The often-reliable Chinese language newspaper -- which correctly predicted the first coming of the iPad when everyone else on the planet was carping on about a sub-$500 netbook from the Cupertino company
Oh please. This is the same "often-reliable" newspaper that predicted that Apple was going to release an iPhone nano earlier this year.
Also, the idea that anybody expected Apple to release a "sub-$500 netboook" is sheer lunacy. Nobody seriously expected that-- the iPad was widely anticipated by just about everyone for months before it was released.
Actually, both the McCain campaign and the RNC have gotten itself in hot water several times for using copyrighted music or video clips without permission during this cycle.
A few examples:
McCain was served with a cease and desist letter from Fox News after he used their broadcast footage in a commercial without buying it...
McCain was sued by Mike Myers after he used a clip from a skit from SNL without purchasing it or getting permission from Myers himself (Myers isn't the copyright owner, but that's irrelevant).
McCain got yelled at by copyright owners for using the "Rocky" theme song in an ad without permission.
One of McCain's YouTube videos have been hit with a copyright infringement claim by Warner Music Group after the campaign used a song by Frankie Valli without permission.
Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they're definitely easy to write. But they don't build sustainable value.
I guess by that standard, Slashdot is just about useless.;-)
No, but seriously. I write both blog-style pieces and article-style pieces for my website, and and traffic-wise, and there are some blog entries I wrote a while back that do great (and still bring in a bunch of visitors every day and several new links in every week despite having been written months ago), and there are some article-style items that do the same. Of course from a user's perspective, I suppose things are substantially different, and I know exactly how the author of the article linked to feels when they suggest "Think of how disappointing it feels when you're searching for something and get directed to short postings in the middle of a debate that occurred years before, and is thus irrelevant."
Under C-SPAN's contract, they use government-provided cameras on the House and Senate floor for constitutional reasons. Everything that is shot on government equipment is in the public domain by default. The only copyrighted-material that C-SPAN creates is material they make with their own cameras (such as footage from events outside of Congress, like the White House Correspondents Association dinner, etc).
There was a big hullabaloo over whether or not C-SPAN should use copyright material shot at committee hearings earlier this year, but AFAIK they gave in to requests from the House of Representatives (in fact I think Speaker Pelosi actually stepped in) that the footage be public domain.
Thanks to you and everybody else in here complaining (rightfully), I've edited the article on my website to hopefully reflect the corrections people are offering. The Slashdot summary is not editable by me though.
Also, in answer to your question, a specific license has not been announced yet, but CNN has indicated that people will be free to do whatever they like with it (remix it, edit it, use it in a documentary, post it anywhere they want, etc).
One of the specific points that Obama had was that he wanted the footage to be free for people to use in creating things like remixed YouTube videos, etc ("end user created content").
BNL (Barenaked Ladies, from Canada) also has a number of remixable songs where you can download songs with the tracks split out.
I assume the parent simply means that these are instrumental and acapella versions of the song.
Which is really only groundbreaking if you're not familiar with hip hop, where instrumental and acapella versions of songs (and whole albums) are extremely common and unofficial remixes are made all the time, often promoted by artists themselves. Hip hop as a genre since its conception, has been squarely based on the principle of fair use.
Let's put this in perspective. Not all of these buyers were American, and many of them have probably owned more than one iPod, but the population of the United States is slightly over 300 million. And Apple has apparently sold 100 million.
It's not MSNBC "reporting" anything. It's Newsweek; they both share the MSN domain because Newsweek (owned by the Washington Post Company) has a deal with Microsoft (hence the MSN.com) in the same way that NBC does (MSNBC; NBC News doesn't have its own website because of their deal with Microsoft, there's just the MSNBC one). To say that "MSNBC is reporting" such and such is like saying that "Yahoo! News is reporting" when it's actually the Associated Press or Reuters.
Obviously YouTube has a lot to lose if Net Neutrality is not preserved and if teclos start treating consumer's bandwidth in a fashion unfavorable towards the site. You can see videos of Senator Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Senator Dorgan (D-North Dakota) appealing to the YouTube community for support regarding Net Neutrality here:
And I believe the Record Industry Association of America is just a little bit out of it's jurisdiction here. Hence the stupid filing in an American court.
I think you're confusing me with somebody who thinks the lawsuit is valid.
Okay, it's gonna be unpopular and I'll get modded as a troll probably, but I've got to say it.
I'm not a big fan of the RIAA, but I'm also not a big fan of AllofMP3. Yes, it's legal in Russia (through a loophole in radio licensing they're trying to close), but not here in the US.
A ton of Slashdotters use it because they think it's a good business model and they feel like they're doing something legal because they're paying for music. Sure it's a nice business model- the way they calculate the price you pay by measuring the amount you're downloading in MBs, but they money that goes to AllofMP3 doesn't end up in the artist's hands any more than it does when you pay money to a record label by buying music on a CD here in the USA (in fact less: none to be exact). Sure, you can complain all you want about the evil RIAA and how they don't give enough money to artists, and boycott them all you like. But the truth is artists get NO money from AllofMP3 (instead of an unfair tiny amount from the RIAA). They're just profiting off of other people's work. Like the RIAA but worse. Instead of a tiny amount of money going to the artists, the moeny goes instead entirely to the proprietors of AllofMP3 (who are rumored to be connected to the Russian mafia, by the way).
I'm guessing that someone who might have thought of getting you a gift, you already gave this rant to and they decided just to get you some nice socks.
C-SPAN asked for permission to rearrange the cameras and broadcast more material in 1994 when Republicans took over the House of Representatives (C-SPAN has been operating on the same initial rules set up in the late 70s when they were first allowed on Capitol Hill). The Republicans denied them just as the Democrats are doing now. C-SPAN uses US government equipment (like cameras) inside of Capitol Hill, and as such the House Speaker retains absolute control over it. It would make for better programming (to change the rules three camera angles, guys? 1 wide shot, one shot of the bench and one roving tight shot guys? come on...), but House Leadership wants it to remain static and "stately" for "decorum's sake."
Incidentally, Florida's Senate race this year is between Democratic incumbent Ben Nelson and Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris. Harris is of course the former Florida Secretary of State under the President's brother (Governor Jeb Bush), who knocked tens of thousands of African American names off the voter rolls in 2000.
Harris, who has been very vocal in her view that only Christians should be elected to higher office and that anybody who is not a Christian will "legislate sin", however is down by 25 points in the polls behind Nelson (according to an average of the last 5 polls in the race), and doesn't have a shot in hell of winning... Unless....
"But the chapter on adult content leads to the biggest "Huh?" moment in the book: "Although Google will not accept adult-content sites into its AdSense content network, it will accept ads into the AdWords program that direct traffic to adult sites."
They won't put adsense ads on porn websites- they specifically state this in their TOS. However, they do not proof the copy of every advertisement in their adwords advertising program, and allow adult sites to advertise their sites through it. Just do a test: google for "fucking" and you'll find XXX sites advertising in the sponsored links section to the right of the search results. However no adult sites display Google adsense advertisements.
I think you're forgetting that President Bush gave 95 million dollars to North Korea for their nuclear program back in 2002. NK had about 2 nuclear devices (if any) when Clinton left office. While we have been tied down in Iraq, they developed 8-10.
You should go into politics yourself. You seem to be able to skew the facts and turn competitive race(s) where no one really knows how people are going to vote, into "There are almost no serious analysts who disagree on this point." So, in one sentence you are saying you know all and anyone who disagrees with you is not serious.
No. These are just facts. If you had any idea what you were talking about, you'd know that this is what is predicted by all the serious non-partisan analysts (National Journal, Congressional Quarterly, Cook Report, etc).
You said: "with a veto-proof majority"
- Last time I checked, a veto-proof majority was not the same as a simple majority. The Democrats will not have a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress, which is required to overturn a veto.
You forget that there are many Republicans who are in favor of increasing federally funded stem cell research (the matter referenced). In both the House and the Senate a bill to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research passed (the President went on to cast his first veto ever on it). With more Democrats in the House and Senate, that margin may in fact be veto-proof. You seem to think that only Democrats favor federally-funded ECS resarch- when such bills have passed both the House and Senate with comfortable (though not yet veto-proof) margins.
You said: "Republicans are looking to pick up the Washington state seat, which they won't, and the Maryland seat, which they also will not..." "The only possibility for a Republican pickup is really New Jersey"
- You used words like won't, not, and only in your statement. Sounds like you know what you are talking about.
Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Seriously, there is nobody outside of Barron's Magazine who doesn't agree on what I've said. Joe Scarborough, former Republican US House Representative-turned host of MSNBC's Scarborough country (hardly a liberal by any standards) thinks that Dems will take both the House and the Senate. There is nothing political about talking about the general consensus among serious analysts about the upcoming election. Unless of course you don't know what you're talking about, in which case you think the facts I mention are somehow partisan. Seriously: go to the National Journal, go to CQ politics, read Charlie Cook's columns, go anywhere you want. Everything I've said is echoed everywhere.
I wrote:
Democrats will take the 435-member House of Representatives back by a likely margin of 5-15 seats....
Republicans are looking to pick up the Washington state seat, which they won't, and the Maryland seat, which they also will not (most analysts agree on this)
You wrote:
Have no fear, Diebold is here!
Actually, Maryland has banned the use of Diebold voting machines in their state-wide elections. Diebold isn't there. In Washington state there is some talk of decertifying Diebold machines as well, but nothing will be done in time for this year's elections.
Re:For Slashdotters who haven't been paying attent
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2006 Election Maps Mashups
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Shut the fuck up, hippy.
Nothing I said was partisan to the least extend. I merely said what Democrats were planning to do once they took back the House. The "First 100 hour" plan has been reported in the press, and there are no serious analysts (either partisan or non-partisan) who believe that Republicans will hold on to control of the House of Representatives this year. If you don't think they will, then you either haven't been paying attention or are in denial. I only gave the bare facts on the Senate stuff as well.
Nothing I said about the facts of any of the races were the least bit controversial, if you've been paying attention.
Nowhere in my summary did I say "Gee whiz, I hope Democrats take back Congress this year" or anything like that.
That said, gee whiz, I am happy that Democrats are finally wrestling control of the House of Representatives from Republicans this year.
For Slashdotters who haven't been paying attention
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2006 Election Maps Mashups
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Democrats will take the 435-member House of Representatives back by a likely margin of 5-15 seats. There are almost no serious analysts who disagree on this point. Once Dems take back the House, they will have subpeona power and will begin investigating the Administration's leadup to war, etc. In the first 100 hours of Dem control in the House, future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she plans to hike the federal minimum wage for the first time in almost 10 years, establish (real) restrictions on lobbying, enact the 9/11 comission reccomendations that the Administration refuses to enact 5 years later, increase federal funding for stem cell research with a veto-proof majority, and lower the amount of money that seniors have to pay for prescription drugs. Obviously all this stuff has to get through the Senate and be signed by the Presidednt into law however.
In the 100-seate Senate, things are likely to tighten up considerably (Republicans currently hold a majority of 55 so Democrats need to pick up 6 seats to take it back). The only really competative races to watch in the Senate are:
Montana (whre Democratic challenger Jon Tester leads Republican incumbent Conrad burns- whose Jack Abramoff ties are weighing him down),
Tennessee (where Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is retiring, leaving an open seat for Dem Harold Ford Jr and Republican Bob Corker to fight over- this race is mostly tied),
Missouri (where Republican incumbent Jim Talent is virtually tied with Dem challenger Claire McCaskill, who has made this race about increasing the minimum wage and stem cell research- two issues that heavily favor Dems),
Rhode Island (where moderate Republican incumbent Lincoln Chafee is struggling to win re-election over strong Dem challenger Sheldon Whitehouse, who leads him in the polls in this solid "blue" state),
Pennsylvania (where Republican incumbent Rick Santorum is seen universally as the most endangered incumbent in the country, trailing behind Democratic challenger Bob Casey for months now),
Virginia (where Republican incumbent George Allen leads Democratic challenger Jim Webb, but only after Allen's dropped considerably due to racism allegations surrounding the caught-on-video use of the slur 'macaca'),
and Ohio (where Republicans statewide are in trouble due to a series of statewide scandals involving the GOP).
Republicans are looking to pick up the Washington state seat, which they won't, and the Maryland seat, which they also will not (most analysts agree on this). The only possibility for a Republican pickup is really New Jersey (Dem incumbent Bob Menendez vs Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr- corruption is an issue on both sides of this race), where polls indicate that Menendez is leading slightly.
Let's keep in mind that Google Video doesn't even allow you to post comments. YouTube is plenty flawed, but if you're going to compare it to GV and say it bugs you, you might as well compare every point you make.
"Or, buy one of the macs that comes with ports on the front."
"If these exist, I honestly didn't know it."
Ever heard of a Mac Pro? I'm using one right now and I can assure you that it does, in fact, have 2 USB 2.0 ports, two Firewire ports (one 400, one 800), and a headphone jack. Macs with USB ports on the front do exist.
CNN has been "reporting" on what's going on on YouTube on a fairly regular basis in the afternoon, sometimes more than twice. They're segments that basically consist of hooking a computer up to their video feed with some young guy saying "so as you can really see, YouTube is buzzing over this it's just crazy."
The only time I've seen them do it in a way that it seemed like a good idea, was when they were covering the Israeli-Hezbollah war recently during which they showed some clips taken by YouTube users living in both Israel and Lebanon. It was a cool idea, but unfortunately most of the clips sucked and I'd already seen them on YouTube anyways.
When President Bush veto'd the bill that was supported by both the House and the Senate that would have allowed for federal funding of embryonic stem cells (something that even the conservative Senate Majority Leader and would-be-Presidential hopeful Bill Frist-- who is a doctor supported), I put up a video on YouTube of Michael J. Fox (who has early onset Parkinson's disease, one of the several disorders doctors and medical scientists are now fairly sure that they can treat with embryonic stem cells, based on results from overseas) who was discussing the situation on ABC's Good Morning America the day before.
Apparently so many people thought the video was kind of moving, since Fox couldn't sit still in his chair and was thrashing about through the entire interview because his Parkinson's was so bad, that it made the front page of Digg.com. You can check out the video on YouTube here.
For the record, my grandfather died after a long struggle with Parkinson's earlier this year and I'm in favor of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research-- like more than 70 percent of Americans. The cells in question (some 400,000 of them) are being discarded en masse from in vitro fertilization labs anyways, so it's a choice between either letting them get thrown away-- or using them for research that could save lives.
The President says he thinks that ECS research constitutes the taking of a human life ("murder"). If that's true then why doesn't he work to outlaw all ECS research ("murder"), instead of letting it happen with private funding? He's caught between his own rhetoric and a hard place.
Miramax is on its own now, actually
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bought out after the fallout between disney and the miramax heads over F9/11.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh please. This is the same "often-reliable" newspaper that predicted that Apple was going to release an iPhone nano earlier this year.
Also, the idea that anybody expected Apple to release a "sub-$500 netboook" is sheer lunacy. Nobody seriously expected that-- the iPad was widely anticipated by just about everyone for months before it was released.
Actually, both the McCain campaign and the RNC have gotten itself in hot water several times for using copyrighted music or video clips without permission during this cycle.
A few examples:
McCain was served with a cease and desist letter from Fox News after he used their broadcast footage in a commercial without buying it...
McCain was sued by Mike Myers after he used a clip from a skit from SNL without purchasing it or getting permission from Myers himself (Myers isn't the copyright owner, but that's irrelevant).
McCain got yelled at by copyright owners for using the "Rocky" theme song in an ad without permission.
One of McCain's YouTube videos have been hit with a copyright infringement claim by Warner Music Group after the campaign used a song by Frankie Valli without permission.
Of course, all of this is not to mention McCain's little plagiarism issue with Wikipedia...
Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they're definitely easy to write. But they don't build sustainable value.
;-)
I guess by that standard, Slashdot is just about useless.
No, but seriously. I write both blog-style pieces and article-style pieces for my website, and and traffic-wise, and there are some blog entries I wrote a while back that do great (and still bring in a bunch of visitors every day and several new links in every week despite having been written months ago), and there are some article-style items that do the same. Of course from a user's perspective, I suppose things are substantially different, and I know exactly how the author of the article linked to feels when they suggest "Think of how disappointing it feels when you're searching for something and get directed to short postings in the middle of a debate that occurred years before, and is thus irrelevant."
Now if we can get CSPAN to do the same.
Under C-SPAN's contract, they use government-provided cameras on the House and Senate floor for constitutional reasons. Everything that is shot on government equipment is in the public domain by default. The only copyrighted-material that C-SPAN creates is material they make with their own cameras (such as footage from events outside of Congress, like the White House Correspondents Association dinner, etc).
There was a big hullabaloo over whether or not C-SPAN should use copyright material shot at committee hearings earlier this year, but AFAIK they gave in to requests from the House of Representatives (in fact I think Speaker Pelosi actually stepped in) that the footage be public domain.
Thanks to you and everybody else in here complaining (rightfully), I've edited the article on my website to hopefully reflect the corrections people are offering. The Slashdot summary is not editable by me though.
Also, in answer to your question, a specific license has not been announced yet, but CNN has indicated that people will be free to do whatever they like with it (remix it, edit it, use it in a documentary, post it anywhere they want, etc).
One of the specific points that Obama had was that he wanted the footage to be free for people to use in creating things like remixed YouTube videos, etc ("end user created content").
BNL (Barenaked Ladies, from Canada) also has a number of remixable songs where you can download songs with the tracks split out. I assume the parent simply means that these are instrumental and acapella versions of the song. Which is really only groundbreaking if you're not familiar with hip hop, where instrumental and acapella versions of songs (and whole albums) are extremely common and unofficial remixes are made all the time, often promoted by artists themselves. Hip hop as a genre since its conception, has been squarely based on the principle of fair use.
Let's put this in perspective. Not all of these buyers were American, and many of them have probably owned more than one iPod, but the population of the United States is slightly over 300 million. And Apple has apparently sold 100 million.
MSNBC Reports that...
It's not MSNBC "reporting" anything. It's Newsweek; they both share the MSN domain because Newsweek (owned by the Washington Post Company) has a deal with Microsoft (hence the MSN.com) in the same way that NBC does (MSNBC; NBC News doesn't have its own website because of their deal with Microsoft, there's just the MSNBC one). To say that "MSNBC is reporting" such and such is like saying that "Yahoo! News is reporting" when it's actually the Associated Press or Reuters.
Obviously YouTube has a lot to lose if Net Neutrality is not preserved and if teclos start treating consumer's bandwidth in a fashion unfavorable towards the site. You can see videos of Senator Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Senator Dorgan (D-North Dakota) appealing to the YouTube community for support regarding Net Neutrality here:
Kennedy's video (3 min, 22 sec)
Dorgan's video (1 min, 48 sec)
And I believe the Record Industry Association of America is just a little bit out of it's jurisdiction here. Hence the stupid filing in an American court.
I think you're confusing me with somebody who thinks the lawsuit is valid.
Okay, it's gonna be unpopular and I'll get modded as a troll probably, but I've got to say it.
I'm not a big fan of the RIAA, but I'm also not a big fan of AllofMP3. Yes, it's legal in Russia (through a loophole in radio licensing they're trying to close), but not here in the US.
A ton of Slashdotters use it because they think it's a good business model and they feel like they're doing something legal because they're paying for music. Sure it's a nice business model- the way they calculate the price you pay by measuring the amount you're downloading in MBs, but they money that goes to AllofMP3 doesn't end up in the artist's hands any more than it does when you pay money to a record label by buying music on a CD here in the USA (in fact less: none to be exact). Sure, you can complain all you want about the evil RIAA and how they don't give enough money to artists, and boycott them all you like. But the truth is artists get NO money from AllofMP3 (instead of an unfair tiny amount from the RIAA). They're just profiting off of other people's work. Like the RIAA but worse. Instead of a tiny amount of money going to the artists, the moeny goes instead entirely to the proprietors of AllofMP3 (who are rumored to be connected to the Russian mafia, by the way).
I'm guessing that someone who might have thought of getting you a gift, you already gave this rant to and they decided just to get you some nice socks.
You mean like these?
C-SPAN asked for permission to rearrange the cameras and broadcast more material in 1994 when Republicans took over the House of Representatives (C-SPAN has been operating on the same initial rules set up in the late 70s when they were first allowed on Capitol Hill). The Republicans denied them just as the Democrats are doing now. C-SPAN uses US government equipment (like cameras) inside of Capitol Hill, and as such the House Speaker retains absolute control over it. It would make for better programming (to change the rules three camera angles, guys? 1 wide shot, one shot of the bench and one roving tight shot guys? come on...), but House Leadership wants it to remain static and "stately" for "decorum's sake."
Incidentally, Florida's Senate race this year is between Democratic incumbent Ben Nelson and Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris. Harris is of course the former Florida Secretary of State under the President's brother (Governor Jeb Bush), who knocked tens of thousands of African American names off the voter rolls in 2000.
Harris, who has been very vocal in her view that only Christians should be elected to higher office and that anybody who is not a Christian will "legislate sin", however is down by 25 points in the polls behind Nelson (according to an average of the last 5 polls in the race), and doesn't have a shot in hell of winning... Unless....
"But the chapter on adult content leads to the biggest "Huh?" moment in the book: "Although Google will not accept adult-content sites into its AdSense content network, it will accept ads into the AdWords program that direct traffic to adult sites."
They won't put adsense ads on porn websites- they specifically state this in their TOS. However, they do not proof the copy of every advertisement in their adwords advertising program, and allow adult sites to advertise their sites through it. Just do a test: google for "fucking" and you'll find XXX sites advertising in the sponsored links section to the right of the search results. However no adult sites display Google adsense advertisements.
I think you're forgetting that President Bush gave 95 million dollars to North Korea for their nuclear program back in 2002. NK had about 2 nuclear devices (if any) when Clinton left office. While we have been tied down in Iraq, they developed 8-10.
You should go into politics yourself. You seem to be able to skew the facts and turn competitive race(s) where no one really knows how people are going to vote, into "There are almost no serious analysts who disagree on this point." So, in one sentence you are saying you know all and anyone who disagrees with you is not serious.
..." "The only possibility for a Republican pickup is really New Jersey"
- You used words like won't, not, and only in your statement. Sounds like you know what you are talking about.
No. These are just facts. If you had any idea what you were talking about, you'd know that this is what is predicted by all the serious non-partisan analysts (National Journal, Congressional Quarterly, Cook Report, etc).
You said: "with a veto-proof majority" - Last time I checked, a veto-proof majority was not the same as a simple majority. The Democrats will not have a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress, which is required to overturn a veto.
You forget that there are many Republicans who are in favor of increasing federally funded stem cell research (the matter referenced). In both the House and the Senate a bill to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research passed (the President went on to cast his first veto ever on it). With more Democrats in the House and Senate, that margin may in fact be veto-proof. You seem to think that only Democrats favor federally-funded ECS resarch- when such bills have passed both the House and Senate with comfortable (though not yet veto-proof) margins.
You said: "Republicans are looking to pick up the Washington state seat, which they won't, and the Maryland seat, which they also will not
Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Seriously, there is nobody outside of Barron's Magazine who doesn't agree on what I've said. Joe Scarborough, former Republican US House Representative-turned host of MSNBC's Scarborough country (hardly a liberal by any standards) thinks that Dems will take both the House and the Senate. There is nothing political about talking about the general consensus among serious analysts about the upcoming election. Unless of course you don't know what you're talking about, in which case you think the facts I mention are somehow partisan. Seriously: go to the National Journal, go to CQ politics, read Charlie Cook's columns, go anywhere you want. Everything I've said is echoed everywhere.
I wrote: Democrats will take the 435-member House of Representatives back by a likely margin of 5-15 seats. ...
Republicans are looking to pick up the Washington state seat, which they won't, and the Maryland seat, which they also will not (most analysts agree on this)
You wrote: Have no fear, Diebold is here!
Actually, Maryland has banned the use of Diebold voting machines in their state-wide elections. Diebold isn't there. In Washington state there is some talk of decertifying Diebold machines as well, but nothing will be done in time for this year's elections.
Shut the fuck up, hippy.
Nothing I said was partisan to the least extend. I merely said what Democrats were planning to do once they took back the House. The "First 100 hour" plan has been reported in the press, and there are no serious analysts (either partisan or non-partisan) who believe that Republicans will hold on to control of the House of Representatives this year. If you don't think they will, then you either haven't been paying attention or are in denial. I only gave the bare facts on the Senate stuff as well.
Nothing I said about the facts of any of the races were the least bit controversial, if you've been paying attention.
Nowhere in my summary did I say "Gee whiz, I hope Democrats take back Congress this year" or anything like that.
That said, gee whiz, I am happy that Democrats are finally wrestling control of the House of Representatives from Republicans this year.
Democrats will take the 435-member House of Representatives back by a likely margin of 5-15 seats. There are almost no serious analysts who disagree on this point. Once Dems take back the House, they will have subpeona power and will begin investigating the Administration's leadup to war, etc. In the first 100 hours of Dem control in the House, future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she plans to hike the federal minimum wage for the first time in almost 10 years, establish (real) restrictions on lobbying, enact the 9/11 comission reccomendations that the Administration refuses to enact 5 years later, increase federal funding for stem cell research with a veto-proof majority, and lower the amount of money that seniors have to pay for prescription drugs. Obviously all this stuff has to get through the Senate and be signed by the Presidednt into law however.
In the 100-seate Senate, things are likely to tighten up considerably (Republicans currently hold a majority of 55 so Democrats need to pick up 6 seats to take it back). The only really competative races to watch in the Senate are:
Montana (whre Democratic challenger Jon Tester leads Republican incumbent Conrad burns- whose Jack Abramoff ties are weighing him down),
Tennessee (where Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is retiring, leaving an open seat for Dem Harold Ford Jr and Republican Bob Corker to fight over- this race is mostly tied),
Missouri (where Republican incumbent Jim Talent is virtually tied with Dem challenger Claire McCaskill, who has made this race about increasing the minimum wage and stem cell research- two issues that heavily favor Dems),
Rhode Island (where moderate Republican incumbent Lincoln Chafee is struggling to win re-election over strong Dem challenger Sheldon Whitehouse, who leads him in the polls in this solid "blue" state),
Pennsylvania (where Republican incumbent Rick Santorum is seen universally as the most endangered incumbent in the country, trailing behind Democratic challenger Bob Casey for months now),
Virginia (where Republican incumbent George Allen leads Democratic challenger Jim Webb, but only after Allen's dropped considerably due to racism allegations surrounding the caught-on-video use of the slur 'macaca'),
and Ohio (where Republicans statewide are in trouble due to a series of statewide scandals involving the GOP).
Republicans are looking to pick up the Washington state seat, which they won't, and the Maryland seat, which they also will not (most analysts agree on this). The only possibility for a Republican pickup is really New Jersey (Dem incumbent Bob Menendez vs Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr- corruption is an issue on both sides of this race), where polls indicate that Menendez is leading slightly.
Let's keep in mind that Google Video doesn't even allow you to post comments. YouTube is plenty flawed, but if you're going to compare it to GV and say it bugs you, you might as well compare every point you make.
"Or, buy one of the macs that comes with ports on the front."
"If these exist, I honestly didn't know it."
Ever heard of a Mac Pro? I'm using one right now and I can assure you that it does, in fact, have 2 USB 2.0 ports, two Firewire ports (one 400, one 800), and a headphone jack. Macs with USB ports on the front do exist.
CNN's little project is actually powered by Blip.
CNN has been "reporting" on what's going on on YouTube on a fairly regular basis in the afternoon, sometimes more than twice. They're segments that basically consist of hooking a computer up to their video feed with some young guy saying "so as you can really see, YouTube is buzzing over this it's just crazy."
The only time I've seen them do it in a way that it seemed like a good idea, was when they were covering the Israeli-Hezbollah war recently during which they showed some clips taken by YouTube users living in both Israel and Lebanon. It was a cool idea, but unfortunately most of the clips sucked and I'd already seen them on YouTube anyways.
When President Bush veto'd the bill that was supported by both the House and the Senate that would have allowed for federal funding of embryonic stem cells (something that even the conservative Senate Majority Leader and would-be-Presidential hopeful Bill Frist-- who is a doctor supported), I put up a video on YouTube of Michael J. Fox (who has early onset Parkinson's disease, one of the several disorders doctors and medical scientists are now fairly sure that they can treat with embryonic stem cells, based on results from overseas) who was discussing the situation on ABC's Good Morning America the day before.
Apparently so many people thought the video was kind of moving, since Fox couldn't sit still in his chair and was thrashing about through the entire interview because his Parkinson's was so bad, that it made the front page of Digg.com. You can check out the video on YouTube here.
For the record, my grandfather died after a long struggle with Parkinson's earlier this year and I'm in favor of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research-- like more than 70 percent of Americans. The cells in question (some 400,000 of them) are being discarded en masse from in vitro fertilization labs anyways, so it's a choice between either letting them get thrown away-- or using them for research that could save lives.
The President says he thinks that ECS research constitutes the taking of a human life ("murder"). If that's true then why doesn't he work to outlaw all ECS research ("murder"), instead of letting it happen with private funding? He's caught between his own rhetoric and a hard place.
bought out after the fallout between disney and the miramax heads over F9/11.