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Spitzer Takes On Record Industry Payola
flackrum writes "NY Attorney General Spitzer has served subpoenas to four major record labels (UMG, BMG, EMI, WMG) in a continued house-cleaning of corporations employing dirty-tricks. In this particular group of cases, investigations are focusing on the circumvention of the Federal Payola Law, which forbids bribing radio broadcasters in return for airing specific songs. Mmm sweet karma."
time to add a "delete post" operation to /.
Many geeks were heard to exclaim "Hell yes!" in concert. Someone commented that "corrolation /= causation", so we don't really know why they did it, but certain individuals have been seen waving banners claiming "warez rulz", Informations want Freeness" and one person proclaiming "Bush sucks".
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
First Spitzer reams the Mutual Fund houses, then the Insurance/Ripoff industry and now this. I'm begging all of you who can vote (I became a citizen 2 days ago - too late to register) to write-in Elliot Spitzer for President. Then we'll see some house-cleaning...
"mbonig" = Slashdot subscriber garcia, as confirmed in #slashchat.
OMFG... what is this, UK assholes invade slashdot day
Nice job on the editing. I thought I was the last^H^H^H^H^H only one still doing that.
I would like to comment on the page linked to in your sig, but couldn't find any contact info there. You can respond to this message through my contact form (so as to not bother /. with more off-topic discussion). I read the linked page, looking for reasons why people support Bush. After reading it, I have a couple of comments.
... If you oppose this war, the Democratic party failed you.''
``If Bush is voted out, no future president will dare attacking a vicious tyrant. The presidential staff will always be there to remind her/him of the "fate of the Bushes", who both waged and promptly won a just war against a universally hated regime, but lost the subsequent elections.''
You've overlooked a couple of complicating factors here.
First off, Bush did not only attack a vicious tyrant, he did so on the pretense that this tyrant possessed weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the united states. Both propositions were strongly doubted, but Bush, Cheney and others have stressed them repeatedly, even using such words as "evidence", even though weapons inspectors kept denying the existence of such evidence. No WMD have been found to this day, and even if Iraq had possessed them, it would be highly doubtful they could have used them against the USA.
Secondly, the war against Iraq was a pre-emptive one. Advocates say that it's better to deal the first blow than to wait for the enemy to strike. However, Iraq was attacked without having made any aggressive move toward the USA. There was no apparent threat coming from Iraq, other than the ones uttered in speeches by Bush, Cheney, et al.
Unilateral wars are frowned upon, even prohibited by international law IIRC. The US attempted to obtain approval from the UN, but failed. This indicates that an attack on Iraq was globally considered unjust. The USA attacked anyway.
Thirdly, the Bush administration seems unwilling to even admit their mistake. In a recent debate, Cheney claimed that the president had done the right thing. They lied to, or at least misled, the people, went to war against a nation that was not threatening them, nor in a position to do so, all this against the advise of the experts and without the approval of the international community, found that everybody else had been right, but still what they did was the right thing?
You say that voting against Bush would be bad, because it would deter future administrations from performing pre-emptive strikes. I personally see that as a Good Thing, because I morally oppose pre-emptive strikes. Even if you endorse pre-emptive strikes, this one is a particularly pathologic case, based on false grounds etc., and, as you acknowledge, there are plenty of other flaws in the Bush administration.
``Of all potential Democratic candidates, only Howard Dean objected to this war from the beginning.
This, of course, is not an argument for Bush, but one against Kerry. Since the USA is stuck with a two party system, the only way to oppose Bush is to vote for Kerry (and vice versa). This flaw in the system reduces elections to chosing the lesser of two evils, unless you are lucky enough to really agree with one of the candidates.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I figured you'd have some complaints about "America Bashing"...and after reading the modded down replies I see I wasn't wrong.
I hope that each of those people whining about "America Bashing" stops to think about their knee jerk reaction.
First, when whining about "America Bashing" do you see any similarities between your complaints and those of the politically correct? People whinining about the actions of others rather than ignoring the incorrect complaints or correcting the valid ones?
Second, why do you think the bad mouthing of America is on the rise? Is everyone just jealous of us Americans? Bitter, disenfranchised Europeans sick of our economic and fiscal might? Smelly brown people upset that they have to clean toilets for a living? Those two things haven't changed, they've always been so. Except at one point those people used to want to come to America and/or look to it for strength, opportunity and equality. Why do you think they no longer do?
Third, Being in some sort of a cultural, military or econimic slide is one thing, pretending you aren't and not taking steps to correct it is another. Living in any sort of a vacuum is only going to increase the rate and depth of that slide. Insulation is not healthy. It breeds ignorance.
Wake up America: Being born in the U.S isn't enough, it never was. Respect, strength, prosperity and support come through actions and shared values, not nepotism and patronage.
Look outside Fox News and CNN. Try to *understand* why those outside of the US are offering so much more criticism. Don't rely on faith or others to do your critical thinking, that's lazy. Being lazy is not a virtue.
It's a small world, and a new one. And the new world didn't start on 9/11/2001.
And by the way, have *you* written any Nixon speeches you spelling neo-con.