fans. By 1993, you were a target market for several half-joking mass-market conspiracy tomes; your sensibility was reflected regularly in magazines such as Mondo 2000 and The Nose; and two brand new pop juggernauts were about to enter your heart: The X-Files and the World Wide Web.

And by 2003, this was all standard background noise. These days, choosing your politics is a matter of choosing who you’re more afraid of, the Washington cabal that’s openly trying to erase your freedoms or the various foreign cabals that are openly trying to kill you. Like it or not, we’re living in Robert Anton Wilson’s world.

via Phil Leggiere

Lest you forgot, Wilson entered the sweepstakes for governor of California as the candidate of the Guns and Dope Party. Here are Wilson's and Arlen Riley Wilson's (his late wife) sites; and there's a movie on DVD, Maybe Logic: The ideas of Robert Anton Wilson.

Link to this item | Comment

The Growing Market for Bigger Buttons: It's Fred Brock's "Seniority" column in the Times, but some young people who use computers a lot have trouble opening jars, too:

I thought about Richard Nixon the other day as I was struggling to twist the "easy open" lid off a jar of olives. I remembered reading in a book that his prescription containers had tooth marks on the childproof caps because, in frustration, he had tried to gnaw them off.

I know how he must have felt. I finally used a screwdriver to pry the vacuum-sealed lid off the olive jar. For a fleeting moment I had considered breaking the jar in the sink and salvaging what olives I could (or resorting to a lemon peel for my martini).

Here's Brock's solution:

Lids Off is another big seller. It's an electric jar opener made by Black & Decker and priced at $39.99. Demand is so strong that the product is back-ordered. "I don't think Black & Decker anticipated how popular Lids Off was going to be," Ms. Tannenbaum said. (Andrea Tannenbaum, who started Dynamic Living)

She noted that many of these products were not made exclusively for older people. They could also help those with disabilities or temporary limitations resulting from an accident or surgery.

She is keenly aware that the baby boomers are a prime target for businesses like hers. "Older people will often just get by if products like this aren't put in front of them," she said. "The baby boomers, on the other hand, will seek out products to help them because they won't accept limitations as readily as the older generation. But boomers don't like to think of themselves as old. So we don't use the words 'disability' or 'senior' on our Web site. We just say, here's a functional problem and here's a solution to that problem."

There's talk about how baby boomers are having trouble with their pill bottles, but not a mention of why pill bottles are so hard to open: to make them hard to open. By real babies.

The links to the mentioned firms that specialize in tools that replace functions you've lost for whatever reason: SeniorShops Dynamic Living, Gold Violin

Link to this item | Comment

Tidings of Comfort and Joy went for $46 on eBay. Now you know what it's worth.
Link to this item | Comment

A wooden Ferrari.
via Ye Olde Phart
Link to this item | Comment

December 14: Iraq: Inform Yourself has been updated.

Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com