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Not to rain on the *AA hatefest, but the original article offers a more complete and less biased account of what happened.

Depending on how many copies they made and who they gave them to, there does seem to be some grounds for a fair use defense.

According to this article in the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-google20jan2 0,0,6995079.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=mor enews, Google is fighting the Justice Department.

WE ARE NOT ENGAGED IN A WAR. There has been no declaration of war by Congress. Declare an official war and I might be a tad more accepting. Not a vague excuse to expand excutive powers.

I too would have preferred a formal declaration, but according to John Yoo:

Neither presidents nor Congress have ever acted under the belief that the Constitution requires a declaration of war before the U.S. can engage in military hostilities abroad. Although this nation has used force abroad more than 100 times, it has declared war only five times

The L.A. Times is reporting that Warner Music Group disclosed that "As part of an industrywide investigation concerning pricing of digital music downloads, we received a subpoena from Atty. Gen. Spitzer's office..,". N.Y atty. Gen Eliot Spitzer, fresh from multi-million dollar settlements in the radio payola law suits against the industry giants, is now examining if there is collusion on the wholesale price of digital music. Spitzer is also at the heart of the recent 50 million dollar lawsuit by the Beatles against EMI. It's hard to say if this helps or hurt's Apples case for a 99cent price cap on downloads.

Fortunately, this doesn't guarantee it will pass. One of the provisions I agree with is the one that eliminates barriers to intelligence agents and prosecutors sharing information. This act has already infringed on many peoples freedom, but has also opened up the government to be more scrutinous in the case of certain suspicious entities. Has it overall had a positive or negative effect? Since we as the general public cannot easily gauge what information they have collected entirely as a result, who can say for sure.

For those interested in the provisions the House passed, this site explains most of them in plain english LA Times Provisions

This site has the latest in how the patriot act currently stands.

While I know that we have core samples from certain times in the past, it has already been show that the temperature and CO2 levels have been much higher in the past.

This illegal spying and stuff has been going on since before bush was in office. Actually it isn't illegal either but that another story.

We have always had agreements with other countries to spy and tap phone conversations. If something interesting is found they alert the proper authorities. This was automated around 1997 and now key words are caught and automated recording takes place. Typically, our agreements with the other countries allow them to collect the data on US citizens while we collect on their citizens. This gives the appearance of the government not having to deal with the constitution.

This project is commonly refereed to as Echelon Here is a tad bit more info on it

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorized spying and searches in terrorist/national security and other related matters regardless of the nationality or location of the person(s) being spied on. Originally this act intended for a court consisting of around 11 members to approve the actions. This court regularly reports to congress. Unfortunately (fortunately depending on your outlook), in 1979, President Carter decided that under certain circumstances could allow government officials to bypass these procedures. This was probably a reaction to the hostage crisis during his term. President Clinton expanded this a little in '95. Bush using the processes from these executive orders changed the policy being used to take advantage of them. Unlike Carter and Clinton, his provision were made into law by provisions in the patriot act.. Your probably right in that these executive orders go against the constitution but until they are successfully challenged, they are law and therefore legal. (That doesn't mean it rite though.)

As for the ban on torture loophole? I think you are misreading somethign here. All this deal did was say that interrogators accused of using improper methods could offer as a defense that they were acting on orders that a reasonable person would believe to be lawful. This doesn't mean that i could order you to starve a person until they talk and you would get away with it. What it does say is that if an order is lawful to a reasonable person you can use that as a defense. This means if i order you to wake the prisoner at different time in the night to disrupt thier sleeping habits and confuse them, as long as a reasonable person wouldn't consider that torture, you wouldn't get in trouble. Imunity isn't even mentioned either. This is a purposed bill too, it hasn't made it's way into law and needs to be cleared with debate before it becomes law.

I know it is fun to bash Bush and the current administration. People always do it when thier party isn't in control. Lets be honest here and bash him for stuff that needs to be bashed. Saying we can toruture people even though existing law says we cannot is stretching the truth a bit. This doen't mean it hasn't happend and if it did, those resoncible should be presecuted. Saying ilegal wire taps or ilegal spying isn't being truthfull either. The facilities that made it possible were put in place well before bush or his cronies came to power. Under current law, regular law enforcment have to get permision from a judge (well except for patriot act provisions). But we can see were government officials aren't held to that law unnder certain circumstances. Is it right that government officials can spy on it's citizens without going thru the regular chanels? Probably not but that doesn't mean it is not legal.

In case anyone is wondering, executive

Here's how this morning's Los Angeles Times article described it:

After weeks of tough negotiations, the president and his top advisors won two concessions from McCain: that interrogators accused of using improper methods could offer as a defense that they were acting on orders that a reasonable person would believe to be lawful, and that the U.S. government would pay their legal fees. [emphasis added]

So that means nothing obvious, like "Torture the detainee in cell XYZ," will be able to pass the "following orders" test -- any reasonable person would be aware of these laws, and the regs in the field handbook, and would recognize orders to torture someone as being illegal. The orders would have to be seriously in the gray area to be able to provide a defense -- and the bill is all about clarifying what is and is not acceptable.

And yet, every time I turn on the news these days, it's "Counterfeit Chinese" this and "Pirated Chinese" that. These western companies are expecting the Chinese government to respect 'Intellectual Property' rights of foreign corporations when the Chinese government doesn't even respect the REAL property rights of its own citizens. SuperShuffle anyone?

more problems at sony:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sony4dec04,0 ,3749240.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Documents released by Spitzer charged that bribing radio programmers with plasma TVs, vacations and laptop computers in exchange for airplay was not only commonplace at Sony BMG, but also had "been tolerated and facilitated by senior executives."

Is linking to a page about a launch which hasn't happened yet, in a language that most slashdotters can't even read, some kind of sick prank? In any case, as of now (0018 GMT, 4:18 PM PST), the launch has been delayed a couple of times today. The first delay was due to overcast skies (they were afraid of possibly generating a lightning strike with the rocket plumes), and the current delays are due to problems with their liquid oxygen fuel boiling off during the first delay.

Here are some good sources of up-to-the-minute coverage:
* Spaceflight Now's Falcon 1 Mission Status Center
* Liveblogging by Out of the Cradle
* Liveblogging by space reporter Michael Belfiore
* SpaceX's official launch info (good info, but not updated as often as other sources)

They just got an extension on their launch window, and are still hoping to launch today (5pm PST at last report).

I've been eagerly awaiting this launch for the past couple of years. If it succeeds, it's going to change everything. Although their first rocket is relatively small, they're already working on much larger successors, all at a selling price which is a small fraction of their competitors'. Drastically cutting launch costs, increasing the launch rate, and enhancing space accessibility is crucial to SpaceX founder Elon Musk's long-term goal: helping humanity become a spacefaring civilization.

If it doesn't succeed, well, Musk has stated that he can afford up to three consecutive launch failures before calling it quits.

The following have some more background info on what Elon Musk is trying to achieve with SpaceX:
* Hopes of Start-Up Rocket Company Are Riding on First Launch (LA Times)
* SpaceX wikipedia article
* Big Plans for SpaceX (The Space Review, discusses plans for human spaceflight and building world's largest rocket engine)
* Shooting the Moon (Discover Magazine)
*

Kadin's post was modded as "insightful," but it is unfortunately myopic.

Certainly the United States does not suffer the kind of devastating water shortages that are common in many third-world countries. But saying there is no water problem in most of the United States is like making claims about the climate based on local weather snapshots.

Water shortages do not necessarily manifest themselves at the surface. What aquifer underlies the region in which you live? What has happened to that aquifer over the last 50 years? Is it being drawn down? Is it being polluted? Do you have any idea? Do you actually think that's a municipal-level issue?

There are serious, underpublicized water shortages all over America. Some of them relate to surface issues like processing and distribution capacity. Some relate to pollution -- especially agricultural pollution -- and infiltration issues. Some have to do with depletion of deep resouces. You won't find out about it in the blogosphere. It's the kind of thing that newspaper reporters cover for lengthy, boring Sunday articles (that hardly anybody reads).

Casting this as a big-government vs. little-government issue suggests that you didn't read the Los Angeles Times article. This isn't about Uncle Sam coming to take away your favorite potty.

This is about the Uniform Plumbing Code, which is drawn up by a nongovernmental trade association and used as a basis for local building code enforcement efforts. And it currently prohibits urinals that don't use water to flush.

The disadvantages are that you have to change the filter every, like 3,000, "non flushes".

"Which begs the point, why stop at that point and declare results? Sounds a bit convienient. Why not dig a bit further?"

I suspect it had something to do with the 3700 metres they'd already dug to get the first 650,000 years' worth of data. In the Antarctic.

But don't take my word for it. Let's ask the researchers:

"Previous records, from an ice core drilled at the Russian Antarctic station Vostok, extended back 440,000 years. Extracting and analyzing that core was a major achievement, but the core stopped short of a time period scientists are anxious to study because it was like today's.

"Climate scientists called the analysis of the older records spectacular because they were so clear and said they would become "canonical" additions to the climate record. "It's really important," Ed Brook, an ice core expert at Oregon State University said of the new research. 'Those 200,000 years were a lot harder to get than the previous 400,000 -- and those were hard enough.'"

So there you have it. Drilling through miles of ice is... hard work. Imagine that.

"Perhaps I'm cynical from MS-marketing "studies", but the point in time seems to be too convienient as compared to the results."

I don't think it's convenient at all to create the largest ice core in the world, adding over 200,000 years to the body of evidence. Note also that they went back to get that extra 200,000+ years' worth of data for the very reason that you accuse them of 'conveniently' ignoring.

Europe consists of many countries, each with its own set of laws. In my country (Sweden), public nudity is legal. I'm pretty sure it's legal all across old western Europe (i.e. Germany, France, Spain etc.). England seems to be an exception.

But the 1918 pandemic strain was different. According to evolutionary biologist Paul W. Ewald of the University of Louisville, its lethality evolved in the trenches, the trucks, the trains and the hospitals of World War I. Infected soldiers were packed shoulder to shoulder with the healthy, and even the deadliest virus can jump from one host to another. The Western Front was a disease factory, and it manufactured the 1918 flu. The packed chicken farms of Asia are a close parallel. H5N1 evolved the same way as the 1918 flu did in the trenches.

We don't know what will happen to H5N1 as it moves through Europe. It is certain, though, that the longer it lives in wild birds, the more likely it will become mild, at least for its wild-bird hosts. This is what happened to the 1918 flu after soldiers abandoned the Western Front. In just over a year, the virus lost its virulence and wandered the planet as an ordinary flu.

Some of us like having a basic social safety net

In my kind of society, nobody will prevent you from helping to donate to whatever charity you choose.

Paying to support that is part of the social contract you agree to by living in the US

Not true. The US was created around the principle of individual rights - the right of every individual to be free from coercion from other indviduals or groups of individuals. The socialist/Christian ideal of self-sacrifice did not worm its way into politics until many decades after the founding, due to a failure in philophic grounding.

Of course there should be a government - the kind that upholds individual rights. Not the kind that *itself* abrogates individual rights.

By the way, I don't think you can actually go to jail for not paying taxes...But hey, who needs facts when you've got overblown rhetoric?

Indeed.

        The LA Times reports that 44% of American Jews think Israel should be a state governed by both civil law and religious law. 54% of Conservative Jews opt for combination of religious and civil laws. Many Christians in America support the prohibition of abortion and outlawing of homosexuality. Adultery laws in America have only been recently overturned in the last few years, but the US military still has it (and prosecuted a soldier last year). Your point?

Islam never had a problem with evolution the same way Judaism/Christianity has. The Qur'an says that all life came from water (21:30, 24:45, and 25:54). Also, it says that one of God's attributes is that He is "the shaper" (some translations say "the evolver"). I never did a poll, but I think the majority of Muslims believe animals evolve. Muslims are divided on whether Adam, peace be upon him, was evolved or created (The Qur'an says he is the first man). Read Islam and Evolution to see how evolution is supported by some Muslims.

I hate how you overgeneralize. This thread was about the "Middle East" and you seem to be focusing only on Saudi Arabia, as if that is a representative of the rest of the 200 million people living there. The "Middle east" is backwards? How about Bahrain, which is already a modern tolerant democracy? What about Qatar, which has speech so free that international satellite news broadcasts from there? How about Kuwait, a country with a growing IT (along with a number other Gulf states and Jordan)? I can't forget Iran's numerous Persian films that frequently win international film awards.

To rebut your point about Saudi women, Muslims and Arabs worldwide are aghast at the restrictions Saudi Arabia makes on their women. I chalk it up to the monarchy dictatorship, there's no way those laws would exist in a democracy. Do you know Saudi culture? They have malls, with ladies underwear mannequins featured in shop windows. Women OB-GYNs run Saudi hospitals. We all know that Saudi Arabia doesn't speak for Islam (name one non-Saudi imam who endorses the monarchy).

When was the last time you saw a new computer, engine, or rocket or anything come out of South America? India? Australia? They probably got all their lessons from America, right? The Middle East once led the world in technology and science. Al-gebra is one example, opthalmology, improved star navigation, medicine, etc. Right now they're still working on advancing themselves. A lot of stuff held them back; lousy governments, colonialism, wars, etc.

Actually, if you live in the midwest USA, wind power is now the cheapest option. This is a welcome development, since "use environmentally friendly energy because its cheaper" is a much easier sell than "use it because it pollutes less".

Phony interview? So sez the Dems. Even the LA Times can't come up with a sentence to incriminate the administration without making a fairly grandiose assumption on context. Note the brackets around "question" in this article, when "answer" or even "topic" would have been more accurate:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f g-bush14oct14,0,7903715.story?coll=la-home-headlin es

Also note that the article indicates that the soldiers didn't ask the questions - they answered them. The "coaching" was so that the soldiers knew which other soldier was best suited to answer particular questions. The soldiers would then know whom to hand the microphone to next, based on the question that was asked. They weren't told how to answer.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1174 866.php

Nevertheless, the Democrats and Jon Stewart spout kneejerk nonsense as to what was going on, and all the Bush haters out there take it as gospel truth.

Toyota will notify [Cherry Sage] owners by mail that they can take the [shrub] to a dealership for free repairs, said Allison Takahashi, a spokeswoman at Toyota's Torrance-based U.S. operation.

An Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times who makes an error "is expected to promptly correct it in the column." That's the established policy of Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page. Her written policy encourages "a uniform approach, with the correction made at the bottom of the piece." Two weeks have passed since my previous post spelled out the errors made by columnist Paul Krugman in writing about news media recounts of the 2000 Florida vote for president. Mr. Krugman still hasn't been required to comply with the policy by publishing a formal correction. Ms. Collins hasn't offered any explanation.

As questions about compliance with the corrections policy for The Times' Op-Ed columnists continue to arise, Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page, told me in an e-mail Tuesday that she will "address the issue in a forthcoming letter from the editor" in the paper. Ms. Collins' comment came in response to my Monday query about the handling of an error by columnist Frank Rich. That mistake has turned out to be the latest of five appearances that versions of the same "college roommates" error have made in The Times this month. While minor in normal times, the mistake has been made a total of four times by three Op-Ed columnists attacking cronyism--and once in a news article. In all five instances, Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000-campaign manager and a former head of FEMA, and Michael Brown, his successor at FEMA, were described variously as college roommates, college buddies or college friends. In fact, the two men didn't even attend the same college. While they have been friends for 25 years, a spokeswoman for Mr. Allbaugh said they didn't know each other during their years at different Oklahoma colleges. With partisan charges of cronyism hanging over the Bush administration's handling of hurricanes, of course, it's not surprising that the college roommates description seems to have become more sensitive.

The other reply to your polite request was a bit rude, so here are some useful links:

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/print.ssf?/mtlogs/nola _tporleans/archives/print082732.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050928-1 21515-2539r.htm
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-rumors27sep27,0,5492806,full.story?coll=la-home -headlines

Another thing you might want to do is read every original transcript of everything Pres. Bush has said since 9/11. You'll never trust a newspaper again.

Another thing that works well is to compare newspapers against themselves six months later. You'll never trust a newspaper again.

God I hope the media don't get any sort of protection. I can't think of many groups that would deserve it less.

He cited OSI model, well, but I can assure you I won't go in an airplane if it was done with Linus' practices..

I'm not sure whether you can do that on planes built without his practices either..

Like this: http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-093005exi t_lat,0,1534949.story?coll=la-home-headlines/

This does not look like a Boeing PR move. This looks like a honest-to-goodness engineer sticking to his ethics.

From the article:

"Unlike U.S. laws that shield whistle-blowers from corporate retaliation, Austrian laws offer no such protection. Last year an Austrian judge imposed an unusual gag order on Mangan, seeking to stop him from talking about the case.

Mangan posted details about the case anyway in his own Internet blog. The Austrian court fined him $185,000 for violating the injunction. ...

To help pay living expenses and legal fees, Mangan sold his house in Kansas. With only about $300 left in his bank account, Mangan missed a Sept. 8 deadline to pay his $185,000 fine and faces up to a year in jail. Next month he's likely to be called before a judge on his criminal case.

The family expected to be evicted this month from their apartment, but their church in Vienna took up a collection to pay their rent. ...

TTTech has offered to drop its legal action against Mangan, court records show, and pay him three months of severance, if he retracts his statements. But Mangan has refused.

Mangan said he was looking for a new job. He has contacted dozens of aerospace firms in the U.S. and Europe, but none have returned his calls. "Nobody wants to touch me," he said."

Click here.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cows2aug02 ,0,5709626.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

I'm all for saving the environment. I've stopped eating at McDonalds.

Sure... whatever makes you sleep better at night

Talk about narrow tastes!

Actually, it isn't. Bad example. It was known for years that the levees would break given an adequately severe storm. The Feds just didn't give a shit.

What? "Didn't give a shit?" I suppose if they "did give a shit" they would have turned off "the hurricane machine" or something? The levee system was not designed to take a hurricane of this magnitude. The best thing to do would have been to evacuate New Orleans.

Ok, I'm going to rant. Not at you in particular, so please don't take this as a personal attack.

The primary responsibility for evacuating New Orleans was *THE MAYOR*, as witnessed by his recent statement, "There is only one Mayor of New Orleans". He had a 300+ page written document for evacuation. It was not followed.

As I said this is a rant. I am sick and tired of hearing people whine about "The Feds" not being able to handle problems that were clearly created by an incompetent Mayor's reaction to a bad situation.

A dedicated group of computer professionals is now boycotting Yahoo!.

The fact that Corbis made the photo available didn't make this any less true, even today.

But since you had to be an ass, I found a different link. Enjoy.

~Philly

I predict at least one Medal of Freedom for FEMA response from the Bush White House. After all, we have a president who can alter reality.

Read this article
  in the LA Times.

Instead of using experienced gained by international aid agencies like the Red Cross, Microsoft is being asked to develop software to help reunite families.
Maybe its simply a web page with name indexing, but it doesn't seem to make sense to have to wait several weeks to get a reliable system up and running.

The LATimes also has an interactive (pan/zoom) photo of the area:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- 090105astrodome_lat,0,4770689.story?coll=la-home-h eadlines
Click on the 'Satellite Photo' link on the right.

A) Don't live by a freaking ocean. Oceans have hurricanes. B) Don't live in a city that is 8 feet below sea level. Flooding WILL occur. Problem solved.

Perhaps they should be concentrating on making their vehicles safer http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/wire/sns -ap-gm-recall,1,3343951.story?coll=sns-ap-investin g-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true instead of making their cars drive themselves.

Heck, they should be worrying about trying to sell their vehicles! Cause Honda and Toyota aren't going away any time soon!

Take what you read with a grain of salt. There are other sites reporting that the deadline is late August and there could be a last minute agreement.

Read http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dvd24aug24,1 ,6984663.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1 &cset=true for an article that actually has a quote from one of the companies rather than Reuters saying "Officials at Toshiba and Sony were not immediately available for comment.".

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rup17.2aug17 ,1,6590232.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

"Microsoft Corp. said its next-generation Xbox 360 game console would cost $299 to $399 when the device is launched this holiday season."

The LA Times isn't theinquirer.net.

While I appreciate the site link mongering, wouldn't it be better to just link the LA Times???

It's certainly more authoritative.

Why are stories being allowed where the author links to his own website, which just references an original article elsewhere so that the author can gain ad impressions?

The actual link to the original story is here.

. Throwing money at social problems doesn't always fix them, and sometimes makes them worse (see the comparitive self-sufficiency of kids born to other kids completely hooked on welfare, etc.).

And sometimes makes them better: Project Head Start, AFDC, WIC, public education, need-based and academic scholarships, EITC, etc. Tell the whole story.

In the US, you pretty much cannot drop dead from lack of food unless you want to, or are so addled/sick that you can't grasp what's being offered to you. Every city in the country at least has a place to obtain a meal for those that ask, and it's only through even grander technological feats that we polish the efficiencies and productivity that make that largess possible.

Only? You are saying that the *only* reason that the poor are fed is because of technology? Gen. George Marshall once said "amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics." You are limiting your view to the tactics in producing food, but fail to take into account how that food or other aid is paid for and distributed, or the logistics. Technology plays a part, but only a part, and a small one. Eventually it requires people with the ability to organize it and fund it.

But for that to happen meaningfully, we've got to take the lawyers out of healthcare first.

Legal urban legends. Most of the stories you hear are lies perpetuated by those with an interest in doing so.

How about that this is a single case of serious violence over a mmorpg and there are many cases of sport, after sport and such violence and when it happens once with nerds it's a huge deal. Here's an older article I think was shared with slashdotters: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la- oe-johnson27jul27,0,1432940.story?coll=la-news-com ment-opinions I have given my opinion and if you don't agree I think you know well enough to find out the information on your own, hmm dare I say the magic word? A quick 'google' and there are many statistics, facts, etc.

Yeah, the police are to blame for her father using her as a shield.

He just did just this past week...

Yeah yeah, I know. He used coded language to make him sound all moderate and shit. So what you're saying is he's simply pandering to the kooky right, he doesn't actually mean what he says...

which brings into question the whole notion of Bush actually standing for anything.

Snippings from this article:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) announced that he would support legislation allowing the federal government to finance research using a broader range of embryonic stem cells. His decision substantially raised the odds that the bill would win approval in Congress and face a presidential veto, which White House strategists had hoped to avoid. ... The announcement by Frist, a transplant surgeon who is considered a likely contender for president in 2008, contradicted recent signals that he would oppose the legislation, and word of his decision Thursday night caught his Senate colleagues and the White House by surprise. It also was an unambiguous sign that politics had tilted in favor of research advocates and against Bush and the social conservatives who are the core of his political base.

Frist said he would back legislation allowing the government to fund research using embryonic stem cells no matter when they were created. ... Catholic League President William Donahue called Frist "a hypocrite." In a written statement, Donahue said: "His change of heart has nothing to do with any scientific breakthrough.... What's changed is that Dr. Duplicity wants to be president."

Frist's stance appeared to put him closer to the mainstream of public opinion. In a May survey for CBS News, 58% of respondents said they favored embryonic stem cell research; 31% said they opposed it. ... One Republican ally of both Frist and the White House said Friday that Bush's position had proved impossible to sustain. The ally, who requested anonymity because of increasingly "raw" feelings in the party, said the president's position was not held by rank-and-file Republican voters. ... In Congress, Republican supporters of stem cell research said they were optimistic that Frist's support would persuade other Republicans to switch their position.

Commentary

I can't help but what what the political and scientific ramifications of Frist's recent actions. I wonder if Frist is really being confrontational with the White House and GOP, or could this be part of a plan to broaden Republican appeal...

Personally, I suspect the latter. The embryonic stem cell stance is one of the most-often criticized things used to criticize Republicans in general, and this could be a way of putting a damper on that criticism.

I think this will hurt Frist's chance of getting the GOP nomination, but if he gets that, it'll increase his chances for the actual 2008 election, assuming he can get people to forget about his silly remarks during the Schiavo case. I still doubt I'd vote for him myself, but I know many people would.

The other 'divisions' at Sony aren't 'supporting' it either. This is their second consecutive loss in a row, and it's actually their electronics division that is waning. source

Sony settles a payolla scandle....

If you ever wanted to know why most music on the radio and TV sucks, look no further.

===

Paying a Price
# Sony BMG reaches a $10-million settlement of allegations it bribed stations to get its songs on the air

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-payola26jul2 6,0,5609660.story?coll=la-home-headlines

When executives at Sony BMG needed to drum up support in 2002 for Jennifer Lopez's album "This Is Me ... Then," they called the program director of a San Diego radio station and offered her a 32-inch plasma TV in exchange for adding the artist's songs to her play list.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment knew such payola, or "pay-for-play," was improper. Nonetheless, the company asked the programmer to provide a fictitious contest winner's name and Social Security number to cover up her involvement.

The station executive got her TV, and J-Lo got her spins.

The alleged exchange was disclosed in a treasure trove of e-mails, BlackBerry messages and other documents made public Monday by New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer. That electronic paper trail led the second-largest music company to a $10-million settlement.

Spitzer said Sony BMG executives offered "outright bribes" to radio programmers to make sure the company's artists got heard. Among the goodies Sony BMG gave employees of stations owned by Infinity Broadcasting Corp., Clear Channel Communications Inc. and others: airplane tickets, cash, vacation packages, PlayStation video game systems, DVD players and laptop computers.

In one e-mail that Spitzer released, a station manager who allegedly accepted gifts joked to Sony BMG executives: "I'm a whore this week. What can I say?"

Sony BMG, home to such artists as Tony Bennett and the Dixie Chicks, promised Monday not to pay radio stations in exchange for airplay. The company issued a formal statement acknowledging that "various employees pursued some radio promotion practices on behalf of the company that were wrong and improper." The company also fired an executive vice president of promotions at one of its labels.

Radio airplay is considered the most powerful promotional tool for record companies. Payola has plagued the music industry since the 1930s, with disc jockeys at times accepting cash, drugs or prostitutes in exchange for airplay.

At the news conference in his Lower Manhattan office, Spitzer said payola today was as widespread and "corrosive" as it was in the 1950s.

"It is omnipresent," Spitzer said. "It is driving the industry. And it is wrong. It reaches to the very top of the industry on the radio side and on the label side."

In 1960, Congress passed an anti-payola law banning broadcasters from taking cash or anything of value in exchange for playing specific songs unless they disclosed the transaction to listeners. Spitzer launched his investigation based on a similar law passed by the New York Legislature.

Spitzer's investigation continues at the other three major record companies -- Universal Music Group, EMI Group and Warner Music Group -- as well as at the country's largest radio corporations. Many industry insiders say the Sony BMG settlement could provide a template for agreements with other companies. Each company said it was cooperating with Spitzer but declined to comment further.

Documents released as part of the Sony BMG settlement depicted the seamier side of the music business, in which under-the-table payments and nudge-and-wink deals were so common that no one even tried to hide them.

"What do I have to do to get Audioslave on WKSS this week?!!?" a Sony BMG employee promoting the Audioslave song "Like a Stone" wrote to a Clear Channel programmer in 2003. "Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen!!!"

Documents show that through its labels, which include Epic Records, Columbia Records a

he also grew up in sao paolo slums. where uniform police routinely turn up to execute poor people. or drug deakers casue they are corrupt.
you think black people are scared of police? try poor slum living brazilians.

i heard a rumour about the number of shots and that someone Heard a silencer. dont know much about guns... is there any conditions where normal gunfire may sound like it was silenced duu to weird acoustics rather than this guy being mistakenly being assasinated by mi5 hit squads?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f g-britbombs23jul23,0,1820404.story?coll=la-home-he adlines