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AP Proposes ASCAP-Like Fees For the News
eldavojohn writes "Techdirt directed my attention to an article where the AP discussed pressure from new devices and mediums today giving them cause to create a clearinghouse for news — much like the music industry's ASCAP — to 'establish an enforcement and payment system.' You'll notice that the story I am linking to and quoting is an AP story ... would Slashdot then be required to pay these fees? We have seen DMCA take down notices and fee discussions before from the AP."
Yes, because your right of center president is clearly exactly the type to set up a propaganda wing to gho with his massive, overbearing police state.
Get out of the pigpen once in a while Cletus.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Republican Sharron Angle more like, where she gives the questions to the reporters BEFORE they ask them back to her?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
In the true spirit of Slashdot, I won't bother reading the article but will provide my opinion, anyway. No, Slashdot won't have to pay any fees.
How about instead of copyrighting news, just put a donation link at the beginning of the story with a sentence reading, "Reporters who contributed to this story do not work for free. In order to continue enjoying reading stories like this, please consider a small donation to keep our business running. We appreciate you as a reader and thank you for your kind contribution!"
Maybe that would work better?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'd like to think this would encourage more of the smaller news websites to get actual reporters out there, rather than just being news aggregators. It would be a shot in the arm for the industry, create jobs, and provide us with more varied reporting instead of having the same story repeated 10k times.
Living With a Nerd
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ASCAP exists to collect royalties for creative works. "News" articles are a collection of facts (at least that's what they are supposed to be), and those facts are not copyrightable. This is the reason in the old days news papers busted their asses trying to "scoop" on another. They knew once the information was out there, it was fair game for anyone to report on it.
Opinion columns, features, photos etc are a different matter. But simply reporting the fact that AP has cooked up a hair-brained scheme to try to extract money out of Google - and linking to your source for that "fact" - wouldn't require a royalty payment in any sane copyright law.
I don't care why you're posting AC
I'd classify it as flamebait by the sheer fact that the OP singled out a politician, rather than the general "politicians". That will automatically bring out other trolls against/shills for said politician.
Generalized absolutes are rarely the way to go, unless the topic is politics.
Living With a Nerd
I couldn't think of a better name for a group of clueless individuals if I tired.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I'm more worried about some extreme republicans (backed by the Tea Party BTW - I'm looking at you Joe Miller) that has expressed the desire to repeal the 17th amendment to get rid of the direct election of senators. Why try to distract us with your made of crap, when we have actual things to worry about?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
The clearinghouse also intends to fight piracy by relying on a tracking system, called a “news registry,” that the AP began developing more than a year ago.
Besides detecting unauthorized use of content, the registry’s tagging system can provide insights about the people who are viewing content or the frequency with which a specific company or expert is mentioned in news coverage.
I value my privacy. My preferences are my opinions, my decisions, and my content. Perhaps they should be paying me for use of my preferences...after all I am the original content producer here!
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
"sex with adolescents, zoophilia,"
Because for one, by law adolescents cannot legally consent to a sexual relationship with an adult (depending on various states law)
and animals are incapable of consenting.
This is an old, tired, and idiotic argument.
Spoken as someone who has no clue as to what the "Fairness Doctrine" was.
I'd like to think this would encourage more of the smaller news websites to get actual reporters out there, rather than just being news aggregators. It would be a shot in the arm for the industry, create jobs, and provide us with more varied reporting instead of having the same story repeated 10k times.
Since they're comparing this to the fees that are charged by ASCAP, for say a bar to play recorded music for its patrons, I would imagine your assumption would be equivalent to a bar wanting to play Metallica for its patrons and instead of paying the $400 a year (and I'm just taking a stab at this, I think it depends on the size of the bar and frequency of music) they go out, put together a band, have them write their own music, record it for the bar and then the bar plays it for the patrons. Now, when you say that it would "provide us" then you would also be assuming that said bar would be okay with anyone playing this music in other bars or allow any individual to enjoy it without recouping their losses.
I don't think your assumption is very sound. In fact, I would wager Geeknet, Inc. would food up to a few grand a year to be a licensed news outlet or shut down Slashdot before it started taking on reporters that generate expenses in their footwork trying to find news. If Slashdot did start producing original news, it'd probably be best for them to try to join the AP news clearinghouse to recoup those costs.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, I just think your assumption of which way this will push websites, blogs, etc is grossly misguided. My predictions are either out of business or impose a new cost to do business.
My work here is dung.
reporting news outside the comfort of our homes does cost money. I don't like ASCAP because they usually go ape-shit over stuff like how many radios you have in your workplace or the radio station you play as your music on hold.
I do like the idea of a non-profit being a clearinghouse for news reports and media outlets including bloggers can become paying members and as such have access to the late-breaking news first. This can be done without threatening anyone's fair use rights, and allow reporters in the field to continue to have the necessary resources they need.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS! Hasn't it become abundantly clear by now that these types of asswipes don't know the difference between parody, satire and reality? In the UK they've happily spent the last decade using 1984 as a HOWTO for crissakes!
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
American right give plenty of donations...oh okay?
Please provide FACTS to back up your assertions, and please tell us who participated, who ran the study, how many individuals were studied and how were the questions framed?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"sex with adolescents, zoophilia,"
Because for one, by law adolescents cannot legally consent to a sexual relationship with an adult (depending on various states law) and animals are incapable of consenting. This is an old, tired, and idiotic argument.
But what about adolescent zoophiliacs?
Dude the AP already gets money from the Govt for operations.
They can charge fees as soon as they give back ALL the money they have taken from the public.
Oh and covering a war? get your OWN ass over there and your own armor.. No you're not riding in the Tank with us nor will we waste bullets to keep your butts alive... OR we can charge you a fee for that.
Problem is our current leaders are too stupid to do this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm pretty much convinced that the current generation of managers and corporate officers in media companies are just not capable of changing enough to forge a new business model in the internet age.
A while ago I would have predicted that they'd eventually have to give up their attempts to slow the change, or to find ways to keep their pay for content models working the same way, and eventually start experimenting to find something new or listen to their younger, more flexible peers.
Now, however, I'm thinking that they just can't change... change in their companies won't happen without a rollover of management, like in so many other organizations run by the "me" generation. They won't give up and they won't give in. They'll have to die off.
More to the point of the article, I predict if all news articles get charged for from the wire services, there'll be a period of rampant ignoring of the fee, followed by a period of cut and paste disguising of the origin of an article, or paraphrasing to hide a source, followed by independent sourcing of news from readers local to a story, and maybe eventually a new kind of news reporter, whose business model I don't know, but who travels the world collecting news to publish on the Internet.
Maybe in some part of all this we'll get back to unbiased, true news reporting and not political spin. I hope so.
by law adolescents cannot legally consent to a sexual relationship with an adult (depending on various states law)
Just to play Devil's advocate here, doesn't this mean that the inability to consent is merely an arbitrary limit that has nothing to do with actual capacity for consent? Especially since it differs state-by-state or country-by-country - for example, are 17-year-old North Dakotans somehow less capable of consent than 17-year-old South Dakotans?
Charging for news is a great way to drive readers to the BBC. That fine source of news makes its money through a mandatory fee and is, I believe, required by law to make its content available, at least to those who pay the fees, without further cost. Entering this kind of cartel would involve a big political debate.
If you haven't tried it, go to news.bbc.co.uk
-Gareth
The group marriage point still stands.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
But I feel entitled to recieve payment for my valuable intellectual property. Click here to read my comment, currently on special offer! Only £1 per view!
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
So after whining that people are making money off of their work and they get nothing, they want to establish an agency, like others that have not actually helped those creating content, to make money off of them and they get nothing, plus they stop getting noticed.
Interesting. Maybe AP gets a cut, but then doesn't give any of that to the actual journalists. I see how this works.
Hey you, with the web browser! Are you looking at news?
No.
Well, you could use the web browser to look at news. Pay up, or we'll see you in court!
I've seen many bloggers, especially big bloggers with lots of advertising, reproduce the lion's share of a story and add so little commentary that even the most pro-fair use judge would have to conclude that it is an illegal infringement.
The main problem the media will face is that there is already a large swath of the population that hates it. Unfortunately for the MSM, these aren't people who are poor high school students.
It's about providing equal time over the airwaves in a discussion / debate. The true intent is political balance. Democrats know they can't compete with conservative content, so they at least attempt to lower them back down to their level, thus leveling the playing field.
But this FD cuts both ways. Let's say you have a talk radio show devoted to nothing but science, and they are discussing the age of the universe and evolution. Guess what, they have to provide equal time to the religious fundamentalist. So how do you like it now?
So you're a homophobic libertarian?
The fact that ignorance like yours still exists is stunning.
What does two people that are in love have ANYTHING to do with polygamy? What makes gay marriage comparable to polygamy, while heterosexual marriage isn't?
Signed,
Happily married heterosexual male whose marriage won't be ruined by two guys or gals tying the knot.
Living With a Nerd
Just to play Devil's advocate here, doesn't this mean that the inability to consent is merely an arbitrary limit that has nothing to do with actual capacity for consent?
yes.
Especially since it differs state-by-state or country-by-country - for example, are 17-year-old North Dakotans somehow less capable of consent than 17-year-old South Dakotans?
This is where things get murky. States have the right to make their own laws regarding this topic, but at the same time it creates an arbitrary discrepancy not based on reality, but rather based on legislation.
Living With a Nerd
No more so than with heterosexual marriage.
"Gay marriage" is really about two consenting adults of the same sex wanting to share the same legal rights & responsibilities as two consenting adults of the opposite sex.
If you would like to lobby that (n>2) consenting adults should have the same legal rights as (n=2) consenting adults, by all means -- go for it! There are probably [small] groups out there lobbying for it.
But let's not pretend these are in any way related.
Considering the content of the the Associated Press these days, I think it would be fairer if they paid us to read it.
It's supposedly based upon the approximate age where an adolescent can fully comprehend such ideas as consequence and responsibility. However looking at the financial markets and the state of credit records across the Western world, there's quite a proportion of full adults who are incapable of planning further than the end of the day, never mind for the future of a child.
In short, it's totally arbitrary. However, there needs to be a cutoff somewhere to prevent those who would seek to influence the impressionable mind of an emotionally immature and insecure adolescent from being prayed upon by someone who has only their own short-term satisfaction on their mind. It's an imperfect system, but it's the best society has come up with so far.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
He/she said the 'AMERICAN RIGHT' meaning Conservatives/Republicans/Right not just any Americans as your article mentions.
If you want more, you can read the comment right above yours. I'm not here to spoon-feed you...oh enough of the condescending comments.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Like PBS/NPR? Partially tax payer funded, and more truthful than any other news source.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Nice to see you have the courage of your convictions, AC
This will not save the news business. Journalists do not create news; they just report it. They have a right to charge for use of their stories, but the actual events described belong to no one. That is, I could read the story and then report the same events in my own words.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
No, our current leaders are too smart to do that. Why alienate the media when you can feed them the news you want them to report?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Just to play Devil's advocate here, doesn't this mean that the inability to consent is merely an arbitrary limit that has nothing to do with actual capacity for consent?
Not "nothing to do with actual capacity for consent" -- it's strongly positively correlated. But it's not 100% correlated, so different limits reflect varying preferences for type 1 errors over type 2 errors or vice versa. It's not ideal, but it seems to be better than any alternative anybody has come up with. "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The people in power, the rich, already have complete control over the media. They don't need to grant the government control over it, because they already use it to control the government.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Oh, now, every teabagger out there can tell you you're full of shit, NPR is part of the liberal controlled media and as such treats Obama as the messiah and hangs on his every word to fawn over it. The only truly factual news media is our friends at Fair and Balanced FOX News (Where more Americans get their news than any other source!), who have no liberal bias.
I once encountered one of those "where do you get your news" surveys, and one of the options was "conservative talk radio". I checked that one, and identified the stations as "NPR" and "BBC" - because they really are conservative. They're high-quality news, but they're biased.
They're not right-wingers like Limbaugh, they're Official Establishment News, and while they're not highly biased toward whichever Administration is currently in power, they're still clearly working for The Government. When the government puts out press releases, NPR covers them as if they're authoritative news and not just politics (though they might have commentators who are for or against the Administration's position, but still within the Administration's framing), and when the government wants them to say "enhanced interrogation" instead of "torture", that's what they say.
They do cover the arts a lot, but the Establishment really does like art and music, even though some right-wingers like Jesse Helms would like the National Endowment for the Arts limited to black velvet paintings of Elvis.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Why stop at the arbitrary "two people" ? When law defines marriage as between one man and one woman, the first and primary argument is that defining marriage between one man and one woman is arbitrary distinction that is an anachronism. However, historically, there is much more support for polygamy than there is for homosexual marriage.
Replace all the arguments for gay marriage with polygamous ones and they still stand. WHICH really shows what the agenda is. It isn't about defining marriage, it is about establishing something that never existed because of political advantage.
Lastly, I'm Libertarian. I don't think the government should define marriage at all, for anyone. Government has no business governing people's lives at that level. It is a holdover from the Roman Empire Theocracy. Further, it is a violation of Separation of Church and State.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
They are both related in that they are attempting to extend the traditional definition of marriage to include an arrangement between consenting adults not consisting of exactly one male and exactly one female.
Disclosure: I think the government should stop granting and recognizing marriages entirely and grant and recognize civil unions between any consenting adults who fill out the requisite paperwork. Then perhaps we can focus on more important issues.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Except when dealing with the AP. Glaring fact omission, editorializing, and every story has a major liberal slant to it. And those are the supposed unbiased news stories. They are worse than a NPR story. In fact if it says AP anywhere I won't read it, I know it's all fluff. What I would really like is some news, plain and simple, "This happened here today." Don't speculate, editorialize, or otherwise contaminate the original story. As you learn more print more, but it better damn well be factual. AP news is dead.
It's pretty obvious how she knows the questions the reporters are going to ask - she's a Witch!
She even turned one of the reporters into a newt!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What exactly am I ignorant of?
Signed,
Happily married heterosexual male whose marriage won't be ruined by two guys or gals tying the knot, or by two guys and a gal or two gals and a guy or four guys or the entire adult population of Walla Walla, WA.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
If the "social conservatives" are so concerned about protecting the "sanctity of marriage" that they don't want the homos gaying it all up, why aren't they concerned about the scourge of divorce ? Oh, right, they lost on that front decades ago.
You said the group marriage point still stands...this implies that you equate homosexuality with polygamy.
Living With a Nerd
It was a policy that allowed the side that controlled the broadcast media as a bunch of out of control nutjobs by selecting those representing the opposition for just such characteristics. Of course since the Fairness Doctrine was enforced by the government, many people thought that the nutjobs that the networks had on were actually representative of anyone who opposed the particular policy under discussion.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I agree with everything you say.
I think people should only be legally granted civil unions, while marriage should be "granted" solely by religious institutions.
Also, Polygamy doesn't bother me at all, so long as it is consentual and not forced ("consensual not forced" applies to almost everything, tho...so yeah...)
Living With a Nerd
I'm not touching this sex/ child debate with a ten foot penis...... er, I mean... pole. ;-) Okay fine I'll touch it. Sex with children? Absolutely not. They lack the maturity level to give consent - that's why they have adults making decisions for them. Nudity? Fine. Sex with same sex? Cool. Sex with multiple wives or husbands? Also cool. I think the US Government overstepped its authority when it outlawed polygamy in Utah. (searches constitution). Yep the 10th gives UT supremacy in this area, and if they want to legalize polygamy they are allowed to do so.
.
>>>Feedback on this comment system?
It sucks. I hate this dynamic index and can't get back to the classic (plain text) index.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It implies that I think petitioning for government expansion of the definition of marriage to include two men is similar to petitioning for government expansion of the definition of marriage to include two men and a woman.
For the requisite car analogy - I do not equate motorized bicycles with hovercraft, but petitioning to have them classified as motor vehicles for the purpose of traffic laws would be similar.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
My apologies, then...it sounded like you supported the OPs method of equating homosexual marriage to a variety of things it has nothing to do with (specifically the part regarding polygamy.)
Sorry again!
Living With a Nerd
It sucks. I hate this dynamic index and can't get back to the classic (plain text) index.
I had that same problem this morning as well. Fixed it by logging out on my PC, logging in on my phone, changing the options, logging out on my phone, logging back in on my PC.
Living With a Nerd
Conseravtive does not equal anti-personal rights
Newpapers have put up paywalls in the past, and it hasn't worked for them. Television news is free, not counting cable or satellite TV monthly fees, which are moot if you put up an antenna and receive a local station for free; are local TV stations going to start charging a fee to the community they serve, or shut down their news departments? The Boy Scouts of America were once sent a demand from ASCAP to pay a licensing fee for singing campfire songs; is the AP going to start sending licensing fee bills to people who are overheard discussing news storie they've read with others? Is it just me, or is this turning into a Free Speech issue?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Especially since it differs state-by-state or country-by-country - for example, are 17-year-old North Dakotans somehow less capable of consent than 17-year-old South Dakotans?
This is where things get murky. States have the right to make their own laws regarding this topic, but at the same time it creates an arbitrary discrepancy not based on reality, but rather based on legislation.
Well of course it's murky, and we know that. Rule based systems create highly defined, black and white partitions. They are most accurate in 2d space and when there is only one parameter to focus on. Any more dimensions/parameters and the result will be inaccurate. Life is messy so "things get murky".
Thing is, we create rules like this (age of consent) to protect those who would be exploited. If some people who are more mature have to wait for the freedom to make choices that we say must be made by someone who is mature and capable (whatever that is), then that's OK. At least we have protected a lot of people.
If different areas of control (jurisdictions, counties, states, countries) have different rules then that's OK too, as long as we are still protecting those who need it. The variation in rules is just a measure of the messiness of the issue.
It is also important to keep on questioning what our rules are. The law is a lousy way to deliver justice but it's absolutely better than anything else.
Nice to see you not refute anything AC said.
You'll notice that the story I am linking to and quoting is an AP story ... would Slashdot then be required to pay these fees?
Yes! That's how the proposal works.
Reporting news takes time and costs money. The AP can't operate without an income. Traditionally it got its income from the newspapers that ran AP stories. It worked then. It doesn't work now. Why? Because sites like Slashdot can simply link to the AP report. They don't get a lot of revenue from this sort of thing. Slashdot does. Slashdot needs the AP a lot more than the AP needs Slashdot. They figure that the organisations that benefit from the service should pay for the service otherwise the service will no longer be viable. Is the service an anachronism that is no longer needed? Seems that if it were, Slashdot wouldn't be linking to their articles.
Just allow me to interject as someone who has a gay relative and who has been friends with gays his whole life gay marriage is NOT about any religious crap, it is about allowing people to have basic human rights. Let me give an example: I knew Chris and Robert for God, something like 15 years? Chris worked home health which is what my mom did before she retired, and everyone loves Chris. If you had a loved one dying of cancer you would literally fight to have Chris take care of them, because he worked his ass of to allow them to keep their dignity. Chris and Robert were together from 86-2003. They would still be together but a drunk plowed into Robert's car at 90MPH+, he lived for about 3 days before passing on. When Chris got home to plan the funeral he found Robert's estranged parents, who told Robert years ago "We don't want no faggot kid" cleaning out the house of everything that wasn't nailed down. The cops refused to do squat, because the place was in Robert's name and as his next of kin what was Robert's was now theirs. They BURNED anything they couldn't sell and sold everything else.
If gay marriage or hell even a state recognized civil union would have been allowed that dirtbag shit wouldn't have happened. I'm sure some will say "get a will" but not only is getting hit by a drunk or having relatives you hadn't seen in 30 years rob you not something most of us would even consider, the simple fact is I've seen friends with wills that were tied up in court for years by vulture relatives. The laws on surviving spouses are simply a MUCH better protection, and the level of precedent for surviving spouses means it is pretty much set in stone. You are married and die? The surviving spouse gets your stuff PERIOD. Don't want gay marriage? Then push for a legally binding civil union that offers the SAME protections as marriage. It is about basic human rights folks, and what is being done now is simply just as wrong as saying you can't be protected by the law because your choice is a Jew or black.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Glaring fact omission, editorializing, and every story has a major liberal slant to it.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Ok, so then why is sex with someone their own age allowed suddenly? If they can't consent, it is no less rape then with an older person.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
He got better, though.
She even turned one of the reporters into a newt!
She got better.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
All I am implying here is that if you have no problem with allowing two people to fill out paperwork to provide the same protections as marriage then you should have no problem allowing three people to fill out paperwork to provide the same protections as marriage, so long as they are all consenting adults.
I have no problem with either.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
"They [the Rockefellers] control most of the important newspapers, magazines, and book publishing houses in the country, including the Curtis Publications, the Hearst Publications, Time, the New York Times, the Associated Press and many others." - J.L. Carmichael, The Elements of Economics
I think they got it right.
I remember the old days of the 70's before it was repealed. You had news, sports, and occasionally nutter shows that espoused crazy ideas. By crazy, I mean like Art Bell doesn't buy it crazy, the Truthers and Birthers of their day kind of crazy.
But the "public interest" of controversial ideas were rare. No radio station wanted to lose their license if they violated the Fairness Doctrine (that you must present an opposing view of a given subject) covering subjects of public interest. A Supreme Court decision granted "equal access" (requiring anyone wanting to rebut a topic access if an opposing view was not represented) under the Fairness rule, make it even more unlikely they would allow a talk show host cover an important issue.
While it never prevented free speech directly, it indirectly squashed it.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
If you would like to lobby that (n>2) consenting adults should have the same legal rights as (n=2) consenting adults, by all means -- go for it! There are probably [small] groups out there lobbying for it.
"small"? Let's see... Muslims: 1.6B. Mormons: 14M.
Supporters of gay marriage: ~400M worldwide.
Of course, they want one man:multiple women, but in order to give equal rights to both sexes you'd have to allow polyandry as well. And allowing 1:4 and 4:1 but not 2:2 would be unfair as well...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Lastly, I'm Libertarian.
Ouch, a bullet in the other foot!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
and animals are incapable of consenting.
Saw an interesting quote recently, purportedly from a guy who married his horse: "If the horse didn't consent, you'd be dead."
Stop blaming the president and start acting in an adult manner and deal with this issue as if you are an adult capable of understanding it.
The issues associated with this obviously vastly outweigh your ability to understand them. The right to a free press is one issue. The hot news doctrine is another. Both have involved legal and business stand points that have to be addressed here.
This has nothing to do with the president. And get it through you head, he's your president too.
Run for president yourself and make the changes or at lest try to be up on the issues that you so blatantly attack him about.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Have you asked him?
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Yet another yawn-inducing political thread that dominates the comments on the story.
This entire thread needs to be modded "-1 Offtopic".
FOX NEWS!?! OMG, THEY'RE THE BEST!!! I trust them more than anything, especially since you don't hear any of NPR's hosts telling you to buy gold from GOLDLINE.COM My American Eagles only have to have gold go up to $3200 per ounce before I break even! Let's hear Marketplace.org tell about a better investment, bitches!!!