Brokekid.net

I am not sure when my next entry will be, maybe tomorrow, maybe not for a while. This is my last week here and then I am off to Guyana on the 2nd of June. If you feel like writing, you can reach me at:

Scott Stadum
Peace Corps.
PO Box 101192
Georgetown, Guyana
South America

Thanks for following my site!

Who Wants a Lot of East Free Music? Better than Kazaa or Morpheus!

LONDON – A controversial new music download service launched in Madrid, is pitting an upstart Internet firm against the record industry in a bid to sell digital recordings to consumers behind the labels’ backs.

The new service, called Puretunes.com, lacks authorisation from music labels, but Puretunes said it is a legal service operating under licensing agreements from various Spanish trade associations representing performers and recording artists. The site attempts to exploit a loophole in Spanish copyright law and carries thousands of songs from Madonna to the Beatles. Unlike other download services such as Kazaa, Puretunes manages a music library and says it will pay royalties to performers. Not surprisingly, the music industry shot back that without music companies’ approval, Puretunes — which operates as a subscription download service — cannot sell songs online.

“The record labels have the exclusive right to protect their recordings. There is no loophole here,” said Allen Dixon, general counsel at the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global trade organisation which represents the music industry. “It’s like saying I have permission from Ringo, George and Paul, therefore, I can start printing records. No they can’t,” he added. Major recording labels Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music, BMG, and EMI have fiercely tried to crack down on unauthorised businesses that distribute songs online. (Yahoo! News UK)

529 Plan a Bust This Past Year

Most investors in state-sponsored college savings plans have found that the performance of their portfolios bears much resemblance to the returns of the overall stock and bond markets. Portfolios tied to the stock market have generally fallen sharply in the last year, while those with substantial bond holdings have generally performed well.

Named for a section of the tax code, the 529 savings plans allow Americans to save for their children’s college education without incurring federal taxes, and some states provide other tax benefits. Investors have poured money into the plans, which had $29 billion in assets as of March 31, with about 3.5 million children listed as beneficiaries, said Joseph F. Hurley, founder and chief executive of Savingforcollege.com, a Web site that provides information on the plans. The 529 plans were established in 1996 and gained popularity in January 2002 after a change in federal law making withdrawals exempt from income taxes.

In the 12 months through March, the most recent returns available, investors lost money in every portfolio focused on the stock market, according to data from Morningstar Inc. The average 529 stock portfolio lost 25.8 percent in that period, underperforming the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by one percentage point. (Many 529 plans may be faring better in the second quarter this year, given the 10 percent gain in the S.& P. 500 since March 31.)

Age-based portfolios, the most popular choice for investors across the country, also lost money in the 12 months through March. These portfolios contain a blend of stocks and bonds. They are heavily weighted in stocks when a beneficiary is a young child, then gradually accumulate bonds as she approaches college age. The average portfolio appropriate for a 5-year-old, for example, lost 17.8 percent in the 12 months. (The New York Times)

What a Cool Idea – BookCrossing.com

You’ve come to a friendly place, and we welcome you to our book-lovers’ community. What is BookCrossing, you ask? It’s a global book club that crosses time and space. It’s a reading group that knows no geographical boundaries. Do you like free books? How about free book clubs?. Well, the books our members leave in the wild are free… but it’s the act of freeing books that points to the heart of BookCrossing. Book trading has never been more exciting, more serendipitous, than with BookCrossing. Our goal, simply, is to make the whole world a library. BookCrossing is a book exchange of infinite proportion, the first and only of its kind.

Here at BookCrossing.com you’ll find tens of thousands of book reviews, book ratings, and book recommendations, because each time a book changes hands our members can leave journal entries telling the world of their experiences.

But let’s get right down to it. You know the feeling you get after reading a book that speaks to you, that touches your life, a feeling that you want to share it with someone else? BookCrossing.com gives you a simple way to share books with the world, and follow their paths forever more! (Bookcrossing.com)

Yesterday I registered with this site, logged in four books and took them to the Burnsville Center. I had heard of this site in the past and was just reminded of it again. Do you have any books around you have read and are just sitting around? Set them free! Sign up with this site and see what happens with your books.

Virtual Keyboard for the Movers and Shakers

Virtual keyboards — projected images of the real thing that let typists compose their sentences on any flat surface — are inching closer to store shelves. Canesta, a San Jose, California, manufacturer of electronics, said its chipset could allow other companies to incorporate virtual keyboards into PDAs, smart phones and other portable devices as early as the end of this year.

Writing sentences on PDAs still requires a lot of patience and practice. Some older models require people to enter data with a proprietary scrawl, while newer models use tiny keyboards that require dexterous, strong thumbs. And full-size keyboards just don’t go well with the latest svelte devices.

“Even though these (handheld) devices are capable of sophisticated applications there’s really no way to reasonably use those applications, especially those that require entering data, like e-mail,” said Jim Spare, vice president of product marketing for Canesta.

Canesta’s chipset projects an image of a full-size keyboard on any flat surface. It also emits an infrared beam that detects the position and motion of a typist’s hands. Tapping on the image of a key produces the corresponding character on the device. The keyboard doesn’t demand a lot of force, easing strain on wrists and digits. To get users comfortable with the technology, Canesta’s chipset also produces an old-timey click sound. “People get used to it in about 10 minutes of use,” Spare said. But some observers are skeptical that the high-tech gadget will catch on. (Wired)

Select Apple Stores to Sell TiVo Systems

TiVo CEO Michael Ramsay said Thursday in the company’s first quarter financial conference call that select Apple Stores will soon be carrying TiVo Digital Video Recorders (DVR). After mentioning that TiVo’s new Home Media Option runs on the Mac, Ramsay said, “In fact our growing relationship with Apple has been a really good thing for our company and we’re now moving into distribution, with TiVo’s being available at selected Apple retail stores.” Last month, the company released the Home Media software for Mac OS X that lets you automatically stream music and photos from your Mac to your TiVo Series2 DVR for listening/viewing on your TV. TiVo reported a loss of US$7.9 million, or 12 cents per share, on revenue of $28.5 million for the quarter. No further details were provided and Apple was unavailable for comment at press time. (macMinute.com)

Uday is Thinking of Surrendering

NEW YORK — Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, is considering surrendering to U.S. forces, but so far has been reluctant to do so because of a tough negotiating posture by the U.S. government, a third party with knowledge of the discussions told The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. officials in Washington had no comment. Uday Hussein, who is hiding in a Baghdad, Iraq suburb, wants to know what the charges against him will be, and the process for interrogation and custody, the person familiar with the discussions said. He is working through intermediaries. U.S. officials don’t seem especially interested in cutting a deal, because they assume Uday will be caught sooner or later, the person said.

Uday was commander of Iraq’s feared paramilitary unit known as the Saddam Fedayeen, and he was also chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee. He is No. 3 on the coalition’s most-wanted list, after his father and his brother, Qusay.

Uday fears that Iraqi citizens will kill him if they find him, and may instead choose the safety of a U.S. prison, the person said, adding that Uday frequently changes his mind about surrendering. (Yahoo! News)

Israel Weighing EU Membership

WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) — The visiting delegation from the European Union was startled this week when Israel Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said his government was weighing an application to join the EU.

“It doesn’t mean he is preparing the dossier for applying tomorrow,” an Israeli spokesman said. “In principle, the minister thinks a possibility exists for Israel to join the EU, since Israel and Europe share similar economies and democratic values.”

Shalom broached the subject Tuesday, but there is no immediate prospect of this happening, since under EU rules, new members must have no outstanding border disagreements with their neighbors. The incoming new members from Eastern Europe, particularly Hungary and Romania, had to resolve long-standing disputes to clear their path for entry.

But if and when Israel does achieve a peace settlement with Syria and Lebanon and the Palestinians (it already has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan), Israeli membership could make a great deal of sense for Israel and the EU alike.

The EU is already deeply, indeed inextricably involved in the Middle East, and not just as a member of “the Quartet” of the United States, EU, Russia and the United Nations that have jointly drawn up the “road map” to a peace agreement. The EU is one of the main customers for Middle Eastern energy exports, and under the Barcelona Agreement, has forged a series of trade and cooperation agreements with the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea.

Turkey, a strategic Middle East player and an Islamic though legally secular country, has been formally accepted as an EU candidate member. North African Arabs now account for 10 percent of France’s population, and the French and British colonial heritage in the Middle East gives them strong links to the region. (UPI)

Doctors Say Hussein, not UN Sanctions, Caused Children’s Deaths

Baghdad – Throughout the 13 years of UN sanctions on Iraq that were ended yesterday, Iraqi doctors told the world that the sanctions were the sole cause for the rocketing mortality rate among Iraqi children.

“It is one of the results of the embargo,” Dr. Ghassam Rashid Al-Baya told Newsday on May 9, 2001, at Baghdad’s Ibn Al-Baladi hospital, just after a dehydrated baby named Ali Hussein died on his treatment table. “This is a crime on Iraq.”
It was a scene repeated in hundreds of newspaper articles by reporters required to be escorted by minders from Saddam Hussein’s Ministry of Information.

Now free to speak, the doctors at two Baghdad hospitals, including Ibn Al-Baladi, tell a very different story. Along with parents of dead children, they said in interviews this week that Hussein turned the children’s deaths into propaganda, notably by forcing hospitals to save babies’ corpses to have them publicly paraded.

All the evidence indicates that the spike in children’s deaths was tragically real – roughly, a doubling of the mortality rate during the 1990s, according to humanitarian organizations. But the reason has been fiercely argued, and the new accounts by Iraqi doctors and parents will alter the debate. (Newsday)

Matrix Revoultions Trailer

“If you liked THE MATRIX RELOADED, you’ll loooooooove THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS!!”, well, at least that’s what the studio would love to hear from film critics come November 5, 2003, the day the third installment of THE MATRIX trilogy is set for release. But you don’t have to wait that long to see what all the fuss is about, since a teaser trailer for that film will be shown at the end of all MATRIX RELOADED this coming Thursday (I saw the trailer yesterday and have to say that it looked pretty badass– much darker, rainier…hehehe), and thanks to Agent Smith (who nabbed it from the ENTER THE MATRIX video game), you can even check out an early version of it on the Net right now! Screenshots from the trailer can also be found below. Enjoy.” (JoBlo.com)

LeBron James Inks 90 Million with Nike Deal

AKRON, Ohio – LeBron James went to school Thursday with enough lunch money for everyone.The hyped high school senior and expected No. 1 pick in next month’s NBA draft, signed a multiyear endorsement deal with Nike worth over $90 million, a risky move by the shoe and sports apparel giant that helped make Michael Jordan famous.

Nike won a heated bidding war against sneaker rivals Reebok and Adidas to sign the 18-year-old James, considered a possible successor to Jordan on the floor and on Madison Avenue. “It truly came down to which company LeBron was most comfortable with,” said Aaron Goodwin, his agent. “Up until the end, I thought we were going with Reebok.”

Terms of the deal were not released, but a source close to James, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the deal was for seven years and valued at more than $90 million. James’ choice of Nike, a $10 billion company and the market leader in athletic shoes, closed a frantic final week of negotiating by Goodwin with representatives for all three companies bent on signing the 6-foot-8 St. Vincent-St. Mary star.

Despite the huge deal, James didn’t miss classes after signing the contract, driving his pewter-colored Hummer to school and parking it in the lot. “Nike is the right fit and has the right product for me,” James said. “They are a great group of people who are committed to supporting me throughout my professional career, on and off the court.” James’ deal dwarfs any of the previous initial contracts given to a young, unproven player who is skipping college and has yet to shoot his first jump shot in the NBA. (Yahoo! News)

If You Think Radio Sucks, Wait ‘Til You See What the FCC Does to Multimedia

WASHINGTON — The future formation of American public opinion has fallen into the lap of an ambitious 36-year-old lawyer whose name you never heard. On June 2, after deliberations conducted behind closed doors, he will decide the fate of media large and small, print and broadcast. No other decision made in Washington will more directly affect how you will be informed, persuaded and entertained.

His name is Kevin Martin. He and his wife, Catherine, now Vice President Dick Cheney’s public affairs adviser, are the most puissant young “power couple” in the capital. He is one of three Republican members of the five-person Federal Communications Commission, and because he recently broke ranks with his chairman, Michael Powell (Colin’s son), on a telecom controversy, this engaging North Carolinian has become the swing vote on the power play that has media moguls salivating.

The FCC proposal remains officially secret to avoid public comment but was forced into the open by the two commission Democrats. It would end the ban in most cities of cross-ownership of television stations and newspapers, allowing such companies as The New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune to gobble up ever more electronic outlets. It would permit Viacom, Disney and AOL Time Warner to control TV stations with nearly half the national audience. In the largest cities, it would allow owners of “only” two TV stations to buy a third.

We’ve already seen what happened when the FCC allowed the monopolization of local radio: today three companies own half the stations in America, delivering a homogenized product that neglects local news coverage and dictates music sales.

And the FCC has abdicated enforcement of the “public interest” requirement in issuing licenses. Time was, broadcasters had to regularly reapply and show public-interest programming to earn continuance; now they mail the FCC a postcard every eight years that nobody reads.

Ah, but aren’t viewers and readers now blessed with a whole new world of hot competition through cable and the Internet? That’s the shucks-we’re-no-monopolists line that Rupert Murdoch will take today in testimony before the pussycats of John McCain’s Senate Commerce Committee.

The answer is no. Many artists, consumers, musicians and journalists know that such protestations of cable and Internet competition by the huge dominators of content and communication are malarkey. The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many. (CNN)

This Man is OLD – 125 Years

A man in the Indian state of Rajasthan has been collecting a pension for the past 65 years, it has emerged. Habib Miyan has been drawing pension money since he retired in 1938, and says he is 132. According to his pension book he is a mere 125. If correct that makes the world’s oldest living person 10 years his junior.

Without a birth certificate, Mr Miyan cannot prove his age, but he can claim to be the world’s longest-registered old age pensioner. Although fragile and bedridden, he insists he has no problem with his health. Bank officials visit his home to hand over his pension.

“It is a matter of pride that our bank has such an elderly person as its customer,” says Bank of India manager, Rajesh Nagpal. “We requested him not to come to the bank for his pension.”

Habib Miyan lives in the Muslim neighbourhood of Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital, with 32 family members. His first pension payment was 1.86 rupees but he now gets 1,900 rupees (about $40) a month.

He used to be a clarinet player with the Jaipur state band and official records show him being born on 20 May, 1878. He lost his vision 50 years ago and has limited mobility, but several incidents from the past are still fresh in his mind. (BBC News)

Puretunes Playing for Pay Without Permission

A new pay-for-play music Web site launched Tuesday, with a full array of hits and catalog — but no signed deals with record labels.

Madrid-based Puretunes is similar to Apple’s iTunes Music Store, without the authorization. At $3.99 for all the songs you can download in eight hours, you get to choose from the latest from Madonna, and even most songs from The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Nirvana, all artists who have refused to let their music be sold on authorized online music sites such as Pressplay and iTunes Music.

Generally, music offered without the consent of copyright holders is considered to be pirated. But according to Puretunes, putting songs by The Beatles and others on its site is legal because of its agreements with Spanish songwriter and performer organizations.

“We have a different interpretation of the law,” says Javier Siguenza, Puretunes’ attorney. “According to Spanish law, there are a lot of rights, and we believe this is legal.”

But the global counterpart to the Recording Industry Association of America calls Puretunes blatantly illegal. “Nothing under Spanish law says you can steal the music before you get a permit,” says Allen Dixon, general counsel of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI). “And they have no license to put our members’ music on the Internet.” (USA Today)

Messing with the RIAA

After reading about the RIAA threatening to sue yet another innocent archive operator, I decided to take some direct action: It occurred to me that the RIAA keep falsely accusing others of piracy because they put their faith in an unintelligent spider – a fact which can be simply exploited to make my servers into an RIAA no-go-zone…

Whilst spidering is nothing to worry about (and only to be expected on a public site), the way the association fires off legal threats based on this spider results alone seems wrong. Since this spider does not actually look at the whole title of the file, or even it’s content, I figured I could have some fun at their expense:

What if I could write a `tarpit’ script that could create a large number of interlinked automatically generated web sites. If their spider tried to scan my server it would be fooled into thinking that it had found a treasure trove of MP3 sites. Anybody who took the time to look at the site could see that the site contains no pirate content at all.

How might the RIAA react to such a thing? (Kuro5hin.org)

FedEx Delivery Trucks Go Green

WASHINGTON – The FedEx Corporation announced today that it planned to replace 30,000 of its delivery trucks with energy-saving, environmentally friendly hybrid-powered vehicles.

The company said that it had already purchased 20 such trucks to begin building what would be one of the first big commercial fleets of hybrid vehicles. The new trucks — powered by both diesel engines and electric motors in a mix controlled by onboard computers — will be introduced over the next several months in four American cities.

Though the company has committed to only purchasing the first 20 trucks, “I can’t envision any reason why we wouldn’t roll this out over the whole fleet,” said David J. Bronczek, president of the company’s FedEx Express unit. The Eaton Corporation, based in Cleveland, will provide the hybrid electric technology for the trucks. (The New York Times)

‘Al-Qaeda’ Statement: Full Text

“After dividing Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan will come next. They would leave around Israel only dismembered semi states that are subservient to the United States and Israel. O Muslims, these are the facts that have been made clear to you. All the worn out and shabby masks have fallen. Here are the rulers of the Muslims with their airports, bases, and facilities.

They allow their ships to pass in their water, provide them with fuel, food, and supplies and allow their planes to cross their airspace and to even take off from their airports. They welcome their armies to attack Iraq from their territories. The armies also advance from Kuwait. We have Qatar where the command of the campaign has taken up its headquarters.

We also have Bahrain, which hosts the command of the Fifth Fleet. We have Egypt where war vessels pass through its canal. And we have Yemen that supplies the crusader vessels from its ports. And we have Jordan where the crusader forces are stationed and where Patriot missile batteries have been deployed to protect Israel…” (BBC News)

Chimps Belong on Human Branch of Family Tree, Study Says

A new report argues that chimpanzees are so closely related to humans that they should be included in our branch of the tree of life. Chimpanzees and other apes have historically been separated from humans in classification schemes, with humans deemed the only living members of the hominid family of species.

Now, biologists at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, provide new genetic evidence that lineages of chimps (currently Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens) diverged so recently that chimps should be reclassed as Homo troglodytes. The move would make chimps full members of our genus Homo, along with Neandertals, and all other human-like fossil species. “We humans appear as only slightly remodeled chimpanzee-like apes,” says the study.

“The loss of the [wild] chimp and gorilla seems imminent,” said Morris Goodman, a study co-author. “Moving chimps into the human genus might help us to realize our very great likeness, and therefore treasure more and treat humanely our closest relative,” he said.

However, experts say many scientists are likely to resist the reclassification, especially in the emotionally-charged and often disputed field of anthropology. (National Geographic)

Quantum Computer Draws Closer

Scientists have “entangled” two sub-atomic particles separated by about a millimetre, a feat that might pave the way for powerful quantum computers in the future.

When two particles are entangled they are somehow connected because the fate of one depends upon the other, no matter how far apart they are. Sounds weird – even Einstein never quite came to terms with it.

Entangled particles may be useful to make logic circuits for computers that have a far greater capacity and speed than today’s machines.

Published in the journal Science, the results represent the latest advance in a broad scientific effort to apply properties of quantum physics to the creation of a new generation of supercomputers. Quantum entanglement (QE) describes the situation when the fates of two or more particles become bound together.

A change in one entangled particle results in an instant change in the other particle, no matter how far away it is – even if it is at the opposite end of the Universe.

Of course, it is not quite a simple as that. The phenomenon is linked in a deep way to the fundamental properties of matter and the nature of observing and measuring reality.

It really bothered Einstein, especially since the concept that a change in one particle was somehow communicated to the other faster than the speed of light – nature’s ultimate speed limit.

He called it “spooky action at a distance”. (BBC News)

802.11g Heads for Standards Approval

The latest wireless networking specification is on track for standards approval, which should open the door for further adoption of the already popular technology.

A working group within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an organization responsible for setting standards for the networking industry, finished work on the most recent version of the 802.11g wireless networking specification last week. That version, 8.2, will likely be the final form of the 802.11g specification, which is expected to be approved as a standard at an upcoming IEEE meeting on June 12.

The standardization could increase the momentum of 802.11g. While some companies have already taken the plunge, basing products on the specification, the more conservative yet influential players such as Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have been waiting for the specification to become a standard. Companies have cited the technology’s incompatibility with 802.11b as the main reason for their hesitation.

“Prestandard 802.11g products have been popular, but the market has been held back because of interoperability jitters,” said Brian Matthews, publicity chair for the IEEE’s 802.11 working group. “But with a standard, companies can now be assured that the door is open for interoperability testing and approval by the Wi-Fi Alliance,” an organization that certifies Wi-Fi products. (c|net)

Rebels Humiliate GlaxoSmithKline

Shareholder activists scored an extraordinary victory against spiralling executive pay yesterday, voting down a plan by GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s biggest drug manufacturer, to give chief executive Jean-Pierre Garnier £22m if he were to lose his job. Almost 51% of shareholders who voted rejected GSK’s remuneration report at yesterday’s acrimonious annual general meeting at the Queen Elizabeth conference centre in London. Shareholders, large and small, united to deal a humiliating blow to Britain’s third largest company and mount a rebellion even larger than had been predicted by corporate activists.

Institutional shareholders suggested the Glaxo rebellion amounted to the most significant defeat of a big company’s board at its annual meeting in memory. City investors said the vote should be taken as a warning by other big companies that excessive boardroom pay deals would not be tolerated. (The Guardian)

Ultra Wideband: Gaining Momentum

While most regulatory decisions made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) often take years to be felt in the consumer market, an FCC ruling made just 15 months ago may well result in new wireless electronic products parked under this year’s Christmas tree. The most likely items will be camcorders that wirelessly stream video to a television set or computer hard drive.

And, to listen to the burgeoning ultra wideband (UWB) industry, that will be just the start. The industry and bullish analysts are predicting television sets that wirelessly send different programs to other television sets in the house, flat screen computer monitors that can be wirelessly tethered to a CPU located anywhere in the home, and wireless connections between VCRs and televisions to streamline that rat’s nest of wires behind the home entertainment center.

UWB, on paper at least, seems to be ideal for consumer electronics applications such as camcorders, laptops, DVDs, and digital cameras to wirelessly communicate with each in a home environment. The wirelessly networked home, of course, has long been an elusive goal for consumer electronics companies.

Wireless transmission of video is seen as the key to making it become a reality. (internetnews.com)

‘Star Wars Kid’ Gets Bucks From Blogs

A couple of webloggers are raising money for an unfortunate teenager humiliated worldwide after a private video of his energetic lightsaber moves was leaked to the Net. Webloggers Andy Baio and Jish Mukerji launched a fundraiser Friday for the young man they call the “Star Wars Kid,” whose home video has been downloaded millions of times and watched by people all over the world.

The video shows a lone, overweight teenager fighting a mock battle with a broomstick lightsaber. In the two-minute video, the teenager twirls the broomstick ever more energetically while generating his own lightsaber sound effects. The video, which is obviously not for public consumption, is amusing and excruciating.

Baio and Mukerji, who linked to their video from their weblogs, identify the Star Wars Kid as a 15-year-old French Canadian named Ghyslain. Because Ghyslain is a minor, the pair is protecting his identity. Ghyslain couldn’t be reached for comment. By Friday afternoon, the webloggers’ fund had received more than 100 individual donations totaling nearly $1,000. The pair also has received donations of software and a T-shirt. They plan to buy Ghyslain an Apple iPod and some accessories.

“He’s given us a lot of amusement, so we thought we should do something for him,” explained Mukerji. “There’s been a lot of sympathy donations. A lot of people see a little bit of themselves in him. We’ve all done the same thing. Maybe it was the Saturday Night Fever thing. We’ve all done it.” (Wired.com)

Download the original and the remix.

Napster is Back

SANTA CLARA, California — Software maker Roxio said Monday it has acquired for about $40 million the online music service pressplay, a venture jointly owned by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Roxio, best known for its CD-burning software, owns the Napster brand and is expected to relaunch pressplay under the name that set Internet music file-swapping in motion.

The Santa Clara-based Roxio purchased pressplay for $12.5 million in cash and approximately 3.9 million shares of Roxio common stock, according to a statement from both companies. Based on Roxio’s closing stock price on Friday, the purchase price would be approximately $39.5 million, the companies said. Roxio shares were trading at $7.49 each, up 59 cents, on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Monday. Roxio bought the Napster brand on the cheap after the company, sued into submission by the music labels, dissolved. (Wired.com)

Pentagon Loses ALOT of Money – $1 Trillion Missing

The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn’t account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes. The Pentagon’s unenviable reputation for waste will top the congressional agenda this week, when the House and Senate are expected to begin floor debate on a Bush administration proposal to make sweeping changes in how the Pentagon spends money, manages contracts and treats civilian employees.

The Bush proposal, called the Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act, arrives at a time when the nonpartisan General Accounting Office has raised the volume of its perennial complaints about the financial woes at Defense, which recently failed its seventh audit in as many years. “Overhauling DOD’s financial management operations represent a challenge that goes far beyond financial accounting to the very fiber of (its) . . . business operations and culture,” GAO chief David Walker told lawmakers in March. (SFGate.com)

Supreme Court Seat to Shuffle

Washington – Well-informed court observers say that there could be two Supreme Court resignations next month, Chief Justice William H. Rehn- quist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, bringing the greatest upheaval on the court in 32 years.
Rehnquist’s resignation is considered likely, though not certain, while O’Connor’s is considered likely by some court insiders and less so by others.

The White House, however, is preparing for the possibility of two or three vacancies, because if Rehnquist is replaced by a sitting justice and O’Connor also goes, two seats but three positions will be open. Yet another seat could open up if Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 83, retires, but that is considered unlikely. While the speculation in Washington is that Justice Antonin Scalia would be elevated to chief justice, objections are being raised within the administration because of his age. Though Scalia is a very youthful 67, some feel a younger person should become chief justice to ensure long-term impact. (NewsDay.com)

Free Trade is a Bad Thing – IMF and World Bank Orthodoxy is Increasing Global Poverty

In November 1999, during the World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Seattle, I watched from my hotel room as thousands demonstrated against the evils of globalisation.

Anarchists clad in black marched alongside grandmothers dressed as turtles and steelworkers from Philadelphia. They saw international trade as a threat – to their jobs, the environment or simply as part of a capitalist conspiracy.

As leader of the delegation from the United Kingdom, I was convinced that the expansion of world trade had the potential to bring major benefits to developing countries and would be one of the key means by which world poverty would be tackled.

In order to achieve this, I believed that developing countries would need to embrace trade liberalisation. This would mean opening up their own domestic markets to international competition. The thinking behind this approach being that the discipline of the market would resolve problems of underperformance, a strong economy would emerge and that, as a result, the poor would benefit. This still remains the position of major international bodies like the IMF and World Bank and is reflected in the system of incentives and penalties which they incorporate in their loan agreements with developing countries. But my mind has changed.

I now believe that this approach is wrong and misguided. Since leaving the cabinet a year ago, I’ve had the opportunity to see at first hand the consequences of trade policy. No longer sitting in the air-conditioned offices of fellow government ministers I have, instead, been meeting farmers and communities at the sharp end. (The Guardian)

High School Prank, Car Parked in Hallway

McCook High School senior Mandy King parks herself atop fellow senior Tyler Bieck’s car, which seemed to materialize overnight in the hallway outside the office at MHS.The front window displays the sun shield message, “Need Help Please Call Police,” and the back window sports a handwritten message, “Ha! We got you Bieck!” Principal Jerry Smith, who is in his fifth year in the McCook school system, said this morning, “It’s a fairly harmless senior prank — the first since I’ve been here. At least they didn’t toilet-paper the building” Nothing was damaged in the commission of the prank, he said, and the car is easily removed. Smith said, “Somehow they got the doors open. They’re extremely ingenious.” (McCook Daily Gazette)

All the President’s Girls

I too was an intern in the J.F.K. White House. I was. This is not one of those humor pieces where the writer pretends to some experience related to the news in order to make an “amusing” point. It was 1961, and I was hired by Pierre Salinger to work in the White House press office, the very same place where Mimi Beardsley, later Fahnestock, was to work the next year. And now that Mimi Fahnestock has been forced to come forward to admit that she had an affair with Kennedy, I might as well tell my story.

I notice that all the articles about poor Mimi (whom I never met) quote another woman in the press office, Barbara Gamarekian, who fingered Ms. Fahnestock in the oral history archives at the Kennedy Library. Ms. Gamarekian cattily pointed out, according to the newspapers, that Mimi “couldn’t type.” Well, all I can say to that is: Ha. In fact, Double Ha. There were, when I worked there, six women in Pierre Salinger’s office. One of them was called Faddle (her best friend, Fiddle, worked for Kennedy) and her entire job, as far as I could tell, was autographing Pierre Salinger’s photographs. Fiddle’s job was autographing Kennedy’s. Typing was not a skill that anyone seemed to need, and it certainly wasn’t necessary for interns like me (and Mimi, dare I say), because THERE WAS NO DESK FOR AN INTERN TO SIT AT AND THEREFORE NO TYPEWRITER TO TYPE ON. (The New York Times)

Groom Demands A Dowry, Bride Calls The Cops

“You are a young Indian bride-to-be. The family of your groom has already demanded a dowry of two televisions, two home-theater sets, two refrigerators, two air conditioners and one car. Then on the the night of your wedding, the groom’s family demands an extra $25,000 in rupees right now,” Peter Murphy posits. “What do you do? Ring 100 and call the police. After all, dowry has been illegal under Indian law since 1961.

“That is what Nisha Sharma, a 22-year old software developer, did to her greedy would-be husband, Munish Dalal. The act has turned her into a Indian celebrity overnight, with thousands of supporters writing and phoning their support. Young women appear unanimous in condemming the groom. ‘The man should be put behind bars,’ fumed college student Shruti Mathur. Most young men feel the same way, but some feel that dowries are okay, if given willingly by the girl’s parents. Viewpoints largely depend on which end of the social spectrum you come from.

In contrast to the strong sentiments against dowry expressed by the middle class, Chandna, a 20-year-old who works as a domestic help in south Delhi, said despite what the ‘big people’ felt, those of her social status cannot get away from the tyranny of the system. ‘How will I get married if my parents don’t give some dowry to my husband-to-be?’ Chandna asked innocently, quite unaware of the ripples that Nisha’s act of social defiance had caused. (Plastic.com)

Check the Security of Your Internet Connection

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The History of the Internet – From Al Gore to Zombo.com