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The combined companies that make up the RIAA have released fewer new tiles. See the BusinessWeek article and this article by George Ziemann of MacWizards Music

If I understand basic accounting correctly, then releasing 20% fewer new titles should reduce expenses somwhat (admittedly not by quite 20%), so suffering only a 7% drop in sales should look like an increase in profits, unless you are expiriencing losses other than in sales.

I have learned of much of the new music I listen to through CDBaby.com and I'm sure that the RIAA companies are not very happy about losing customers to artists that don't care much for the typical record company contract.

It seems the companies are once again not being quite honest about thier losses, the causes, and, it seems, thier motives.

I saw your segment in the documentary "0wned" at H2K2 last summer (a blurb here. Did showing how to make free phone calls earn you major respect amongst the inmates when you were incarcerated?

I got three games, a 3rd-pary controller, and a memory card.

• Luigi's Mansion - seems like fun, in the spirit of Super Mario 64, but just got it
• Super Monkey Ball - haven't unwrapped, but I wanted a 4-person multiplayer game
• Star Wars Rogue Squadron - This game has amazing graphic! The gameplay is similar to Rogue Squadron for the N64, but the grafx are much, much better, even in "Hi-res" N64 mode with the video memory pack.

Is it for the basic service Napster provides, linking users with MP3 files together? In that case, there are similar free services, which makes it a little hard to compete (think Netspace vs. Microsoft)

Is it some sort of royalty fee for the songs? Because it seems they are charging a per-month fee, which wouldn't even cover the cost of one CD. Better than making no money, but does it stop Time-Warner from suing me?

How will they pay royalties? Search transfers for artist names? Occasionaly, the artist's name doesn't show up, and what if it's wrong? For instance, the Gourds (from Austin) did a remake of "Gin and Juice" (great remake, too), which is being labeled on naspter as either a Phish song or a Ween song. Has technology gotten to the point where a song can be uniquely identified, even if ripped at different bit rates, etc? Or will they just hack it?

This is a strange story - it once was "we're thinking about a pay system" to "the system might be in place in 5 or 6 months". Still no real story, no hint how it will be done. Perhaps the best question is, which Napster version is the one where they start monitoring your habits? Is it already out?

From the local "alternative" paper: Bushisms

First off, here is the first paragraph from Chapter 20 of "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts" by Lynn Zimmer, Ph. D, and John P. Morgan, M.D.:

Today's adolescents have been bombarded with anti-marijuana messages. They were born during the early 1980's, just as President Ronald Reagan was focusing the drug war on marijuana, and just as Nancy Reagan was introducing her "just say no" slogan to American culture. Today's teenagers have had more drug education than any cohort of young people in American history. Aboutl half have received DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program... Despite this onslaught of anti-drug messages, the number of teenagers trying marijuana began rising in 1992, and has risen every year since... Mass campagins against drugs can even be counterproductive. The primary consequence of public warnings about glue sniffing in the 1960s seems to have been to introduce glue-sniffing to young people who otherwise might not have heard of it.

Here are some of the sources used in this chapter:

Baum, D., Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, Boston: Little Brown and Company (1996)

National Institute on Justice, "The DARE Program: A Review of Prevalence, User Satisfaction, and Effectiveness," National Institute of Justice Update, Washington, D.C.

Rosenbaum, D.P. et al., "Cops in the Classroom: A Longitudinal Evaluation of DARE," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31:3-31 (1994)

Every study that has examined the effectiveness of DARE has failed to show a correlation linking the program with a decrease in adolescent or adult drug use. If the purpose of the program is to get people to not use drugs, it has been a total failure. Total. TOTAL. It does not work.

DRCNet has a section dealing with DARE that is very enlightening. The Detroit News has an archived version of an anti-DARE article available here, and the American Psychological Association has a study showing DARE's lack of effectiveness here. And the Austin Chronicle has an article about how that city's police department dropped DARE due to its costliness and ineffectiveness.

Point me to a brief list of information that supports this claim that GWB has integrity. I live in Austin, and I can guarantee you that he's as much of a politicker than anybody else. I'd recommend you go read some decent coverage of his time in office. I've got a link to The Austin Chronicle to begin with. You might also look up the Observer (might be Texas Observer) but I don't know if they archive their copy online. There's an especially good article that covers what Dubya's gonna do when he gets back to Austin in November after the election day from a couple weeks ago.

If you're going to state that he's got integrity, prove it.

should be http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2000-03-17 /music_roundupb9.html

The ever-genial Chicago native agrees that the Byrds albums never sounded better than they do now, but if you assume the 57-year-old Pete Seeger idolizer is sitting around contemplating the past, guess again. This morning alone, McGuinn's already answered hundreds of e-mails generated by his Mcguinn.com Web site, and is busy setting up microphones so he can record the latest addition to his continuing "Folk Den" song series, then make the results available for no-cost downloading. At Seeger's request, he's cutting another trad gem, "Dink's Song," adding that a "Best of Folk Den" project will see its way to retail shelves soon. The first three volumes of the series are available only on MP3.com.

"They retail for $7.99, because there's no middleman, and I get 50%," explains McGuinn. "If they sell 1,000 CDs, I get $4,000. It's unheard of! You know how long it would take to get $4,000 in royalties from a [label]? Maybe the answer is never."

First, he's a (former?) co-owner of a baseball team (TX Rangers) and basically governor by name recognition. While he talks big, try to find his name attached to any legislation (other than those which he happened to put a signature on so they'd be law). Finally, you've got to realize that the legislature of TX is the real power of the branches in this state. The governor really is nothing more than a figurehead and has weak, limited power.

Okay, given that I am slightly biased, you may not buy it completely, but I am in the thick of it and have read more articles on GW than most citizens in the rest of the country not in TX.

Austin Chronicle is the local free newspaper and has done some stories that may help bolster your knowledge of politics in TX, and what to really expect of GW. The link will take you directly into their politics section. Browse, search, and really learn what he has and hasn't done. Then by all means, vote for him if you still think he's the right choice.

I don't though, and I'm going to vote for Bradley. I'd vote for McCain, but he can't win TX in the primaries (unfortunately), so I'm jumping to the Dems to get Bradley in the spot to beat Bush because Gore can't beat Bush.

The dates, memos, address book, and all that are handy, but the ability to read hypertext documents anywhere has been a great asset.