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This is true...but for now on I'm going to wait until I get back to my dorm to read them instead of reading the articles while standing in the middle of the mail-hall...I got some strange stares when I was standing in the middle of the hall laughing uproarously in reference to the "Lord of the Rings II: More Stuff Happens" article. Also, walking and reading doesn't seem to work for me just because of the traffic on the roads between the mailhall and my dorm. I haven't been hit yet, and I'd like to keep it that way.

One of the things I've found with newspapers who get the Barry column is that they frequently cut it to shreads.

I was reading the 2002 year in review. I couldn't immediately find it on the Miami Herald site, so I did a google search. The first result it returned was for... I think... the Phoenix paper. I read it and was kinda dissapointed. I felt like it wasn't as good and definitely wasn't as long as some of his previous years work.

Curious, because I wanted to compare, I looked 2001 on the Miami Herald site. It was there, and so was the 2002 in the search window. The 2002 article on the MH site was approximately twice as long as it was on the Phoenix site. They had edited pretty heavily... mostly to remove references harsh to the republican party or George Bush. Incensed, I checked it out in my local paper, which had also cut the article, but in different places.

If you want sraight Dave Barry, either buy the MH or check it out online at the MH website.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/column ists/dave_barry/

Patently False?

Not

quite.

Sure, California's scheme for "deregulation" had some major flaws, but that doesn't excuse Enron, as well as other energy corporations from committing wire fraud, to the point of almost bankrupting the state.

This answers that I guess:)

Dear Mr. Barry,

With the pending birth of our first child, I am transitioning away from the athletic, windsurfing type of person, towards more of the sand-castle building type of person.
As a father of two, do you have any advice for finding the time to do "research" on the computer and the internet?

A long time Canadian fan, eh?,
Jamie Strachan

"Why are there so many e-mail ads for these products? Does anybody buy them? Is there a town somewhere, called Spamville, where the men consume Viagra and pornography in bulk quantities, then lurch around in a lust-crazed frenzy, their huge artificially enhanced endowments knocking holes in their walls, so eventually their houses fall down, forcing them to purchase new ones, using low-interest mortgages?"

I forgot the title of the 9/11 collumn, but did some digging after I posted. The title of the column is 'On Hallowed Ground'. It's still available on Miami Herald's website:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/column ists/dave_barry/3972571.htm

Even if you don't normally like Dave Barry's stuff, you should read this. It's quite good.

They are busy with their demands that Verizon
provide the name of a user who may have downloaded some music which may be
copyright and they are busy with their allegations about KaZaA music service,
a company which has the good sense to challenge the operation of the RIAA.

In the same manner it used in the Napster trial,
the RIAA is making wild assertions that gullible media, public and even legal
authorities appear to be accepting as fact. So far at least, it has managed
to give the impression that everyone apart from its members are to blame
for a slump in music sales. It can't be them - it must be those evil people
using the Internet.

No doubt the RIAA was emboldened by the judgment
against Napster and this gives it the feeling it can flex its muscles at
the world at large.

There is little doubt that Napster was guilty
of copyright infringement but only directly in so far as they themselves
copied music; that Napster had knowledge that users were infringing copyright
but only in so far as they could ascertain that copyright applied to certain
tracks; that they were guilty of contributory copyright infringement but
only in so far as they encouraged users to infringe copyright, and that they
were guilty of vicarious copyright only in so far as their income was dependent
on the use of copyrighted material.

That they themselves copied music from CD into
digital form is not clear. That they knew users were making illegal copies
is true, but the means of policing such action was beyond them if they had
no list of copyrighted works or any other means of checking. That they encouraged
others to infringe copyright is also probably true, but again the exact extent
of this and its influence on users is impossible to gauge. That its income
was dependent on copyright infringement is an accepted fact but again the
exact extent of this is impossible to determine.

For the record, Napster did not store music
on its own servers - it simply held the databases of music tracks that could
be accessed from users' own systems. The software they offered for peer-to-peer
copying between systems was also standard, although some minor enhancements
were made to improve the copying of large MP3 files. Providing something
as a legitimate use means it cannot be banned on the basis of possible
illegal use.

Findlaw.com has an archive of documents related to the trial and they
make very interesting reading. Time and time again, there are assertions
that Napster caused a slump in record sales but none of the many witnesses
- and there were many because the RIAA has deep pockets - presented any more
than circumstantial evidence.

How bad were the lies and distortions? The
response by Peter S Fader of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
provides an interesting rebuff to many of the witnesses. (You can find it
here.)

For example, one music storeowner near Syracuse
University in New York attributed a steep decline in music sales to the use
of Napster. He forgot to mention that in the time period to which he referred,
he had changed his emphasis from CDs to vinyl records and had moved to a
new store which was outside the main local shopping area. He later reluctantly
agreed that perhaps these were significant factors in his drop in income
and that perhaps he was making an assumption about Napster.

In a survey commissioned by the RIAA, the results
to open-ended questions (i.e. those with no specific choices) were interpreted
with a strong bias towards that association. This survey also concentrated
on college and university students then attempted to generalise the results
and paint a grim picture. More thorough surveys by other researchers indicated
that these "financially challenged" students were not typical Napster users
because more than 50% of users were over 30. Scattered through the various
submissions are all kinds of assertions that Napster was taking large numbers
of customers away from legitimate enterprises. Not one of these submissions
produced any incontrovertible evidence that showed a direct connection between
the use of Napster and a decline in music sales.

Several musicians who had been either ignored
or badly treated by record companies saw Napster as highly beneficial. Some
submissions are included in the Findlaw archive but other such as Janis Ian,
with 25-years in the recording business, chose to make their own public statements.
Janis's two postings can be found here.
She notes that Napster created a lot of interest in her work, far more than
before Napster arrived on the scene.

Other artists also commented on this phenomenon,
a point that dovetails nicely with numerous surveys - including some from
the RIAA itself - that showed consumers used Napster for sampling different
music. A shock horror tale in one pro-RIAA trial submission was that only
25% of the surveyed users went out and bought the CDs for at least 1 in 4
of the tracks they downloaded. Oddly enough, that corresponds well to the
idea of sampling. What a pity the same survey did not ask about deletions
of downloaded music too, because a large number of deletions within a few
days of downloading would further confirm this sampling.

Various surveys also supported these claims.
A survey by Jupiter Communications in July 2000 concluded that Napster users
were 45% more likely to have spent more buying music than non-users. This
survey was of 2200 online music fans and it found that the only people who
were not likely to increase their music purchases were 18 to 24 year old
"cash-strapped, computer-savvy users".

Jupiter Communications was certainly not alone
in these findings. The consensus was that Napster let people listen to music
that they would not otherwise made the effort to consider. As a result, musical
tastes spread. Another report mentioned that it made it easy to rediscover
artists or to find additional material by them. Both cases meant an increase
in sales of CDs and of vinyl records. There were several comments - of course
from people outside the RIAA - that Napster looked far more likely to increase
music sales than diminish them.

Another reason that students used Napster was
that it let them access one or two good tracks on an otherwise forgettable
CD. I am sure that we all have CDs that fall into that category. The attitude
of the RIAA seems to be that consumers must buy the rubbish in order to get
the few small jewels.

The fact that music sales were declining just
as the use of Napster was increasing presented the RIAA with the perfect
scapegoat, so absolving the music industry of blame and saving it the effort
to think there might be other reasons behind the slump.

After Napster died, the RIAA spouted the same
assertions about online music, whether or not such opinions were false, ill-founded
or unrepresentative.

Here's a typical pronouncement published by DC.Internet during February 2002. "The
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is blaming online piracy
and CD burning as the major culprits for a 10.3 percent slide in 2001 music
sales. According to RIAA data, total U.S. shipments dropped from 1.08 billion
units shipped in 2000 to 968.58 million in 2001. ... Coinciding with the increase
in copying music, the study found that ownership of CD burners has nearly
tripled since 1999: in 2001, two in five music consumers owned a CD burner
compared to 14 percent who owned one in 1999."

At the same time the RIAA declared the rise
in sales of blank CDs was further proof of music piracy, and that blank CD
sales should be curtailed.

Let's dispose of this whole nonsense about CD
burners and blank CD sales quickly and then move back to the more important
issues.

Computer security is not something that the
RIAA is very familiar with, judging by the number of times its own Web site
has been hacked.

Blank CDs are used to back-up computer data.
When one blank CD costs about the same price as one diskette but stores
about 460 times the amount of data, is faster to record and takes far less
space than the equivalent thousands of diskettes, it would be stupid not
to use CDs for backups. The RIAA was quite adamant that the 10% drop in
CD sales in the USA in 2001 as compared to sales in 2000 was purely due to
music piracy but this assertion has to be very seriously questioned.

Firstly, if the RIAA is correct, it would follow
that the general interest in music was unchanged and that attendances at
concerts would be about the same as previous years. They weren't. According
to MTV's reports on the web, concert attendances dropped off by about 15%
in 2001 and revenues were down. The average ticket price rose by about 7%
during the year but as usual it is difficult to say if this deterred ticket
buyers or generated the best possible revenue in a bad situation.

An article in the Miami Herald of March 2002 provides a more balanced
commentary about the slump in music sales than the RIAA's rants. It attributes
a lot of problems in the industry to the fact that the record companies were
under attack from many directions - the government was threatening investigations
into payola, the companies were suffering the excesses of the technological
boom and bust, costs were rising and recording artists were in revolt about
the terms and conditions of their contracts with the record companies.

The terms and conditions are normally that artists
are contracted to produce a certain number of CDs in a certain time - but
it is the companies which dictate what music is acceptable to be marketed
and the manner in which a CD will or won't be marketed. For all this, the
artists receive 10 to 20 percent of the profits of the sale, but only after
the record companies charge them for promotional and marketing costs. Janis
Ian has in fact described the situation as being like indentured slavery,
and it is therefore no wonder that some artists were very pleased with using
Napster to get their music more widely known.

According to the same Miami Herald report,
sales of Latin music were up by 9% in 2001 but "In Latin America itself,
riddled with economic hardship and rampant piracy, mid-2001 sales fell about
20 percent." At least someone made the connection between personal wealth
and piracy.

For a further commentary about issues within
the music industry that were contributing to its slump, try this article
which also provides a far better analysis of the situation that the RIAA's
allegations. This gives an indication of the tone of the piece: "Given the
slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger
drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one
of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal
customers. "

One obvious factor that seems to have been ignored
by the RIAA is the nature of the music being released by the record companies.
Let me throw some names at you ... Sex Pistols, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd,
Rod Stewart, Moody Blues, Brian Ferry, Genesis, Elton John and Cliff Richard.
If you are old enough to remember them you will probably like some of them
but dislike others. That is not the point; the point is that they co-existed
on the music charts in the late 1970s and this kind of variation is a far
cry from the kind of music that has been dominating the charts.

The current number of "revivals" or modern versions
of old songs suggests that the music from the 60s, 70s and 80s had something
that is seriously lacking in modern music. Perhaps the record companies
should spend time figuring out just why this is so.

The RIAA's claims that piracy has caused a worldwide
slump in music sales are questionable. By virtue of its population size,
the figures for the USA distort the total picture. The claims also ignore
the fact that US music sells across the world - so if US music is unappealing,
sales will be down everywhere.

To refute the RIAA's claims, CD sales in the
UK actually increased by 5% in 2001 and in France by a similar amount. (The
BBC News report here has the usual comment about piracy but mentions
this very important point only as a final comment.) I would not be at all
surprised if the influence of US music on the UK and French was somewhat
less than for other countries - or that the locally produced music in 2001
was rather more appealing than US music.

To label all US music as unappealing is quite
unfair. Latin and Country music sales have been quite good - probably because
they offered variety, positive energy and far broader appeal than mainstream
pop.

The possible causes of a decline in music sales
go further than these reasons.

Potential music consumers today have far more
choice in their form of entertainment than just listening to music. They
also have other things on which to spend their money and in many cases, they
have less money to spend than they did a few years ago.

Computer games continue to improve and they
are a big leisure activity. Games cost money that might otherwise be spent
on music. Further, games have audio and there is little point playing a
CD if the game's audio will drown out the music.

DVD sales continue to be good and the availability
of "home cinema" systems with DVD player and high quality audio has made
this a popular pastime. Entertainment has become more visual, at least for
those with time to sit and enjoy it. Music videos themselves have increased
the emphasis on the visual aspect of music.

In the USA the price of movie tickets compared
to CDs shows a dramatic difference, with movie tickets reportedly less than
half the price of a CD. Recent reports also say that movie attendance figures
are very high.

Finally, mobile telephone use is on the increase
especially among teenagers who might otherwise buy music CDs. Music might
be aimed at this demographic but most of them are still reliant on pocket-money
and probably have to pay their own mobile phone charges. Little wonder then
that they cannot also afford CDs when some of them rack up bills equivalent
to the GDP of a small country.

The RIAA is under threat from a number of directions
and it is fighting, on behalf of its members, for continued monopolistic
existence. They are under attack from increasing diversions in entertainment
and for the would-be music buyers' money. And they are also under attack
from a new medium that threatens to drastically change the way that music
is distributed and to reduce their control.

They are also seriously concerned about copyright
law and fear that as copyrights expire they will lose significant profits
and, even more importantly, their control over music distribution.

Since the RIAA started raising a fuss with Napster,
the US copyright laws have been changed and the period for which copyright
applies has been extended. Depending on your source you will find that this
is either the eleventh or fifteenth extension of copyright period in about
forty years. One report also indicated that many of these extensions have
occurred as various Walt Disney characters were nearing the end of their
copyright. (For more details see here).

Those with an interest in extending copyright
are more organised and have much deeper pockets than those opposed to change,
and so can finance a greater amount of pro-extension lobbying than those
who are opposed.

In 1998, an extension to the copyright laws meant
that period would last 70 years after the death of the creator, while works
owned by corporations were extended to 95 years. The RIAA is pleased with
this decision because we would otherwise been nearing the time when certain
music from about the early 1950s - the early days of rock and roll - would
have moved to the public domain. Anyone would have been free to publish
it and equally free to take the profits.

This 1998 extension to copyright period was
challenged but in mid-January of this year (2003) the court upheld the earlier
ruling and the RIAA and its cohorts were able to relax in the comfort that
their various treasure chests would not be released to the public. Don't
forget though, when the RIAA was fighting Napster, this outcome was far from
certain.

Cynics among us look at the notions behind the
copyright law and shake our collective heads. The US law was first introduced
in 1790 for a 14-year period with the aim of encouraging creativity and ensure
that the artists or thinkers could enjoy the profits of that creativity.
Extension of the copyright period is only in the interest of groups like
the RIAA because it means they can rely on older material and can minimise
any efforts to find new talent.

The battle for copyright is not yet over because
European authorities do not kowtow to American interests quite so easily.
EU copyright protection lasts only 50 years, as opposed to 95 in the US,
and so music recordings from the 1950s are becoming public domain in Europe.
The 1950s were a boom in popular music with rock and roll exploding and a
big jump in the number of records being released. Elvis Presley's first
record appeared in 1956 and Chuck Berry's first just two years later.

US music distribution companies have indicated
that they will start to fight CD imports, declaring that the import of European
CDs would be an act of piracy and that customs agents have the authority
to seize these imports.

Make no mistake, the RIAA is under attack from
many different directions, some legislative, some social, some from their
artist "slaves" and others from technology. Loss of control of the music
business would mean a dramatic loss of profit for these companies and it
is for those reasons they are currently embarking on a scare campaign about
music piracy around the world.

Again, European authorities are not impressed
by this blathering. According to a recent BBC report here, the European Commission has only outlawed commercial
(i.e. for profit) piracy but has decided not to criminalise people who download
music from the Internet for their own use. Needless to say the RIAA, and
its international counterpart the IFPI, are up to their normal tactics and
alleging - on no proven basis - that this will cause losses of 4.5 billion
euros annually.

In the bigger picture, these organisations are
out to police everything on the web that just might be somehow related to
the copyrighted works that they jealously guard.

In July 2002 a bill was introduced to the US
House of Representatives to permit the owners of material under copyright
to hack into any computer that accesses or uses a peer-to-peer file transfer
service to see if it was holding any illegal copies of the material. It
was described as vigilante justice in the 21st century. I think I know how
commercial enterprises such as banks would view such intrusions!

It appears that they need no "due cause" which
is what even the various law enforcement agencies require for any similar
search activity.

Using similar wild claims about piracy destroying
their business, the RIAA and IFPI are embarking on what amounts to a marketing
campaign to protect their backsides. Unfortunately the assertions are getting
lots of press attention, and there is a danger of the old problem that if
a lie is repeated often enough it gets accepted as truth.

In their latest moves the RIAA and other are
trying to persuade legal authorities to hold ISPs responsible for any illegal
material that is stored on their servers. (For example, see this report). I am
not certain if the ISPs will be required to call out the rottweilers (i.e.
the RIAA) or to decide if a music file is public domain, copyright but authorised
or copyright and illegal, and then act as judge and jury to decide the form
of punishment.

As I have argued earlier, the ISPs should not
be held responsible because it is not their problem if a user wishes to risk
prosecution for whatever crime. I am waiting for the day when ISP operations
can be fully automated and there is no need for any middle-person who currently
provides a ready and easy target for legal authorities and those who pretend
they are legal authorities.

Already the RIAA has managed to convince a
US court into demanding that Verizon hand out the personal details of a user
who is supposed to have copied music files. I know of no other legal situation
where a middle party has been obliged to provide these details to someone
who believes that they may have been a victim of some crime.

Fortunately Verizon is already objecting to
this demand

This Verizon case was discussed in an Australian
article, which went on to blame music piracy for a drop
in CD sales (yet again) and make the typical kind of claim that we have already
seen from the neo-Luddites. "The finger of blame is pointed at the internet,
as industry officials cite a corresponding increase in broadband adoption
as proof that increasing numbers of people are stealing music and movies."

The truly sad thing is that the RIAA is not
acting in the interests of consumers or even their musical artists. It is
only protecting its members, but a lot of influential people are swallowing
the story hook, line and sinker.

Read it here.

Nevertheless, you just bought yourself a ticket to Guantanamo and a free trip to a secret military tribunal with all the other US citizens who are detained indefinitely.

Just thought I'd put a link to Dave Barry's recap.

Here it is...

• Here
• Or here
• Or even here

Well, maybe you have missed something: this could be a profit center for the states. From this story:

Miller also disclosed that Microsoft will pay $25 million in legal reimbursements to be divided among states based on how much they spent on the antitrust case. California has borne the brunt of legal costs.

The company was required under federal law to pay those legal fees, though $25 million is far more than the out-of-pocket costs for those states. Government lawyers are paid fixed salaries, but the law calculates reimbursed fees based on hourly rates for private attorneys.

There is also the name-recognition factor, which is so dear to the politically ambitious Attorney General, in any state.

Here is a link to another article on the same story. From that article:

Reilly maintained Friday that his state, which also is entitled to reimbursement of some attorneys' fees, can afford to continue the court fight alone because the most expensive parts of the case have already been paid.

His decision won plaudits in Washington from Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who said Reilly "now becomes the de facto antitrust division chief of the United States and a high-tech hero to consumers and entrepreneurs." Markey is the top Democrat on the House Commerce Committee panel on telecommunications and the Internet.

Private funding is nearly nonexistent - federal monies can only support research on existing stem cell lines - and obtaining the cells themselves remains exceedingly difficult even for top researchers because of political and intellectual property disputes or the poor quality of the cells themselves.

Of the 78 stem cell colonies worldwide the Bush administration has said are eligible for federally funded research, only about a dozen are in good enough shape to experiment on. Even fewer - perhaps four lines - are being shared and sent to other researchers interested in breaking into a field already clouded with political, ethical and scientific questions.

here

you have been reading Dave Barry too much

"Why should it matter if we sell them censorware or not? The people of China are hardly what one would think of as stupid... if we stopped selling them software they'd write it themselves."

Good point! And very true. But wouldn't it seem odd for some people in this country to make a living censoring Beijing and Riyadh in the name of profit, while others make a living getting around it in the name of democracy?

How would that look on the international scene?

If we did that, next thing you know we'd be doing all kinds of wacky things, like... I don't know... suing tobacco companies and giving the money to tobacco farmers...

Oh well..

TIPS as well as the prevailing attitude held by the general public of the USA is only causing things to get worse.

A recent example is how a woman could report three medical students as suspected terrorists, have them locked up, their possessions molested, and their jobs lost... simply because they looked like Muslims, Arabs, Pakastanis, Iranians, or in many people's minds "like them terrorists". This sparked paranoid delusions, not just within her mind, but within the minds of the general public.

If such horrible things can be inflicted upon you because of your ethnicity makes you a target of the current administration's programs, then how hard is it to imagine your reading habits making you a target of the current administration's programs?

If I read a book about "Islam", "Jihad", "American is Evil", or, hell, any book written by Noam Chomsky... will I be locked up, my possessions molested, my name defaced, and my job lost?

The land of the free? Are you serious? I feel like my nation has become a suicide bomber - ready to self destruct out of shear desperation and hate.

Ahoy! 'Tis talk like a pirate day!

You neglect to mention that they "joked" about commiting an act of mass destruction.

And you apparently neglected to read any of the news articles on this subject in the last three or four days.

The students claim that the "bring it down" remark referred to a car that they were considering "bringing down" to florida from a northern state. They claim that either the waitress was mistaken or lied about the "september 13" comment she said she overheard. They claim that the conversation was completely normal and did not touch on terrorism, september 11, or september 13. There is absolutely no reason to believe they were joking about anything.

I think the waitress just misheard stuff. However, I do not blame the waitress either. I think she did the correct thing, given the circumstances. I do not blame the police, either, though it seems they overreacted a bit. They were just doing their jobs, in investigating and clearing a possible threat.

I blame the media outlets for gross negligence. How they have handled this has been really, really stupid.

I am perplexed and disappointed at the number of media outlets who printed or said outright that the medical students admitted to "joking" about september 11. It appears, at the moment, that that particular rumor is baseless, and APPEARS to originate (I am not 100% sure about this bit) from early reports stating that the waitress' daughter told reporters that "maybe [the students] were making a joke", which were then accidentally rereported by other news outlets as saying flat-out the students had joked about september 11. You will notice that no news outlets in the latter half of the weekend have said anything at all about "joking".

An extra note, becuase an AC asked for elaboration on cribcage's "being expelled" comment: The students have been asked, at least temporary, to leave their internships at the hospital they are studying at because the hospital had been recieving threats from people who didn't quite grasp everything the news told them (Can't find link at this moment, sorry, but there was an article on CNN.com this morning which now seems to be gone.) The hospital said they would consider allowing the students back in time, or if local law enforcement would agree to assist in providing extra protection from "patriotic" nutjobs.

Given the latest fiasco in Florida's continuing attempts to implement a decent voting system, I thought it would be appropriate to alert Slashdot readers to the work of Mr. Dave Barry. He's been studying voting systems for many years, and has developed some well-considered positions.

Talk like a Pirate Day isn't until September 19.
You'll probably have to wait until then...

Would you take it from CNN?

Here's the CNN story entitled "Bush Won".

However, the article says:

The newspapers' review also discovered that canvassing boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties threw out hundreds of ballots that had marks that were no different from ballots deemed to be valid.

The papers concluded that Gore would be in the White House today if those ballots had been counted.


In a nutshell, if you count all the votes, Gore won. Plain and simple, and possibly the most under-reported story of the year.

Things get even clearer if you broaden the questions somewhat. Some general background on the Gore victory.

A lot of the links to the primary sources have rotted - it's been a year. However, here is Votes aren't sacred which is pretty much the whole story.

Now on to the interments.

The american who's been grabbed and held without access to a lawyer or even a military tribunal is Jose Padilla. And you can read all about him in places like Time.

Don't crack!

What's a cracker to do?

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IRAQ 'CLOSE TO NUCLEAR BOMB GOAL'

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Most U.S. newspapers are affiliated with the AP and Reuters, though a smaller number use the Agence France-Presse, which is more popular internationally. Then there's United Press International, which is practically dead, so few papers use it.

Knight Ridder and Gannett are different animals altogether. They are huge corporations which own dozens of tiny newspapers you've never heard of and a few larger papers (USA Today is Gannett's flagship paper, while the San Jose Mercury News is KR's, though KR's Miami Herald is a better paper). One of the "advantages" of these giant corporations is that they share stories with other papers in the corporation, which enables a paper in Fargo to cover an event in San Francisco without having to put up the money for a regional bureau.

Better papers (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, etc.) maintain their own bureaus outside their hometowns (for instance, the Washington Post has about 10 bureaus in U.S. cities outside DC [Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, etc.], and about 12 bureaus in international cities [London, Tokyo, Moscow, etc.]), so they use a far higher percentage of their own content, but they still use the AP, Reuters and AFP for stories they can't afford to cover themselves or don't have the time to reach. However, you won't see a Knight Ridder story in a paper like the New York Times.

The big difference here is that aggregators/metabrowsers are computers that display headlines without discretion. Newspapers employ editors who have been trained in the art/science of news judgment. For this reason, a metabrowser will quickly become exceptionally boring and irrelevant.

Really bad, and totally wrong, analogy. Since, let me make this clear - the President does not write legislation, does not introduce legislation into session, does not vote on legislation. The President of the United Fucking States does NOT MAKE LAW. Period. Capiche?

Likewise, I am aware of the bill to which I believe you are refering. It is set to increase the jail-time (to a max of 20 and 25 years). I refer to it in my original post on this thread: "He creates a task force, and doubles the (very small) penalties for this sort of thing." is pretty stupid. The only thing the President CAN do is create a task force, and he CAN'T increase penalties because that takes an act of LAW, which requires Congress. He can suggest, and Bush has suggested, and signed into law a bill passed by Congress, that corporate fraud penalties be increased to 25 years. The average sentence for murder in the US is SEVEN YEARS. You think 25 for white collar crime is too light?

As to seizure of assets: here
here
and here.

Now, I'm really sorry if I'm being a prick about all this, but this ignorant, uninformed bullshit really pisses me off. Derek

You can read the column here.

The parent company subcontracts out the makers of the devices is called Penultimate Inc. They are a shady company that buys off politicians so no one asks questions when things go wrong. The Miami Herald has stories about them a lot:
Excerpt:

Penultimate, Inc., which equipped a Florida jail with automatic garage-opener gates that accidentally freed prisoners in a lightning storm.

They are building a parking garage at Miami Inrt Airport, which is three years behind schedule and 5 times the cost.

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

Also, /. readers may be saddened to hear that in the past week DeeDee Ramone, of the Ramones died of an overdose in his apartment

Also, Davey Boy Smith, the beloved Bristish Bulldog of professional wrestling, was found dead. Steroid abuse may have played a role.

Might want to read more barry

Anyway, this artical was in the new yorker, not a paper. so whats your point?

(Andy)"Ever tried to quit AOL? They just won't let you. It's like the Roach Motel, they check in, but they don't check out. I'm wasting away the final years of my life on hold."

(Jerry) "So who invented hold anyway?!? That's one person who's going to hell. It's a battle of wills, just like the staring game we played when we were kids. After an hour and a half on hold I'm thinking, just a few more minutes, I know he's about ready to cave, there's no way I'm giving up now!"

(Dave) "The call center, I swear I am not making this up, is actually manned by CIA 'Pain Specialists' who are studying the average time a person will stay on hold before giving up. This is going directly into their Pain Threshold Database for future use in IRS audits."

Except Katz takes himself seriously. Oh, and he's not funny.

Too Late!

MCI just came out with this...

MCI Offers Joint Service

Dave Barry, is that you...?

Pulitzer prize winner Dave Barry[Miami Herald] commented on this a few weeks ago:

Asteroid Nearly Destroys Earth

the funny thing... I had a 5+ paragraph written up to dispute this crazy claim. Where did it go? Data heaven with the rest of my opened documents.

I won't type it again. It was too good.

So read this:

What a normal computer person KNOWS about microsoft

For clients of the consulting firm where I work, every single client who has a PacBell PPPoE connection and uses the PacBell software (WinPoet, I think, but I didn't look at it closely, I try not to work on customers' home computers ;)) has endless problems. Now we recommend they buy some sort of DSL router (Linksys usually). But that's kind of expensive...

<Seinfeld>
Oh, you wanted it to work? Well that's extra!
</Seinfeld>

This is a job for... a service contract!

> I might acknowledge that as a valid argument
> if it weren't for the fact that the poor designs
> systematically favored Bush, either deliberately
> or accidentally.)

Are you aware that the ballot was designed by a Democrat?

That election was a defining moment for me to be pro Republican. The Democrats were talking about "The will of the people". The Republicans were talking about "The rule of law". They recognized that the law is bad, but they also emphasized that don't change the rules during the game.

Also, the ballot was approved by both major parties and the election officials. http://www.miami.com/herald/special/news/elect2000 /decision/078332.htm.

Also, the Democrats tried to disqualify the military votes since they knew they were not popular with the military. http://www.aroundbama.com/library/overturning_elec tion.htm.

While at the beginning I didn't like Bush, later I was happy he won. I just found Gore to be nauseating with this spins.

Vilmos

WE'RE AT WAR!

Yeah, when we shouldn't be. We should find and "remove" all terrorists but treating terrorists as an entity that can have something so simplistic as a war combat them is ridiculous. It's much worse than trying to win Vietnam by bombing it - bombing or invading Afghanistan will accomplish even less, except that we will be hurt even more in retribution and it will again be on our land where we are most hurt. Vietnam, by comparison, was straight-forward. Stopping airplanes from being made into bombs is one thing but, for instance, do you realize how many double-bed semi's carrying gasoline or lethal chemicals (e.g. chlorine) are on the road in the U.S. at any one time? You know how easy it would be to hijack, say 30 of them in a day and coordinate a massive set of explosions across the country? Are we going to have armed guards on all semi's (and no, a truck driver high on Black Cadillacs with a gun under the seat doesn't help.)

/.ers seem to be just as affected by the arrogance and immediate patriotism as the heads of gov't. If you notice, other countries such as Russia, France and Italy, and people such as the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II are already telling us to rethink our strategies. Many countries are already prepared for us to overstep our bounds and are starting to send signals that after a certain point (which seems imminent) we will be left alone in our cycle of violence with terrorists. Our "amazing patience considering" is really not so amazing from the perspective of people outside this nation; IMO I am somewhat impressed that Bush is waiting until he gets enough proof before he continues the cycle of retribution that started with Israel and Palestine. Is it possible, just possible, that we're not quite as level-headed, calm and rational as we think we are? We need to allow for some minor infringements of privacy, sure. If I go to an airport I'll have no problem with them opening up my luggage and checking by hand every item from my shirts to my dirty magazines for anything suspicious. Same if I'm going in to an important gov't. building. If I'm sitting at home and writing to my friend or my mom, the gov't. can back the fsck off. It's not like unencrypted email is the preferrred choice of communications for terrorists.

"We have awakened a sleeping giant, and filled it with a relentless resolve"
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, 1941 (?)

I too, "tremble with dread of the future" at the response this tragic event will elicit.

May I humbly suggest that further maiming and killing of innocent civilians and the destruction of their livelihoods and cultures are NOT appropriate responses. Now is the time for careful analysis and focused application of the instruments at our disposal. The sloppiness of our bombardments of Hanoi, Baghdad, Serbia, Panama City, Kosovo, and other erstwhile enemies must not be repeated. Our horrific power must be applied with wisdom and justice, not foolish impulses of vengeance.

Let us not let the terrible shock and anger of our pain blind us and reduce us to terrorists as well.

...and you are wrong in calling George Bush The Usurper. He didn't usurp anything, he won the election fair and square, according to the recount done by the Miami Herald.

And that final tally includes all of the Gore votes manufactured by the Democratic canvassing boards.