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Apple and Pepsi Ad Sports RIAA Targets
eefsee writes "USA Today is running a story about Pepsi's Superbowl ad for their iTunes promotion. The ad will apparently feature teens sued by the RIAA, including one young woman who holds out a Pepsi and says, 'We are still going to download music for free off the Internet.' The RIAA response? 'This ad shows how everything has changed.'"
Great. That is somehow not the least bit controversial for CBS, but they refuse to broadcast MoveOn.org Voter Fund's winning Bush in 30 Seconds Ad. While I support the freedom to do what you want with your own music, the double standard at Viacom is sickening. If controversy moves product, show it. If it informs political debate, can it. It makes me sad. Very, very sad.
I know I probably shouldn't be encouraging an off-topic post, but I hate to leave these cheap-shots unchallenged.
I agree that deficit spending can be defined as "the current generation stealing from the next" I think it is ignorant to blame it on the Bush administration.
Bill Clinton was fortunate enough to be in office during the dot-com boom that brought unprecedented growth to the US tax base. It was at that time when we should have gotten a balanced budget. If we can't pay off our deficits in a boom, then when can we?
Clinton projected that the massive growth would continue indefinitely, and would balance the budget sometime in the next administration. Then when we went into recession (almost a year before Bush took office) the deficits came right back.
The right way to manage deficits is to shrink them in boom cycles, and allow them to grow in down cycles. For this reason I applaud Clinton for raising taxes in the boom, and I applaud Bush for lowering them in the bust. The most important thing right now is to get the economy back on track.
Bush has faced a lot of problems in his presidency that Clinton was fortunate enough to not have, and it is unfair to criticize him for not balancing the budget in a recession when Clinton couldn't do it in the midst of the dot-com bubble.
I believe that the deficit is too big an issue to try and blame it on any one person or party.
BTW: I didn't vote for Bush in the last election, and it is doubtful that I will vote for him in the next.
XML is the best data format; unless your data needs to be read or written by a human or a computer.
This is so far offtopic the Mars Rover is going to pick it up, but its one of the few chances I've seen to tout my own sport here:
/.'ers, you can participate in a sport AND meet girls at the same time. And "NO" to the sarcastic kid in the back, they DO NOT look like orcs. Most of them are damn cute (and most that I know are in professions like molecular biology and other "thinking" jobs, so they also pass the geek factor.)
Try Fencing if you want to get involved in a strategy sport that:
a) is an amazing cardio workout
b) very inexpensive to get started with (most clubs let you use their equipment for free, and a full electric setup, with appropriate clothes, is under $500)
c) fighting with swords is a crapload of fun, especially once you get the hang of it (only a couple of months, but still a lifetime to master)
d) makes you THINK. its not about bashing the head in of whomever has the ball. its about figuring out your opponent, and then executing a strategy against him. I leave practices and/or tournaments with my head spinning (but in the good way)
and if I haven't convinced you yet:
e) LOTS of girls fence. Yes,
Check it out. http://www.usfa.org
very well said. however, as someone who did vote for bush (and will do so again only because he and lieberman are the only ones serious about national defense), he does need to take some of the deficit blame. no, there was not an X trillion dollar surplus. it was based on projections, etc. there was physical surplus. but...spending has gone up considerably during the bush years. and he signed the budgets. now the republicans are spending like drunken sailors, to quote john mccain, although i doubt the democrats would be spending less. under clinton, with divided government, we spent less. gee, i wonder why. you are accurate that we were in a slowdown through 2000, and the recession started in march 2001. hardly much bush coul ddo abot that. and, it has been overall a very shallow and mild recession. just that it kinda dragged. had 9/11 not happened, we'd be a year ahead on the recovery at least. as a point of correction, we actually did have balanced a few years under clinton. he fought them kicking and screaming, but the republican congress pulled him. damn, wish we'd still have a "republican" congress. as for jobs, i don't think presidents create or kill jobs. the economy is changing. transitional and structural unemployment is an economic fact. we need to address capital flight. but, both parties are will-less to do anything about it.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.